Why Doesn't My Daughter Know That There Are Monsters In The Closet?

   Bam. I'm back; it's been so long! I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I had computer issues major, and then I guess I just got out of the habit of writing. Such a bad thing for a writer to do. No good. So here I am, back, and with lots of stories to tell you.
   We are going to jump right in with one about my lovely daughter; thirteen now. A moody teenager who likes to sit alone in a dark, dark closet.... Yeah, that's not a joke. My daughter recently decided that her bedroom closet made a great hang-out. She sits in there. In the dark. With a flashlight and her Ipad. What the heck, child!?

The culprit

She uses that purple thing as a pillow and stretches out.

   When I was younger, closets in the dark meant monsters. There  was something in there; I was sure. Some creepy, slimy, green skinned boogeyman that would jump out and eat me alive. The closet being open a mere crack would be cause to frantically jump out of bed and turn the lights on to check that everything seemed good - and then to go get in bed with my mom or my sister. Yup. I was THAT kid.
   This one I've got makes it a freakin' fort. One of her best friends came up to me at the store where I work the other day and asked me, "What's with her and the closet?" Yeah, she is that obsessed with being in the closet. She even takes phone calls in the closet. It's her office; all her friends know that she think thinks the closet is the place to be.
   Really, child?! Don't you know that the closet is where the monsters live? 

You Don't Stop Being You After Becoming A Parent

   I've heard a lot of people say that they've changed a lot after becoming parents, and that's a great thing. You should constantly be changing because you are growing as an individual, so I'm not saying that parenthood doesn't change you, because parenthood should change you. But that being said, parents still need to have some of their old interests; parents still need to have interests outside of the home.
   I had someone tell me once that when they became a parent, the things that mattered to them didn't matter anymore; they weren't worried about old friends or old interests, and just focused on the hubby and the baby. To me, that is a recipe for disaster. I know that I am not a professional psychiatrist here, but as a professional parent, parenting can drive you bat-shit crazy, and you are going to need a break from your inner parenting world. Also, this seems kind of sad to me. Sometimes friends to drop out of your life; you outgrow them, or move, or whatever, but to purposely decide that because you have a kid, you have no room for friends - that seems a bit crazy to me.
   You are going to need someone to talk to one day. Someone adult. One day you are going to need to talk to someone about something other than what page they want to color next or what sound does a dog make, and you are going to get to the point where if you hear the hot potato song or the fruit salad song just one more time, you are going to rip your ears off and flush them down the toilet. In other words, you are going to need an adult, and to further clarify, you may not want that adult to be the old hubby, you make want to hear some good old fashioned girl talk (or guy talk); who's getting married from the old group, who's having a baby, who was arrested, who's dating: just good old fashioned girl talk (aka gossip).
   As for interests, well, mine have expanded. I'm interested in more things than I was before the birth of my lonely only, but I still have old interests as well. I didn't stop gaming because 'I'm too old for it.' I don't go as hardcore as I used to, and sit down and play for ten hours straight, but I still game. Why shouldn't I? My interests, your interests - they don't make you less of a person. I still travel; I still want to travel. I have to save up forever before I can afford to, and yes, once I had a kid, Disneyland made an appearance on my travel list, but I still went to Yellowstone. I think being able to share that trip with my daughter enhanced the experience, something I bring up because we've all heard the joke about "If you want to travel, don't have kids unless your idea of traveling is Disney." Not true. People travel with kids all the time, and watching my daughter's face fill with excitement when she saw Old Faithful erupt for the first time enhanced my own excitement. When she was around two, we went to Victoria, Canada, and having her with me did not detract from wandering around that pretty little town and seeing the shops and sights; I still had enormous fun and so did she, and I love, love, LOVE taking a Ferry, which was something that we did to get to Victoria. Turns out my daughter loves ferries too.
  The truth is, having a parent who is interested in other things besides parenting, and having that parent be willing to share those interests, only enhances that child's life. It doesn't have to be travel, or gaming. Sports, computers, fishing, church activities, travel, reading, socializing with friends, whatever they may be, those interests could become fun family outings. And even if they end up being interests that none of your family shares, well, you are still a complex person with multiple needs, and that's not a selfish thing to set aside some time just for you. I'm not saying ignore your family forever, but your family can give you an hour or two here and there. It's not wrong unless you decide you are going to take that hour right when little Suzy falls off her bike and breaks her face and needs medical attention immediately. Discounting disaster though, little Suzy can go enjoy some of her personal interests while you partake in yours. It won't kill her and it's not neglect.
   So I guess what I am saying is that while you should always grow and change as a person; don't let parenting be the excuse to kill off the person you are now. Of course you could work on bad habits, but just because you give up Bender Friday, that doesn't mean that you have to give up Football Sunday. Your kid won't thank you for it in the long run, and also, you need to be a fully functioning person for the day that your kiddo is ready to venture into the great big world on her/his own. You don't want to be the psycho mom who follows your kid to college or tries to become the third person in their marriage. Not good. 

A Rant? About Technology

   I'm not a technologically gifted person; if you've been reading along, that much should be clear. That being said, for someone who is so challenged when it comes to all things computer, I sure get in a rage when things don't work right. Just now, I tried to log into one of my accounts online so that I could pay the bill. But for some reason, I'm getting a message saying that my account is unavailable, along with a 1-800 number. Instead of calling the 1-800 number, like a rational person, I try to log in three more times. When I am still unable to log into my account, I scream at the computer, "Fine! I didn't want to pay that damned bill anyway!" Because that's the rational, adult thing to do in this scenario. Call the 1-800 number? I don't want to talk to some dumb-ass service rep who doesn't speak my language and knows about as much regarding this issue as I do. I want my effing account to pull up so I can pay the bill, by myself, in the dark, like the antisocial little troll that I am.
    And that's the thing about technology, about computers and the internet: everybody has to utilize it. One reason I don't want to call that 1-800 number is that they charge a fee to pay by phone, whereas you can pay online for free. I don't even know how to mail in a payment; everything is 'paperless', so that's out too. No snail mail for me. Things ain't what they used to be. My daughter came home from school the other day complaining that they were supposed to be using their smartphones in class to get online and do research. My daughter, folks, is probably one of the few twelve years old girls to NOT have a cell phone of any kind, much less a smart one. What are all these kids doing running around with shitting-ass Iphones anyway? (And yes, I am aware of how much I just aged myself.) But the thing is, we don't have the money for that shit. I mean, you are likely aware of what the monthly bill is on a smartphone. I don't even have one; so far as I am concerned, my daughter's school is going to get a boot up the ass if having a smartphone is now required just to do classwork. That's too far, and this is a public school and I work in a grocery store, for crying out loud. This isn't rich-people school, this is poor-folk school.
   I'm not anti-technology. I suppose I can come across that way, but I'm really not. I think it's a great thing that the school teaches kids to do things like make Powerpoints and use Microsoft Office, and all those things that will help them in college, but they also need to keep in mind that not all these kids have access to some of these resources. I sent my daughter to school the other day with a good, old-fashioned research tool the other day - a book. This way, if the class does smart-phone research yet again, she can participate in some manner at least. Because frankly, even if money were not an issue, I'm not sure that I'm sold on a twelve year old's need to have the latest Iphone.
   And as for the bill collectors - well, they can just kiss my ass. 

My Experience With Co-Sleeping

   Recently, I had a friend who was asking about co-sleeping with her soon-to-be-born child, and if this was a good option or not. Immediately, she was bombarded by opinion after opinion, and many of those opinions where very forcefully expressed. Co-sleeping is, apparently, a hot topic for some mommies, and I remember the most rabid of those opinion-givers kept repeating that 1) the mother would crush or smother her baby in her sleep, and that 2) if the baby survived, she would continue sleeping with her mommy for the rest of her life, because why would she sleep alone if she was not forced to it?

  I was a co-sleeping mommy, so I want to share my experience with this, but before I do that I would like to state that I am not saying that every parent should co-sleep. Like many other things in life, there is no one way to parent; there are so many options and choices out there, and our jobs as parents are to find the best way of parenting for us as unique individuals, and one mother's way of being a mother to her child may be entirely unsuitable for another. In short, just because I successfully co-slept, that does not mean that I am rabidly announcing to the world that all mothers must co-sleep. Co-sleeping will just not be an option for some, and that is fine. 

