Cue the Imperial Death March

The Emperor, or in this case, my baby boy… is coming.  FAST.  I kid you not, he’s a zoomer.  It’s absolutely heart breaking how quickly this boy is growing up.  It seems like only yesterday that he was a sleepy newborn, wanting nothing more than to eat, sleep, and poo.

Now he wants to eat, sleep, poo, and wreak havoc.  There’s no other word for it.  Today I have been run ragged trying to keep him from getting into things.  I went to the bathroom and came back to find him trying to tip over the trash can.  After moving him from the trashcan, he went straight for the computer.  After moving him from the computer, he went straight for the wires buried behind the tv.

And when I say RUN… I mean run.

Zoom Zoom Baby

 

Yeah.  THAT is how fast he is.  Absolutely crazy.  And now he’s trying to walk along the side of the couch.  I think that by the time he goes to sleep tonight, I may just curl up in a corner and pass out myself.

Gaming Is Therapy

Now, I don’t expect everyone to believe that.  But it is true.  Especially for myself.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m worse than all the other mothers out there.  Having a 5 year old girl (who thinks she is the Emperess or the Queen, given the day) and an 8 month old boy (who believes it is his life mission to yank out the hair of every moving being nearby) is proving quite the challenge.

There are days when I wonder why I haven’t given in and checked myself into a mental hospital.  And then I remember that by the time it occurs to me, the children are usually asleep and I’ve regained some of my lost brain cells from the dungeon that is my daughter’s room.

Not even joking, which is sad.  If you saw what that girl does on a regular basis… Maybe I’ll upload pictures one of these days.  Tangent alert!  She found a bottle of her brother’s baby powder the other day.

Do you know what a girl her age can do with baby powder?  HORROR.  That’s what she can do.  I’m STILL trying to get all the baby powder off some of the floors… and she got it on the cat litter step mat.  Yep.

PLUS, the corner of her room is now white.  Impressive.  I have a budding artist.

Moving on.  Losing my mind, that’s right.  So during the day, when the baby screams for attention or bangs his head on something yet again, and my daughter chooses JUST the wrong time to start asking for things… that’s when I lose my marbles.  I start to feel my blood pressure rise, and my heart accelerate, and the only thing keeping me from doing something stupid is the fact that I know somewhere, deep inside, I love those rascals.

And then comes bedtime.  The angels open up the gate of heaven, and I hear the heavenly hallelujahs… and I proceed to open a computer game and beat something into a bloody pulp.

Violent, I know.  But oddly, I feel so much better releasing my pent up Single-Stay-At-Home-Mother rage out on other people via the Internet.  In the Beta of StarCraft 2, for instance.  I get to watch buildings explode, blood splatter, and if I’m going against a Zerg player, I can listen to the squelchy explosions of buildings or units erupting into piles of goo.

Good stuff.

Dragon Age Origins.  Need I say more?  Violence, betrayal, near-rape, etc… Suddenly my life seems so much more peaceful compared to the horrors that my character goes through.

And I often console myself, thinking that I cannot possibly be the only mother out there that uses these violent tools as therapy. 

Can I?

Safety vs Rights

Perhaps I think too much. I'd be the first to admit that I can over analyze at times, but I still treasure that about myself. It is only through such processes that I discover where I stand on many issues.

One of those issues is this. What are the rights or expectations of a person whose house is raided by SWAT?

Obviously, they can expect to not be shot so long as they don't resist. But what else? Does their property have a reasonable right to little damages being caused? Do their dogs have the right to continue living? Does their child have the right to be at school or somewhere else when SWAT does finally perform the raid?

Some of this seems like a no brainer. SWAT might break down a door, but they shouldn't be running through the house and intentionally breaking glass windows/doors or knocking over the china cabinet if you are not resisting. They shouldn't be shooting the dogs if the dogs aren't trying to bite them.

And yet, constantly, we read about this very behavior. Worse, this behavior is carried out in front of our children. "So what" some say. They say that criminals bring it on themselves. That drug dealers are notorious for having attack dogs, and that shooting the dogs to prevent attacks is justified.

So what? How many times do the police in general have bad intel? LOTS of times.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003299.html?
And I quote :

Calvo said yesterday that he did not know how the drugs wound up on his doorstep. He works part time as the mayor and serves as director of expansion for the SEED Foundation, a well-known national nonprofit group that runs urban public boarding schools.

"My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs," Calvo said. "They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don't think they really ever considered that we weren't."

Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he -- wearing only underwear and socks -- and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the dogs' carcasses and pools of the dogs' blood, Calvo said.

Calvo is the MAYOR of that district. And yet he still lost his dogs, and he was still treated poorly. From other reports, the police were apparently harassing his elderly mother in law. Not only did they do all this, but one of those dogs was shot WHILE RUNNING AWAY from the noise.

Yeah, that must be an aggressive dog!

Adventures in Sewing Machines

Let us say that sewing a renaissance dress is a little more complicated than I thought it would be. I mean, I knew it wouldn't be EASY by any means... but I didn't expect it to be an exercise in frustration. I have no idea how people do it without a helper, because hot damn. Even with one of my best friends (who is so much better at it than me) doing most of the actual sewing, it was still one of the more agitating things I've ever done. It did, however, turn out quite nice.

So, despite the frustration... my next projects are as follows.

Making a larger fleece blanket for the kids. This will be easy, as it is just one bit of fleece with some ribbon for the edges. Easy peasy.

Making a black velvet cloak. It's going to be awful. I can FEEL it. But it will come out awesome. (It better, anyways.)

Someday I will be good at this, I swear it.