Author: simchajfisher

7 Silly Things that Make Me Laugh

–1–

Store brand cereal names.   When I was little, manufacturers of generic food didn’t bother trying to snare the thrifty shopper by putting grinning strawberries or wacky breakfast raccoons on the box — it was just a white box with black letters, stating the legal nomenclature of the grain product you were about to consume.

Today, however, they try and make it sound like it’s some kind of close cousin to the Real Thing, without infringing on any copyrights. Some of them just try to sound like the brand name, like Tasteeo-s instead of Cheerios.  Then some of them are just kind of disconcertingly descriptive:   Crispy Hexagons, Corn Spheres.  But some of them . . . some of them are just a cereal mystery, and they make me laugh.  And the greatest of these is Confruity Crisp.

–2–

Renita Jablonski from the radio show Marketplace.  I realize this makes me an eleven-year-old boy, but ever time I hear her name, my brain giggles like Beavis and Butthead.  See, cuz, it kinda sounds like Heywood . . . oh, never mind.

–3–

My three-year-old daughter says “who” when she means “what.”  I occasionally correct her, but it’s just too much fun to see her come into the kitchen, wrinkle her nose and say, “Who’s that smell?”  It’s your supper, that’s who.

–4–

The Howard Dean scream.  It just never gets old.

–5–

Sometimes, when my husband is changing a diaper, he puts the clean diaper on his head, and then pretends he can’t find it. Gets me every time.

–6–

That scene in 30 Rock where all the guys are sleeping on the couches, and one of them takes a bite of his sandwich in his sleep.  I can’t believe they’re still making that show!  It’s so funny, it should have been canceled by now (we’re up to season 4 on Netflix).

–7–

Well, in keeping with the way things have been going around here lately, I hate this post and couldn’t finish it, but couldn’t do anything else until it was done.  I guess I should be grateful to have six things that make me laugh, but instead I was just hung up on how bummed I was that I put my beer on the back of the couch for a second, only to discover that the back of the couch wasn’t up against the wall after all, and so that was the end of my beer.  I hate that couch so much, I’m glad it got beer spilled all down the back and on its stupid confruity little skirt ruffle; but still, I had to clean up the beer.  It was a Corona, too!  Oh, anyway, so while I was looking for a towel, my husband said that fart jokes always make me laugh.  I don’t think this is strictly true, but on the other hand, we’ve been together for a while now, so I guess he would know.

Okay, okay, wait.  It does make me laugh when someone says “poot” instead of “fart.”  Poot!  That’s not even a word.

Oh, boy.  Well, check out our lovely hostess Jen Fulwiler of Conversion Diary for Seven Quick Takes, and find out how the normals are doing it.

So tell me: What are you reading?

It’s November, it’s dark, I have to scrape the effing windshield to drive to the dump, and life is only just barely worth living until March.  So let’s talk about books.

I’m just coming off of a long, ugly stint with Taylor Caldwell’s ridiculous novel Answer As a Man.  Oh, that woman is embarrassing.  What a waste of plot!  I think she took a writing class called “Show, don’t tell,” but someone told her it was Opposite Day.  I’d show you a passage of what she tries to pass off as character development, but not only did I already throw the book away, I dumped coffee grounds on top so no one would fish it out of the garbage.

Caldwell seems to have heavily consulted The Comprehensive Thesaurus of Tedious Irish Stereotypes.  For openers, she turned to the  entry for “bitter old man who loves and hates with equal ferocity,” and proceeded to copy out all the adjectives she thought the reader would understand.  And that, thought Caldwell, made chapter one.   I read the whole thing because — I don’t know, I guess it’s like getting on the merry-go-round.  It’s not as if you’re going to end up somewhere unexpected, but you already paid for your ticket, so you might as well sit there until the ride is over.

Then I picked up Watership Down, and promptly fell asleep.  I don’t know if it was that boring, or I was just too tired, but it fell behind the bed and I can’t reach it now, so that’s that.