   That being said, co-sleeping is neither a death sentence nor the death of all the child's independence. I started co-sleeping almost right away; I hadn't planned on co-sleeping but due to circumstance, it happened. And it worked. My daughter slept better, and while I didn't really sleep that well because my daughter often used me as a foot prop or a head rest, I was more at ease having her right there where I could quickly check on her. There are also things that you can buy now that help keep pillows and blankets off of your baby such as attachable bassinets and such, but I have to say, while I often woke with my daughter on top of me, I never woke on top of my daughter. If you sleep heavily, maybe you should factor that into your decision to co-sleep, but I never had an issue with crushing my infant. Never happened; I was always aware of her position.
   The other issue; getting your child to leave the bed, well, that should also be handled parent-by-parent. As a single mom, I let my daughter sleep in the bed with me until she didn't want to anymore. She stopped sleeping with me about the time she started kindergarten. At that time, she started sleeping in her own bed, but still shared a room with me due to the fact that we were living in an extended family home. Now in middle school, she has her own room and sleeps in her own room in her own bed. Obviously, I did not have any problem with her wanting to sleep with me while she was still in high school. I never had to use any force; she decided when she was ready, so the claim that a child will not leave your bed unless you force them I have found to be false. Also, she is not a dependent child; she very strongly asserts her independence, which sometimes does get her into trouble, being as she is a twelve year old girl and I am mom, therefor, I am boss. So the argument that your child will not learn to be independent is also something I have found to be false.
   To add to this, co-sleeping was the reason that one night, I was right there when she started choking, and I feel that my response was much quicker and maybe even saved her life, because if she had been in a different room, I do not know that I would have heard her distress. My daughter has never been a sickly child. She's, to this day, never suffered from an ear infection, and all of her illnesses have been mild, except for two instances. The first one was a bowel issue that took several years to clear up and required constant attention to her diet. The second though, was a really bad respiratory virus that I at first thought was a case of the common cold. But one night I woke up because I heard a strange noise next to my ear; my daughter. It was the smallest of sounds caused by her struggle to get breath. My daughter was choking. I flipped her over and patted her back, trying to dislodge whatever was in her throat, but nothing appeared to be in there. There had been no blanket in her face, but I could see that she was gagging and struggling with something; she was starting to turn purple. Out of shear desperation, I stuck my hand into her mouth, hoping that I could find whatever was in there an pull it out. I pulled out a mucus plug, that once out of her throat, expanded so that it looked to be the same size as her head. I was horrified, and she was truly choking, so she was not coughing or making a sound, because no air was coming in at all. What I had heard was the rustle of the blanket, and I am not sure that a baby monitor would have picked up that sound. I heard it, and I also felt it, and that is why I woke.
   So in conclusion, I think that you need to do whatever is best for you, but if you want to co-sleep, I have found that the arguments against co-sleeping have not had a true foundation. All of the main arguments against co-sleeping that I have heard; the crushing or suffocation of the baby, the lack of independence, and the child never wanting to leave the parent's bed, have not been issues I have dealt with. In fact, this image that I pulled off of the internet actually details what I found to be the true issue:

  This, at least, has been my experience with the issue. I am not a professional, but I do have a happy, healthy, independent twelve year old who has no issues sleeping in her own room in her own bed. There you have it; my side of the story. If you are considering co-sleeping, then I hope this helps. 

The Thing I Want My Daughter Most To Learn

   There are a lot of things in my life that I want to do. I want to travel; I want to see the world. I want to read every book that I can get my grubby, book-greedy hands on. I want to beat this damn Final Fantasy game that I've been playing. I want to be published; I want to make a living off of writing. I want to always be able to pay my bills on time and support my family.

   All of these things are good goals as far as I am concerned. Some aren't as important as others; beating Final Fantasy is not going to make as much as an impact on my life as managing to make my living by writing, but every goal does not have to have a profound impact on the way that you live. We are allowed a few frivolous, in-the-moment achievements that mean nothing, yet make us momentarily happy and hurt no one. So long as those frivolous goals are not the only goals that we have, we are doing good. 

   And that leads me to the goal that I most want to instill on my daughter: being a good person. Being a good person can mean a lot of things, but I mean this in a way that is entirely doable. What I want for her (and myself) is to be a person that friends and family can trust. Be someone that the people that you care about can depend on. I don't mean be a saint; I know that is one label that surely I will never deserve. I have a temper, I cuss like a sailor, I'll hold a grudge until the world ends,  and I can be pushy and selfish. So certainly, I have no right to expect sainthood from anybody. But I do my best to help people, I do my best to listen, I do my best to not disrespect people just because they are different, I try to see that there is value in every person: we all have worth. I do my best to uphold the values that I think are most important in life, and I do my best to live by those values. That is what I most want my daughter to learn. 

   Because she can be the smartest scientist in the world, but if she has built her life at the expense of others, if she has built her career by stepping on the backs of others, then eventually, one day, everything she has worked for will fall to pieces and lie at her feet, a pile of rubble that means nothing. If I were the most well-read, famous, wealthiest author in the world, but along the way, had lost the trust and respect of every person who cared for me, what would I really have? Not a damn thing that matters, that's for sure.
   At the end of my life, if I'm looking back at a life that never sees a book published and contains only a blog written that no one reads, if I have been a person that people respect, someone my daughter can look up to and depend on, someone that a troubled friend can talk to about problems, if I still have the esteem and love of friends and family, then I haven't had a wasted life. The ultimate goal in life, in my opinion, is to do your best to make the world just a little bit better, even if just for the people who surround you. That's what I want my daughter to learn; that's the goal that I want most for my daughter to achieve in her lifetime, and to do that, we have to pay attention, not only to the goals that we set, but also to the way we go about achieving them - the journey, so to speak, not just the destination - and that's what I want my daughter to know, so that at the end of her life, she might leave behind a legacy not only of deeds, but of people whose lives she has made a positive impact in. That is a life well lived, and anyone can strive for that goal, from the richest of us to the poorest of us. All the goal takes is a little bit of heart: compassion and understanding. That's what I want my daughter most to learn. 

Back-To-School Shopping Ramble

   It's that time again; time to start getting the kiddo ready for her next school year. Another round of shopping and mayhem. I haven't done the big school clothes shop yet; this year won't be as bad as last year though. She's grown, but we bought a lot of her pants larger than needed, and they fit her now. Undoubtedly, she will need those pants replaced as the year goes by, but I have a little time, thank goodness. I don't have to buy a whole, entirely new wardrobe before school this year. Last year I did, and I was fearing the same for this year.The child that once didn't even reach the tops of my knees is now merely a few meager inches shorter than me. We did do the whole shoe shopping bit, and to my shock, my daughter is now, at age 12, wearing the same size shoes that I am. How big is this child going to get? That's what I wanna know.
  This year will mark the first year that my daughter does not want Tinkerbell plastered on her backpack. For the longest time, my daughter was obsessed with Tinkerbell. She had Tinkerbell toys and Tinkerbell games, Tinkerbell shirts and Tinkerbell movies, Tinkerbell blankets, Tinkerbell posters, Tinkerbell books... I'm sure you get the picture - even when I shut my eyes, I was seeing Tinkerbell plastered on the back of my eyelids.
   These days, my daughter is more into Fairytale and Sword Art Online. That is good by me - I can get into some anime. Of course, that means that she wants anime plastered all over the stuff that she gets for school. Grandma bought the lucky dog a Sword Art Online backpack, and thanks some help from the anime store at the mall and Amazon, she was able to score a few anime T-shirts for back-to-school. But anime themed stuff - that, my friends, is expensive.
   Just in case you are wondering, those of you with small kids or even thinking of having kids, they don't get cheaper as they get older. Sure, you don't pay for diapers, and eventually, daycare, but little girls - not as expensive as big girls, in my own personal opinion. Okay, I could save money by going thrift-store shopping. I do by her new stuff, and I know that this is the pricey way to go, but all her clothes gets handed down to my little niece, so I feel like I am getting good value for what I buy. But you have to look at all the other things that a growing girl needs. They don't get less expensive when you are looking at bras and shoes and school fees (even for public schools, good grief), and a long list of things that no one really wants to read about. I'm not really looking forward to my daughter dragging me around the mall, going from one brightly colored, designed-to-make-your-eyes-bleed garment to the next, all the while complaining about how she's not goth like me (I'm not goth at all, by the way, I just prefer to wear the color black) while she searches for the perfect neon yellow shirt and fire engine red pants. Who taught this child how to dress??? Kids rebel in the strangest ways... Well, school clothes shopping is a few weeks away, so I have a little time to mentally prepare myself for the chore. I like to wait as long as possible, because I'm sure that this kid is drinking Miracle Grow on the sly, and I'm worried about growth spurts. Also, I'm dragging my mom along because misery loves company, so I have to wait for a good day for her as well. After raising two girls of her own, I'm sure she's used to head-scratching, you-want-to-actually-wear-that??? moments herself, so she's good to have along, although, sometimes, she does tend to enjoy feeding my daughter's bizarre fashion choices... Yeah, I see what you are doing there mother, but you're still drafted, regardless. 

