Tag Archives: Miscellaneous

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Inside the Life of Boston Fans

Prior to last night’s disaster of a game (looking at you Pats), a sportscaster said “with the Patriots first Super Bowl win with Brady started a trend of Boston teams being very successful and winning championships.” It’s true, our children are spoiled as the Boston teams we have now have an expectation to win because they have consistently won. Since then, we’ve had the pleasure to see all our sports teams succeed. Not sure about our soccer team or if they even exist, I don’t really care. Our children didn’t grow up with the sort of heartache that generations before us have.

Once in college, I had a bizarre and elderly history professor. He could’ve written much of the history companion book that came with our text book from living the history and not just studying it. He was an absurd man, but I remember a few things he distinctly said. One was a discussion of “don’t feel sorry for the slaves, they sold themselves into that mess. Feel sorry for the prejudice the Irish had to suffer in America, am I right?” ::looks at me, the only non-minority in the class:: That was awkward. But to the point, he also said at the beginning of the semester, while handing out the syllabus “Every year, I promise that if the Red Sox win the World Series, everyone will get an “A” on their final. I’m sad to say I can get away with saying this because they have never and probably will never win while I’m still alive.” The joke was on him, that was the year that the Red Sox came back from a 3-0 series in the playoffs to make it to the championship game and win the World Series for the first time since 1918.

Since that point, Boston has jumped up to be one of the most championship wins behind only New York. (If my research is accurate, I’m by no means a sports stats person.) Now when our teams have terrible seasons like last year’s baseball season with the Sox, our children are starting to truly understand what we went through as Boston fans growing up. To be so close to the Super Bowl only to fail so miserably in the conference championship or even making it to the Super Bowl and choking. They truly understand the morning after, where you want to hang your head lower or make yourself feel better by saying “well we made it further than most.” Or like me, watch Honey Boo Boo afterwards to make myself feel better because how can you not feel better by making fun of them. Well a nicer person than I probably wouldn’t, but seriously have you seen that show?

We’re spoiled sports fans in Boston with all the luck we’ve had this decade with wins across the important sports. But it’s really time for the morning after where we realize that we’re no “pink hatters” and we’ve lasted this long with our teams failing and supporting them through heartbreaking losses, why would we stop now? We don’t want to ruin the biggest thing we have going for us: us Boston fans are the most fiercely loyal fans in sports. If we can make it through Missin’ Sisson and every failed year with the Red Sox, we can survive anything.

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It’s a Random Sort of Day

Much like every other time I don’t feel like I can give enough of a rant about one topic, I decide to make a hodgepodge of rant of current events. Current events might not cover it, more of “I can’t think completely coherently for 300-500 words on one topic so I’ll just spew whatever pops into my little head”. Thankfully, these sorts of posts are hard to write a proper introduction for so I can just get right into it.

1) Gun Control, The Fiscal Cliff, The Debt Ceiling, and Te’Oing? Let’s just be honest here, the news is like the 24 hour Christmas Story marathon on TBS. You’re really just watching 24 hours of the same story, except the news cycle is apparently 2 weeks, not 24 hours. Just when you finally get tired of hearing about one topic, you really just get another thrown right in your face for a few weeks. It wouldn’t be so bad if the whole time they didn’t just basically repeat everything from the day before. Then the day before that… then the day before that… etc. Finally, the gem that is the “Te’Oing” thing happens. We get to hear about fake girlfriend conspiracies and debate about whether he knew anything and whether we feel bad for him or think it’s hilarious. (My stance? The idea of it, maybe sad. The memes? Hilarious.) But like the fiscal cliff and every other news story that we get tired of hearing, all they talk about is this one story. News stations, there’s more than one reason no one likes to watch you. Biased newscasting from all sides aside, we really can only listen to the same news story said in different words with the same exact idea so many times before we want to hit our heads against something.

