Bowen's First Haircut

I cut Bowen's hair for the first time today. I have only ever trimmed the hair above his eyes when it got too long and bothered him.

But I cut it all over today. And it made me kinda sad. I am actually mourning the loss of his long hair. I think Brandon is, too.

Bowen had this beautiful, long toddler hair that curled up on the bottom in "wings". It was freakin' adorable. And, as is typical for me, I did not care that his hair was long and he was a little boy (often mistaken at the park for a girl because of it) because his hair was just too beautiful to chop yet. And toddlers look great with long hair. They still have that uber soft baby hair that is a joy to look at and touch.

But, I realized as the weather has gotten warmer that Bowen's hair was making him hot and sweaty. And it's only going to get hotter. So I resolved to cut it. After much struggle, lots of convincing, only a little crying, and mommy following toddler all around the living room with a pair of scissors, I managed to complete our first haircut endeavor. Bowen now has a very boyishly short haircut. It makes him look older and I am not used to it at all. But it is certainly growing on me and I always enjoy an opportunity to see my son in a new light and appreciate him anew. Possible pictures later on his blog.

Simple Stuff

Since my life is basically the same from day to day, I have a hard time motivating myself to blog. However, I wanna remember a few key things for myself. So here goes.

I am sooooo relieved that the weather has turned from the confining cold of winter to the exploration-friendly warmth of spring!!!!!!! You have no idea how much this has changed my life. I think just about everyone in my biological family has always been seriously affected by SAD (seasonal affective disorder). It hit me really hard this last year because I couldn't get out and do the normal things I would have to alleviate it. Bowen and I were cooped up the entire effing winter, nowhere to go, nothing to do but sit in the same damn living room day in and day out, playing with the same damn toys and reading the same damn books for what seemed like FOREVER.

Tara wrote something on her blog right before winter was over that helped me get through the very last stretch. She talked about the inevitability of spring, the circle of seasons, and the hope that she always felt realizing that winter would always end.

I needed to hear that.

So, Bowen and I have had so much more fun now that the weather is nice. We have gone to the park a whooole lot. There is a really nice one here with a lake (that you can swim in in the summer!), lots of toys for him to play on, lots of walking trails, trees, and space. It's fabulous. The realization hit me the other day that I sorely miss living closer to nature and how funny it is that a few trees in a park surrounded by urbanization can really make me happy.

Bowen is nuts for the park, too. We drive by it every day to and from Brandon's work; and, every day Bowen points the park, repeats "Parka! Parka! Parka!" as we drive by and tells me to "turn right" into the entrance as we go past. It's pretty amazing how much that kid picks up on. Luckily, since we go fairly frequently and I always keep my promises to him, I have trained Bowen to not throw toddler fits about going, not going, or leaving the park. We say "bye bye" to all of our favourite things at the park every day we are there. It's "bye bye swing", "bye bye slide", "bye bye lake", geese, ducks, rocks, boardwalk, sand, and park. God, I love my boy.

And most recently, Bowen got to play in the sand for the first time ever. I bought him a trowel and rake and sifter to play with in the sand, but he mostly just loves to pour it over his leg and feel its soft tickle on his skin. One of his other favourite things about the park is throwing rocks in to the lake. I showed him it once and he's been crazy about it ever since. The only drawbacks are that he wants to do it non-stop from here to eternity and he also wants to touch the water and get in the lake. Obviously, it's been too cold up until now for him to be able to swim in the lake, but I'm really looking forward to taking him swimming all this summer.

I absolutely adore summer. Brandon hates it because it is hot and miserable, preferring the mildness of spring and fall, but I have ALWAYS loved summer. I'll even take the heat for all of the great fun summer offers. I freaking love to swim and have never had the opportunity to do it as often as I would like. I need to live right on the ocean. But I have an intense love for a few summer-related activities and trappings that will endure all my life such as: swimming, barbeques, going to the drive-in movie, watching fireflies, wearing shorts and sandals, the smell of sunscreen, s'mores, camping, hiking, shaved ice and sno cone stands, sitting outside on summer evenings, the sound cicada's make (seriously), reading outside, swimming, swimming, and swimming! There are so many other things, but who can name them all?! I think I idealize summer because it used to be a time of freedom for two months with no school and endless opportunities to do whatever you wanted to do. Some of my love of Florida is combined in summer love with beach, sand, and fun with the grandparents at freakin' Disney World providing probably some of the better memories of my childhood.

Dude, Bowen is so lucky. I am going to do all sorts of fun stuff with him! We're going to have great summers!!!

More Tomorrow

Terrible, terrible, horrible, awful, horrific, no good, bad, scary, horrible, horrific, depressing fucking day.