I'm Not Raising A Princess; I'm Raising A Real Woman

   We're living in a strange, strange world these days. There's no accountability for your own actions and/or choices, everybody is entitled to everything, and in order to be a good mom, you have to raise your kids with the expectations that they will get everything that they want, without even trying, without earning it. Discipline is a thing of the past; barbarians - those are the people who discipline their kids.
   I don't know, but to me, that's just a bunch of bullshit. If you've been reading my blog at all, you know that I can be the overprotective mom, the hovering helicopter who freaks if her kids sneezes. But if you read my blog at all, you also know that I do my best to squish that shit. Why? Because I want my daughter to be able to function in society. Because when she grows up, I don't want her going into shock when she is faced with the real world. And what is the real world? Well I can tell you what it's not right now, and one thing it's not is fair, that's for damn sure, and it's not a free ride either.
   She needs to be able to know how to handle that shit. When she goes to apply for a job, and doesn't get the position, she needs to understand that jobs aren't handed out for 'effort'. You have to be qualified as well; you have to earn that shit. And if she's passed over for someone more qualified than she is, she needs to know that it's not okay to have an epic meltdown and shiver in her room under her covers for a week because she feels that she's 'not respected.' What she needs to know how to do is to get up off her ass and go after another job. Get knocked down six times, get back up seven. She needs to get her ass over to another employer, work her ass off, prove her worth, earn her respect, and make that employer who didn't hire her regret that they didn't realize her potential. She is not going to do that hiding in her room, whimpering that the world's not fair.
   She needs to know that she is responsible for her own choices. She needs to know that if she goes out and parties all night, and does poorly at that job she just worked her ass off to get, that she is going to get fired. She also needs to know that under those circumstances, she will deserve to get fired, because she made bad choices. She needs to be accountable for her bad choice, and learn from that mistake so that it never happens again (although I'm hoping it never happens in the first place, personally.)
   She also needs to know that sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes you get fired just because your boss doesn't like you, sometimes you lose a loved one to a disease or accident, sometimes you get sick yourself, whatever the case may be, bad things happen. And when bad things happen, you do have a right to grieve and be angry and disillusioned, but you also have to keep pushing forward. She has to have the gumption and willpower to keep moving forward, to keep trying. You never move forward if you don't keep walking.
    She also needs to know that life isn't a fairy tale. There isn't going to be a prince on a white horse, who comes in, saves her and carries her to his castle where she lives happily ever after. That's not to say that there is not love, but she needs to know that love is work as well. Love is hard, and you cry just as much as you laugh, because that's life, and a guy can be the greatest guy in the world, but he's still human. He's going to screw up. He's also going to be normal. He's going to pick his nose, fart, belch, and be real. Prince Charming is only charming because he's not real. That doesn't mean that she needs to put up with abuse or mistreatment, but it does mean that she needs to compromise and understand he is going to mess up, and she needs to acknowledge that she is going to mess up as well.
   And what does her learning all this entail? What goes into teaching a child these values? Well, it takes teaching her accountability at an early age. It takes teaching her that there are consequences to her choices. Teaching her these things means making her take care of her responsibilities and teaching her to learn from her mistakes. It means teaching her that she isn't some princess who is going to be handed every thing she wants, or even needs, in life, and it means that there has got to be some discipline up in this house. If she chooses not to do her homework, she's grounded. See if she forgets to do homework when that's the only thing she CAN do for a week. Disrespectful to mom? Well, my mom used to wash my mouth out with soap when I was a kid too. In fact, my mom would put my ass in a headlock and used my teeth as a washing board. I'm still alive, and I don't suffer from ablutophobia; I take a shower daily, and when I'm stressed or sick, I take two. So I fail to see the harm in a good old mouth washing, and (side note) because my daughter has eczema, we have organic, no dyes or chemicals, goat's milk soap. In all honesty, that shit's probably healthier and more nutritional than the crap she eats. But the point is, she is going to be disciplined, because that's cause and effect. Screw up in childhood, get grounded, screw up in adulthood, go to prison. You see how teaching a kid to obey the rules is a good thing to start early, while the consequences aren't as dire?
   And if you don't like that, well, I've never been one to tell people how to raise their kids. Do what you want. But this is how I am raising mine. And while other girls are going through culture shock because they were always told they could have whatever they wanted without even trying to earn it and that everything was all rainbows and butterflies, mine is going to be out there -  acting like a real woman and getting shit done.
 

Mom Versus Mom - When Will It End? (Part Second)

   Sometime last week, I had someone really hurt my feelings. Someone I admired, someone who probably honestly just thought they were helping: just giving some friendly advice. What they did was they just talked to me about how much better a stay-at-home mom is then a working mom. Better because a stay-at-home mom is home with the kids more, and so the kids are not neglected like a working mom's kids are; better because they home school, so their kids are more educated then my child, who goes to a public school; better because they are more nurturing, more hands-on, and that I really should be that way as well.
   This did really hurt my feelings, because I am a working mom. I have to be - either that or be homeless. Or, about eight years ago, I could have decided to remain in an abusive relationship that was harming me in every way possible, so that I wouldn't have to be a single mom. Considering my choices, I believe that I have made the best choice possible. But regardless of whether anyone agrees with that or not, all I can do is say: my daughter is not neglected. She is taught morals and ethics -- by me, not the TV, or the babysitter, or the public education system. In short, I do my best.
   Yes, she is in public school, but she is in a pretty decent one, and I talk to her everyday about her day in school, and sometimes, I even volunteer. I do my best, and while I am not against homeschooling, for us, that was never an option in the first place. I believe that academic teaching requires a certain skill set, and frankly, sometimes I still have to add on my fingers. I am lacking that skill set required. Now, I agree that there are some teachers in the education system who unfortunately are lacking that skill set as well, but I keep a close eye on my daughter and the work she does, and what she is learning, and if she still likes school, and everything that I can possibly think of that might signal that she has run afoul of one of these teachers who should not be teaching. But my daughter's education is proceeding nicely. She is a smart girl, and she knows she can talk to me, and I have some high hopes for her future, and my working is not infringing on those hopes. In short, I do my best.
   Sometimes I am not home. Sometimes I am at work, but I check up on her throughout the day. She always knows when I am supposed to be home as well, and I am never late, sometimes to the dismay of my supervisors, who just really wish I could stay late because we are slammed. Sometimes my scheduling requirements means that I get the short-end of the stick when it comes to hours, but I do my best not to complain, because I am capable of creative budgeting and in the end, I am really grateful that I work for someone that understands that I am mom first, employee second, and the job keeps my daughter fed, under a roof, clothed, and insured. I have to be the nurturer and the money-earner all in one, but I am always there when my daughter needs me, because whatever job I work, I am Mom first. In short, I do my best.
    I have argued before that we need to stop judging each other as parents, and stop with the one-way, and one-way only mentality that we have towards parenting, but sometimes it just really feels like we are never going to stop. I could have gotten on here and argued why my way is better, why my daughter is learning independence, critical thinking, and how to interact with the real world, but in all reality, that's as much a crock of bullshit as the saying that my daughter is not as nurtured or as well educated. We all parent according to standards that best meet the needs of our lives, and that is the only way to do this thing called parenting. A mom who wants to stay home should not feel like she is less than a working mom, and a working mom should not feel like she is less than a stay-at-home mom. One does not negate the other. One does not take away the value of the other. Different does not mean wrong, and that is the message that I want to get across here. Different is okay. And even though we may differ in our methods, one thing remains the same - we all just do our best.

