Secret Codes by Secret Means

*BEEP* *BOO* *BEEP* *BEEE*

Bridger Serialkillerton (II) hears the annoyance; notes it. His mind refuses to ignore it. Noise without end meant communication of some kind. Morse code? Tap? Now that he’s decided to give the sound his attention, he feels his mind go to work on deciphering. His body tenses for pauses and assigns them a space-between. The duration and intensity of each annoying tone is given emphasis and potential.

*BEEEEE* *BEE-BOO* *BEEP*

It toys at his experience and verges on the edge of revelation. A call for distress? He’s heard this before, hasn’t he?

*BOOP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEE*

It’s a device; yes! His scattered mental search brings this solution. This is no fellow-agent in need. This is a computerized output, set to alert users to the impending completion of its program. At least, he feels it normally operates as such. Whyever it is outputting so erratically sets his mind-gears in motion once again.

*BEEP* *BOO* *BEEP* *BEEE*

The original pattern presents itself again.

*BEEEE* *BEE-BOOP*

He’s heard that sequence as well.

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BOOO-*

He feels at the tip of resolution …when Bridger Serialkillerton’s forgotten associate shouts at full volume:

“BRIDGER SERIALKILLERTON THE THIRD! GET YOUR SHOES ON AND STOP PLAYING WITH THAT MICROWAVE THIS INSTANT!”

Photo by Jep Gambardella on Pexels.com

©2022 Chel Owens

P.J.s and Morning Soccer

My most recent child. © Chel Owens

When sun’s just up,
though most still down,
and brother’s game
is ‘cross the town
and Mom’s not up
to laundry mounds,

Young Owens sports
the lion’s share
of smiles outside
‘spite morning air.
Says he, good sports
should not be bare.

For, when a game
of soccer’s viewed,
and when a mom’s
got quite the brood;
name of the game
is Don’t Be Nude.

©2022 Chel Owens

Thus ends a long month. I’ll be round to read now that I’m not writing, but won’t post new content till November. ‘Bye!

A Child’s Breath

We’re only here for a breath.

Some breathe longer than others, of course; like octogenarians shuffling to hit a hundred years.

Others, very little. They gasp -we gasp- and our only son is gone. Our only daughter is still. Our only grandchild grows forever cold.

What do we do when our child is gone? -When we’ll hold them and no longer feel the rising-falling-softness of life against our neck?

What can we do -those of us still breathing?

©2022 Chel Owens

Dedicated to my good friend who just lost her ‘baby,’ her sixteen-year-old son, unexpectedly. I don’t know what happened but my heart aches for her loss.

Late for Work

There isn’t time for smiling eyes and toddling legs; fat fingers grasping loose Cheerios.

There isn’t time for “Uh-oh” cups of milk -thrown, giggling, to the just-mopped floor.

There isn’t time for biting kisses, hair-ripping hugs, or I-got-your-nose-Mommy.

There isn’t time for all the ‘helping,’ all the sighing; all the crying.

There isn’t time for childhood.

So go to work. There isn’t time.

Photo by Tatiana Syrikova on Pexels.com

©2021 Chel Owens

“I find myself worrying most that when we hand our children phones we steal their boredom from them. As a result, we are raising a generation of writers who will never start writing, artists who will never start doodling, chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen, athletes who will never kick a ball against a wall, musicians who will never pick up their aunt’s guitar and start strumming.”

-Glennon Doyle, Untamed.

Politics and Idiots

After composing a beautifully-worded rant against the stupidity of humanity, I decided the world would benefit more from a picture of my baby boy.

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This is from shortly after he began smiling socially -about two months ago, I believe. In all the chaos outside our walls, he is my motivation to stay well and my reminder to be happy with who and what we have in life.

—————-

And here’s my writings from the past week:

Wednesday, April 1: Thought about where things are going in “Let’s Make Some Order in This Chaos.”

Friday, April 3: Winner of the Weekly Terribly Poetry Contest. Congratulations to Writerinretrospect!

Saturday, April 4: Announced the next Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest. The theme is a senryu about a small, innocuous animal. PLEASE ENTER!

And, an update on Coronavirus and life happenings ’round these parts.

Sunday, April 5: “How to Wake a Teenager,” in response to Carrot Ranch’s prompt.

Monday, April 6: An inspirational quote by LA, of “Waking Up on the Wrong Side of 50.”

Tuesday, April 7: “Going Postal, IV.” Poor Ron.

Wednesday, April 8: Today.

I also posted on my motherhood site. I probably ought to log in and check that sometime… Apparently, I wrote “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.”

 

©2020 Chelsea Owens, including photo

WINNER of the Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest 3/13/2020

Kids say the darnedest things! They do, and so do our terrible poets. But, who said their poetry the darnedest?

My Hungry Bum

by Ellen Best

“Mammm”, my bottom keeps eating my pants,
Makes my legs do a dance.
I is pickin dem out, but dae makin me shout. And me tears is now wettin me leg.
*Sniffs*

Congratulations, Ellen! You are the most terrible poet of the week!

Reading through these was painfully akin to dinnertime chez moi, with fewer gaming and (surprisingly) bodily function references. I chose Ellen’s as first because it sounds a lot like what a child would say. Hers wasn’t the only one to do this, but I felt she did so quite well and managed enough whiff of verse to pass it off as a poem.

If you’ve the appetite, here are the other esteemed entrants:

From bottom-burps to bogeys

by Doug Jacquier

The dinner table farce started

when the oldest one farted,

and the middle-un began piddlin’

and then the underling was chundering.

To No. 1, Mum said ‘Stop that at once!, young Beau’

And he said ‘Sure, Ma, which way did it go?’

To No. 2, ‘The table’s not the place for peeing you know’

He replied ‘But you always tell us to go with the flow’.

No. 3 didn’t speak but passed his plate full of sick

To the dog under the table, from whence came the sound of ‘lick, lick’.

Dad smiled at his wife and ‘Don’t be such an old fogey’,

as he extracted and ate a big bogey.

Translations for non-Australians:

Chundering = vomiting

Bogey = booger

—–

Untitled piece

by Deb Whittam

What? LOL, but I’m SITD
TMI OMG LYLAS
2moro, yes, 2moro
DBEYR.
IRL this is the TFH
J/K, MHOTY. SH
THX
TTYL
XOXO

—–

Airs And Graces.

by Obbverse

Aw, Mom, whats in this bowl?
I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole!
I don’t care what you say it contains
It looks like a pile of monkey brains!
I don’t believe that’s cauliflower cheese,
It looks even worser than carrots and peas,
And if it repeats the same as baked beans
Everyone here nose what that means.
I don’t wanna taste that gross goo,
It won’t taste a thing like tiramisu,
That snotty sauce, stinky chunky and thick,
It smells like farts and looks like a bowl of sick.
Mom, you can go ahead and reheat it,
But Mom, ain’t no way I’m gonna eat it,
Hot or cold, I’m only gonna leave it,
Mom, take it away before I heave it…

—–

Billy Dunnit

by Ted Strutz

“Billy dunnit.”
“Billy done what?”
“Billy dunnit.”
“Billy done what?”
“I dunno, forgot.”

—–

Untitled piece

by Gary

‘Apart from his girl like eye lashes, thankfully no sign of dad in me’

‘Of all the festive colours, my muppet Dad bought a black Christmas Tree’

On a packed French TGV ‘why does the food smell of wee’

To someone from Ireland ‘apart from the rain, wind and cold is it like Hawaii’

Shouting ‘he’s got rabies’ to a poor bearded man on a train

To a mum in the playground ‘my dad fancies someone called Shania Twain’

‘Dad it’s rude to say fart you need to call it a bottom burp’

‘My Dad is a muppet, funny but such a twerp’

‘I can’t eat that carrot, it looks like a willy’

‘That looks like sick’ the day school served chilli

To his nursery teacher ‘my dad let’s me watch Frankenstein’

‘My teacher broke a cup and said a funny word, what does F*** mean’

**** important note ‘my dad let’s me watch Frankenstein’ actually means ‘my dad let’s me watch Scooby Doo which featured Frankenstein’.

—–

Untitled piece

by Ruth Scribbles

“It’s raining because I put on my boots.” She said.

When grandma turned 80, the 13 year old quipped, “Wow, she’s over the hill twice.”

—–

Cute? Things Kids Say

by The Bag Lady

Guest for dinner, sort of a slob

Kids fascinated by the blob

Of food overrelished, mouth open wide

Children couldn’t believe their eyes

The oldest pipes up to my dread

“You must be really hungry!” he said

The guest must not have heard or ignored

As more helpings in cheeks he stored.

***

True story, 🤪

—–

THE CORONA WALK-BACK

by The Rhyme Doctor

Today I was walking
Tomorrow I’ll be crawling.
The Corona has come
And has got me bawling.

I went to the store;
There is no toilet paper.
We’ve all regressed
And now must use a scraper.

Backwards we’ve gone.
Alas, we start to stumble.
A child’s toilet seat
Will surely make us humble.

—–

Thank you all for playing along. You always brighten my day and liven up my night. Come back tomorrow around 10 a.m. MST for next week’s prompt.

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Ellen: Here’s a badge you can post, if you want, to brag (again):

terrible-poetry-contest

©2020 The poets, and their respective poems.

