Up, down, all around

You know those cans of biscuits? I think some people call them refrigerator rolls, they are little blobs of dough in a cardboard can. You can get regular dinner rolls, crescent rolls, cinnamon buns, all different kinds of dough in this form. They are tightly sealed and the dough is stuffed in there so tight that you have to use a special technique to get them open. You peel the paper off the roll and position something sharp and steely against the curve of the cardboard which has been pre-scored for a ridge to push into. You jam your sharp and steely tool into the ridge and the tube will start to bulge and within a second -or two- will abruptly and loudly blow open. It makes a loud pop and then the can explodes in your hands. We, as consumers of heavily processed foods, allow this crap into our homes. But that is not the point of today's post.

Today's post is about the similarities of a tube of refrigerator rolls to my beloved Genea.

We have a change coming folks. And there is one thing Genea hates more in this world than rice, or re- making her bed and putting on that damn fitted sheet, it is change. She has the rest of her life scheduled to be exactly the same as yesterday. And oh my unholy hell people, you better duck and hide if you are bringing change with you.

It is a strange set up, but Genea is going to a different school from her Kindergarten. New school, new teacher, new kids. New bathroom, new playground, new desks. Everything is going to be new and new is NEVER a good thing. So she is understandably nervous. And what happens when Genea gets nervous? Nothing good.

She is so tense her muscles are like rocks. She has been non-stop toe walking for 4 days. When we remind her to walk on her feet, she stomps. She paces constantly, cannot sit still. Jumps on the furniture. Runs in the hall to the stairs. She bumps around, tripping and falling. She trips over the flowers in the carpeting. She falls from standing still. She is not processing normal information and instructions. Like, throw that tissue in the garbage. She will stand there and stare next to the garbage can, pace back and forth a few times, then ask, where is the garbage can. It has not moved in 2 years. She asks Teena to see her toy while simultaneously taking it out of her hands. She got into the cabinet and tore open a box of granola bars, ate 4. Lies. Lying about nonsense stuff. Changes her pants, swears she didn't. On the verge of a meltdown all day for several days. Incessant questions, incessant demands. Breaking rules just one step over the line. Picks up my papers, makes sure I see her. Rubs the paper on the wall to see if it will stick. Tries to put the paper on a lampshade, maybe it will stick there. Starts to crumble the paper when I finally tell her to put my paper back and knock it off.

With all that happening, I have to say, this is SO much better than last year at this time. Whew! The meltdowns were just constant. She was getting us all up at the crack of 5 AM and howling and wailing all day. Every little thing set her off and she began to make things up to set herself off with. She was peeing all over the house and even poo'd herself twice while in a time out. It was one of her worst times ever, hopefully the record holds. She has come so very very far this past year. We are doing all kinds of things to help her stay on track, and she is helping by identifying when she is having trouble holding herself together. So while the past few days have been really rough, I can so clearly see how much better she is. Because she has not gone over the edge into total crazy. She is trying so hard it almost makes you want to cry, because with all that effort as huge as it is, it is still so hard for her.

Nothing is really helping, but of the 700 things we have done, at least they have held off The Crazy. Redirecting, changing focus, playing outside, assigning chores, turning it around. Going out in public. Rub her muscles, dance in a circle. Watch a movie, play leapster games. Read together, read apart. Time outs, time to rest. Ignoring the least offensive offenses. Concentrating on fine motor skills, using large muscle groups to climb on the playground. Breathe. Feel your feelings in your tummy. Press your thumb spot to relax. Take a shower, eat on schedule, jammies on schedule. Bed on schedule, with fan on and nightlight on and string lights on. Go to the school. Review the first day. Describe school day to her. Remind her we were all nervous our first days too. Remind her all the other kids will be nervous too. Trying to laugh, trying to have fun and trying to be silly. Trying trying trying.

One more day then the next day is the day school starts.
Ex. Hale.

Anyone want to do shots Tuesday morning? I have tequila!

You are what you eat

Breakfast: No time. Got up a little late and had to race off to get the girls. They have been staying at my parents house for the past few days. I meet my parents halfway between our houses and we trade off the girls. It takes about 1 1/2 hour to go halfway so I had to speed and break laws. And, I had to get gas. So, breakfast was 1 krispy kreme donut from the gas station. And some supremely shitty coffee. (But that donut rocked!)

