OmegaMom

Spring has truly sprung here in Small Mountain University Town.

Music on the square has started up again.  Once a week, between mid-May and late-August, a community group provides live music on the square.  The first year the dotter was home, we took her every week, and had a grand time…she would bounce and run out to dance and just generally be an adorably cute toddler.

The next year was the OmegaFamily’s sturm und drang year, and the family took a pass on the music.  It would probably have helped, looking back…

Then last year, we just kept forgetting.

So this year, when I saw the notice on the local newspaper’s website, I made sure to insert every single one of those dates into my calendar at work.  No forgetting this time!

This week’s music was courtesy of the Cadillac Angels, a nostalgic rock band, playing great oldies from the ’60s with verve and expertise.  The lead Angel, sporting a ’60s look and ’60s shades, was truly amazing on the guitar.

Coincidentally, the day before, dancing on the square had begun.  Another once-a-week do, it’s open to anyone who wants to learn to dance.  The crowd from DOTS showed up for the live music, and the dancing began.   It was good to have the group there, because it’s like seeding the pot.  If no-one’s dancing, getting anyone to step out and dance in the spotlight (as it were) is very difficult, but if there’s a group of dancers out there already, it’s much easier to get more people to join in.

I sat there tapping my toes and bouncing, while the dotter sat there looking glum and OmegaDad headed off to the burrito place to get (AWESOME!) burritos.  Before I knew it, the old mountain man in blue had tapped me on the shoulder and swept me down to the open area in front of the band.  I insisted I had two left feet, but he just smiled, and started twirling me around.  I didn’t even last one whole dance–it was aerobic exercise, and I started huffing and panting.  Oy!  But it was grand fun (and fodder for another post, somewhere down the line).

When OmegaDad returned, the dotter being much less glum and more into the music, it was time for me and the dotter to get up and dance.

While the music was playing, kids of various ages were darting to and fro, dancing in circles in the dance area, running between various watchers, and generally being quite cute.  In addition to all the scuttling about, the kids were climbing on the artsy semi-railings scattered about.  OmegaDad and I watched while the dotter clambered up onto one like it was a jungle gym, OmegaDad muttering to me that it scared the heck out of him, and me trying very, very hard to sit on my hands.  My philosophy is “let ‘em do it”, and if they get hurt, they get hurt.  But, oh, how hard it is when you see your dotter dangling head down over brick steps… OmegaDad, unable to keep away, went over to “help” her, and I got this lovely father-daughter picture.

At one point, I glanced over to one set of the faux railings, and saw this lovely array of little boys (and one big boy, the blue-clad mountain man), perched like clones.

The crowd ebbed and flowed–at times, it seemed like hardly anyone was there (as in the boys’ pic), at others it seemed like the area was jam-packed.

The music was grand, the dancing was fun, the weather was perfect, the array of characters was splendid.  What a great way to enter into spring!

Technorati: Spring, music, community

I am a perpetrator of all that is wrong and horrible with society today.

Yes, you heard me right.

What brings this up?  The story in the previous post, and the comments on the newspaper’s website about it.

Let’s see…My sins:

I don’t think CPS should remove the child because of his (obviously) neglectful mother.  OMG, the child was out of her sight!!  For an entire MINUTE!!!  Give me a fuckin’ break.  First off, any parent who claims that they never, ever took their eyes off their child/ren at that age is automatically chalked up as a boastful liar in my books.  Secondly, there’s “keeping an eye on the kiddo” and there’s “keeping an eye on the kiddo”; I have quite often gone into stores and done my business, with a general knowledge of where the dotter is (sort of keeping her in the corner of my eye).  Not aware every second of what she is doing, but being aware of where she is in such a way that if (when) she disappears, I immediately have a little alert bell go off in my head.

I don’t think the child should be whipped, beaten, spanked, or dragged through the streets with tar and feathers.  Nor do I think he’s destined to be a high-school dropout serving burgers at Burger King.  Nor do I think he’s going to be a felon when he grows up.  Nor do I think he’s inherently destructive and he’ll never appreciate anything beautiful in his life.  Fer cryin’ out loud, folks.  He looks to be two years old.  Two.  The only time my two-year-old appreciated “beauty” or the concept of “leaving things alone” was when it was something that was hers.  I can practically guarantee you that if I had hurried past a heap of colorful sand like that with the dotter in tow at that age, she, too, would have done her damndest to play with it.  She wouldn’t have dragged her feet through it, either–she’d have plopped right down in the middle of it and started running her fingers through it, lovingly creating multi-colored sandhills and turning it into a thoroughly slurgy monochromatic mess.  Then, she would have insisted that I admire it.

I don’t even think the mom should be pilloried for “running away”–mainly because I don’t think the mom really noticed.  She marched in, kiddo running after her, did her stuff at the post office, and marched out again, grabbing kiddo on the way.  (This relates to “he was out of her sight!”–she obviously knew where he was, because she didn’t stop and look around and worry, she went right over to him on her way out.)  She looked busy and unobservant, like her mind was on other things.  When I’m busy and my mind is on other things, I don’t observe my environment all that clearly…after all, I can drive to work on autopilot, and not even remember leaving the house.  (I can also not even remember to bring my purse, but that’s another post entirely.)

Amazingly enough, when I watched the video, I wasn’t immediately aware that the woman was on welfare.  That she was popping out kids left and right.  That her behavior was an indictment of society today.  That she and her kid were a blot on humanity.

See?  A squishy liberal–that’s me.

If I were a right-thinking upright and moral human being, I would know all those things, just by viewing that video.

I hang my head in shame.

Now, I will admit, if my dotter had done that at age two and I did notice what was going on, I’d have been utterly and completely mortified, and, depending on my state of mind at the time would either have had a long talk with the child at the scene of the crime or else had a little screech-fest.  

In all honesty, I can totally imagine being off in my own little world to the point where I wouldn’t notice, completely oblivious.  I’d find out about it by reading the morning paper and watching that videotape.  And then I’d be utterly and completely mortified and afraid to stick my head out the door.

If the kid were older–say four or five–then I’d be more charitable with the commentary on Super-Destructo and his ultimate fate.  But at two?  Hell, most kids are barely able to follow two-step directions at the age of two, let alone grasp the concept of stanchions marking a boundary and pretty sand not being a plaything.  (My mom is going to email me and tell me I was a genius saint at that age and would never, ever have done something like that.  She might have a point–but that’s because I was repressed.  Ask all her friends.)