Friday, August 31, 2012

Nothing to see here.

Good news!! I'm not sure if you know this, but while I can't track specifically who reads my writing, I am able to tell how many folks stop by and read during the day.  Numbers aren't terribly important to me - mostly I'm writing for myself and maybe a few others, but it's nice to watch and see which posts get the most traffic.  Anywho, after watching numbers markedly rise lately I decided I might ought to check from whence this traffic comes, i.e. Facebook posts, StumbleUpon, etc.

And guess what?

It's porn.  Yep.  Somehow some link or connection has been made in the lonesome, pervy world of internet porn and, at least for now, somebody (LOTS of somebodies according to the numbers) has been enticed to look at what must be a surprisingly boring and un-horny rant about middle school drama.  We don't even have any boob pictures here! Surprise!!!

So that's just perfect.  Welcome lonesome, horny people! Glad you stopped by! Put some clothes on already.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Maybe something shorter

So I ran across this article today and I hope you'll take time to read it. Truth is, I'm not making any sort of statement on whether you ought to support your preschooler if he feels compelled to wear a dress to school.  I wouldn't put either of us in that conversation, but Mr. Pickert makes two comments that I like.  One is, his donning a skirt was not a question of whether this is "wise or ridiculous" and the other is one of my favorite sentiments ever - "After all you can’t expect a child at pre-school age to have the same ability to assert themselves as an adult. Completely without role model. And so I became that role model..."  I love that this father is willing to bear the brunt of whatever cruelty the rest of the world can dish out just so his son will have an example of how to bear what will certainly come his way with strength and humor.  

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rsultan/this-dads-superhero-cape-is-a-skirt


Guessing he didn't wear his rubber bands


http://abcnews.go.com/Business/boy-wears-braces-11-years-sues-orthodontist/story?id=17091081#.UD2LCBxKheU

Poor kid

I intend to be this kind of embarrassment to my child as frequently as possible.



Monday, August 27, 2012

I'm not that kind of mom

Well it's that time of year again.  The beginning of another year of schedules and social discoveries, some triumphs and heartbreaks for the little ones so I figured it's a good time to talk about some things.

A lot of articles come my way because my friends know how much I worry about getting all the lessons in before Olivia's all grown up.  I am practically an expert on hovering (just ask my sister) because I used to be the parent who really thought maybe it would be a good idea to have a helmet, a leash and some antibacterial hand wipes at all times and I can tell you that you can protect them from almost everything and you will find that they are miserable and it's still all your fault somehow.

I've become increasingly convinced that the helicopter parenting trend is way more damaging than any of us thought, and before you stop reading, know that you probably ARE a helicopter parent (here's the link that called me out on it): The 7 Myths of Helicopter Parenting.  Despite the fact that most of those things we do come from a genuine place of love, we manage to hover our children into a less confident, less exploratory existence and the consequences of that turn out to be huge.

Most of us think we are not helicopter parents if we are not managing every aspect of our kid's existence, and I have learned to sit on my hands and watch some, but one interesting point this article highlighted was that our ANXIETY about their success and happiness is a way of being a very negative, undermining and constant presence in their lives.  That fretting makes their existence all about us and so we use our adult skills to pave a road for them that really needs to have some bumps in it so that they can discover how to deal with conflict themselves.  If we will stop rescuing and let them try this, we'll see how capable they are (and more importantly, THEY will see it) and we'll still get to play the role of comforter when they need it (and they all need it).   

The neat thing about a group of kids is that they kinda correct each other - and usually in a more effective way than an adult who inserts herself into a kid's life can do.  Don't you remember how in tune you were to whether your friends thought you were likable and capable in the 6th grade? Let's use that horrible, hyper-awareness for good here friends!  If someone is mean, you can bet the group does a little ya-ya-ing until he falls back into place.  If someone brags too often, the group looks at her funny til she realizes it's too much.  It's called positive peer pressure (and thank God for that or else we'd all still be wearing those Mork and Mindy suspenders we thought were cool). And since we know our kids don't always listen to us, why not let the group resolve a lot of these crises of fashion and injurious behavior?  Of course, there are some heavy things a kid can't and shouldn't manage without a little guidance and for those situations, parents get to step in and bully each other.

