But probably don't eat linguini on the library floor?

It’s pretty much always a good idea…

to go to the library, so if you’re wondering if you should or if you shouldn’t, then throw yourself into the future and ask yourself: “would I someday wish I had gone to the library that one time on that one day,” and chances are, if you’re reading this right now, you probably like books and reading and stories, so the chances are also high that you will not regret having gone to the library when you’re not sure if you should. It’s pretty much always a good idea to go to the library.

Pretty much every time…

I see the Countess Becca walking down a small town sidewalk holding her daughter’s hand in one hand and her nephew’s in the other, I think woah, whoa, wow, how could this person get any more beautiful? I never get tired of this.

Some things never get old…

Like kids immersed at play. A handful of toys. Or toy. Or a little second-hand dollhouse to arrange and imagine and decorate and set up scenes. Two cousins, one two and change, the other two minus a few months, playing together, sometimes in amiable companionship, sometimes in bickering indignation, but always finding their way back to playing simpatico again in overlapping forms.

Sometimes I wish…

Sometimes I wish there was a documentary crew following me around to chronicle the times when I’m doing parent stuff really well, or to catch all times I make myself smile and shake my head at myself in amusement (or frustration).

But then, considering that there’s also plenty of times I don’t do parent things so well, it’s probably a good thing to not have a livestream or camera crew hovering around. Besides there’s the whole, ‘cat in the cardboard box quantum entanglement thing,’ or however that physics thought experiment goes; the one that says that you change the nature of something simply by observing. One of the good things I’ve done, I think, is try and imagine there’s a camera crew recording everything I do as a parent, and making me take care to talk and act as I would like to be captured. It’s kind of like the idea of speaking well of people behind their back: there’s a good chance they’ll never know you were speaking well of them, but there’s no downside to simply trying to do the right thing no matter who’s watching. Or not watching.

That is not to say I do the right thing a great amount of the time. It’s just the idea hanging out in my head. What if someone is observing you?

That sounds very calculating. I don’t intend it that way. It helps to keep me grounded.

The only thing…

…I want to be remembered for someday is being good at making mealtimes engaging, interesting, and fun, and sometimes that means changing a simple thing or two. Like setting up a picnic tablecloth on the kitchen floor and letting them eat pasta with their hands. Is this a good idea? I don’t know. Will they remember? Probably not. Actually, definitely not. Does it make me smile today? Yeah.

To be honest, there’s a handful of other things I’d like to be remembered for as well.

This or that? : the religious-monikered band version

If I had to choose between listening to the Reverend Horton Heat or Manic Street Preachers for the entire month of May, I would one hundred percent of the time go with the preachers. Also, this is not the question, but speaking of sacred cows, I would also choose MSP over The Rolling Stones.

You’d think that…

…the revenge movie Law Abiding Citizen is not appropriate for toddlers to watch, and in this case, your thinking would be correct, which is why our sub-two year old daughter is not going to watch it. #goodparentingdecisions