This and That

I don't really have one cohestive blog post right now but I do have several things running through my twisted lil brain so I figured I'd just toss em all together! First, true to our New Year's vow to improve ourselves including spiritually and socially we've been visiting a new UU church for the past few Sundays. It's a nice place, friendly people, and I'd really been looking forward to their Morals and Ethics discussion group. We made it to yesterday's but I have to admit I was a bit stunned at the direction the chat went. We were presented with a story of an 80 yr old woman and man, both widowed with children, who got married then after one year the man needed to be admitted to a nursing home. The woman went into the marriage with a good bit of money while the man had none. Medicaid would only pay for his expenses if they had used up all their own money first so the question was should they get divorced. The general opinion of the group was she should divorce him to protect her money! Wow. That bothers me.

Training is going so nicely with the horses and dogs!!

Since Son #3 is still grounded he doesn't have a whole heck of a lot to do except sit in his room and read. On the one hand he's got a book that he's enjoying (it's about a dragon which he's just mad about!!!) and getting some great reading practice in. On the other hand he's feeling a bit shut away from the rest of the family which we don't want. Today I wanted to keep up his grounding, of course, but still get the poor kid out and with us some so since it was such a pretty day he came out to help us with outdoor work. Then he tells his dad that he needs more lunch money. His dad did a little calculating and said the kid should still have a good bit in his lunch account. So Son #3 comes clean. Along with buying lunch he's also been buying up a load of extras like ice creams, chocolate milks, and whatever other junk food they offer. This isn't the first time he's done this and we've told him that he's not allowed to do this! If he wants something extra every now and then that's fine but he needs to ask us for the bit of extra money that will cost before he buys it so that we can keep track of what we're spending where. What is with this kid and the lying, sneaking around kind of stuff???

And for the best surprise of my day today Lauren from
The Lauren Daily Experiment has gifted me with an award!!





That's a really cute one too. It reminds me to keep on learnin to make lemonade with those lemons! lol Thank you so much, Lauren! And now for the award rules:

*Put Lemonade Stand logo on your blog or within your post.
*Nominate 10 blogs you really enjoy
*Link the nominees within your post
*Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog
*Link to the person from whom you received this award

Which I'm off to do right now so adios, amigos!! Vaya con Dios! Hasta la pasta and all that groovy jazz!

Mistakes

There's loads of mistakes I've made as a parent but there are a few things that I feel I've handled darn near as perfect as it gets of which I'm pretty proud! One of those things is I've been scrupulous about putting the blame on the deed instead of the child. An action may be a dumb thing to do, have negative consequences, or be bad but I have and continue to stress that they are good, smart, wonderful children who sometimes make mistakes just like everyone else. It's a reminder that we can all use no matter what our age. That guy that really cut you off in traffic earlier today is not a jackass. A jackass could never learn to drive a car at all, forget the mental capacity because they don't even have the physical capacity! Cutting you off may've been a jackass thing to do though. See the difference? Some people say "Ah it's just words, the world needs to be less touchy!" and in some cases I do agree with that. I don't bristle in Pagan indignation when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas and is one example of something I think some people just need to chill out about. But when it comes to the difference between calling a person a name and putting a label on a person's actions I do think it's a very important distinction!


This is on my mind right now particularly because one of our boys is in Big Trouble. We've got four boys so to avoid giving out names I'll just number them in order of age. We have to really stay on top of Son #3 when it comes to his grades for various reasons but the bottom line is he's plenty smart enough he simply doesn't do enough. He puts in what he thinks he needs to and normally does quite well with A/B report cards. In our house we tell them that of course we would be thrilled to see straight As but we're also very happy with As and Bs as long as they've done their best. When a C pops up we raise an eyebrow, ask what the problem is, and after considering the bigger picture may even hand out a punishment such as no electronic entertainment for a bit. Ds and Fs we start to get serious about! No one's perfect and it's easy to see how a child with an A or B could make a mistake or two and have their grade suddenly drop to a C but lower than that tells us that there's more going on than a mistake or two!