2) Only You Can Prevent School Shootings. All this talk about gun control and “Obama’s stealing our right to bear arms” annoys me. School shootings are tragic and terrifying. People are like “why blame guns, why not the entertainment industry for violent games and movies. Violent games and movies do not kill people, crazy people with guns do. Gun control probably won’t save lives because guns can easily be stolen from responsible gun owners by crazy people who want to do bad things. Unfortunately, you can’t prevent everything in life and there’s really no way to stop people from getting their hands on guns and killing people. I think people on both sides of this argument are being completely irrational and ignorant and it annoys me. The best we can do is hope that we catch bad guys before they do bad things. Like the expression goes “Guns don’t kill people, husbands who come home early do.” Wait.. what?

3)  Baby Number 2. I know what you’re thinking. “Did Brianne pull a Jessica Simpson?” Excuse me for a minute while I die at the thought. Baby number 2 is referring to my second publishing that should be incoming soon after a hopefully quick editing process. I say this with a smirk, because there’s no such thing as a quick editing process. This will be a compilation of poetry, very very short stories and short stories. I’ll keep you posted, but I’m excited.

4) Practice What You Preach, Mama. This one will be short, but the subtitle says it all: Don’t tell your kids a lesson if you won’t follow through yourself. I can tell my son’s “you can be anything you want to be if you try hard enough” if I don’t try to get noticed for my writing and live my dream as a writer. You can’t tell your kid that they need to better themselves if you’re willing to settle for awful living conditions without trying to get out of it. And the most obvious lesson is, you can’t tell your kids that “sometimes in life you have to suck it up and do things you don’t want to”. Because the minute you don’t want to go someplace for family obligations and try to get out of it, those little buggers actually remember it. They say “remember when I said I don’t want to go to CCD and you said I had to because sometimes growing up means doing things you don’t want to?”. Yeah, also be careful what you teach them, it might bite you on the butt when you’re not looking.

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I Feel As Young As Ever

Yesterday was my birthday, the good ol’ 29. Not quite 30, and still another year to enjoy my 20’s. A friend on Facebook said “I hope you don’t feel almost 30, because I do”. My response: “Eff that, I feel as young as ever. Mostly because I’m too tired to feel”. He said he was going to steal it, but I just stole it first. To prove my point, when I originally read it, I thought he had said “I hope you don’t fear 30, because I do”. Which I had a response for that too: “I don’t fear 30, 30 should fear me”. It’s true, it should. I’m kinda a b-word.

I can’t complain, my 20’s were certainly a lot better than my teens, but being of legal drinking age probably helped that a lot. I don’t really feel older though. Maybe wiser, definitely more seasoned. I still feel like I’m young enough to take on the world. When I was 18, I was afraid of the big 3-0. When you’re young and stupid, you think your life ends when you’re married with kids. While your life as a person who can do whatever you want whenever you want is over, life is still full of fun and excitement. Though admittedly my idea of a thrill is the Russian Roulette I play while changing diapers. The minute I think I’m safe, I end up with a painting on my shirt washed off with urine. Luckily with age, you also gain a level of patience. And more of a sense of humor.

30 isn’t really old anymore. You’re still young enough to not have wrinkles and grey hair, but you’re too old to shop in the juniors department with any shred of respect. Now you’re the “old lady trying to look young”. In your 20’s, you easily get a pass on this. Not 30 though, now you have to figure out a whole new style of clothes. It’s also at this age that getting faceplanting drunk because it’s trashy and not cool. We’re definitely way too old for bar hopping. until 2 a.m. And this also means we’re too young to be unemployed without any attempt towards a goal, but way to young to sit around watching soap operas and eating loneliness as if we’ve given up in life.

