I know it may seem silly to post a blog about a child's hair. But our kid is always an adventure.
Lets just say our kid's hair was getting out of control. It didn't matter what I did to his hair or didn't do to it, the hair had a mind of its own. Some days he was down right rocking the Flock of Seaguls doo and I wondered if my "I'm never cutting my kids hair" was going to continue to hold out.
So I decided a week before Thanksgiving to cut his hair. I figured since he will be seeing family that we hadn't seen for a while, I didn't want him looking like Rod Stewart. So I put my child under the "blade" the Sunday before Thanksgiving. And well, as the pictures show, you'd think I was carving into his skull.
It started off just fine...then I must have began torturing him with whips and razor baldes because he was not happy about his rock star image being chopped into pieces and thrown away.
In the end no ears were cut off and no scars were left. A little crooked, but the torture was over before he knew it.
I feel I have to speak my mind about the world, about the horrific decline in love and kindness. Now, disclaimer, I cannot speak for the world, but only my perceptions, which may be apart of the problem as you will read on.
I wonder each day why I feel that there is less love and less caring nature. I notice day to day and especially in my line of work that people have their own agendas. These agendas typically do not necessarily fit nicely into the well being and camaraderie of anyone else around them, but they don't care. People think only for themselves, of themselves, and whatever betters themselves. It makes people evil. It causes people to overlook the simple things in life, such as family, friends, love, kindness, forgiveness, caring, sharing, and overall joy and happiness.
So, I asked myself, what causes people to be this way?
What is the reasoning for stepping on people and causing others to feel hurt or belittled?
I know there are many reasons and answers to this questions. But here is one thought.
I was reading some articles about social aspect of humans vs. social aspect of animals and this is what I found out.
In one article, social animals such gorillas, dolphins, orcas, and wolves, who have advanced social "organizations and relationships" all have one thing in common: "They rarely, if ever, 'go it alone'."
Because all these animals have packs or groups in which they socialize they have the instinctual nature to protect, to survive, to live. The wolf pack is an obvious show of a pack with hierarchy, one male and one female being "alpha". Hierarchy is a natural instinctual trait that is obviously seen with humans as well. Protecting, surviving and living is another story. Humans take protecting, surviving and living into a different level entirely.
Recently, I was enjoying a simple fictional quick read called The Letters, written by Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger. There is a part in this book that talks about the human brain and the different parts of the brain and how it functions and what reactions stem from these particular parts of the brain. The brains frontal lobe is concerned with emotions, reasoning, and parts of speech. The parietal lobe is connected with the senses: touch, taste, etc. Supposedly, animals do not have much in the sense of "frontal lobes", but they do have strong parietal lobes. In other words, they can have emotions and thoughts about something, say love or hate, but they can't get it all "mixed up". It is black and white. They either love you or hate you, they either are scared or not. They do not question and reason why they are scared. They just know they are scared and they act on it based on a prior experience. End of story, no ifs - ands - or buts. Which brings me back to the book, The Letters. In it, they talk about how it would be nice to sometimes not have the worry and the emotions all wrapped up to cause such disarray. Wouldn't it be nice to love and love unconditionally or be sad and not worry about the "what ifs" and "but whys" and the "just maybes".
I bring all this up because it is this simple "animal nature" that humans are lacking. While our "frontal lobes" are growing and growing and we are getting smarter and smarter and our reasoning behind the "whys" and the "becauses" are becoming astounding. We rationalize everything. We find a reason why we do what we do and we can back it up with theories and proof and life. But what is happening is we are only becoming good debaters and forgetting how to live, how to love, how to simply be happy. Our world is becoming more of rationalized frivolous whipped up souffle as opposed to a grounded truthful meat and potatoes. Make sense. This is my theory. This is me rationalizing and conjuring up a position (as all of us do) on why the world is unloving.
Maybe a bit long winded, but in the end, I think my point is true. For example:
More than one company will tell its employees that it has to work the day after Christmas. Christmas being on Sunday this year and all and the Monday being its recognized Federal holiday. "Why not work? We are a business and we need employees and we need to make money to survive and that is why you work to survive and I don't care that it upsets you or if you believe in God." And so forth. The rationalizing begins. The agenda is met and the damage is done. In the meantime the rational and reasoning person behind it probably doesn't have any reason to stay home, perhaps their lives are unhappy. Perhaps all their life is, is work. So they begin to unravel other people lives, time away from family and friends and the true meaning of living starts to disappear.
To each Scrooge his own, but don't turn the world into a Scrooge, that's what I say. There are a few of us left here that do enjoy that simple animal-like black and white - the I simply want to love and to be happy and to live. To find the beauty and joy in the little things.
If everyone were to simply stop. Just stop for a few moments a day. Think of what they are thankful for, what they enjoy the most, and where the happiness comes from and to smile about this small thing. And then ALLOW others to feel this same emotion without persuasion, without rationalizing or mixing up the emotions. I truly feel that it would be a start in a new direction. A start for a new world. To love again. To trust again. That most-publicized illustrious "peace" that we all seek may start to come true. Sure there will be the "alphas" but if we don't like their ways we can always break pack.
