Jizo

Originally uploaded by rachepol

If you don't change direction, you'll end up where you're headed....

Lately I have been seeing children as timeless beings, already whole but focused on developing and blooming into maturity.

My husband is out of town, so the baby and I have been taking care of each other. Tonight, after K was done sitting at his new little eating table, I took my turn. He stood next to me and kept up a companionable interaction.

Suddenly, I aspirated a grain of rice, and coughed. For some reason, K is really perturbed by coughing. He can be in deep slumber, but if someone coughs, he jolts awake crying. Tonight, worry flashed across his face, and then an uncertain smile, in anticipation of my reassurance.

I patted my chest. "I'm fine, honey. Just a little rice."

He looked me in the eye, coughed twice, and patted my chest.

This sort of thing may be why I have the sense that there is considerable understanding residing in this tiny 9-month-old's baby mind.

This baby was really keen on saying "mamama" and "baba" (papa) two weeks ago. But now is only word is "ub" (up). He doesn't reach his arms up, or even use the ASL sign I've modeled every single time I pick him up. He just looks at you and says "ub" in a completely matter-of-fact tone. And sure enough, you pick him up!

He is an inveterate wiggler, and he doesn't like to hold still to have his diaper changed. But if you ask him to hold still, and then count to three, he holds still. Papa discovered this.

It was predicted from our horoscopes when the baby was born that he and I would be very much in synch with each other, and we are. Spending time together seems effortless this week. There's an easy harmony to our company. When things aren't going well--every once in a while I get bent out of shape--the baby gets cantankerous and his sleep goes all to hell.

The other day I was noticing the usual fantasies about doing something "real" and "important" with my life, maybe embarking on a career at last, or going back to school. As if I haven't had enough opportunity to learn that the conventional path isn't my natural course! But anyway, there I was, and I realized: if my son is going to be happy and peaceful, *I* need to be happy and peaceful. Maybe some moms can be stressed and wrestle with life and still have happy children, but that's not us.

I may go to school, or I may tutor again, or I may look into patent law. Or I may realize my dream of starting a book hand-bindery (really). I may stay home for years and homeschool my kids instead. Whatever I do, conflict-ridden, dysfunctional workplaces are not an option. A hectic pace of life that disrupts our ease is not an option. Knowing this is nice. I don't need a galaxy of options. I can only do one thing at a time. And I am doing the right thing for right now.

Whatever I do, one thing is certain: this little fellow will continue becoming who he is. I recognize his newborn self in the bigger baby. And someday I will recognize this charming, energetic, curious, sweetheart in the body of a grown man; I pray that day will come. Until then, we will turn our hearts ever in the right direction, and take it one step at a time.

Knowing and Not Knowing

My son has been busy lately reminding me how fruitless it is to broadcast one’s opinion to the marketplace. Actually, he’s just been busy fighting nap time. But it works out the same. I am feeling pretty humble on the whole topic of babies and sleep.
Ironically, I recently posted a summary of a popular baby-sleep book on my “public” parenting blog— a posting inevitably saturated with opinion. Ironically, right about the time of that self-assured post, the baby’s nap and bedtime behavior turned bizarre.

The reason for this deviation from his prior perfection is difficult to guess. The baby has been sick; he could certainly be growing; he could be teething; all these can affect sleep. Perhaps these darkest days of winter, and the once-in-thirty-year snowdrifts piled outside, have derailed his tiny circadian clock.

Speculation aside, the fact is, the baby has ceased to be a happy napper. He now goes limp, arches his back, and complains at the very mention of the word. (We would be be bragging about this feat of language recognition if the circumstances were more pleasing.) In the bedroom, he cries, nurses for a few moments, and then breaks free. He scoots off, yelling, to explore the closet or escape out the door. When he’s finally really tired, but not able to sleep, he bounces and hammers a tune with his arms in the darkness. Baffled, I hold him in the darkness and feel my illusions of mastery slip away.

Probably any experienced parent has felt this. You think you know how your kids work, and you're right--until you don’t, and you aren't. Certainly, my own nine months of parenting do not an expert make. A few more years of parenting will earn me little authority. Even parenting multiple children of one’s own doesn't necessarily render one an expert where other people’s progeny are concerned. Kids are just too impermanent for that.

But does that stop us from having an opinion? Heck, no. Opinions are far too delicious. And even experts are not immune. Judith Warner, a NY Times columnist, recently owned up to this humbled-but-wiser phenomenon.

