Guest Post: Charles de la Puss

(cross-posted from Charlie's catster page: http://www.catster.com/cats/270662)

I have purr-suaded The Woman to help me type this entry- it's the LEAST she could do after so many months of blatant neglect. OK, TECHNICALLY the least she could do would be nothing, but she would pay dearly for that in the form on even more ignoring than she usually gets, and perhaps Gus' hairballs redirected into her shoes. Am also planning on forcing her to post this message to her own blob so that person who reads it (whoever that fool is!) will know that SHE IS NEGLECTING THE CREATIVE EXPRESSION OF A POOR, POOR PUSS.

Anyways, things are purrty good other than that. We live in something called a "Noova Skoosha" now. It was cold when we moved here, and then it was snowy for a long time, but at least we have nice, big windows to look out of. I was excited to learn that we were going to have a "back duck"- turns out a "deck" is not the same thing, but sometimes there are FRIKKIN' HUGE black birds out there, anyway. Also teeny brown ones on the feeder.

Gus and go outside now sometimes. At first I was scared to leave the "deck", but now I prowl through the grass and stalk birds. I have to say, there's a world of difference between mice and birds! I'm a champion mouser, but I haven't yet been able to present a dead birdie to The Man to gain his favour. The grass is getting long out there, though, and I often have to *boing-boing-boing* over it when it tickles my belly. Then The People all laugh at me.

The Man now wears funny clothes to Work and drives a strange car when he goes there. Also, he has a gun, so I tend to keep my mouth shut when he's going to Work. Otherwise, I'm pretty much still all over him, but he claims he does not love me, and that I am "dead to him". BUT there was this one time when I was being really "pathetic" (HIS word, not mine!) and rubbing on the coffee table, and he scooped me onto the couch and rubbed my belly. HEAVEN!

The Childrens are getting bigger. I don't see them a lot during the day, since I've pretty much claimed the basement as my terror-tory, but The Baby is now walking, and he chases Gus around sometimes to hug him and/or bite his tail. Litttle freak.

I have to go nap now- WHAT, Woman? She gives me the dirtiest looks when I'm napping... or contemplating napping... she also gets mad when I wake her up at 4 in the morning, when I say, "YOOOOOWLLLL?"People are SO weird.I am considering highjacking her blob on a weekly basis. This would approximately triple "her" frequency of posting. I'm a better writer than she is, anyway.

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WOMN! ware are yoo goign!? git bak here and tipe fur me, dammit!1

o darn.

Poor Baby!

My poor little Ike's got a sick tummy. I don't think it's the flu- he's not acting sick otherwise. What he's doing is making other people sick when they have to change his diapers. Good LORD, that's some nasty stuff! If they could mass-produce it, it would be the ultimate biological weapon. I don't know what this child ate to bring the wrath of the gods of indigestion down upon our heads (not literally, thank God!), but I hope he never finds it again.

Along with this (and definitely related), he's got a wicked diaper rash. Actually, it's a butt-rash- his diapers seem perfectly comfortable and rash-free. Every time I change Ike's diaper, Simon's standing there* going, "Oooooh- Ike's got RED on hims bum!" What started out as very localized rashiness has spread to a butt-wide redness, like his little arse is horribly embarrassed about the hazardous wate it's producing on such a regular basis.

At least he's happy- this would be a lot harder to deal with if he had a fever, etc. to deal with at the same time. Poor li'l gaffer!


*Simon is our self-appointed diaper inspector.

Taking the Plunge

Have I ever mentioned that I hate making decisions? It's bad enough when I have to decide what to have for suppers next week and all the input I get is, "Doesn't matter- whatever" and "Kwaf' Dinner... an' CHOKWIT!"

Big decisions are worse.

I told AJ a while ago that when he got his raise (whick takes 6-8 weeks to process and is then paid retroactively, resulting in one pretty nice paycheque), he could get a new TV. A bigger TV. He's worked unbelievably hard this past year, and it's not often that we can afford a big "treat,"so there you have it. A co-worker of his is moving in a few months, and we've agreed to give his TV a good home. It's a good deal- perfect condition, a lot less money than he paid for it a few years ago, surround sound, nice TV stand, DVD player...

And a 61" screen.

I'm having trouble picturing that. All I know is that it's one big-ass TV, and that Simon's little head might explode the first time he watches "Cars" or "Superman" on that thing.

It's a lot of money- more than we've spent on a single item at one time before. There are other things we could use that money for... paying off debts, getting the car re-painted, the million-and-a-half little things we've been waiting on, putting off until we have the money... but this one time, I'm telling him to go ahead and spend the money on himself. That's the decision we've made.

God save my living room!

New Blog

Not mine- this is a good one. If you're in the market for baby/kid gear and are looking for reviews from a mom (especially one who's not getting paid for said reviews), check out Opinionated, Baby. Oh, and Hayley's in Canada, so there won't be a lot of really great-looking stuff that you can only get in the States.

I suspect that there will be many entries about the amazing hand-made baby clothes, toys, bath products and diapers available at Etsy... just a hunch.

Baby stuff that's actually useful. Go figure.

THE HORROR!!!

Uuuuugh- I can't stop with the shuddering. I've got the willies. The heebie-jeebies, if you will.



There are june bugs biuncing off my living room window. For those of you who are blessedly unfamiliar with this creature from the depths of Hell, it's a large, brown beetle-type bug, approximately the size of your average Volkswagen (car, not SUV. That would be ridiculous). They usually come out at night... this would by why I'm IN at night these days. They fly through the air, though not with the greatest of ease- their big, non-aerodynamic bodies seem to bumble every which way, and the damn things WILL NOT STOP CRASHING INTO MY WINDOW.

