We’re @ the North Carolina Outer Banks for the week. I figured I’d put up a few photos. Claire and Logan love the ocean, and Logan hates almost all water. He just loves the way the sand feels on his feet and he thinks the waves are super awesome. Claire will not stay out of the ocean, which is funny until you’re chasing her down the beach every two minutes as she tries to make a break for the water.

These pictures are unedited. Whatevs dude, I’m on vacay.

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Trips

We all occasionally feel it necessary to apologize for our friends lest their actions or words reflect poorly on us. After all we choose to associate with them. It’s just best to let everyone know you started hanging out with them before the spray tan overuse or penchant for lame catchphrases developed. Seriously, if they had been that lame a few years ago you would so not be their friend. But now you are, and it’s your BFFly duty to stand by them, through the nasal spray addiction (true story), fear of postal workers (possibly justified) and a sudden and flummoxing inability to use turn signals.

The point of that preamble is to just let everyone know that Justin is a friend from high school. I’m sure you’d think someone as awesome as me would have equally awesome friends who are aware of what the entire internet is talking about. I don’t know, maybe Justin stopped using the internet and only accesses Facebook from his subconscious, thus bypassing the veritable titter over Google+.

For all of you other people who are aware of the existence of Google+, add me to a circle: cori.melvin@gmail.com. Not any lame circles though. I wouldn’t mind being a part of a “People who have stuck their penis in me” circle… Just to let everyone know.

Ramblings

My days consist of work, school work, child rearing and travelling most weekends. Come August 2 I’ll at least have a few weeks respite from school work between the summer and fall semesters. I still need to get my classes scheduled for the fall semester. With my math and computer prereq classes out of the way I have quite a few choices, one of which I definitely want to be a photography course.

So here’s a recap of stuff we’ve done recently:

Fourth of July weekend we went to Busch Gardens and then to Andrew’s grandfather’s lakehouse at Lake Gaston.

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Trips

So, in case you aren’t aware Adam Mansbach wrote a book called Go the F*** to Sleep. It’s friggin’ awesome, and Samuel L. Jackson narrated it. I’m not even sure why this guy doesn’t have a Nobel Prize. This book is an embodiment of the frustration every parent feels now and then when trying to get a child to go to sleep, and it’s funny. I mean maybe I’m biased because I’m a potty mouth and Sam Jackson is one of the reasons I even get out of bed in the morning, but it’s just a fun little romp and is in no way intended to actually be read to children.

Of course wherever there is fun there’s also a party pooper just waiting to ruin it. Karen Spears Zacharias doesn’t think this book is funny because of… child abuse? Frankly her entire article is a total bummer. Child abuse isn’t funny and it’s one of the saddest things ever. Every child is awesome and deserves to have loving parents, and if I had my way I’d adopt like a hundred little rejects and show them the world is a magnificent and wonderful place. But just because child abuse exists doesn’t mean that parents can’t find something funny.

The author of the article (who annoys the crap out of me by having three names, but I’ve graciously overlooked that glaring flaw) quotes an attorney as describing the book as “unsettling” and points out that the attorney was prosecutor for a highprofile child-murder case. She then follows up with this little beauty:

Nobody is suggesting that there’s a connection between Adam Mansbach’s book and child abuse or child neglect.

No one is saying that. She’s just saying that an attorney who prosecuted one of the most heinous crimes known to man – the murder of a child – doesn’t like this book. And then goes on to quote a doctor who says neglecting and yelling at your child is bad for them. At least the doctor was so kind as to acknowledge that “that the people buying the book are probably good parents.” I mean they might also be terrible people who hate their children, but they’re probably good parents.

I mean, what point is this woman even trying to make? That there are kids out there who are abused and neglected and parents that don’t deserve the beautiful babies they have? Okay, great, how does this relate to the book? Oh that’s right, they both exist in the same universe. Close enough.

This is the only connection the author offers between the two things she’s talking about (child abuse and the book, and a brief foray into racism that I’m not even going to entertain with a response because it is ridiculous):

The violent language of “Go the F*** to Sleep” is not the least bit funny, when one considers how many neglected children fall asleep each night praying for a parent who’d care enough to hold them, nurture them and read to them.

I swear this broad is purposefully trying to make me cry. Like I said before child abuse sucks, but that doesn’t mean parents aren’t allowed to be frustrated or make light of the frustrations they experience when caring for
those adorable little sycophants we call children. Are we just supposed to spend our whole lives sorry for others and refusing to acknowledge that we may have our own issues? That’s like saying you can’t joke about the trials of cooking Thanksgiving dinner because people in the world are starving. Don’t kid about the cost of car maintenance, there are people without cars!

You just can’t live like that, you can’t let the negative get you down. Instead of focusing on all of the terrible things we can’t fix, like child abuse, how about we focus on the positive things? Like giving our children the love and attention they deserve and and then giving ourselves the right to be frustrated without guilt tripping each other.

In the end I think we all just need to remember that sometimes there’s a bottle of wine and a Netflix DVD with your name on it and those kids just need to go the f*** to sleep.

Ramblings