Giving Our Girls Some Chemical X (WIBWIW)

Some family from out of town visited recently. My cousin brought her two girls, ages 3 and 6, and we had a BLAST! They departed Saturday morning for points north of New York and, while I have to admit to utter exhaustion, I was sad to see them go.

We walked around Manhattan, sang real songs and made up songs, watched The Powerpuff Girls (I still have VHS tapes—yes, VHS tapes—of the PPGs I'd bought for Balthazar years ago), and we laughed, a LOT.

We battled balloons, we swung around and got dizzy, we had tickle attacks, we played Shipwreck (in which I was the boat and rocked the girls into a bad storm at sea) and Airplane (in which I was the plane and they "flew" on the soles of my bare feet), we took tumbles, and we ate cupcakes.

I bought them each three books and none of them were about princesses. I quizzed them on stuff. I tried to comment on how pretty they were only once a day. If I told them they were cute, I also told them they were smart and strong.

You see where I'm going with this, peeps?

Though The Powerpuff Girls were made of "sugar, spice, and everything nice," the scientist who created them in his laboratory inadvertently mixed in some Chemical X. This is what gave the PPGs their super powers. And their super powers, in turn, give them the assurance that they can handle any monster who crosses their path, even when they're scared.

My sister, cousin, and I weren't given any Chemical X when we were kids. We were taught to be obedient, quiet, and above all, never to engage in behavior that could be considered ugly.

Well, funk that noise.

Let's teach our girls to be courteous, yes, and polite, and respectful. But let us also teach them to be messy. Let's show them how fun it is to get some dirt under their fingernails, as well as how pretty those nails can look with a few coats of polish. Let's teach our girls to be loud, when it's warranted. Let's teach them to run fast, kick balls, and swing bats.

Let's challenge our girls, rather than make things easy for them. Let's allow them to take a few falls and then show them how to get back up again. Let's talk to them about farts, and snot, and toe cheese.

Let's show them that clothes come in a wide spectrum of colors, not just pink. And let them know it's totally cool to prefer pink, too. Let them know they have options.

Let's give our girls some Chemical X and empower them to be whatever they want to be, not what someone tells them to be, or what they think they should be. Let them know they can just be, and that that is enough.

Le List Du Bucket (WIBWIW)

For today's installment of Whatever...I'll Blog What I Want (aka WIBWIW), I wanna tell you about my new Bucket List.

For the longest time, I rolled my eyes at the idea of a Bucket List, 'cause I'm cynical like that. Or just crabby. Or maybe I've just got wobbly eyes.

Anyway.

I just thought that, if folks had shit they wanted to do, they should just sort it out and get to it. Ain't nobody got time for makin' lists like that!

Well...

I've changed my mind. I've started a list.

(Does this worry you?)

(It totally should.)

I've no lofty goals on my Bucket List. In fact, for the moment, it's quite short, consisting solely of:

1. TP my enemies' houses.
2. Fork their lawns.

In fact, it's not much of a list at all, is it? More like a non-rhyming couplet.

Hmmm...

I don't care to dwell on the fact that my List Du Bucket focuses on vengeance. Though, in point of fact, I do have enemies and they are classified as such 'cause they were awful to me and totally deserve it.

But my list needs more...

What benign ways of avenging yourself against those who've authored your tears can you think of?

WIBWIW ~ Who Am I? Who are you?

The WIBWIW of this post's title comes from this new feature I'm introducing to mah little bloggy-blog: Whatever, I'll Blog What I Want! Can you dig it? I knew that you could.

In today's post I'm borrowing an idea from my fellow blogger and all around nice gal, L.G. Keltner of Writing Off the Edge. Back in May she asked her readers to do something I found quite titillating - namely, she asked us to describe ourselves in one sentence, with no limits as to how many words we could use.

Intriguing concept, right? How often are we asked to encapsulate all our thoughts, our aspirations, our strengths and weaknesses, in short, everything which makes us unique individuals, in just one sentence? Unless you're coming up with a profile for an online dating site or crafting a tagline for yourself for some arcane purpose, my guess is "never."

L.G. got the ball rolling for us by writing of herself, "I am a geeky writer, wife, and mother who doesn't have her head in the clouds because it's out there amongst the stars." Which is a brilliant self-descriptor, though she fails to mention she sports a glorious mane of titian locks that I'd kill to possess. (Don't worry, L.G., I'm not gonna scalp ya. For one thing, I don't know where you live. For another, as I've said elsewhere, I'm lazy as hell.)

My answer to this challenge, which I posted in her comments section, was "I'm a sleep-deprived lunatic, self-medicating through her mid-life crises with chocolate and cabernet sauvignon, while freaking out over how she's going to pay for her son's college fees starting next month (next week!!!)."

This clearly shows what I was going through then, and still am: money and life worries that I cope with by treating myself like shit. Lovely. Well, in the back burner of my frazzled mind is the thought that I have to take better care of myself because no one's going to do it for me, so, you know - baby steps to a better me. I'll either get there or I'll leave a chunky corpse that's three shrouds to the wind.

On a better day, I'd describe myself as follows: "I'm a compassionate, sensual, and creative soul whose work will bring pleasure to many." That's better, right? More optimistic, anyway.

So, how about it? In the comments below, describe yourself in one sentence, however long.

Go on, then - I dare ya.