Click for Complete Accurate View of My Day to Day with the Kids, Particularly While in a Car -
Mrs. Angry Reaches Her Limit: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1346130377&k=Z3LZ3ZP3S6YAUCD1QB64STXPQ4CG
(Courtesy of friends and fellow parents Chirs and Amanda McEwen)Love this time with them!
On Here and Now with Robin Young this segment caught my attention: "Bad Parenting - Literary critic Steve Almond joins us to discuss a slew of new memoirs in a hot new genre that some are calling “Bad Parenting.” Authors discussed in the segment: Diana Joseph, Robert Wilder, Rebecca Woolf. Find Steve Almond’s essays in the books, “Blindsided by a Diaper” by Dana Bedford Hilmer and “The Book of Dads” by Ben George."
I find myself laughing, thinking and sympathizing with this segment. Fascinating is the subject matter to me, particularly the discussion on where today's culture of "Super Parenting" comes from. Steve Almond talks about how, 40 years ago, parents were surrounded by extended family and were given advice and help by the experienced. Now, in our culture of high achievers and distanced families, parents project this need to be the best and least vulnerable upon ourselves and hold each other to impossibly high standards that may be tearing the fabric of our communities apart.
I hope that, through my honest and direct blog postings and stories I share with everyone I am single handily helping to change this stigma. I hope that my parenting is portrayed as rocky, but filled with good intentions; clueless, but learning; and filled with many emotions, but ultimately cemented by love and humor. Honest and true, it is what it is, a wild and unexpected ride filled with stomach lurching turns and thrill filled descents and climbs. As crazy as it is I wouldn't trade this part of my life for all the money in the world. But I would like more calmer days and less chocolate on the carpet mornings! :)
By Christy Oglesby CNN Story Highlights: Meaningful presents for children don't require lots of cash
In her childhood, presents that required imagination and creativity were favorites.She says joy "came from playing with people who loved me," not the toy itself
(CNN) -- Athleticism goes a long way in picking a spouse when you're just a child. While playing a jumping-rope game, I missed when my friends called out "Marcus." Now I was destined to marry the snottiest boy in second grade and probably in the whole wide world.I was hellbent on not having a lousy reception. So I was leaping my little 7-year-old heart out. As my playmates chanted menu options, I focused on my footwork. I needed to guarantee that my wedding guests ate well. "TUR-key! CHICK-en! Ol' DEAD dog! TUR-key! CHICK-en! Ol' DEAD dog! Turkeychickenoldeaddog-turkeychickenoldeaddog!" They turned the rope faster, but my cadence was perfect. I would not miss on canine carcass.
Thirty-four years have passed, but I remember planning my future in the driveway of my childhood home. That unforgettable memory came from a rope that my mother might have paid $2 for at the corner T.G.&Y. More likely, it was a construction castoff from my grandpa the carpenter.
But what's certain is that meaningful presents for children don't require lots of cash. Give it in love, make sure it requires creativity or imagination, and you're golden. (Oh, and these days, you have to check it for lead.) Look, I'm the mom of a 9-year-old testosterone-drenched boy. I get the blinky-light-deafening-surround-sound-battery-powered-gotta-have-the-latest-hottest-gizmo-cuz-everyone-else-has-one craze. But for the next 450 words, you 40-somethings indulge me.
Was your childhood any less fun without a remote-controlled Dinoraptor? Was your 10th year of life horrible because you didn't stand in front of a flat screen and pretend to bowl? Stop contemplating pricey Wiis, or the hand-held electronics that feed Junior's myopia, or the cranberry-colored Nano, and go back with me. Do you remember the first time you got the 64-pack of Crayolas? You'd gotten a box of two dozen crayons before. But this one had cornflower, goldenrod and sienna! There were five shades of yellow, and what's that in the back? A sharpener! See what kids want for Christmas this year
My hefty, creaky grandmother crawled under the kitchen table to draw with me. Then she taped my masterpieces to the front of her avocado-green refrigerator.
The year my older sister got Monopoly was fabulous! My divorced mom, who always had to juggle at least three jobs, found time to sit at the Formica kitchen table and build an empire starting with Connecticut Avenue and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Did you Hula Hoop? Or did you pick up your cat's eye and take a break from "keepsies" to watch someone move the hoop from her hips to her neck to her fingertips?
Be it a board game, marbles, a jump-rope or a pack of crayons, none of them cost more than $10. But if you think about it, I bet you remember the names of the kids with whom you played. I bet you remember a particularly intense game of Scrabble. I remember that the joy wasn't from the toy. It came from playing with people who loved me, like my mom, sister and grandma.
I'm not putting down the blinking, electronic $450 gizmos. I'm not saying your child won't remember their hefty, creaky grandma playing Wii tennis with them three decades from now. But try this. Go on and get Junior that pricey thing he just has to have. Then think about a great game from your childhood that didn't cost as much as a monthly car payment. Throw in a jump-rope too, or a paddle ball. Put the BlackBerry down, refuse to let the PlayStation baby-sit the kids. And see if you can out-Hula Hoop your daughter. Show her what fun was like back in the day. She'll remember it for a long time to come, and you'll have cash to spare.
"Ahoy! - "Hello!"
Avast! - Stop and give attention. It can be used in a sense
of surprise, "Whoa! Get a load of that!" which today makes it more of a "Check
it out" or "No way!" or "Get off!"
Aye! - "Why yes, I agree most heartily
with everything you just said or did."
Aye aye! - "I'll get right on that
sir, as soon as my break is over."
Arrr! - This one is often confused with
arrrgh, which is of course the sound you make when you sit on a belaying pin.
"Arrr!" can mean, variously, "yes," "I agree," "I'm happy," "I'm enjoying this
beer," "My team is going to win it all," "I saw that television show, it
sucked!" and "That was a clever remark you or I just made." And those are just a
few of the myriad possibilities."
My one prayer is that both she and Ashton look away from organized religion and begin a transcendental approach to life, possibly through the worship of nature. I would like to see them taking the time to stop and not only smell the roses, but appreciate all the flora and fauna around us. As Ralph Waldo Emerson one said "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. "
"Kate honey, it's great you are sharing, but no...fish don'tYou see, Ashton had some how climbed on top of our kitchen counter, reached up as high as physically possible to gain access to 3lbs. of M&M's I was keeping there for making cookies with. (This all while I was sleeping peacefully in my bed.)
eat M&M's."
T G I F
Kate thoroughly enjoyed the giant "ducks" as she called them, sending out a wild laugh each time they would come to the window. Ashton was fascinated by the dark black and white pigs that seemed to roam everywhere, asking again and again if they were coming to his room (see earlier post ~Pigs & Poultry). Paul enjoyed the camels and rhinoceros the most and I, well, I was simply amazed by the sheer size of the Zebras. For some reason I thought they were more pony-sized than Clydesdale-sized! 
Kate is turning into quite the interesting character these days! Her favorite things to do always seem to involve turning various items into hats, singing songs of original composition, dancing like noone is watching, being very attentive to babies and saying the word "Mama" in 10 different ways to mean 10 different things.
