Mother Irreverent

DIY: industrial "metal" lampshade

noreply@blogger.com (K Morgan) — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 12:11:00 -0400

After a few years of tolerating the glaring light from the brass chandelier hanging in my dining room, I finally had enough. This quaint holdover from the era of pastels, acid-wash jeans, and hair-metal bands was a permanent fixture in my apartment, and --per the rental contract-- I couldn’t switch it out. Sure, I could go the easy way and cover each of the bulbs with those little clip-on canvas lampshades, but there had to be a better solution which made the room look less dated, not equally.

"The light! It burrnnnnsss ussss!!!"

I loved the idea of getting a large paper-lantern-style globe that could both diffuse the light AND cover up the hideous brass. But when I measured the chandelier, the diameter turned out to be a whopping 18” inches (not even counting the extra inches I’d have to allow for heat distribution.) Not only that, but the arms on that damn thing dipped down so low, that even if I managed to find or make a shade wide enough, it wouldn’t be long enough.

(Insert obligatory “That’s what she said.”)

I read through dozens of DIY options: paper-mache, paper/cloth over wood/wire frame, even one made with laminate flooring… all were too small or too expensive. So I looked around my apartment to see what I could do with what I had: cardboard, tape, and craft paint. Inspired by a tutorial on Epbot, I decided to make an industrial-looking lampshade.

Items needed:

Aluminum tape (available in the HVAC section of the hardware store)
Cardboard box
Scissors and box cutter
Notecards
Black craft paint

I broke down a standard-size Amazon shipping box, trimmed it to size, and rolled it into a cylinder of the appropriate diameter. The corrugations in the cardboard are what especially help this to look like corrugated metal.

I cut off strips of tape in varying lengths, and began covering the outer layer. To add some texture and make it look like there were “patches”, I randomly inserted little scraps of notecards under the tape. (Notecards work better than regular paper due to its thickness.)

As you cover the patches, you can make “rivets” by pressing a small tool into the tape (in my case, I used different-shaped drill bits.)

"This is SO metal, dude..."

Don’t forget to cover the inside as well! (Since this obviously won’t be seen, it’s not necessary to use paper scraps on this part.)

When the entire thing is covered, paint small sections with the black craft paint, then quickly wipe it off with a paper towel. Depending on how artistic you want to get, you could also use brown and/or dark red paint to simulate rust.

After I finished the lampshade, I realized that I hadn’t thought about how I was going to mount the damn thing. I looked through the random assortment of things in my toolbox, and realized I could just hang it off the chandelier’s chain using picture frame wire.

I made four small holes in the lampshade about 6” from the top, spaced at 90* increments, and pushed a small bolt through each hole, securing it with a nut on the other side. I then wound one end of the pre-measured wire around the bolt, threaded the wire through the chandelier’s chain, and wrapped the other end of the wire around the bolt on the opposite side. Repeat for the other pair of bolts.

Lampshade upskirt shot posted with its permission.

Now that my spiffy new lampshade was up, the brass chain it was hanging from looked even more horribly wrong than before. How to hide it? Solution: more cardboard and tape!

I found a tube from an empty paper towel roll, cut a slit from top to bottom, wrapped it around the chain, and covered it with aluminum tape, using the same technique I’d done with the shade.

EPILOGUE

I did this project about three years ago, and it’s held up wonderfully. There’s no sagging or bending, and my friends are blown away when they realize --from 6” away-- that it’s actually just made of cardboard.

As per my Irreverent Guarantee, here’s how this project scores:

Ease of Execution: 10/10

Practicality: 10/10

Durability: 10/10

So if you're looking for a simple, super-cheap way to add a little industrial style to your place, this is a fantastic way to do it!

Pictured: industrial light and magic.

When a Clueless Teenager Interviewed Three History Makers

noreply@blogger.com (K Morgan) — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 13:15:00 -0500

As I was sorting through a binder of old random papers, I came across something I hadn't laid eyes on for almost a decade: the transcript of an interview I'd done with three of the Original Tuskegee Airmen for a high school history project.

Twenty. Years. Ago.

As a sheltered white, suburban, homeschooled teenager, I had no knowledge of the Tuskegee Airmen, beyond the fact that they were the first black pilots to serve in US history. And although I knew about segregation, I had no real understanding of its far-reaching ramifications and how it affected even those who were willing to serve a country that treated them as secondary citizens.

I was incredibly grateful for the insight these men gave me into a history of which I was ignorant, but it wasn't until years later that I truly began to understand just how valuable hearing these firsthand accounts were.
Since it's Black History Month (and coincidentally, Valentine's Day), I thought I'd share this small piece of history...

**********Transcripted Interview**********

On May 8, 1997, I interviewed three Tuskegee Airmen who served in the Army Air Corps during WWII: Maj. Julius Calloway, Capt. Morris Washington, and Mr. Alvin LaRue.

Could you tell me a little bit about the Tuskegee Airmen and what they did?

Washington: My name is Morris Washington and I am one of the original Tuskegee Airmen. An original Tuskegee Airman would be any of those who served in the Tuskegee experiment between the years of 1941 and 1945. It would be hard to tell the story of the Tuskegee Airmen in the time I have allotted here today, so I’ll give you a few ideas of what I experienced as a Tuskegee Airman.

It all started over a hundred years ago in 1896, and it was due to the rigid pattern of segregation that existed at that time in this country. In a case before the United States Supreme Court, Plessy vs. Ferguson, the court handed down a decision of “Separate but Equal.” This decision made the separation of white people and black people legal. In other words, segregation had become law of the land.

In 1925, when the Ku Klux Klan was at its zenith in our country, 40,000 Klansmen marched on our nation’s capital, spreading their message of hate. This message of hate infiltrated t osoe of the highest echelons of government, including the War Department, and even the Congress of the United States.

In 1945, when Adolph Hitler’s bombers were dropping bombs on London, England, causing all sorts of death and destruction, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was begging the United States for help in the war effort. About that time, there were many young black students in college around the United States, as schools such as Howard University, Hampton Institute, Virginia State, and North Carolina A&M. Some of these students had even earned degrees in science, chemistry, business administration, and other fields of higher learning. But when they tried to enlist their services into the elite, separate, white Army Air Corps, they were told it was inconceivable, and just simply out of the question.

Now, they say if you don’t know where you’ve been, you may make the same mistakes in the future. And these young students didn’t want to serve as their parents, fathers, and uncles had in WWI. They wanted to do even better; they wanted to serve in fields more commensurate with their level of learning. About that time, the commandant of the war party send a secret memo to the War Department. And the memo was titled “The Use of Negro Troops During a Time of War.” And it stated that Negroes, due to their mediocre African ancestry and their menial slave mentality, lacked the leadership ability and courage to serve along with whites in combat. It further stated that Negroes did not have the intelligence to fly anything as complicated as an airplane.

Well now, the dark press in this country did not take these false accusations lying down. In such newspapers as The Afro-American, The New York Amsterdam News,and especially The Pittsburgh Courier, in their editorials, they were able to bring so much pressure upon the War Department, that the Congress of the United States reluctantly appropriated just enough money to start a separate program for Negro flying training. And the way this program was set up, down in Alabama, it was set up in a manner in which they thought it was doomed to fail. And I’ll let Major Calloway take it up from there.

Calloway: Well like he said, they programmed it to fail, the War Department did. They had no intention of it ever succeeding. But the way it was set up, they went around to these different collages, like he mentioned, and they started what they called Civilian Pilot Training Corps. Now, they also had this for white colleges, but this was the Army Air Corps, and everything was separate back in those days.

So anyway, they went to these colleges, and recruited some black young men who were interested in flying. And these guys, they trained them to be instructors. They were civilians, college students, and they went through the Civilian Pilot Training Program, and graduated from there, and got their instructor’s rating. Then the War Department, they had the training for the Army Air Corps at Tuskegee, Alabama. Now there were other schools --one up in Chicago really wanted it-- but [the War Department] figured they’d put us way down South in Tuskegee, Alabama, and that would be the best place to have this.

This was the primary flight training, and those selected for training went to Tuskegee by way of basic training, which was in Biloxi, Mississippi. Then from there, you went to Tuskegee as an aviation cadet. And you actually lived on the campus, went to pre-flight training, then went on to primary flight training, where these black instructors I told you about were.

All our instructors in basic were black, and there was this contract with the War Department by Tuskegee Institute to train us. And if you made it through primary flight training, which lasted a couple of months… then you went on to basic flight training, which was the Army Air Corps base. It was operated by military, but we had a lot of civilian members of the Tuskegee Airmen; we had parachute riggers, mechanics, and a lot of them were female back in those days. We didn’t have any female flight instructors, but we did have them working in other fields. The Tuskegee Army Airfield was a small airfield, but it was complete: we had a hospital, we had everything. If you made it through basic, then you went on to advanced training, and then after that, you graduated. We graduated in November of 1944; Morris and I were in the same class.

Now, what they did, they started us from about ‘41 or ‘42, and as soon as they got enough student for one squadron, they formed the 99th fighter squadron. That’s the one people hear about; people think that’s all there was, but that was just one squadron. That happened to be the first squadron, and it was commanded by Col. Benjamin O. Davis. One of the first civilian instructors at primary when Davis went through was Chappie James.

Now, once the 99th was formed and trained, --and ‘course, they had, I forget how many pilots, around 28 or 30 pilots and about 400 ground personnel-- they were sent overseas to North Africa. In the meantime, each smaller class graduated; so more and more pilots kept graduating. Some went over there as replacements in the 99th. But most mainly formed the 332nd fighter group, and that was made up of three squadrons. And when enough of them were trained to go overseas, they were sent to Italy, and the 99th was brought from North Africa over to Italy. Now, most of the pilots in the 99th had already completed their tours, so they were pretty soon rotated back.

But the 332nd was the one that flew the combat patrol missions, and so forth, and escorted the bombers to and from Germany; and they never lost a friendly to enemy aircraft fire. And that was a record that no other fighter group accomplished. But all totaled, just round it off to a thousand --there were nine hundred ninety something-- but just say a thousand black pilots graduated from Tuskegee. And of that number, a little less than half went overseas, and the rest of us formed a bomber outfit. But anyway, that’s a little of the history of how it started, and on up.