The last time a peer HIT MY BABY, I can assure you that every cell in my body demanded that I go all mama bear on the offender, but my big picture know-it-all self calmly reminded me that I believe Olivia is capable of discerning who healthy friends are, that she should decide whom to avoid, and that she needs all the practice she can get at defending herself.  I'm sure you can imagine all the googling of "injuries that don't leave any marks" and name calling I was doing in my head while I ground my teeth and SAT ON MY HANDS.  While she views me as "Unpaid Consultant" and "Chief Soft Place to Fall," when it comes to action, even Olivia believes that my part is to keep sitting on the hands.  

I would say the big things that we could do while we are busy butting out would be to have lots of conversations on the importance of offering acceptance and forgiveness and (egad!) how to apologize (if we don't offer one every once in a while, I can assure you that our kids don't know how many problems one can fix).  All children make mistakes and none of them have the radar of awareness that adults have so cut them a break already and help your kid do it too. They're 12 and they are so much better at moving on than we are.

I'm guessing if we really don't want them to live with us and off of us when they are 30, it's a good idea to let them try their hand at these lessons when their failure won't cost them their livelihood or their spouse.  The 6th grade is a much better time to learn the value of being prepared for a project than college will be and elementary school is a pretty safe place to learn that if you are not kind to others you will be lonely.  The consequences only get greater.  The upside also is that encouraging them to look at one another and solve their own conflicts might diminish the number of passive aggressive friends we all have to deal with when they are older. And we all want that.  I want that.

And that leads me to the next interesting article I received.  This one - Study - Kids Friends Not Grades, Lead to Adult Well-Being is about how researchers have discovered that good friendships were actually a truer measure of eventual successful, happy lives for children than academic success.  So, all that worrying about managing 100 extracurriculars and the homemade laser science project maybe really doesn't buy the future we think it's buying anyway.  That's not to say academic success counts for nothing.  Of course it's a great measure of capabilities in some arenas and sure does open a lot of doors, but I can honestly tell you that not one person has ever asked me in my adult life what my GPA was.  And I wish you would.  It gave me opportunity, but I can't say that it helped me once I got through the door. What helps then is the ability to relate, to read human expression, to express concern and, very importantly, manage conflict directly, and if we can do those things well, we've got a pretty good day going on for ourselves. Those are all skills learned and honed on the playground and they really are critical to the happy life we say we want for our kids.

So, it's the most wonderful time of the year. Tennies are still unscuffed, the new 3-ring binders haven't gotten cracked yet and the kids are still willing to get out of bed when the alarm goes off in the dark. All the moms are back at the gym and the SUVs are gassed up for carpool.  It's a new year for us hoverers as well. The mantra is "I have my OWN life. She has her own life." Join me in sitting on our hands if you want and we will practice not rescuing and not orchestrating all of their relationships and science projects and we will find so many more things to do with our time.

Can't wait!



Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Ouch

You call it a trampoline. I call it a hilariously funny deathtrap.


Saturday, August 18, 2012

I'll take it

I am a pretty normal American female if I like to receive a nice compliment every once in a while, right? I mean, I'm not giving anything away if I reveal to you that I value knowing I'm still at least a moderately attractive 41 year old.  Hear me when I say that compliments regarding other things besides physical attributes (intelligence, humor, kindness) rank VERY HIGHLY also, but the ones that point to me not being frump mom of the year give me a little smile and those are the ones I am limiting our discussion to today.  I'm not sure I even care where they come from - husband, stranger, parent - all weigh heavily. The neat part is that sometimes niceties are hurled at me from unexpected places and I'm willing to let them qualify as genuine compliments.  Here are my primary examples:

I've told you about the Dollar Store possibly-on-crack friend who stopped me with, "Gurrrllll, you are looking gooood today."  I took that one. It counts for two reasons:  one, I was wearing a really cool shirt AND he didn't tell all the girls at the dollar store that they looked good when I was there, JUST ME.