Lunch: The girls ate in the car, my mom had made them sandwiches. And grapes, and crackers and chocolate milk. I would just like to point out that as a child, if myself or my sister had so much as had a dream where there was eating in the car, we would have been forced to wake up to be yelled at. Our punishment would indeed have been severe. Yup. Anyway, so I didn't eat lunch. We were home a short time then had to race off to meet Genea's teacher and I had a caramel macchiato from Starbucks. Mmmm.

Dinner: Oops! Teena has meet the teacher tonite too, only it starts at 5 not 6 like I thought. Shit. Well good thing they have ice cream at this school to positively pair up education and sugar. Makes the little ones think they will get ice cream every time, therefore they fuss up less the first week lol. Anyway, so Teena and I both had ice cream for dinner.

After dinner: The Husband decided to make popcorn for the girls and made me some too. Good thing, because I certainly needed something solid. I decided to make sure I had some solid food by following up the popcorn with some of those enormous chocolate chunk cookies. Mmmmm.

Good day.

It's nice to miss them!

My girls are staying at my parents house for a few days. I am enjoying the quiet, and the peace and the time. I am enjoying watching some daytime garbage on the TV. Yesterday I watched the Tyra show and the subject was super- fat people who want to get fatter so they can develop an internet following of people who love super fat people. Wow.

I miss the girls. Seriously! Life as I knew it radically changed when Genea moved in and I found out the ugly truth about having children. Two are NOT twice as hard as one. Somehow exponentials get involved (don't ask me, I went to public school in Illinois) and two are at least 10 times as hard as one. But here is the deal. I normally need the break so bad that I essentially collapse and remain where I landed until time to go get them back. When the adrenaline that I usually burn in overdrive would wear off, I would feel like I was just getting over the flu. Feeling better than I had, but any small movement caused an immediate relapse.

Things have gotten so much better this summer! All the problems we have had on and off are still lurking, but suddenly the really bad times are much much shorter. Genea hits bottom, and it is painful and horrible and devastating but, she pulls out. Instead of 2 or 3 weeks down there, it is maybe 5 days. Instead of nothing, nothing, slowing or redirecting or minimizing The Crazy, holding her slows it down. Taking her by the hand and turning her in a circle to "turn around" the sadness and crying works. It may work for only an hour, but we never had that hour before. Mid meltdown, I can ask her what color m&m is her favorite and she will stop to think about it and then answer.

Now, on another subject I can't complain because I did this to myself. I am raising both my girls to be very independent. I want them to be people who are happy in their own skin, content with themselves and confident in their abilities to take care of their own needs and wants throughout life. Having said that, it is starting to get on my nerves when I ask Teena if she misses me when she is away and she says "no". This last time she said, "I love you Mama and I love Gramma too!". Yeah, yeah, yeah. Genea, she misses me, and if she doesn't at least she has the sense to lie about it.

Is it wrong?

Is it wrong, to be disgusted (or close to vomiting) when a guest in my home kicks off her sandals and rubs her naked feet all over my couch?

Is it wrong, to be annoyed when a guest in my home insists on bringing her own drinks, olives and ice cubes when I have already planned for drinks?

Is it so very wrong, when a guest asks if she would be a bother coming into the kitchen to make herself a drink which will involve digging around in my fridge, freezer and cabinets while I am cooking (ok boiling water), is it really so very wrong to answer the question honestly?

Is it wrong to be grossed out when a guest picks her teeth at the dinner table then leaves the toothpick sit there?

Is it wrong to make a comment when a guest picks up a wandering cat at the dinner table and shakes and wiggles the cat so great blobs of cat hair flit about over everyone's dishes?

Really people, is it wrong?

Were you born as a box of hair?

One of my favorite things to bitch about is people who do what they are told. Just doing what they think they are supposed to be doing without ever so much as an independent thought wafting through all those unused brain cells.

Last week, we were at our little community pool. It is a great place for kids. Really, this is a great town for kids but that is another subject. The pool is intended for small children and at its deepest is probably less than 2 feet deep. Anyway, it is a pool. And when you are at a pool you put sunscreen on your children. When you go outside at all, you put sunscreen on your children. That's what you do. That's what Parent magazine says to do. Probably even Readers' Digest says, put sunscreen on your kids every time they leave the house. Obviously the label on the sunscreen bottle says, put this on whenever a ray of sun could reach you. If you don't, well, unspecified really horrible tragedies will befall your precious offspring. You know, we used all that hairspray in the 80's and killed the big ozone filter in the sky (although my hair looked really great, big hair suits me well) so now the sun will annihilate your children. Guilt and threat of death, a powerful combination.