Not so long ago Son #3 had a bad grade and hid the report card from us until his teacher forced him to call us from school. A D or F on a report card will definitely get a child grounded in our house but to lie about it on top of that...all I can say is that's one of those times that you tell the child to go to their room for awhile to let you cool off and think because you don't want to rip their little head off! He just brought another report card home with an F on it. We asked what happened and he said he didn't know. That's not an acceptable answer for us and the boys know it so we told him very firmly that we expected him to find out and let us know. The next day I was in our closet hanging up some clothes when Son #3 got home and I asked...

Me: So did you find out what happened in English?

Son #3: Uh yeah, I got a zero on a paper and it counted twice.

Me: What kind of paper was it?

Son #3: Umm...I don't know.

Me with a serious, displeased look: Now you know that we expect you to find out these things, ask if there's any make-up or extra credit you can do, and so on. When you make a mistake you try to make it right somehow, right? Was this a paper that you did in class or as homework?

Son #3: We did it in class. It was one of those things where you read something and then answer a bunch of questions about it.

Me starting to feel suspicious at his fidgeting and strangely reluctant answers (not to mention the problem with his last answer????): How did you get a zero? You mean that you didn't get even ONE answer right?

Son #3 starting to sweat bullets: Uhh oh no I mean I didn't get a ZERO but I got a really low grade!

Me turning to stare at him tapping my foot: Ok I'm getting a funny feeling here. Is there anything you want to tell me before your dad gets home?

He broke down completely and told me the whole story. It turns out he's known for several weeks now what happened. He had a book report to do and "kept forgetting and getting distracted." Uh huh. And when I asked what the distraction was? Video games, of course. As a matter of fact, failing to do a book report then lying to us about it is exactly what happened the last time he brought home a failing grade! So I took a deep, deep breath and with the calmest, softest voice I own told him to grab a quick snack, go to his room to do homework, and not to come out of his room until I called for him. I would tell his dad, quell any knee jerk reaction his dad might have to rip him limb from limb, then call for him when it was safe so we could all talk about the situation.


I can only conclude that this sort of thing is a result of that bit in the brain that doesn't develop until later in life, something in the frontal part, I believe. It's supposed to be why they don't always make logical, well thought out decisions and show a decided lack of good judgement at times. At least that's what I'm telling myself repeatedly!

To touch

When a woman gets pregnant there is this strange phenomenon where everyone wants to rub her belly. Ok, in some ways I can certainly understand this. I admit that I too get urges to rub a pregnant woman's belly or ask to hold a perfect stranger's new baby (but I don't just do it). I think most people are touched and excited in some ways to see these awe inspiring examples of innocent new lives coming into our world and simply want to connect (maybe even REconnect???) with that somehow. I truly do understand that! But there are some people in the world that for whatever reason are not comfortable with being touched and who has the right to judge someone for that?

Growing up my parents weren't very snuggley-wuggley touchy feely sorts so I was probably "touched" in anger more often than with love. It wasn't until I found Wicca and joined an open circle as a very young adult that I really realized just how much this affected me. This circle was a group of generally wonderful, open, warm people. Their usual greeting was to give great big hugs and going skyclad (naked) wasn't out of the ordinary. At first I was VERY uncomfortable with this but I had to admit that I liked it too! It wasn't very long amongst these folks that some startling realizations hit me -- being naked, intimate body contact, both at the same time -- NONE of it had to equal anything sexual! That may sound a bit silly to some people but before I wasn't familiar with touching others very much outside of romantic or sexual types of contact so it was hot-off-the-press news to me! I quickly grew to really love the people of that circle, learned to be comfortable with social nudity, and couldn't get enough of hugs, holding hands, standing around with an arm draped over a hip or shoulder...just touching and being touched in ways that I should've been by my family growing up.