I'm also counting the guy working at the gas station counter who asked me, "Do I need to close up the shop early today? Because you are looking fine today."  My response, of course, was something uncomfortable and southern like, "Oh, now don't do that."  I am also accepting that one because I did just get my hair done RIGHT before I walked in so I probably did have it going on and I was in a part of town where my rankings would be higher just because I have all my teeth. I do have a feeling that this guy is really playing some kind of numbers game, but still.

My friends say I should tell you about my most recent flattering incident which occurred in the grocery store.  I was actually feeling kind of bad about myself physically because I really was lazier than I should have been this summer and at 41, things fall faster than they used to if you don't give them proper attention.  I was putting something in my cart when a woman in her later 50s (maybe) said, "Could I, um, tell you something without you thinking I'm weird or anything? I mean I don't mean anything by it, but I was looking in that direction when you were getting something off the bottom shelf and I noticed that you have a really cute butt." NO LIE.

Now If you are a woman, you know that this is the HOLY GRAIL of compliments for us, but I have to say, in all of my fantasies about hearing that at least for one day I'd actually beaten back the gravity that all women over 28 battle with daily, I'd never expected to hear it from a woman in the baking aisle at Kroger.  I stammered a lot of thank-you's and, no that's not weird at all's, but I didn't hug her or swap numbers or anything.

Should we let this one count?  I say yes.  I'll take them whenever I can get a flattering comment about my backside.  I was just grateful for it, but I have to admit that sometimes I get concerned about how much I value this kind of compliment and it makes me wonder, is it that we need verification that we look good from someone else or is it that people are so stingy with compliments that we are sometimes stuck fishing for them and then cherishing them like prized and favorite family heirlooms?  I'm by no means starved for praise among my friends and family so that means I'm not desperate for it, but I do like it.  And a friend reminded me how rare it is that women compliment each other at all and I know that's true from my own experience.  We are often more likely to pick one another apart than tell our friends how much we like their hair.  Just imagine how unlikely it is that a stranger would stop us to relay a kind word (or the BEST words like how good our asses look so IT MUST BE TRUE).  So there's the rarity of kind words AND there's the general worry about how we look in these pants that all women fret over that I guess is at play here. Most of us are somewhat miffed at having to switch from reading articles about how to look good to ones about how to look good FOR YOUR AGE.

Did you hear about that young woman who didn't look in a mirror for a WHOLE year before her wedding? I saw an interview with her and she was really doing great personal work by trying, I believe, to focus on other kinds of beauty in herself and maybe shock her system out of over-valuing physical appearances.  I imagine she worked on equating how she looked outwardly with how she felt: clean (hopefully), healthy, rested, positive - you know, the other things that influence our physical appearance and happiness.  I admire that effort, but really youth in itself is a sure bet on beauty so you can take your eye off the ball for a year or two without the mirror and you're still going to have a lot going for you if you're healthy.  And I also bet she wanted to be told she was a beautiful bride.  Nothing wrong with that I guess, but I don't think you'll see many of us over-40s giving up the mirror.  We will be spending some extra time in front of it plucking and moisturizing and pushing those years back because, even though we value the compliments about our craft abilities and parenting skills, we don't want folks to talk only about how kind we are.  Sometimes we really want to hear, "Girrllll, you are looking goooood today."



Why thank you, I DO look fine today.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

No thanks, not that thirsty.

Anything can happen


So the whole Call Me Maybe phenomenon makes me smile. I especially loved the US Olympic Swim Team's version, but I found this one today and laughed all the way through. If you're not familiar with Chatroulette, do your own research, but it's fair to say that none of these "callers" were prepared for what they saw when they found this guy.  Might be a little much for you, Mom. Love how the surprised expressions turn into sing-alongs.





Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Made it!

Well Sunday might have been the longest day ever.  Olivia and I had to get to Rome since school had actually already started this past Friday so we did all of our favorite beach things this weekend and then woke up first thing Sunday to get started. There's nothing like a lightning storm to help startle you out of bed around 6 am.  I haven't been up at 6 am since Berry's Half Marathon Race last year in February and staying in bed sounds like a much better idea during a storm, but a rainy day is actually the best day to get going so you don't feel bad about what you might be missing on the beach.

I'd gotten all the bins on the golf cart the night before so I'll be positive and tell you that slogging the remaining suitcases out to the garage in the rain wasn't as bad as it could have been.  The cat was about as happy as you can imagine a cat zipped up in a little carrier can be in a lightning storm.  She likes to talk. A lot. We got to the ferry landing with enough time to get antsy about standing over water with a metal roof above and say goodbye to friends who love us enough to come out at 8:30 am wearing the most fashionable trashbags as rain gear.  It's a sad thing to wave goodbye to friends in trashbags.

At least the rain had mostly cleared when we got to the marina (we like to call it America).  You know it's been a bad storm when the Weather Channel van is parked where you've just left.  And here's something you should know - even if I am in the market for 5 minutes, when I exit I am unable to remember where I parked my vehicle.  It's like a vanishing memory spell is cast in the produce section or something. Anyway, when you've left your vehicle for weeks the effect is intensified. I stumbled around and would have used the little beep thing on the key fob if I'd ever remembered to replace the battery in that.  I finally called Kenny and asked him if he remembered where I'd parked it the last time he'd come to visit and voila! there it was, just where I'd left it. If you swap from golf cart to car after a couple of months the overstimulation of radio, seatbelts, AC and stop lights becomes a most irritating experience.  What's really cool is if you add a cat, a little sobbing and Spongebob into the mix.

I think my cat's memory is as bad as mine. She's made this trip more than once, but spends the drive alternating between an "I might vomit" expression and a constant meowing.  A CONSTANT MEOWING.  She usually settles down after about 5 hours, but by then I hear it in my head. Also, I am allergic to cats.  Mostly only if I touch one and then touch my face.  The simple swipe of a hand across my eye causes an immediate and intense itching and swelling of my entire face as well as a respiratory reaction focused mostly on incessant, heart-stopping, sneezing.  So I spent a lot of the drive with a very stressed out cat (did you know they SHED when they get stressed?) with claws buried in my lap as I repeated the mantra, "Don't touch your face, don't touch your face, don't touch your face." Her fur was actually floating through the air all around me.  One deep inhalation and it would all be over.  I could take some allergy medicine but the drowsiness that causes just turns an 8 hour drive into a 14 hour drive and trust me when I say nobody wants that.

I took a short audio sampling of our drive together.  In 23 seconds, kitty meowed 9 times. That's an average of every 2.5 seconds.  So that you math people can have a word problem, consider how many meows that is if we are traveling at 80mph for 8 hours. So along with a Spongebob video playing (Olivia says it's impossible to be sad with Spongebob playing) we are also receiving a constant, brain-stabbing narrative by the world's most nervous cat.  Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Meow. And this cat has now figured out how to position herself for a quick exit every time I drive through for food or open the door to get out for gas.  I was pretty sure one of us wasn't going make it, but the dog would have been so disappointed if we arrived home without her feline friend so I opted to press on.  Did I mention Olivia also had a Slinky? - which is a delightful toy (fun for a girl and a boy) until you here the shink-shink-shinking of it for 8 hours.

Somehow we all made it back to Rome alive, even though some of us are less furry and others of us are now exhausted.  Olivia's off to school, I have gotten all the cat hair off of me and will now attempt to unpack and catch up on all that we've missed. Can't wait to hear how you're doing.



Sunday, August 5, 2012

Yep



I'm not sure if you have to have seen the movie Taken to appreciate this one or not, but it's good for a Sunday morning laugh.