As a mother…

I have to say that I approach bullying from many different angles. As a teacher, it’s my job to help educate the kids in my class so that they understand how much their words hurt, how deep those scars can run. As a girl who was bullied for most of her life and still gets bullied by people who should be old enough to be beyond that, I know exactly how much it hurts. I know how hard you try to shake it off, blow it off and not let it get to you and how sometimes you just can’t let it go. As a mother, I watch my girls and pray they never know what that feels like. It’s inevitable and I know that. I want to protect them, but I can’t be there every minute.

I saw this on Facebook today and it was worth sharing. Not only with my other Facebook friends, but with everyone who reads this blog.

Let me say this, because it needs to be said.

Everyone is someone’s baby. Everyone is worth something to someone. Every life is worth protecting and every minute of that life should be spent being comfortable with yourself. If you’re not comfortable, do what you have to do to get comfortable. If you are comfortable in your own skin, then no one has the right to take that away from you.

The idiot who wrote the e-mail to this news anchor forgot one, very big, thing. It is the people who don’t fit the perfect little mold of society that makes this country the beautiful thing that it is. It’s the fat people and the skinny people. It’s the ugly people and the beautiful people. It’s the jocks and the marching band. It’s the tall kids and the short kids.  It’s the kids who are good at math and those that are good at art. It’s the drama queens and the ice princes. It’s the sun and the moon. To insult one is to insult them all. To consider someone somehow less than what you perceive they should be based on the life you believe to be perfect is to detract from the perfection you think you enjoy. It’s not our civic duty, those of us in the public spotlight… the news anchors, the teachers, the cops, the EMT, the nurses, the dentists, the doctors, the stewardesses, the store managers, the waitresses, the cashiers… it’s not our civic duty to represent what you believe a perfect life should be. It’s not our community responsibility to be skinny and beautiful.

It’s our community responsibility to be positive roll models. It’s our community responsibility to ensure that the next generation knows they’re worth every minute someone invests in them. And it’s our community responsibility to understand that every minute we spend with them is a minute we’re investing in the future of our world.

October is anti-bullying month. I challenge you, all of you, to hold your hand out to that kid who is getting picked on. I challenge you to show them they’re worth so much more than they can even imagine. Teach them it’s not ok. Teach them to stand up. Teach them to know they’re worth (and know that there is no number high enough to represent that worth to you). Teach them to love. Then hold on tight, because the light is going to shine and it’s going to blind you. That, my friends, is how you protect the future.

And it’ll be worth every second.

Stop the bullying before it starts.

Ever do a search for symptoms on WebMD?

So, just for kicks (because I knew it was going to try to scare me to death), I wandered over to WebMD to see what direction their little symptom checker would point me in for the dizziness, light-headedness and migraines I’ve been having over the last 18 months. Before you ask, yes, I just had a baby last year. That was 13 months ago. Hormones shouldn’t be an issue now. In the last 18 months, I have had an ENG, two MRI’s, an EEG, and a sleep study. As far as I know, everything came back normal. I have a “beautiful brain.”

So, for fun, ran the symptoms through WebMD. Check out this list of goodies:

Possible Conditions:

Brain Aneurysm— would’ve shown up on one of the MRI’s, right?

Labrynthitis- (inner ear infection)- Umm… not for the last 18 months and the ENG was clean.

Meniere’s Disease- more inner ear stuff. Still no.

Medication Reaction/Side Effect- I wasn’t taking anything when it started and have only started taking something in the last two months.

Fainting- um, no. I’ve come closer to it in the last 5 months than I think I ever have, though.

Generalized Anxiety disorder- blood pressure is normal. No other symptoms.

Heart rhythm disorder- not a single doctor has said a word about my ticker sounding off.

Middle Ear Infection- again, no.

Hyperventilation- Again… for 18 months?

Fibromyalgia- I don’t really have any consistent pain, or any pain that would correlate with this.

Acoustic Neuroma- this is a growth on a nerve that connects the ear to the brain. I’m thinking this would’ve shown up on an MRI…

 

The rest of the list ranges from Acute Kidney Failure to Anemia, Brain Tumors, and Toxic Shock Syndrome.

