babylove's love

this is a notice to everyone who will spend time with our baby boy alone, the people who love him and want to bond with him. he's a really good kid, honest! he doesn't mean to break your furniture and pull apart your electronic devices. he's just curious and very enthusiastic.

we want you to know that he probably likes you, he's very friendly, but he does have some unusual ways of showing affection, coupled with his....enthusiasm, it's easy to confuse his affection for minor acts of terrorism. this is a basic guide to understanding babylove's expressions of affection.



1. if he stares at you blankly for extended periods he probably likes you, or at least he's interested in learning what you're bringing to the table. captivate him with exagerated funny faces & sound effects and you've made a friend.

2. if he shrieks and runs away from you, he likes you. he just gets so excited in your presence he simply must flee. this is how he responds everytime he sees his father!

3. if he throws things at you he does like you. especially if he aims for your head. he's just sharing.

4. if he asks you to pick him up, then immediately put him down, then pick him up again, then repeat, he really likes you. he thinks you're worthy of being his plaything.

5. if he runs at you then pummels you about the head, neck, and chest with his strong little fists he thinks you're great! you're so great he can't believe you're real unless he pounds on you repeatedly!

6. if he's sitting on your lap and suddenly tries to agressively climb, you he loves you! he loves you so much he has to get closer to you, climb inside of you even.

7. on the rarest of occassions he will actually take your face in both of his little hands, says 'mmmmmaaahhh!' and plant one right on the kisser! this means.....well we're actually not sure. it happens so rarely we haven't had many instances to study this behavior. but we're hopeful!

so there you have it, a basic rundown of how babylove shows his love. so when you hand him back over to us just consider all of your bumps, bruises, and broken items to be signs of love!

exittheapple presents "story" episode 4: grandma's house

exittheapple presents "story" - a pared-down film experience exploring the essence of story and storytelling. episode 4: grandma's house, is a story by your's truly! this was a tremendous experience and i'm so honored to have had the chance to tell my story.

watch and enjoy!



story
-noun 1. a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader; tale.

perspective

your mindset shapes your life. it shapes how you see the world, it colors your opinions of situations and people, it determines whether you have good or bad experiences.

i was just reminded of a very short story that had a very big impact on me. in the 1920's a bunch of fellow writers challenged ernest hemingway to write an entire story in just six words. six words, and hemingway felt it was his best work. six words:

For Sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

i read that in high school, freshman year. i thought it was one of the saddest things i'd ever seen. it was so pointed, it felt like it had to be just six words because it was too tragic a story to relay anymore than six words. i thought it was a story of loss and suffering.

about a year ago i was asked if i'd ever heard the hemingway six-word story, to which i replied, "i've heard it but i don't remember the words. i do remember it's something ridiculously sad."

i googled and found:

For Sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

this time i was struck at how sweet and joyous the story was! this time it was a story of growth and surprises. it was funny and cute and i read it over and over, smiling the whole time. i wanted to remember it.

perspective.

the first time i read the story, i read it with the mind and experiences of a cynical teenager. i was rebellious and often jaded, i didn't see that the world had a lot to offer and most of what it did give was sorrow life was about loss so the story was about loss.

when i read it again as an adult, i read it with the mind of a woman content with herself and her world. i read it as a woman in love, a happy new mom, a confident woman. i read it as the mother of a healthy baby boy that just outgrew three pairs of shoes before he ever had a chance to wear them. this time, the story was beautifully triumphant.

perspective. everything i see is colored by my perspective, which means that living with a good perspective keeps my experiences wonderful and uplifting. i have wonderful experiences because i choose to see the wonder in my experiences.

it's all about your perspective.

michael jackson, chris brown & raising a man

I don't often write about pop culture goings on but i had to make an exception. I usually keep such opinions to myself because I don't tend to agree with the popular opinions, but I never cared about being popular so here goes.