LaRue: Now what happened here, see, these guys [gestures to Calloway and Washington] went to school as pilots. Well, when you get on a bomber, you have to have a crew, [and] a navigator, but they didn’t train those, because [the program] was supposed to fail. So these guys messed up and passed! So then, I came along, [and] they had to hurry up the navigators.

Now, as I said, if they had failed, they wouldn’t have needed us. So, they found out they had bomber crews flying around with no navigators on them, so they rushed us through school. And we came back to Godman Field [Fort Knox] and started this bomber group, and we were going to go to the Pacific, then they dropped the big bomb, and it wasn’t necessary.

But to give you a little idea of the trick that we had, we weren’t allowed in the Officers’ Club, period. They had a reason: it wasn’t racial, we were trainees. Now, Col. Davis had been up to University of Illinois, West Point, and had been in combat; he was a trainee. He couldn’t go to the club because he was in training. Now, that’s ridiculous. But every white senior officer we had was supervisory; every black one was trainee. That’s where you draw the line, see? And Col. Davis, with all his experience and training, he had to live in the guest house in Fort Knox, and that where he had to live.

Then one day, we woke up, and there wasn’t a one of [the senior white officers] on the field! They brought in all these black officers in that had been in combat, and replaced [the white officers]. But I don’t know why it was done so secretly… The officers they brought in were well-trained, but the way they had to slip them in, just like undercover. And the field they brought us in, we had very short runways. They were so short, at one end of the highway, there was such traffic, they had red lights out there like they have on the streets, so the traffic could stop so we could go across the road. And at the other end of the runway was a railroad track. So if you weren’t really flying good, you could hit something. On top of that, we had the best safety record in the First Air Force, even under those conditions.

Calloway: Talk about how many squadrons you had. [To me] At one time, they had four squadrons.

LaRue: Yeah, we had four bomber squadrons. And that was all B-25 medium bombers, which carry six men, and carries about a thousand pounds of bombs. Well, [Mr. Washington] was a pilot; he’ll tell you about flying and his experience with it.

Washington: One other thing I’d like to say about the Tuskegee Airmen. When they were sent to North Africa, they were given more or less minor roles in the war. They were kept away from the action. But as the war progressed, they started working their way up through Sicily into Italy. But they were still getting poor grades, more or less. Col. Davis --[who] was a West Point man-- he had to come back to the United States and testify that, I mean, how can you become an Ace if you’re nowhere near the enemy planes?

Calloway [to me]: You know what an Ace is, don’t you?

It’s evident from the quizzical look on my face that I don’t, so they clarify.

LaRue: You have to shoot down five enemy planes.

Washington: So it would be impossible, you know what I mean, to show your skills if you’re nowhere near [the fighting].

LaRue: To tell you what they did, they had [the troops] ride through the railroad yards, shooting down boxcars, and stuff like that. Patrolling and come back and tell what you see, and all that type of stuff.

Calloway: Ground support missions.

Washington: So, [Col. Davis] convinced Congress that the reports that the Tuskegee Airmen were getting weren’t necessarily true or accurate. So, they gave them another chance, and gave them better assignments.

And when the war was at its height, the United States was losing quite a few of their heavy bombers, B-17s, B-24s, because the white pilots that were escorting these bombers to their strategic targets would leave the bombers and go after enemy planes to shoot them down. And they would leave the bombers to fend for themselves. So many heavy bombers were being lost, until they requested the Tuskegee Airmen to come and be their escorts. And Col. Davis, the commanding officer of the Tuskegee Airmen, gave orders to his men: “Stick with these bombers. If anyone runs off chasing a fighter plane for his own personal glory, he’ll be court-marshaled the next day.”

So, the Tuskegee Airmen never lost a bomber, never lost a bomber due to enemy fire. That’s one thing that the Tuskegee Airmen are noted for. And in 1948, through Executive Order, President Harry S. Truman integrated the Army Air Force in this country, and in bases all over the world. So I’d say that the Tuskegee Airmen would be due credit for that. And what you have to remember, is that this was before the days of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Calloway: And the way that happened too, they talked with all the top generals in the Army --it was all Army, Army Air Corps-- and Truman asked how long it would take to integrate. Oh, they come up with a year, two years, six months, all that; Truman gave them 48 hours! I mean, things can be done when people give orders to do it. He said 48 hours, 48 hours, everything was done. There weren’t all these excuses.

LaRue: If you’ve ever read about Truman, you could understand the type of man he was like that. He’d let them talk, talk, talk; I think [Gen. Douglas] MacArthur was there and Eisenhower. [Truman’s] mind was made up from the get-go, but he wanted a compromise. And then when he found out, he said, “Well, I’ll tell ya: the buck stops here. 48 hours. Do it.” And that was it.

Washington: Well you see, when I first started off, I said that the Tuskegee Experiment was between the years of 1941-1949. Well, I think that it ended when President Truman integrated the Army Air Corps. And if you stop and think about it, the Air Corps just had its 50th anniversary this year at Thunder Over Louisville.

Calloway: The Air Force is a separate branch, it’s no longer connected with the Army. I went back [to the Air Corps after the war], and belonged to the actual Air Force. I retired from the U.S. Air force, after having been in the Army Air Corps.

Tell us about some of your background and how that prepared you and shaped your worldview for when you entered the service.

Calloway: It’s pretty interesting how [Washington] got into it and what happened to him.

Washington: Well, I’ll tell you, mine would probably be a little different than most of the fellas, because as a kid, I didn’t have a hobby. I never built any model airplanes or anything like that. I was born and raised in Atlantic City, New Jersey. And I went to high school in Atlantic City, and that was about the time the war broke out. And all my buddies had been drafted into the service. Things started getting a little lonely out on the streets.

One of my buddies came home on furlough, and he looked so nice in his new uniform. He had only been in the service about six months, and he came home on his first furlough. And it just so happened that he came up from Tuskegee, Alabama. He told me about this flying program that was starting up down there, and that I should get in on it. So, I went to the recruiters in Atlantic City, and told them I would like to enlist in the Air Corps, and go to Tuskegee, Alabama for flying training. And I stipulated that I didn’t want to enlist unless I was going down to Tuskegee. In other words, if they weren’t going to send me to Tuskegee, I’d just wait until I was drafted.

Well anyway, I enlisted, and they sent me to Fort Dix, New Jersey, to a reception center. And while I was at the reception center, a train pulled up, and I had orders to get on this troop train. And the next thing I knew, I was headed West instead of South. I rode all that day, and all night, and all the next day.

Where did you end up?

Washington: I ended up in a brand-new airfield outside the city of Denver, Colorado. It was called Buckley Field. And it didn’t take me long: I found out that Buckley Field was a service outfit. In other words, they were just there to police, do all the laboring work and everything for this air base. And I would be there for the duration of the war.

So while I was at Buckley Field, they had a manpower shortage up in North Dakota. And they sent me up to North Dakota --as a soldier, I was in uniform-- to shock wheat. And I remember plainly at nighttime, you could look at the sky, and you could see the Northern Lights. At that time, I wondered if I would ever get back home or if the war would ever end. And I just couldn’t imagine why I would be up there shocking wheat.

And I think I was up there about three weeks. And an inspector general came by and you can go up to a general like that and explain all your gripes. And I told him I enlisted and wanted to go to Tuskegee and everything. He said he would have some of his aides look into it. And if what I told him was true, he would see if something could be done about it.

So while I was up in the field one day shocking wheat, someone came up to me and said, “Washington, pack up your bags; you’re on your way to Tuskegee.” But I had to go back to Denver and take these examinations all over again. That was one of the stipulations, that if I passed the examinations the second time, I’d be on my way to Tuskegee. And so, I took the examinations over, and I was sent to Biloxi Mississippi. And I think that’s where everybody went before they got to Tuskegee, because they give you more examinations.

But in the meantime, a year had gone by, over a year, because I enlisted in 1942. And had I gone straight to Tuskegee when I enlisted, I would probably have been one of the first classes to graduate.

[To Mr. Calloway] What about you?

Calloway: Well I volunteered for the Army Air Corps; I went down and took a bunch of tests and all that stuff. And they told me to go home and wait; they’d call me. But in the meantime I was drafted. ‘Cause actually, I… was working on the Defense Plan. But I didn’t want to spend my time there; I was nineteen years old. I didn’t want to spend my time working seven days a week; I wanted to fly. I built model airplanes, I always wanted to fly. But at any rate, they drafted me.

They sent me up to Indiana; Fort Benjamin Harrison was the reception center. And most of them that were being drafted right there were being sent to the infantry. Every day, you hear about a group going to the infantry. And I said, “Oh boy, here I go into the infantry.” But anyway, they gave me a uniform and all that equipment. And I had narrow feet; believe it or not, this is true: they ran out of shoes. So they kept me an extra week, waiting on the next shipment of shoes. And once I got my equipment then I would’ve gone to the infantry. But while I was waiting, my paperwork caught up with me, where I’d applied for the Air Corps. And they asked me if I still wanted to go there. So they sent me down to Biloxi, Mississippi.

Everybody, no matter if you had been in the service before, like Morris, or what, if you were accepted, you had to go to Biloxi, Mississippi, for basic training. I went down there… then they gave us a whole lot more tests. I used to call them “stupid tests”: putting a round peg in a square hole, all kinds of silly stuff. Aptitude, dexterity tests, all that stuff. They maybe had some point, but I thought they were stupid. But you had to pass them; if you passed that, then you went on to Tuskegee. And you went through pre-flight training, and on to primary, basic, and then advanced training.

And they had a quota system we didn’t know about. I didn’t know about it at the time. No matter how good you might have been, if it comes time for graduation and your class was over the number that was supposed to graduate in that particular class, somebody had to be washed up. So they washed out, I forget, seven or eight guys in my class about a week or two before graduation. That’s not counting the ones that had been washed out along the way. There was a saying among the instructors, that they washed out the better pilots at Tuskegee that were graduating.

What about you, Mr. LaRue?

LaRue: Well, I did make model airplanes; had plenty of them at home. But I had no desire. As a matter of fact, I had never even seen an airplane on the ground before I went into the service. And I was raised here in Louisville.