 

Sometimes those lists are so fantastic, it’s hard to take them too seriously. Luckily, most of it would’ve shown up on an MRI and both of those came back clean. Even the EEG was normal! Brain is acting just fine!

Ah, well. Another appointment with a Neurologist (or, at least his nurse practitioner) on Thursday next week should help clear the air a bit. A girl can dream, right?

 

First Day of School!

I am starting this conversation on this blog, rather than my teaching blog because most of everything I had to deal with this morning was because I am the mother of two girls! Today was move up day for Peanut and Tadpole, which brings a lot of new and exciting things that I am glad to see (even if the thought of my Peanut going into Pre-K makes me sniffle!).

Tadpole is moving into a class that focuses on motor development a little more, now that she’s one. They will be attempting to get her to sleep on a cot, rather than in a crib (any prayers you want to send their way would be greatly appreciated, I’m sure!). They are working on getting her to eat table food and are encouraging her to walk more and crawl less (not that the last class didn’t do this, but the set up of the room is less crawl-friendly than the other room was).

Peanut moved up to Pre-K camp today, which is kind of an introduction to Pre-K. With budget cuts at the Hope level, the number of school days for Pre-K has been cut in all Hope funded Pre-K programs in Georgia. This means that, if the Pre-K program your child is entering is lottery funded (aka, Hope funded), there isn’t enough money in the budget to pay the teacher to work a full 190 schedule. This translates to a shorter year, either at the beginning or the end of the school year. For the local public school, they’ll be getting out of school early. For this program, they’ve split the difference and will start a bit late and end a bit early.

Funding aside, Pre-K Camp is getting them accustomed to life in the “big girl school” and the movement involved in going from building to building, as that campus is laid out a little differently than the preschool campus. There are new kids to get to know, new teachers and staff members to get to know. It’s a really great idea to help them get accustomed to the physical space before they’re tossed in and expected to follow rules they’ve never heard before or sit still at circle time. Besides, they had to do something with those kids for the week between the big move-up within the preschool campus and the beginning of Pre-K the following week! 😉

Throw in that this was my first day of school (I’m a public school teacher, just in case you didn’t already know that) at a new school in a grade level I haven’t taught in two years. Even better, there are new standards in Math & ELA. Oh, and I haven’t had a self-contained class in four years, having been blessed to teach in a departmentalized system that long. Not to go all teacher on you, but you can see why this is a big day for all of us, right?

So, let’s walk through my morning, shall we? I should warn you that NOTHING in my life is ever easy or simple, no matter how hard I bust my tail to make it that way. This illustration will help you understand that, I think…

somewhere around 2:30 AM- Peanut crawls into our bed, mumbling something about hearing a noise. I’m half asleep and don’t argue. I spend the next three hours being bumped, kicked, snuggled and used as alternate a headrest and a foot rest.

5:30 AM- Alarm goes off. I grant myself 1 slap of the snooze button (or, touch of the snooze button since I’ve given up on my alarm clock and use my phone, instead). I want to mention here that it is POURING down rain outside at this time.

5:40 AM- Alarm goes off again. I roll over onto my back, which isn’t easy since Peanut is laying sideways and her knees were against my lower back. Perserverance prevails, however and I am successful. I wait on my husband’s alarm to go off at 5:45 before I get up.

5:45 AM- get up, throw a toaster struedel in the toaster, feed the cat, lay out Peaunt’s breakfast and fill her milk up, make Tadpole’s cereal (making sure I mix in enough fruit to cover the taste of the cereal AND the vitamins I have to add to her cereal since her Iron was low when we went to the dr earlier this month). I sit and eat my cereal, indulging in a quick facebook skim as I horse down my toaster strudels. I go ahead and lay out Peanut’s clothes, since she is still snoozing away with her daddy in the “big bed,” and then duck into my closet to get dressed. I have to alter what I had planned on wearing to school today (a dress I bought this weekend expressly for this purpose!) because of the rain and go with a pants/jacket outfit, instead.