I was puzzled that Warner’s book, “Perfect Madness,” could be so disagreeable, while her columns are wise and perceptive. “Perfect Madness” seems to be grounded in a resentment of the constellation of ways that mothers and children are psychologically twined together. Warner argues that a civilized society ought discourage excessive interdependence and promote some boundaries. In some cases I could see her point—all parents ought to have high-quality childcare as an option. But I actually do believe, based on my own experience, that a mother and a tiny baby are one being in two bodies. Without claiming to know much beyond that, I sense the book is coming from a starker place.

I truly object to Warner’s dismissal of the spiritual aspects of parenting in “Perfect Madness.” For many women, having a baby and a young child strips you of your pride, of your imagined competence, of your sense of controlling anything in life. In Buddhist terms, the experience destroys some of the central conceits of the Self. In birthing and caring for my little boy, I recognize the ardent selflessness of my past monastic life applied to a concrete and valuable cause. The experience may occasionally be devastating, but it’s also healthy, and it ripens a person.

The riddle—of how I could find myself in such opposition to an author whose columns I treasure—was solved in Warner’s latest piece for the NY Times:

I find myself these days, to a surprising degree, dealing with the problem of enmeshment. This surprises me because not so long ago I wrote a book that was largely a polemic against enmeshment: against the boundary collapsing that I think is the signature characteristic of motherhood (and parenthood) in our time.

How different I was back in the period that led up to the writing of “Perfect Madness”…. I choked on the proud effusions of identity dissolution….I despised the cliché 'you can only be as happy as your least happy child.' What drivel this was, I thought. What self-indulgence. Wasn’t it a parent’s responsibility to remain whole in the face of a child’s unhappiness, the better to buoy him or her through difficult times?

And yet, with time, only the philosophy stayed intact. Emotionally, the boundaries steadily dissolved.

None of us are who we once were. Life, and parenthood, aren’t done with us ‘till they’re done. The Mama trap here is not in the ideas, in their correctness or incorrectness; the trap is in the assumption that we have arrived at the answer—the golden answer to everything—that has somehow eluded every other parent. We’re so thrilled by our own insight that we are unable to imagine that it might belie an intermediate or incomplete understanding. Because we are human, and because parenthood the first time around is such a desperate search for mastery in a new and unpredictable realm, this mistake happens, again and again. We humans excel at making data out of a trend in our own subjective experience, and then gaily telling everyone about our grand discovery.

With increasing clout comes the potential for increasing embarrassment. Unlike Judith Warner, I don’t have the pleasure of seeing our ideas published in hardcover. But then again, I don’t have to face the fact that countless hard copies of my obsolete opinion continue to circulate. At least a blog post can be deleted.

I do believe in one truth where parenting is concerned: You cannot force a person to eat, to sleep, or to toilet against their will.

I certainly cannot force my son to nap. The good advice in the book I reviewed is helpful: attune to your kid’s schedule; do the same routine before bed, and so forth. But there’s only so much you can do. My own mother missed this subtle fact, I think, when she browbeat the toddler me into staying in bed— not daring to come downstairs, no matter what—until the kitchen timer said it was time for Sesame Street. I spent a lot of time watching the timer and feeling distressed.

My recourse in this situation is the emotional enmeshment Judith Warner once scorned. I ask myself, How is the baby experiencing all this? What might be going on to make him so averse to napping? How can I make things more conducive to sleep? This is the quality of compassion, so revered in the Buddhist tradition: looking at the situation from the baby’s perspective.

Besides compassion, the other major quality to be cultivated Dharma path is wisdom. On a very practical and mundane level, you could say the wisdom of this situation lies in recalling what naps are actually for. Convenient though they may be, the baby’s naps are not for my benefit, but for his. He needs to grow, internally and externally; he needs to recharge his baby batteries. I may need to clean the house, or do some writing—I may crave a nap of my own—but really napping is for the baby, period. Remembering this may not change what I actually do, but it modifies the spirit behind my actions. That’s better for both of us, and it may even help my son. Being grumpy is bad for me, unkind to the baby, and it certainly doesn’t give him a warm snuggly naptime vibe.

On the concrete level, I’ve moved the baby’s pallet (that’s the technical term for a zabuton adorned with bedclothes) closer to our bed. And I’ve spaced our nap-attempts out, waiting three hours rather than two, before inviting my little guy to nap.

