Child Appreciation

In case you missed it, yesterday was a national day of protest against Planned Parenthood. While I'm a little more social media illiterate than I'd like to admit, I'm pretty sure that it's not trending and that it's hardly even being talked about. Live babies being murdered and sold for parts? Old news. So as my tiny contribution to bringing attention back to this disgraceful issue (#protestpp #defundplannedparenthood #shutitdown #IwishIunderstoodthishashtagbusiness), a children appreciation post:

I have a cold right now, proof that a couple days ago I had my first substitute teaching shift of the new school year. It was middle schoolers (surprisingly, they seem to have a higher contagious germ rate than little kids), and the last period I taught was just a bundle of fun. There was a group of four boys that I had to separate about five minutes in, and then the disruptiveness just continued across the room, like they knew their teacher had left me no information on school discipline protocol and that my threats to send them to some other vague threatening place were more or less empty. It honestly reminded me of my baby trying to impress the teenage girl next to us at Mass a few Sundays ago by hitting the wall and squealing, then looking at her to see if she noticed. So when the period was nearly over (and I was counting the minutes), one of the girls asked me if this was the worst class I had ever subbed for. Oh heavens no! I assured her it was not.

Because how could I forget the five student special-attention middle school math class that nearly made me burst into tears (yes, I was eight months pregnant, but there was also a kid who straight up told me I was the worst teacher he'd ever seen), or my first ever day subbing when I completely lost control of a kindergarten class and ended the day amidst total five-year-old anarchy (read: screaming, crying, ringing the teacher's bell, raiding the stash of prize tickets)? Or the middle school class that made the much more experienced teaching aid tell me, “After this, I am going to go home and have a large glass of red wine,” or the 7^th grade boy who yelled out as he left, “Mrs. Thorne has a thorn up her ass!”

But then there's the student who says to the next period's student as they cross paths, “Yeah it's a sub. She's really cool though.” Or the first graders who spontaneously hug me as they leave. Or conversations like these with 2^nd graders:

Kid #1: “How old are you, Mrs. Thorne?”

Me: “Do your work.”

Kid #1: “You don't look very old.”

Kid #2: “I think she looks like about maybe 20.”

Kid #3: “Yeah she doesn't look very old.”

Kid #1: “Maybe like 25.”

Me: “Good guess.”

Kid #1: “Did you hear that? She's 25.”

Kid #3: “Oh I thought she was like maybe 40.”

For all their inconvenient poor behavior, all the tantrums, the poopy diapers, the ridiculous attempts to impress older women, children are amazing and beautiful and irreplaceable. That's why Dominic and I went to stand with nearly 200 other people yesterday in front of the Planned Parenthood in Escondido, to save the babies, or as he says, “Beeeee-beeees.” Because no amount of convenience or supposed freedom or imagined self-autonomy can replace the inherent good that every child is.

I hope and pray that one day, Dominic will be telling his grandkids how he helped shut down this ridiculous institution, straight out of a horror story, that pretended children could be replaced by convenience.  

Apartment Hunt Horrors

A couple weeks ago, my husband brought home great news: A promotion! That's great, honey! They're moving him to a higher volume first assistant manager position at the Big 5 in Oceanside. A 55 minute commute from our apartment in Ramona. We're like, okay. We have a month to month lease, we'll just move. I hop on Craigslist. And thus began the horrific experience that is apartment hunting on a budget in southern CA.

Apart from the near impossible task of getting an apartment complex to call me back, and the one private owned place that had a dead mouse under the kitchen sink, the search hasn't been all that remarkable. Except for the following:

A Craigslist ad for a $925/month 2 bedroom (what! A two bedroom for that cheap! That would mean you could leave for work during the baby's nap without you having to climb out through the window and cause the neighbors to wonder if I am cheating on my husband with a man who sure does look an awful lot like my husband!) in Fallbrook, a half-hour northeast of his new store and an hour drive from here. So we load the baby in the car, plug in the address from the Craigslist ad to my maps app, discover there is no such address, and navigate to a nearby address that does exist, as our baby gets increasingly more irate over being in the car for so long. 

When we can't find the place, I call the number from the ad, only to learn they have cancelled the open house. We can still go “look in the windows” if we want though. Swell, that's exactly what I drove an hour to do. So we finally located the place, and the front of the six-plex was slightly reminiscent of of a third-world country, with lots of dirt, junk, and a few matted-hair-barefoot children. We walk around back to take a look at our unit: 

The window is open, emitting a puke/pee/cleaner/moldy smell. While both pretending we're not about to wretch from it, we peak in. At first glance, we're both like, “Eh...” and then we look a little more and it turns into hell no. A pile of half-swept crap on the stained floor, a hole in the corner of the wall so that the mice and rats have easy access between units, torn carpet in the bedroom. But my favorite was the refrigerator: it was open, revealing stains from what I sincerely hope was puke because the alternative is definitely grosser for a fridge, and a lone styrofoam takeout container that was dripping a clear mucus-like slime (I think it's fertile, honey! #nfpjokes). Needless to say, we peeled out of that place as quick as we could. But actually, it was more like we hauled our baby back to the car parked a block away, buckled him in, tried to console him with graham crackers, and went zzzzzzoom away in my husband's yellow Aveo.