Pacify This

Parenting is hard.  There I said it.  Somebody has to.


I have recently come to the conclusion that, just like life in general, parenting comes in seasons.  This is the part that is not usually mentioned to brand spankin' new mommies and daddies in any of those parenting books and for good reason.  The hard and fast truth is that as difficult as labor is, it will by far be the easiest part of your parenting experience.  Sorry.


Ahhh...the baby season.  This is when you are most concerned with just getting used to the idea of being a parent.  The newborn comes home, the diapers come out and all track of day and night is lost.  You jump at the slightest whimper and change the grossest of diapers like a champ.  You beam in public when anyone notices your precious new addition to humankind.  You gaze at this new person and wonder how on earth you ever got by without them?  They are perfect and no other baby has ever been as perfect.  You have fallen in love as it should be.


All too quickly the baby bliss is replaced by a "real" person who screams and stomps feet and frequently disagrees with what you believe to be best.  This is when the dreamy baby bubble pictured throughout the entire nine months is popped with that all-too-sharp reality pin.


Babies grow up into people who don't wear diapers anymore folks. People with opinions.  People who will not always seem as adorable as they once did.  People who do not look as adorably at you anymore.  Where are the Pinterest boards with ideas for this I ask, hmmm??


The thing with parenting is someday that adorable cooing chubby cheeked diapered baby may break your heart.  It's a shocker, I know.


Get ready 'cause they grow up into bigger real people and start making their own decisions. Decisions that cannot be pacified with a cookie or a hug.  Get ready because sometimes those decisions are landmines that are just about to be pounced on and no amount of experienced warning on your part is going to stop the momentum of their steps.  As far as I know Amazon does not offer a publication entitled, "What to Expect When You're Expecting a Nervous Breakdown Due to Your Grown Children's Lack of Judgment".  I know, I've looked.


Here's the deal though.  No matter what they do wrong or the disappointment you may feel, you still love them.  How can you not? Their presence has made its imprint long ago and the impression on a parents heart is lasting.  Here's hoping to a lasting impression on their heart as well.

Gettin' Our Culture On

My family lives within driving proximity to some wonderful cultural resources, which sometimes surprises those not from Fort Worth.  Most consider my hometown similarly to the way Daddy Owl did before he made the journey many years ago from New York.  He just assumed we all rode horses, roped cattle and lived on ranches.  I told him uhhh...no.  That is about as true as everyone in Texas thinking all New Yorkers are rude, talk funny and have ties to the Mafia.  Stereotype much?

I've never been on a horse.  I was kicked by one once as a child and the closest I've ever been to a ranch is when we did the tourist drive-by of Southfork Ranch (yes, it really does exist) during the filming of Dallas back in the day.


Anyhoo y'all, one of the cultural resources is the Kimbell Art Museum which is just one of a group of three museums located together within the cultural district.  The other two are the Modern Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum.


A cool exhibit making its way around the globe, The Age of Impressionism Great French Paintings from the Clark,  has been visiting the Kimbell since March and I've REALLY wanted to see it before it departs our fair city.  When am I ever going to have the opportunity to stand at least twelve inches away, and not one inch closer,  from an original Renoir, Monet or Degas?  In case you are wondering, twelve inches is the museum's rule.  Oh, and no flash photography but you can sketch if you want.


The way I see it, I must go while the going is good.   I figure I have a greater probability in my lifetime of standing in front of one of the Kardashians than I do of standing in front of one these fine paintings again.  I would definitely not want to sketch the Kardashians.  I might however want to poke Kim with a very sharp sketching pencil.  Oh yes, pointing at the fine paintings with very sharp pencils while sketching is also against the rules.  So many rules, so little time.


I desire my children to be cultured.  No, not for strep, but in the arts (much to Baby Chick's chagrin, the Sponge Bob song does not count).  Because of this great desire of mine, and because it was half-price admission day, I decided to take my eight year old boy-child to view some of the greatest works of art that he will ever see.  Keep in mind however he is eight.  This will be important later.


He is the artist in the family.  He says he wants to be an artist for his job some day.  I'm thinking architect, graphic artist, etc.  He's thinking he can just draw Sponge Bob pictures and sell them which would then make him what some consider to be a "starving" artist.  It is every mothers dream for her child to choose a profession in which the word starving is part of the title.


His drawings are actually quite impressive with their sense of detail, shading and perception.  This is not bragging on my part, just documented fact.  He did, after all, recently win a 2nd grade art award so that actually makes him an "award winning" artist right?!