But I was drafted. I was in school and I was drafted. They put me in the Navy, and I wouldn’t go. I mean, I would not go. So they got kinda huffy on me, and I said, “Well, take me to prison, but I will not go in the Navy.” So they called this captain over, and told him my story. He said, “Will you serve?” I said, “I will serve.” So the guy says, “Put him in the Army.” ‘Cause it wasn’t a big thing for him. But see at the time, the Air Unit was a part of the Army.

And then, after they found out you could read and write and add two and two, they sent you off to school where it was fitting. When I was at Kesseler Field [in Mississippi] they had a bunch of men there who could not read or write. And they’d come out and ask us to read letters and write letters and help them with their reading. Now naturally, all they’d be able to do in the service is be in a service unit where they’d put gas in the planes and bring the bombs out. And they need those people, but at the same time, I was surprised that they’d even draft them. But they did.

So I told them I wanted to be in the Coast Artillery, ‘cause you have to be in ROTC and all that. And they thought about it, and said, “Well, how’d you like to be in the Air Force?” and I said, “Okay, I’ll go.” The funny thing about Calloway and I, we graduated from high school on the same night, on the same stage! We’ve been together a few years.

What kind of racism did you all face?

Washington [chuckling softly]: We weren’t even wanted.

LaRue: One of the problems was the locals.

Calloway: Well, to tell you about Tuskegee, at that time (‘cause it’s the heart of the South), they had a curfew. It was about seven o’clock at night, and we were living on campus at that time; I’m not talking about when we went to the base. But there was a curfew, and blacks had to be off the streets at seven o’clock at night. And it was just segregation wherever you go.

LaRue: Well, when I was in Texas, they told us the first day of orientation, the commandant of the base came up and told us this whole spiel of “I know a lot of colored people, and I’ve dealt with them, and I know them in Washington and Pennsylvania and we get along in this…” The [other] commandant got up and said, “I’m from Texas. I don’t need to say anything else.” The [first] commandant said, “As long as you’re on this vase, you will be treated as gentlemen. I can’t control the town.” So that told you a whole lot right there.

Washington: Let me say this: we were at a school, and a little white boy stood up and asked us, “Why would you fight for a country that didn’t even want you?” And so I told him that I was fighting for the United States because this is my country too.

In other words --as I said in the beginning about Plessy vs Ferguson and the message that the Ku Klux Klan had spread and everything-- it wasn’t the whole country, it was certain elements in the country that didn’t want us. And I will say this: this is my country too. I don’t know anything about China or these other countries; I was born in this country. And when I graduated from Tuskegee as a Tuskegee Airman, it was the proudest day of my life. And if I had to do it all over again, I would.

How did you deal with the way people treated you, and how did it make you feel?

LaRue: Well, we were on a train going from somewhere in the East to Texas. And we had meal tickets, sixty of us. And we stopped at this little restaurant --the train was going to be there for awhile for some reason-- and we go in, and the man said, “Yeah, I’ll serve you some meals, but you have to go around to the [back] door to pick them up.” We’re got going to eat there, now, we’re just going to take them back them back on the train. Sixty meals, and we’re going to spend all this money and we have to go to the back door to pick up the sixty meals. So the director (instructor) came back and told us, and we said we’ll just let them stay in there. I said we’ll sit on the train and just drink water until we got to where we were going!

But see, you just had to be one step ahead. There was always an obstacle; and you knew they were going to get you, and you know you’re gonna stumble, ‘cause they’ll put something in front of you to make you stumble. But you need to be ready to step over it. You need to be bigger than all these things they’re trying to throw at you, and that’s the only way we succeeded.

Calloway: When I was sent from the induction center to come to Louisville… I had a Pullman ticket that the Army had given me --it was a long train ride from Louisville to Biloxi, Mississippi-- I had a Pullman ticket in my pocket, and I gave it to the conductor. And he said, “No, you can’t go in no Pullman; you’ll have to go on this train,” which was a segregated car for blacks at that time. And I had two big old duffel bags. And I got on, and they didn’t even have my seat! I rode halfway to Mississippi sitting on my duffel bags in the aisle of the train! I was riding in the coach, and the coach was right behind the mail car. You had the engine --smoke engine in those days, it wasn’t diesel-- the mail car, then you had the car for the blacks. And you’d get all this dust and coal and stuff [blowing on you.]

LaRue: And another incident like that: I was in Hilton, Alabama headed for Louisville, and they made us get back so all the whites could get on the train. We had tickets, but that didn’t matter, because they had no seats [for us]. They said, if you want to get in the baggage car --and with those doors, you could fall out if you wanted to-- you still had to have a ticket. So we wanted to get home, so we climbed up. And like he said, that coal dust flying, you could almost start a fire, there was so much coal dust; we looked like we’d been working in the coal mines. But that was the only way we could get home.

Washington: Well, I’ll say this about racial segregation. I’ll be eighty years old on my next birthday. And I remember when I was a young man traveling around the country, how humiliating it was to go to the back door of a white restaurant to try to buy a sandwich. And how degrading it was to sit behind a curtain on the back of a Greyhound bus. And not being able to use a restroom because the sign on the door said “Whites Only.” It was wrong, it was unjust, and it was cruel.

But I’ll say this: this is not a perfect world. Wherever you go in this world you’ll find that it’s not perfect. They have Untouchables in India, and I watch television and see little kids starving in Africa and other countries. All we can do is strive to make it a better country and a better world. But there’s all kinds of opportunities here in the United States. And I think the Unites States is the greatest country in the world.

LaRue: Like I said, even though we had those [setbacks, we kept] letting them know that even though they put up all these screens, all these “White” signs, “No Blacks” signs, and still we kept on marching. We never lost step. Now, we didn’t use guns and knives to do it. We used it with intelligence, in my opinion.

What was the most memorable or impactful event during your time in the service?

LaRue: The last day.

Washington [simultaneously]: Graduation.

LaRue: Get that training over with. Incidentally, at nine o’clock, they have to turn off the lights, except in the restrooms. You couldn’t get a seat in the restrooms after nine o’clock, because everybody’s in there studying!

Calloway: One other thing about when we went to training. See, the cadet corps was kind of copied after West Point, to a point… we had upperclassmen who could --I call it harass-- haze the underclassmen. They couldn’t put their hands on you, but they could haze you. I mean really haze you, give you demerits and all that. And so, as a lower classman, you had to endure that. That had nothing to do with discrimination; when we became upperclassmen, we did the same thing. Upperclassmen could walk on water, and lower classmen had to take orders. But really, that was teaching you discipline and teaching you how to keep your mouth shut and take orders. And it had a point.

LaRue: If one of those upperclassmen catch you coming down the street --I mean, you can shine your shoes unti lyou could see your face in them-- he’d come up and ask you why your shoes weren’t shined. You didn’t say they were shined, you said, “No excuse, sir.” That was the only answer you had: “No excuse, sir.”

Washington: There were three answers: “Yes sir”, “No sir”, and, “No excuse sir.”

Do you feel that the sacrifices you made over fifty years ago are now being forgotten and taken for granted by some of the younger people?

LaRue: Well, yes and no. They’re getting the advantages of it, but they don’t realize the price that was paid for it. They think it’s free… [The kids] think that it’s the way it’s always been. It’s like it’s always been this way for them, but it’s not.

Washington: It’s like I said: if you don’t know where you’ve been, you may be doomed to make the same mistakes in the future. In other words, that’s why the Tuskegee Airmen right now go to schools, churches, civic organizations and things, telling their stories to younger people about the Tuskegee Airmen. Because if the story is not told, it can be lost, and the younger generation [won’t know what] their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents have made. So you have to know your past in order to face the future.

LaRue: [The Tuskegee Airmen] have never turned down an invitation to any group or organization, whether it’s a church or children, and we’ve been to them all. We go wherever they call and ask us. We don’t charge them, we just go and talk and try to tell the kids something that may give them a little tip or help them stay in school or help them set a goal. We’ll go anywhere and try it.

After the interview, I told the gentlemen that I sincerely appreciate the sacrifices they made to secure the freedom we now enjoy in this country. What they did was and is remarkable; it is through their sacrifices, endurance, and conviction that all of us --black and white-- are able to have the freedom that we do today. The story of the Tuskegee Airmen needs to be passed on so that we do not forget their legacy.

L-R: Alvin LaRue, me, Julius Calloway, Morris Washington

**********Epilogue**********

The Tuskegee Airmen were collectively presented with the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor in 2007 by President George Bush in recognition for their distinguished service.

Captain Morris Washington served as the “Thundernator” host of Thunder Over Louisville in May 2007, six months before he passed away.

Major Julius Calloway was inducted into the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame in 1997, and received an honorary doctorate from Tuskegee University in 2006. He passed away on January 23, 2012 at the age of 87.

Mr. Alvin LaRue passed away on February 3, 2014

Back to My Future, Too

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 22:13:00 -0400

It's October 21, 2015... the date that Doc Brown and Marty McFly travel to in Back to the Future II, so I suppose it's appropriate that I found myself reliving a powerful part of my childhood this evening with my kids.

It was a perfect autumn evening, and the Mountain was beckoning. Some recent construction around our apartment complex had created a small deposit of dirt and rocks in one spot, and from that location, adventure called. This particular evening, we came equipped with a few plastic trucks and spoons for excavating. As we approached the site, the kids quickly scrambled to the Mountain's summit.

It was a perfect mountain: about a dozen feet high, mostly dirt with some good-sized rocks and several broken pieces of concrete slabs scattered throughout, ideal places to perch while climbing or digging. It was absent of broken glass, rebar, and other tetanus-laden hazards that might otherwise threaten the carefree explorations of a 3- and 6-year-old.

Back to the Future came out 30 years ago, and I was around the age then that my kids are now. As I watched them play, I smelled the dirt and remembered how much fun I had had when left to simply play by myself outside. A dirt mound, a small copse of trees, a cove of bushes, even a pile of rocks, all became places of potential magic and adventure.

As a child, some minute, perceptive part of my young mind knew that childhood was a one-way journey. And so –much to the chagrin of my mother-- I took advantage of playing in and exploring every dirt mound, every wilderness-like patch of woodland, any place that looked as though it held the remotest possibility of fun or adventure. And it made my childhood wonderful.