Also, they crunch really loud when you step on them.

(thanks, insectphotos.net)

Here's the weird thing: I can handle most creepy-crawlies. Spiders? Don't mind 'em at all. Anything that eats mosquitos is fine by me*. Mice? Adorable, if possibly disease-ridden. Rats? Wouldn't want a sewer rat in my home, but I've had pet "fancy" rats before. Very sweet. Snakes aren't a problem- I usually try to catch them.

I don't know what it is about june bugs that is so horrible to me. Maybe the thought of them flying at me and getting caught in my hair... UGH! Regular beetles don't bug me (pun intended) at all.

My other arch-nemesis in the invertebrate world is, of course, the house centipede (or "gazillipede"). Freakishly disgusting. I freeze stiff if I see one.

Newfoundland has neither june bugs nor gazillipedes, as far as I can tell. I have a long list of reasons for wanting to move back there some day- this one's getting pretty high on the list.

*shudder*

*shudder again*

*Taquitos are good, too.

Benign Neglect

OK, let's finish this off- I've got other stuff to write about.

I was saying how it's hard not to be a "helicopter parent" these days. While in reality it's extremely unlikely that any one child is going to get abducted (and those who are will almost all be taken by someone known to the family, not "strangers"*), if you watch or read the news for any length of time, you'll become convinced that there are kidnappers around every corner and every babysitter's a child molester in disguise.

I don't want to live like that, and I don't want my kids to grow up being afraid of the world. I want them to know how to handle themselves in suspicious or scary situations, but I want them to enjoy this world that is overwhelmingly a good, safe place. I want them to know that it's never OK to go with someone without mommy or daddy's permission, but I want them to know that it's OK to respond to the young mother on the street who asks how old they are when we're out for a walk. I want them to be smart, not paranoid.

One of the difficulties of being a parent these days is facing the expectation that you'll spend every waking moment entertaining your child with "enriching" activities. That's not to say that I don't enjoy playing cars once in a while, or that I don't love a good story time; I just don't agree with the notion that my kids shouldn't be left to fend for themselves when it comes to play time.

Call it "benign neglect" or call it free-range parenting- what it comes down to is that I think kids today are missing out on a lot by not having the freedom that their parents and grandparents had. As much as I hated being bored as a kid, I now appreciate the fact that my mom didn't immediately jump in to intervene when it happened; being bored sparks creativity.

I love my children, and I want them to grow up to be confident and independent- something that a lot of "grown-ups" my generation and younger simply are not. I hope my boys will learn how to solve problems on their own, always knowing that their mom and dad will be there if they need us. Does that make sense?

Here's a website by "America's Worst Mom," Lenore Skenazy. Do you remember the outrage when she let her 9-year old son ride the subway alone and then wrote an article about it? No? Good story. Anyway, she's got a lot of information about what she calls "Free-Range Parenting"- giving kids freedom to be kids while still being a responsible parent (and taking care of kids while refusing to give in to the fear, uncertainty and doubt that plague our society). I'm definitely more cautious than she is; then again, my kids are a lot younger, too. Have a look, if you're interested: http://www.freerangekids.wordpress.com/.



*And they don't get much stranger than my family.

THAT E-Mail

Most of the stupid e-mail forwards I get I can just dismiss, but I usually check them out on snopes.com just to see what the facts really are (see: poisons in bottled water, toxic tampons, etc). Other times I'm just not sure; I know I won't be passing along any petitions, but I wonder if the cause or problem being petitioned is true (and current).

Then there are the ones I look up because I pray they're not true.

I got a forward of that last type a few years ago. I chose to think that the petition was a sick hoax- I don't think my brain could even process the idea that the story I'd read was true. So I looked it up... and it would appear that every horrible detail of the abduction and torture of a small boy was true- the only part that wasn't was the petition itself, which is outdated by years.

Here's the article- I'm not copying it to this post. Don't read it if you have kids... or go to malls... or have any remaining thoughts that "no one is truly evil."

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/bulger.asp

After reading this article, I was scared to let Simon out of my sight when we were out in public. Now, let's be clear on this: I knew that there wasn't a sociopath hiding around every corner for me to leave my innocent child unattended; I knew that the vast majority of people would never hurt him, and would be more willing to help a lost child than to hurt him. But it didn't matter. All I could feel, deep in some primitive part of my mommy-brain, was fear that this COULD happen. The chances might be one in millions, billions even- but it COULD happen. I just kept thinking about that poor little kid crying for his mommy... about the guilt that his poor mother shouldn't feel, but likely will until the day she dies... about how I wouldn't be able to live if the same thing happened to us... and about how suddenly the death penalty didn't seem so unreasonable in some cases.

I've actually had to train myself to not think about this story. I'm usually more of an optimistic type, but this story ripped into my heart to the point where the scars stood out for a long time. If I was lying in bed at night and I started to think about it, I had to say a quick prayer for the parents of this kid, and then pray for God to take the whole thing out of my mind. I had to teach myself to close those thoughts off in a concrete bunker in my mind, because I couldn't make them disappear.

It's funny- I have a terrible memory. Horrible. Can't remember my own cell phone number or new friends' names. But can I forget something when I want to? Nope.

This whole thing was obviously not good for me as a parent. Some people might think of this as a cautionary tale, one that will make parents think twice before letting their children out of their sight... I think that's a problem. I don't want to be a so-called "helicopter mom," hovering around my children day and night, protecting tham and solving all of their problems for them. There are too many people out there who want us to live in fear, either because it gets them ratings, it makes them money, or because they need everyone to be as scared as they are so they feel like they're right...

I'm not going to let them win.

More on that next time... for now, thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Anyone else out there had a similar experience? Am I nuts?