(Does anyone know if those other chemicals in sunscreen are healthy? I don't).

So there we are at the pool. Myself, and my nakedly sunscreen free children risking unspecified horrible tragedies. We were going to stay for about an hour, so I did not break out the sunscreen. Teena tans, but Genea is more like me where we don't really tan and it takes a long time for us to burn. But here is the real deal. There was no sun that day, and none was coming. Just clouds out.

No sun, just clouds, and in fact rain was coming. Now of course I know that sun can get through the clouds anyway, but not very much. Along comes what appears to be a mom, a grandmother and 3 children ages about 3 to 8. Everyone is excited and ready to have fun! And they all had to stand and wait for 15 minutes to get sunscreen lathered all over themselves by their mother who was determined that not an inch of flesh could be exposed to a potential unspecified horrible tragedy.

Now, I am not anti- sunscreen. However, I reserve it for times outside when we are going to be out a long time and oh yeah, there is SUN somewhere. This particular day, not only was it rain cloudy, but the clouds were deep and heavy and dark. The kind of day when if you were inside you would need lights on, it was that dark out. The clouds were so thick it was the equivalent of being under a sleeping bag designed for sub zero temperatures. No sun is going to get in that sleeping bag either.

But what if the group was going to be out there a really long time? A ray of sun could squeak through the sleeping bag clouds. Then they might need all that sunscreen, and they will not have been ready! Well they weren't. I heard the mom saying that they were only going to be there for a half hour or so, (plus 15 minutes of sunscreen application time), so they had better go have their fun right away. Along with about 100 other constant warnings per minute to the 3 kids. Don't stick your toe in there. You could get hurt. Don't get so close to the wall. Don't get in the water. You could get hurt. Stop getting so wet in that pool. You could get hurt. Don't throw the ball at your brother (okay, I am embellishing). One of those where the stream of badgering is so incessant you know that every last ounce of fun has been sucked right out of the day. The kids meanwhile have moved as far away from their mother as they could get on the other side of the pool. No wonder. (I am a big believer in let them get hurt as long as there will be no lasting damage or stitches involved. Overprotecting and incessant badgering teaches dependency and they still don't learn until they experience it anyway).

So that is my bitch-fest for today. I can't stand it when people don't think for themselves! Hate it! Makes me nuts! Okay, was the sunscreen going to hurt them? No, probably not. Does it really matter? No. Was this in any way, shape or form affecting me? Er.... no.

Still!

Too True Tues #3

It's that time again.... that day again... to pull out your embarassing, unexpected stories, for the sheer purpose of entertaining the rest of us.... who will wallow in it with you..... and it's fun! This week I am not so sure my confession will be unexpected, but it is definately embarrassing to me. And quite possibly a felony.

In case you're new, this is the deal. You take the opportunity to tell a true fact about yourself that people would not otherwise know because you would not tell anyone! It should be something unexpected, such as you are a former celebrity with a skinny dipping habit but now you are an employee of the Catholic Diocese. Or, maybe you have "War and Peace" on your home bookshelf but secretly read books for teenagers. You write up your little story on your blog, then enter your information into the Mr Linky thingie on the bottom of this post for the enjoyment of the rest of us. Oh yeah, and put a link in your blog back to here so people reading you can come back and read the rest.

I have been doing these the past few weeks, but am going to move to an ever- other- week schedule. So there won't be one next week, but will be another on Sept 1 (first day of school).

So I am going back and forth in my mind on how to describe this weeks event. Do I explain myself first, then go to the big reveal or do I confess, then move on to all the excuses I have made for myself. Hmmm. I think in this case I better start with the ugly circumstances that led to the crime.


It was several months into Genea's placement with us. We had never had a honeymoon period, seriously Genea woke up from her nap the day she moved in and started a meltdown that for all intents and purposes would continue for approximately a year. And the daily continuation of the meltdown often began at 5 am. Yes, FIVE AM IN THE MORNING. Sometimes earlier. I was still working and struggling to hold everything together. So I was the mom of this screeching wailing 4 year old, and a 2 year old revved up in her terrible two's.


