More Adventures in the 3 Year Old's Brain

Me: Em, just how did your toes get so big, hmmmm?

Em: I'm getting bigger.

Me: Yup, you are. How big are you going to get?

Em: Bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and Bigger, And Bigger, AND Bigger, AND BIGGER, VERY BIG!

Me: [uncovers ears, starts to say "Not so loud" but is interrupted]

Em: I'm going to be as big as you Daddy!

Me: You might be.

Em: But with hair.

Squeeee!

I'm so happy. I just got my first ranting anti-atheist comment, despite not having written much if anything about the subject here. Someone tracked me back from another website where I'd commented and left this incoherent screed. Hilarious.

Adventures in Oz

This morning I had to get up and go deal with our pump yet again. For some reason the power to the shed where it's plugged in died. Might have had something to do with the rain and wind. What a great way to start the day and it only got better.

We had winds gusting to 100km/hr, driving rain and lightning in the afternoon. This in the equivalent of the northern hemisphere's December. It took down trees everywhere, the native vegetation park looked like the trees had been mown. We shut the shop at 2pm because there was no way the power was coming back any time soon. Fortunately, the worker responsible for clearing downed trees off our section of road used his head. He drove the dozer back to town along the rail trail. I'd brought a saw along just in case but I'm pretty sure it would have taken an hour or more to ride home if the trail hadn't been cleared. This on a ride that's normally 15 minutes.

The pub next door lost the roof from a bungalow out back and part of their front veranda. Tin from the bungalow roof ended up across the highway wrapped around a tree 10 meters off the ground. A house a couple of k away lost it's entire roof. We were lucky. All it did to our place is blow the back door open which fortunately is so far under a veranda that no water got in.

I went over to pub to see if they needed any help. Here's what I love about country life: as I talked to the owners maybe half a dozen people pulled up to see if they could help. Everyone was touching base and making sure everyone else was okay. Sure, a lot of these folk are rough as guts but they care about and look after each other.

We dug out some candles and our torches for light. I trudged across the highway to the creek and filled some buckets so we could flush the toilet. Claire made dinner on the barbeque and we ate by candle light. Our pre-bed play with Em consisted entirely of games where she got to sit in my lap.

Me: Emlyn, it's 10 degrees in here, you need warmer clothes.
Em: No, I'm warm.
Me: Yes, put on this jumper...
Em. No, no, No, NO!
Me: Look, if you're not cold why does every game involve you sitting in my lap?
Em: Cuddle me

She did tell me a fabulous story though. She gave me a piece of paper that she'd carefully folded up.

Me: What's this?
Em: It's your ticket.
Me: My ticket for what?
Em: Vesher.
Me: What?
Em: Vesher!
Me: Take that dummy out...
Em: Adventure.
Me: An adventure like with pirates?
Em: Yes we sailed on ship to island and there was a hole and the wormmies got the hole from the wormmy store and they went wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle and got it out for us. *
Me: Breath my love, breath. Got what out for us.
Em: Treasure.
Me: I love this adventure.

The power came back on after 7 and and a half hours. I've got to say that that was pretty quick work and that I'm a little disappointed. As unpleasant as it was to sit around in a cold house it was also kinda fun. A nice, safe adventure to break up the routine. For us at any rate; tomorrow will show just how bad it was for everyone else.

Gender

Okay, I can talk about other things really. No seriously I can, honest...er, well that said, I've got to get this off my chest:

Meccano has re-issued it's classic metal construction set. When I saw them for sale I bought two for Emlyn despite her being less than a year old. She's just under three now and we're going to wait a bit longer to break it out. I don't really care if she takes to it or not, but she's going to have the opportunity for that kind of constructive play.

Em is an intelligent, curious and energetic human being. You can almost see the potential radiating out from her, like some kind of Van der Graaf generated nimbus. I don't understand how anyone, male or female, could see that potential and want to limit it in any way. It makes me grit my teeth to think of it. Saying to your daughter "I love you." while shoehorning her into a narrowly defined gender role is the very height of destructive ignorance.

I can and will denounce, demean and fucking destroy if necessary, anyone who tries to limit my daughter because she's female.

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/panta/

Happy Birthday...

...to me.

I got woken up by the most beautiful and smart toddler in the whole wide world who gave me the new Gogol Bordello CD and help me unwrap it. An impromptu gypsy-punk pajama dance party ensued in the kitchen. With a start like that how could it not be the best birthday ever?

Fears

If I could name them, my fears would fill whole books. Great dusty tomes smelling of sweaty hands and dry rot. I try not to think about them in quantitative terms lest I be overwhelmed by the shear weight of those volumes. Two years and ten months ago a new set of fears came into my life, almost identical to those old familiar ones. For every fear I have for myself, I have one for Emlyn. Even in those moments where the joy crushes my lungs until all I can do is laugh those fears sit waiting. This too is parenting.

My fears for myself once threatened to bury me. No single one was enough to do it, but the weight of them all together was almost too much. I can't think why I never gave up. Perhaps, deep down, I really am an optimist. Whatever, the why of it doesn't matter anymore.

My fears for Emlyn are fundamentally different. They cannot overwhelm me, because if they did, if I succumbed, Em would be damaged. This is not an irrational fear like so many I have, this is a simple fact. A fact borne out by the damage I got from my father succumbing to his demons.

I can't prevent some of the things I worry about from coming to pass. Em will get her heart broken, it is even healthy that she do so. One can learn so much from such things. But I will be there to wipe her tears and say, "This too shall pass." I will be there to hold her and say "I love you."

I will be there.

Fuck all my fears. They have less worth than the tiniest part of the most insignificant moment in my daughter's life. They're dusty words in dusty books, and even if I can't be rid of them entirely they shall never threaten me again.

This is what joy looks like: