the cradle has been drinking...

recently wingman told me he wanted a bed for his *babies*...so i hauled out a beautiful wooden cradle we have that was handmade for the duke before he was born...

that was NEVER slept in, i might add...who really uses these things?...they are always so beautiful, these cradles and those floaty angelic looking bassinets...sure we know they won't accommodate any baby past the age of three months, but they seem necessary...it seems like a really good start for a baby, having this beautiful bed for them...even those of us who plan to co-sleep from the beginning...always placed just so in the room in anticipation, only to become an expensive catch-all for the requisite shit load of drugstore stuffed animals and slightly creepy looking dolls every kid seems to aquire before their first birthday...

anyway, so i haul out this beautiful handmade wooden cradle and of course it's already stuffed with animals and babies and slightly creepy looking dolls and the like and i drag it into the boys' room...

they both busy themselves getting reacquainted with old friends, and as the duke quickly loses interest, wingman continues rearranging all the babies...

later on i'm tucking the duke in and i step on something...i bend to pick it up

"what's this beer cap doing here?"

"oh, we found it in the cradle"

now somebody has been drinking and this time it's not me...because normally an errant beer cap is par for the course around here...BUT as we never really used the cradle and as it's been stored for more years than wingman's been alive, the whole matter is a bit fishy indeed...

plus, everybody knows when you're struggling with a squirmy baby a can is always easier to manage than a bottle...

i say either the cradle has been drinking or one of the animals have...my money's on the small but very plush and adorable green and white striped pig that rattles...despite his adorableness he was always passed over in favor of other animals...some of them decidedly more inferior in quality and looks...

really, who could blame the guy?...plus as cute as he is, that color green is soooo 90's...ignored and unfashionable...as good a reason to drink as i've ever seen...

though with his shape i'd switch to a lighter beer if i were him...

anyhow, here's some more sage advice from the duke...

"the trick to having a school for orphans is to make it fun!"

don't ask me. i just live here.

and moving right along, today's $1 menu tao

absorption

crimson light through pine shadows.
setting sun settling in the ocean.
night follows the setting sun,
day follows the fleeing moon.

absorption of anything is a process...you don't just absorb and there it stays...it continues on either in flow or in building to another level...

often we divorce ourselves from process of any kind in favor of instant results, or fear, or laziness...

but to enter into process is to absorb it...and that absorption becomes flow within us...and it moves us forward...

nothing worth doing is instant in its rewards or results...and it is the passage of time and steps taken and knowledge gained that bring us to where we need to be...

have a good day,

x.

p.s don't forget tonight starts off the highly anticipated television christmas season with rudolph the red-nosed raindeer at 8 pm on CBS...yes folks, rudolph, clarice, hermey, yukon cornelius and the big ol dentally challenged abominable snowman are back and they've got the lovable burl ives as sam the snowman in tow...NOT TO BE MISSED!