When's the last time you saw a child 'smoking" gum/candy cigarettes or riding on the handlebars of his friend's bicycle?

My friend, Chad sent me this article a few weeks ago and for some reason I let it sit and fester in between the Groupon and Daily Deals that are clogging up my yahoo account. The Gmail is clogged with health and fitness "tips" and Nigerian relatives who want to give me money.

LUCKILY I decided to purge today. No...I am not clearing off the dry bar that is covered with dust (dust that has seen more parts of this country than ANY travel adviser, I'll have you know. I wonder if I could sell it...?

"This dust began its dismal life in Charlotte, North Carolina where it began its journey north to Manassas, Virginia. There were too many battles fought in Manassas, so the dust settled (hahahaha!) in Warrenton for a while, then headed to Fredericksburg where it spent most of its youth. After five years, the dust rolled through most of the central states to reside in upstate western Montana for about two years when it collected itself (and others) and rolled back eastward to settle in New Jersey where it now rests beneath a ridiculous amount of time-out toys that were never missed and candles that are never lit (for fear of a dust explosion upon lighting...)"

Wow--that was QUITE a digression. Now you know why I confuse so easily. There is MADNESS going on in my brain. Where was I? Right--purging. No--I am not sorting through the stacks of papers that are strewn about the house. I am not purging the leftover ham from last year's Easter dinner (just kidding, but you were wondering for a minute...I don't blame you. If our refrigerator hadn't broken a month ago, it could TOTALLY be the case--don't beat yourself up about it). I AM purging my irrelevant email. I would LOVE to do both accounts, but let's not get crazy. I have over ten THOUSAND emails in my yahoo account. TEN. THOUSAND. I don't even KNOW what half of them are about, yet I will keep them...just in case. I very well may want to sit down later to discover the secret fat-burning ingredient in five foods I may or may not eat every day. And if I click on some of the surveys I can earn something...I may want to read about what that something IS.

Well, I am glad I at least attempted to purge because I came upon this email from my friend and the article is HILARIOUS! Really. I know what you are thinking--I think EVERYTHING is hilarious (unless "you" are my husband--then you think that I think that NOTHING is hilarious--but that is for another day), but THIS will REALLY make you laugh out LOUD (which I hate to say because people don't believe that laughing out loud is really a thing anymore, but it IS! LITERALLY (another word that people don't believe in because it is so frequently misused). I LITERALLY laughed OUT LOUD when I read this and I think you will, too.


Did you read it? DID you? Wasn't it HILARIOUS? Were you picturing yourself falling all over the seat in the car or worse--sitting in THE FRONT seat as a child? Or flying down a hill helmetless and carefree with your parents nowhere in sight?! I am giggling just REMEMBERING the article--and those PICTURES! I want Amber Dusick to be my friend because she is SO FUNNY--and I have funny friends!

 While reading this I started thinking about when I would babysit for my cousins (who are now in their twenties) and their car seats would practically tip OVER when we went around corners. Of course, at least they attempted to keep their children safe twenty years ago. When I was young you were lucky to have a seat belt and a relative who would hail a few Mary's for your journey. As for Mr. Yuck--we had a serious love/hate relationship. My mom would put those stickers on every container (which really just made me MORE curious about what was inside) and would get extras for me because I LIKED them. If that doesn't tell you what my taste in men was like (before I met my husband of course), then nothing will!

I choked on my carrot (yes, carrot. I had to grab SOMETHING when I clicked on Dusick's link to the BEST chocolate chip cookie EVER, because I was salivating. Luckily I am far too lazy to make ANYTHING right now--even if it is of the chocolate chip variety and even if it is the best EVER. ) reading about her experience with the metal swingset remembering how we would stand up on the swing and have people push us as high as possible and now I say, "Only on your bottom" as my children have the controlled fun I allow them to have. They have never even ATTEMPTED to stand up on the swing--I am pretty sure that I would KILL them for even TRYING it. I remember trying to swing high enough to make the entire swingset tip over backwards. Don't act like you don't know what I mean. ALL of those sets would come out of the ground as we swung--was there supposed to be cement poured in to keep them in the ground? I'm not sure that ANYONE went to those extremes--they just banked on us slowing down so that the set would stay in place. Or maybe they were hoping it tipped, too!

The see-saw/teeter.totter slam down was like a rite of passage when we were young. You climbed onto the teeter totter KNOWING that you were taking a risk. I remember the panic when your tottering partner would decide that she would rather be jump roping...BAM. Your top teeth became your bottom teeth and your brain was in your nose. Sometimes people would just mess with each other--you never knew if you were going to crash to your doom or be carefully let off of the see saw with no injuries. It was a crap shoot. Good times.

