Did I just coin an awesome phrase? Original Dude – O.D. Like O.G. – Original Gangsta? No, reminds you of overdose?
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and The Dharma Bums are two of the Dude’s favorite reads. Jack was on original dude. I’m sure the Big Labowski had Kerouac on his shelf.
Little Dude is approaching the 11 month mark. Mrs. Dude and I are pretty close to being the proud parents of a one year old. A one year old?! How did that happen? Where did the time go?
Wow. It’s a whirlwind, but it’s so fun, and Little Dude is coming into his own a little more every day.
He’s starting to clap, walking behind a new toy Grammie got for him, and overall enjoying his existence. A super happy guy, which makes me a super happy guy.
We go through our days acting like we have it all figured out. Simply tune into 24-hour news station to hear experts being experty…O’reilly anyone?
But that’s just an extreme example. We all do it. Everyday, all day. That’s how we get through life. Fake it until we make it.
Parenting is nothing but faking it until we make it. Bachelor Dude was not much different from Daddy Dude. Sure, we lived a somewhat different daily existence, but down deep, we’re the same dude. But one day I woke up and I was a Dad, and the the parental faking began. My parents did it before me, and their’s before them. That’s how we exist. We experience, and we learn from our experiences.
However, the rub is that down deep, we really don’t know…about anything. We can act like we are the best parents in the world, but we’re just making it up as we go. We’re ok given our conditions, but no one has the answers. In the same way that no corporation is the perfect corporation, no government is the perfect government, no country the perfect country. We need to be careful of the “experts” we put our faith in.
We let our experty faking abilities cloud the reality that regardless of how much we have advanced as a civilization (mind you many civilizations have advanced quite well before us), we are still very far from understanding the most essential mysteries of life. We are easily consumed by our daily activities, but if we take the time to ponder the biggest of the big pictures, it is easy to see we are clueless.
Which isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s a great thing. Acknowledging the unknown creates so much opportunity. It allows us to drop our minor worries (that often seem major) and focus our attention on priorities. Cheesy, yes…but life, love, family, happiness, community. All of the really fun, warm words that bring us closer to each other.
Where is my rabbit hole of ramblings leading us?
Mrs. Dude and I battle over bugs. Mrs. Dude is very anti-bug in the house….especially spiders. Not that I’m pro-bug in the house, but the Dude generally abides. I’m not overly concerned about a spider.
Mrs. Dude used to squeal an ax-murder scream and expect the Dude to ride in on his white horse to save her every time a bug was encountered. Then reality set in. I don’t kill bugs. I catch them and put them outside. And most of the time I don’t catch them well, so they generally escape.
I’m not worried about it. I’m not bothering the bug; I don’t expect them to bother me. This philosophy doesn’t sit well with Mrs. Dude.
Reluctantly, she has accepted me for who I am. She now kills her own bugs…and leaves them for me to clean up.
But the deep questions still linger in my mind. While I am now just the janitor that scoops up the kill, I’m still involved in the process. It makes me wonder where we draw these arbitrary lines.
If I’m confused, my kids must be as well. Should I just fake it until I make it? Ignore my ignorance of the answers to life’s deeper questions?
So, the ramblings lead us here, to this video. I came across this video today, and I was going to share it with Mrs. Dude so she’ll know what I’m singing to her every time she requests that I clean up a dead bug, but then I figured a quick blog post would be in order. Now 45 minutes and 10 paragraphs later I’m finally getting to the video.
Are we a cut-the-crust-off-your-bread type of family?
I’m sure there is great reasoning on both sides of this discussion, but regardless of the decision, this seems like a choice that helps define a family.
Life lessons from bread crust?
I want to make sure my kids have what they need, but I don’t want to be cutting their crust throughout life. Working through a tough crust – nice metaphor for life experiences – can help build character.
I was going to try to make the, crust has more nutrients argument, but the magic of Yahoo Answers demonstrated that this is most likely a myth. So, I think I’ll fall back on the true crux of the issue.
From the Dude’s perspective, cutting the crust off a sandwich adds an extra step for busy parents, and throws the child/parent balance off.
There’s nothing wrong with the crust. A little tough? Sure. But it’s part of the bread. Why would we cut it off?
It seems frivolous, and to meet frivolous desires encourages more frivolous desires. Ok, that sounds a bit extreme.
But the premise seems to fit. We don’t need to create extra work for an everyday event that is unnecessary.
I suggest the complete opposite approach. I can admit the crust is a bit harder to chew, so instead of stressing about it, tackle it first and save the best part for last. That makes the last bite that much better…ah, the soft middle bite that offers the most gooey part of the fluffernutter.
Do we want our kids chasing every frivolous desire, or do we want them tough enough to tackle the tough challenges first so they can enjoy life’s finer points that much more?
Seems like an easy decision to me.
We are a crust-on type of family.
That’s what I thought until I walked into the kitchen this morning.
A general theme is developing around the Dude’s house, and it’s a theme developed by a five year old princess; “You Can Call Life Whatever You Want.”
The original discussion centered around the word “water.” The Princess pronounces water “wuter;” it could be a southern thing. The Dude asked her about this, and the Princess explained that water and wuter are the same thing. The Dude must have appeared perplexed because this was followed by “You can call life whatever you want.” And the overriding household theme began.
It seems like this phrase is referenced on a daily basis, like when freckles are referred to as nipples (as in “How did you get nipples on your hand?” or “You have a nipple on your face.”) or zucchini is referenced as bikini (As in “I don’t want any bikinis on my plate.”).
However, it has morphed into a justified reason for almost all of the nuances of life, like a tooth fairy debate: Princess proclaims, “The tooth fairy brings gold coins.” Dude responds, “I’m not so sure about that.” Princess follows with “That’s ok, you can call life whatever you want.”
