Parenting 101?

i was truly blessed to be able to be a stay at home mom. true, at times, it's driven me a little crazy, or at least made my craziness more apparent, but i'm grateful that i've been able to avoid serious daycare with my 2 little ones. but when my husband & i decided to have kids, we were both old & definitely wanted them. there were no *accidents*. although, by the time you're in your mid-30's there really shouldn't be any *oopsies* anyway :).

but it really gets my goat when i read another news story about seriously irresponsible parenting. i just read an article today that makes my heart sick. a mom (34 years old, so she should totally have known better!) left her toddler to drown in the tub while she played on facebook. really? drowning isn't a quiet way to go, so didn't she hear him thrashing? or was she that far away?

and the one that really gets my goat is the one about the parents who walled their naked kids into a room so they could get blitzed on whatever. seriously? they should just be taken out back and shot!

now, don't get me wrong, i'm not a perfect mom. i'm not expecting any medals. i've done my share of letting the tv watch the kids so i can pee/bathe/eat/cook/check my email/blog etc... but i still forget to shut the door when i'm in the bathroom cuz it's just gonna open again. i'm finally able to shower without a little head poking through the shower curtain. parenting isn't easy, but it's not supposed to be. if it is, you're doing something wrong!

buying secondhand

i noticed recently that all of the knees in alexander's jeans have holes in them. in fact, i sent him to school one day in jeans that were perfectly fine, and when he came home there was a huge hole in 1 knee and a small one in the other. craptastic! now, i shop pretty much exclusively at children's place. not becuz i love their clothes, which i do, but becuz i have a credit card for them & the bill goes to my mom (thanks, nana!). but i'd already gone shopping there this month cuz isabelle's on a dress & skirt kick. all of a sudden, she's a totally girly-girl. headbands & skirts with tights every day. and even though my mom would be cool, i didn't want to do that again. especially since spring is coming (someday!) and i need to go through the totes of stuff i packed up from last year to see what still fits & what needs to be replaced.

so we decided to go to goodwill. i could have gone to kmart, but their quality isn't the best. and i couldn't find the once upon a child in the north hills. i really wanted to go to old navy, but their prices are outrageous unless you catch them on sale. and at goodwill i found a great selection of jeans in his size that are heavier than what i would have found at either old navy or children's place for a fraction of the price. and honestly, in this economy you've got to watch your pennies. i spent as much for 5 pairs of jeans at goodwill as i would have for 2 at old navy or children's place. plus, they had an organ (unplugged, thankfully) that the kids sat and played on while i shopped. i definitely wouldn't have found that elsewhere :)

for some reason, shopping at once upon a child doesn't seem like secondhand. i think it's becuz they're so picky about what they'll accept, while at goodwill you still hafta check. but if i'm looking for special occasion clothes, once upon a child is my first thought. 2 years ago i found this beautiful deep plum velvet dress for isabelle that still had the tags on. originally it was $50 and i got it for $10! of course, they wouldn't take it back once isabelle'd outgrown it when i included it in the piles of stuff i was trying to sell back. oh well. we got awesome Christmas photos that year :)

for myself, my favorite place to shop is my church's rummage sale. i always help with the sorting so i get to shop early. and there's a couple of older ladies with impeccable taste that are tall, so their trousers fit me well :) a couple of years ago i got a black pin striped pants suit for $3! talk about a bargain! :) but i can't always count on the rummage sale for the kids.

when i was a kid, i hated shopping at goodwill. hopefully, my kids won't be as snobby as i was & will just take it in stride. :)

you can't unlearn the knowledge

this week at my son's school they've been celebrating dr. seuss and they've invited parents to come into the class as guest readers to read their favorite dr. seuss story. well, i couldn't pass up a performance opportunity, so i went in to read "green eggs and ham" which happens to be my favorite. but i was talking about it with a client at work and one of the other clients chimes in that i don't really know who dr. seuss is and once i find out the truth about the man i won't be celebrating him anymore. now, this piques my curiosity, and thus my downfall.

i'm one that MUST KNOW. i question everything. it drives my husband mad! but my brain is unsettled if i don't know why everything. but in this case, that's really unfortunate. several years ago i was watching an episode of oprah and she was talking about Megan's Law which requires the police to make available to the public a list of sex offenders and where they live. so, of course, i HAD TO KNOW, so i promptly went to the site and found out that we do indeed have a sex offender living on my street. now what? i haven't been back to check, but i'm pretty sure he was an adult rapist, and not a pedophile or child molester, so from a mom standpoint i'm relieved. but it's still unsettling to know that there's a registered sex offender living within walking distance of my house. i know he's done his time, but there's a reason they make them get registered. and now i'm stuck with this knowledge that i cannot erase from my brain. if only i had one of those flashy-thingies from men in black!

so do i want to do the research to find out if dr. seuss is a racist prick? not really, becuz then every time i read one of my kids favorite stories i'd be thinking about it. but it brings up another question: does it matter? according to the other client, his character the cat in the hat is based on a lazy, shiftless black man. ok. does that mean he thought all black people are lazy & shiftless? i don't know. do i know some lazy, shiftless people of all races? sure! but is that how i label all people of a particular race? no. but do i really want to open this pandora's box and ruin the simple enjoyment of good stories? some of his stories are incredibly political, at least the cartoon versions. so i definitely think he had more to say than simple entertainment. but is it wrong of me to want to just enjoy his stories without delving too deeply into the how's and why's of his creative process? part of me REALLY wants to know. but once you know, it's there forever. that sucks.

