What is Best in Life?

This post first appeared in my other blog, where I recently talked about the difficulty in wanting to share favorite things with your kids too soon. A prime example of this is Conan. I have vivid memories of watching Conan the Barbarian when I was probably eight. Some of those memories are probably too vivid. So Conan is right out for my 7 year old, who responds much more strongly to visuals than I ever did.
Oh, but I do love me some Conan. In fact, if Snow White had been a boy, we had settled on Conan for the name. Seriously. Of course it wasn't only for the barbarian. It's a solid, obscure Irish name from the Finn McCool legends, and sounds great with the surname, etc etc. But I must admit we had dreams of sitting our little preschool boy crosslegged on a tabletop and asking him, "Conan, what is best in life?"






Being good feminist parents, we eventually realized that not having a son was a sorry excuse for depriving ourselves of this joy. So we began to teach the line to our girls. The other day Big Daddy picked Wonder Red up at school and the extremely hip first grade teacher Mr Z poked his head out of the classroom to ask, "Did you really let her watch Conan? You guys are awesome parents." Wonder Red doesn't know her favorite line comes from Conan, but her teacher got the reference when she came up to him in class and said, "Mr. Z, Mr. Z, ask me what is best in life!"
I have only just learned how to embed video, and I'm not quite up to trying to post and embed home movies yet. And that's really a shame. Because watching Wonder Red shout, "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women" is a real joy. And if you ask me, the best thing in life to see my little Goldilocks of a Princess Pea answer the same question, "Cwush you emenies!"
In a slight side note,being something of a godless heathen myself, I seldom find myself in agreement with the Christian crowd. But there is always a common ground if you are willing to look hard enough. I found a little bridge in the blogosphere with one Christian blogger here. I even lost a tree in the back yard after heavy rains recently, too, and it caused me much woe.
Now I just have to work on that home movie thing....

Brutal

One day, after Rose Red regaled us with a very loud, flat rendition of this song she learned at school from Miss Sandy, called "Blowing in the Wind," it occurred to my husband to introduce the girls to Guns n Roses. Rose Red was the more adept of the two at forming the Sign of the Horns, but Snow White had a better head-banging rhythm and didn't sway dangerously side-to-side.

 
The next day, I discovered the Vegan Black Metal Chef video, in which a chef in Kiss make-up demonstrates the preparation of vegan pad thai. He is accompanied by instructions in a Cookie Monster growl and supported by the guitar-work of Skwisgaar Skwigelf. Being vegan is so metal.

Coming on the heels of Snow White's weaning as these events did, my thoughts naturally turned to Metalocalypse. When Snow White was only weeks old we were struggling to get the milk to flow. After marathon nursing sessions, I would hand her to her dad and go sit on the couch with a hospital grade pump for fifteen minutes. We were also waking up with a timer every two hours to make sure no feedings were missed at night even if the newborn wanted to sleep. (Yes, I know, a Faustian bargain – more milk for your soul, I mean sleep.)

As a result, I could sometimes convince myself that five minutes at the pump were fifteen. I could even fall asleep at the pump. To keep myself awake, I watched TV. To keep from watching TV for more than fifteen minutes, I watched Metalocalypse. Each episode is almost exactly fifteen minutes.

My favorite episode was the one where the band members reunite with their families and end up making a family music video because, as those nursing days taught me so well,


 

There is nothing more brutal than raising children.