No Rest for the Weary

Do you know how hard it is to go to sleep at a reasonable time, with barely a moment to yourself, only a few hours after your toddler finally passed out when you spent all day dealing with crying, teething, and tantrums so harsh that they almost made said toddler vomit? It's virtually impossible.

This is why I stay up until 3 or 4 a.m., even though I won't get nearly enough sleep by the time my precocious son wakes up in the morning. I desperately need to be an adult for more than an hour a day.

Dammit, Think!

I am deeply, deeply disturbed by how careless people and especially parents are with the internet. I think perhaps it is largely an older generation that does not understand the implications of posting pictures of their half-dressed or almost naked children on blogs, on picture hosts like Picasa, or even on stupid social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. They do not realize that these websites do not have their best interest in mind. In order to keep your information private, you must regularly update your settings (especially on Facebook, since they are always changing, damn conniving jerks) and make sure that you don't have sensitive pictures out there for ALL TO SEE!

Ugh.

I say this, I rant, because I stumbled across some disturbingly accessible pictures of little children in their underwear today. Am I some sort of creepy pedophile, you ask? Hell no. I remembered this hot Calvin Klein model that I used to love when I was a teenager and thought I would try to figure out what his name was. Yeah, get over it. He was hot, I am an adult, and I can look him up if I wanna. (His name is Travis Fimmel, BTW. Check that out if you like. It's nice.) So, I google "calvin klein underwear model". Within the first ten image results was a picture of a little boy, couldn't be older than four years old, posing innocently in his underwear. Hosted online for all to see. I was so creeped out. And there are so many reasons why....

What disturbs me is that there ARE a lot of creepy pedophiles out there. I am not sure the technical workings of Google's search engine. I think mostly they search for the key words you choose on a website. I hope to God that they don't display the results based on popularity among searches, but they may. Regardless, the creepiness remains. I checked out the site that this picture of this poor little boy was hosted on. It was Picasa, of course. Dudes, you gotta know that Picasa is a bad program. I think you can change the settings to make it more private, but if you read the privacy agreement, it basically takes away a lot of your rights to your own pictures. They even make you agree to allow Google to use your own pictures in the future. (This was true when I checked it out less than a year ago. And many other programs are quite similar.) BUT, the whole freakin' sad thing about this is that the mother of this little boy had posted tons and tons and TONS of pictures of her family and children on her web albums, along with some underwear pics of her kids, her LOCATION, names, places, dates, etc. etc. etc. Sure, she may want to share pictures online with friends and family, but there are better and more private ways to do so! I want to say she alone was foolhardy enough to do this, but it's not true. The carelessness of so many parents today is DAMNABLE! And THEN....

I googled another phrase, really close to the first (can't remember, but it had "underwear model" in it) and what comes up this time, you ask?! A little girl, a toddler, in her underwear. Within the first ten freakin' image results. SO. This little girl's mommy has the notion to post their life story on a blog. That is searchable. With their lives, loads of pictures, their LOCATION, names, places, dates, etc. etc. etc. I want to vomit. Blogger is customizable! You can make it unsearchable by google! And you damn well better if you are going to post ANY pictures of your children online. Oh my God. I am so mad right now.

Breath.

Okay, so after I freaked out for a minute, I decided that I had to do something. I went so far as to make a fake account with Picasa, under a fake e-mail with yahoo, just so I could post a damn comment on this woman's picture telling her she needed to be more careful. I was tactful, I was helpful about explaining her options, and I even managed to maintain my cool. It was easier to post a comment on the little girl's picture on blogger, since the other mom had no privacy controls up even for commenting. I gave them both a similar message about upping their privacy and possibly renaming their accounts so previous stalkers (seriously, they probably had a million) could not find their new sites.

And afterwards I just.... I felt so.... helpless, fruitless, and overwhelmed. There are so many more out there just like that. People on blogger who are too ignorant and too careless to know that they can get in their own settings and make like a little safer for themselves and their families. I hate to think it, but this is how children get stolen and are never seen again. This is how members of NAMBLA find pictures, like free f-ing candy, for their personal and group use. This is how you hand your children to pedophiles without a fight. How the hell can we ever make sure that parents know the serious and real effect of their actions? There are just too many.

I was thinking maybe I would send out a modified version of this post in a forward. I get so many stupid, f-ing, useless, and often totally wrong forwards all the time. The least we could do is circulate something that may actually edify half the population. What do you guys think? If even a few people forward it....

There are just so many better ways to share pictures online. At the very least people can just e-mail them to friends and loved ones. If they want a site for hosting pics, use Kodak.com and send out invites only to those you want to view them. It even comes with a buying option so Grandma can do it easily! And for the sake of your children, if you must post them, make your privacy settings on EVERY sight including social networking sites very, very tight. Only let f&f know about your blog. And seriously, don't put compromising pictures of them online. AT ALL.

Shit.