6:00 AM- Husband gets up, then asks if I’m ready for Peanut. After getting my “yeah, I guess,” he goes back to get her. She comes in all sleepy eyed, which never fails to make me smile. She rarely ever wakes up grouchy, which is a GREAT thing, in my opinion! I go in to wake up Tadpole, who NEVER wakes up happy, and take her crying little self to the table for her breakfast. Once she gets good and awake, she’s a much happier baby, so seeing her sister and daddy at the table munching breakfast cheers her up after a few bites of cereal. yay!

6:15 AM- My husband ushers Peanut to get dressed while he does the same. I finish feeding Tadpole, clean everything up, and take her into her room to get her changed and dressed, too. It’s become a bit of a wrestling match, so this is rarely as easy as it sounds, but I won’t bore you with the details too much today. Let’s just say, it’s not easy. Peanut gets dressed without a fuss, brushes her teeth and lets Daddy brush her hair.

6:35 AM- I put Tadpole in her swing with a bottle and turn on Chuggington (I know, she’s one and shouldn’t be watching TV, but there are lines that have to be drawn with a one year old who screams like she’s in physical pain when she’s left by herself. The TV distracts her from that enough that, sometimes, she’ll go back to sleep for a few minutes. Sue me!).  She settles in and watches the colors on the TV while she sucks on her milk and I go finish getting ready to go (ie, teeth, contacts, hair, makeup, shoes, jewelry). Husband leaves as soon as he gets Peanut’s hair and teeth brushed, so add smooches for Daddy in here, too. Peanut runs in while I am finishing my make-up howling because Tadpole has “made a stinky” and it smells so bad she can’t be in the same room with the poor baby. I take this with a grain of salt, since most of the time the stinkies aren’t emergency-level issues. <– that’s my first mistake.

6:55 AM- finish getting ready, fly into the kitchen to start the other part of getting ready to go. My goal is to get everyone walking out the door in twenty minutes from this point. Go on, start laughing. Peanut is still howling about stinkies, so I stop what I’m doing (BIG PET PEEVE) and decide to go change the baby’s diaper. The sight that greets my eyes is… gross. Let’s go with gross. Tadpole has had an accident, alright… ALL OVER THE SWING CUSHION! Apparently, she was upset by this, since she put her hand in it and then rubbed her eye and put her hand behind her head. Yes, folks, there is “stinky” rubbed into the kid’s eyebrow, hair and tucked behind her ear! I pick the poor screaming baby up (she doesn’t like stinkies in her diaper, I want to add) and take her to the changing table to start damage control, my carefully drafted schedule starting to flag in despair. I give the baby a mini-bath with a couple of wet wipes as I’m stripping her out of her smelly clothes and drop them in the hamper (I’ll deal with that later!). I get her changed and dressed again and then, knowing she’s going to scream bloody murder, I put her in her crib, where Peanut begins to serenade her and read her a book. Oh, how I wish some of that had worked! I run into the den with Lysol wipes to attack the swing. I finally get the worst of it cleaned up and unsnap the swing cover, but by this time, it’s 7:15 and I know I have NO time for things like, I don’t know… starting a load of laundry for this thing?

7:20 AM- I swing back into the kitchen (remember, the baby is SCREAMING like she’s in pain from her crib and Peanut is trying to read her a book loud enough so she’ll hear it— ie, she’s nearly screaming on top of her!) to make Peanut’s lunch and fill up a couple of bottles with milk so I can take them to school for Tadpole. It has, thankfully, stopped raining around this point.

7:40 AM- I back out of the driveway to take everyone off to their first day of school. Somehow, I remembered everything and I’m very proud of myself. Seriously.

7:50 AM- I am unloading Tadpole’s stuff in her new classroom and pull out the ziplock bag I put her bottles and sippy cup into. The NO LEAK sippy cup has leaked milk ALL OVER THE INSIDE OF THE BAG! I am SOOOO glad I decided at the last minute to drop those in a zip-lock instead of just throwing them in her backpack the way I usually do! I talk while I’m unpacking, since there’s a lot to tell the teacher and information to get from her, too! I get my smooches and usher Peanut out of the little kid class before she falls over herself in her eagerness to be in her new classroom. I run from there and drop Peanut off in her class, making sure I get my smooches, since she’s already start socializing with the people she knows in that class. I then walk back across the playground that connects these two buildings, sign Tadpole in and skirt out to my truck.