Then I picked up Clockers by Richard Price. Okay, now we have a novel.    The narrator understands his characters, and they are real people, who might do anything.  They might be angry at themselves, or feel ashamed, or feel unwarranted pride, or not understand why they do what they do — but it all feels like real life, down to the last detail.

Here’s an early example:  Strike, a 19-year-old low level drug dealer, drinks vanilla Yoo-Hoo throughout the book.  He has a stomach ulcer, and the vanilla cools the pain a little.  This kind of detail tells you so much about the guy:  that he’s a child, that he suffers like a man, that he tries to heal himself, that real medicine (for the body and for the soul) is just not available to him. At one point, he finds himself in a bar, and not knowing what else to order, he asks for vanilla Yoo-Hoo.  The bartender offers him a glass of non-dairy creamer.  This is how the world treats Strike and his ulcer.

This book just bleeds sympathy.  For everyone, even the evildoers.  That’s what a great novel does:  it understands.  That’s what separates Dostoevsky from Tolstoy:  Tolstoy understood, all right, but as I get older, I see his contempt for his characters more and more, and it kind of takes the edge off.  Dostoevsky, though, the reader feels, is on his knees the whole time he is writing.

Richard Price (okay, I’m not saying he’s Dostoevsky or even Tolstoy.  He has really got something, though) doesn’t gush or manipulate or wallow, but the prose cleanly and steadily offers up real people for us to see.   This author is so confident of his skill, he doesn’t need to tell us everything we need to know up front — because when does that happen in real life?  We learn what the characters are capable of little by little, at the same pace as they learn about themselves.  I’m sorry I’m just too darn lazy to pick out passages to quote, but take my word for it, this guy knows what he is doing.

Lots of profanities, obscenities, and violence in this book.  But I don’t think it’s disgusting, and so far, it’s not depressing.   The tone isn’t marinating in that inexplicable, sadistic animus against the reader, like so many modern novels (The Corrections, Geek Love – -why do I read these things??).  I’m about halfway through, and have high hopes (if you’ve read it, please don’t give anything away!).  I have a hard time putting this book down.  Great plot, incredible dialogue, twists and turns, and the author never takes the easy way out — but it’s all so natural.  Really amazing skill.

So what are you reading?  Do you plan to finish it?  Is it a book to be tossed aside lightly?  Or should it be thrown with great force?

All politics is local politics

I have this newspaper picture framed:

The article, which I believe ran in what was then the Monadnock Ledger, went like this:

Junkyard owner Daniel Kingery can strip used cars, but he can’t host strippers, according to zoning board members.

The board on Tuesday rejected an appeal by Kingery, who sought to run a strip club in his junkyard by calling it a “cultural facility.”

He had been told by the town’s code enforcement officer to close his club on Route 202 North.

But Kingery argued his business is a cultural facility, like a musuem, which is permitted in a rural zone.

Town officials said there’s nothing “cultural” about strippers dancing in a junkyard, and the zoning board agreed.  They ruled Kingery’s business has no place in a rural zone and is banned by an anti-pornography zoning law that voters adopted last month.

The board said Kingery offered no evidence that his club is cultural, and that is was clear from his testimony that it was sexually oriented.

Kingery said he would appeal to Hillsborough County Superior Court.

In the picture, he’s attempting to make his case by reading the dictionary entry for the word “cultural.”

And that is why I’m not going to vote today.

 

 

 

Okay, okay, so I’ll vote today.  But I’m not going to like it!  I’ll tell you why.

It’s because you and I are the people on the zoning board.  We have a day job, right?  We’ve been working all day, and we really just want to go home and have a burger and a beer and watch some stupid TV.  But it’s an election year, so purely out of an inescapable sense of civic duty, we put on a clean shirt and head out to the town hall.  And there we sit in a cold, metal folding chair, listening to Dan Kingery read the defnition for “culture” out of the dictionary.