I’m excited for what 29 will bring me. Hell, I’m even excited to see what happens at 30. I keep looking for wrinkles and passing off as someone in my early 20’s. I’m ok with it. I’m trying towards everything I want in life, and I realize that I won’t sell 100 novels in a day starting out. I’m even sure that I won’t sell 100 in 6 months starting off. (Don’t forget, the link on the side will allow you into my first long short story.) I feel accomplished though because I tried, and will keep trying towards this goal. I feel accomplished because I have 2 amazing sons that are growing up very well as smart and mostly healthy children. Not to mention, I have hands down the most amazing husband in the world. Don’t be afraid of getting older. If you embrace it, you’ll realize that every chapter of our life brings something exciting. Getting old and grey doesn’t mean you should be sad, you get to retire and enjoy your grandchildren. Life goes on, and you shouldn’t sit back and give up when you still have so much to go. Life’s too short to squander it.

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It’s Like Petfinder, But With Kids.

It was going to happen eventually, when the discussion would end up with a consideration of our future with kids. Are we done, do we want more, etc. I laugh when people ask me, “are you going to have more?” The last thing you think about when you can still close your eyes and remember and re-feel everything from the last birth, is another child. I made no secret that I wanted a girl this time around, since I already had one boy and I didn’t want to be overrun in a houseful of testosterone. No such luck, but I wouldn’t have it any other way because my baby is absolutely perfect.

I did know that a point would come when we had to have the talk. Do we try again in 2 years? 5 years? Are we done because we have 2 beautiful boys as is? We do want a girl, that much we absolutely agree on. How we get there though, that’s what we’re figuring out. What happens if we try again and we  are blessed with a 3rd little boy? We can’t afford the test tube baby for a guaranteed girl, and quite honestly I’m certain no one would be happy with us going that route. Then my husband researched adoption, and said that maybe we should just consider that. They need a home, we’d love a girl, why not?

I decided to research this myself. I’m on the fence, mostly because I like the idea of a baby with a clean slate. Adopting a baby girl is a lot more expensive and a lot longer of a wait. In researching, I discovered how sad it was. It was almost like when I look at Petfinder to look at all the puppies I’d love to adopt, only with children needing homes. It seemed so wrong to make that comparison. But I mean… how can you not? You chose from age and gender options and up comes pictures with descriptions. I’m not sure which saddens me more though: the fact that there are that many kids that need a home with a loving family or that we’ve resorted to picking them out like you pick out your future animals for their “forever home”.

It’s a lot to consider. I know that despite all my self-deprecating humor where I talk about how terrible of a mother I am, I’m actually pretty decent at it. Shocking considering I never really wanted kids, but it came pretty naturally. I’ll approach it like I do most everything in life: I’ll think about it in a mostly cold and logical manner until I just know what I’m going to do. I’ll admit it’s enticing to think about having a child without having to destroy my body further with another pregnancy for a guaranteed outcome. We’ll see, you never know where the road will take you until you follow it. Unless you have a map… which unfortunately life doesn’t come with.

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Have a Little Faith?

In my entire  life, I never saw a purpose for religion. I went through the motions as a kid, attending CCD classes every year by no choice of my own, getting my first communion and confirmation. It wasn’t a choice, and I hated every second of it. It made me feel like we were supposed to have religion in our lives, it wasn’t something we chose. Eventually, I chose to read about religions on a spiritual or intellectual level, not as a journey of discovery. My bookshelves eventually became covered in Wiccan books. At first I’ll admit it was to see the reactions on my family’s face as they saw my interest grow in “the devil’s art”. It was a fascination though, and I found them to be interesting. No, I’m not a Wiccan. I don’t prefer to follow or celebrate any religion. I won’t call myself an Atheist though, I’m definitely not that. I hate labels, but if I had to label myself into a religious belief I would classify myself as Agnostic.