8:00 AM- I leave the girls’ schools and start off to my own building! PS- It started raining again when I was walking back out to my truck. LOL

That was only the first two hours and thirty minutes of my day! Is it any wonder I need some toothpicks to hold my eyelids open this evening? LOL

Get off the Princess train, people!

I have just about had enough of people bashing Disney and their Princesses. While I’m not a big “princess” kind of person, I believe their stories are more than just “let a man fix it” fluff. Anyone who actually PAYS ATTENTION to the movie, the book, the story, etc. will get that. Do you doubt me? Let’s examine a few, shall we?

How about we start with Cinderella? She’s the poster child of the Princesses, isn’t she? Let’s walk a mile in her glass slippers for a moment (have you ever tried walking in those, btw? OW!), shall we? Her mother dies when she’s a baby. Her father remarries a horrible woman, who hides her hideous nature until he dies not long after. Cinderella is forced to live with her Step-mother, who feels that she’s better than dear Cindy because of… something or other. Cinderella is forced to work as a servant in her own house, give up her bedroom and move into the servant’s wing (or, as Disney paints it, the attic). She dreams of a better life (I mean, c’mon, wouldn’t you?) and makes friends with talking mice. Who else was she going to be friends with? On comes a Royal Ball, and the wording of the invitation is such that Cinderella is eligible. She gets her hopes up only to have them dashed by the lovely step-mother in a fit of selfish priggery (I don’t even know if that’s a word, but it sounds good to me!). She meets a fairy, who grants her a wish. In this case, to be able to go to the ball she got her hopes up about in the first place. I want to point out here that AT NO TIME DOES SHE EVER SAY “I’M GOING TO GO MEET THE PRINCE AND LET HIM WHISK ME AWAY!”  She, in fact, WASN’T WAITING on Prince Charming. She was gifted with the opportunity to go spend a night being something other than what she’s forced into being every day and even had to be reminded to go to the ball because she was admiring the dress so much! It’s a stroke of luck that she meets the Prince, at all, much less catches his eye enough that he chases after her! I also want to point out here that she WASN’T EXPECTING THE PRINCE TO COME LOOKING FOR HER! Neither did she stop fighting against the oppression of the step-mother until there wasn’t anything the woman could do to stop her. However, people would rather bash her up and down because she happened to fall in love with a Prince, who married her! Damn her for being happy with a rich guy who is in love with her and for having a better life than us!

 

And Snow White? Yeah, she starts off singing “some day my Prince will come,” but it was probably something she was raised to believe. I also want to point out that she’s CLEANING THE STEPS OUTSIDE when we first meet her. If you traveled back in time, how many royal maids wouldn’t have been singing the same song? Of course, then she gets chased through the woods by a man who has orders to kill her and cut her heart out. She’s forced to hide with the dwarves, where she would’ve remained happily for years and years if her demeanor were any indication. How many times did she bemoan the lack of a prince while she was cleaning up the dwarves’ house? Um, none? How many times did she sit down and cry because the Queen wanted her dead? Um, I’m going with none there, too. She’s even nice to the old hag to hands her a poisoned apple, and provides us with a teachable moment for our kids—don’t talk to strangers and don’t take food from them, either!  The dwarves chase the wicked hag (aka the Queen) off a cliff in anger. I mean, seriously, people. Isn’t it a shame that she was such a nice person, so warm and loving, that 7 men chased a witch off a cliff because she’d hurt Snow White? I don’t know about you, but I’d love to inspire that level of loyalty and love in people! Now, let’s pause here and talk about the curse on the apple and the real reason why everyone hates Snow White. Let’s start with the fact that the “sleeping death” curse was going to let Snow sleep until she died or for all eternity (the details are fuzzy). The only thing that could break the curse was a kiss from her one true love. She didn’t dream that little loophole up! Why is she getting crucified for it? She’s just really lucky that said true love happened by! She didn’t care if he was a prince or a butcher! Aside from his fine clothes the first time she saw him, how in the heck was she supposed to know he was even a prince! He was a cute guy who was flirting with her! I don’t know about you, but when I was her age, I totally flirted back! So, damn her for finding someone who loved her enough to find her and break her curse! And double damn her for that someone being a Prince who could protect her and make sure it didn’t happen again!