Mom Versus Mom: Just Plain Wrong (link to the first blog post that I did on this subject, written 1/23/13)

Bad News, Cashier-Brain, and Books (Yay! Books!!!)

   Currently, I'm on vacation, or staycation, because we are just staying home in our apartment, with no travel plans, nor any other plans, come to think of it. The only hard and fast plan that I did have was to go see Divergent, and to spend the night at my sister's and watch some scary movies, and I've done both (I loved Divergent!). So I have a line of empty days ahead of me and my daughter, who is on spring break.
   And that's a good thing, because I was seriously suffering from a strong case of cashier-brain. I was seeing PLU numbers (price look-up codes) every time I shut my eyes. I was hearing that blasted beeping even when I had left the stores, and my last two vivid nightmares had both been about work. That's too much; that is a sign. Marie needs a break, clearly written across my psyche.
   Of course, come time for me to take my break, everything starts happening. I have had a shit-storm of bad news that I can't really do anything about, which is one of the worst types of bad news there is. Not being able to do anything kinda makes you feel like a glass of ice water in the North Pole: redundant. All I can do, over and over again, is say how sorry I am and that I'll pray, when I would much rather charge in, fix everything, and have us all live happily ever after. But all I can do is sit here and worry.
   And then on top of that, every nuisance task that can manage to rear it's ugly head comes along, such as having to fill out paperwork and provide documentation that your daughter really is your daughter, so that your insurance won't drop her as a dependent on your coverage. I mean, yeah, that's easy enough to prove, but I didn't exactly want to take time from my worry and fret to mess around with my damn insurance, for a matter that I think is a bunch of bullshit at any damn rate. Even if my daughter wasn't my daughter, I still feel that I should be allowed to cover her on my insurance if I want to. But she is my daughter, so the whole mess is just minor aggravation that I'm just shrugging at.
    But this is my vacation, so I am making effort to do things that I like, so last night, I stayed up and read Night Broken, which is book number eight in the Mercy Thompson series, and which also happens to be my most favorite urban fantasy series ever. I love Patricia Briggs, and yes, I did sit down and read the book from start to finish, secure in the knowledge that I am on vacation and would be able to sleep in. Most times when I sit down and read a book from start to finish, I read with the guilty knowledge that I am going to be a cashier-zombie in the morning.
    My daughter's pretty happy as well, because since we are on vacation, I just feel that she should have new material to read, so she's been coming to me with her Kindle, waiving the thing in my face with books already pulled up on the screen and ready to purchase, begging with her puppy-dog eyes, "Momma, please? Please, Momma?" I'm a sucker for this type of request, so she has scored The Fault With Our Stars, and all three of the books in The Maze Runner trilogy, so far. We are not even halfway through our vacation. She knows that when she asks me for a book, getting a yes is almost guaranteed, unless I truly am broke, and then, I guess I am lucky that she's a good kid, and doesn't give me a hard time about getting a no, because I know that I have spoiled her so far as getting knew books are concerned. I don't feel too badly about this, because I also know that I can be very strict about other things, and I do feel that while we really need to provide rules and boundaries for our kids, a small amount of spoiling never hurt anything, especially when you are talking about books.
   I did think I would write a little more than I have, but honestly, right now I am at a bit of a loss for topics. My mind keeps circling around that bad news that I have received -- my damn mind is like a freaking vulture and it's pissing me off, but what can you do when you get pissed at your own mind? And these topics are topics that I don't really feel at leisure to discuss, because frankly, they aren't my business to discuss, and if there is one thing I want to avoid, being the writer who writes about everyone else's business is one of them. I do NOT want people - friends and family - to feel like they can't talk to me about private things because they are worried they will show up in my blog. But at the moment, this does leave me without a topic, and thus you all get treated to this wandering ramble.  Happy staycation to me, and if nothing else, may I be cured from the cursed cashier-brain. 

"Boop, boop, boop! Mom, I booped you!"

   My daughter is twelve; since my daughter is twelve and about to hit those preteen years, and is already showing an aversion to all things considered uncool, there are certain things that I just thought we were past. I thought there were certain annoyances that I thought she would not partake in, because they were childish, and heaven forbid acting childish when you reach those preteen years, and you want to be seen as an adult.
    Three days ago, I was proven wrong. Three days ago, my daughter called me to her room, "Mom, can you come here?" So I came, because I thought she was working on homework and needed help. She was working on homework, but she didn't exactly need help. As I leaned over to look at what she was working on, she reached up, bopped me lightly on the nose, and cried out gleefully, "I booped your nose!"
    Apparently the face I made was awesome, and inspired her to greater heights. For the past three days, the kiddo has been sneak attacking me, bopping me on the nose (never hard) and screaming, "I booped you!" Sometimes she manages to bop me a few times before I jerk away, especially when I am doing something, like cooking dinner or emptying the trash. These are prime times to boop me.
  I can be silly at times, but after three days of being booped, my nose is sore. I'm cranky. And so today when she goes into boop overdrive, while I am trying to get ready for work, I snap at her, "Would you knock that off already?" ... ... ... You would have thought she just found out her favorite grandma died. Her shoulders slumped, her head drooped, and she slowly shuffled off to her bedroom, leaving me feeling like a jackass.
  I waited a few minutes, then went to her room to check on her, to make sure she wasn't doing anything that would make me feel like an insanely horrible mom. As I opened the door, her hand flashed out, and she hollered gleefully while bopping me on the nose three times in succession, "Boop, boop, boop! Mom, I booped you!"
   There comes a day in every parent's life when you realize that you are standing on the jagged edge of insanity, and though you are desperately trying to hang on to the raggedy scraps of your sanity, you realize that maintaining that sanity is merely an exercise in futility. 

A Rant About Parenting From A Pissed Off Marie

   A child needs both a mom and a dad in their life. Where is the father? This is something I am getting so very sick of hearing. Especially when someone is saying this to me. I get so mad I see red. I get so mad. There is no other way to put this besides: I get so mad. 

  If a child has two good parents, and both of those parents are good and loving parents, then yes, that child needs them both, I will agree to that, wholeheartedly. But what about when the other parent is not a good and loving parent? What about when the other parent is abusive? What if the other parent engages in criminal activities that could put said child at risk, or at the very least, teach them some very bad life ethics? What about then? Does the child still need that parent? What if the parent in question is a harmful person to be around? The thing that infuriates me is that there are people who will say, unconditionally, yes, the other parent needs to be in the child's life. I am not placing a gender to this other parent, because bad parents can be either male or female. In my personal life, the parent in question is male, but I know of extremely harmful females, and this goes both ways, in my mind. 

   A child does not need a person in their life if that person is hurting them. The pain can be physical, the pain can be emotional, the pain can be from neglect, or any other harmful thing you can think of; if that parent is not willing to correct the negativity that is harming the child, the child does NOT need that parent. Period. Doesn't matter what gender that person is. A child does not need a father who is going to hit them, tear down their emotions, teach them bad morals and ethics; a child does not need a mother who is going to hit them, tear down their emotions, teach them bad morals and ethics. A child does not need this, but so many people get so wrapped up in their desires for everyone to have the perfect little nuclear family that they stop worrying about what is best for the child. They only worry about people conforming to their ideal of what a family should look like. 