Maybe you’re the Sipowicz-like guy in the foreground, with his orthopedic sneakers and his forbearing face of stone, willing to listen forever as the guy buries himself in his own b.s.  Maybe you’re the stringy old man with the work shirt and the razor-sharp part in his greasy old hair, who’s participating mostly out of spite.  Maybe you’re the wounded-looking matron who’s heard this kind of nonsense one too many times, and just wants to sign a petition for a new wheelchair ramp in front of the library and go home.  Or maybe you’re the trunk-legged old bat at the end of the row, who’s happily drawing kitties in her notebook as the meeting goes on and on and on.

Point is, this is you, the voter:  the one with the decency to show up one more time, drum up a little faith in the system, donate a few more hours of your precious time in case someone has something useful to say to you.

And you know who the politicians are.  They’re all Dan Kingery.  Doesn’t matter how you vote — this is, more or less, who you’re voting for:

The guy didn’t even wash his beard before coming to the meeting.  He didn’t even put on his best flannel shirt.  The Dan Kingerys who want your vote have already set up this hideous junkyard in your backyard, and there’s nothing anyone can do about that — but now they’re trying to bring in strippers, too.

Because there’s two things he believes:  that he deserves to get what he wants, and that everyone else is some kind of idiot.  Their only plan is to make this county a little bit crappier, but they won’t be satisfied with that — they have to try and make it seem like they’re doing you a favor, too.

Man, I wish there were a way of giving someone, like, a stink vote.  Like: okay, you get my ballot, but you need to know that you are not fooling me for one second.  You need to know that I will vote for you because your stench isn’t quite as stenchy as the guy from the Stench Party.

But just because I voted for you, that doesn’t mean I think you smell all right.  You don’t get my trust, you don’t get my support, you don’t get my approval.  All you get is my stinking stink vote.

I’ll vote, I’ll vote!  Now leave me alone.

Thursday Throwback: Is Nothing Profane?

This post originally ran about three years ago.  This year, our house will be launching the following into an unsuspecting world:  Harry Potter, Aphrodite, a cat, the grim reaper, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle,  a Pink Mummy Ghost (this is a costume which started off weird and gets more confusing each year), Ming Ming, and a confused and angry baby.

You can see by the preponderance of trademarked characters that, in the three years since I wrote this piece, my give-a-damn has broken.

Oh, Halloween!

If you are lucky enough to slide unharmed through the Scylla and Charybdis of the Wiccans’ Samhain and decent people’s All Saint’s Day, you will probably be thinking about Halloween costumes for your kids.

I started having kids pretty young, so I went directly from wearing costumes myself to making costumes for my kids. The type of costume changed, of course. When you’re a 19-year-old pseudo intellectual, it seems hilarious to dress up as Aristotle’s Incontinent Man; but for your kids, you really need to reign in the originality. It’s less scarring that way.

The more insane daily life is, the more prone I am to wildly ambitious homemade costume ideas. If I’m pregnant, teaching several kids at home, buying a new house, going to law school, and launching an organic chinchilla farm, that’s when it seems like a good idea to whip up a batch of papier-mache. How hard could it really be to dress any reasonably robust six-year-old as an Elizabethan headless horseman, with false legs, of course, so it looks like he’s really riding on the golden Sphinx part, when he’s actually walking? If I could get a little cooperation around here, I could get something done for a change.

But my goal in these days of relative calm (I’m not pregnant, we’re unpacked and not packing, no one has a new job, and all the pets are dead) is to dress the kids in such a way that it won’t make them cry.

This is not as easy as it sounds, when you have kids who tend to cry when you do exactly what they specifically asked for, several times, with witnesses.

Also working against me is one three-year-old boy who gets angry when he’s having fun. You let him wear a cape and stay up late, and surround him with people who can’t believe how adorable he is, and who want to give him lots of candy . . . and it really rubs him the wrong way.  This is the same kid who steps outside into the golden sunshine, takes a look at the butterflies wafting over the heads of gentle daisies, and yells at the top of his lungs, “IT IS NOT A BOOTIFUL DAY!”

