No, My 2-Year-Old Isn't Talking About That......

Well, letting my youngest boy follow in his Thomas the Train-obsessed older brother's footsteps has turned out to bear more damage than just the cheeky little engine further dominating my life and starting up more than one brutal battle between the brothers. It is now leading to more embarrassment than I already face when taking my children out in public.
When young children first start verbally communicating, the general public normally can't understand them for several months. To everyone but their parents and perhaps a few grandparent-types, their mumbled words are gibberish. No two children have the same language. But, to the parental figures of these children, this special language is crystal clear.
As Rolan's infatuation with the Thomas and Friends has grown, he has found his favorite train -- Percy. Maybe that is because he has been strictly forbidden from ever touching some of the others by Ridge the Toy Cop. Either way, Percy is the train of his little heart. He carries a Percy toy in his hand as he darts about the house chanting his name.
But, here's the thing with the chanting. As Rolan delightfully bellows Percy's name, he leaves out a very important part of it, the part that keeps it from sounding like, er, the nether regions of female porn stars. Simply put, there is no "ER" sound, just a PU followed by SEE.
As I was pushing him in the shopping cart a few days ago, his kung foo grip on his Percy toy loosened for just a second, long enough for him to accidentally drop the green train as I pushed forward. I was so focused on my ass-kicking coupons that my frazzled mind simply did not register his frantic screams until several other shoppers had already taken notice to my boy.
"PU-SEE</span>!" he yelled. "I WANT PU-SEE! WHERE'S PU-SEE?!?!"
I backtracked through the aisles, my eyes darting under displays and around carts. With each step, Rolan continued his loud chants and the eyes of many, many others were on me. And just as I was thinking to myself that his echoed words didn't really sound that bad, a rather witty friend just happened to stroll by.
"Hey, so what's that your boy is asking for?" she quizzed with a smirk on her face.
"His train, Percy," I replied. "He dropped him and we are looking for him."
"So, you're sure it's the train he wants?"
"Ummmm.....yes."
"Really? Because it sounds like he is saying something else."
"Oh yeah. Just what is that?"
"Well, I'll just say it sounds like the apple did not fall too far from the tree. Tell Rowdy I said that."
"You're an asshole. Do you think that's what everyone is thinking, too?"
"Oh," she giggled, "definitely."

On a different note, I hope none of you hope for me to love you as much as I love Chris right now. Don't get me wrong, you are pretty rockin' awesome, too. But, Chris has definitely figured out the way to my heart. Sure, he called me a good writer and I do love him for that, but when he complimented by skills at, well, bitching, he won my heart. Check out his site.

All My Bags Are Pack And I'm Ready To Go

Rowdy went on a "cattle buying" trip last week, which is basically code talk for "you and the two kids we have are driving me nutso, so with the added children I think this is a good time to let our cattle buyers in East Texas take a break for day." Don't get me wrong, Rowdy loved having the Webb children with us, but when both they and our two spawn started puking, he was all, "Peace out, Bitch."
Now, the reason that this is important to what I am about to tell you about is that he rode to East Texas in a cattle truck that was hauling our recently bought cattle to us here in Western Oklahoma and Rowdy decided to hop on board and let that be his transportation. And, unfortunately for me, as he was heading out the front door, he mentioned to our oldest boy Ridge just where he was going -- A SALE BARN. Now, I realize that many of you don't fully know just what that is and that those of you who do don't understand why my son would be so freakin' excited about it. So you know, a sale barn is basically what it sounds to be, a barn where cattle and other livestock are, well, sold. And to my boy Ridge this is fucking Disneyland.
After the extremely traumatic experience of his father not only riding on a cattle truck without him, but also going to his beloved sale barn without him, Ridge was on high alert for this sort of underground behavior. He was suspicious and trusted no one, particularly not his mother and father.
So when they cattle truck pulled down the drive way two days ago and backed into the shoots, Ridge immediately went into action. Rowdy, of course, was down there unloading the truck and I was in the bathroom with Rolan, working on the potty training. Like a swift gust of wind, Ridge yanked a suitcase from the closet and threw his clothes in it. Before I finished in the bathroom with his brother, he had shimmied the front door open and was dragging his packed luggage down the driveway.
He was off, a free man ready to ride the open road and see where the road took him. As much as I tried to convince him his father was, in fact, not leaving on that cattle truck, he was steadfast in his disbelief. Eventually I called Rowdy and asked him to come home in order to end the rather annoying protest that was taking place at the front door. Rowdy's skeptic paranoia subsided a bit then, but still lingered some.
Since then, Ridge has insisted on only wearing clothes that come from his suitcase. But, not only that, clothes that he himself actually physically removes from it. For example, I can't go yank something out of there for him to put on, even if it is in front of his own compulsive eyes.
So, yeah, not only did Rowdy get his little trip, but now I will forever have to deal with Ridge darting out of the house, blubbering and screaming, when a cattle truck unloads two or three times a week, but I will also have to adhere to him only wearing clothes that have been prepacked.
It's like I'm God's comedy.