   For myself, I hear, "Oh, your daughter needs a male role model. Even a poor father is better than none." I call bullshit. Do you hear me? I CALL BULLSHIT. I hope that was loud enough for you. I am not saying a child needs a perfect parent, because none of us are perfect, but a child does need a parent who is trying to be the best parent that they can be. A child needs a parent who is willing to be there for them. A child needs a parent who will take care of them, to protect them, to be a role model for them, to guard them against things that they are not yet capable of defending themselves against, to teach them morals and ethics so that they can grow to be productive and respected and respectful, but a child does not need a parent who is not interested in doing these things. A child does not need to be around someone who will hurt them. A child needs to be around someone who cares for them, not someone who just thinks that the child is so much dead weight. 

   Whatever gender the parent might be, if that parent is not giving that child the love and care that the child needs, then that child does not need that parent. The child in question is better off just being with the parent who can give the child the love and care needed. The parent who cannot or will not do these two simple things are the ones who are so much dead weight, and no child needs to be burdened with that dead weight. It's that simple, folks. Sorry, but not everyone is going to fit into the same shaped box, and it's past time to stop trying to force that. 

   In any case, people might want to stop saying these things to me, whether my rant has changed their minds about parents or not, because my temper is wearing mighty thin on this issue. I don't tell people how to live their lives, I am mighty tired of people trying to horn in on my affairs. Look to your own children, leave mine be. Fair warning. 

Talk To Your Kids

   Kids are not dumb, nor do they walk around in a bubble, learning only what we want them to learn and seeing only what we want them to see. As a mom myself, I can completely understand wanting to shield your child from harsh realities, from subjects that you feel are too old for them, from anything that goes against what you believe or how you want them to behave. I get all that, but the fact is that kids are like little sponges, they absorb everything, and personally, while I would never tell another parent how to raise their child, for myself, I do not feel that trying to lock these things away - these bad influences or grown-up topics - I just don 't feel that this is the right answer; at the least, this is not the right answer for me. 

   Long ago, when my daughter was just old enough to talk, she began asking questions. She's always been inquisitive, always wanted to know why, how, when, and where, and there where times when her questions were fine, if a little annoying (Why, Momma? Why? Why? on repeat, 1,000 times a day) but there where other times that her questions seemed a little alarming. 

   I'm not gonna lie; my very soul flinched when she asked me where babies came from. No way did I want to answer that question. Uh-uh. But when she didn't get  an answer from me, she went to her auntie; her auntie who gave her some long, convoluted explanation that involved chickens and butterflies and who knows what else, because I surely don't understand what my daughter told me Auntie had said, and Auntie swears that my daughter mashed up multiple conversations into one. So I am, to this day, not sure what went on during that conversation (I was at work) but what I do know is that my daughter had her entire class wanting to find some chickens the next day, and I had a bunch of ticked off mommies and daddies wanting to know what exactly it was that I did with chickens. Ummm, what? 

   Lesson learned; that was the last time I didn't answer a question my daughter put towards me, because I learned the hard way, if they don't find out from you, they will find that answer somewhere else, and you may not agree with the answers that they have found (you may not even understand the answer. Chickens? Really?!?!). By talking to my daughter, while I cannot change the fact that she is going to find information and opinions that I decidedly do NOT agree with, she at least knows what her mom thinks and/or knows about that subject. 

   And by talking with my daughter, I can find out what she thinks, and what she knows. And I've found that about some things, I am very proud of her opinions, while with others, I've done some damage control. But the point is, we now have the habit of talking with each other. She is not ashamed to ask me about things; yes, there are topics that we both find uncomfortable (dating), but she at least asks me the questions, and knows that she can expect an answer of some sort, and not be shoved off or brushed aside. And this talking, this communication did not stop with horribly uncomfortable questions; this line of being asked and answering has lead to other topics. We have talked about budgeting, college, what she is learning in school, travel, bullies, plans for the future, favorite books - you name the topic, we have likely talked about it (yes to drugs, STDs, and all those other soul-flinching topics as well). We talk; we communicate. 

   I am not trying to be her best friend, when she gets older (adult!!), I don't want to be the one pouring her drinks, nor do I want to be scouting out the hot guys with her. That is not a mom's job, at least, not this mom. But when she needs help, when she needs answers, when she just needs to talk to someone, I want to be one of the first people she thinks of - that is a mom's job. But if I am not willing to communicate with her now, will I be the person she comes to later, when she is an adult and has more choices? I don't think so, so that is why I think talking with your kids is one of the most important things that a parent can do -  to start building the habit of communication while they are young. 

Oh The Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down

   It won't stop raining. Of course, I suppose I signed up for this when I moved to Washington, because we all know this place is overcast and rainy. That's fine. I've learned to deal with the rain. I've learned to deal with being wet all the time, and having wet, soggy feet. I've also learned to wear a coat with a hood, because chances are, at some point in the day, there is going to be rain, and after a few years of carrying an umbrella everywhere I went, I gave it up. It starts raining around here, we just all pull our hoods up and hope we can get under cover before we look like we've jumped in a lake.

   At any rate, I didn't move here being totally unfamiliar with the rain. I've lived a large chunk of my life in Mississippi, my dad's side of the family is from that state, and I moved to Florida before I had my daughter. Both of those states get plenty of rain. Not as constantly as Washington, but worse, in some ways because those states' rain tends to come with hurricanes, and at the least, thunder and lightening. It's just those states have dry seasons, and here every season is wet and rainy.

   I can't remember, growing up in MS, just rain. I remember rain that came accompanied by lightening and thunder, and we were always cautioned; don't hold metal (no umbrellas), don't stand under trees, get inside, and so-on and so-forth. In Washington, at least in the area I live, we get substantial amounts of rain, but rarely do we get an actual thunderstorm. 

   Which of course, leads me to thinking of my daughter, who has mostly lived in Washington. She was born in Florida, but we moved up north when she was three. So she is not used to thunderstorms at all, and I never really thought about telling her the safety measures about being outside in a thunderstorm, in part, because we never were outside in a thunderstorm. But a while back, we were having a really good thunderstorm, however,  we couldn't be smart, sensible people because she had to go to school, which means she had to catch the bus. I don't have a car, so my taking her to school was out, because walking would have put her more in the weather than catching the bus, and she never wants to stay home. So we went to the bus stop in the bad weather. 

   I am not allowed to stand with my daughter anymore. She's at that age where dear old mom standing at the bus stop is embarrassing, but I don't leave either; I stand at the corner, a few feet away from the actual bus stop. When we go to catch the bus, it's still dark outside. Her school starts early, and I don't like her standing by the side of the road, waiting for a bus, in the dark, without being close by so I can hear her shout if she needs me. While we don't live in the most terrible of neighborhoods, I have certainly lived worse places, neither do we live in the best of neighborhoods. So I stand there, whether she likes it or not. 

   And at this time, I was standing there, hoping the bus will come fast so that we can all get out of the lightening; I look over at all the kids, to see how they are handling all this stormy weather, and they are, all of them, huddled underneath the damn trees. Including my daughter, who looks at me like I am crazy when I start yelling at them, "Get out from underneath the trees!" 

   They are all looking at me like I am some bat-shit, creeper woman, and none of them are moving, the thunder is steadily rolling, so I holler again, "Ya'll have got to get out from underneath those trees." They still don't move, not a one of them, so I call my daughter over to me and explain to her that trees attract lightening and they all need to move. She stomps off, saying, "Well, no one ever told me that." Which is true enough, but she can't get them to move either, so I am looking at my daughter standing away from the trees, all by herself, while she looks at all these other kids, huddled in the shelter of the trees, and I am just praying for the bus to come before someone gets hit by lightening, and I am wishing that some of these kids' parents would actually bother to come to the bus stop once in a while, because damned if I wanna deal with this shit before it's even daylight. 

  This is what comes of not teaching your kids not to stand underneath trees in a thunderstorm. Of course, the bus did come, and the kids were all safe, but they all looked at me askance for a while after that; I was the crazy woman who wanted them to stand in rain. 