Now, the Engaging And Involved Parent part of me wanted to climb the Mountain and join my kids, to sit in the dirt, asking to be included in their play, in their world... but I didn't. I have already had that time of my life, and I enjoyed every bit of it that I could. Now it was time for my children to experience the joy and magic of being able to play free from parental intrusion. I needed to let them create those experiences on their own.

So I sat for an hour in the cool and slowly-fading autumn light and watched my kids from 10 feet and 30 years away, until it seemed as though my past, our present, and their future came together, and my heart filled with so much remembrance, peace, and joy that it ached.

It was absolutely wonderful.

This post is dedicated to my dad, who taught me from a young age to enjoy and experience life in every way I can.

Irreverent DIY Guarantee

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 19:47:00 -0400

There is no shortage of tastefully-lit, artfully-filtered photos of completed DIY projects all over the Internet: I've seen everything from a kitchen table with a poured concrete top and iron pipe legs, to high heels with the undersides painted with sky-blue nail polish. Sure, the table looked great in the bohemian-urban-chic loft, but good luck finding friends to help haul that heavy-ass table down the stairs when you move out of that apartment. And the shoes looked nice in the finished display photo, but after just one night on the town, they'd look way worse than before. A lot of the DIY craft projects circulating on artsy blogs and Pinterest are, at best, impractical; at worst, they're downright stupid. (I'm looking at you, gold-painted honey bears.)

“What? We coordinate perfectly with the chalkboard-painted toilet seat and the television made of wooden pallets.”

Truth be told, I'm not a “crafty” person, despite what my friends tell me. I'll admit to being creative, but I'm definitely not crafty in the sense of “I like to make things for the hell of it in my free time”. When I make or do creative things, it's usually motivated by some kind of necessity, and it's almost always done in the most inexpensively MacGyver-ish way possible using pretty much whatever I have lying around or can easily find at Dollar Tree. Also, because we live in an apartment, projects that take up significant construction or storage space aren't really an option.

So, having said all that, I present you with my Irreverent Guarantee:

The DIY projects featured on this blog do not require you to be “crafty”, or have previous experience, special equipment, or extra space or money. All projects have been tested for Practicality (i.e “How well does it do what it's made to do?”) and Durability (“Does it last a reasonably decent amount of time with normal expected use?”).

I've made plenty of things that looked great... but fell apart not long after the “Finished Product” photo was taken. I've also seen projects that look really cool, but required materials, space, money, time, and/or effort I just didn't have. Hopefully some of the things I put here can give you some ideas, inspire some creativity, and spare you the headache of making something impractical or flimsy when you could be doing more important things like playing video games or sampling beer or plotting world domination. Or parenting. You know, whatever floats your boat.

Constructed completely out of Mason jars, hot glue, Christmas lights, and chalkboard paint, of course.

image credits: http://www.abeautifulmess.com/2012/08/gold-honey-bear-vase-diy-.html; https://cityyearnh.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/building-a-boat/;

I Have to Be Medicated to Deal With My Kids.

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Tue, 6 Jan 2015 21:22:00 -0500

So yeah, it's been a long time since I last posted anything. Over a year, actually. After this past February, that hiatus was mostly due to various home-improvement projects, playing all the way through Borderlands 2 (with all the expansions...twice), and --especially in the last few months-- being intimidated by a blinking cursor on my white computer screen as I stare blankly and try to think of the *perfect* way to say what's going through my head.

Well, screw that noise. I've had enough and decided to just say what I'm trying to convey the best I can, and the Overzealous Perfectionist Editor in my head can shove it.

In the most grammatically correct way, of course.

I've always struggled with a strong temper, and it would almost always manifest itself via my mouth: yelling, cussing, and verbal attacks were my standard coping mechanisms when I'd get overwhelmed or frustrated by life. While that may not seem like a big deal, it becomes a MASSIVE problem when children are anywhere in the Anger Fallout Zone. As a kid, I was often on the receiving end of my mother's Verbal Hiroshimas, because that's simply what happens when you're a stay-at-home mother of 7 kids and don't have a support system to help you cope.

Not wanting to repeat that experience with my future kids, I began taking steps to find better, healthier ways to manage my temper not long after I got married. This included counseling and, for a few years, medication. By the time Offspring 1 arrived several years later, I had made HUGE improvements. And I was still doing really well when Offspring 2 came on the scene a few years after.

Things got difficult when the kids were (respectively) preschool and toddler age. They were both at a stage that was an ever-changing shift between independence and dependence, and the unpredictable nature of this situation threw me for a loop. Some days, I could deal with it just fine; but with increasing frequency, them simply acting their ages (needing help, crying when tired, bickering, etc.) was enough to send me into the Stratosphere of Rage.

The Rage Stratosphere, common destination in the State of Insanity

I knew that the core of the problem was not that I would get angry at typical "kid" behavior, but the fact that the rage was so instantaneous and so intense, to an abnormal degree. It literally took every ounce of energy I had NOT to do or say the unwanted thoughts that were battering the walls of my mind, begging to come out: I would imagine screaming the most unspeakably hurtful things at my beloved children, accompanied by mental images of enacting physical abuses that would guarantee me a one-way ticket straight to hell.

All of these were things that I would never actually do. But those thoughts were so. Damn. LOUD. It was like a pack of caged, rabid wolves was inside my head; yeah, I knew they couldn't get out, but there's still that panicked adrenaline rush of 'Oh my god, they're there and I can't ignore them and I can't turn my head for a second and they're trying to get out and I just want it all to stop ohmigodohmigodohmigod....

Through counseling I had tried to find other coping mechanisms (e.g. journaling, refocusing, etc.), but none of them really worked, because when I got stressed out, my anger response was so instantaneous and all-encompassing, I literally could not think of anything else. And because I had deliberately shut off my normal outlets (i.e. an out-of-control mouth, throwing things, etc.) around the kids, I no longer had any pressure valves to release the sudden rage I'd feel. And when there's nowhere for that pressure to go, an explosion becomes an implosion.

Portrait of the Author as an Overwhelmed Mess

And thus my frustrated, helpless anger imploded into a morass of depression for almost three months. Around November 2013, it got really bad. Like, depressed-to-the-point-of-barely-being-able-to-function bad. It took every ounce of energy to manage to get dressed every day (bonus points if they were clean), go to the store when needed, feed the kids, and sometimes do the dishes and laundry. Other than that, I wasn't capable of much else.

All the things I previously loved doing --playing with the kids, going to the park, playing video games, watching science documentaries-- completely stopped. When my husband would help with the kids, I'd always go in my room and sleep, and after the kids went to bed, I'd either mindlessly browse the Internet, or I'd sit on the couch and stare blankly at the wall.

And it was about that time I stopped wanting to live. I didn't actively want to die, per se, but simply existing had become such an energy-sucking daily chore devoid of any joy or purpose that I simply didn't care any more whether I lived or not.

"Could you please just run me over and save me the effort of suicide?" -Me, every day

Finally, I got so tired of being, well... tired of existing that I agreed to set up an appointment with a psychiatrist. I knew that I needed medication at that point; other avenues such as counseling and nutritional supplements had been duly explored and were insufficient. I met with the psychiatrist and told her everything: my past struggles with anger, overcoming it, having kids, being a parent, and my current inability to cope and function. She listened, asked questions, and agreed that I did need medication. After some discussion, she gave me a prescription for the mood-stabilizer I'd been on many years before.

The difference it made was immediate.

Before, everything hit me at once, like a blast from a fire hose: The Preschooler is being uncooperative and the Toddler is crying and I need to make lunch but I don't know if I have the food I need to make it and I might need to go to the store and the sink is full of dishes and the Toddler needs a diaper change and I'm still in my pajamas and now the Preschooler is trying to take his brother's toy and...

Now, instead of a fire hose it was more like a garden hose; I could take in each thing one at a time and assess it:
The Preschooler is being uncooperative. Ignore it for now; deal with the Toddler first.
The Toddler is crying. What does he need? The toy he dropped. Give him the toy.
Lunch: Do we have what we need? Not sure. Check it in a minute.
Sink full of dishes: Unimportant right now. Deal with it when the kids are busy or asleep.
Toddler's diaper: Change it. Oh wait, the Preschooler is trying to take his toy...
Preschooler (again): This is really pissing me off. Take a deep breath. Give toy back to Toddler. Correct Preschooler, then give him a task to keep him busy while you change Toddler.
Change out of pajamas.
Check on food situation; throw something together for lunch and call it good.

Sure, I would still get angry, and to be honest, that was a big relief to me. It let me know that, although the medication was helping, it wasn't taking away my emotions or making me some kind of robot impervious to stress. It didn't stop the anger or even prevent it, but instead it simply slowed the rate at which my brain was perceiving multiple stressors.

"What are you telling me? That I can dodge tantrums?"
"No. I'm telling you that when the time comes... you won't have to."

The reason why I'm sharing this is because I know that I'm not the only one who's struggled with this. I can't be.

Anger issues, being uncontrollably overwhelmed, severe depression, etc. can make you feel incredibly isolated as a person, let alone as a parent. You can feel like a HUGE failure if you admit to struggling with any of these issues, especially if you don't think anyone around you can relate. Even worse, I've known many people who've opened up to someone about their struggle, only to be dismissed, given trite solutions, or even worse, lectured about how their problems are all their own fault.

I'm here to tell you that you're not alone. You're not the only person who's thought terrible thoughts or felt terrible feelings.You're not the only one who's struggled to function or regretted being a parent or felt like a horrible parent for feeling these things.

You might need help, and THAT. IS. OKAY. Get the help you need. It might be finding a mentor or counseling or even medication. Whatever it is you need for you to be the person/parent you need to be... do it. And don't make any apologies for it. You wouldn't think less of a hearing-impaired person for wearing a hearing aid, would you?

If you need that hearing aid to hear your grandkids' laughter, you're a failure as a human being, Grandpa.

No, you wouldn't. So try not to think less of yourself for getting help for yourself.