And I was tired. So, sooooooo tired. The day of my offense I am sure Genea was up early. Probably up late too, with nightmares. The day often started with her hollering out to The Husband and I. We would then holler back at her to go back to sleep, it is only... 4 am.... 5 am.... whatever. Within seconds we could hear the pre-wail gasp begin, because it truly takes significant lung power to scream as loud as she does. Hour after hour of this every morning. (for anyone new, we tried every single thing on the planet to stop this in a nice or even neutral way, its a long story). Then the morning food meltdown. Then the incessant forcing of our attention with a variety of problems. Then of course, Teena is up as well. Teena has never been a crier. Teena is a whiner. Oh my unholy hell, this child can whine. Wow. Teena is supposed to eat her cereal but she is screwing around with the spoon and dumps it all on the floor. She got some kind of crap in her hair that won't come out, and is on her way to day care. In public. Which means I have to have her in a reasonable condition to appear outside of our home. No clean clothes. The clean clothes have food stains on them.

Etc.

So I was stressed. And tired. And I had to go to work, which I did. I had a short break in between children going from one house to another and I stopped at my own house in the middle. It was right around 4 in the afternoon which is the time I always crash. For years I have hit a wall right around that time frame and I could either go to sleep for a month, or rev up with some more caffiene and keep going. This day, I had another child to see. So I HAD to keep going.


And I was sooooo tired. With a few random thoughts as to h0w I can't be a good mom if I am in a coma, and, shit this is really wrong of me, this is what happened.


Sigh.


I broke into Teena's little red ceramic shoe bank and stole a $20.00 and bought myself a big fat triple tall latte from Starbucks.


And I felt really bad about it. But I enjoyed the latte.

Slacking and lacking

tick tick tick

Still waiting for school to start. 15 days to go.

These last 15 however, suck much more mightily. The pools close and the park programs are over. The library takes a break from kids programs. The bee's get really aggressive this time of year around here, and so going outside can get scary.

We have a bee hive over our front door hiding under some planks. It is the only door we can use, being as the back door is jammed into the tracking thingie. Good thing our windows are broken in the back so we can just push them out without all those pesky issues of locking/ unlocking, etc so if there is a fire we can still get out. Anyway, the bees are not honey bees, we called in a beekeeper dude to check since honey bees are disappearing and dying from colony collapse. Okay, so this is what happened. Professional Bee Dude comes and looks at our bees, and says, nope those are not honey bees. Cool, we say, what kind are they? Dunno, he says. Never saw them before.

??????

!!!!!!!

Well, I am thinking, THAT can't be good. They dive bombed The Husband a few days ago, when one approached his head. He thought that was a less than great thing, so he swatted at it. This sent out some sort of alert that a billion bees from across the country heard or smelled or whatever, and came running. Weird. Professional Bee Dude said we could hire someone or just use the stuff from the grocery store, like Raid, to kill them off. It is my opinion that someone better get on that now. And by someone, I mean someone not me. Oh, and they are not killer bees, which is good because I would have to move out. Hmm, this could be the excuse I have been waiting for (LOL! JK!).

It has been a hard summer for my little blog here. It is a much more difficult thing focus and pay attention to, when there are these 2 people who are acting like Jim Carey and Robin Williams after a case of Mountain Dew (or cocaine). And a crate of cookies. (Those would be the girls). I don't know how all you homeschool parents with the kids home all day get to blog at all! Amazing!

More in-laws are here. They just keep on coming. This time, it is MIL and her mother, so it is The Husbands mother and grandmother. They took the girls for a few days to stay at the hotel with them. Then they took The Husband and I to a Packer game. So, as much as I might want to do differently, I cannot complain about this visit. Seriously though, before we had kids no one cared what we were doing! We saw people once a year or less.

So I have been slacking and my blog has been lacking. When the girls start school again I will be back on track I hope! Will keep limping along until then.


Tick tick tick

Shimmie shimmie shoes..... for rent

Many hundreds of years ago, when The Husband and I were child-free, my sister and her The Husband were cooperative enough to provide me with a cool little nephew and Godson. My plan for my life with children was to enjoy, bask in the adoration, and spoil spoil spoil my little nieces and nephews. Always, ALWAYS, with the option to turn around and hand them back over to a more responsible party capable of meeting all those tedious and un-fun needs. In other words, back to Mom and Dad. Or someone. Someone else.

Part of the spoiling available to a double -income- no- kid family, is expensive things that are ridiculous for a child to have. So the family who is child- free is able to give gifts that are impractical but, really really cool. Such as, a pair of Nike *ahem* running shoes for a child just about one year old.