It wasn’t until I had my first son though, that I found comfort in at least taking a shot in the dark by asking whatever would listen in my head to watch over my son. Now, I still do that for both of my boys. I wouldn’t call it a prayer, I don’t say “God, take care of them”. I say “please make sure my boys are safe while they sleep”. I feel a little ashamed admitting this, especially as I definitely admit a distaste for organized religions as a whole. I do believe we need to instill some sort of belief system in our children if for no other reason than to open them up for the choice to have a religion in their life. I’ve baptized both my sons, and my oldest has attended CCD every year since he became of age to and he has had his first communion. I believe strongly that, if nothing else, I should let him decide for himself when he’s an adult to do whatever he wants in that department but he should get all the “starter” stuff done while he’s young. Which I suppose is exactly what my parents did despite my hating every second of it.

Now I have the looming fear of my son’s surgery coming up, as I wait for my appointment card to come in to schedule his next appointment with the surgeon in 3 months, with a tentative 5 month wait until his surgery. I don’t normally admit fear, I suck it up and hope that I retained my laid-back “no worries” demeanor while I’m really biting all my nails nervously in my head. In the car with my husband, I heard myself ask a question I’ve never considered. (My youngest son is named for my grandfather, side note that is relevant here.) “Do you think that if my grandfather is out there, that he’d watch over Georgie during his surgery?” I never considered the possibility that there was anyone watching from the afterlife. I assumed that once someone dies, the only afterlife for them is decay, maggots and dirt. It’s a cold and depressing way to think about death, but that’s the only way I’ve thought of it until that moment the question slipped out of my lips. My husband, ever the kind person, indulged me. “I think so”, while discussing a scientific view of matter never dying, it just simply changes form and that it’s possible. I felt better, a little bit.

This isn’t the first time I’ve ever needed something to believe in. But I think everyone at some point in their lives decide they need something to cling onto when you feel like you need a little extra strength. I think that’s why religion exists. I don’t remember the last time I prayed, I really prayed. I’ve said prayers in church like you’re supposed to. I’ve had kind thoughts for people I knew needed them. But I don’t remember every saying “Dear God, could you give me a little hand here?” Sometimes you really just need to have a little faith because you don’t know if you can get through it.

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Dylanisms

Once upon a time, my husband said to my oldest son “one doesn’t buy Mexican food; we merely rent it”. We all laughed, because sometimes the most disgusting of jokes are hilarious. Yesterday, my son begged for Taco Bell and we obliged him. It was his last day home, why not just get a taco box and volcano nachos for him? We did, and my son did enjoy every bit of his tacos, like he normally would. They relaxed and watched zombie movies, and then he brushed his teeth and went to bed. Or at least pretended to on the couch, while my husband and I watched TV.

My son always reminds me of what my husband said about Mexican food every time we get it for him. He will leave the bathroom and enter into the living room and says “Mom, the rent just ran out.” Every time I partly cringe, but mostly laugh. It’s disgusting, you’re welcome for the information. He says hilarious things all the time, it’s what kids do. I end up just calling them “Dylanisms”, though you never fully get the idea unless you see his facial expressions while he says them.

Remember this, even while your child is still a baby in diapers: children are characters.  I often thing that their main purpose in childhood is to entertain us. They can get away with saying whatever comes across their mind, because no one really expects a 4-year-old to have the sense of what’s socially acceptable to say out loud. I’m actually very jealous of this ability they have, though honestly it doesn’t seem to stop me. While you’re sitting with a crying baby at 3 a.m., it’s hard to imagine that it could get better from here. It does, I promise. (Though at the risk of being hated by every mother, I lucked out twice and my baby’s are pretty well-tempered. They don’t get it from me.) Even at 3 months, my baby son shows the same personality my eldest one has. Silly, with a bit of serious business. Even mannered, and smiley. And, enjoys his sleep as much as his father does.

So when things seem like they will never end, the crying will never stop nor will the endless stream of poop diapers to clean up, you should remember that every reaction you have to them might very well shape their future. Sometimes all it takes is a deep breath instead of a bad attitude, and you get a smiley baby that grows up into a fine young adult. And then that fine young adult will announce every time he “blows it up” and you can shake your head in laughter and disgust. That’s the best part of being a parent.