Michael Jackson and Chris Brown have become sort of linked in my head in the past couple weeks and it's pissing me off. more accurately, people's response to them is pissing me off. I loved Mike's music, have since childhood, but dude had obviously lost a few cogs in his mental machinery and it showed. a great deal of that undoubtedly had to do with the fact that his life was never outside of the constant, harsh scrutiny of the American public. we treat our celebrities pretty bad, basically saying that because they have a talent that we (and our children) admire they must be beyond reproach. becoming known means losing the freedom to make mistakes and that's an impossible way to live.

those who survive the American scrutiny do so by living below the radar as much as possible, often at the risk of losing their celebrity status since we only pay real attention to the scandals and dirt. Mike was a constant blip on the radar and his sanity suffered for it.

but now that he's gone the outpouring of love and devotion for him is profound! aside from the passing, light-hearted jokes most seem to have forgotten that he MAY have possibly done some horrible things to hurt children. it may have all been a big scam to get money out of a celebrity, but it may have been true. either way it seems to have been largely forgiven by the public now that he's gone.

but Chris....geez!

this young man screwed up bad! even he admits that. he's living under the same over-demanding watchful eye of the American public and he really messed up. he allegedly beat his girlfriend (another celebrity!) and now he's become as hated as Bin Laden to some folks. what's worse, the man is trying to make some sort of public apology for his mistake and we're treating him as if he's a serial killer! I've seen blog posts that wished death on him! DEATH!!

and this is his first public screw up. he's barely had a chance to be an adult and have a career and we've decided he's garbage and should be discarded. damn.

now, in no way do I condone his actions. he beat a woman and should be punished for that harshly enough to let him know that it's a behavior that WILL NOT be tolerated. but do I think he should lose his life and livelihood for it? no!

I have a 1 year old son. I am already teaching him that if he does something wrong he should apologize. he should apologize to the person he wronged and anyone else who was affected by his actions. but now I feel like our culture is saying "if you do something wrong you can try to apologize but we ain't gonna believe you and we're gonna treat you like crap henceforth!" how is that a good lesson to teach?

so many women especially are tearing this man apart and so many of them are raising men! the torrent of female anger out there right now is blazing and it's sad. It's like we're all telling our sons that because they have penises by birthright they are never allowed to err or slip, especially not against a woman, if so they will be scorned and hated forever. that sucks!

I actually know at least three men who, in their raging, hormone laden youth, raised their hand and hit a woman. it was stupid, impulsive, violent behavior and it was a mistake. two of those men are now loving husbands and fathers who have never engaged in such violent behavior again (the third I lost touch with so I can't attest to his development). if those two men had to endure the scrutiny and judgment we're raining down on Chris Brown I doubt they'd be doing so well today.

what's hurts me more is that he's so young for us to decide he's finished! we're apparently more forgiving of older men and women and their screw ups than we are of our young men. former DC mayor Marion Barry was caught on tape smoking crack and having an affair and four years later the good folks if DC re-elected him; all's forgotten. let's not mention that he recently had a woman accuse him of stalking and now he's under investigation again! Bobby and Whitney were constantly in the news for domestic issues, but i guess we forgave them both because they forgave each other...?

but Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopez (who i also loved) fought with her man publicly and eventually burned down his house! eh, no biggie. what about the popular trend of destroying a man's car if he dares to wrong a woman? who cares, it's just a car, and we're women, we're allowed to be jerk, right?

Chris Brown is being more of a man than most and is not only making some sort of effort to apologize to the woman he wronged but to everyone who will listen. is he sincere, I have no idea, and neither do you. unless you're an expert in body language and lie detection, you have no clue as to his sincerity, just biased speculation. is he reading from a TelePrompTer on his video apology; I HOPE SO!! any intelligent individual with something important to say, that's going to be on the Internet for the world to see for decades to come, should write it down so that they are clear, articulate, and they can be sure their point gets across. Barack Obama reads from a TelePrompTer, George W. Bush did not. do you get it? does reading a speech make it less sincere than making it up as you go along? no, it just makes it clearer and lessens the chance of the person sounding like the bumbling idiot that George W. always sounded like.

slowly, over the course if 50 years, Michael Jackson lost himself and drowned in the shallow pool of the American eye, and now we're holding Chris Brown's head under water while he flails and gasps for air.

I'm at home still telling my son "say you're sorry for hitting your friend." what are you telling your sons?