But my biggest handicap is, as usual, myself. I know it’s supposed to be a kids’ holiday, and I genuinely want the little termites to be happy.   But I’m sick. I have a disease which makes it seem important to stay up until dawn getting the tin foil details of Princess Leia’s belt exactly right, even though I know darn well that it’s going to be dark out, and no one without infrared vision could notice any flaw of authenticity, and no one with or without infrared vision would care.

Well, it’s a holiday, and that means it has to be someone’s turn to ruin things — might as well be me. But I’ll tell you the thing I really enjoy about Halloween: at least it’s not a religious holiday — I mean, Halloween as a “boo, eek, Kit-kat and Smartees, oh-how-cute” day, setting aside  the issue of saints and souls and praying and such, which is for a different day.

Halloween is not like Christmas, or Easter, or Thanksgiving — you’re not supposed to be making sure your kids aren’t missing the deeper meaning of it all, and not being too materialistic, and enjoying happy times with your family, while simultaneously performing the back-breaking labor of organizing a pleasant day.

So when I tear around the house with a hot glue gun, insisting that the toddler can make supper for herself because I’m busy, dammit . . . it’s just Halloween! I may be acting like a jerk, but at least it’s not blasphemy.

 

I’ve always wondered

. . .what English sounds like to non-English speakers.  Now, I’m not sure I know (I found the repeated use of the word “ciusol” somewhat less than convincing), but I certainly have seen something I’ve never seen before.  And it’s only Wednesday.

(thanks to my little brother Izzy for the link, even though he should be doing his Existentialism homework or something)

You can’t be any poorer than dead – UPDATED

Trick-or-treaters might be coming around with UNICEF donation boxes.  Don’t give ‘em a dime — UNICEF pushes for abortion and sterilization as part of its efforts to improve the lives of women and children.  Beyond the immediate irony of that idea, it’s not even good policy.  According to CatholicCulture.org (emphasis mine):

Pro-family UN watchers are concerned that [UNICEF’S] disproportionate focus on unsafe abortion, based upon questionable maternal mortality figures, detracts from addressing the major health risks to pregnant women in the developing world. Experts say these are severe bleeding, eclampsia, and obstructed labor. By UNFPA’s own admission in a 2004 report, the most important means of reducing maternal mortality is not access to contraceptives and legal abortion but the presence of skilled birth attendants and access to emergency obstetric care.

Imagine:  those backward, third-world women would rather survive childbirth than get help killing their children.  Savages.

 

Abortion proponents often link unsafe abortion and maternal mortality to push for legal, “safe” abortion. Critics of this argument are quick to point out that in Poland, when abortion was severely restricted in 1993, the country showed a sharp decline in the abortion rate and a decline in maternal deaths. In Ireland, where abortion remains illegal, the country reports one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world. By contrast, while the United States has had abortion on demand since 1973, this year the US reported a rise in maternal deaths.

Oh, and look at this!  I was searching for an image for this post, and turned up this ad:

It’s an ad placed by the Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation, and shows an axe hacking into the Star of David.   And looky!  There’s the UNICEF sponsorship logo, down at the bottom left.  (Image source and more information here.)

(Wait, let me save the very vocal minority here a little trouble:  Israel has committed atrocities!  They are the true criminals here!  Ms. Fisher’s blind, jingoistic support of Israel is what’s wrong with the Church and the world in general!  Aieeeeee, boogie boogie boogie, somebody said something about the Jooooooos!

Hokey doke.  Let’s just think about this for a second.  What is UNICEF for, again?  According to their website, it “works for children’s rights, their survival, development and protection.”

You know, with an axe.)

I’m not in favor of burdening young children with more bad news than they need to know.  If mini Buzz Lightyear shows up on your porch with a UNICEF donation box, just say, “No thanks, but here’s your fun size Snickers.”  But if your kid is being pressured by his school to use these collection boxes, you can tell him what I just said to my daughter:  UNICEF does some good things, but they also do a lot of bad things, and we don’t want to help them hurt people.  There are other charities that do a better job of helping poor people, so we give our money to them instead.