So impractical were these shoes, but so so oh so cute. Obscenely expensive, I remember they were around $40.00. I just could not get over how cute these little shoes were. They are about 3 inches long, dark blue with orange and white. Before I gave them, I used to take them out of the box and play with them a bit. They were just so dang adorable, I swear they smiled back at me! I set them on a counter where I could unintentionally see them every day.

Finally I gave them to my nephew as a random gift of Auntiehood. Then, I became pregnant. Coincidence? No. I think those shoes got my ovaries jumping. Ready to party down. Ready to get up off their lazy tubes and get to work. (my apologizes to any rigid anatomy purists).

Along came Teena and along with Teena's appearance came the complete and total disappearance of nephew- spoiling funds. Actually, the complete and total disappearance of a lot of funds. Most funds. The shoes came to live at my house again, for Teena to wear on her non-walking feet as a baby. Anyway.

My sister and her The Husband decided they wanted me to have another nephew, and Teena another cousin so they set about cooking one up. Only, there was stubbornness encountered. Stubbornness encountered that would become explained once next nephew put in his appearance. Now I may be taking some liberties with the actual facts (and many liberties with grammar), but as I remember it, my sister and I had a conversation about those little Nike shoes and happy ovaries and shoo-wop doo-wop, along came next nephew. Then came Genea and suddenly there were a lot of kids running around our parents house on Thanksgiving.

And yet, my sister and her The Husband decided again that they wanted me to have just one more niece or nephew. They had bought a big house you see, and had bedrooms with no one in them. Clearly that was unacceptable, so they again set out to cook up another baby. Every *ahem* appointment was kept for 2 years with no little biscuit joining the meeting.

Suddenly one day, in a land much further north, an Auntie was cleaning out her closet. The Auntie had not done this in a dreadfully long time however things had started to move out of this closet by themselves in the night and the situation had become dire. The Auntie (that's me) came across the adorable pair of little baby Nike shoes. Soooooo so cute! I remembered that my sister was diligently having appointments in order to provide me with the next niece or nephew and I decided to set those little shoes aside and send them to her. For inspiration. For her ovaries. And whatever else might benefit from some inspiration.

But I never got a chance. Because she called me a few days ago to say that she is pregnant!

It's the shoes.

Now being as we in this house are now a family of two- kids- one- income, there is no money for expensive ridiculous little things therefore I am willing to rent out the mojo of my Shimmie Shimmie Fertility Nike's. So, who is going to be first?

And of course, congratulations to my sister and her new baby on the way! I'm going to be an Auntie again!

Too True Tues

Well I have to admit, Too True Tues turned out to be a lot more fun than I even thought it would be. I thought it would be fun, I didn't know it would be really fun! Who knew there was something worse than granny panties? I mean, seriously!

Now I have this Mr Linky widget so no one has to go digging around at the end of the post comments looking for backlinks.

Here it comes. My embarrassing but true thing. It isn't a bad one as in I did a bad thing. It is a bad one as in, wow, how stupid can one person be. Just one person, all by herself. You'll find the answer next.

When Teena was 2, so two years ago, I called her doctor and got a same day appointment. For what? Because her head was smelly. Oh yes I did.

See, here's the deal. Teena is a sweaty kid. She heats up fast and when she sleeps her head sweats bucket loads of... sweat...and... stuff. Honestly, I have had to replace many a pillow because of the funk and stains. Even as a baby this would happen. After a day or two of hot weather, her head would start to stink but it wasn't all that bad until she started to (finally!) grow hair. Then the funk would get in her hair and it would stay. And it is a bizarre smell, difficult to describe. Very rich and sort of like expired ground beef.

Not exactly my dream for my little girl.

Anyway, go figure I was watching TV, House maybe? And they were talking about this disease that resulted in the smell of maple syrup. Many months later, during a hot stretch of weather and no air conditioning my amazing powers of recall (for irrelevant bullshit that is, not important stuff) brought that little bit into the front of my tired brain and my brain said to me, Self, you should really look into that on the web. So then I find out about all kinds of metabolic or endocrine or something diseases that cause a stink on a person. AAAAAAAAAAAack! Called the doctor. Who said, bless her heart, that I'd better go ahead and bring Teena in.

Of course they ran tests and she was fine. I think the chances are pretty high that they said to bring her in so they could check me out. Looking for my tinfoil hat meant to deflect the alien rays. Or sniffing to see if it was me that stank. Of whiskey.