Young Adult Books; Yet Another I Love Books Post

   In this past month I have read the complete Matched trilogy by Ally Condie, The Legend trilogy by Marie The Uglies series by Scott Westerfield, and the problem is, I just can't get enough. I caught myself searching on the Kindle book store, to see what other similar books they could recommend to me. Then, of course, I had to speak rather firmly with myself, because my daughter just had a birthday, and birthday expenses have depleted all of my spending money. I am going to be broke for a while and I can't buy all these books that Kindle is recommending. I am either going to have to wait or go to the library.
   But my pursuit of my next 'fix' got me thinking about books quite a bit. You see, as a tween and teen, for me, I spent all of my time browsing in the scifi/fantasy sections of bookstores and libraries, sections marketed towards adults. The reason for this twofold: I love scifi/fantasy for one, and for the other, there really wasn't a young adult section back in my day (I feel like a dinosaur for saying that, but at the same time, got a kick out of it as well. Don't judge.) I mean, supposedly there was one, but we are talking about one smallish bookshelf at the most. Back when I was a teen, you have children's, which was admittedly smallish, and everything else was adult. So an avid reader such as myself, I had to read the adult section.
   Not that this was really that bad, I mean, my first loves came from that scifi/fantasy adult section. Ann McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, Stephen King (okay, he was in the horror section, and his books are scary, but go read The Talisman and The Gunslinger and tell me that's not fantasy), Piers Anthony -- I loved, and still love, all of these authors. But a lot of kids my age, they just didn't read, and I think that a lot of this not reading is due to the fact that there really weren't a lot of books marketed specifically for that youth group. The few authors that were out there - they didn't seem to get a ton of attention. Fast forward to today, and it seems like every young adult book is celebrated and is getting movie attention (Hunger Games, Divergent, ect).
   I was a teen when Harry Potter came out. His story caused an explosion in the book world. Suddenly, young people had a seriously recognized book with an author who became celebrated. Choices expanded. Then along comes the Twilight series (I was a mom already when this came out), which I have read and own, and liked - loved even - but as a horror fanatic, I find that I must, must, mock her version of vampires. (They are sparkle fairies!) But love Twilight or hate it, you can't deny that this book also exploded the book scene, and suddenly, there are young adult authors everywhere. New series everywhere, new authors all over the place, old ones getting recognition finally, their books in reprint, and the young adult section is finally more than one bookcase. Barnes and Nobles has an entire section, multiple bookcases, and a ridiculous shelving method that ensures that you find nothing. Old favored adult authors of mine, such as Juliet Marillier, now have expanded into the young adult section as well, not that you can find her with Barnes and Nobles shelving method. (Why can't they be alphabetical, by author, like every other section? That's what I really want to know.)
    And I can't stop reading this section, because they have all this dystopian fiction that I can't get enough of. Who knew that this was even a genre? Well, thanks to Suzanne Collins, it sure is now. And heck, go look up Carrie Ryan: The Forest of Hands and Teeth: youth zombie fiction. Awesomeness. And one of my newest favorite reads: The Lunar Chronicles. Fairy tale remakes with a rebellious, science fiction theme; Cinderella is now Cinder, the cyborg.I love it.
    And I am happy; my daughter has a ton of books to chose from. Sure, she's reading from the adult sections some, but the point is, she doesn't have to. There are a multitude of books for her to chose from, marketed towards her age. And the bonus? She doesn't even have to ask for me to buy most of them, because she knows I am gonna buy them anyway. (And the daughter scores!) Books sure have changed since I was my daughter's age, and personally, I love it. Happy reading.

Don't Just Worry About Your Girls, Worry About Your Boys Too

   I just finished reading something that infuriated me: something that had a mom stating that she had to worry more about her girls. Apparently, boys don't come home pregnant. Well, that's so, a male can't carry a baby. But a girl can't get herself pregnant. I've posted about this before, but this issue just continues to crop up. People continue to tell me that I need to worry about my daughter in regards to this. It's not that I really disagree, I do worry about my daughter and her future. My issue is that the moms and dads of boys need to be worrying about this just as much as the moms and dads of girls.
   I have a girl. And if that girl comes home sixteen and pregnant, I will know who the father is. If I have to find a way to get paternity tests for the entire stinking neighborhood, I will find the father. And then that father, he is going to man up and take responsibility. He's sixteen, and still in school? Well, I don't give a fuck. My daughter will be getting child support, so get that boy a job. My grandchild will be getting support from dear-old-dad, so it's time for him to grow the hell up.
   Of course, I hope to hell that this never, never happens. My daughter has already expressed the ideal of waiting for marriage, and you can bet your ass that this single mom is doing everything in her power to encourage that. But the point here is that boys are teenage parents too. Boys go out and drink too much and get themselves into stupid situations. Boys can be kidnapped, molested, raped, just as easily as girls can. Why do parents of boys think that they have less to worry about? They don't.
    I don't have a boy. My plan is to not have more children, but I am aware that people's desires and circumstances can change. I can still have kids, still far from being too old for that, so say I do met someone, and we get married (not doing the single mom bit again, thank you), say that happens and we decide to have a kid, and that kid is a boy. Let me ever find out that my boy fathered a child and then walked away from that responsibility. Let me find out. Ya'll will all enjoy seeing me on the evening news, after  I go ape-shit on that boy. And then, that future-imaginary-boy of mine is going to not only pay up, but he will also do what he needs to do to be a part of that child's life.
   And I've been living in the real world long enough to know that the sickos and pervs out there don't only target little girls. We all know that they are just as happy to target boys as well, so a boy has every bit as much a chance of becoming a victim to a sexual predator as a girl. Boys can drink to much at some teenage party, pass out, and be taken advantage of. This isn't a condition that only affects girls. Boys and girls alike can make piss-poor decisions and drink and drive, or text and drive, or drive while high. Neither sex has the corner on that bit of stupidity.
   There are an ass-ton of reasons out there to worry about in regards to your kids, and none of them are gender specific, NONE OF THEM. Parents of boys have every bit as much reason to worry as the parents of girls; stop acting like they don't. 

Best Advice I Can Give To New Moms

   I remember the days back when my daughter was a baby very vividly (hasn't been that long, after all). There was a lot of fun to that stage; she was learning to new things left and right. But there was also a lot of stress. If you go to the bookstore and pick out a parenting book, they all seem to have guidelines about what your precious baby should or should not be doing, along with ages. Like at so-and-so months, your child should be rolling over, or sitting, or walking, or talking. I threw those books away early, but what I couldn't throw away was all the people, all with the best intentions, telling me that my daughter wasn't doing what she should be doing.
   My daughter, apparently, was slow to roll over. Who knew? Well, everybody except me, it seems. Then she was slow to sit up on her own without support. I had well-meaning people left and right telling me that I needed to work with her, and I would look over at my daughter, diligently working on putting her foot in her mouth, literally, and somehow I just didn't think that a kid who could bend like that was gonna have a problem  with a weak spine. I just thought that at that particular time, she had other interests. Her foot needed to be in her mouth. I figured that once she realized her toes didn't taste very good, she would work on sitting.
   Then she didn't crawl. My daughter never did learn to crawl. That's not to say that she didn't get around -- she did-- she had just found an alternative method. My daughter rolled EVERYWHERE. If she was by the TV and wanted to get to the coffee table, she would lay down on her back and start rolling towards it, giggling as she went. She was also extremely fast at the butt scoot. People stressed me out with their constant, "Your kid isn't developing as fast as she should." But I would look at her, and to me she seemed fine. She just did things differently.
   She learned to walk 'on time' but there were certain family members that expressed disappointment that she did not walk early. However, within a week of learning to walk, she figured out how to run, and everyone was too busy chasing her and too tired to complain for a while.
   Talking was never a problem. She learned to talk early, and almost from the start, she could string sentences together. She talked like a little adult, which brought on complaints about the fact that she wasn't potty training fast enough. "She's obviously smart. Why can't you get her to use the potty? You have to be firm and consistent." As if I didn't know that. I tried everything. I took away diapers and made her run around in panties and took her to the potty every hour, and none of it worked. I felt like a failure, just because my kid wouldn't use the potty at the suggested age. But eventually, I just stopped worrying about that as well, to the fury of some. But hey, I felt justified. Everything my daughter had been slow at doing, she had started doing almost perfectly once she got around to the task. I decided to wait. My daughter didn't potty train until she was four, but once she did, she never had an accident. She never wet the bed, never peed herself because she couldn't hold it; once she decided she wanted to use the toilet she did so with ease and perfection.
   This has always been how my daughter has worked. She likes to do things when she is good and ready to do them. And if she doesn't want to do them, forcing her is like trying to move a mountain. Good luck with that. Sometimes parenting is stepping back and paying attention to your child's patterns. How does your child do things? What is the norm for your child? Because your child isn't one of those neat and tidy little statistics -- your child is unique and will do things in his/her own way.
   My daughter was slow, according to all of the books, and all of the people who held her up to other kids. Today -- my daughter is twelve. She is wicked smart and has a zany, goofy, fun personality. She still does things in her own way at her own time, and that's fine, because I've learned that there can be a method to her hesitation. She's watching, listening, learning, and she'll do whatever it is when she feels good and ready, and do it with confidence.
   So that would be the advice that I would give to other mothers. All the studies in the world cannot tell you how your child will work. They will not tell you when your child should do something. They will tell you how other children work, and around what ages the majority of other children did those things -- but those children are not your children. I don't really like to give parenting advice because I am far, far from an expert, yet, at the same time, I am a mother. I have been there, stressing because my daughter wasn't doing what everyone said she should do at the age they said she should.
   And I am telling you now, all that crap means nothing. It's just crap. So my advice is not to hold your child up to crap standards that may or may not mean a damn thing. Your child will move and learn at their own pace, and if you are really worried, you can always go talk to your doctor. But don't stress out because some book, or family member, or friend said that your kid isn't learning fast enough. Your child is unique. In all of the world, there has never been another baby like the one you have now, and there never will be another one just like that baby again, so how can you compare that special baby to someone else?

