Hey, mom. Arlo here.

I feel I’ve been pretty clear on this topic, but there appears to be some confusion still, which I can only assume is a result of a profound slow-mindedness on your part, which is cool, I guess. Little disappointing that my genes were plucked from your pool, but hey. Water under the bridge.

I’m a patient, reasonable fellow, so I’m going to lay it out for you, right here. Here is how you please me during the evening and night hours:

In the evenings, from approximately 4pm until 8pm, I want to be carried around. I don’t want you to put me down because that annoys me. It doesn’t annoy me during the rest of the day, but it annoys me then. Don’t try that “put me in the high chair with Cheerios” tactic, or the “here are 75,000 toys at your lap” thing. That shit pisses me off. I’m not an idiot. I see through your games.

I was born 7 months ago, not yesterday.

You say you need to make dinner? Carry me while you make dinner. I like grabbing hot and sharp things. I find that immensely entertaining. That works for me. You see, I’m working with you here, mom.

I like sitting with the family at dinner and eating, sometimes. Sometimes I want to sit on your lap while you try to eat but I want the boob out so I can flip on and off approximately 486 times, snacking while also not missing anything, because everybody knows all the good shit happens at dinner (especially with that Georgia character around. Remember yesterday when she suddenly threw herself onto Rocket, trying to wrap her legs around his neck? That was rad.).

I also enjoy a bit of dinner-plate grabbing in the evenings, particularly if whatever I see on your plate can choke me. Don’t stifle me. I’m trying to learn.

You can give me a bath. I like that, but I don’t like getting dressed after the bath. Can you please figure out a way to bathe me clothed?

I don’t like it when I have to poop but haven’t yet and I don’t like after I’ve pooped, so what I need for you to do is somehow get the poop from insides to outside without the actual diaper-changing fiasco.

No biggee. Figure it out.

Maybe those hippies are on to something with that elimination communication thing. You know, the whole “read your baby’s cues and hold them over a container” philosophy. I’m totally into that. From the look on your face, you’re not. I kind of wish you were a more devoted mother.

There are sheets to play with, people. Why is everybody sleeping?

Anyway, after my bath I like to act tired and fussy and ready for bed. I am, in fact, ready for bed. Good job putting me in your bed and nursing me. I like to fall fast asleep quickly.

But here’s where you seem to get a little confused. You seem to think I want to STAY asleep at that point. Oh, no, honey. You’re not very bright.

I rarely like that. What I usually like is to wake up about 20 or 30 minutes after that so we can PLAY. It’s unclear to me how you ever got in your head that the hours of 8pm-10pm are for sleeping. I like to take a little cat nap then get up all cheerful and adorable so we can HANG OUT TOGETHER. Don’t you like hanging out? I like hanging out. PLUS I’M FUCKING ADORABLE.

Sorry for swearing, but seriously, with you two for parents, can you really expect more?

I signal my desire for play by squealing and cooing and laughing to myself in the bed. It’s weird that you’re usually not equally enthused when you hear me. Luckily though you always seem to come around after I give you a bit of that side-eye charm I throw down.

the side-eye charm in question

Anyway when I’m done playing and tired again, obviously I want you to lie down and nurse me, but I don’t want to go straight to sleep. I want to kick a few hundred times (I like to push off your belly because it pops me up and off the boob, which also serves to keep me awake, so basically, it’s not just fun, it’s USEFUL fun.)

After I kick I like to throw my head backwards and squawk a few times if I feel myself drifting. Sometimes I like to close my mouth a little so my bottom two teeth scrape against your nipple. I think that’s fun. You don’t seem to think it’s fun. Luckily you don’t matter.

Sometimes I cry. I cry because I’m annoyed that I’m tired and the nursing puts me to sleep because even though I’m tired I don’t want to sleep. But if you stop me from nursing I’m annoyed that I’m not nursing. So basically I want to nurse but once I start nursing I’m annoyed that I’m nursing so your job is simply to let me nurse or not nurse or maybe get up and walk me around or play with me or do something other than whatever it is that you’re doing because honestly, I don’t really like anything you do.

This is always a delicate time for me. Work hard to not piss me off. It changes every day. You can do it.

