No Pants Party!

It is not uncommon, on any given day, in any given season, to find The Second Grader and The Four Year Old dancing, with an eerie amount of enthusiasm, around their room wearing only their underwear. They leap and jump and chant, "No! Pants! Party!".

They're happy and occupied and not bugging me so it's all good.

And who am I to get in the way of a good time?

But, the more I think about it, the more I have to believe that there is something in their male DNA that makes them want to shed their clothing and chant. Perhaps, their inner caveman, donning his saber tooth skin loin cloth, is pounding his fists into their innocent ears and demanding they revisit their prehistoric clothing-optional roots. And they listen to the voice of their ancestral Neanderthal. They do! In the middle of a New England winter, in a chilly, frugal New England house, they shed their fleecy Gap sweatpants and dance. Sometimes there is a drum and sticks and actual rhythm involved.

The whole No Pants Party ritual screams of ancient Palaeolithic DNA.

Because it turns out that this sort of thing is not all that uncommon among the modern day male species.

The other day, I came across this story about an entire day set aside for no-pants-required public transportation. That's right, an annual No Pants Subway Ride.

And, while there is no mention of the participants' gender, I will go out on a limb and guess that this a male dominated event.

While I'm out there on that limb, I will also venture to guess that on the first January that my boys reach legal adult status, I will know where to find them. Yep, they'll be riding that subway in all their No-Pants glory.

I just hope they'll be wearing clean underwear.

Good Things Happen In The Shower

Why is it that I think up my best ideas in the shower? Those ten minutes under a stream of hot water must put the right side of my brain in overdrive. Or maybe it's the time-warpy experience of a morning shower, the minutes that exist somewhere between sleep and real life, that makes all sorts of things seem like good ideas.

But as soon as I turn off the water and step out onto the cold bathroom floor of reality, my inner critic kicks in.

It shakes its disapproving head and says things like: THAT will never work!, or: What makes you think you can pull off something THAT big or small?, and then: Better get the kids ready for school.

This inner critic of mine turns the thoughts of my creative Shower Voice into nothing more than drippy condensation on the mirror. And worse, I usually side with The Critic as I wipe the foggy vanity clean.

But yesterday morning, as the Shower Voice filled my head with nutty-but-not-all-together-bad ideas, I didn't let them evaporate into nothingness.

I took hold of them while they were still solid and made them follow me around all day. And now I don't want to let them go.

So I think from now on, in an effort to start the new year off right, I will lock up The Critic for awhile and liberate all those oppressed ideas rattling around my forgotten right brain.


Either that, or I will take longer showers.