I read this knowing that I was the most overprotective parent out there and was just happy to know that someone may be almost as bad as I am. Or slightly as bad as I am...?
The first time I let my son play outside without me, we were living in a townhouse in Montana. There was no screen door and I couldn't really see in the back yard from the tiny kitchen window, so I left the back door open. In December. In Montana. The neighborhood children who had gathered to play ball in the back yard were a little freaked out by me, but I was a little freaked out by THEM. And pretty much EVERYTHING else

 I have gotten better--I let all three of them go out without me now as long as they stick together and stay in the yard. The other day, the older two were having fun and getting along so well that they didn't notice the youngest taking off on her bike. ALONE. I say "taking off," but you should know that we live on the corner of two culdesacked (I am coining that--it is now a word) streets so "taking off" meant that she rode in the street in front of our house and next to our house. IN THE STREET. And she did NOT have her helmet, which is a bit...ironic? Hypocritical? since someone I know VERY WELL just wrote an article for the Examiner on the subject of helmet safety. Ahem.

 I know all of this because even though I let them go outside without me I check them every few minutes to make sure...well, to make sure that one of them isn't riding around helmetless in the street.  When I peeked out, I only saw the oldest two and my heart sank. I yelled for them ALL and the oldest two came running noting that they had no idea where Addison was. At this point, she was riding her bike along the side of the house where we could not see, but when my son said, "She's inside--she went in a LOONG time ago!" I thought I would be sick. Seconds later, little Addie comes squeaking around the corner with a huge smile, not a care in the world. Until I grabbed her and mauled her and told her to ALWAYS answer when we call her name. Nothing like freaking out the five-year-old.

Why ARE we so much more protective of our children now? I blame Lifetime television. I don't watch it now, but in my twenties I LIVED (AND cried) by it! There is always something happening to some sweet child and the nice neighbor is always the serial stalker. AND it is ALWAYS a true story! I will NEVER get the image of the parents going to bed in the room of the husband/killer and when they turned the lights off the room GLOWED to show how much blood had been on the walls. CREEPY. Anyway, I knew I had to give up Lifetime and I haven't watched it since. if only I could give up chocolate and baked goods that easily...FOREVER.

Only, I don't WANT to give up yummy treats FOREVER--or even for a short amount of time, really, but Lifetime HAD to go because it was messing with my brain. I am constantly afraid of something happening to my babies and watching Lifetime would make it SO MUCH WORSE! it's a shame because those movies usually are SO GOOD.

I have a whole thing about certain movies and when I am allowed to watch them--I'll have to revisit it in a different post.  Now, though, I will have to settle on reading Tummy taming tips and writing back to my Nigerian uncle. Speaking of keeping children safe, where ARE my kids anyway...? I would have done GREAT as a parent in the seventies...

Let's talk Twitter...

