Life is not a waiting room...

Howdy ya’ll,

                A few updates before I get in to the meat of this post’s topic. For those that follow Fatterhood on Facebook, The Ewok was sick over the weekend. Not quite sure what the deal was, but she was shitting like she had a firehouse hiding in her butt. It was constant. She projectile threw up while in her swing as well. I felt so bad for the little lady, but she stayed generally pretty good natured throughout the whole ordeal. She was very smiley, very snuggly, EXTREMELY hungry, and even started doing some vocalizations. At least she didn’t have a fever or anything, so small favors there. My wife thinks it might have been something that she ate that upset her stomach, or even perhaps one of us didn’t wash our hands well enough after collecting the chicken eggs from the coop. I think she picked up something from daycare. Which isn’t the daycare’s fault in my opinion, all daycare facilities are Petri-dishes. Our seems very clean, but when I walked in to Elizabeth’s room to pick her up last week, there was a crib-midget just going around and licking things! Gross.

                Daycare has been going pretty well though. I had a light work week last week and was able to pick up Da Butt every day. I did have 1 issue though on Tuesday. I picked her up from her classroom and they had a few things in her cubby. There was a bill and a schedule which I promptly folded up and put in the diaper bag. But there was also her first piece of artwork! They had taken paint and dipped her feet in it to make a picture of fireworks. It really was adorable. I left it out so that it wouldn’t get folded or crumpled. I took Elizabeth, the diaper bag, the car seat, the leftover milk, and the art out to the car and loaded up. It was while I was loading everything up that Elizabeth started to have a meltdown. I got her in the car fast and started to book it home. It was after we were home for about 2 hours that I realized that I had left the artwork on the outdoor patio table while I was loading everything else up. I prayed that someone would find it and bring it inside as it was starting to storm. Went to pick her up the next day and my prayer was answered…kind of. It had been found, but the water-based paint had pretty much all been washed away by the rain. I told my wife and she just laughed when she saw it. We decided to keep it so we can tell her that she just really sucked at art when she was younger. What an idiot.

                Now for the meat of the post, I knew eventually that my lack of spirituality was going to come to a head eventually once I had a child. I did my time in a Catholic school. I went from 1^st to 8^th grade and was Confirmed while in public high school. I went through the motions until my grandmother passed away when I was 20. Remove the Catholic school and my wife had a very similar experience. We both just went through the motions because we are from a small town and that’s just what you did. Over the years, I have studied several different religions and just none of them were for me. It grew into a general distaste for all organized religion as I got older.  I still read a lot about different religions and philosophies. I have read the Bible, the Koran, many books on Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and quite a few on Atheism. I am no theologian, but I know a little, and I still haven’t really found anything that speaks to me. I call myself an Atheist, but I have a buddy that claims that I am the very definition of an Agnostic because I will admit that I am open to the idea of God. But my response to him has been, “If I ask you if you like broccoli, I think we can both agree I am asking if you like broccoli right now. Not 10 years down the road.” So, by that definition, I am an Atheist. Not saying I will never believe, but right now I don’t.

                So this left me as a closet Atheist in my hometown and with my own family. During this closeted time, I became the Godfather of 2 lovely children. Which made it rather awkward later on when it became more well known that I was a Atheist. In my family, the role of Godparent is a real honor and kind of a big deal. For the most part, your parents will pick a married couple to be the Godparents of the first child and in the event of their untimely demise, you would become the child’s legal guardian along with your religious duties on top. My wife would become the legal guardians to 3 kids (technically 4, but the oldest is now over 18) if something happened to my cousin and his wife. They are deeply religious and that is fine by me. We tend not to agree on a whole lot, but it has always been cool between us. Since my “coming out” we have come to an understanding that if anything ever did happen to them and the kids came to live with us, that my wife and I would of course honor their wishes and raise their children as they would have. But I did put the small caveat in the whole shebang, when I said that if I was asked what my personal opinion was that I would answer honestly. I would tell them my personal opinion and follow it up with “but your parents believed and wanted you to believe…”. I take my role as Godfather quite seriously.

                So it has come as quite a shock to me now that it is becoming known that my wife and I have chosen not to baptize Elizabeth, how people have been reacting. “Do you want your baby to go to hell or purgatory?” Well of course not. But please remember, I don’t believe in either of those places. I find it very hard to believe that an all knowing, all loving; God would punish my sweet, innocent, little baby girl simply because I don’t believe. As she gets older, I plan on nurturing any spiritual curiosity that she may have. If she wants to my wife and I would totally take her to a church, temple, mosque, Shinto temple, whatever she may be interested in. If she found a faith that works for her, great, we will support her. I just have a problem making such a big decision like that for my child. Truth be told, I am actually a little jealous of my religious family and friends that are able to just believe in their chosen faith. It seems like a real comfort. I have tried and have failed numerous times. But the point is that I would NEVER stop my daughter from finding spirituality.

                Personally, even though I am a little jealous of the comfort that can come with religion, I am always in awe of what science has provided us. Think of everything that you have at your disposal right now because of science! It is mind boggling. I got into a theological debate with a friend last summer and he asked, “So you’re saying that you are cool with the entire universe being a giant cosmic accident?”. I replied with yes. It is such an amazing thought. We are here because of everything aligning just right over an unfathomable amount of time. That is freaking amazing. The idea of someone having a plan for me is pretty cool too, but the idea of a cosmic accident leading to me and my free choice is way cooler.

                When my mother passed away I was understandably very upset. I was sitting on the back steps at my Ma’s house crying and just passing the time on my cell phone. I came across a meme that kind of put things in perspective for me. I will be paraphrasing but it said something to the effect of “You are a ghost, piloting a meat-wrapped skeleton, on a ball of molten rock, hurtling through space, around a giant nuclear reactor, which is also hurtling through the vast emptiness of space…and you are afraid of dying. Life is way scarier.” While that may not be a comfort to very many people, it really just put things in perspective and oddly made me feel better. I don’t know what comes after this life, but I know it doesn’t really matter. I was a wreck because my Ma wasn’t in my life right now.

                Anyways, it went off on a rather depressing rant for what is supposed to be a humorous blog. Had to get it off my chest though. If Elizabeth turns out to be a deranged serial killer because I didn’t get her baptized then I owe my deacon and my Godmother each a coke I guess. As usual, I truly thank you for reading my dribble about my parental fuck ups. Don’t forget to stop in and like Fatterhood on Facebook. Also, out of curiosity, if you are from another country I would love to hear how you found out about this, so please leave a comment on here or on Facebook! Until next time, prost!