Here is our favorite charity, run by the Church with an incredibly low overhead:  Save a Family Plan.  Among other programs, you can choose a plan in which your family sponsors a desperate family in India, helping them to become educated and self-sufficient within a few years.    Boy, they get the job done.  And somehow they manage to do it without killing anyone.

UPDATE:

Sandy, an alert reader, sent the following links to clarify the connection between UNICEF and PYALRA, the organization that ran the ad above.  According to Israel National News,

“In a statement dated March 23, UNICEF president, Caryl M. Stern, denounced the “incorrect use of the UNICEF logo” and stated that “UNICEF was not consulted by PYALARA about the use of its logo in a poster announcing a youth broadcast and it condemns the use of its logo to imply endorsement of political opinions. Neither the poster nor the television program it advertises reflect UNICEF’s policies or its views.” Ms. Stern added that “UNICEF’s partnership agreement with PYALARA ended in January 2010” and that “UNICEF will be carefully reviewing any proposed future partnerships with PYALARA.”

Glad to hear it.  UNICEF still stinks, but at least this time, it turns out I was the one going “Aieee, the Joooos.”  Sorry about that!

Here are a few more links with more information about this story

http://thebulletin.us/articles/2010/03/31/news/world/doc4bafdbe416e47247495742.txt

From the Anti Defamation League: http://www.adl.org/Internet_Rumors/UNICEF.htm

Happy

“How about supper in the tub tonight, Hon?”

Happy anniversary to us.  Yes, it’s our 13th anniversary today.  We celebrated on Saturday, but I can’t really go into a lot of details because (a) it was so lovely and romantic, any descriptions would totally destroy that “second-rate slob who can’t do anything right” cred, and (b) this is a family blog.  Well, no it’s not, but never mind.  *sigh*  It was a very nice anniversary.  How often can you look back at a choice you made in your early twenties and go, “Yeah, I did that exactly right?”

One way indeed.

And yes, I’m also happy because today is the day I send in my book proposal.

For the book I’m writing.

!!!!!!

I hope they can read the file, despite its being so drenched in blood, sweat, and tears (is that bad for files?).  So that was the big project I mentioned!  I hope to get back to more regular blogging now, and if you’ve nothing better to do, maybe you could offer up a quick prayer that if God wants this book to be written, that He will open the editorial board’s eyes to the splendor that is me and everything I have a hand in; and that if He doesn’t want it to be written, that He suddenly gets really preoccupied with the Israeli peace process or something, and doesn’t notice when the editorial board falls all over itself to offer me the standard rich and famous contract.

Oh, and here’s a note for anyone else thinking of writing a book:  of all the thousands of words I’ve written, rewritten, scrapped, totally rewritten, edited, proofread, and re-re-rewritten so far, you know what the hardest part was?  The cover letter.

Consistency – UPDATED

There is an interesting conversation going on at Inside Catholic now, stemming from the “Down Syndrome Couples” post.  I just left a comment which I thought was (like everything else I’ve ever said) pretty important, and something which I did not always realize or internalize.  This is what makes our beloved Church so very different from every other Church, and so durable.

I don’t mean to pile onto Jason Negri — I really don’t.  It’s just that the Church’s teaching on human sexuality is so central to our times (and maybe to all times), and so horribly misunderstood.  Here’s what I said in my comment:

Negri said in one of his comments on his original post on Inside Catholic:

Church pronouncements on moral issues purport to be universally applicable, but are not exceptions sometimes made for extraordinary circumstances (nuns at risk of rape in Africa are using birth control, people with severely limited mental capacity are not held responsible for some deliberate actions, same for children before the age of reason, etc.)? I’m wondering – and honestly wondering – whether an exception might be made for Monica and David whose developmental disabilities might well put them right between the points of able to marry but unable to care for children.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that the Church does NOT make exceptions. It is incredibly consistent in developing guidelines for specific extraordinary circumstances, without ever departing from the original principle.