My daughter at 3 months. 

My daughter around 9 months. 

Cartoon Remakes -- Please Stop

   The other day I was babysitting my niece and nephew, and since I happen to have some cable channels that they don't have, and since my daughter was still sleeping because they came over at 7 a.m. in the morning on a day of no school, I thought, "Let them watch some of these cartoons that they can't watch at home unless they are Netflixing." And so we put the TV on Littlest Pet Shop. And my brain cells started dying, due to overwhelming exposure to stupidity.
   Then I found My Little Ponies. I used to love My Little Ponies. In fact, when my daughter was 5, I bought her the complete series of the old-school, made-in-my-childhood cartoon series. I also bought her the movie that has the flutterponies and the smooze in it, so when I saw the cartoon on TV, I thought, "I'll be able to watch this." And I turned the cartoon on -- and proceeded to loose even more brain cells. The My Little Pony remake is dumb.

Wrong

Right

   So I thought, Bugs Bunny. But have you seen what they have done with Loony Tunes? Daffy Duck was walking around on a cell phone and Bugs Bunny had a laptop and no one was dropping pianos on anyone's head, nor was anyone riding acme rockets into cliff walls. More brain cells were lost.
   And I began to feel like I had been cheated. These cartoons were staples to my Saturday mornings. I used to watch Loony Tunes with my dad -- he wouldn't be caught dead watching this new crap. And while My Little Ponies were never the laugh factory, the characters all had, you know, personalities.
   Then I began to feel that these kids were being cheated. Where were the cheap laughs? Sylvester needs to have an anvil dropped on his head while chasing Tweety Bird. That is why he was imagined up. The new cartoons have taken away his reason for being. He is lost, confused, and needs hundreds of dollars of therapy now.
   I can speculate what happened here. Someone, somewhere, said, "This is violent. If kids watch this, they are going to grow up thinking that pianos dropping on people's heads is funny. They are going to emulate that behavior." I grew up with a whole generation of people who watched pianos falling on cartoon character's heads on Saturday mornings, and none of us grew up to emulate that behavior; we don't do this because we are not dumbasses who don't understand the difference between cartoons and real life, but apparently our children are not expected to have the same level of common sense that we do.
   Personally, I disagree. I think my daughter can watch Loony Tunes (the classic version) and not grow up to be a piano dropping psychopath. And I think that I am unfailingly glad that I got her into anime early, and that I have a habit of buying whole seasons of the classics off of Amazon. Because quite frankly, I lost intelligence while watching those fluffed up, garbage-y remakes of old classics. We (my daughter and I) are going to stick to anime and the classics until the United States realizes that cartoon violence is not the reason for everything that is wrong with the world, and that children have brains and don't want to watch dumbed-down versions of old classics. So in the words of Porky Pig:

"Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-... That's all folks."

An Open Letter To My Daughter About Dating

Dear Daughter,
   You are getting older every year, and I can see you already, rolling your eyes at that statement. I don't mind because I know that you get that quality from me -- you learned from the best -- but I do have a point with that opening statement. My point is this: one day the boys are going to start noticing you, if they aren't already. And even though you are getting older, you are much too young for that, despite what society might say in argument.
   Soon enough, you will be sixteen, and that is a better age for dating. Nothing serious, you know, because sixteen is still very young. In fact, all the boys you will be looking at will also be very young. You are all much better off paying attention to your grades, playing video games, going to the movies with large (I mean huge, so that in no way can it be interpreted as dating) crowds of friends, and building castles for your future. You will grow up fast enough; no need to rush.
   Now that I think about things a little, eighteen might be a little better for the dating game. Legally, at this age you are an adult, even though you can't actually buy alcohol yet. But still, you are an adult, and not legally under my care, so you could date now.... Except you already have huge college plans now. You don't want to do anything to disrupt those plans. You don't want to have to be worrying about long distance relationships or commitment that might hold you back and become a burden. You are still so young at this age and you are going forth to conquer midterms and finals, building your foundation for your future. This is a very exciting time!!! You need to be free to decide whether you want to go to college near home, out-of-state, or even out-of-country. This is not the time to commit to anything romantic, after all, you aren't even old enough to buy alcohol.
   Twenty-one is a much better age. You are truly legal at this age, if being able to buy alcohol counts for anything at all. Which come to think of it, buying alcohol doesn't count for anything. And you don't want to date at this time, because a lot of your peers are going to be going through those alcohol driven, raging hormone, I'm-a-hot-mess phases, and you don't want any part of that. Of course, a lot of them won't, but some of them will, and the drama of figuring out who is and who is not, is drama that you need right now, because if you still want to be a scientist at twenty-one, then this means that you will still be plugging away at books snug in some University somewhere, and you don't want to mess with alcohol-fueled kids who think they are adults just because they can buy a drink. Best to wait until the newness of this has worn off, and everyone has settled down a bit. After a few hangovers, quite a few of those kids will be done with massive liquor-fueled nights forever, or at least moderate their drinking.
    No, after all, waiting is best. Mid-twenties is a much better time to really get into the dating games. The boys will have turned into men, and they will at least have made progress on any life-goals that they have. Except, around this point, you will be finishing school. And as you have wanted to be a scientist for years and years now, I am assuming this will still be your goal. However, this is your life, and I don't really care what you do, so long as you love what you are doing. But my point is, what about your life goals? You have always been a very motivated girl, and I wouldn't want you to put your own goals on hold. So maybe starting relationships right now is not a good idea after all? You want to become established in whatever career you decide to go for.
   So let us give you some time for that. After all, the twenties are still very young. The hobbits don't even consider their young to be out of the 'irresponsible tweens' until they are about thirty-three, if I am remembering right. So lets model your life after a mythical person's, and say that you will finally be able to date after you are thirty-three. You will at least, at this point, have gotten through high school without being eligible for the show Teen Moms; you will have gotten through all your college years without being corrupted by lushes who think with the wrong head, and you will have started your career and made a place for yourself. This is a good time to start dating and finding your soul mate and all that drama. But hey, you can afford a little drama now.
    There is just one thing, at this point, that I need you to do for me. Whoever your soul mate ends up being, I need you to let that person know, that no matter what they have done; whether they have found a cure for AIDS, or built the next wonder of the world, painted the next Monalisa, built a habitable, sustainable city on Mars, or whatever impressive goals they may have achieved, I want them to know that whatever they have done, they are still damn lucky to have you, and when you finally marry (at fifty) I want you to let him know that if you are ever treated like less than gold, that your seventy year old momma is gonna come whoop his ass.