In response to these modifications, the baby doesn’t yell as much as he used to. He does toss and turn, which is cute, and all-too-familiar from my own experience. He is napping twice as long as normal, so he gets roughly the same amount of sleep per day as before.

And that’s my story. My opinon, even. For now: late December, 2008.

9 months later...

At first light, our night's breath melts away
Already
There is music and a baby's joy

Being & Non-Being Helpfully Explained

This is carved into the granite 160+ feet below ground, in the Portland MAX (regional rail) station that serves the Oregon Zoo.

When you sit long enough, this makes sense. Then, after a while, you only remember that it once made sense.

There is being.
There is non-being.
There is a not-yet-beginning-to-be-non-being.
There is a not-yet-beginning-to-be-a-not-yet-beginning-to-be-non-being.
Suddenly, there is being and non-being.
But between this being and non-being,
I really don't know which is being and which is non-being.

--Taoist Philosopher Chuang-Tzu--

The Blessing String

A year ago last July, I sat a weeklong silent retreat at Great Vow with Ajahn Amaro. Although I didn’t know it then, this retreat would be the last for a long time.

I was very much in love with my darling future husband . We parted with great affection, and all week long I could feel a tremendous yearning. Was it him I sensed, pining for me? Perhaps I felt my own yearning for him. Or perhaps there was only yearning, felt by us both but possessed by neither, straining across the miles that separated us.

I was aware of practicing hard during that retreat. I sat up at night. I did not allow myself to spend the customary day or two in mental meanderings, as had been my habit and my luxury when I lived at the monastery. I knew I was at a turning point in my life. I knew I would be doing fewer long retreats. And I was determined to understand what the future ought to hold.

My chief existential dilemma had to do with whether or not lay practice--entering married life, having a household--was really as “good” as monastic practice. Was I losing out on spiritual development by getting married? Was I throwing away all those years of hard-core sitting? Was I imagining that there was something to be attained, after all? I had been happy living a simple life on my own outside the monastery, doing long retreats whenever time and money allowed. Could I really share my time and my life with another person and not lose sight of the psychological and spiritual truths I had found in monastic practice?

Daily, during that week of contemplation, we chanted the Mangala Sutra, the Buddha’s discourse on the characteristics of an ideal life. Interestingly, the Blessed One did not advocate retreat from the world, nor did he undermine social values. Instead, he described a life of quiet steadiness and kindness:

Providing for mother and father’s support
And cherishing family,
And ways of work that harm no being,
These are the highest blessings.

There, sung to a simple melody, came the answer to my question. Nowhere in those words was there mention of greatness and glory; nowhere was asceticism promoted. Instead, a life in the world, grounded in family and community, rich in respect and mutual support, a moral life in the simplest sense, was the greatest blessing. Deep down, I felt that this was right, that it was right for me.

By the end of the retreat, I knew in my bones that marriage could be a spiritually rich path, and more than that, I sensed that the life I was about to share with my husband ought to include having a family together. This was a big shift for me, but it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Until that week, I had never wanted children, and I had no idea that parenting be a spiritual path. But I did now! It seemed to be the way I needed to go.

Perhaps it was no coincidence that this interest in family life came when it did. Although I didn’t know it, I was not alone on my cushion. The farewell with my fiancee had planted a seed, so to speak, and as I sat that week, a tiny embryo was proliferating deep inside me. The inner and the outer worlds were changing faster, and sooner, than I knew.

At the end of the retreat, Ajahn Amaro blessed and cut lengths of white cord which he tied around our wrists as a blessing and a token of our intentions. I wore one string, and took another to tie around my husband’s wrist, to symbolized what I had learned about our new life together, as spiritual partners and parents.

Thirty-nine weeks later, I knelt over a chair in the bedroom and gave birth to our son. The cord on my wrist was stained with blood and meconium, the dark muck that fills a baby’s gut before he is born. After that, it was no longer white, but a suspicious dusky grey color.

Last Friday, I hiked uphill with the baby in a carrier. Near the waterfall where the koi slide under the water, my son grabbed for a camellia and stuffed a leaf in his mouth. I pried it out, or so I thought. At the bottom of the hill, he burst out coughing and choking. His eyes turned red; he looked extremely worried. We both did; I had never seen him that distressed, and there was little I could do. When he recovered, I took him home, put him down, and saw something in his mouth. The leaf was in there, a fragment still stuck to his cheek. Gingerly avoiding his chompy teeth, I hooked my little finger into his mouth and brought out the shard of camellia leaf.

