Protest like a toddler

This week the President announced plans to defund Sesame Street reruns.  Not on our watch.  You just pissed off the group in America that is best qualified and most determined to protest.  A lot of Americans are new to protesting things and are reluctant to make a public scene or potentially hurt the feelings of someone they love.  This is simply not true of someone who is twenty months old.  Under Pip's loving tutelage I offer the following guide to forms of protest for the newly-engaged American.

Calm Refusal
This is always the first tier of resistance, though not necessarily the first tactic.  If someone asks you to do something and you don't want to, say no.  Say it insouciantly and cheerfully because it's more annoying but the tone can't actually be punishable because it's pleasant.  If you're not sure whether or not the request is a good idea, refuse anyway.  Someone asks you to laugh at an anti-Muslim joke? No.  The senate needs unanimous consent to proceed on debate or votes for any issue.  No.  Ha ha now four days of complex procedural crap are necessary.  Republicans in Congress have been using this tactic for eight years to general obstruction.  Patrick almost never says yes, even if he means yes.  Why negotiate from a position of weakness?

Passive Resistance
Simply do not do the thing you are ordered to do.  You don't have to say anything (though an cheerful no is still obnoxious).  If you're worried your body might accidentally obey an unconstitutional executive order, go ahead and lie down.  Last week I tried to get Pip to come with me to the next aisle in the library.  He calmly plopped down and reclined his toddler body.  "No."  Now of course I have superior force, just like the National Guard.  I can pick him up and force him to obey, but I'm pregnant and he's heavy so this is a demanding and unpleasant undertaking, and he knows it.  The government could try to force compliance, but enough people just lying around saying "no" is hard to move.

Sabotage
Nominally agree then immediately undermine.  This also works if you were forced to do something against your will.  Republicans didn't like the Affordable Care Act so they actively undermined it to make it worse.  Patrick doesn't like wearing socks but sometimes he loses.  As soon as mommy is driving she will be unable to get them back on.  Ha ha.  Oh, she put them back on because it's 40 degrees outside and so she put on the shoes? Take off the shoes and throw them.  She won't want to lose them on the walk.  Then take off your socks repeatedly.  Eventually she'll concede your right to frostbite.  If you lose one fight by executive order, just go ahead and undermine it every single chance you get.  You can break him.  Mom cares a lot about warm feet, but she eventually broke because she wanted a walk more than she wanted to fight.  Pip was not so feeble.


Shrieking tantrum
This is energy-intensive so this tactic should only be used four or five times a day at most.  If you really need the world to know that you object, you give it everything you have.  Throw your body around, cry, scream and if necessary follow your audience around and repeat the performance so they can't miss it.  Do not allow any business to proceed as normal.  Prevent conversation or action by the leader by drowning it out.  Be totally unapologetic about your tactics because you know you're right.  This week while flailing Patrick punched me in the face.  I asked him to say sorry.  He calmly said "no."  I don't suggest that you punch people.  But a good protester knows that the opposition will want you to be quiet and play nice, and if they're still suggesting you wear pants then you fight them.

Persistent Whining
Patrick has perfected a really annoying whine.  It oscillates like a fire engine siren or a yodel.  If you want to play on the big bed, you grab a grown up's finger, say "bed" twenty times or more and then make the siren-yodel so they can't think or do anything.  Be warned: They will try to distract you.  If you're upset about Trump's cabinet picks, you stick to that.  Yes, everything else he did this week was also horrible.  But you stick to your whining.  Mommy might offer you a toy, or a snack, or a view of a bird out the window.  The amateur toddler will forget about the bed.  The pro sticks to his theme.  If you didn't care that much about bed you were just bored and wanted attention, then sure give up.  But as a true protester, you're not just an activist because you had nothing else to do.  You have a cause.  And that cause is Betsy Devos is terrible/I want to jump on the bed.  Stick to it.

