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The first time my son stopped me, and I mean seriously stopped me by putting his little hand on my arm to be sure he had my full attention to say thank you, I turned to goo. We’ve worked to teach the boy manners, to say please and thank you, so I wasn’t surprised by the words. I was surprised because it was clear that there was sentiment behind the words. It wasn’t just a rote call and return. It was in his voice, it was in his face, it was brimming in his eyes. He was expressing real gratitude.

 That expression made me start to think about how gratitude is learned, and earned, and it gave me pause. Something had happened in his skin that had changed him, and something—whether it was repetition, or a lesson at school that clicked, or just seeing it around the house had made a light bulb go off in his brain, and he understood what it meant to feel thankful and say the words with the weight of that emotion behind them.

Gratitude can be tricky. It’s easy to expect thanks, but it doesn’t always feel safe to offer it. Gratitude has to come from a place of security. I think about the number of times someone has done something for me, and what I’ve felt is dread, or grudging obligation, or embarrassment, or even fear. Instead of gratitude, how many times have I felt sheer anxiety? True gratitude lays you bare—leaves you vulnerable, and exposed with the admission that you had a need, and it took another human to fill it. That’s scary. And it is wonderful when you realize you can express it freely.

I see parents and parental figures talking about their ingrate children. Kids who expect, who are entitled, and who demand. These parents seem to believe they are owed thanks. I don’t believe parents are owed anything. We (hopefully) are the adults who chose to bring these children into the world biologically, or into our lives through adoption, or marriage/partnerships. The children didn’t ask to be born, or engrafted, or stepped into our families. The children have little to no autonomy, and can only be as grateful, respectful, and loving as they’ve been taught to be. They can only be as grateful, respectful, and loving as they feel safe being.

We’re so hard on these little people (and bigger, smellier teenaged people), whose brains aren’t even fully formed. We expect, we demand, we tell them we are entitled to their love, their respect, and their gratitude (with just as much lip curling as they give us)—but what are we doing to earn that?

 Kids are like bread. They start off with raw ingredients, and you work those ingredients together, then you let them rise and grow. Then, you work them some more, and you let them rise and grow. You keep working those ingredients, kneading, rolling, squeezing, handling, patting, mushing back into the mold, keeping warm and dry, or cool and damp, until it’s time to bake. Hopefully, by the time you get your dough into the oven, it’s in good shape so that when it comes out, it’s nicely shaped and edible. But it’s everything to do with what you have, or have not put into it, and the attention you’ve paid it as you prepared it for the oven.

 The bread is only as good as what you put into it—only as good as the environment and conditions in which it is made.

Be kind to your little loaves. That’s the only way they are going to be able to feel safe enough to open up that vulnerable place of thanks.

That, that, that, that that don’t kill me…

I have Kanye on the brain, so I’ve decided to be as magnificently random. I will not type in all caps, though. I am not shouting at you. Well, I might shout, but I’m not shouting AT you. I’m shouting WITH you.

Things about which I am shouting:

