Dear Saffron

Someday you will be a teenager. And when that day comes you may start to have feelings for other teens. The way they smell, the way the smile, the way they laugh. All of these things might start to make you feel like smiling and giggling and blushing. And if, heaven help you, you are like your mother you might start to get the idea that you need a certain special someone. That this other person “completes” you. That the affection of this other person gives you worth.

And when that day comes, I want to say no.

No.

No.

You don’t need to wait on anyone else to complete you. You don’t need to sink into nothingness if that someone leaves. You don’t need to do or be anything for anyone else but yourself. You don’t need to wait for someone else to come in and save you.

You, are beautiful. Even if your skin is oily and your hair is frizzy and your teeth are crooked. You are beautiful. You are whole, complete, one. Live for yourself, enjoy your life, make up your own mind, find your own happiness.

Loves will come and go. Lovers will come and go. There is no white knight on a stallion, or sparkling vampire in a Volvo. And even if there were, you don’t need them. All you need is to look in the mirror and know that you are beautiful.

My thoughts coming later, I just wanted to get this up now. Go ahead and start the discussion in the comments.

And I’m putting this out here now, anti-breastfeeding trolls will be deleted. Don’t like it, suck it.

photo credit: Rob Lee 4396710

So Michael and I walk into a furniture store …

Wait, let me back up a little bit. Michael got a fat bonus from work, a really fat bonus. And we decided to spend part of it on a new bed for the boys. At the old house they each had a small bed of their own. But their room in this house is shaped different and fitting in 2 beds along with toys and a dresser doesn’t work. So we decided to go the bunk bed route.

So Michael and I walk into a furniture store. Several actually, for what felt like days and days. We walk into this last one and I’m ready to walk back out. Everything has deer or horses or elk on it. There’s a camo print recliner. There are deer heads hanging on the wall. It wasn’t a pretty sight. But they did have a bunk bed, solid wood, for a reasonable price. One that Evan loved. So we started talking, debating with each other how low we thought we could haggle and if we wanted to try just one more store.

And then, the guy earned my money.

He’s sitting on a bed frame waiting patiently for us to decide, chatting happily with the boys. And then he starts talking about his kids. Four kids, siblings, older, in the process of adoption. He’s telling me how they were in foster care for most of their lives, tossed around a lot, had more things happen in their lives than anyone should. They’re older, almost teens, coming at him with a host of issues most people will never understand. And he’s looking at my boys, smiling in a sad way, explaining how the solid oak bed frame is sturdier so it can’t be kicked apart.

And I’m thinking he probably knows that from experience. And my mind raced straight to Christine.

I gave Michael the look. He pulled out the checkbook.

With all the “save the babies, give them to adoptive families” we hear we forget about the older kids sitting in foster care for years. Sibling groups that no one wants. Kids with issues, baggage, maybe more than a few problems. The ones that get left behind for that fat little newborn.

This, this is the essence of voting with your dollars. I absolutely support a family willing to adopt and older sibling group with issues. And so I bought the bunk bed at his store. And made a mental note to buy from his store whenever we need other furniture. Even if it means decorating like we live in a hunting lodge.

I could learn to love an elk print couch.

photo credit: kyz

Remember when I said I don’t like Christians? This doesn’t help change my mind:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

And neither does this.

But now, it turns out, that he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers, to which all these Biblical allusions are directed, who should be slaughtered, if not by God, then by just men.

Or this for that matter.

He describes tactics such as using girls in bikinis to pass out fliers advertising a beach party, and then, when people show up looking for drinks (which of course were non-alcoholic) and entertainment, they got a whole faceful of Jesus. Or how he and his buddies were encouraged to pose as researchers doing a survey on religious practices, so that when people would tell them they don’t go to church, they’d use that as a hook to try to get them to come into theirs. Evangelical Christians are doing the live action version of being a virus inside an email that says “Check This Out!!”