My son is a Princess

My two year old (whose name I will not mention) about two weeks ago was going through a puppy faze. He would come up on hands and knees and insist on being scratched behind the ears; then, in a non-puppy like voice, ask for a bowl of water. He would bark a little, then leave the life of a four legged and rejoin the two legged population.

Now, he is in his princess faze. Ok that isn't fair, really it is just that he is wearing his sisters clothes, which consists of very tasteful flowy dresses. Being the completely honest person I am I have to admit to my feelings of discomfort.

I want to just allow him to experience what he wants, but, there were a few minutes there at outset of his skirt wearing that I was insistent that he put on his overalls.

I decided not to fight it because I could not find any reason why I should. Besides, the only problems I could think of, were that wearing girls clothes might lead him to a life of say: joining the Lincoln Brigade and fighting the Spanish civil war then writing "The Old Man And The Sea" or heading the CIA. (So, boys wearing dresses equals fighting Fascism and writing books about man against nature in a non-descriptive style or well, becoming a spy ala J. Edgar Hoover)

What it really came down to, was avoiding the classic two-year-old meltdown, which I am all about avoiding when the thing he wants is not dangerous....

grr

Every other word out of Chaz's mouth is in the form of a scream and I am on the edge today. I am given to yelling today and I am driving me nuts.......

Journey, and Zen

I was sitting during sesshin a few weeks ago, cultivating nothing, well trying to cultivate no- mind. (seriously, how can you really cultivate nothing? Maybe there are more advanced Zen folks out there who can explain that) So, I was sitting there on my little cushion staring at a wall, bringing about no mind when I hear this " Just a city boy/born and raised in south detroiooit/he took the midnight train/goin anywhere"

I managed to calm my mind a bit then " When the lights/ go down in the citay/and the moon shines on the baaayaa/ooh I wanna be thereyaya in my citay/ ooohoohooh"

Followed by more no mind and more Journey songs; I think all from the same album which, I have never owned or heard.

Really, it gave me hope that maybe enlightenment was looming before me. And, just like the pain in my knee, my stuffed up nose and my sleeping leg I needed to make room for Journey and not try to push them away so, the next time Steve Perry's voice manifested itself in my head with " oh the wheel in the sky keeps on trunin/oh I don't know where I'll be tommoroooohooh" I just sat with it and relief came around. Not no mind relief but " It's the end of the world as we know it/and I feeel fiine"

Toddlers are Amazing!

Charlie has a most amazing skill. Maybe it is a sixth sense that only two-year-old's have, needless to say, I discovered it today. I was sitting at the kitchen table filling out my Oregon voter Ballot, when I had to check the bread in the Oven. Charlie, as far as I recollect, was playing in his room on the other side of the house.

Now, granted, our house is not huge, still, it is possible to be in one of the back bedrooms and not know what is going on in the kitchen; unless someone is running the blender or shouting. How Charlie could discern my action I will never know.

When I got up from my ballot I put the pen down, I stepped to the oven (three steps! not ten, or twenty. Three) I turned around to find Charlie traveling the pen around several twists on the morning news paper. I caught him just before he got to my ballot.

All I can guess is, that two-year-olds can smell an abandoned pen and tele-port to them.