Only a few years later I had moved away and was pregnant with my first son. I was the first child in my family and my husband was the first in his to give our parents a grandchild and each of our grandparents a great-grandchild. Needless to say there was a LOT of excitement and anticipation on both sides of the family!! Most of them either seemed to know that they weren't familiar enough with me to touch me and a few I was fine with them rubbing my belly except one. My husband's grandmother was polite enough to me but it was clear that she didn't feel I belonged in her family. More than once she would smile in my face then speak badly of me to others which is a practice I've always held in contempt. But for some reason while I was pregnant she thought it was perfectly ok to fondle my belly in the most intimate of ways!! I asked her not to, had my husband ask her not to, but she went right on doing it or even did it then backed away dramatically saying "Oh! I forgot that you don't like to be touched!" in a particularly snotty way.

Almost every time I managed to leave as fast as I could to hide the tears of anger, shame, and mixed up sickly hot emotions. I felt like a freak. I told myself that *normal* people would handle the situation with so much more social ease. I imagined his family still out there sneering at how awkward, inept, and ungrateful I was to treat them as if I couldn't even bear for them to touch me when they had been so nice to welcome me into their oh so proper family. I didn't know what to do. I felt downright violated! I thought I was wrong maybe but I still felt justified! Finally in desperation I told my husband that if she grabbed me just one more time I swore I would grab her firmly by both shrivelled breasts and loudly ask how SHE liked being felt up! I don't know what he said and I don't care. All I know is that she did stop which made it so much easier for me to relax and at least TRY to be social with his family.

Years later now I realize that I wasn't right or wrong. I was in the spot emotionally where I was at and I didn't have to explain or justify it in any way. It was still MY body and I had the right to accept or not being touched by anyone. It wasn't my fault that his grandma decided to take offense to this instead of behaving like a rational, mature adult and simply talking to me about it. I had nothing to feel bad or guilty about.

Also I have to happily say that all of these experiences helped me be a better mother! From birth I have been just as "touchy" with my children as they could possibly stand! I've taken every opportunity to maintain loving contact with them. They're now 12 and 15 yrs old, a time when I've heard many boys start to want nothing much to do with their parents, and they still run to give me long, happy hugs in the morning, don't hesitate an instant to come lay against me, put a head on my shoulder or lap, stop on their way by to give me a kiss, let me nuzzle their sweet necks, stroke their backs, and just generally pour out all infinite love I have for them. Maybe I still would've been just as demonstrably affectionate with them without my past experiences, there's no way I could resist being completely in love with these two wonderful scamps, but at the very least it makes me realize just how very important these touches are in their lives now and in the future. If I had to go through hell to learn this and benefit my babies then it was all worth it and I'm so thankful for it!

Happy Holidays!

I've been trying to make a post for the past three days but everytime I start one I have someone or another that swears if I don't come see/help/referee/fix/etc. it will result in the end of the world! It's so wonderful having all my boys home with me but it can make things a little busy for me. Especially since hubs tends to go hide upstairs on his computer more when all four boys are home. He loves them as much as I do but they are normal, active boys and their high spirits can sometimes be a bit much for someone with severe PTSD.

I'm extra pleased with my boys right now too. Sadly my father hasn't embraced my husband's two boys as his grandsons so when he sends my two boys cards with money in them and not the other two it always makes me feel a little awkward and bad. On the one hand it's not fair to Tom* and David* but it would also be unfair to force Steve* and Chris* to give up some of their money just because my father isn't a better person. They solved the problem nicely all on their own when they bought Monopoly, Twister, and lunch for everyone! Not only was it just incredibly sweet but we've all had so much fun playing those and our other games together!

One of our gamers made homemade ziti for us one night which was delicious! The kiddos and I have snuggled up together under a big dryer warmed blanket. Then this morning we watched the boys open their presents which is one of my favorite times of the whole year! They've been busy most of the day with video games, a punching bag, a ripstick (it's like a skateboard but all the new rage with my kids), flying micro copters all over the place freaking the birds out to no end, and making candles. Which means I've been busy most of the day answering questions about video game installation, taping hands and demonstrating how to throw a punch, insisting that children wear all kinds of helmets and pads, trying to calm screaming birds, and cutting wax, dye, and scents!