I know this isn't easy. It's a journey, and I know firsthand that it can be a long one. (Hence the gap since my last post.) But if you're struggling and you need help, I want you to know that you are not the only one. And you sure as hell are not less of a person if you seek help. Quite the opposite. It takes a lot of strength to seek help, and doing so makes you so much BIGGER of a person, not less.

Image credits: sky; implosion; truck; Matrix; hearing aid

A Halloween Tale: The Mommy and the Sneaky, Creepy, Evil Ego Monster

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 02:20:00 -0400

Once upon a time, a Mommy had a little Baby Boy. For his very first Halloween, the Baby was too little to choose a costume for himself, because he had not cultivated any personal interests beyond eating, sleeping, and producing organic "gifts" for his parents. So the Mommy dressed the Baby Boy in a generic frog costume, said he was "Frogger", and made him crawl across a five-lane highway and a log-strewn river to get his candy that year.

"Hurry up, Sunshine... Mommy hasn't got all night."

The next year, the Baby grew and developed a few interests of his own (namely walking), but making costume choices and clearly vocalizing them to the adults in his life was not one of them. So the Mommy put the Baby Boy in a generic tiger costume, said he was Tony the Tiger, gave him a box of Frosted Flakes, and skipped the trick-or-treating thing altogether, because really, why bother?

The year after that, the Baby Boy was no longer a baby; he was now a Little Boy of two-and-a-half, and he had discovered the world of Cars and Lightning McQueen. And the Mommy was delighted, for now she knew what the Little Boy liked, and that gave her direction for a Halloween costume!

She asked the Little Boy, "What would you like to be for Halloween, Honey?"

The Little Boy looked up from his toys uncomprehendingly. For a boy who was about to go on his first real excursion of scamming the neighbors out of their sugar-laden goodies, he was disappointingly clueless about the whole concept of Halloween, let alone the importance of choosing a costume.

So the Mommy prompted, "Would you like to be Lightning McQueen?"

"M'Queen! Light'ing M'Queen!" the boy responded like a litany. (And it was in fact a litany for him, for the Little Boy was a devoted member of the Church of the Holy Pixar, and attended services via DVD telecast almost daily. He knew the Sacred Hymns of Randy Newman by heart, he was part of the Dramatic Racing Re-enactment Team for every performance of Cars, and always responded with "...and Beyond!" when the leader did the "To Infinity" prayer. It bordered on cultish, but it made him happy and gave the Mommy about 90 minutes of quiet.)

The crucifix of St. Buzz of Beyond
(C'mon, it looks like a crucifix and you know it!)

So the Mommy immediately resumed the work she had begun on the Little Boy's Lightning McQueen car costume a week earlier. She had already assembled two cardboard boxes together into the rough shape of a racecar, and had begun to sketch the outlines of Lightning's various features.

But as the car was coming together, something else was coming together... inside the Mommy.
Something sneeeeaky.
Something creeeeepy.
It was so quiet and so sneaky and so creepy that the Mommy didn't even know it was there:

The Ego Monster!

The Ego Monster started out very small. In fact, when it started out, it wasn't a monster at all. See, when a Feeling Of Satisfaction In Your Work and a Feeling Of Excitement love each other very much, they come together and a Little Feeling of Pride is born. And there's nothing wrong with a Little Feeling of Pride; that's not a monster.

But sometimes that Little Feeling of Pride starts to grow. And grow. And grow some more.

And thus what began as a small feeling of "Wow, this is starting to look pretty cool! I think the Little Boy will really like this!" grew bigger as the Mommy saw how good the car costume looked, until it became:

"LOOK AT THIS PERFECT AND PINTEREST-WORTHY CREATION I HAVE BIRTHED! MY OFFSPRING HAD DAMN WELL BETTER APPRECIATE THE HOURS OF PAINSTAKING DETAIL I PUT INTO THIS!!!"

"BEHOLD THE DETAILED PAINT JOB AND THE WHEELS THAT ACTUALLY SPIN!"

"MARVEL AT THE HOOD WHICH OPENS TO HOLD THE HALLOWEEN CANDY!"

"KNEEL IN AWE AT THE SECRET TRAP DOOR WHICH KEEPS THE CANDY FROM FALLING OUT!"

"AND LET US NOT FORGET THESE NEAT-LOOKING STRAPS WITH WHICH THIS MIND-BLOWING MASTERPIECE WILL HANG FROM MY LUCKY CHILD'S SHOULDERS!"

(The Evil Ego Monster speaks only in capital letters, you see.)

The Mommy had never in her life seen a child as excited as the Little Boy was when he saw the Lightning McQueen car.

(And inside the Mommy, the Sneaky, Creepy, Ego Monster grew several sizes bigger.)

The Mommy asked the Little Boy if he wanted to try on his new costume. Through the incoherent vocal torrent that came forth from the child, the Mommy decided that he said, "Yes please, Mother. I am very eagerly awaiting the moment with which you will bestow upon me this awesome object of cardboard, craft paint, and masking tape, of which I am surely not worthy."

(And the Sneaky, Creepy Ego Monster grew some more.)

The Mommy lowered the car over the Little Boy's shoulders... and the Little Boy panicked and began to flail his arms wildly as he felt the box surround him.

(And the Sneaky, Creepy Ego Monster began to get angry.)

The Mommy tried to calm the Little Boy, telling him that it's just Lightning McQueen --you want to be Lightning McQueen, don't you?-- just hold still for a second and let me get this on you, will you stop pushing it, you're going to break it!
And the Little Boy began to cry as he became more scared of the box that he felt was closing him in, and he fought harder to push the car away, anything to get it off of him...

(And the Sneaky, Creepy Ego Monster also began to panic at the thought that this Creation would be completely torn to pieces before everyone could see how wonderful She [um, I mean the car, of course] was, and as it panicked, the Monster became even more angry.)

The Mommy finally managed to get the car off the Little Boy. She held the him closely and rocked him and whispered to him soothingly, drying his tears and trying to calm him down.

Inside the Mommy, the Ego Monster screamed: "ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! ALL THAT TIME I PUT INTO MAKING THIS CAR FOR YOU, AND YOU WON'T EVEN WEAR IT! C'MON IT'S JUST A CARDBOARD BOX, WHY ARE YOU SCARED OF IT? YOU'VE GOT TO WEAR THIS!"

So after a few minutes, the Mommy again tried to put the Lightning McQueen car on the Little Boy; again he panicked and flailed and yelled and cried; again the car was removed and set aside; again the Mommy held the Little Boy.
And then she knew that he would never wear the Lightning McQueen car she'd worked so hard to make, not for Halloween, and not ever. The Little Boy was genuinely terrified of feeling enclosed by that little cardboard car. The Mommy hadn't known that he was scared of such things.

But she was still upset, and the Ego Monster screamed again: "YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE TWERP! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD I WORKED TO MAKE THIS PERFECT FOR YOU? YOU'RE DAMN WELL GOING TO WEAR THIS ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!!!"

The Mommy heard the Ego Monster's yelling so loudly in her head, wanting to come out her mouth. But she didn't say anything, because she knew the truth: she knew that the Little Boy wasn't being ungrateful. She knew that although the Ego Monster kept saying she'd made the car for the Little Boy, she'd mostly made it for herself.

And she knew that the real reason she was upset was because she wanted the Little Boy to show off something cool she made so she could feel good about herself.

Pictured: your child.
Not your trophy. Not your walking art display. Not your Ego Feeder.

As she sat quietly holding the Little Boy and thinking, the Ego Monster slowly began to shrink. The Mommy finally sighed, set the Little Boy down on the floor, and got a pair of scissors. Slowly, she cut the straps off the car. Then she turned to the Little Boy and quietly asked, "Would you like to play with Lightning McQueen?"

The Little Boy's eyes lit up and he said, "Yeah!" He knelt beside the car and began pushing it across the floor. His face beamed a huge smile as he made enthusiastic engine noises and quoted numerous passages from the Gospel According to Mater.

As the Mommy watched him play happily, she began to realize that deep down, even before the Ego Monster existed, what she ultimately wanted was for the Little Boy to be happy. Even though he would never wear the car, he was extremely happy playing with it. And really, that was all that mattered.

*******************************************

EPILOGUE (2015)

Although one's "Ego Monsters" never truly go away, my Halloween Ego Monster has been continually beaten down over the last 2 years, to the point where I don't think it can recover for at least several years.

That Halloween, since Lightning McQueen was a no-go, I ended up borrowing a costume from a friend, and the child dressed up as St. Buzz of Beyond (sans crucifix). However, he thought that the purpose of trick-or-treating was to actually go into people's houses and visit with them, instead of getting candy at the door. He cried each time I thwarted his attempts to enter every single house we went to. Needless to say, the evening ended very early.

St. Buzz is greatly aggrieved.

The following Halloween, he wanted to be a firefighter, so I made a firefighter outfit out of an old shirt, duct tape, and a 2-liter bottle. (Hey, it was cheaper than a store-bought costume and plus... duct tape! Hel-LO!) The boy put on the jacket, said he liked it, took it off, dropped it on the floor, and never wore it again.

To top it off, he cried AGAIN when he was taken out trick-or-treating (instead of a firefighter, he went dressed up as a 3-year-old boy). He only settled down when he went back home to help give out candy to the other kids.

This Halloween, I made him a costume, but I have NO expectation of him wearing it. If he does, fine; if not, it's something he can still play with. And if (like the firefighter jacket) he never plays with it, I'll pass it on to someone else.

And who knows, maybe we'll skip the trick-or-treating altogether and just hide candy around the apartment and have both boys go on a free-for-all candy hunt.

As long as we all have fun, that's really all that matters.

P.S. And true to form, last week made his Halloween Costume Strike record 3-for-3. He wanted to be a train engineer, so I made a cardboard train for him, and gave it to him a few weeks early so he could play with it and get used to it. But when it came time to wear it on Halloween, it was a no-go. Thankfully he already had on his striped shirt, bandanna, and engineer's cap, and he had a blast with that. And the train is being played with by both boys, so it's still a win in my book.

image credits: gamesdbase.com; amazon.com; freedesignfile.com;

Parentateuch: In Which the Light Is Taken Away

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Sun, 14 Jul 2013 16:05:00 -0400

Note: the term "Parentateuch" (pronounced "pa-RENT-a-took") is a series of humorous stories told from a parent's perspective in a style similar to the King James Bible. The term is a spoof of the Pentateuch (a.k.a. the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible).