Once I finally fall asleep I prefer that you just stay there next to me all night long with the nipple in my mouth. I just feel better that way. You talk about your back hurting or wanting some space, and because I’m a nice guy, I allow you to move me a few inches from you for an hour or two a night. But other than that I’m gonna need you to just go ahead and keep one nipple in my mouth pretty much at all times. At LEAST I’m gonna need to use your boob as a pillow. I’ve tried other positions and boob-as-pillow is really the only way to go.

It’s not that much to ask, is it? Really? In the big picture?

I didn’t think so.

Thanks. Love you!

Arlo

P.S. Remember that one time when I slept in my crib for 5-7 hours stretches for an entire week? That was funny, right? God damn I’m funny. The way you thought I would keep doing that! Ha!

I’ll never do that again.

Hey America. I know you’re busy. But if you have a minute, I have a really important request: Please stop raising assholes.

I know. You’re just so good at it. It’s your jam. But seriously. It’s not complicated.

It’s not even that deep.

STOP RAISING HUMANS WHO ARE DICKS TO OTHER HUMANS.

Sorry for yelling.

It’s just that I’m tired of you. I’m really, really tired of you.

I’m tired of the parents who raised the kids who bullied this kid until he killed himself.

And these people, who buried their transgender daughter as a man.

And these winners, who cited religious beliefs to justify the rejection of the very child they brought into this world, the one who jumped off a bridge into oncoming traffic.

Your keen perception skills may have observed that I cited examples of assholes relating to sexual and/or gender orientation. Well, that’s because the asshole quotient of America seems to elevate exponentially as soon as sexual orientation and gender are involved.

Why? Who the hell knows why. Because you’re weird, America. You’re weird.

You call this hatred “Christian” and I’m pretty sure Jesus Christ, after whom your religion is allegedly formed, was pretty clear on that topic with the whole “love one another” riff.

So, you cite somebody with an inherently and openly opposite philosophy to justify yours, even though yours results in the deaths of children.

In other words, Jesus thinks you’re a dick.

pretty much

No he doesn’t. He’s Jesus. (Or was, anyway.) He’s Jesus precisely because he doesn’t think you’re a dick. Or maybe he does but he doesn’t hate you. He doesn’t hate people who don’t act like him. He accepts them anyway.

DO YOU SEE A PROBLEM HERE YET EINSTEIN?

Sorry. Again.

I, however, am not Jesus, and I think you’re an asshole, and really, really wish you would stop doing what you do, because it’s terrible, and it’s weird, and people are dying because of you. Transgender and gay people are dying because of you.

I’m not asking you to agree with their actions. If the thought of simultaneously having a penis and wearing a dress makes you want to curl up in a dark closet and weep for the plight of humanity, that’s cool. Go do that. But do it quietly. And perhaps give a little thought to the fact that clothing on a body that isn’t even yours makes you freak the hell out but you’re perfectly okay with “conversion therapy” wherein you attempt to BULLY MANIPULATE SHAME AND INTIMIDATE a separate human being into becoming what they are NOT, even though they are hurting nobody by being who they are.

You, however, are hurting a boatload of people by “being who you are,” but somehow that’s okay in your mind, even though the dude you claim to worship said “No really, I mean it. Stop hurting other people.”

Look, I get it. Those whacky transgenders and crazy gays are hurting you. I know. I understand. It just messes you right up.

Your poor little ego’s feelings shrivel up in a sad little ball and cry out into the cold, unfeeling night: “But what about me? What about my religion? You were born a BOY. Act like a BOY. That’s what I know to be true and right and good and what would happen if those lines became blurred!? OMG THE FEAR!”

I get it. That’s hard. But people are dying and therefore, fuck your ego. And your hate-spewing religion.

Oops. I didn’t mean that. Yes, I totally meant that. (And THAT is why I’m not Jesus and nobody reads my teachings 2,000 years after I walked the earth.)

Incidentally, that’s not Christianity and no, you don’t “put God first” because IF you “put God first” and GOD IS LOVE then you would, by extension, LOVE ALL THINGS EQUALLY and we would not be having this conversation.