So, Apparently Small Farms Only Produce Imaginary Food.....

As we mentioned last week, Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) disparaged small and organic farmers yesterday during Secretary of Agriculture-nominee Tom Vilsack’s confirmation hearing, claiming small farmers don’t produce real food. Roberts described the typical small farmer as "about 5′2″…and he's a retired airline pilot and sits on his porch on a glider reading Gentleman's Quarterly — he used to read the Wall Street Journal but that got pretty drab — and his wife works as stock broker downtown. And he has 40 acres, and he has a pond and he has an orchard and he grows organic apples. Sometimes there is a little more protein in those apples than people bargain for, and he's very happy to have that."

The Ethicurean had a brilliant idea, asking folks to contribute photos of small and organic farmers on Flickr and tag them to create a giant photo album of small farmers. Which got us to thinking about our own Farmer Heroes campaign, which asked Farm Aid fans to upload photos and stories about their farmer heroes at www.farmaid.org/farmerheroes. So here’s a note we’re sending to Senator Roberts to let him know that we’ve got plenty of small farmers for him to meet!

Dear Senator Roberts,

Farm Aid thinks that you might be interested in meeting some "small farmers," so we'd like to introduce you to Farm Aid's Farmer Heroes (www.farmaid.org/farmerheroes). The photos you see there are of farmers who were nominated as heroes because they do something even more valuable than growing a few organic apples. These people are rebuilding our food system, bringing good local food with values to their communities, nurturing us--body and soul.

These small farmers are heroes and they're the people we work for every day. We bet a few of them would even invite you out to their farm to show you what a real small farm looks like and how much food (and how many different kinds of food!) a real small farm produces. We'd be happy to help arrange that for you.

Best,
Farm Aid

It's A New Day

I'm still too excited to write much. I'm just letting my brain absorb the awesome magnitude of this day and what it means for all us.
This is a new day, a new start. While the economic crisis will most assuredly continue for several more months, I have a renewed hope that a team of great minds are focused on a solution.
So, on this day, whether you were a supporter of President Obama's or you hoped for a different candidate, I hope we can all come together as friends and countrymen.
It's a new day.