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And to All A Happy New Year

I hope everyone enjoyed whatever holiday they did or did not celebrate last week. It’s not my place to judge, nor is yours. My family enjoyed a fun-filled and very Merry Christmas. While I sat and complained about wrapping up presents for a 3-month-old baby, and spent several hours of my life wrapping presents and baking cookies, I couldn’t help but to think “why do we go through all of this”. Does it really matter how well I wrapped that present? In about 3 seconds it’s all torn off, and you see the 10 minutes you sat wrapping it go down the pooper. It seems like a waste of a valuable resource: time. Oh… and trees.

I think it’s a standard that we sit around, consciously or otherwise, and reminisce on the year we’ve had. So, I’ve decided to compiled my own personal year in review in my life. And I’ve decided to share it with my lovely readers.

1) Georgie Porgie, Puddin’ and Pie: Kissed the girls and made them cry. Well he hasn’t kissed any girls but he’s definitely made me tear up a little. Last year at Christmastime, I was able to announce to everyone in my family (I do include my awesome In-Laws when I say “family”) that there was going to be a little LaRochelle joining the world. At 2 weeks late, on the notorious day of September 11th, my baby son was born into this world. This is by far the biggest moment of happiness this year for me.

2) The Sparkling Jewel: Also this year 2 weeks prior to my little Porgie’s birth, a niece was welcomed into my family. She decided she wanted Porgie’s due date. Porgie, in the fashion of his father decided to sleep in. If a birth of a baby is always a blessing, what are two in the same family?

3) My Other Baby: My oldest son is having a fine year himself. He’s found himself put on student council by his teachers, adored by his advisors. My son also aced the English portion of his MCAS, and was found to be reading at a high school level. Not bad for a 4th grader. He also had his dream come true when Mommy finally told him he was going to be a big brother. He also got his first cell phone, and is growing into a fine young man. Did I mention he tested as reading at a high school level? /Pride

4) My Other, Other Baby: I took the plunge, and decided to publish my first short story. Even selling what I did was a proud accomplishment for me (to order your e-book for $0.99, click the link that says “Buy My Works”. You don’t need a Kindle, just the app on your phone or computer.) The worst is behind me now, because if I can publish one and not be too terrified anymore, I can do more. And I will.

5) And the winner is….: I’ve never voted before. Ever. I even watched other people as they did it, so I didn’t look like the “newb”. I survived the long lines, I survived the process without mocking it too much accidentally out loud. I voted, and while I’ll never tell who I marked off for president, I will gladly admit I went with Brown for Senator. I hope to vote again for him in the special election. The downside of voting? I’m competitive and I want my person to win. I think of it like a sports game. It’d probably be a lot more interesting if it were like the “Game of Thrones”. Finish the quote: “In the game of thrones, you __ __ or __ __”. Maybe the who process would be different then….?

It was a great year. Incredible, even. It was refreshing to have such a great year. In fact, I call onto fate or whatever controls destiny or whatever, and ask for a repeat. Not a repeat of having a kid, I’m not quite ready for that pain again anytime soon. (In fact, I’m still at the point where I cringe looking at him and remembering.) I hope that everyone has a great new year. The best part about starting a new year is the “fresh” start. You can change anything, and have incentive to do it by pretending last year didn’t happen, if that is what you wish. Don’t make a resolution you can’t keep though, it’s never good to start the new year with a broken promise.

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Don’t Ask

I dread moments when people ask questions. I enjoy to keep my secrets, and I think we’re all entitled to that. When I was pregnant, I showed people ultrasound pictures, but I’d never post them for a public realm of people to see. I feel like that’s a secret that my family and I should share, not my family and I and an odd assortment of people who follow me on social media. It wasn’t until my husband really begged, did I even show a slight picture of my baby bump. I felt that anymore more would invade a privacy I like to keep. When the baby is born and everyone can see it, I feel that you no longer have that “only I can see and feel you” overprotective vibe. That, and I really enjoy my privacy.  The great thing about this blog is I can share what information I want, and nothing can be stolen from me otherwise.