But the stink is still there. I mean, you could wash her head 3 times and the funk would still hover around. We attached a small fan to her bedrail and it has gotten a little better as she has gotten older. But if it creeps in, it is hard to get out and she is still a very sweaty little kid. Obviously that comes from the other side of the family.

OKAY! So tell a story! Something unexpected, maybe even embarrassing about you! Put yourself on the little linky thing here!

Virginia anyone?

I finally cobbled together enough money (and credit)to go to the Beyond Consequences Instructor training in September. It will be in Virginia Beach- anyone want to come? Anyone live in the area (and willing to reveal it)? I am going to go a day early to hang out at the beach, or pool, or bar or whatever.
Here is the website

www.beyondconsequences.com

Then maybe, I can get a J. o. b. !

Sometimes I know what I am doing....

Sometimes.... not so much!
Ok, most times not so much!

So I did my Too True Tues and several people went ahead and did a post too which is SO COOL! And hilarious I might add! But not all of them are showing up on the link back thingie and being honest I have no idea why. Some showed up yesterday and are gone today. Some new ones came on today and so I am going to list them here and next week I will plan ahead!

Momma Chaos
Annie
Sherific Sheri
Mylifeandloves
***NEW*** 8/8/09
Mountain Momma

If you fessed up on something and it is not showing up, leave me a note and I will add your link. This is way too important information to leave to chance!

minor bump in the road

So I am not even going to hint that this is a big problem. It is not any sort of issue to get fussed up about, just the sort of thing that made me think twice. So, thought I would share. Cuz that is how I am. Generous.


When Teena was in her pre- 4k summer school class, there was a little girl who started a few days late. Teena and she became friends, in that 4 year old little girl way. She came home one day all excited about her new friend and so I asked about the girl. The conversation went like this.

Me "How cool, a new friend! Tell me about her!"

Teena "Um, she is my friend"

Me "What do you like about her?"

Teena "She is my friend"

Me "Okay.... what does she look like?"

Teena "I don't know"

Me *sigh running out of patience....* "Okay, what color hair does she have?"

Teena *pause* "She doesn't have any hair"

Me (Ohhhhhhh, must be the kind of friend no one else can see) "Okay, eat your lunch."

A week or so later, I met the little girl who did indeed turn out to be real. And you know what? She has NO HAIR! Ha ha, her hair was cut super super short, just head fringe really. She appears to be Indian, as in from India, not as in Native American. Teena just looooves her. She also has the prettiest girlie name, and wears the most gorgeous girlie dresses.

Getting to the point, tonite Teena was dancing around in front of that show America's Most Talented Whatever. The one Genea is going to sing on as soon as we knock the crap out of her mental health issues. And she said, out of nowhere, sticking her foot up on my coffee table and showing me her leg, "look Mama, my skin is almost as dark as my friend Girlie". This is what my brain said:

*aaauck!!! She shouldn't say that! Could that be considered a racist thing to say? Her friend might be offended! Other kids might be offended! That's offensive! Correct her! Get on that now! Baaak! Yikes!*

My first instinct was to jump in there and correct Teena. Just to let her know that is not something we comment on to other people. We don't talk about skin color with people who have different skin colors. It could be considered rude. Or offensive. Or worse. I mean sure we were in our own home in our basement, but if I didn't say something in the moment, I would be missing an opportunity to teach her something important, really important. And if I let the comment slip by, was I letting her know that it is okay to say these things? Giving the wrong impression? These thoughts conflicted with my other thoughts, which were basically she is 4 and she says 75,000 things in an hour and her perspective is probably that she wants to be like her friend.



When I was a kid, I was ignorant of racism. Ignorant as in, I just did not know about it and so I did not think in that pattern. But in a very real way, that is a luxury I was allowed. The circumstances I was born into made that lack of awareness sustainable. Many more people in the world have no choice but be fully cognizant at all times. While I strongly feel as an adult that people in this country need to be aware of racism, acknowledge it and do their part to work against it, I also see a value in leaving that slate clean for a time. Because when I learned about things like slavery and the holocaust, it scared the hell out of me. That people could treat other people in such heinous, tortured ways... it was terrifying and horrifying at the same time. And honestly, it may be right or wrong or none of the above but learning about it made me look at people from different racial backgrounds in a way I hadn't before. It was intimidating I think, to look at people knowing how they had been treated by others and survived. Fear of a misstep changed my interactions for a time. There was also a certain disconnect though, for example my friend next door was 8, and I was 8, and he was Jewish and I was Catholic and we were both born only 8 years prior. He also was not a girl and I was. THAT was the big difference to me, as a kid. Big kids taunted us for being friends because he was a boy.