Welcome To Vietnam, Boys, You're In For A Helluva Fight

Although Rowdy and I are both perhaps the least scheduled people who ever walked the globe, our evenings with the boys have become nothing less than a ritual. The boys, Daddy included, play on the living room for about an hour as I cook supper. Wrestling and chase are two favorite games, but bucking bulls will always be king. They eat while I load the dishwasher and then I round up the two filthy children and pour steamy water over their soapy heads in the bathtub. As soon as everyone is washed and dried and dressed in pajamas, we pick out our bedtime story and I read to them as Ridge impatiently demands his little brother to stop leaping on the bed like a monkey and listen to Momma.
Of course, in between and during each of these nightly steps, Rowdy and I talk about whatever's on our minds. Or, I talk and he begrudgingly pauses whatever bullshit sporting event he is watching until I'm done. Last night we were discussing tomorrow's inauguration, thank God its finally here, and somehow the conversation turned to Vietnam.
Now, for those of you who don't know this, my grandfather was a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corp and served two terms in that war. To some members of my generation, Vietnam is just the part of the movie where Forest Gump gets shot in the ass. But, to me and my sister and my cousins, Vietnam hung very much over our collective childhoods like a cloud. After all, the war had only been over 5 years when I was born and my grandfather, who is know in his 70s, will always be that weathered Marine, even if it is wrapped in a soft grandfather.
Anyways, the boys were running around like the lawless banchies they are as I told Rowdy the details that surrounded my grandfather's Purple Heart. As a helicopter pilot, he was shoot down flying behind enemy lines. With a bullet through his leg, he narrowly escaped capture from the enemy, but he made it back. Even though I'm nearly 30 myself, still a bit younger than he was when he was fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia, it is hard for me to reconcile the funny old man who took me and my friends on adventurous vacations in my youth in violent combat in that time and that place.
After the brief pause for conversation, I got back on the nighttime ritual track and herded the boys to bed. We woke up this morning and the Vietnam War was far from my mind.
***And then, as I was scrambling eggs, Ridge came limping over to me and declared:
Damn, I've been shot in the leg. I was flyin' my helicopter into town to get new clothes and those Viet Cong got me."

Yeah, that's right, my four-year-old actually said Viet Cong. That's just how we roll (Oh, I think I forgot to tell you guys that I've really been working on my Urban lingo, so be looking out for that. I'm definitely gonna be whipping that shit out from time to time.)

Just A Talk Among Friends

Dear One Hour Photo Place,
Hi, How are you today? Me? Well, I'm not well, not well at all. You see, I don't feel like I'm the asshole for assuming that you'd have my photos finished within an hour. That is, after all, directly in the name of your business. It's how you advertise. The three words "One Hour Photo" are displayed all freakin' over your store. Now, because the last four times I've developed with you it has taken at least three hours for you to get my stuff done, I knew when I started uploading my photos that it'd take awhile. I was fine with this. I still had to pack up my scrapbooking supplies and drive the 30 minutes on over to Elk City and then unload my boxes. Sure, the other ladies would have a jump start on me, but I would at least get to hear the sailor talk from a bunch of 30 something mommas. Really, no one does pervy quite like my friends.
Since it was 7 pm when I sent the photos to you, I figured I would run up to your store right before you closed at 10 to pick up my stuff. I mean, that's triple the one hour promise. So, you can imagine my complete and utter fucking shock when you told me that they would not be finished until 1 pm today. Seriously, you open at 8. I realize that I did send almost 200 photos. That's a lot, I get it. But, assuming that you are part of a nation wide chain and that the big dicks in your corporate office are pretty obsessed with the now-elusive profit, I would think you probably have to be equipped to print that much relatively quickly. I mean, "One Hour Photo" is all over your store, surely you would be prepared to handle more than one customer in that hour.
Naturally, I would like to ask you if this is some sort of joke. I don't fucking want to be on Punk'd, Ashton. But, since I know in my heart that you are rather serious, I need you to explain to me how the hell it takes you 8 hours to develop 158 pictures. I sincerely think you should change the name of your service to "One Day Photo." Sure, we crazy old ladies in the scrapbooking posse would all be less inclined to use your business, but I also wouldn't be a big bag of swinging hormones wrapped into a ball of pissed off when I did.
So, even though I wanted to spend my time scrapbooking my family's more recent activities, I guess I will just do some random photos from the early part of last year. Having Christmas done by January would have been awesome, it would have. And, if I would have sent my photos to the OTHER "One Hour Photo" place like Miss Smarty Pants Mollie so wisely did, I'm sure I would have got it done. But, I didn't. Quite ignorantly, I held out faith this, this would the time you got it done in a responsible amount of time.
Suck it, assholes.
Love,
Shonda