As I pulled the leaf from the baby’s mouth, the string on my wrist fell to the floor.
I’m not sure how the string broke, or when. But in that moment of worry for my son and gratitude that he was safe, it seemed to me that the string acted as a charm, so common in Asian folktales, taking the baby’s misfortune upon itself and receiving the harm that would otherwise have come to him.

The string, and the bit of leaf, are here with me as I write this. Two unremarkable pieces of debris in what I pray will be an unremarkable, steady, and blessed life.

Parenting as Practice

I came across this interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn and his wife Myla about Mindful Parenting.

This quote from Jon sums up their philosophy, and mine too, these days:

I believe that spiritual practice is about life, not about retreat from life. The real work of spiritual practice in any tradition is to come to a deep understanding about what it means to be human.

Sometimes it's wonderful to just be very, very still for long periods of time, but for most of us, that can only happen occasionally. The real meditative practice is to open up to the full range of what happens in life. And parenting is a fantastic arena for doing that kind of spiritual training. It's as much a potential door into enlightenment as anything else.

It's interesting to look at your children as live-in Zen masters who can put their finger on places where you're resistant, or thinking narrowly, in ways no one else can. You can either lose your mind and your authenticity in the process of reacting to all of that stuff, or you can use it as the perfect opportunity to grow and nourish your children by attending to what is deepest and best in them and in yourself.

Jon Kabat-Zinn's impressive work bringing meditation to the mainstream has included promoting MBSR, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, as a complementary medical treatment. Something parents--and people everywhere--can benefit from.

Thanks to Lekshe's Tibetan Buddhist Resources for Kids for the link!

Into the Cycles of Life, with Baby

The baby is no longer a creature from the deep. He has thoroughly become a denizen of this world. He struggles to stand at the window, and looks for as long as he can at the courtyard, at the empty fountain and the naked trees. He eagerly watches a little video of himself in the tub—does he remember, last night?—and yells proudly at his splashing image.

He sucks his lips forlornly, and bangs toys against his sore mouth. Tired and cranky from so much teething, he quietly holds still so I can hoist him into the carrier on my back. We walk out into the world. He bucks in the carrier, hoping to get me to sing and jounce him as we walk.

The night bein’ dark and very cold
A woman took pity on a poor old soul
She took pity on a poor old soul and asked him to come in.
With a tooroo roo roo ranten high and a too roo roo roo ranten high
Tooroo roo roo ranten high and high for the beggar man

…

Who knows how long I’ve loved you
You know I love you still
Will it take a lonely lifetime
If you want me to, I will
Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we’re together
Love you when we’re apart

At first the song makes him laugh, but soon he rests his head against my back and watches the world go by. After yesterday’s deluge of warm rain, the world smells clean. Wispy clouds ride high in the sky. Everybody on the street walks as if time is precious, feeling the hours until autumn rains resume.

When we come home, it’s all been too much somehow. He bounces back and forth between toys and breast, restless and worn thin. Then we hear the sound of papa on the stairs. The door opens to peals of dazzling baby laughter, smiles, and much waving of tiny arms.

They play together while I fry some fish for dinner. I make three bowls: two of rice, fish, and roasted vegetables; and a tiny one with coarsely-mashed avocado and roasted veggies. The baby holds one spoon in his fist and practices dropping it and picking it up while we guide spoonfuls of food into his mouth. Eventually, he looks to me, twisting and crying in his seat.

We all go into the bathroom. I hop in the tub to get clean while papa familiarizes the baby with the toothbrush. It’s not really about cleaning teeth at this point, more building good habits and getting comfortable with brushing and, from the baby’s point of view, massaging his aching gums.

Lately my days with the baby have been very peaceful, with a harmonious undertone that I associate with happy mammals. It’s the feeling of a body of many bodies, a congregation of monks moving together in their robes, a pack of animals functioning as one, a contented group of souls in limbic resonance with one another.

This entrainment of biorhythms is explored in A General Theory of Love. The psychiatrist authors of that book, one of my all-time favorites, describe how we intuitively instinctively pick up on one another, how we sense anxiety, panic, and warm-heartedness, and how multiples of us resolve into one macro-organism. Being around happy people makes you happy; for a nascent human with a highly plastic brain, positive entrainment is the key to future positive emotional disposition and bonding patterns.

Beyond neural connectivity, this sensation has physiological underpinnings. Meditators know they often breathe in unison with others; as a bodyworker I would frequently feel my heartbeat falling into time with a client’s pulse. Because of this natural falling into rhythm, premature twins thrive better, and their vital signs are stronger, when they are placed together in an incubator.

