speaking off ass hats

Angelina Jolie.

I'm aware that mine isn't the popular opinion, but still, I think she's an idiot. A self serving, self focussed idiot. Oh sure, she does all this humanitarian crap which does create good in the world but I'm certainly not convinced that her motivation isn't much more than her wanting to do things for her. That the children benefit is a side effect, as it were, and as her motivation doesn't change the outcome, I'm glad that she's doing what she does, so it doesn't matter that she buys into her own bullshit about why she does it.

What bothers me is this renaming of her latest aquasition. If she was in the least bit a true humanitarian, she wouldn't even think to rob this child of the only thing he knows for certain in the uncertain world he's suddenly found himself.

From what I gather, he doesn't even speak English so the only spoken word he'd even recognise is his name.

I can appreciate renaming a newborn to a name that pleases you, the parent or guardian, but how you justify renaming to a three and a half year old? At that age, he knows his name, he knows who he is, and his name is probably the only thing that is his.

The again, maybe the kid begged to be called something else.

He was Pham Quang Sang and now he's Pax Thein Jolie. Pax because it reflects the Latin word for peace, and Thein because it means sky in Vietnamese. Two questions: while the name 'Pax' has lovely connotations and romantic links, what in fuck does it mean to a small Vietnamese orphan? And while 'Thein' again is lovely and romantic and actually does come from this small boy's homeland, does it have anything to do with who he is? Will it mean anything to him when he's grown? Okay, that was three questions but you get my point.

So surely it would have been kinder to allow him the name he grew up with, rather than changing it to something pleasing to his adoptive parent, thus robbing him of everything he knows all in one fell swoop? Sure his new life is bound to be a good one and will certainly be better than what he once had, but until he transitions from that life to the this, his perception of old versus new won't necessarily shine brighter on the latter, so why not make that transition easier by leaving him with the one thing he can recognise as his own?

In other news, Daniel is, in fact, a teeny tiny princess. Or maybe he's possessed. Or it could be the motherfucking HUGE boulders rumbling in his mouth that are behind this positively Cybil like switch in his personality, or it could be that this a new and irritating exciting personality heralds the attainment of another developmental milestone. I would've thought he's too young and possibly too male to be suffering from severe PMS, so I guess if it is a developmental milestone, it's the one involving devil worshipping, a tragic hand to the brow, and possibly an overgrowth of back hair.

Allow me to describe a typical day.

Daniel: cycling between excited laughter to pitiful sobbing to squealing with joy to ying on floor weeping to cheeky giggles to bashing me with his fist while yelling abuse, etc etc
me: *knocks back more vodka*

So this morning while holding a chair, lion-tamer style, and in an effort to keep the little pipsqueak from whacking me over the head with his mitre and/or to keep his head from doing that freaky 360 degree rotation thing and/or to keep him from throwing himself off a cliff in despair, I tossed him a scrap book and some crayons today, and leaping onto the chair and cowered in fear as I waited for his gaping maw to open, allowing the demons within to come spewing forth, but glory be, it never happened.

Instead and for the last half hour, my blonde haired, blue eyed, angelic little neat freak has been sitting quietly on the floor next to me taking the crayons out of the packet and putting them back in again. Repeat, repeat, repeat, proving yet again that when he's not channelling beelzebub, Daniel is totally anal retentive.

He's the only kid I know who, when given the golden opportunity to chew on the contents of his mother's purse, will instead factor in both usage and visual appeal to rerrange the credit cards.

He's just handed me the packet and there appears to be two missing, so it looks like I won't need to be organising a mid morning snack today.

Now he's toddled off screaming and crying and I don't know what the fuck. Now he's back happily smacking the lid of this talking Pooh Bear toy honey pot thing. Seems he likes all of Pooh's electronic voice repeating the whole "hooraaaay, could you please drop in one block?" and none of the actual dropping of blocks thing.

And it's piano time. No, wait, it's xylaphone time. And now he's disappeared into the bedroom and now he's back and....

....has pulled a toy onto his head. Ouch.

I'm going to miss him so much and I can't imagine how hard it's going to be getting into the cab tomorrow morning beforre waving him goodbye.

Notgoingotdienotgoingtodienotgoingtodie.

That's all I'm scared of. Leaving Daniel. Just leaving him for the next few days is too much. I still cry some days leaving him in daycare, ferpetesake.

So, um, yeah, I guess this is it. I don't know hwhen I'll be back.

Miss me, sportsfans.