Swimming Babies

I've spent a good deal of my life babysitting or hanging out with kids, but it wasn't until I was about 24 that the full force of the responsibility of keeping another person's most precious possession alive hit me. After that moment, I became the moderately anxious babysitter who convinces little tykes with slippery socks that it's super fun to wear bike helmets in the house while running. I worry about their wobbly frames, and their ability to remain upright, because if either of these fail, their little mouths/teeth and/or noggins are certain to feel the possibly irreversible consequences. That's what I worry about when kids are just WALKING AROUND. Put a swimming pool in the mix, and that kiddo is getting an inflated body suit, no questions asked.

Needless to say, when I saw this video I was anxious.

It takes a little while for the baby to actually fall in the pool, so I spent more than a minute preparing myself to be horrified, but then the most amazing thing happens. The little incapable, ingenuous bugger becomes a thinking, responding, ingenious example of a grown human who has only some control over his extremities. He kicks his little legs and swings his tiny arms with what seems to be a fully formed comprehension of the laws of motion and balance, and then, when finally on his back, he begins to cry until the father returns to fish him out (which is far too long for what this training video requires, if you ask me).

Babies can learn to not drown. I wonder what else we can teach babies to not do so that babysitters such as I can rest a little easier while on duty.

"Goodnight Billy Moon"

Christopher Robin Milne called himself Billy Moon. "Moon" is what "Milne" sounds like when coming from the marbled mouth of a child.

He was supposed to be a girl named Rosemary.

He grew up with nannies and scheduled time to see his busy parents after breakfast, tea and before bed, where he told them stories of his adventures with his friends - his stuffed animals and toys.

Before he was ten, his parents stopped spending time together, so he scheduled separate time with each of them.

His father cataloged his childhood through little known stories you've probably never heard, "Winnie the Pooh."

He liked the stories at first, for they were his, but the kids at school started to make fun of him, and he grew to resent his father for sharing his stories with other kids.

By the time he tried to join WWII, he resented his father for sharing his childhood adventures with the whole world. They were no longer his.

He could never forgive his father for that, even in 1956, when his father was near death and there would be no one to feel the consequences of Billy's resentment, he visited Alan only once.

A few months later Billy had a daughter named Clare - she had cerebral palsy.

With Alan gone, Walt Disney had his hands on Pooh by 1961, and for Billy all was lost.

His mother refused to see him, and she died in 1971.

Billy owned a bookstore with his cousin/wife for many years.

Billy suffered from muscle weakness, Myasthenia gravis, for many years.

Billy died in his sleep in 1996 on April 20th.

Here's a link to a comic with the saddest Christopher Robin, Goodnight Billy Moon.

Here's a little preview.

Say Something

First, here's the video.

I started out with so much to say about this video, but nearly all of it can be conveyed in just these five stills. Take them as you will.

Christina acting:

This man acting:

It Takes a Village

Here's the link to the photo.


This letter was written by a woman in Fargo, ND. It's terrible on several levels. It's terrible first and foremost because this women thinks she can tell kids they're, not just fat, but obese. As if the children will recognize the "health" issue and be able to separate her "concern" from the fact that she won't give them candy because she thinks they're fat, and so will not only forgive her, but THANK her for her kindness. Second, it's terrible because there's a typo (which is a risky claim since, most likely, this post will have it's fair share of typos).

On a much larger scale, though, this letter is a symbol of how well-intentioned people can completely mess everything up for everyone.

This women sees a problem: too many kids are too fat, and it's unhealthy for them. For her, the only direct link to fatness is food in one's mouth, so the "logical" solution to the problem she sees is less sugary foods in fat kids' mouths. Simple.

Except for the small detail that kids learn the conditions under which people give love and acceptance.

This woman is telling these kids that they are too fat, and shouldn't be allowed to participate in the same things as their friends because of it. She's definitely not telling them that they should join a sport, or eat more vegetables, which is what I think she meant to say, even though they aren't actually better things to say. Instead, she's saying that their lifestyles are wrong, and since their fatness is a visible reflection of their wrong lifestyle, they deserve punishment until they can get their appearance more in line with what a "right" lifestyle looks like. Want to know why some kids have to deal with bullies? She's why. What to know why some kids grow up to be adults who associate love with food, drugs, alcohol, and sex? She's why. Because she feels obligated to teach parents passive aggressive lessons by making their children feel unaccepted and unworthy of love.

Because she can't see the consequences of teaching children conditional love.

Now for the upswing. Every response to this letter that I've seen has involved standing on the women's block and giving candy to all the fat kids with letters. The image of some chubby little Spiderman walking up to her house and getting the letter that he can't even read, while his friends get a bunch of packets of NERDS and raisins, his face scrunched in confusion under his mask as he turns around and walks down her steps, is heartbreaking and makes me angry. But, I know now, that as the little Spiderman squints down at the paper, trying to figure out what fresh Hell he's stepped into, a dark figure will stop him with a hand on his shoulder and a king-size Kit-Kat to drop in his little orange plastic pumpkin, and Batman will say, "You'll need this to grow big if we're ever going to battle."

The only way to teach kids that conditional love is the way of bullies and terrible well-intentioned people is to show them unconditional love, and that was the first instinct of most of the people who saw the letter, and that is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Beyonce Photobombs a Selfie

Everything about the title of this post is terrible. "Photobomb" and "Selfie" aren't even real words. But this girl. This girl is going to be OK, because for one moment, and now for the rest of time, Beyonce crouched behind her and (I imagine) whispered, "Go get 'em, Gurl."

Read the Vulture article here.