Kids are the best. Every day there is a look, a stare, a smile, a laugh, a smirk, a jibberish ramble, a thought, an expression, a new move, a new idea and all these things and so much more combine for a lifetime of happiness in a single second. I find myself smiling more now then I ever used to, just because this kid of mine melts my heart to a pile of mush. I never thought I would love so truly and so deeply and so madly. (Plus he is just a doll and I could squish his cheekies until they fall off he is so cute - as every parent will say about their own :) )
I forgot how to be a person. You know, a normal eating, breathing, sleeping human being made of cells, tissues, organs and this thing called a brain, which I had completely forgot how to use the second I got out of college (see, I was really smart in college as are ALL college students). I forgot what it's like to be a person without titles, without duties, without responsibilities. Who am I these days?
This last week I have been sans child. And it went something like this:
(*crickets chirping*)
...
"Um, what do you want to do?"
... (*more chirping crickets*)
"Um, I don't know, what do you want to do?"
(*faucet dripping*)
...
"I guess lets go out"
"Okay, cool, where do you want to go?"
"I don't know"
...
Again the brain thing is gone, adios, arrive-derci, caio! It doesn't think for itself anymore. It thinks: wake up, play with kid, get ready, get kid ready, work, assist others with work, fix food, clean, play with kid, sleep, mommy, mommy, mommy, wife, sleep, food, go to store for more food, need sleep, and more work"
With the kiddo gone, it was QUIET. Q-U-I-E-T!!! I still filled the "wake up, work, and sleep" part of the above equation, but the rest was hovering somewhere between "huh" and "I don't know". Lets be crazy and young and stay out til wee hours, but how do you do this? I'd forgotten. Funny how after only a year and a half, I forgot what its like to be home without a kiddo. Needless to say, we just weren't home. Too wierd without him. The whole world was off kilter.
I was later to work then with a kid. I spent more money then if I had the kid. I was sleepier then with the kid. I didn't clean one thing in my house (NOR, mind you, pick up anything either). We ignored our dogs.
What the heck?
I never acted that way before I had a kid. And then it makes me wonder, who am I? I haven't the slightest clue. Perhaps I'm the All-Star Mommy or the Wonderful Wife or maybe I'm the Witty Worker. Or maybe I'm none of these. Maybe I'm Professor Plum in the Study with the Candlestick. I don't know. I think under a title every day and had forgotten how to think for just, well, you know...little ol' me.
But I do know that I am uber excited to see my baby again tonight. And then I can be whatever I want to be and he will just smile at me and give me his look of, Mom your crazy!
I don't know how much I need to say about Vancouver. I think the pictures speak for themselves. It was the most amazingly beautiful city. Everywhere you turned there was another picturesque harbor with sail boats, house boats, beautiful backdrops, city parks, fountains, flowers, smiling faces, bicycles, you name it. It was an amazing experience and I am so glad we went on this trip. We literally walked until we couldn't possibly walk anymore. And no matter where we ended up, it was breathtaking.
2. The smell. It smelled floral and fresh, a very unique smell almost like clean laundry.
3. The hills! I was very suprised to find out just how "hilly" Seattle's downtown was. I remember walking down to the Public Market and thinking that somehow we missed it. Only, once we got to 1st (the last street before the waterfront) we were literally looking over the edge down to the market. I also remember having to walk back UP! :)
4. The food.
5. The shopping. There were so many fun shops and things to buy. If only I had more money to actually purchase the items.
6. The coffee shops. And why wouldn't I put that down? Doesn't everyone know that there are coffee shops at every corner in Seattle? Sometimes, more than one.
7. Did I mention the food was fantastic? Everywhere we went, we had amazing bites of goodness. The fish was unbelievable and the variety was plentiful.
8. Meeting up with my good friend, Shanna.
(There are OYSTERS in them shot glasses, come on, what were you thinking?)
Arches. What can you say about this beautiful land? I was taken aback and still am when I look at the pictures. I remember feeling very "at ease" looking across the undeniably beautiful landscapes and colors.
The only issue we had was the HEAT. It said it was 114 in our car at one point. Not kidding. Do I believe the car thermometer? NO, it felt like it was 120 degrees! Because it was so hot, it made it hard to spend all day out and about walking along the trails. We utilized the morning times and late evenings. Like LATE evenings, thus the sunset pictures. Otherwise, we had to stay in the car to get the AC. Remember we were camping. We were in a tent, there was no escaping the heat. So we would go into Moab and eat some lunch grab some cold ones and cool the heck off. Luckily JT just slept in the car from one place to the next, so we didn't need to worry about naps.
In life there is beauty in all things, but when you look around within Arches Park, even the greatest cynic could not say that beauty, creation and natural wonderment were among us.
This arch was about a 5 minute walk from our camp. It was called Skyline Arch.
Shucking some corn!
Happy in the AC!
Long hike, but completely worth it! You are looking at Delicate Arch.
(I swear if you look close to the pic above you can see the lizard tracks!)
