The world is full of real problems. But since I've got nothing to offer for those except my prayers, (and who could do more than that, right?) I'm going to solve some significantly less important problems for ya. I've done it before. I'll probably do it again.
1. PROBLEM: Last summer I threw a bit of a hissy fit over that one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad song. You agreed with me, really you did, but you just found the tune really, REALLY catchy, and no matter how you tried you just couldn't stop humming it.
1. PROBLEM: Last summer I threw a bit of a hissy fit over that one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad song. You agreed with me, really you did, but you just found the tune really, REALLY catchy, and no matter how you tried you just couldn't stop humming it.
PROBLEM SOLVED
Problem solved by "Weird Al" Yankovic by combining five of my all time favorite things: grammar, graphic word art, cheesy pop music, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and GRAMMAR. Now you can sing along. Out loud. In front of your kids.
2. PROBLEM: People hate children.
Seriously, they do. I had no idea.
Haley wrote an excellent follow up piece to her post about her regrets about not inviting children to her wedding. This one was addressing the push for child-free zones, and pointing out that children are just small humans, and, "Unfortunately, humans are inconvenient. But it doesn't make them any less worthwhile."
She, and I, and all people who don't hang out in the deepest dankest corners of the internet were surprised when her post was shared on anti-child message boards.
Not boards for people who have chosen not to have children. Not all people are meant to have children. That's a discernment you're allowed to make. These are boards for people who pretty much think children should not be suffered to exist.
Do these people maybe really NOT know how wonderful children are and how much we love them and their messes and their sticky inconvenient selves?
I need to figure out a way to introduce all those super-creepy misguided people to Lulu. In pigtails. Preferably in person, so she can smile at them. But *I* don't really want to meet them. But we're kind of a team-package, at this point. So, I'll admit, there are still some details to work out. But I think it would work.
On the off chance I can't swing the introducing the message board weirdos to my daughter thing . . . maybe I'll just try to share the positive things about parenthood too. Just to even things out.
Note: I've reworded the above take to prevent confusion and more accurately reflect my opinion.
3. PROBLEM: You wanted to download the St. Michael prayer, but you couldn't. Also, you didn't mention it, because you were trying to be polite, but you noticed that it might be missing a kind of important line.
2. PROBLEM: People hate children.
Seriously, they do. I had no idea.
Haley wrote an excellent follow up piece to her post about her regrets about not inviting children to her wedding. This one was addressing the push for child-free zones, and pointing out that children are just small humans, and, "Unfortunately, humans are inconvenient. But it doesn't make them any less worthwhile."
She, and I, and all people who don't hang out in the deepest dankest corners of the internet were surprised when her post was shared on anti-child message boards.
Not boards for people who have chosen not to have children. Not all people are meant to have children. That's a discernment you're allowed to make. These are boards for people who pretty much think children should not be suffered to exist.
Do these people maybe really NOT know how wonderful children are and how much we love them and their messes and their sticky inconvenient selves?
PROBLEM SOLVED
I need to figure out a way to introduce all those super-
On the off chance I can't swing the introducing the message board weirdos to my daughter thing . . . maybe I'll just try to share the positive things about parenthood too. Just to even things out.
Note: I've reworded the above take to prevent confusion and more accurately reflect my opinion.
3. PROBLEM: You wanted to download the St. Michael prayer, but you couldn't. Also, you didn't mention it, because you were trying to be polite, but you noticed that it might be missing a kind of important line.
PROBLEM SOLVED
I made a new one. This time it's downloadable AND has all of the words. You're welcome.
P.S. I'll do another round of them sometime in the future, so please feel free to make requests.
4. PROBLEM: The plot of Frozen doesn't make sense.
Okay. I KNOW. I'm sorry. I'm TRYING to just stop with Frozen.
But if you were a person who is a writer and a reader and a known problem-fixer and all day long your children sang songs from a show that doesn't make sense, but could have. And if you threw a whole birthday party based on this movie. And if you just had to watch it FOR THE THIRD TIME. And if you had now listened to the second disc of the soundtrack (many times), containing the demos of outtake songs that explained many (but not all) of the plot holes . . .
Maybe you wouldn't be able to let it go either. (Huh? See what I did there?)
Anyway, I've linked to Amanda's take on Frozen and Tangled before, but here it is again, because she's right.
PROBLEM SOLVED
And here's how I would fix Frozen.
- We NEED the prophecy. The whole movie doesn't make sense without it. The trolls, Elsa's powers, all of it is explained by the "ancient troll prophecy" we hear about in the outtakes. The ice cutting scene is lovely, but don't help the plot at all. Put the prophecy back in.
- Hans and Anna's love song is absolutely adorable and yet it's all a terrible lie. Which really ruins the song. The whole flipping of his character is the worst piece of writing I've seen in a long time. All I can figure is that they changed the ending after his early scenes had already been executed, because there is NO foreshadowing.
- BUT they want the act of true love to be sisterly and they want to make a statement about the whole "teenaged Disney princesses run off and marry men they just met" thing. Great. We can do that. Hans kisses her and, IT DOESN'T WORK. Not because he's secretly, psychopathic-ly, to his own detriment-ly evil, but because it can't be "true love," YET. It doesn't work, Anna is confused and heartbroken, runs off, saves Elsa from something (not Hans), that thaws her heart and breaks the curse. We have a quick moment in which someone, probably a troll, explains that it didn't work because Hans and Anna need to get to know each other and give their love at first sight time to grow and mature into true love.
- Then, like Heather suggests, Elsa and Kristoff can make eyes at each other and then there'll be TWO weddings in the sequel.
5. PROBLEM: (also Frozen-related, gah!) Your children won't stop listening to/singing the Frozen soundtrack.
PROBLEM SOLVED
Fight fire with fire.
If we're going to have near-constant singing of show tunes, we're at least going to have some variety. So the girls have also been learning all the lyrics to:
So . . . that's better?
6. PROBLEM: You wanted a once-and-for-all ruling from the bishops on whether the Girl Scouts are officially incompatible with Catholic faith and values.
6. PROBLEM: You wanted a once-and-for-all ruling from the bishops on whether the Girl Scouts are officially incompatible with Catholic faith and values.
PROBLEM SOLVED/NOT-SOLVED
That's mostly not how our Church works. The Catholic Church has a reputation of being pretty bossy. But that's true in only a handful of very specific areas of Church teaching, the so-called "non-negotiables."
On most other issues, we are trusted to consult our local priests and bishops and our own properly informed consciences to make decisions. That's where the bishops have left it this time.
Given what I know about Girl Scouting, and given the other options available to us (like the Little Flowers Girls' Club I host) I am very comfortable in our decision to eschew the Girl Scouts. But other people in other situations may, with the permission of the bishops, decide differently.
Here's my take on Boy and Girl Scouts:
BOY SCOUTS AND GIRL SCOUTS: A DIFFERENCE IN KIND NOT JUST IN DEGREE
7. PROBLEM: As a former teenaged girl (I'm assuming this applies to most of my readers) you love that toe-tapping, heart-melting, rebelliously romantic song that's inescapable this summer.
But the current, mother of children you (again, I'm thinking this is most of you) just can't put your finger on the problem you have with the song.
PROBLEM SOLVED
This guy knows what the problem is. It's that Dad mostly likely has a pretty good reason for being rude to whiny, skinny jeans, beanie guy. Although I do hope he's not actually going to kill him. I can't support that.