Oh, and Ariel? That little fish out of water? Let’s get this story straight… she dreams of being human. She sees a hunky human (and again, like Snow White, I want to point out that she didn’t think he was cute because he was a prince. He was cute because… well, let’s face it. He was cute!) and like any sixteen year old with a crush wants to see him some more. She saves his life, too. Let’s not forget that part. After a fight with her Dad (those still happen in modern society, right?), she visits a witch who uses her for her own personal gain, makes her a deal and turns her into a human. Then proceeds to sabotage any chance Ariel might have of actually getting Eric to like her as much as she likes him. Oh, then enters Vanessa, who has to use a spell to steal Eric away. What does Ariel do? At first, she’s miserable and wishes him well. If he’s fallen in love with someone else, so be it, right? But as soon as Scuttle says he saw the sea witch in the mirror, she DIVES OFF THE DOCK TO SWIM AFTER THE BOAT! This doesn’t sound like a damsel in distress to me. She swims after the boat and climbs on board ready to fight to protect the man she loves. She even attacks Ursula because the witch is shooting at him! Yes, Eric steers a ship into the bad witch and kills her, saving Ariel and Triton (and the rest of the ocean, oddly enough). Someone tell me where it’s written that the guy can’t save the girl? It’s not like she was sitting around waiting for him to do it! She was dodging those bolts, too! Crazy psycho witch was trying to kill her! So, Big Daddy Triton realizes how much Ariel a) loves Eric and b) wants to be human, and uses his own magic to make her happy. Wait, let me get this straight… her Dad did what he had to to make his daughter happy. And that’s a bad thing? He didn’t kill anyone, rob anyone, hurt anyone or anything else. He gave up his daughter so she could be happy. And you’re giving her crap for being happier on land than in the water? Damn her for being happy, too! She didn’t even need pills!

I won’t even go after Tiana (who worked two jobs as a waitress to save up money to buy a restaurant, I want to point out) or Rapunzel (who was kidnapped from her family and locked in a tower for her ENTIRE LIFE). I will leave poor Jazmine alone (who do you think you’d be married to if YOUR parents had picked him for you? And, correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t she marry the street rat? She saved HIM, didn’t she?) and I will do my best to give poor Belle a break (she didn’t care that the guy who kidnapped her was a beast when she fell in love with him. I personally think it was the library, but I’m a geek that way).

I think the real problem, and the reason why diatribes against Disney’s Princesses have become a fad in this country, is because of one major social issue: We don’t want to talk to our kids. In fact, we don’t want to even spend time with them. How do you know? You sign them up for a sport EVERY SEASON that’s available… soccer, basketball, football and baseball all in one year! You sign them up for some activity after school EVERY DAY (ballet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, piano on Mondays and Wednesdays, and Gymnastics at least three times during the week on top of that). You don’t sit at the dinner table the way you were raised and talk about your day. You grab McDonald’s on the way home from practice and eat it in the car while navigating 6 PM traffic jams. Worse, yet, YOU TURN THE TV ON THE SECOND YOU GET HOME and it doesn’t go off until bedtime. And I don’t even mean their bedtime, I mean YOURS! Which means you’re not talking to your husband/wife/life partner, either! And you wonder why you’re on Prozac! You wonder why the divorce rate is through the roof. You wonder why your kid shows signs of ADHD. It’s not his behavior or his brain chemistry… it’s the fact that you’ve trained him that he’s got to be on the go every second of the day! So, when a teacher needs him to sit still and answer Math problems, HE CAN’T DO IT!

SO STOP IT! RIGHT NOW! Stop this never-ending “it’s not my fault, blame *enter someone else here*” mentality. Sometimes, it IS YOUR FAULT. If you’re not listening or talking to your kid (I didn’t say yelling or fussing), then yes, your kid being a fru-fru-waiting-on-someone-else-to-fix-it person is TOTALLY YOUR FAULT. Don’t blame Cinderella, she made it to the ball! Don’t blame Snow White, she had people who loved her enough to kick butt when she couldn’t! Don’t blame Ariel, she was willing to give up everything she knew and loved in order to chase her dream!