welcome to Lent :)

so today's the first day of Lent -- traditionally a time of deprivation. but a thought came to me today. does it hafta be? i mean, i usually struggle with what i'm going to give up for the 40 days of Lent. it really shouldn't be something you shouldn't be doing anyway, like drugs or watching porn. but what's the point of giving up something like chocolate or coffee that you're just going to pick up again on Easter? can't we give up something that will make our lives better?

this year i really want to give up unhappiness. why not? i'm tired of being depressed. i'd really like to figure out what it is my brain needs for lasting happiness. i'd really like to spend the rest of my life doing what i enjoy and being happy doing it, instead of suffering and slogging through my days. wouldn't that be awesome? i don't think God would have a problem with it :)

our government is run by idiots!

it just boggles my mind that we keep electing these stupid people into office who have the power to ruin so many lives. i don't usually blog about politics, but this time i hafta make an exception.

i keep hearing about how there's a bill that's being considered that will take away funding for crucial things like Planned Parenthood. clearly congress & the senate are full of men & women who've never been down on their luck, without medical insurance & in need of good gynecological care at an affordable cost. now, don't get me wrong, i'm totally pro-life, but i don't feel that i have the right to tell you what you should do with your body. i couldn't imagine what kind of circumstance would compel me to have an abortion, and i'll do everything in my power to talk you out of it, but it's YOUR choice. i won't drive you to the clinic, but i'll be there for you afterward. but Planned Parenthood does SO MUCH MORE than just abortions! in fact, the 2 clinics i've been to don't do them AT ALL! what i loved about them is that they had a sliding scale. i had a job, but i didn't have insurance, so i couldn't afford to go to a *real* ob/gyn but i still needed to have my annual exam & get my birth control pills.

now i'm reading that they're thinking about passing a bill for birth control for wild horses. WHAT?!? i was sure that i'd read the post wrong, but, alas, i hadn't. i don't understand why horses are more important than women. how would these congresspeople & senators feel if their daughter was denied care becuz she couldn't afford it (since they're intent on repealing the health care bill too!) and had no other options. are we going back to back-street abortions with no aftercare and inhumane, unsanitary conditions? really? especially since they're planning on cutting more and more public sector funding, like head-start, is now really the time to cut funding for contraception? you can't just make a decision like that and not think about the long-term consequences. no contraception = more babies. do they just expect people to stop having sex? clearing they don't watch maury povich or jerry springer enough.

living on the edge of perfection

so we're moving. it's such a pain in the butt! we've got a house that we want to buy, and the sellers are willing to wait until we're ready, but we've got to sell our house first. and in order to do that, we need to keep it in pristine condition so we can show it at the drop of a hat. so stressful! and i hate to clean. i've done so much cleaning in the past month or so that i'm sick of myself! but now that everything's clean, i find myself not wanting to do anything. chris & the kids were in youngstown over the weekend, and when i came home from work i came in through the garage and went no further than my basement computer room & craft area. i don't want to cook, cuz i don't want to mess up the kitchen. i would actually prefer to not be in my house right now for fear that i'll make something dirty & hafta clean it again!

it was a shock to see the listing online. it made it seem so real! and when i came home from the gym yesterday, the sign was in the front yard. i guess we're really selling our house. the kids keep asking for toys that we've packed to take to Miss Bea's house. as long as we're not giving them away to other little ones who don't have any toys, they're cool. :)

but the kids and i took a mental health day today. it's a beautiful day & as soon as isabelle has awoken from her nap, we're going outside to play in the snow (which we probably shouldn't do, cuz it'll mar the perfection of the yard...) and i'll bake cookies & make cocoa for when they come in. thankfully the cookies are in the freezer pre-made, so there's no mess there. just crumbs to clean up afterward, but fresh-baked cookies are always worth the effort :)

technology hates me

today has been a pretty craptastic day. today we met with our realtor for the first time so that we can put our house on the market so we can move. so i spent the ENTIRE day cleaning, which pretty much sucks cuz i don't clean. but today i found myself scrubbing everything, which i hate, and vacuuming everything, which is exhausting. especially when the little shop-vac decided to stop sucking. i vacuumed my entire basement with a dirt devil on my hands and knees. needless to say, when my husband got home from school i wasn't in the best of moods :)

but for my *lunch* break (which consisted of 2 nutrigrain bars) i decided to sit & get online & list an item in my etsy shop. but my external hardrive, where all 14000+ photos are stored, decided to take today off. it's on a little vacation. totally craptastic. ALL of my photos are there. as well as all of my documents. my computer runs really slow cuz it's old, & my dad sent me this nifty little portable hard drive to free up some space on my computer's hard drive to help make things a little faster. so now it's holding my info hostage. on the bright side, we're doing shop makeovers on etsy right now, and i was thinking i needed some new photos :)

but then, i was finishing up my cleaning, and ready to order the pizza for my kids to eat while the realtor was here, and i pulled out my phone, & it's DEAD!!! i'm swimming in a sea of craptastitude! i don't know ANYONE's phone numbers. my phone is my alarm clock & keeps track of my schedule so i get where i need to be on time. how am i gonna get out of bed in the morning. i have a dr's appt tomorrow. what time is it? who will tell me when to leave? do i have clients next week? WAAAH! how did i live for so long without a phone? how do people get through the day without texting or checking the calendar to see if they're free? crap crap crap!!!

so, tomorrow will start with dropping alexander off at school, and then isabelle & i will go DIRECTLY to the sprint store to get a new phone. it won't even turn on. and when you get a new phone, they can transfer your address book, which is good, cuz i don't know anyone's numbers, but they can't transfer your calendar. craptabulous. i guess it's time to drink :)