I’m busy this week, so there will be no new posts. I’ve got a lot of work and family stuff to handle since my kids go back to school next week. I wasn’t going to post at all, but then I remembered I had a bunch of stuff still on my old MySpace page that most people that follow my blogging now have never read. So, this will be Rewind Week on DirtyPrettyThangs.com. I hope you guys enjoy it. ~pbg

Originally posted August 2006

Life Is Like a Jar of Baby Food

While at work today, I was feeding Mr. B his lunch.We’ve (his parents and I) been trying to get him more acclaimated to eating foods that have more texture to it, since he’s 10 months old now and needs to develop chewing skills and exercise a different set of oral-facial muscles for his foray into speech in the coming months. Bates ain’t having it-he wants his strained, smooth baby food and he wants it NOW, DAMMIT!! So as he was spitting out that Stage 3 chicken and vegetables from a jar, actin’ like I was feeding him a jar of mudballs, I started giving him this little speech, to which he listened quite intently:

” Looka here, Mr. B. Everything in life is not smooth. All your food is not gonna go down easy. Life is all about texture. Bumps and lumps, ziggety-zags and detours. Be strong and step up to the plate, young man! I know you can do it! Trying something different than what you’re used to will make you a stronger guy and much more able to handle the one constant in life: CHANGE! Chew, baby, chew! Explore the unknown and unfamiliar textures of a new kind of food. New experiences are what builds us up!”

And then I got an epiphany, a divine revelation- a message from The Good Lord above: Life is like a jar of baby food!! Well not exactly. But the little speech I gave to Mr. B about trying new kinds of food is just what I needed to hear about the rough times we go through in life, since the Real World has been beating the hell out of me and I’ve been either mad or sad everyday for the past week.

I do not believe we are destined for smoothness or ease in everything we do. The world in which we live and the life were living in it is textured. We have to experience a rough patch, a bump in the road, a glitch in the system, a tangle, a snag, to even appreciate all that we are given and all that we earn. This is divine in nature, in my humble opinion. No, My Lovelies, puree’ isn’t always the way!

We have the ability to cogitate on the highest level as human members of the animal kingdom. How did our brains grow so big, how did we evolve past every other creature God created? He built us like this! He built us to have the capacity for higher learning and therefore, higher achievement-made in His image. But what is this thing called learning? Learning is simply this : fitting in some new knowledge into a preexisting structure of knowledge. Accommodation and assimilation (for all you Piaget fans out there). But how do we come about to the point where we can fit in something new into something old? Simple-a problem. A problem is all it takes to gain enlightenment. Difficulties detain us to spur us on to a greater understanding.

I see this all the time working with children and it never ceases to amaze me. A kid will run into some strange situation during play or just going along in his or her little kid world. Then they will work to fix it, making all kinds of weird mistakes and finding out stuff he never even was looking to discover all in the name of “working it out”! TEXTURE!! We are not meant to have a easy time of it all the time. Problems challenge us to higher understanding of ourselves, the people around us and this life we are in. Situations cause us to view things differently. We are ordained by God to get caught up sometimes! All in the name of “working it out”!! HALLELUJAH!!!

We are quick to ask “Why me??” when things go awry. Why the hell NOT you? Don’t you think it’s high time you learned something new? You never know-you may be destined to save the world! An inconvenience could save your life. This is the human condition. We should take it on with much vigor and dogged determination. This world was textured for us to grow, for us live in greatness and to support each other.

I mashed that food up a bit for Mr. B after the speech. Not all the way, but enough so he would eat more. He’s getting used to it. It’s not always easy to leave the comfort of the familiar and function with ease. But he took it on-he chewed and he smiled up at me, giving me hope, fortitude and confirmation that I, too can live and thrive, taking on the challenges of this textured world of ours.

“Chew, baby, CHEW!!”