On top of that I decided that we needed gingerbread men. Only the youngest wanted to help me cut out and bake the cookies but they all came running when it was time to frost them! I tried! I really tried to supervise where all the frosting was going but these kids are starting to get HUGE! Heck the oldest is probably twice my size already! With all four of them crowded around the table I couldn't even see the cookies much less where the frosting was going! But in typical ravenous teen boy fashion they slopped frosting onto the biggest of the cookies then backed away munching happily for a moment letting me dart in to run a little damage control. By the end of today with all the candle and cookie scents everyone says the house smells absolutely delicious though!! All in all I think this has been one of the greatest, delightfully messy, noisy, fun Yule's we've had so far!

I wish all of you a holiday full of fun, love, laughter, and magic too!

What would you do?

I'd like to try to give this story as objectively as possible to let people answer freely so I hope you'll forgive me if this comes out on the unemotional side.

My son's step mother called me tonight to discuss something with me. She said that there's been rumors at my son's school that someone plans to bring a gun to shoot teachers and students tomorrow. My son says he's scared and doesn't want to go to school tomorrow. Points to consider that were brought up in our discussion:

1. Many parents have called the school and have been told that this rumor has been thoroughly investigated by them and police. They are assuring parents that this was just a rumor spread by someone wanting to stir up trouble.
2. There's been no incidences at this school having to do with weapons but there has been an increase in serious fights.
3. My son has a good attendance record and good grades.
4. Giving in to these kinds of threats gives the perpetrators power which could increase the number of incidents.
5. Allowing my son to stay home from school may send him the message that it's ok to live your life in fear.
6. My son openly gripes about school and has been known to wiggle out of a day here and there. It's possible he could see this as a way to get out of going to school in the future.
7. Where do you draw the line between protection and over protecting?

Would you keep your son home from school or not? I'll reveal which way I decided after folks have had a chance to have their say :)

P.S. No matter which way you lean on the subject I would really appreciate any prayers, energy or anything else people care to send for the protection of the teachers and students of my son's school tomorrow!

Happy Halloween

Halloween is one of my two all time favorite holidays of the year. I don't have any particular fond memories of Halloween's past but I don't have any specific bad memories either. No, one reason I love Halloween so much is I'm able to act a bit more like a child with some of my favorite people in the world, my children. When I was young I did miss out on a lot of being a child being the oldest with two alcoholic parents. I've really worked out that issue from my past more or less but it is a marvelous treat for me when I can retrieve a bit of that lost childhood.

Our neighborhood does an extra special Halloween too! We live out in the country in a kind of big circle. The day before Halloween we all get together at one house to socialize and eat pot luck dinner then we all load up in little flatboard trailers for a hay ride around the circle. Since most of our driveways are so long everyone who wants to participate puts a little table out by the road with a big bowl full of goodies. We slowly go from one table to the next laughing as the stampede of children leap from the hay and their excited crows of delight as they discover what's in each bowl. They get plenty of candy but then they still have the option of going elsewhere on Halloween proper to trick or treat if they wish.

On the one hand I truly love our neighborhood but I also dread the pot luck part of the evening. I don't really know anyone there, though I've met a few of them two or three times briefly now, and feel horribly shy, scared, and awkward. But the hayride part of the evening and seeing the children's bright eyes and huge grins make it all worth any discomfort. I really work at these special times of year to make sure that my children will have fond holiday memories to look back on. Hmm, not that I don't work to make every day special but...you know what I mean!

Another reason this holiday is so special to me is because it's the day we call Samhain. For us this is a day when the division that normally seperates the dead from the living is at it's thinnest so that there's a greater chance of contact between us. It's a day for remembering and honoring those that have passed on like my brother and child (RIP my dear ones). Likewise it is a time to remember that the wheel of life is always turning and so to are the seasons as Winter comes like death to the world. This is the time when the Crone rules all. Her ways seem unbearably cruel sometimes, she's responsible for culling the weak and old, but she also teaches us that the old must make way for the new. She is the end all, be all of true tough love! Samhain is also the very best time of year to "kill" our vices, bad habits, negative feelings, and all within us that is not based and motivated by love.

This is why this is a truly blessed, magickal holiday and very dear to me. Happy Halloween and a blessed Samhain to you all!