Go, make a casserole for dinner and sit down at the table. Ask your kid what their day was like. Ask them what they thought of that movie.

And for those of you in the gifted class here, READ TO/WITH YOUR KID before they go to bed! If you read them stories where the girl is happy kicking butt and taking names (I recommend Harry Potter for this, as Hermione does anything BUT wait around on a man to help her out!), then when they find adversity, they overcome it!

And even more important, GET TO KNOW YOUR KID! Life never hands us the same kid twice (boy don’t I know it!). Find out what your kid likes and don’t try to force them down a path they’re not happy about. Maybe they LIKE getting dressed up and having a tea party. Is that truly wrong? Isn’t etiquette important?  I, personally, LOVED getting dressed up for the prom and my wedding. I have never felt more beautiful than the day I got married. Is it horrible that I am glad I pulled it off for those pictures? Now, I will follow that up with the following: I hate girly movies, but I love Disney movies. I hate “chick flicks” and I LOVE action/adventure movies. I read a little bit of romance, but I snort at the lovey-dovey scenes. I prefer good fiction (Go on, show me a weak female character in the Eye of the World. I DARE YOU!).

I know you’re going to ask, so let me explain how this has worked in my house. I have a four year old daughter who will be turning five in a few months. She LOVES getting dressed up. The more the dress swirls around her when she turns, the more she loves it. She loves shopping and I firmly believe could put an outfit together better than I could dream of doing, all the way to the accessories. Her favorite color is pink. She loves playing in her little kitchen and brings me food to “try” all the time. I am both looking forward to and fearing the day the girl gets an easy-bake oven. She loves getting her nails painted, too! Oh, and horses, butterflies and unicorns, don’t forget those! Know what else she loves? Pirates and dragons. Her favorite movie is How to Train Your Dragon (or Megamind or Rio, depending on what’s on HBO tonight). She favorite TV Shows are Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Spongebob Squarepants (enter Mama groan here) and Lego Ninjago. She watched a version of the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles from start to finish the other night. She plays with Legos more than dolls and for Christmas the first thing on her list to Santa was a DRAGON she saw at Toys ‘R Us.  She loves reading and drawing pictures and stickers (oh, Light, the stickers!). In short, she is well rounded. Why? Because we read together. We eat dinner at the table together. We talk about her day and we watch and read things that aren’t just “for girls.” I paint her nails and she crawls on the floor like a lion. She sings at the top of her lungs (Lemonade Mouth is her favorite CD) and then chases her sister around on the floor making monster noises.

I have refused, since the day she was born, to allow the words “it’s for boys” in the house. If she wants a GI Joe, that’s fine with me! Barbie needs a real man to date, anyway! I have forced eating at the table as a family to happen EVERY NIGHT. I’m not perfect, we watch WAY too much TV and I’ll be the first to admit it. We don’t eat the healthiest stuff on the planet and she’s so picky, she hates most of what I cook, anyway. But she’s healthy. She’s happy. And if she wants to go see Brave, Ice Age III, or Madagascar III, I truly WON’T CARE which theater we walk in to. I know she’s on the way to being an awesome young lady, who is going to blow people away with the creativity and intelligence she displays. I am proud of her for trying T-Ball, even though it didn’t seem to be her thing. Heck, I’m proud of everything she does and I am the luckiest Mama on the planet for having her as my kid. It’s a gift I refuse to squander because I don’t have time or can’t be bothered. Does she like the Princess movies? Absolutely. Does she have Princess stuff all over her bedroom. You bet! Tinkerbell, too! Am I going to shield her from the “evil Disney Princess” crap. NO!

Let me leave you with this thought, 2,500 words, later. The problems we have in this country today are caused by closed-minded ignorance. It’s only through keeping the mind open and accepting people for who they are that we will ever live in a world that is safe for our children. It’s our responsibility, as parents, as citizens, and friends and neighbors, to love each other. No matter what color they are. No matter what religion they are. No matter who they want to marry, be it the man of their dreams, the woman of their dreams, the Prince who wanders in and steals their hearts, or the career they devote their life to. It’s our place to want them to be happy. Their happiness is why we brought them into this world, not their job or their boyfriend. Remember that.