Dear One Hour Photo Place (again),
Okay, so maybe I'm the asshole. I don't know why I thought I ordered like 158 photos. Somehow I got that first 1 confused with a 7. My bad. Remember that cluttered mess that was your college professor's desk? Yeah, that's my head.
I'm sure you are a little pissed about all that dry sarcasm in the last letter. Man, I was kind of a dick. You see, I haven't been able to scrapbook the last two times the ladies got together because I was photographing weddings. I still have freakin' t-ball to do from this summer. So, I'm gonna blame my nasty behavior on my motherhood insanity. My boys' books are getting kind of behind and I just can't let them grow up without all the shenanigans being well documented, you know, in case I need to use the whole, "Look at what you boys put me through" to keep my old ass out of a third world nursing home because I don't want to forget a moment.
The young girl who was working last night was not nearly as helpful as you, hard working manager. I'm really sorry that I said I was going to the other place. You know I could never leave you. You guys really do take good care of me and I hope you except my sincere apology. I can't believe you are going to have almost 800 photos done by 11 am. WOW!
So, please, don't suck it. I'll suck it. I'm totally the asshole.
Love,
Shonda

The Wisdom of Brotherly Beatings

The comic Titus often said that while mothers try to teach their children wisdom, fathers make them earn it. I totally see this in the different parenting approaches Rowdy and I take. For example, while I might discourage the boys from getting near a flame to avoid being burned, Rowdy keeps his lips sealed, insisting that one round with fire will leave a lasting reminder that fire, well, it fucking hurts.
My sons have a rather passionate relationship with each other. Most of the time it is the kind of passion that prompts one sibling to undergo life-threatening surgery to donate a kidney to a brother or sister fighting off death. They protect each other, they get angry at Rowdy and me when we are disciplining the other, they are best friends and playmates. For the most part, the bond Ridge and Rolan share is as strong as a forest of oak trees.
But then there are other times, the times that they are hooked up like two rottweilers tearing each other by the flesh for a scrap of meat. When my boys decide to throw hands, neither one hold back. This is no holds barred combat, a fight to the death, or at least until someone gets hurt bad enough to give in and cry to Momma. And, normally, when I pull the two of them apart, some rinky dink cheap toy is stuck there between them.
So, when they opened a matching pair of toy bulldozers at my mom's this Christmas, I was like a freakin' psychic, foreseeing many a'thumping unleash over these two contraptions.
Naturally, as the person who birthed both of them, I try to discourage these bloody reenactments of Lord of the Flies. Now, I'm not saying that I think Rowdy actually wants them to claw one another's eyes out, but he certainly seems to create situations that he, as a thinking adult, should see will lead to only that. He is constantly encouraging them to wrestle each other or tackle other or some other activity that 100% of the time leads to out-and-out warfare. Fucking constantly.
However, all this time I believed he just didn't think the end game out, that is, until he showed the boys how to have bulldozer fights. That's right, freakin' bulldozer fights.
A few nights ago, I walked into the living room to see Rowdy, the lone grown-up, showing our darling sons how to ram these disastrous toys against each other until one of them was pushed off the table, making one brother the winner and the other a very pissed off loser. Immediately, I snipped something like, "Have you lost your ever lovin' mind, Rowdy?"
Of course, he insisted that this was rather harmless, that they were just being boys. And he stuck by that defense right up until complete and utter lawlessness broke out.
And as I comforted my battered, beaten and bloody boys, I reminded Rowdy once again that they are, as he had just explained, boys. Their instinct simply is to smack each other with big toys until one of them is bleeding and both of them are bawling.
Then he said, "Yeah, but I bet they remember that it hurt."