Like I said, conflicted. On one hand, I think maybe I should have laid some groundwork with my girls on the subject. On the other hand I think well, sooooo, Teena is right, she is getting tanned and her skin is getting darker and her little friend Girlie does have slightly darker toned skin. And if I make an issue of it, then it is out there as an issue. But then, if Teena said something like, look at that old lady in the wheelchair and pointed, I would correct her. If we came across someone who is albino and she said, wow that person is really light and pale, I would shush her, even if we were just driving by in the car and the person could not hear us.

By disclaimer though, I am in no way shape or form trying to make this a bigger issue than a minor bump in the road that got me thinking. My perspective comes from only the direction of being Caucasian from a Caucasian background, and that might make me less aware than I could be.

Conflicted, like I said. And quite likely overthinking. Ahem.

Too True Tues

I had an idea and it sounded like fun in my brain. However my judgement may be altered and unreliable from being saturated in children's TV. I thought it might be fun to have a bi- monthly post about something personal, true, but unexpected. Then other people can post their unexpected but true facts and link back and it will turn in to a huge festival of true and possibly embarrassing confessions. Doesn't that sound like fun?!!?



So here is the idea. Write about something you probably should be embarrassed about but aren't. Something you hide, but don't deliberately keep from people. Like, if you were being tortured in a prison in a third world country, they would need no water to get this little fact out of you. If they threatened to play country music oldies at full blast all day and all night long, you would spill the beans and make a big ol' mess on the floor waaaaay before they ever hit the play button.

Here is mine.



I LOVE granny panties. Oh YEAH. In fact, I believe that the average Granny is likely to be jealous of my undies. You could sew a house cozy out of them. Big white shapeless cotton drawers. Mmm hmmm.



I have no use for scratchy lace. Sure lace is pretty! On... well.... on something I am sure. But definitely not on my undies. Don't need a fancy high-leg looking cut of the fabric. Don't care where they hit on my hip. High rise, low rise, ranch style, not interested. Briefs, bikini, boy cut huh? No flowers or seashells or deadbolts printed on the fabric. No shiny fabrics that slip around, no thank you. I want me some security in the positioning. I just don't want anything sliding. Nuff said. Filmy delicate mesh type material? Non applicable. If they can't go in the laundry with my jeans and survive, they are going to die from drowning. Seriously, the only thing I hand wash is my hands.



Don't even get me started on thongs. Strapping dental floss on my rear end, just not my idea of a good time. I spend my days trying to get my undies OUT of my butt, not the other way around. And lets face it, thongs just scream "hootchie". Get you a thong and a tongue piercing and you will have my kids in 10 years (just kidding, really). (that better not happen yikes). People that say they wear thongs so they don't have panty lines are just lying. Yup, I said it. Lying. Put on some granny panties! They stretch so far that if lines are going to show they will be at your knees and get lost in the bend anyway. Ha! Solved that problem didn't I!



So that is the idea. Be thinking about your semi- shameful secret that you are ready to share with the People of the Air. I will take the next week to figure out a linky thingie to use. (PLEASE don't leave me hanging here like an idiot!) You can start now if you want, use the linkback feature, or leave a link in the comments and I will put it up.



Just plain, white, huge granny panties. The bigger, the better. The huge-er they are, the happier I am!

Slacker parenting rules!

We have, at my last frantic look, 29 days until school starts again.

tick, tick, tick......

Last week I realized the error of my ways. I had inadvertently left the TV on and someone had put on PBS. I don't know who. It was like putting Dennis Rodman in front of a bar. The girls just got sucked right in and appeared unable to move themselves away. Physically unable. Glued to the edge of the couch/ bar stool. Quiet. Did I mention the quiet? Calm too.

This is what I have been doing wrong, I have been forcing these dear little innocents to use their brains. Exercise their minds. Exercise their bodies. Get sun. Get fresh air. Practice handwriting. Learn coins. All those useless ways to make time go by. Fighting. Arguing. Whining. Resisting. Complaining. UGH!

When all along, all I had to do to get cooperative, pleasant children, was to turn on the TV. Dangit. Some day I will get this right.

(the above is glorious use of a highly developed skill set in sarcasm and is not intended to reflect reality)

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