I'm going to Jackson. Jackson City. New Jack. Baby Jack Jack. Jack be nimble. (And Quick.) Jackdaw. Jacobite. Andrew Jackson. Jack Saunders. (Winne-the-Pooh lived under the name of Saunders.) Jack Black. Jack Johnson. Jack Daniels. Jackie Chan. Jackson Browne. Jackson Pollack. Jack Nicholson. Jack It Up. Jack In The Box. Uncle Jack. Jackson Hole. Jesse Jackson. Samuel Jackson! Flap Jack.
Apple Jack. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Jack of Hearts.

I am sleeping on the couch right now. Because I would never crate a dog. And, in my controversial way, I don't mind saying that people who crate dogs are ill. They tend to be the kind of people who treat their dogs as possessions - as decorations for their life. And really, when you think about it, as decorations that rate somewhere just under their homes, in status. Don't come whining to me about "caves" and "wolves" and "they feel safe." Bull-fucking-shit, if they felt safe, you wouldn't have to TRAIN them to stay there, now would you? These tend to be people with Control Issues, yes?

Ahem. So, I am sleeping on the couch because my bed is upstairs and the door is downstairs and my puppy needs to go out to pee about as often as new born babies get up to nurse at night. And good mothers get up with babies to care for them. That's what babies need, so that's what mothers do. And I mention this for two reasons.

One is that at about 3am last night, Baby Jack Jack Apple Jack Jackson, came inside from peeing and I almost drifted back to sleep. When, for reasons unknown to me, I lifted my head and turned to look. Jackson was sitting with his nose to the oil-filled radiant heater, warming his ears. The tiny red on light was illuminating his silhouette. He looked like Anne Lamott's, Sam. He looked just exactly like Snoopy. And he looked like the curious and dear baby that he is. I was filled with maternal gratitude. For this is what good mothers do, they notice their children in all the normally invisible moments. This is the golden exchange of motherhood. We bare witness. If we are looking and if we care. And in this way, we are re payed for all the trouble and time. Because, so often, there love is revealed.

Secondly, parenting is parenting is parenting is parenting. The cow, the puppy, the old cat, the kittens, chicks, the children, my lessons are the same. And the more I work with the animals, the better I get with the humans. (I hope.) Moreover, the children get to see the process first hand. And they get to practice.

We all have a bit of a crush on Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer. My sexy husband does an EXCELLENT impersonation. He swings around the kitchen with his chest full and proud and says, "Calm Assertive..shhht!" While making a sharp pinching motion with his fingers. I don't know exactly why this is so very hysterical to me. But I fall to pieces laughing every time Cesar appears in my kitchen. What is not one bit funny, though just as dear, is that the original "Puppy Williams" is taking all this in. My son now has all day, for the next several months, to practice Calm Assertive. Just the man training this kid needs. And he's getting it fast too.

So here are my morning ruminations about pets, children, parenting and even, yes, unschool. We all ran laughing through the crisp fall leaves in the forest this morning. As Jackson's ears flapped their hardest and the children's laughter filled all the spaces left in the trees from the fallen leaves and the neighbor's sad sullen gated dogs barked their envy, I was struck by all the parallels of our locked chained gated closed lonely sad society.

But I was the only one with those dark thoughts. The creatures, animal and human, around me know no such, and their joyful noise was the clearest of all.