War is Over for the Race Horse

War is over, if you want it.  This silly Christmas song jabs me every year.  One reason is, it is so catchy. I can't stop humming it.  My childhood was full of folk music the Beatles, and Peter Paul and Mary.   They sing an old folk song that Lennon (or Ono) used the melody for his Happy Xmas song.  The former was about a race horse.


I'll tell you why I think it is silly: the lyrics.  I'm supposed to be moved by their benevolence yet the poetry is so flimsy, that I am not.  It may be sacrilege to openly state that this song does not move me, even as I am nearly a pacifist.  It's just that it could be so much better.  "I'll be Home for Christmas" tells the story.  After saying that, today I'm making an exception.


"War is over if you want it".  I've always wanted war to be over, wanting it has made no difference.  War is a primitive response to conflict.  I can see how warring tribes thousands of years ago used it, but can't we evolve?  Packs of wild dogs war for territory, as well as primates.   


If we have learned anything, it is that war causes global suffering.  As our troops leave Iraq, even that will cause suffering.  Leaving a fruitless war you start, causes suffering, staying causes suffering.  It is a dead end.


Today it is nearing Xmas (or for some of you, Christmas) and once again I can't get that 'Old Stewball' melody out of my head.  Today a war IS over.  Today those children singing "war is over" as a descant to Happy Xmas has taken form.  Just like those angels who came to the shepherds, saying "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."  A sliver of heaven on Earth.


I hope you have fun

I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.

Karl Von Clausewitz

Sibling Rivalry Reprieve

For about five minutes last week my kids forgot they are brother and sister, and were friends.  I had a camera.  It reminds me that they will not be bickering in the back seat of the car forever, just about 5 more years.

good husband/bad man Part III

I'm waffling on the title of this post.  It could be 'good man/ bad husband', but I think I'll keep it the way it is, and let you decide.  Also, be warned there is some bodily fluid in this post, so stop now if you are anything like me!

The concept of sympathy is near to me, but I think who ever coined the term didn't understand the concept in regards to vomit.  If you are a 'sympathetic puker' then you know it is mis-named.  I feel no sympathy.  I feel things like revolution, gagging, aggravation, and stomach cramps.  I do not feel sympathy.  This is an especially challenging feeling in regards to parenting.  I had NO IDEA that parenting would require such a strong constitution.

It seems that at unpredictable intervals, one or both of my children are sick from one end or another, usually on a trip or in the middle of the night.  It was a stretch getting through the diaper phase of parenting, but the messiness sporadically continues.  I can walk 20 miles in a day with a huge pack, I can stay up all night, I can fast for a day, I can climb the highest peak in California, I can run for an hour, but I can not clean up after my children when they are sick.  This is where that good husband of mine comes into the story.

We are parenting together.  Only months after becoming parents, we discovered that I only add to the problem/mess, when trying to clean up a mess.  My part of the team, is staying out of the way, or rinsing off a kid in the shower (even that is questionable).  Near the beginning of our life as parents, in a moment of feeling bad that I was unhelpful, or even more destructive, I told Silas I would clean the bathrooms in exchange for his super human ability not to vomit while mopping.  I feel that this is a reasonable trade, even though I intend to be an octogenarian.

Fast forward ten years, at 2am, after both our children had emptied the contents of their stomachs onto the beds, carpet, and hallway.  Silas is quickly taking care of business as I try to help with the relief efforts, though I know I'm not supposed to.   I then find myself hunched over, trying to control myself and Silas angrily yelling at me from down the hall, "get away from here, you are just making it worse!!".

Silas is not a yeller, and is very very slow to anger.  I think the stress of cleaning up and managing two sick kids is frustrating, at best.  It was so uncharacteristic of him, I was momentarily stunned.  What was I supposed to do, just go back to the warm bed and leave him alone?  That's what I did.  I did, however, have clean towels and sheets ready, clean clothes to change the kids into, and things manageable enough before hand, that he was close behind me going back to bed.   I understand that he would raise his voice to be perfectly clear, that I need to stick to my end of the arrangement.
Yelling = bad man

Silas, just before a night of cleaning a sleeper car in Egypt.

mopping up puke= good husband

It's in the Jeans

Scout is seven.  She is extremely good looking.  I don't have the authority to make this sort of judgment as her mother.  I can't stop looking at her because I am in love with her, I also believe that she is particularly good looking, despite my bias. 

Lately, she can not stand in front of a camera without making some silly face or gesture.  In this photo, she is not making a face because she is asleep, it is the only time you can get her NOT to pose.  Here she is, lying still for the camera, with a pair of Levi's on her noggin.  She went to bed that way.  She thought this was worth trying. 

Irony.