Nope. You love yourself above all things. You love your ideas and experiences and perspectives. You love them so passionately and totally and fervently that you can’t even entertain the thought that the ideas and perspective and experiences of others are, at the very least, worthy of even a disapproving silence, let alone semi-loving acceptance. No, you love yourself so fully and completely that if somebody differs from YOU you’ve concluded there must be something wrong with them and they must be CHANGED, at any cost, to fit YOUR vision of “human.”

Wow, weird. I thought God made those decisions, being omnipotent and omnipresent and all. Huh. So are you God? You must be God. No wait. You’re not God.

YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE.

idea ^^^

And you insist on raising children. I wish you would knock that off. I wish you would stop doing your best to raise future assholes.

Perhaps you’re still confused, so I’ll make this very clear: If you are a member of a religion that rejects, diminishes or vilifies members of the human race who look, believe or act differently than you, you’re probably an asshole.

And if you are raising children and telling those children that members of the human race who look, believe or act differently than what your religion dictates are “evil,” and if you back those statements with hatred and derogatory terms, you’re trying your hardest to raise another asshole.

If you say “fag,” and you don’t mean “cigarette” in England (do they still say that?), if you get all bent outta shape when boys do “girl” things and girls do “boy” things, you might be raising an asshole.

You know what? Fuck that. This is more than that.

If you don’t outright teach your kids that all people deserve basic respect, even the little boy who dresses “like a girl,” you’re trying to raise an asshole.

If you aren’t teaching your kid to observe hatred and fight it, speak up and out and against the mistreatment of little girls who choose the identity of “John” and little boys who want to jump around with pom-poms, if you are not teaching them that personal identification is not necessary for basic respect and decency, that our job on earth is to do some good and help a few people out and not ruin lives or the earth or each other, if you aren’t making clear that these people are hurting nobody and deserve life and love and joy just like you or me or your kid, and deserve to not die hanging from ropes in their bedrooms or jumping off bridges in front of semis or taking pills or slitting wrists or sitting in their bedrooms wishing they were dead because YOU, America.

YOU INSIST ON PERPETUATING YOUR ASSHOLE NATURE because some boys want to wear dresses and it makes you feel funny.

You. It’s your fault.

Yeah, I said that. And I meant it. If you are not actively working against the bullying of people, if you are not teaching your kids at the very least a subtle love and acceptance of all people who are not harming others, even those YOU MAY NOT UNDERSTAND simply because they are, in fact, humans on this earth, you are part of the problem.

And people are dying.

And it’s on you.

And I don’t have one single problem saying it.

Stop raising assholes, America.

Get a new fucking jam.

Thumbs up, America.

In 2014 I learned that pregnancy doesn’t get any shorter even the 4^th time you do it, and the last month is still actually 349 days and the weight you gain still isn’t special. I mean it’s just regular old weight. It doesn’t just fall off.

And I learned that babies sometimes come with very little labor, and fathers can catch them in the middle of the living room, and the universe can create for you the birth you wanted but were too afraid to want, alone, with you and your husband and baby.

I learned I will have a son named Arlo.

And I learned that watching that baby with my just-made teenager will hold my gaze as strongly as when the light catches her and her hair falling just so, and the dress and jean jacket and boots, and smile, and I see a woman for a second.

Myself.

No, her.

I learned I won’t be ready for that moment, when the separation becomes essentially defined and undeniable and I start watching her like a full-grown human with all the lines of her face and the knowledge and wisdom they hold, the creases of her clothes and tones of her voice that don’t involve me. Her beauty. Her wit. I can’t believe she’s mine.

All the way down to the one lying here, nursing. The way his lips splay out, his hand pawing, the little eyes unfocused, or drilling into mine.

I can’t believe he’s mine.

They aren’t mine.

I learned again they’re never quite mine.

And I learned if you live in a home with light and air and wood floors and big old trees and your family in it, you might not want to leave very often, and this is both wonderful and dangerous (because one must get out, you know), but mostly rebuilding and energizing after that 1970s house of burglary, linoleum, drug-addict neighbors and dark.

In other words I learned the wrong house can really fuck things up.

And the right one can really make things shine.