After the time in which the children were fed and changed and put in bed, the Mommy beheld the peace and quiet and saw that it was good. And at the eighth hour, the Mommy rested and watched her astrophysics show.

Yes, I watch this to relax. Don't judge me.

And when the children saw that the Mommy was no longer there, they said to one another, "Behold, Mommy has left us! Let us turn on the light and make mischief, for surely she will not know!" And they did turn on the light and play, and this went on for some time.

And thus it came to pass that when the Mommy heard Suspicious Noises coming forth from the room, she came and found the children cavorting.


A standard ceremony in the Ritual of Nightly Childhood Cavorting.

And so, in fulfillment of the earlier prophecy she had told the children, the Mommy took away the Special Nightlight Which Shined Stars Upon The Ceiling. And she also removed the Lightbulb from the socket above, so the children could no longer turn on the light. And the children cried and begged her to restore the Lightbulb unto the socket above, but the Mommy did not heed their cries.

"In return for the restoration of the light bulb, I demand a sacrifice:
COMPLETE F*CKING SILENCE for the rest of the night!!!"

And she tucked the children in and said, "I say to you, I had better not hear you playing again, or else I shall return, and --though I know not yet what I will do-- I am sure I shall think of something. And truly I say to you... it shall not be good."
And thus the Mommy departed from them, and went and took a hot bath and read a book in peace and quiet.

--Maternal Lamentations 4:20

Image credits: amazon.com; geeknative.com; amazon.com

Nerdy Mommy's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Mon, 8 Jul 2013 15:33:00 -0400

In college, when my roommate was having a crappy day, she would pull out her copy of one of her favorite children's books: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; she would then sit at her desk and proceed to read the book aloud (whether or not anyone was in the room). When she was done, she would put the book back and finish whatever she was doing; simply reading the book aloud helped relieve her frustration enough to at least complete her current assignment.

In honor of that fine tradition, I wrote my own version after having a crappy day of my own...

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I went to bed and forgot to do the dishes, so this morning there's dirty dishes all over the countertops. When I got out of bed I stepped on a Hot Wheels car, then I spilled coffee on my new X-Men t-shirt.

"Oh no, NOT my new X-Men shirt!!!!"

I could tell it was going to be a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

At breakfast, the toddler got mashed bananas in his mohawk, and the preschooler spilled yogurt down his shirt.

I didn't even remember to eat breakfast.

I think I'll go away with The Doctor in the TARDIS.

Because Weeping Angels are easier to handle than after-meal kid cleanup.

In the car, the preschooler kept saying he was hungry, and the toddler kept fussing for a toy.
I said, "Here's a snack! Here's a toy!"
Neither one even answered; they just kept complaining.

I could tell it was going to be a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

On Facebook, people liked my friend's photo of her newly renovated kitchen more than my picture of a funny Star Trek meme.
The cupcakes I'm making for the bake sale are too lopsided and glumpy and don't look anything like the nice ones in the pictures online. Who cares about Pinterest anyway?

A few (million) more things to be insecure about.

I could tell it was going to be a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

I could tell because a family member told me I ought to be more strict with my kids, while another one told me I needed to loosen up. Someone else told me how I should incorporate more hands-on integrative techniques to enhance my children's overall development.

They don't even have kids.

"I hope lots of complete strangers lecture you when you have kids of your own," I thought to myself. "I hope you spend tons of money getting lots of overpriced books and videos and toys specially designed to 'enhance your child's intellectual and physical development,' and I hope your kid ignores every single bit of it and plays with a stick instead."

Screw Baby Einstein; this can transform a kid into Gandalf or Harry Potter!

When it came time to make lunch, there was plenty of peanut butter and jelly in the pantry, and lots of cheese and lunchmeat in the fridge... but no bread and only half a cup of milk.

Guess who forgot to go the grocery store the other day?

It was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

It definitely was, because for once I was on time to the pediatrician's office for the toddler's checkup. The receptionist told me that my appointment was for tomorrow, not today.
"You'll have to come back at the same time tomorrow," she said.

"Tomorrow," I said, "I'm transferring to the USS Enterprise."

Because nobody on the show has to schedule an appointment to see the doctor. Ever.

On the way from the doctor's office I got stuck in traffic. Our air conditioner doesn't work and it was really hot and the preschooler dropped his toy under my seat where I couldn't get it and the toddler kept crying because the sun was in his eyes and I started yelling at them both, "We're only five minutes away, I promise, so would you guys PLEASE JUST STOP CRYING ALREADY!!!"

On Facebook I updated my status: "I am having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

No one even commented.

"First the picture, now this. Do my friends even know I exist?!"

So then we went to the grocery store to get the stuff I forgot to get before.
The preschooler wanted to get a cookie. The toddler tried to grab everything in arm's reach. I tried to get some chicken because it was on sale, but the manager said they were all sold out. I got a box of pasta and a jar of spaghetti sauce for dinner instead. If the kids don't like it, they don't have to eat it.

When we got home, I told the preschooler to go to the bathroom, but he got distracted and had an accident.
I told the toddler to stay away from the DVDs on the shelf; he didn't touch the DVDs at all, but instead grabbed a basket of my old NES games and dumped them all over the floor.
I told the preschooler not to mess with the computer, but I think he bought tickets to ComicCon.

I said: "That's it... I don't want to be the Mommy any more."

I'd rather be kicking ass in an awesome black PVC outfit. Can I please do that instead?

It was a Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day.

There was whining at dinner time and I hate whining.

There was fighting over a toy and I hate fighting.

At bathtime, the kids splashed water all over me and all over the floor, and the toddler ate some soap.
I accidentally dropped a towel in the water when I was trying to get the kids out of the tub, and the preschooler asked me to read The Little Engine That Could.

I hate The Little Engine That Could.

Pictured: torture

When it was bedtime, the preschooler couldn't find his favorite toy that he absolutely HAD to have to sleep with. The toddler wanted his special blanket, and I stubbed my toe trying to find that freaking blanket in the dark.

After I finally got everyone in bed, I went and poured myself a glass of wine.

It had been a Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day.

Then I remembered the Daleks and Moriarty and Voldemort and Bowser and zombies and Magneto and the Borg and the Lannisters and I remembered that everyone has bad days.

Even in my favorite books, video games, and tv shows.

Photo credits: memebase.com; http://wikipedia.org; pintrest.com; hebanongames.com; wikipedia.org; memebase.com; theatlanticnerd.com; us.penguingroup.com

Writings from the Sacred Book of the Parentateuch

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:08:00 -0400

And it came to pass that the Mommy needed to go to the bathroom. So she gave unto her children several of their favorite toys, and she also placed their favorite show on the television before them, so that they would be amused and occupied in her absence. And she quietly withdrew from their presence and sneaked off to lock herself in the Hiding Place, for she had not had a moment's peace all day.

Location: Maternal Sanctuary
Successful Concealment Rate: lights off- 90%; lights on- <5%

And as soon as the Mommy had locked the door, the children looked up and realized that the Mommy was no longer there. "Behold!" the children said. "The Mommy has departed from us!" And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, for the children had made a sacred vow among themselves to always follow the Mommy wherever she went.

And in fulfillment of their sacred vow, the children cried out and began to seek after the Mommy, calling her name and pleading with her to return to her people. And lo, the children discovered the secret Hiding Place of the Mommy, and while she was seated upon her throne, the children did bang upon the door, and beg her to return unto them and save them from themselves (and could she please also give them some crackers and juice, for assuredly they were dying of hunger.)

And when the Mommy ignored the cries of her children in the vain hope that they would go away, some of the children did stick their hands under the door of the Hiding Place and waggle their fingers in order to gain the favorable attention of the Mommy. But the Mommy gave no heed to their gestures of adoration and supplication.

But wiggling THIS finger under the door will assuredly get the Mommy's attention...
though not the way you want.

*And when the children grew tired of the Mommy ignoring their cries, they said to themselves, "Behold, perhaps the Mommy has fallen asleep or gone on a journey far away! Come, let us go explore and get into all of those things which the Mommy has forbidden, for surely she is not here to stop us!" So the children ceased their entreaties and departed from the entrance to the Hiding Place.
And when the Mommy heard that the wailing of the children had been replaced with Prolonged Silence, she immediately came forth from the Hiding Place, and found that the children had been Investigating and making Mischief in her absence.*

And when the Mommy saw the destruction wrought by the children, she was full of anger and exiled the children to their rooms until supper. And though the children were grieved at their banishment, they rejoiced in their hearts, for they had held true to their sacred vow to follow the Mommy all the hours of the day. And though the Mommy was upset at the mess that needed to be cleaned up, she rejoiced in her heart, for the children were finally out of her way and she had peace at last.

-First SomeAntics 2:23-35

*- some manuscripts of the text have an alternate version of this section:
"But being undeterred from their sacred vow, the children did raise their voices louder unto the Heavens and began to fight amongst themselves, each striving to be heard over the other, so that the Mommy did finally emerge from the Secret Place and come forth again to her children."

Image credits: thebasicbathroom.com; salon.com;

The Necessity of Maintaining Kid-Free Friendships

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:55:00 -0400

Moms are a lot like soldiers: besides the obvious parallels of fighting battles on a variety of fronts, there is a camaraderie of having shared experiences. If you've ever sat around and listened to a couple of soldiers swapping stories, it's pretty much the same kind of thing with moms, except the topics include teething, feeding schedules, childhood sicknesses, potty-training woes, struggles at school, and pre-teen moodiness.

"Oh God, I'm feeling another 'Nam flashback coming on!"

This Fraternity (or rather Maternity) of Mothers can be a very good thing; it reminds us that we're not alone, and we're not as insane as we think we are. When a woman has a kid, she becomes a part of this "Maternity Fraternity", and gains a whole new circle of friends. And for a mom, that's a good and necessary thing; we can support each other, share helpful suggestions and advice, laugh, and swap stories together.