The nuns protecting themselves from rape (without risking an abortion) are not violating, or availing themselves of an exception to, the principle that sexual love is to be unitive and procreative — rather, they are protecting themselves from an act which is purely violent. When a mentally disabled person or child is not held morally responsible for hurting someone when he doesn’t know better, it’s not an “exception” to the fifth commandment — it’s just a different act entirely from someone who knows better and hurts someone anyway.

Sterilization of a Down syndrome couple for the purpose of separating sex from children, however, would be an exception. That’s what makes it different from the examples Negri gave, and that’s what makes it wrong.

I just wanted to reiterate that the Church does not “make exceptions” — it is a Rock.

So, come join the conversation.  It’s been a very helpful and eye-opening discussion for me.

EDITED TO ADD:

One commenter, CC, very helpfully posted this:

From the USCCB’s “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” (http://www.usccb.org/bishops/directives.shtml):

Compassionate and understanding care should be given to a person who is the victim of sexual assault. Health care providers should cooperate with law enforcement officials and offer the person psychological and spiritual support as well as accurate medical information. A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault. If, after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization. It is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum.

It seems to me no different from protecting yourself from someone maniac wielding a baster full of sperm, right?  There is no particular reason you should accept being impregnated in the context of an attack.

Why not sterilize the inconvenient?

I don’t know Jason Negri personally, and until his post on Friday I’ve had no reason to think that he isn’t a faithful Catholic.  Maybe he was just playing devil’s advocate or being provocative; but for someone who, according to his Inside Catholic profile, is “Assistant Director for the International Task Force on Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide,” he shows a scandalous indifference to the dignity of human life.  Here’s what he said when commenting on a story about the marriage of a high-functioning Down syndrome couple:

My conservative view of child rearing is usually “if you’re not going to take care of your kids, don’t have them”, and for a Catholic, this means don’t have sexual intercourse to begin with.  But it’s hard in cases like these, where a couple is developmentally challenged and might not be able to care for children of their own, but have the need and ability for sexual intimacy.  Forced sterilization?  No.  But voluntary?  Why not?

Voluntary sterilization. . . “Why not?”

Let’s set aside the question of whether or not mentally disabled people ought to be marrying, and let’s focus like a laser on what Negri is implying about the people themselves.  He is implying that, because of their disability, they are not bound and protected by the same principles as the rest of us.

If you can sterilize them, what other assaults on his human dignity might be permissible?  If their bodies aren’t inviolable like the bodies of us Normals, why not keep them as house slaves?  Kind of a win-win situation, by Negri’s logic:  everyone gets taken care of, everyone’s happy according to his capacity, and no one has to shoulder an unfair burden.  Sure, slavery is clearly against Church teaching, but come on — they’re just retards, they don’t really count.

If you are going to start making exceptions to Church teaching based on purely practical terms, then why not voluntary sterilization of the poor, since they need  food stamps or childcare, and “might not be able to care for children on their own”?  Or of people with heart disease, since they might not be around to see their child’s 18th birthday?  Or people with histories of depression?  Or people whose husbands are in the military?  They might need help!  Sterilize ‘em now, before things get messy.

I do not envy the parents of the Down syndrome couple in the original story.  I can imagine how much they want their children to be happy, and how much they fear having to care not only for their disabled children, but an innocent grandchild, too.  But for Negri to suggest an exception to the Church’s law — saying, “Well, maybe in a situation like this, how bad could it be to just bypass the whole fertility problem?” — that’s not compassion.  That’s condescension to a hellish degree.  That’s reducing the human person to biology vs. desire:  Self-sufficiency as the highest good on one hand, personal satisfaction as the highest good on the other hand.

What’s so terrible about that construct?  It leaves out God entirely.  It leaves out the Incarnate God, who has something to tell us about suffering and sacrifice in the service of love.