Now that let’s people as questions. It wasn’t until my first son was born that I realized that women are touchy and you need to watch what you say. When they ask “how was the birth?” and I tell them it was quick to the point and I didn’t need medicine, they get jealous. And they aren’t happy with me. I’ve memorized this look, it’s the same look I now give people who are toothpicks after giving birth. It’s that look that says “well aren’t you special”. They also give this look when they ask how your child is and what milestones he’s accomplished. When I respond “for the past month, he sleeps 8-10 hours at night and can roll both ways and he inches forward on tummy time”, I get asked how old and then I also get that look. Don’t ask the question if you’re going to get angry at the answer. It’s probably why I never ask questions, that and I generally don’t like being nosy. If people want to share information, fine. I’m not going to go around asking.

It’s scary though, last night my son decided he wants to sleep on his stomach. After a few futile attempts to correct this, I nervously watched over him a while. He’s been moving around his crib for a while now, and a few weeks ago decided he liked sleeping on his side. Now I see him on his stomach after repeatedly putting him on his back, I can only hear his pediatrician saying “remember, back to sleep”. I remember, but maybe you could let my son know because he didn’t seem to get that memo. I learned watching him that I could be a little at peace. He would lift his head and switch sides, and demonstrated great head control for a little 3 month old peanut. I’ll still worry though, but I’m not entirely sure what I can do. He’s becoming an age where I can no longer control these sort of actions.

Next time you ask a question and don’t like the answer, think of why you didn’t like the answer. Did you hope the other person’s child was not as advanced as your little one and you wanted to brag? Did your labor go poorly and hoped that they had a more painful story so you could feel better about yourself? Everyone is different, and every baby hits milestones differently. Babies and births are not competitions, they are miracles to be enjoyed and adored.

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The Dogs and Me

I often admit here that I lack any sort of normal social abilities. I don’t know how to properly connect with people, and I certainly don’t understand how to properly converse with others. My friends are exceptions to this, because they often also share this lack of ability to behave “properly” on some level. Though I’ve known several people who’ve died, I only cried once at a funeral. I’ve always associated this with the fact I lack a sense of connection. People probably will judge me on this, or for being so blunt about it. Even on TV, I have a hard time getting upset over a death of a character. I get mad, but I quickly get over it. I sometimes think that I develop more connections with fictional characters than real ones, but even still I accept this as life.

Soon after having my son, I realized I couldn’t stand seeing a child killed on TV. I couldn’t look, even if it was implied. I don’t recall having this cringe effect prior, but afterwards I just couldn’t deal with it. Kill the adults, but leave the kids out of this. Their innocence, I just couldn’t accept that at all. I could sit through the goriest murder scene in movies if it involves an adult, but the minute a baby died on a House episode, I had to leave the room. At least that made me feel a little more human realizing I’m not a complete emotionless shell.

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Princess Zoey loves Christmas.

Last night though, I had trouble sleeping and watched TV. When I couldn’t sleep at night while pregnant, I remember every time they showed an infomercial for The Humane Society I would cry hysterically over them. I had pregnancy hormones to blame, but there was something about those shivering dogs that pulled at my ice-cold little heart. Only the cute ones though, I’m ashamed to admit. Back to the point, last night I saw an episode of “Sister Wives” where they actually showed the father digging a hole in anticipation of putting his dog to sleep. Then they showed the dog on a blanket in the yard, while you see the vet filling a needle with what was obviously the medicine to put this dog to sleep. Then they made you watch as they pet and hugged the dog as it fell asleep. Then they showed the family burying the dog. I found it offensively graphic. I found it inappropriate to air on TV. Why would you want to have cameras tape a heartbreaking moment as putting your dog to sleep? I couldn’t deal with it.