1. Does it seem like Tom Hiddleston’s butt is everywhere? Is he the new Mel Gibson? Remember the 80s, when Mel’s butt was everywhere, and people talked about how it was equality and helpful for women because it was New! Improved! Now Movies with Man Butt! TH seems very proud of his willingness to disrobe, and has talked about how it evens the field for women. Dear Tom Hiddleston, While I appreciate your dedication to your craft (and you know how much I love your Loki), until getting your kit off is less of your idea and more of a job requirement, and the future of your career hinges on whether or not you are willing to show your nalgas, the playing field is not even. Also, there is this little thing called supply and demand. I have come to fear that you are less Patrick Stewart and more Kim Kardashian. I know that breaks your heart. Yours Truly, Lane’s Opinions P.S., I’m not sure you are actually a good actor. I think you might just be tall and British.
2. I’m with Her. I’m with her for a lot of reasons, and at least ten of them have nothing to do with her politics, and everything to do with my projections. I admit this readily. Still, I think if she were a man, we would be having different conversations. And maybe that’s hard to believe if you’ve always gotten to lead the waltz, forward, in your trousers, and your low-heeled shoes, being able to see where you are going, but those of us who have had learn to dance backwards and live our lives trusting you not to run us into the edge of a table, or off a ledge, getting tangled up in slips, skirts, and heels that force us to balance our weight on the balls of our feet, while looking demure-but-not-prudish, welcoming-but-not-inviting, and smart-enough-but-not-threatening know what it means when someone tells us to smile, or asks why we’ve raised our voices, or worries aloud that we look tired.
3. Smile. You’d be a lot prettier if you smiled. You want to know why some women won’t smile at you? Because there are so many men out there who see a smile as an invitation. For some, when a woman turns up her lips, it is a social signal that she is open to the idea of also turning up her legs. I know—that sounds crazy. See above. When a woman smiles, there are a lot of men who take that as an invitation to engage, and then get angry if “she didn’t mean it.” Or “she changed her mind.” Or “she was being a c-cktease.” It’s easier to not smile and only deal with the really crazy ones, who think when a woman goes outside at all it means she’s prowling, than to open yourself up to even more crazies. This is why I love drive-thrus, and avoid convenience stores at all costs.
4. Joel Osteen’s camp is denying that he supports Trump for President. That’s good, I guess. Joel Osteen is charging people to come hear him speak—you know, like Jesus did. Jesus, the guy who sent an invoice for labor when he turned the water into wine, charged for babysitting when he suffered the little children to come unto him, who sued the moneychangers for emotional distress after he had to overturn their tables at Temple, who made the masses sign IOUs for the fishes and loaves, who demanded the life savings from the man, whose child he healed. That Jesus. Maybe Osteen should just go ahead and endorse Trump. We know by them by their fruits, after all. Their huge, luxurious fruits, with which there are no problems–guaranteed.
5. Kenneth Copeland has endorsed Ted Cruz, and Cruz has happily accepted. I’d like to take just a moment to explain Dominionism, a theology both live by. “Dominion Theology is a theocratic ideology that seeks to implement a nation governed by conservative Christians ruling over the rest of society based on their understanding of biblical law. Dominion Theology is related to theonomy, though it does not necessarily advocate Mosaic law as the basis of government.” I worked for Kenneth Copeland Ministries. While I was there, with my very own eyes and ears I saw and heard VERY HIGH UP LEADERSHIP (though not KC himself, or any of his family members, but the people he put in positions of power, and with whom he was close) threatening employees for being Black (yes, you read that right); sexually harassing both men and women; calling minority employees “Beaner”, “Monkey”, “Jigaboo”, and “Blonde Bimbo” (that was me, my nickname from one particular minister was “The Blonde Bimbo” because I was blonde, and female—I’m not sure where he got Bimbo, since my boss requested [through a female member of management because that made it all right] that I start dressing in a prettier, more feminine way, as my boxy sweaters and trousers seemed too masculine); suggest that in the Middle East, desert demons would fly into your body through your eyes and possess you, and that’s what was wrong with all “those people” (okay, that one was a family member); make fun of mentally disabled people, and this isn’t fun anymore so I’m going to quit typing what I saw and heard. I’d just like you to have a teensy eye-witness account of what it’s like to work for a Dominionist so that you can have an idea of what it might be like to be ruled by one. If God put them in power, what they are doing must be okay. They have dominion over you. Super happy fun times! Having faith in Jesus doesn’t automatically make you a good, kind, just, honest person. You can be a racist, sexist, bigoted wad of feces and be a Christian, too. Faith and being-feces are not mutually exclusive.
6. 4 & 5 are two of the reasons I’m with Her. I could be with Kasich, but it’s hard to vote for a guy who isn’t on the ballot, and I’m not going to waste my voice on a write-in.
7. I wish I had an indoor dog.
8. Is there anything better than when people get your sense of humor, and enjoy it?
9. Dear Lane, I think the problem must be you, since whenever you go to see a stylist and say, “Trim,” they cut off at least 3 inches of your hair. Going forward, please use the following verbiage when approaching a stylist, “I do not want a hair CUT. I want you to take off a microbit of the hair just at the very ends. I just want the little grotty bits trimmed off at the very, very bottom. Do not cut more than one inch, or I will scoop all of my hairs up off the floor and stuff them in your face holes.” Maybe that will save you a naked neck. You know you hate when that mole is exposed. Sincerely, Your Head
10. I wish I could rap. I mean, I know a lot of rap songs, but when I try to sing/say them, they don’t sound right. Rapping is an art. (I started to say that spitting rhymes is an art, but it doesn’t even look right when I type it.)
11. Some days, I am very happy with how I look. Some days, I want to quit eating altogether. Some days, I think I am a bad feminist for caring. Some days, I look at Oprah and think, “She has more money than God, and she can’t even rich her way into skinny,” and I feel okay again. Most days, I don’t even think about it, but then I drive past 7 billboards (literally—every day) telling me how happy I would be if I would just let someone cut out half of my stomach, or at least sew half of it shut, and I wonder. I think about Oprah again, who is a billionaire, and a philanthropist, who has changed the face of television and print media, and made a huge impact on actual lives, and I worry that all her accomplishments are a footnote against the fact that she can’t even rich her way into skinny, and I feel sad for humanity.
12. I mean, I really wish I could rap.

