You can only turn your face up and let it rain down.
— Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
Today Cassidy is seven.
Apparently you can’t stop time.
The Honey Badger Mom in me knows this. Knows my job as a mother is to raise children who don’t need me.
And I look at this photo of my sweet sweet girl, listen to her jabber on about the most nonsensical things, see her dance on her toes and twirl her hair.
…On cold winter nights, love is warm. It lies between you and lives and breathes and makes funny noises. Love wakes you up all hours of the night with its needs. It needs to be fed so it will grow and stay healthy.
Love doesn’t like being left alone for long. But come home and love is always happy to see you. It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life, but you can never be mad at love for long.
Is love good all the time? No! No! Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.
Love makes messes. Love leaves you little surprises here and there. Love needs lots of cleaning up after. Sometimes you just want to get love fixed. Sometimes you want to roll up a piece of newspaper and swat love on the nose, not so much to cause pain, just to let love know Don’t you ever do that again!…
Casino for luck, and because the boys and I just watched the original Rat Pack Ocean’s Eleven, followed by the George Clooney version. Also, it just sort of rolls off the tongue.
Karma was named Athena when she came to us. She was one of a litter of seven… and she was born a full 36 hours after the other six.
A miracle baby. She also has six toes on one of her hind feet.
Talk about long odds.
“The Saint Bernard probably has its roots in the Roman Molossian dogs, but it wasn’t until between 1660 and 1670 that the breed developed into the magnificent dog responsible for saving so many lives. Around this time, the first of these large dogs arrived at the St. Bernard Hospice, a refuge for travelers crossing between Switzerland and Italy. The Saint Bernards originally came to help pull carts and turn spits and may have also functioned as watchdogs or companions, but the monks soon found them invaluable pathfinders through the deep snow. The dogs were adept at locating lost travelers. When a dog found a person, it would lick the person’s face and lie beside him, thus reviving and warming the person. The dogs continued to serve in this invaluable role for three centuries, saving over 2,000 lives.”
-from Animal Planet
The name “Saint Bernard” wasn’t in widespread use for this breed until mid-19th century. Before then, they were “Saint Dogs”, “Noble Steeds”, “Alpenmastiff”, or “Barry Dogs.”
Barry was the most famous rescue dog at the St. Bernard Hospice. He reportedly saved somewhere between 40 and 100 lives. There’s a monument to Barry in the Cimetière des Chiens, and his body was preserved in the Natural History Museum in Berne.
Saint St. Bernard, by the way, was the first Cistercian monk placed on the calendar of saints. Pope Pius VIII gave him the title “Doctor of the Church.”
Some concerned citizens were wondering how The Dogness took to the puppy. Jimmy, like me, likes his personal space and doesn’t like when things get overexcited or unruly. He’s been known to steal and hide the ball when he thinks a game of soccer has got out of hand.
Well, OK. It wasn’t love at first sight.
Look at the disdain on that face.
The puppy is pretty low-key as puppies go, and Jimmy has decided she’s not too horrible.
He’s permitted a few kisses on the cheek, but I don’t think he’s up for sharing his doggy bed yet.
And… that’s what I did today.
Now tell me something completely crazy that you’ve done lately 🙂
42% of children have never made a daisy chain 32% have never climbed a tree 25% have never rolled down a hill A third of children have never played hopscotch One in ten have never ridden a bike
72% of adults played outside rather than indoors,
compared to 40% of children today.
-from new research from Savlon and Play England
August 3rd, 2011 is Playday, the national day for play, a celebration of kids’ right to play and a campaign that spreads awareness of the power of play in kids’ lives.
In the UK, that is. It’s not happening here in the US of A.
Apparently, in the UK they’re not being facetious when they talk about kids’ right to play:
Children’s right to play
In 1991, the UK government ratified the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. The Playday campaign is committed to achieving the full implementation of this right, to ensure all children in the UK can play.
Article 31 of the convention states that:
Parties recognise the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.
Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural artistic, recreational and leisure activity.
Axel Strohbusch, from Berlin’s Department of Noise Protection, said it was “the first time we have it written in law that we have to consider the rights of children to shout and make noise while they are growing up.”
I ask you:
How depressing is it that laws need to exist to protect kids’ right to be kids?
Is it more or less depressing that kids don’t have those legal rights to childhood here?
I’m curious to know how our stats stack up against the UK… do me a favor and vote in the poll. (Poll embedded below. Subscribers may have to click through, sorry!)