Dog boy Tank

Dog boy Tank

After that, I immediate whispered little Zoey’s name and called her on the bed. She climbed up and cuddled with me, and I practically fell asleep next to her. Watching that had the same effect as watching a kid on TV get hurt. I wanted to hug her and pretend she was an immortal little puppy dog, my little princess Mal-shi. Tank, while not exactly as small as Zoey, is a lovable cuddly oaf of a small dog. He thinks he’s smaller than he is, and acts like our little baby of the house.

I love my puppy sized dogs. Don’t worry, we don’t put clothes on them every day, but for silly pictures to make people either hate us or go “awwww.” I wonder if I love them more than I love most people. I probably do. Dogs are loyal, always around to love you, and keep you entertained. I don’t like cats, they don’t quite love you in the same selfless way. Will a cat claw someone who tries to hurt me or my family? Nope. Will a cat cuddle up next to my baby son and pretend that he is the baby in their litter and try to shower it with love? Nope. Plus, the advantage of having dogs over human friends is they don’t talk. They bark incessantly, they jump all over the place as if they are children. But in a way, they are my children. My furry little immortal puppy sized dogs.

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That’s So Random

The first note to start of my unorganized random thoughts edition of today’s blog, I’d like to point out that I enjoy shamelessly promoting my first venture into sucking it up and publishing a story. You should enjoy buying it too, and for only $0.99 you didn’t really lose more than the equivalent of what change falls out of your pocket weekly without you knowing. Enjoy!

My first random thought brings me to the school shooting. I didn’t want to read the list of names of the victims. It’s not that I didn’t want the event to be humanized to me, as what the real intent of releasing those names to the public. It’s partly because it seems to me like it should be private, that these people should be allowed to mourn without having it all over the internet that their kid died. The reminder of those Christmas presents under the tree should be bad enough, they shouldn’t have to see the names everywhere they look. Plus, the selfish part of me admits I didn’t want to look and see my son’s name on that list because that would make it more real, and I didn’t think I could handle it. Against my better judgement I did look, and I did see my son’s name. I read the little note about him, I saw the picture. From then on, I realized more and more that could’ve easily been my son’s school and that could’ve been my son. It wasn’t though, and you can’t help but to feel guilty by being extremely happy for that. Sending him off to school made me be a little nervous, but unfortunately you can only do so much to protect your children, even if you are there every second.

My second random thought also is bordering about the shooting. I can’t help but be happy that Anonymous decided to hack into the Westboro Church member list and make it public to us. I won’t feel guilty if one of those bigoted loud mouths gets hunted down and killed, and I know I shouldn’t say things like that aloud but I mean I can’t be the only one who thinks that. It’s bad enough they go to our soldier’s funerals to protest for no other reason than to make themselves relevant, to protest these innocent children makes me wish that they had to go through the pain. Maybe it isn’t that God hates gay people, maybe God hates intolerance.

The Patriots were terrible last night and I fell asleep at halftime again. Apparently they became less terrible but not quite good enough to make up for all the terrible. The refs are terrible too, but I won’t blame them for the loss. The terrible calls by the refs didn’t make up for all the bad the Patriots did to themselves. I still love my team though, and they’ll do better next week.

My baby is growing up, rolling around on the floor like a champ and lunging forward. He’s a strong little bugger, and it’s hard to keep him down. It’s both awesome and sad to watch them grow so quickly. I love every second, and know that he’s doing so well because he has the love and care of people around him. There are worse things than growing up too fast. He’s very well mannered and just as perfect as his brother. So far (knock on wood), I’m 2 for 2 in the angelic children category.

In the end, you can’t protect your kids or shelter them forever. They are eventually going to find themselves in a position that is scary, they are eventually going to hear things on the news and they are eventually going to ask questions or be told things at school that go against our beliefs. You just have to make sure that you did your best to prepare them mentally for anything that they might come across on the news or in life. That’s our jobs as parents, to protect and prepare.