So back to the museum, I picture in my brain an afternoon of art appreciation with my youngest boy-child quietly strolling the museum with him asking thoughtful  pertinent artistic questions and me answering him with knowledgeable thoughtful artistic answers.  Yeah...didn't actually happen quite that way.


Five minutes after arriving:


Boy Child:  "I'm bored.  I'm hungry. I'm thirsty.  Can we leave?"


Me:  "We just got here!  How can you be hungry?  We had lunch thirty minutes ago.  Look at this Renoir artistic Boy-Child.  See the colors he used?  Look at the detail."


Ten minutes after arriving:


I spot Renoir's Blonde Bather but not before Boy Child also spots the nude and gives me a big-eyed quizzical look.  I quickly avert his eyes 'cause I really don't want to explain why famous artists like to paint naked people.


Twenty minutes after arriving:


Boy-Child:  "When are we going to see one that I know?"


Me:  You are eight.  You do not know about any paintings.


Boy-Child:  Where is Starry Night?  I want to see Starry Night."


Me:  "You silly Boy-Child.  Not all paintings are at this particular museum.  That one is not here.  It is at a different museum."


Boy-Child:  "WHAT???!!!  I thought I was going to see Starry Night.  My feet hurt.  I'm bored.  I'm hungry.  I'm thirsty.  Can I buy something?"


Me looking around for anything at all that might peak his interest before the total meltdown of the universe happens:  "Look.  This one has a bullfighter in it."


Boy-Child:  "Uh Huh.   Can I sit down?  My feet hurt."  He makes a bee line for the first available bench next to another apparent elderly person also resting his feet.  


Me:  "How can your feet hurt???  You are eight years old and you are wearing wearing flip-flops.  See that silver haired lady over there blocking the descriptive panel again?  She's like 90 wearing four-inch heels and her feet do not hurt.  In fact, I think she may have actually run circles around us over at the ballerina painting."

Boy-Child:  "Can we go now?  I'm bored."


Me:  "I paid good money for us to be here and we are going to appreciate this art until we get our moneys worth, so come over here and appreciate something.  Look, those children are appreciating stuff."


Oy Vey.  

Robin on the Roof

Being able to buy music from your phone while lounging around in your comfy pants after dinner can be dangerous for your bank account.  I realized that last night, thirty minutes into my I-Tunes download frenzy.  As my lyrical fog lifted and I slowly returned to stone-cold reality, the thought crossed my mind that I had no idea how many tunes were just purchased and/or how much money I had just spent.  Those darn songs are just like potato chips, M&Ms, or Kardashian jokes.  One will never ever in this lifetime be enough.  Ever.
  
I found some good ones though so at least I'll have some decent tunes to listen to while I sit in debtors prison.  Is there really a debtors prison?  My dad always said there was, but I digress.


Anyway, I found the song.  You know what I mean.  The song that makes you sit up straight while lounging in your comfy pants and hit the green "buy" square before you realize what you've done.  The song that speaks to your heart and has absolutely nothing to do with pumped up kicks, wanting to be my boyfriend, or (feat.) people I've never heard of.


I'm talking about the Avett Brothers and their "Head Full of Doubt / Road Full of Promise".  All the taste with none of the fat.


The lyrics are simple and speak to common sense, something that seems to be in short supply today.  Humans are funny that way, wanting to mess up things that are really clear cut.  We don't want things to be clear because our conscious would then require us to do the right thing and so we muddy our brains and blame our inability to act on politicians, red tape, global warming, the economy, the Kardashians, virtually anything that we think will provide a way out.


One line of the song resonated with me:

"Decide what to be and go be it"

See this woman?  Her name is Robin.  I don't even think I know her last name. What I do know about her is that she is a nurse who three years ago decided "what to be and go be it".  She picks a Friday in June, climbs up on the roof of our local church and won't come down until 50,000 pounds of food are collected that go directly to supply many of our local food banks.  She climbed up there again this morning at 9:00 AM.


No one asked her to do it.  She simply saw a need, felt the call and did it.  By the way, she met her goals for the last two years.  Do you have any idea how hot it gets in Texas in June?  Several days of 95 degrees plus?  See, there I go muddying things up again.


The picture above was one I took while chatting with her last year while standing on a ladder so I could see her better.  She is a remarkable woman.


You can read more about her here Robin on the Roof and if you feel so inclined you can even donate online toward her cause.  Each dollar buys one pound of food.