So no wonder then, as the baby and I cuddled together for a nap today, that I felt his heartbeat—my hand was in his armpit—keeping perfect time with my the throb of my own pulse in my neck and chest.

In spite of the pain of teething, in spite of his writhing around trying to nurse comfortably, in spite of the sleepless fussing, there is our synchrony. Today I sat zazen while the baby napped behind me on the bed. After thirty minutes or so, I came to the surface, and thought I heard a rustle. I turned to look at the bed, and there was my son, eyes alight, quietly giving me a conspiratorial smile. I laughed, and he laughed. I scooped him up and we bounded over to the potty, where he deposited a great big peepee, cooing happily and glowing pinkly from sleep.

Failure to Connect

Water, Laptop, Phone
Originally uploaded by earthdog

I am faced with the possibility that I am not interesting. Possibly a little desperate. Possibly even socially obnoxious.

When you spend time with a baby this age, you live in a world of big and sudden emotions. Joy is all-encompassing. Fear and overwhelm abruptly appear and disappear. A cuddle against the bosoms solves almost everything. We might spend long minutes trying to stand, or picking at a piece of floor dirt, or we might refuse to be put down and demand to ride around on mama all day. Although we are in a happy groove of togetherness and rapport, the instinctual physicality of this life doesn’t translate so well to the outside world of adult society.

Plus, I’m just lonely. Obviously, thanks to the baby, I have plenty of company all day long. But it’s been a while since I had the luxury of connecting—really connecting—with another adult. Too long since I faced someone and felt as if we understood one another, without hurry, without a baby inserting itself into the conversation.

Walking down the street, I called out a greeting to a mother and her son. She had stopped me on the street a week ago to chat about the baby carrier we were both using. Today, my baby rode on my back, playing with my scarf. You couldn’t see him. And so my too-friendly “Hi there!” fell flat. I got the ‘You’re Insane’ look as they went past.

Vowing to lighten up on the social enthusiasm, I made my way to the bank. By the time I left, I’d charmed the teller to pieces, or else frightened him entirely. He and his colleague were treated to a fascinating narrative of the baby’s habits and behavior, the reasons for my visit, my plans for the money in my account, and so forth.

I didn’t like what I was seeing of myself. The resolution to lighten up was renewed.

The little guy and I ducked into a swanky neighborhood bar (“My First Drinking Establishment”?) to say hi to someone. My excited conversation with my friend caused the only other person at the bar to move several seats farther away.

Finally we came home. The baby gave me a broad smile, like we shared some special secret. I let him play on the floor diaperless, while I checked my email. Incredibly enough, there were no new messages, for the fifteenth time just that day!

Strangely, those friends I wrote to—and those people I put off writing to for a week but got back to eventually—still hadn’t responded. Perhaps because they have jobs and things to do. Perhaps I used an outdated e-mail address. Perhaps our game of has gone on so long they’ve forgotten they’re “it.” Or quite possibly they have other things to think about besides me and my baby-development monologues. And perhaps they just aren’t feeling the spark of relationship, the energy that makes us interesting staying in contact.

No messages either on the phone I so carefully carry with me, in case one of my out-of-touch buddies should call. They don’t. Although calls do come in. The optometrist’s office wants to inform me that they can’t confirm my insurance coverage. Someone is looking for Dave. The baby grins whenever he sees the phone, and makes a lunge for it. He says it tastes good. And he’s in love with the camera part. I could just cancel my plan with Sprint and let him have it as a fancy toy.

Maybe it’s time to accept life, just as it is. I’m supposed to know all about this—it’s a classic theme in Zen circles. Probably for a reason: accepting life just as it is poses a real challenge! Put here is my life: I have a baby. I am a baby-plus-woman. Every conscious moment is infused with awareness of my son. Even in the formlessness of meditation, breath and body sit expanded by love.

When socializing does happen, and people ask how I am, I say “we’re fine.” The conversation will turn to the baby sooner if not later, because for me that’s what matters. How interesting is our conversation really going to be? If you’re not mad about babies, you will eventually tire of talking to someone who is.

