12.12.2011 -- Quotable

This morning has been one of the more challenging for me in recent memory. Following are some of the elements contributing to the excitement at the Tayler house this morning:

Refusal to go to school
Tantrums
Stopped-up kitchen sink filled with the contents of my dispos-all.
More tantrums and refusals

When I break it down like that, it seems really easy! Of course--if I stop to remember that on such a morning, it is obscenely rare that all three children are happy all of the time, and that I was trying to work on a time-sensitive project that requires a good amount of focus--I remember why I was struggling. It helped that eventually Gabe and Charlie took a nap at the same time, Brian came home to fix the sink, and Lucy eventually agreed to go to school.

Part of this project has involved a search for quotable thoughts on children in general. These are some that stood out for me today:


Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it. ~Not Your Average Dictionary

Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it. ~Harold Hulbert

We've had bad luck with our kids - they've all grown up. ~Christopher Morley

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. ~Franklin P. Jones

Children are one third of our population and all of our future. ~Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health, 1981

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt

A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to. ~Robert Brault

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. ~Phyllis Diller

Anyone who thinks the art of conversation is dead ought to tell a child to go to bed. ~Robert Gallagher

Any kid will run any errand for you if you ask at bedtime. ~Red Skelton

There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child. ~Frank A. Clark

If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers. ~Edgar W. Howe

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. ~Walt Streightiff

12.02.11 -- Cool Like James Dean

I have a number of talents. Being cool is not one of them. I am way too enthusiastic to ever be truly cool. I can be quirky and funny and fantastic, lovable and maybe even lovely, but never truly cool.

It's okay. I've come to terms with it.

And don't get me wrong--I like cool people, the world might be less interesting without cool people--I just think that being cool and enthusiastic are mutually exclusive. I think being cool would be boring. But, hey, I've never tried it. I wouldn't know.

And how, you may ask, would a person start thinking about something like the mutual exclusivity of coolness and enthusiasm?

Lucy said to me the other day, "Mom, am I just like Dad when he was little?" She continued, hopefully, "I am crazy, right, and I'm always doing stuff like he did, right?"

Undoubtably, Lucy was thinking of the many times we have tried to understand Gabe's tendencies by comparing him with his dad at his age. This leads to comments like, "He finds every corner and leads with his head."

I had to think for a minute before I answered Lucy. I told her that she is a lot like her dad, but she is also like me in a lot of ways, and in some ways she is just like herself. She was pretty disappointed. I didn't have the heart to elaborate... Because hey, who doesn't want to be like their fantastic, super cool daddy? She doesn't "lead with her head" as much as Gabe does. She is enthusiastic around people in a way that feels very familiar. Gabe is enthusiastic, too.... Anyway. I'm splitting hairs.

Happy Holidays to all of the cool people who happen to read this, and to all of the enthusiastic people, too.