I'm a Bad Motha-! - my kid's a jerk!

my kid's a jerk! yea, that's right, i said it; MY KID'S A JERK!

even more annoying is the fact that he's a very intentional jerk. i don't think he intentionally means to be a jerk, but he very intentionally does things that are extremely jerk-like.

po-tay-to, po-tah-to, whatever. he's a jerk.

i will say that his general jerkiness is making me into one of those crafty moms, so it has it's good side. for example, all babies love the drop-and-pickup game. it's a riot to them for whatever reason to take whatever object is in their hand and repeatedly drop/throw it then squeal heartbrokenly if you don't retrieve it for them.

of course when you do they just drop/throw it again. big fun.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="153" caption="our little lion at his true angry best"][/caption]my kid takes drop-and-pickup to another level. he'll squeal, screech, and flail about until he has a good sized collection of toys and trinkets within arms reach, then he'll hurl them one by one to the nether regions of the room, then squeal, screech, flail about or contort/struggle/writhe and attempt personal injury until he gets them back...individually. don't try to pick them all up at once and hand them to him in a bunch. not unless you want him to smack them onto the floor, or even more fun, throw them at YOU individually. and for a 1 yr. old his aim in uncanny.

after having to leave the room a few times and count to ten while taking deep cleansing breaths, i had to realize that he's only doing it because his way means he gets my attention for longer. even if i ignore the game for a little while, he'll bang his head on things, throw himself backwards, try to twist out of whatever he's strapped into almost to the point of giving himself rope burn; he'll force me to pay attention to him for as long as he deems necessary.

he's a jerk, but he's very intelligent. he's wiley. so am i.

i've now found ways to strap everything to him or to whatever contraption he's strapped into. it's particularly awesome when he's in his stroller and done playing with whatever bottle, cup, or toy that was occupying him and has to hurl it with all his might to show his completion; kind-hearted people damn near dive like their going for home base to catch the poor baby's object before it touches the nasty ground only to feel foolish when the object boings and lands back in his lap thanks to whatever cord or device i used.

somehow, he also senses when i'm trying to keep him on a schedule to that i can get some kind of work done. again, he knows that a scheduled day means less face-time for baby and this is not an option.

these are the days when the baby adrenaline kicks in.

he won't sleep. sleep is the enemy and the enemy must be defeated.

he will pull out every stop in his efforts to stave off the enemy. i've seen my child pull at his own hair, punch himself with toys (not the plush, squishy toys, the hard plastic ones), even bite his own toes so hard he left teeth marks just to stay awake.

and of course the more of this he does the more attention he requires because, you know, it hurts him. a lot.

so basically he won't sleep and he won't let me put him down for 5 mins. because he'll injure himself. or his new trick is to jam anything, including his own fist, so far down his throat that he pukes. then he does a happy dance in said puke and holds the offending, puke covered object out to me with a big, 6 toothed grin.

WHAT A JERK!!!

i mean if the person you lived with acted like this just for their own amusement you'd put their crap out on the street and change the locks! i'm probably not going to put my child out yet, but i don't care what you say, he really is a jerk.

begin

have you ever read "lady in the water" by m. night shyamalan? not the movie, even though contrary to popular preference i liked the movie too. i mean the book that the movie is based on. it's a children's book, he wrote it for his own kids.

it is classic shyamalan, there are twists and bizarre developments, and in the end you may not feel he answered all of your questions. i love it.

there is so much room for you (and your child) to elaborate on the story and turn it into something of your own. my little one is only 8 months old, so the imagination part is totally up to me right now, but i don't mind. it gives me time to hone my storytelling skills so that when he's 5 he doesn't already think i'm lame.

shyamalan knows he's building a foundation for the creative mind to build on, the last page doesn't read 'the end', it reads 'begin'.

it's new years, the first day of a new year. it's probably the one day when the masses are simultaneously thinking about change and growth and all things new. today we think about the year ahead and what can happen differently and there is so much room for twists and bizarre developments.

it's all new today. you might have the same job, schedule, car or whatever, but if your mindset is new, it's all new. start a new story of your life and make it elaborate, make it your own. today you're new.

begin.