A couple of weeks ago, I read a wonderful statement–of course, I can’t find it now–saying that when someone you love dies, the things you loved about them are not lost, but are released back into the world for you to find again in different places.

I’m a Harry Potter nerd, so I yelled, “Reverse horcruxes!”

I’ve thought about that a lot since reading it, and a lot more in the past few days as people close to me have lost people close to them.

My wish for each of those friends is for them to find those reverse horcruxes–those Easter eggs of love–as easily as the big kid at the church egg hunt.

Like a lot of parents, I am terrified of my child’s homework. Not only did I do enough of it as a child (or maybe not enough of it, if you look at my old report cards), I don’t know HOW to do his. Half of what he does is computer, or tablet based, and I am just excited when I can figure out how to dump a YouTube video into a blog entry from my phone (see below.)

We had a math meltdown the other night, when I tried to help Thor with long division. I took a glance at the way he was doing it, and was convinced he had completely misunderstood (or ignored) whatever it was he had been taught, and tried to gently tell him that his work was bassackwards. Those of you with children will know exactly how well that went.

Turns out, he was doing it correctly, and once I got the hang of his system, I liked it. Dare I say, I liked it better than the old way.

Below, I posted a video of my way to divide 4615 by 65, and his.

The main differences are that in my way, the divisor goes into the divisible from left to right. Can 65 go into 4? No. 46? No. 461? Yes. And that gives you the placement of the first number for your answer–across the top of your dividing hut.

You keep working your way across, until you can’t divide any further, or you have a repeating remainder.

Thor’s way, you consider the whole of the divisible, and ask yourself what-multiplied-by the divisor is less than that number. You can pick anything, from 1 to whatever number fits.

In this case, Thor just picked an 8 out of nowhere. He multiplied 65 by 8, then subtracted that number (520) from 4615. With 4095 left over, he decided to go for a bigger number, and picked 20 the next time. He repeated that three times, until he only had 195 left, and then had to pick 3.

He added 8+20+20+20+3 and came up with the same answer I did.

It doesn’t explain easily, evidenced by the tears shed last night, but it works, and it works well. I can wrap my brain around that pretty easily because it doesn’t require that I be able to multiply easily in my head. I can just pull numbers out of the air, all day long, then add them up.

I was actually surprised at how stress-relieving his way was. You can work your way into the correct answer without killing yourself multiplying all kinds of combinations to get to the single correct number you are looking to find.

Anyway, score one for Common Core. The kid can divide, and he can make change, so I guess he’ll be all right.