Let's talk Twitter. Yet another thing I'm too old for that I swore I would NEVER do. The good news is, I am too dumb to actually "DO" it still. I signed up for it (and a MILLION other things) when I first started the blog in October. My friend Kate said I would love, love, LOVE it and it would be so great for my blog. My "blog" friend Lucy, (I say "blog-friend" since we haven't actually met in real life yet, which reminds me of my friend Chrissy who would refer to some of her childhood friends as "pool friends" because they only came around to hang out with her in the summer. When she was swimming. In her pool. In simpler terms, they used her for her pool and she called them on it. Awesome. Anyway, my "blog" friend, Lucy)ISN'T using me for my blog, I'm sure (though WHAT a treat it would be for her!) and would much rather use my pool than read my blog, I'm sure, but she IS encouraging me to become a twitterer. Or Tweeter. Twater? You really need to be careful with this one--it can REALLy go in the wrong direction. She is encouraging me in that SHE loves it and says it is more addicting than facebook (which is not necessarily a GOOD thing for ME!) and she couldn't believe I wasn't on it. But I WAS. ON it. Twitter, that is. I was ON it, though I never CHECKED it or twitted...tweeted...twa--you get it-anything except for seven initial tweets(?) telling the one or two people who even FOUND me, to read my blog.( I LOVE how bossy hiding behind the computer makes me!) And I'm pretty sure that if they DID read my blog, it had NOTHING to do with my tweeting. I'm sure if I learned to do it correctly, this Twitter thing could really work for me, but there are SO MANY THINGS I need to learn to do correctly and I am SO TIRED! Far too tired to LEARN things. It's all I can do to keep my eyes open while I am typing this (and forcing my children to watch the Carebears (Addison's pick since she was home first and for those who believe they are "too mature" for Care Bears, when choosing between Care Bears and homework, CARE BEARS WIN. Who knew?!). My brain is starting to look like my college dorm room. Or my HOUSE these days. SO. MUCH. STUFF. Most of it useless and taking up space or overshadowing the important "stuff" so that it can't shine. So how do I clean up my "stuff" in my brain when I can't even clean up the "stuff" in my house? Do I just throw everything out and start again? And how do I even DO that in my brain? Drugs? Alcohol? Drugs AND alcohol? Have another baby?! EGADS! I can't even type those words without feeling a wave of horror wash over me. This is weird for two reasons. 1. I had not one, but TWO hysterectomies--EVERYTHING is gone. If I were to get pregnant it would be more than "Immaculate" and would even make Mary wonder. and B. I really wouldn't mind having a baby at this point. I think that once you have three (who are now 5, 6 and 7) this close together, you are outnumbered anyway and your brain is shot, so what's the difference? Plus, if I had a baby NOW, I would MAYBE remember some of the "baby" time, unlike my other three who must have come out of the womb at the age of four since I don't even REMEMBER HAVING babies--only mouthy preschoolers and...well, THIS. Child one and child two shoving each other off of a chair in the supposed-to-be-dining-but-now-messy-art-room because the other five [chairs] just aren't working for either one of them. Really. They BOTH MUST have the ONE chair or die trying to get it. Or kill me trying to get it. Meanwhile, child number three is making like 1954 Mississippi with her poor Tianna doll left in the dust and the other princesses frolicking and dancing. Noted, so now she decided that I could have Tianna. And Cinderella. And Snow White. Basically, the dolls she could do without. So my youngest is a "Mean Girl" and my other two are just mean and I am tired, but going on about not having, but "acquiring" a baby somehow (because THAT is what I need! Not to mention the poor child! No wonder God said, "No more" and made me need a hysterectomy. Of course, I'm just like my children--I needed TWO to REALLY get it and I'm STILL talking about having babies--so obviously I DIDN'T get it! Now I see why my children don't learn...) and my son is now MAKING OUT WITH Tianna to show Addison how much HE loves her and Addison is yelling, "NOOOO--SDOP KISSIN' MY DOWLIES!" and the middle child is upstairs plotting my demise since I wouldn't let the fist throwing over the chair continue (mean mommy that I am) and I JUST want to be able to TWITTER sbout ALL of it. Or maybe I just want to be able to write about all of it without being interrupted fifty times to make Snow White and Cinderella curtsy (REALLY?!) to tell Brayden to get his mouth OFF of Tianna, to "encourage" Ryan to remove her claws from Brayden's neck and to remind Addie that she does not need to eat her toes as we will be having dinner soon. Tweet THAT my blog friends!

Helpful or not?