 

The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest 3/7 – 3/13/2020

It’s terrible poetry time, here for its 62nd week!

If you’d like some guidance, read my basic outline here. I also think last week‘s method of construction was an excellent one for bad poetry creation. Or, you can always have a friendly kindergartener invent one.

Here are the specifics for this week:

  1. The Topic is the cute (or ‘cute’) things that kids say. I’ll admit I’m more inspired by the parenthetical version after our dinner conversations lately. What is it with young children (perhaps just with boys) and potty humor? Do they really think meals are the best place to discuss vomit?
  2. We’re talking kids here, so the Length may be quite short (barely learning to talk) or quite long (talks your ear off about Minecraft).
    …Don’t make the judge suffer too much.
  3. Rhyming is optional, or entirely concerned with the word ‘fart.’
  4. It’s likely to not need much help in this department, but try to make it terrible. Make my young children giggle and start chanting lines from your poem whilst pointing at a brother in an insulting way.
  5. Kids sometimes say words they ought not to, but let’s keep the Rating an optimistic G.

You have till 8:00 a.m. MST next Friday (the 13th!) to submit a poem.

Use the form below if you want to be anonymous for a week.

If not, and for a more social experience, include your poem or a link to it in the comments. Please comment if your pingback doesn’t show up within a day.

Reach for the kid inside and have fun!

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Photo credit: abdelkader ft

Guess What? I’m a Mommy …Again

I did it! Well -the doctors did. Yesterday, around 13:44, the obstetrics surgical team extracted my fifth boy.

He weighed 6 lbs 4 oz (rounded up) and measured 19 inches long.

I’m not allowed to go into labor, so we scheduled the operation at 37 weeks. All in all, this has been the best C-Section recovery I’ve had. I can only attribute that to the skill of the team, the healthiness of my body, and to the many prayers I know people offered on our behalf.

Because of privacy reasons, I dislike posting pictures online. Since I know he’ll change rapidly and you’re all DYING to see, however, here are two I took this morning:

Baby Five Top (2).jpg

“Hello. The world is bright and cold. I’m not certain I like it yet.”

Baby Five Full Body (2)

A pen, for comparison.

We haven’t agreed on a name yet, but I keep that information private as well. 🙂

 

©2019 Chelsea Owens

Parenting: The Fine Line

I’m no expert at parenting. My life plan was not to be a mother; I use this as an excuse whenever raising offspring is difficult.

Still, I care about my kids. I care that they aren’t psychopaths or sociopaths. I care that they know how to cook, clean, and respect authority. They’ll definitely put the seat down.

Training my spawn involves a lot of strain, some of which comes from doubt:

Am I doing the right thing by making his friend send him home to finish a job?

Should I have yelled when my sweet, little pre-teen gave me attitude?

Was that too harsh to make him walk to school because he slept in and refused to get ready on time?

(In case you wonder at the masculine pronouns, I have all boys.)

I thought about the fine line of parenting today. I believe I thought about it the third time I prepared for vocal conflict with my most difficult son.

Me in the driver’s seat, patiently, “So, you threw the carseat into the back, yet say it’s #4’s fault because it hit his head before hitting #3?”

Him, mimicking my patient manner, “Yes. #4 made a dumb decision to climb over the seat. If he hadn’t done that, #3 wouldn’t have been hit.”

Believe it or not, this exchange went on for a good ten minutes. He refused responsibility for the thrown-carseat injuries; I refused to let him dodge said responsibility.

The Line here is Respect vs. “pick your battles.” Almost all of my lines are Something vs. “pick your battles.” My choice to engage (or not) goes back to that no-sociopath thing.

*Sigh*

I know not all of you have children -at least, not currently. Whether you have or not, have you felt the strain of walking a line? What did you choose? Was it worth it?

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—————-

Here’s what went down this past week:
Wednesday, October 16: Wrote “Where, Oh Where Should My Blogging Go?

Thursday, October 17: Throwback to my first post, “Hello, My Name Is.”

Friday, October 18: Winner of the Weekly Terribly Poetry Contest. Congratulations to MagicQuill17!

Saturday, October 19: Announced the 48th Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest. The theme is the Old West. PLEASE ENTER!

Sunday, October 20: Shared Carrot Ranch‘s 3rd rodeo. Another one’s coming tomorrow!

Also wrote “The Wife Stands Alone” for Pensitivity’s Three Things Challenge.

Monday, October 21: An inspirational quote by Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

Tuesday, October 22: “Since the Bombs Fell: One,” the first in a dystopian series.

Wednesday, October 23: Today.

 

Photo Credit: Unsplash

©2019 Chelsea Owens