Live to fight another day
You can't fight every single fight.  A true toddler will likely try.  Decide which fights are worth the full body tantrum, and which simply need a "no" so mom knows who is in charge.  Millions of people aren't free to protest every weekend.  Fight the big fights tooth and nail, and settle for passively pissing the President off the rest of the time.  It won't be hard.  A toddler knows which buttons to push, and there is nothing more appealing than a button.  Luckily, our President is basically entirely made of buttons.

I took this picture of Pip the week Trump was elected.  He got right down to business.

Brought to you by the number 8

I am determined to post at least once a month.  A blog is not dead as long as you post at least once a month.  This is scientifically proven.

I belong to a group discussion board for women who are due to produce live young in July.  It is mostly not a good use of my time but caring for the offspring I already have can be mind-numbingly dull (sorry darling) and mama needs her stories.  So if Facebook and Instagram fail me, I turn to What To Expect July 2017 Moms.  One of the nice things about being a STM (second time mom -- the acronyms for these cult-like groups are out of control) is that you can quietly smirk at things FTMs (I'm sure you can deduce that one) say.  See when you're pregnant with your first it is very very annoying to have people act superior and tell you your ideas, expectations etc. are wrong.  But as in all areas in this life, being smug is very enjoyable and as soon as you get the chance you take it.

Last week an expecting mom solemnly proclaimed she was NOT going to rock her baby to sleep.  I forbore to comment, though I wondered what new age nonsense she had read forbidding that.  Sure, there comes an age when you sleep train a kid and they need to learn to self soothe.  What age that is and how you should do it are of course set in stone and anyone who deviates from what works for you is probably an abusive psychopath.  But a newborn?  Honey, when that screaming mommet is exhausted and can't figure out why her entire world doesn't constantly bounce up and down anymore, you're going to be rocking.  Rocking will be so ingrained that you'll find yourself constantly swaying side to side even when you aren't holding a baby.  This will especially happen if you hear a baby in distress, but you'll do it even if you're standing at a party.  It's part of your new endearing weirdness, like how you smell like rotten yogurt all the time.

Another one of the charming things that people who don't have children say is something along the lines of how with the right toys, music, clothing etc. you can defeat gender and raise a child who is not interested in things that are stereotypically associated with their assigned sex.  Nope.  Your kid comes to this earth with weird preconceived notions about what is awesome and what could not be less interesting.  The slightest accidental exposure will rivet their interest.  You can keep introducing the other stuff, but unless you live inside an opaque snow globe, (and how do we know we're NOT... oh shut up high school philosopher) your child will find a way to love cars, or dolls, or dinosaurs, or tacky jewelry.

Here are some of my son's great loves.

He loves the shower squeegee.  The thrill of his life is taking a shower with me and wielding the rubber utensil of power.  He struggles to say "squeegee" so I refer to it as "the wand of destiny."  He is pretty good at saying wand.  If he had his way we'd go back and forth between playing on my bed and showering for hours on end.  Why don't we do that? It actually sounds okay.

This week Patrick decided he really loves the number eight.  I was reading one of the zillions of "learn to count through a boring list-based non-story" books in our house.  We were practicing saying numbers, more to break the monotony for me than anything else and he took to one and two pretty well.  But he really met his true love when we got to eight.  It's symmetrical.  It sounds like you're about to get food (the way he pronounces it which is more like eet).  It looks distinctive.  And it's blue.  He has a bunch of foam shapes and numbers and letters to play in the bath and he held each one up asking hopefully if it was "eet?"  I finally had to go through the package to find 8.  It has been his constant companion all day.  He even had a meltdown (a true sign of devotion) when I couldn't find eet.  He scrabbled at the couch cushions hopefully "eet!  eeeeeeeeet!"  Thankfully I found eet along with Didi (his blankie and other constant companion) in (where else) "bed! bed! bed!"  Boy and eet are reunited and our family is whole again.

So don't tell me that YOUR child will be strictly raised on the number SEVEN.  Nothing but ol' sept for you and yours! Because that kid will come into this world already drawn by a mystical otherworldly force to the digit of his dreams.

Eight.  Now there's a number you can really sink your teeth into.