Love,
Mom

Don't Come Between A Young Person And The Adult They Are With

   My daughter's birthday is coming up, and one of the things that she asked for was for concert tickets to the Imagine Dragons' concert that was going to be held at the Key Arena in Seattle. She desperately cried, "I don't care if I get anything else! That can be it!" And she said this in my mother's hearing. My mother, being a huge music supporter and having a love of all things concert, got my daughter a ticket, got herself a ticket, and as an added bonus, got me a ticket as well! My mother is awesome.
   But this is not really a post about the concert (which was freaking awesome.) This is a post about some of the behavior that happened after the concert. And this behavior is certainly not limited to rock concerts, so don't think that I am picking on the rock concert crowd. I am certainly not. This happens every time I find myself and my daughter in a huge crowd trying to leave an area.
    You see, after the concert was over, we all left. The crowd was slow, people were talking, having a good time, going over the concert, and all that good stuff. And usually, we might have waited for the crowd to thin a little before attempting to leave, but we had to catch the monorail, which was going to close. So we couldn't wait and joined the crush.
   I need to be clear; the behavior I am talking about is not the slowness of the crowd. I am not talking about the talking, the cheering, the happiness. I am not talking about when the massive group of people all randomly started chanting, "Sea-hawk! Sea-hawk!" at each other. I am not talking about the close confines, the accidental pushing that naturally happens in a crowd, and I am not talking about having my foot stepped on about a billion times. In a large crowd, these things happen (even the Seahawk thing if you are anywhere in the Seattle area). These things will happen; the space invasions are not purposeful, and the rest of it is good-natured fun; I am not talking about that.
   I am talking about the fact that I had my daughter in a death grip, meaning my hand was clenched to her arm, and she had my coat in a death grip with her other hand; we were connected, very obviously together. I am talking about the middle-aged bitch who tried to separate us with her backpack; tried to make a break in the crowd by placing her backpack between us, forcing me to let go of my daughter and her to let go of me so that she could step between us. I am talking about the dumb-ass bitch who was dumbfounded when I kicked her fucking backpack out of the way (she was holding the backpack, but I kicked the damn thing anyway), grabbed my daughter again, and continued on. An action which earned a heartfelt, "Thank you." from another mother who had been separated from her children by this very woman ( thankfully the father was still with them in this case, but I let her ahead of me so she could try to catch up). I am talking about the same dumb-ass moron, who tried this shit again a little further up, and then when I told her to back the fuck off, she dropped back and finally left us alone.
    I've used more cussing than I think I usually do, but this is bad. This isn't behavior limited to rock concerts either; I've dealt with this dumb-ass shit in the middle of Celebration Park, for crying-out-load, so don't be blaming the rock crowd. This wasn't 'young, tatted up hooligans' either, who often display more manners than most at any rate, in my own experience. This woman was a woman my age, a woman in her 30's, and she wasn't tatted or pierced or any of that, so don't go throwing your preconceived notions around. A lot of people do this shit, and they aren't from a select group. This happens way to often, and this is why I am ranting about this on my blog! We were fucking holding hands and she was clutching the back of my jacket. What made this woman think that breaking between a child and her mother was a good fucking idea? Not only is this rude, but I will fight, and violently, to keep this from happening, because in a crowd the size that we were dealing with, losing sight of my daughter could have been dangerous. She could have been grabbed by a creeper, never to be heard from again.
    And yes, she had every right to be there. She was with two adults, her ticket had been paid for, she was not misbehaving, and she loves the band. So to all of you people who think that she shouldn't have been there because she's twelve, she had every single fucking right to be there. She was with mom and grandma, nor was she the only young person in the crowd - not by a long shot. The fucking asshole woman who tried, literally, to break us apart - that woman had no right to the behavior she was displaying. NO RIGHT what-so-ever. She had already broken between one family, and the whole damned crowd was moving slowly- one slow bogged down crush, so you can't blame us for the slow pace. We would have moved faster if we could have politely done so -- we had the monorail to catch, and it was fixing to close.
We would have even let her through, if she had just managed a polite, "Excuse me." We were all moving as fast as we safely could, but I would have let someone ahead of me if they had just asked and not tried to break between us.
   This isn't a reflection on the concert. The concert was awesome, my daughter was elated because Imagine Dragons sang Radioactive, the crowds were pleasant and respectful, except for the one woman. Her actions were all her own, and this didn't ruin the night. I am ranting and raving about this now, because this type of shit pissing me the fuck off, but at the time, I dealt, and let (temporarily) go because I didn't want to mar my daughter's might -- her birthday present from her grandma, and I wanted to insure that she had a great night! A fantastic one! The show was great and energetic and loud and awesome! But please, just please, if you ever see a child obviously attached to an adult, please, please, please do not push between them. 

No Sleepovers Please

    We all have to make parenting choices, and many of them are wildly different. One of my more unusual parenting choices is the fact that I don't really do sleepovers and I'm not even a huge fan of play dates, especially in the home. Some of that, I suppose, can be chalked up to the fact that I am an antisocial little troll, but I do have other reasons. People can agree or disagree with them as they chose, and I know that I have offended and frustrated a lot of people with my dislike of sleepovers, but like any other parent, I have to do what works for me.
   One of the reasons for my dislike of sleepovers is that this gets in the way of my working schedule. I have to ask for time off. Even if my daughter is sleeping away, I have to make myself unavailable to work in order to pick her up and drop her off. I suppose I could let the parents drop her off at the empty apartment -- wait, no I can't. There are a million reasons why I can't do that, so I have to ask for time off; time off that I really can't afford for a reason that is really not a priority.
    Then there is the issue of how well do I know the parents? How comfortable do I feel with them? In all of her life, my daughter has only been allowed to stay overnight at one person's house, and then only because it was a birthday, and I knew BOTH of the parents. Not just one, both. That is very important to me because growing up, I knew several people who went to a friend's house and were harmed by one of the parents. This never happened to me personally, but this has happened to people close to me. So even though as a child, I slept over all the time, and friends came to my home all the time, this is not something that I am willing to risk my child over. If I know, am comfortable, and trust both of the parents, then fine, occasionally sleepovers may happen, but even then they are not going to be the norm. I like to have my daughter home. I am her mother, and no one can watch over her better than I can. I am not against her socializing and having a good time, but sleeping over at a friend's home is certainly not the only option.
    So why can't her friends come stay over here at my home? This option is not wholly out of the question, but again, I would want to know and feel comfortable with both of the parents. I would want to be able to trust that if there where an issue, and the kid staying over needed to go home, due to extreme bad behavior, illness, accident, or whatever, I would be able to contact said parents and have them come get the kiddo. I would want to feel comfortable having that family in my home. There is also the issue of the family understanding what type of person I am before they let their kiddo come over. I have a dark and twisted sense of humor, and they would need to be comfortable having their kids around that. This is not to say that I would be harmful, because I would cut off my own hand before I would hurt a child, but I say some weird shit. Also, I cuss like a sailor. I edit most of my cussing out of this blog, but you can't really edit the spoken word. If your child comes over to my home, they are going to hear the words fuck, shit, crap, damn,  and ass often and in various combinations. I understand that there are parents who don't want their kids exposed to this, and I respect that, but those kids shouldn't come to my home, because in my home, these things are said. And, I really am an antisocial little troll. I would have to feel really, really comfortable with a family to have their kid over often; I would have to feel that they were close to being my family.
    My daughter is a popular girl, and I try to be sure that she has ways to socialize, but I just don't feel the need to have my home invaded in order for her to do so, nor do I feel the need to have her invade other's homes. In all honesty, there isn't offense intended if my daughter hasn't been over to a friend's home; the real issue is that for the most part, sleepovers are not something that I am comfortable with, so we don't do them. It's just that simple.