"Wherever two or more mothers are gathered together, the topic of children shall appear in the midst of them.
And yea verily, tales of poo and snotty noses doth follow soon behind."
--Maternations 1:23-4, from the sacred book of the Parentateuch

However, in joining this new social circle, "pre-kid" friendships often deteriorate, especially if those friends don't have kids of their own. It's easy to see why it happens: as a new parent, you are overwhelmed with all the responsibilities of caring for someone that's completely dependent on you for absolutely everything. When the dust from your social calendar finally starts to settle (anywhere from 3-9 months later), you've had all the upheaval of starting a new job combined with the drama of entering new relationship... which is pretty much what happens when you have a kid. And what happens when you start a new job or begin a new relationship?

Well... yes. But in this case, no. Definitely no.

You talk about it with your girlfriends.

But after such a HUGE change in your life, it's very easy to unwittingly dominate nearly every conversation with mommy and/or baby stuff. Not only that, but you've entered into territory that your kid-free friends can't relate to. And while they listen and do their best to empathize, the truth is that they're not part of the "Maternity Fraternity". It's easy for a mom to think that those friends can't offer much in the way of support; likewise, I think a lot of those friends are at a loss as to what they can do to help a close friend who's had a kid.

So, as a mom, what exactly CAN your kid-free friends offer you?

One of the best things my friends did for me was to give me a kid-free zone, a place where I could talk about anything but kids. And that was SO liberating! Here was a place where I could have adult conversation and talk about books, movies, video games, world events, science-y things... all the things we used to talk about before I had kids.
Specifically because those friends didn't have kids, there was no danger that the conversation would devolve into talk of diapers, spit-up, or sleeping schedules. Spending time with those friends was a vital and necessary reminder that, although things had changed and I was now a parent, I was still the same weird, outgoing, nerdy, off-color person I'd been before.

Pictured: weird, outgoing, nerdy, and very off-color. But definitely not me.
(Although I do have a Nintendo controller belt buckle.*)

But of course, part of this is that I had to check myself so I didn't dominate the conversation by talking about my kid(s). Yeah sure, I would always have a few funny stories to share, but I was always sure to steer clear of topics that were TMI or gross. (Some things that are perfectly normal topics in the Maternity Fraternity are not acceptable topics for general conversation.)
No joke, when I was pregnant with V.2.1, I specifically told all my kid-free friends that if I ever got to the point where I wouldn't stop talking about baby stuff, they could give me one warning, and if I still didn't stop, they had my permission to slap me.

The other thing I had to try to remember when I was hanging out with my friends was to ask them what was going on in THEIR lives. It may sound dumb that I had to make a conscious effort to remember that, but a major life change can easily dominate your perspective; there were times when I would think, "Okay, how long have I been talking about my kid? They don't seem to mind, but I've been talking about me or my kid for 20 minutes. Have I asked So-and-so what she's been up to? I don't think so. I should probably do that now..."

Friendship is a two-way street, and just because you become a mom does not mean that your pre-kid or kid-free friendships will fade away. Quite the contrary, they become even MORE necessary, because they can offer support that's just as essential as that offered by other mothers; yeah, it's a different kind of support, but it's no less important. So don't forget to contact those friends and ask to get together; yeah, you may not be able to hang out as often as you did before, but don't let those friendships die, because they still can have a lot to offer.

Extra big thanks to Jess, Tom, Monna, Chris, and SJ for being those friends for me; you guys were (and still are) awesome!

*- no joke, I really do have the same buckle Howard wears in some episodes. Fortunately, I never wear it with skinny jeans and a turtleneck.

image credits: multiplemayhemmomma.com; theincredibleandy.deviantart.com; narconon.org; thebigbangtheoryfansite.com

Sleep Deprivation: Be Honest, It's 25% Kids, 75% ME

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:16:00 -0400

So, I had the brilliant idea to have a sleepover last night. It wasn't necessarily a bad idea, as it was just two siblings who are a few months older than my two kids; the kids all get along well together and we've had them over before, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been, considering I was dealing with two preschoolers and two toddlers all by myself. (My husband works 3rd shift.)

When you went to sleepovers, camp-outs, or lock-ins, did you ever have that one kid who would always try to stay awake long after everyone else had already gone to sleep? Yeah, well, I was that kid... and my boys are following in my footsteps. I did everything I could to tire out four little boys, including pulling all the cushions and pillows off the couch so I could introduce the Younglings to the wonderful game of "The Floor Is Burning Lava".

At about 10:15pm the Guest Children were asleep. My kids, like ADD meerkats on a sugar binge, stayed awake until sometime between midnight and 1... only to wake up again around 4am. It is currently 6:50am as I type this, and my oldest is STILL. AWAKE. (Follow-up: he didn't go to sleep until after 10:00am.)

As I lay in my bed in the wee hours of this morning (sometime approximately between WTF-o'clock and FML:30) hoping in vain that the unsuccessfully-furtive sounds I heard via the baby monitor would eventually stop, I did the usual "I miss those days when I actually got sleep... you know, before I had kids" grumbling that sleep-deprived parents always say when their kids won't go the hell to sleep.

"Ask me for another glass of water! Ask me again! I DARE you! I double-dog dare you, muthafuggah!"

Then I suddenly realized... my bitching was complete bullshit. The truth was that I used to keep myself awake just as much --if not more-- long before the kids came along:

- "Aw darn, it's almost midnight; I need to get to bed so I can get up for work in the morning. I better do this last quest so I can level up my Wood Elf character in Morrowind before I finish." Forty-five minutes later: "Oh, now that I've leveled up, I can get that enchanted Daedric sword! But first, I need to sell a bunch of loot before I can buy it..."

- "Just one more episode of Dr. Who/Dexter/Entourage/Star Trek TNG!"

- "I'll put down this Game of Thrones book as soon as I finish this chapter." Thirty minutes later: "I can't stop NOW! I've got to find out what happens next!"

Spoiler: lots of people die, then there's a dozen pages describing food at a feast...

- "Let's see what my friends are doing on Facebook."

- "This blog post will just take a few minutes..."

Okay, thirty minutes, TOPS.

As easy as it is for parents to blame sleep deprivation on our kids, it's a lot like blaming a bad fart on your pet: yeah, sometimes the dog really is to blame, but most of the time, you really shouldn't have had Taco Bell before bed. Taking care of kids takes a HUGE amount of time, and so to compensate for it, we binge-watch Netflix, or mindlessly wander around Reddit or FB for hours, or go on a video game bender.

Why do we do those things when we could be sleeping (especially since we usually do this while the kids are actually sleeping)? Because we want to zone out or have our "adult" time when we can do what WE want in peace and quiet. When V.2.1 was born, just about every other parent said, "Be sure you sleep when the baby does, otherwise you won't get any sleep at all!" While that's great in theory, the reality is that when the baby was asleep, half the time I wanted to sit and watch a few shows on Netflix or play Xbox or whatever.

Sleep vs. video games/tv/books/Internet? It's a toss-up, even when you DON'T have kids.

And then when you have kids, Murphy's Law kicks in with a vengeance. Say you make dumb decisions Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, and stay up late wasting time. You don't get as much sleep as you should, but you can function okay. Then Thursday night you go to bed early... only to have your kid decide to stay up until 2am.

"U mad, Mom?"

So whose fault is it when you can barely get through Friday without an intravenous coffee drip? Yeah, the kid kept you up last night, but your body's feeling the cumulative effects of three nights of YOUR bad judgement. And all too often, we (and by that I mean ME*) end up taking our fatigued frustration out on the kids and blame them for the fact that we can't (or more likely won't) go to bed at an intelligent time.

I'll be honest and call a spade a shovel: I have no right to get upset at my kids for waking me up after I had 2 hours of sleep last night, because the truth is I'm the dumbass who stayed up til 2am wasting time on stupid stuff.

I'm also the dumbass who needs to stop writing on her blog and go to bed, considering the kids are FINALLY asleep.

*- or I, for the Proper Grammar Patrol out there

Image credits:http://media.avclub.com; underthebutton.com; sunsetstation.sclv.com

Interrogation Dining Room

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:02:00 -0400

A table with two chairs sits in the middle of a sparse room; a single light above illuminates a small circle of light directly in the center of the table. A young man enters the room and sits in a chair. A tall figure enters and stands across the table from him; the figure is mostly hidden in the shadow outside the circle of light, and has an imposing, slightly menacing air about them.

With a smooth motion, the Tall One pushes a plastic bowl into the middle of the table. "Time for supper!" a female voice says, sounding upbeat.

The young man pushes the bowl away. "No."

"But it's pasta!" the woman replies encouragingly. "You like pasta!"

"No. It's yucky. I don't like it."

The woman leans into the circle of light, putting her hands on the table, and says in a low voice, "How do you know it's yucky if you haven't even tasted it yet?"

"I've happily eaten pasta every other time you've made it, therefore it's now yucky and I hate it. DUH!"

Evading the logic of his opponent, the young man retorts, "I don't want it. I want a sandwich."

"We've been through this already. I made you a sandwich yesterday, and you pulled this exact same stunt. So, no. No sandwich."

The young man crosses his arms and leans back in the chair, indicating the unsavory dish with a toss of his chin. "You can't make me eat this; I know my rights. I want dessert."

The woman laughs and steps back, circling the table. "Oh no, that's not how this works. First you eat your supper, then you get dessert."

"I want dessert!"

"Supper."

In a burst of anger, the young man slams his hands on the table. "You can't do this to me! I'm hungry! I have rights, you know!"

"And getting dessert whenever you want it is not one of them."

My mental image of a dinnertime show-down with my kid. I'm Batman, of course. I'm always Batman.

The young man's eyes narrow and his jaw sets in resolve. "I'm not going to give in to your demands. I don't have to eat this." He pushes his chair back. "I'm finished here."

The woman raises an eyebrow, then shrugs. "Fine, have it your way." She removes the bowl from the table.

There's a brief pause, then the young man says quietly, "May I please be excused?"

The woman nods, and flicks a switch on the wall. Lights come on, revealing the surrounding dining room. Gesturing to the open doorway, she says simply, "Go."

The young man quickly leaves, a triumphant smile on his face at having successfully escaped a potentially harrowing ordeal.