So perhaps I should make friends with other mothers. Unfortunately, if another woman and I both have babies, chances are that’s about the only point of common reference. Having given birth within a year of another person doesn’t actually provide much of a connection once you’ve compared your babies’ weights, physical skills, eating habits, and sleeping patterns. Soon we come to the unorthodox details that have so naturally filled out my life: home birth, breast feeding, co-sleeping, few toys, mostly wood, fewer vaccinations, no baby “gear” to speak of, afternoons spent exploring the closet or smiling at strangers rather than engaging with toys or videos.

Perhaps it’s time to really believe what I already know: the deepest connection does not come from social-stroke-and-return-stroke. Obsessing about whether or not my friends are as in need of me as I think they should be—that’s just silliness. In time, the ties that are not supported will dissolve, and new ones will gradually form. That’s not being a good friend, or a bad one; it’s just the way of the world, the way things naturally grow, strengthen, and fall away.

Perhaps I should be enjoying the rare luxury of staying home with the baby, giving him attention, and having time to write and to sit zazen. The life I have affords a better opportunity than most for turning my focus to exploring that Deepest Connection, the one that doesn’t come from social superficialities, the one no one else can give you.

Before we were Us

On Sept 1 2002, my future husband and I crossed paths at a classmate's wedding. No sparks of any kind.

Back then, I owned dresses. This was before I "overdid it" with the Zen thing; before science and I gave up on each other; before I experienced cold and hunger and the possible depths of silence. Before I lost it, and found something familiar yet new.

I don't really recognize either one of us in this photo. Our eyes are different now.

another Way that doesn't pay

Childcare is so little valued in our culture--or really any culture that comes easily to mind. The people best-equipped to provide childcare, parents and grandparents, are paid the least (if at all) for a terribly important and challenging undertaking. Of course, they are also the ones willing to sacrifice whatever they possibly can for their kids. Economics doesn't recognize final value, only how much workers can afford to demand for their work.

And so, for free, I am a mom. It is magnificent, devastating, poetic. Really, all of life is just as beautiful and relentless, but in others areas it is easier to cheat. With a child, there is no fooling, there is no getting-away-with-it. You know, and they know, if their needs are not met. A moment's peace does not ensure the next moment's calm. Challenges constantly arise, and then it's time to eat, or nap, NOW.

Parenting is an undertaking that can only arise from the heart. Do it mechanically, and everything falls flat. You are required to care for the tiny human from your own human core. The baby unlocks your store of love, and when it cries out it unlocks your own lost suffering. Hearing the baby's cries, your own bawling self arises; what this brings up can be excruciating.

Passengers on a bus will tolerate the sounds of screeching brakes or loud music, but when a baby fusses, people start to complain. A few will really come unhinged. The wail draws our own inner infant to the surface. If you can't handle your own infantile pain, you're going to have a hard time tolerating the baby's.

And when the baby smiles, few are immune. Its chortles are sweeter than any music.

As a parent, you endure the wails not by withstanding them and hardening your heart, but by allowing them to tear you open. Each new cry rends you apart. Because of that opening, you can feel the pain, and you can feel the joy and wonder of your baby's journey of discovery with equal measures of awe.

Our task is not to tolerate our little ones, but to understand them. And we understand them because we allow their experience of the world to affect our own.

After a day spent prying my creeping son our of dusty corners, after extracting countless suspicious bits of godknowswhat from his mouth, after rescuing him time and again from teetering teacups and lurking power cords, I realized: he is not "naughty"-- that's my name for his being a baby and my being inconvenienced. He is acutally darn curious, and he's making the most of a wonderful space full of tantalizing objects just begging to be explored.

This realization didn't cause me to abandon my judgments about the value of eating carpet lint or scraps of paper. But it helped me understand that my baby is right on track in terms of his inquisitiveness and his brimming physical energy.

Seeing it that way, our busy day became a good day, and our adventures became a helpful lesson in baby-proofing. All these happenings both priceless, free of charge, and unsullied by any hope of monetary compensation.

So True, It's Funny

This from the site that meets all my humor needs:

How bad must the G.O.P. feel right about now? It portrayed Obama as a socialist, a communist, a Muslin, and a friend of terrorists, and the majority of American voters said, “Y’know, we’re O.K. with that, as long as he’s not a Republican.” – Jerry Smith

But here's what's weird. Before the election, I talked to someone who was convinced that Obama had a Muslim education, and that he had real ties to terrorists. This person was voting for him anyway, in hopes he could use his influence with the Bad Guys for our protection. (This individual also liked his economic policies, and thought an Obama presidency offered the best hope for the future.)

So, for at least one sweet but addled soul, the humorous quote above was spot-on. What a world!