The Church’s teaching on sterilization is not a prohibition — it’s a protection.  It’s a humble acknowledgment that man is made in the image of God, and you don’t mess with that.

The Church’s law is there to uphold the dignity of human life.  Not attractive human life, not convenient human life, not self-sufficient human life:  every human life.  When we begin to think of mankind as a two-tiered system, in which only the top tier is fully human in God’s sight — then we are on the road to Hell.

Guest Post: Kristen Herrett on “Raising Daddies”

Kristen Herrett of St. Monica’s Bridge graciously allowed me to repost her sensible and valuable essay about her letting her sons play with baby dolls.  I especially liked the line:  “I want them to understand that sometimes we make mistakes, but our love is never a mistake.”

Raising Daddies

by Kristen Herrett

The images in this post are of my sons. With a baby doll. I posted them on Facebook a few weeks ago to mixed reviews. Most thought they were cute. A few privately messaged me to take them down and stop letting my boys “play with dolls.” The pictures remain and my boys still have access to the doll.

When I became a mother I had certain ideas of how I was going to raise my children. I would venture to guess most mothers do. I quickly found out that some of these ideas I had did not exactly fit my temperament, my mothering style or my kids. I was all about babywearing. My babies, not so much. I thought co-sleeping would be great…but I wasn’t doing any of the sleeping part. Other things, like breastfeeding, were great.

I never set out to raise my children in a “gender neutral” household. And really, they don’t live in one. Yes, when Jeff is home he cooks, but that’s because he is a chef. And I do wear pants. And for a time, I worked while he stayed home with the children. And there have been occasions where emergency or budget have dictated one of my boys have worn a pink pull-up or had a pink pacifier. But, for the most part, boys are boys and girls are girls here.

Shelby has a few “baby” dolls. She sometimes shows interest in them, mostly does not. Real babies hold no interest for her until they are able to sit up. It is only then that she sort of “gets” that this thing that mommy is carrying constantly is a human being. We keep the baby dolls out and praise her when she shows interest, not because it is a girl toy, but because she is behind with her social interactions and encouraging a positive association with infants is important for her to learn.

The phenomenon of the boys and this baby doll is a recent thing. It has only occurred after my brothers began spending time with my best friend’s new-born infant son. Joey likes to “practice” holding the baby so he can hold Baby Ryan and his soon to be born cousin Baby Bella. He also practices how to feed the baby and give it a paci when it cries. He has named the baby “Will” after his brother. For Will, he wants to imitate his big brother and he needs to practice being gentle around babies for sure!

I do not for a minute think I am confusing my boys or emasculating them. After all, they don’t want to wear dresses now and have proclaimed that Barbies are for girls. But I realize that some people very much view it that way. So, I will go ahead and explain why I haven’t ripped the doll out of my boys’ hands.

I am raising children. Some day, my boys may very likely become fathers. I want to raise them to be good Daddies. I don’t want them to fear their children when they are newborns. I want them to approach the task with some kind of confidence. I want them to understand that sometimes we make mistakes, but our love is never a mistake. I want them to be able to support a wife who has difficulty breastfeeding and be able to comfort a crying child. We forget these things are not necessarily traits we are born with. I’ve watched many a father struggle and wish they could have just observed their dads doing some of the parenting things they find themselves doing, let alone been encouraged to do them themselves.

And for the record, my boys do an inordinately large amount of wrestling, shooting each other with water guns, fighting, playing Thomas and rooting for Penn State and Carolina’s football teams.

Parenting is a very difficult task. One that no matter how many books you read you can never fully master. I’ve chosen to try to expose my children to learning through doing. And right now, my sons seem to be proponents of attachment parenting (we say Joey is co-sleeping in the picture above). Will they continue as adults? Who knows, there is a lot of time between now and then…in the mean time I hope and pray that I am raising daddies who will rise to the task of fathering their children in the best ways possible.