I learned being a stay-at-home-mom is something I can do and love sometimes, and that surprises the shit out of me. Am I getting old? What’s wrong with me?

I never understand myself. That I learned a long time ago.

I learned knowing the songs at the preschool is a level of motherhood that I’m okay with, sort of, and being home every day after school when my kids get home is a gift that busts my heart open to give, when they aren’t annoying the ever-loving shit out of me.

I learned better school districts have more money to provide better services to help dyslexic kids thrive.

And I learned a well-timed nickname can heal tiny souls.

Oh Cricket, I hear you now.

I learned living down the road from your mom is like a small weekly Christmas.

And the happiest place on earth is indeed pretty damn happy. And super freaking clean.

In October I learned some kids get taken by cancer and it’s possible to hold in your chest – the heavy, red, pulsing depths where love and rage exist – the face of a child you’ve never met but somehow watched pass on and cried when she did for her and her mother, and your boy did too, because he knew the story and was crushed too, but barely, compared to those who held her.

It’s possible to have a little girl’s face become the force that drives you to call your toddler “Cricket” instead of turn your back, or punish.

I learned about that power in living. Or maybe dying

I learned I’m not okay with the finality of The Last Child, and I’m really beginning to think there’s something seriously wrong with me.

In 2014 I learned again that yeah, money doesn’t make you happy, but damn it’s hard to be happy when you’re always worried about money. And if you find yourself so broke that your husband starts working 7 days a week to keep your family going, well shit I learned that you’ll get so fed up of that bullshit life that you’ll put together something just at the last fucking minute and I’ll be damned if that something doesn’t work and your life starts making a little sense again, and your husband gets a day off work, and a new life starts to form that’s way more like the one you’ve always dreamed of.

I learned that it isn’t that life doesn’t give me “time” to do the things I’m meant to be doing, it’s that I use my time in ways that negate the possibility of me doing them.

And that’s because I’m afraid.

And I learned once again that I never learn a damn thing until I get so uncomfortable I have no choice but to change.

On Christmas I learned that if your husband buys you a pearl necklace like the one he gave you a few weeks after you met 14 years ago, the one that was stolen in a burglary by your nanny’s meth-addicted son, you will both cry, in fact so will the whole damn family, because it’s just a necklace but it feels like rebuilding, and really kind of the same, because things like necklaces can come, and go, and it’s okay. And that’s what becomes clear.

They don’t hold spaces in the red burning mass in your chest.

Or they shouldn’t, at least.

And at the very end of 2014, about 3 days ago in fact, I learned that if somebody close to me ever gets seriously injured in an accident, it will be the banality of what I was doing that day, in that moment, at that second, that might offend me the most, or hold me paralyzed, until the reality sinks in.

I learned that a severe hand injury on the man you love and with whom you’ve built a life will shake you into a new place more than you might expect, because you realize suddenly he isn’t a fucking necklace or house, but the child lost that you hold in your deepest heart, right there in the center, living and breathing and yours, to call Cricket when necessary, to catch on the living room floor, and watch when the light falls just so, and kiss in the hospital with a breath of relief, and joy, and awe that the sheet metal fell 40 feet and grazed off a hard hat and slammed just a hand, severed the tendon of a finger not the veins of a heart, and left you here, next to me, to move in 2015 with our broken perfection of a family.

We listened to The Ramones and danced last night. Well, the kids did. We watched. Jerry said “If you get confused just listen to the music play.” I don’t have anything else sometimes, you know.

I pulled Thich Nhat Hanh’s Anger off the shelf, again, because my yelling isn’t done yet.

I cleaned up my diet today. I’m tired of my body not feeling like my friend. I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again. Maybe that’s my resolution. How clichéd.

There’s a fire raging in the woodstove and the baby has 2 teeth. The dog has finally settled the hell down. The cat still pees in my plant. I sort of want to kill her.

My mom is down the road. My brother a few towns over. My dad makes me CDs of music that formed him. My husband is reading the kids a story with one bandaged hand, while I sit back here in my room with that damn cat, lean against a few pillows and write this to you.

It’s January 1, 2015. And I’m just happy to be here.