When I first got on facebook (about three years ago), I had SO MUCH FUN connecting with people I had truly missed throughout the years. It seemed I was constantly finding new friends and they were finding me. It was the BEST thing for a person like me--one who MEANS well, but has a little trouble with the follow-through. The road to hell REALLY IS paved on good intentions--I can feel the heat beneath my feet! I INTEND to be a good friend, but the truth is, I kind of suck. There is something else you should know about me. I think EVERYONE feels the same way I do about things. Let me correct that--I KNOW that SO MANY PEOPLE DO NOT SHARE MY VIEWS. I just refuse to accept that. It's not that I am a know-it-all. It's quite the contrary in fact. I admit to being wrong about pretty much EVERYTHING. Until I think I'm right. I base what is "right" to me on what benefits most people or what creates the happiest ending. I've found in recent months that MANY of my "friends" do NOT share this method of reasoning. Duly noted. I first started this...feeling...when I went off to college. I was blessed to find the MOST PATIENT roommate EVER. Seriously, she should be a saint with all that she had to put up with when I was there. Example? Day one. My parents and I set up the room before she arrived. We made SURE to take over every inch of one half of the room--maybe even going over that inch in some areas. No complaints from her. I went out--ALL the time and kept her (or woke her) up until all hours of the night. No complaints from her. I even passed my "line" and took over the ENTIRE ROOM with all of my...prized possessions scattered around like...well, a junk hole--no hyperbole here, it's the truth. Some complaining, but she still loved me. Don't get me wrong--I wasn't ALWAYS horrible and I used to be very nice actually. I also used to be the person who would do anything for anyone with a smile on my face. I think the old me would REALLY annoy the new me. In fact, I kind of feel like going back in time to punch the old me in the face. THAT is a conversation for another day. I made such good friends in college and loved how there was no...ranking...or anything to prevent me from being who I was or being friends with anyone. It didn't matter what I wore, or even what I said or did--my friends were my friends. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn't necessarily COLLEGE that did this. I realized that everyone had grown up and we were all on the same playing field, unlike the competition and ranking in high school. This revelation infested me with confidence and I made it my goal to befriend--well, everyone. My friends used to make fun of how many random friends I had. From townies to transfer students, I made it MY MISSION to be liked by everyone (maybe too much in some cases, but my mom [may be] reading this, so I won't get into THAT). When I went home for the summer, I ran into this couple who went to high school with me. He was very friendly with me--always had been nice to everyone it seemed--but SHE was a different story. She wasn't Lindsay Lohan Mean Girls or anythhing, she was just...aloof. Having this newfound insight, I thought I was friends with EVERYONE and that EVERYONE got the memo about being on the same plaing field. Evidently not. I remember chatting amiably and telling them to give me a call if they ever wanted to get together that summer. Not because I didn't already have WAY TOO MANY people to keep up with (along with working three jobs), but because EVERYONE had to be my friend. As I walked away, I realized that I may have been off on that one...and unless they legitimately lost my phone number AND their phone books, I was. I tell this Sue Heck-like story not to make you sad for the bushy-unibrowed gangly girl I once was, but to tell you how I did a similar thing on facebook. (And if you don't know Sue Heck, check out The Middle. I think I laugh more out of the embarrassment that Sue Heck is ME circa 1986 than the fact that the mother is me now!) You see, I have a theory. I have A LOT of theories. THIS particular theory is about pregnancy, delivery and post-partum depression. I believe that pregnancy and delivery SUCK. I believe that those who THINK they love it are lying to themselves. That Duggar woman? Certifiable. I actually feel sorry for her because her brain is so far into that mommy cloud, it will never be able to come back, which is a good thing in her case. IMAGINE what would happen if her brain DID come back now? "HOLY *&#!! I have HOW MANY children? AND I'M PREGNANT?! What am I, A CAT?! Or worse--A RABBIT?!" Better she should remain in the mommy cloud. Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about when I say "mommy cloud" because any woman who has given birth to a child and any woman or man who has (or are currently) raised or lived with small children KNOWS what a "mommy cloud" is. My sister calls is "Placenta brain" which I love, but it happens regardless of the placenta. It happens simply because there is a child or are children snipping away at your brain with their constant demands (Now I have to feed them AND be nice to them? Apparently I also have to LISTEN to them, though they don't reciprocate) and incessant whining. Add to that the fact that so many choose to stay at home to give their children..."The best care ever"(which in my case is a joke at times because, REALLY? They are better off with me as a raging psychopath than with children their own age and teachers who do fun activities with them each day? REALLY?! so they don't have contact with the outside world. THIS is where I have been for the last few years. After having my children I worked for just over two years (not consecutively) and have been home the rest of the time. My son will be eight this year. That is SIX YEARS of spending the majority of my time with people who seemingly cannot be taught anything and who do not listen to a word I say unless I YELL IT LIKE A LUNATIC. No wonder I have no brain. HOW does this relate to my facebook incident? I'll tell you. The year after I "retired" from teaching for the third time, I acquainted myself with facebook and spent my time searching for those I thought I had wronged in some way or had a falling out with for some reason. One of my closest friends in high school was on and he posted that his wife was pregnant with their second child. I was so very happy for them and (although we hadn't SPOKEN in almost twenty years)I somehow thought it was MY responsibility to to warn him about ONE of my theories (though in the eleven page email I sent him I did not MENTION it was MY theory...hmmm...)about parenthood and pregnancy. I believe that EVERYONE suffers through some form of "baby blues" or another. Not everyone goes all Susan Smith on their family or dislikes their babies, but simply being sleep-deprived is enough to mess with your psyche--add to it everything else that comes with the job (and the PREPARATION for the job) and who WOULDN'T be depressed or feel disconnected at times?! Notice you never heard Tom Cruise say another negative word about postpartum depression after HIS wife was pregnant. I mentioned ALL OF THIS (plus a little more, I'm sure!) to my "friend" and felt compelled to explain more. I'm SO VERY HELPFUL, no?! There are varying degrees of this depression and add to it ANOTHER baby (before your brain comes back from the first) and it can be madness. If your spouse doesn't UNDERSTAND this, imagine how bad it can get. Some of you know because you've been there. Wouldn't YOU want your spouse's freakish friend from a few decades ago to offer unsolicited advice about how devastating it is going to be when your new baby comes?! YOU'RE WELCOME is what I should say to THAT family. Only, I'm not sure we are even friends on here anymore and if we are I'm P-R-E-T-T-Y sure he "hid" me. Let's just say that the happy commenting we had done BEFORE my "helpful" note was no more and I could almost HEAR the crickets in the room after he read the note--probably aloud--to his spouse. Evidently we don't ALL think the same way and what may seem "helpful" to me may seem a little stalker-like to others. Who knew?! I'd like to say "lesson learned," but I think you know me better than THAT.