With a smirk, the woman enters the kitchen, unperturbed, because she knows he will eat it eventually. She puts a plastic lid on the bowl, writes the word Breakfast on it, and places the dish in the refrigerator.

He always eats it in the end.

Image credits: thefeedingdoctor.com; rottentomatoes.com

Compromises: My F*cking Language

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:41:00 -0400

I'll say it now: I like cussing. I saw a bumper sticker that said "Everything is funnier with the word 'fuck' in it", and I'm inclined to agree with that statement. Many words are improved with the addition of some slang fornication thrown in there. (And as Mythbusters showed, cussing an be a helpful stress reliever!)

But when you have little kids, having a recreational cussing habit becomes as problematic as a roomful of over-caffeinated parrots with Tourette's: they loudly and continually repeat everything they hear, and they have absolutely NO discretion.

"Hey. Hey! HEEEYYYY! Guess what?! Mommy got stuck in traffic and I learned a BUNCH of new words!"

So when I first found out I was pregnant with v.2.1, I immediately began working on editing my very adult vocabulary, and began creating "substitute words" to take the place of my preferred verbiage. Nowadays, around my kids, my frustrated outbursts consist of exclamations of "son of a birch!", "fudgeballs", "criminey", "geez louise", and "aw, shi-- I mean... oh nuts!". (I never got around to coming up with a good substitute for "shit"; someone suggested "sugar", but my brain never quite gets it to my mouth fast enough.)

Yeah, they're stupid. They're cheesy. They sound like something a bunch of goody-two-shoes kids at a Bible camp would say, instead of an adult with an affinity for George Carlin's humor. And when the preschooler deliberately wakes up the soundly sleeping baby from a nap (again), I have to exercise some massive self-control and refrain from bursting into the room and yelling, "Dude, what the FUCK?!"

Why is it such a big deal to me to watch my language around my kids? It's not because I think cuss words are "bad". In truth, cuss words aren't bad in and of themselves, they are merely words, and words are neutral things. It's how you put them together in a certain context that can make them good or bad.

What it really comes down to is respect for other people. As an adult, I know who I can and can't cuss around, and when it is and isn't appropriate. Unfortunately, my little caffeinated-Tourette-parrots are too young to understand either of those; as a parent, it's my responsibility to teach that to them.

Example: NOT okay to cuss around (but if Granny hits the bourbon, you'll probably learn some new words.)

Simply saying, "Don't say that!" doesn't teach them anything except "say those words when Mom and Dad aren't around". But if I explain what words mean (their definitions, connotations, and implications) then my kids will have something more powerful... a real understanding of the power of words.
Some of the most hurtful things don't involve a single word of cussing, blasphemy, profanity, or swearing; rather, it's usually when normally-innocuous individual words are combined to make hurtful sentences spoken in anger or pain: You're fat. You're ugly. I wish you'd never been born. I don't love you. You're stupid.

See? No cussing! But still hurtful.

I want to teach my children that words themselves are incredibly powerful, and that certain categories of words (in this case, cuss words) need to be used more responsibly out of respect for other people, because they're more inflammatory. I'm willing to compromise by NOT cussing around my kids for the next several years, if it means that I can use that time to teach them a.) words have meaning, and b.) you need to try to be respectful of other people when you talk.

So, that means for now --while my impressionable little Tourette-parrots are young-- I'll have to keep saying "Boogers!" when I stub my toe, or yell "Watch where you're going, you stupid politician*!" when someone cuts me off in traffic. But I know there will come a time when my kids will be old enough to be allowed to cuss around me, and I'll be free to cuss around them.

And when that time comes, I'll be so fucking happy!

*- my brothers and I developed an elaborate set of insults when we were kids. We considered "stupidhead" and "butt monkey" to be too juvenile, so we resorted to calling each other: lawyer, politician, news reporter, Barney the Purple Dinosaur (if you really wanted to get personal), chemistry teacher, used car salesman, etc.

Image credits: parrot (everywhere on the Internet); karinintex.blogspot.com; coolcostume.com; jamieonline.wordpress.com

Sometimes It Skips a Generation (or just comes out of nowhere)

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Fri, 8 Mar 2013 00:18:00 -0500

Although I've considered myself more of a biker (I could do some pretty decent tricks on my bike as a kid, especially considering it was a pink-and-purple rainbow girl's bike with round handlebars and a banana seat [I took the pink pompoms off the handlebars as soon as I could, because they were obnoxious and kept interfering with my grip]), I really dig skateboarding. While I liked watching other kids skate, I didn't really any skaters in our suburban/semi-rural neighborhoods, so beyond the occasional skating video or showcases on ESPN, I didn't have a ton of exposure to it. And although it was not something I ever learned how to do, skateboarding was something I enjoyed vicariously for most of my adolescence and college years.

Now, it's resurfaced.

I think it started about two months ago, when I took V.2.1 to the park; it's one of the bigger parks in town, and has a good-sized skate park in it. Although he'd been there once or twice already, something about the skatepark there called to him. After playing on the playground for about 10 minutes, he wandered over to the low chain-link fence around the skating area, and watched transfixed as kids, teens, and adults whizzed by on these strange-yet-entrancing boards with wheels on the bottom.

At first, he asked to hold a kid's board. Then another time, he tried to walk off with someone's board. (He's only 3, so the skaters are nice and don't have a problem letting a cute little kid hold their board. More fools they!) He's since repeated this little stunt every time he sees skaters, so we've learned to watch him like a hawk and make sure he doesn't get more than 3 feet away from the owner.

At home a few weeks ago, out of the blue, he asked for a skateboard. I told him we could add it to his Birthday Wishlist. A few days after THAT, he asked to watch skateboarding on TV. He sat and watched 30 minutes of ESPN's coverage of X-Games 17 Street Board Competition on YouTube.

a.k.a. "Intro to Physics 101, Lesson 1: How to Defy Gravity."

Tonight at the mall, he asked to see the skateboards. How the hell did he even KNOW there was a skate shop in the mall?! I took him in, and he checked out all the equipment; he looked at the boards and the wheels and the trucks. I mean really looked at them, not just "oh look, bright colored stuff!". He examined the items like a neophyte looking at the Shroud of Turin: he didn't know exactly what they were, but he knew they were an important part of this much-sought-after Skateboard.

"These objects are the holy relics of St. Spitfire,
patron saint of wheels."

"And these canvas items are an offering to St. Vans,
overpriced guardian of the feet."

He even asked to handle some of the boards that were on display (which the guy was nice enough to let him do... considering they were each over $100!) He was very gentle with each one, rolling it back and forth carefully, studying it intently. When I told him it was time to leave, he cried... hard. I actually had to call my husband at work so V.2.1 could ask him "May I please have skateboard for on my Birthday List, please?" [direct quote]. My husband said he'd think about it.

Our son's 4th birthday is in about 3 weeks.

We ordered him a skateboard set (complete with a helmet, pads, and guards) earlier this week; it arrived in the mail this afternoon.

I cannot WAIT to see his face on his birthday! :D

Image credits: rittenhoused.com; cosmicrocks.com (Spitfire and Vans)

My Biggest Fear as a New Mom

noreply@blogger.com (Kari) — Mon, 4 Mar 2013 11:37:00 -0500

When I was pregnant with Kid #1, I had a giant, unspoken fear lurking in my subconscious. As the pregnancy progressed, that fear got bigger, and after v.2.1* was born, it was almost overwhelming.

What was I so afraid of? Health concerns? Financial difficulties? Inability to cope?

Nope.
I was afraid that I was going to stop being myself and would become a MOM.

I'm sure you've known women like that. They have email addresses like 'briannahsmommy28@mommail.com', most of their posts on Facebook center around their kids (often sharing TMI about diaper issues and spit-up), they have all kinds of books and magazines about being a parent and doing parent-y things, and if you try to spend adult time with them, you feel like they're constantly talking about their kids.

Now don't get me wrong, while the kid is a baby, the fact that they're so completely dependent on you means that, for several months, most of your time will be spent taking care of said child. That's all well and good. But when I say MOMs, I'm talking about the women whose entire identity centers around the fact that they've had a child. I was terrified that I was going to become like that.

"I used to collect books; now I collect the latest baby accessories. Oohhh look... another nursing pillow!"

At the time, I was involved with the youth group at our church, and I LOVED playing with the teenagers; I'd played Ultimate Frisbee with them when I was 3 months pregnant, and was still running/waddling around playing Freeze-Tag-In-the-Dark at 8.5 months. I was upset at the prospect that I might not be able to do that or hang out with my girlfriends anymore because I'd had a kid.

I was talking about this one night with my husband, sharing my fear that I was going to stop being the weird, impulsive, outgoing, tomboyish extrovert that I was, and that I would become a MOM. He asked two very simple questions that had, strangely enough, never occurred to me before:
"What has changed about you from before you had the baby?"
"Nothing really. I mean, I still have the same interests and things."
"Okay. You said you don't know how to be a 'Mom'; what do you know how to be?"
"Me."
"Okay... then just be you... with a baby."

And right there, my fears evaporated.
I'd never thought of it like that. Here, I was viewing motherhood as some giant role-changing threshold that was going to forcibly change everything about who I was; but in truth, it wasn't re-making my identity... motherhood was simply adding on another aspect of who I was.
Yeah, I knew that having a kid meant that I had some restrictions: I had to plan things around the baby, and I wouldn't be able to do some things until the baby got quite a bit older. But by and large, I could incorporate my new role with who I was.

Kinda like this, but not exactly what I had in mind.

One of my girlfriends had a sleepover when her husband went out of town on a business trip; I brought along v.2.1 and had a blast. When I chaperoned an overnight youth lock-in at our church, and again at a weekend-long youth retreat, I brought the baby along too. Yeah, I couldn't go to Ultimate Frisbee on Friday nights anymore (don't get me wrong, it's fun, but not so much fun I'd pay a babysitter to go play), but I was nowhere near as restricted as I thought I would be.

And that's the encouragement I'd give to new or prospective moms: don't try to be a MOM... just be yourself... with a baby.

*- I like to refer to my kids in computer software-speak. My husband and I are v.1.1 and v.1.2, respectively, so our kids are v.2.1 and 2.2.

image credits: nurturecenter.com, climb-va.com