Top Parenting Tips

Once upon a time, I started blogging on a different site. It was free for a limited time, I got a lot of spam comments, and then the whole site went up for sale. I don't think they exist anymore. Anyway, this was back before I could do wayyyyy technologically advanced things like copy and paste, so instead of transferring my old stuff over to blogger, I just deleted everything. Long story short, one of my most popular posts was something like this:


TOP TECHNIQUES TO PARENTING


1. "The Disappointed Look."  This is useful for when you need to pack your kid's bags and take them on a guilt trip. It only works for sensitive souls though. Actually, it doesn't really work at all, but we still use it frequently. You can partner it with a long, drawn out sigh. Maybe squeeze a few tears if you can, but don't try too hard. Kids can smell manipulation, just like they can smell fear. The only child of mine that The Disappointed Look works on, is Anna. Sometimes I shake my head sorrowfully to go along with it. She immediately starts yelling, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't really eat my green beans - look! I'm eating them now! I'm SORRY!"


2. "The Furry Hand of Discipline." This was is a misnomer. I think once Mike gently tried to explain to his little angels the term, the firm hand of discipline. It didn't go over well since they burst out laughing and shouted, "the furry hand! Not the furry hand! aaagh!"  To this day, we still call it the furry hand of discipline, and we picture it like Grover's blue hand coming out of the blue to strike fear and obedience into the hearts of little sinners everywhere.


Unless your kid has a fear of blue muppets though, this probably isn't the most effective threat. Which leads me to my next technique:


3. "The Idle Threat." This technique is as old as time. Eve probably used it on Cain and Abel, and look how - um, never mind. Bad example. But we can't seem to stop ourselves as parents with this one. We know we have to NOT let little Sue slide with whatever naughtiness she is currently involved in, but we really don't feel like full-on parenting at the moment. So we idly say something like, 


Stop these shenanigans immediately or I will cancel Christmas!


Sometimes it's not that scary or over the top. Sometimes it's something like,


Stop these shenanigans immediately or I will come in there, so help me, God!


Either way, we're lying and we're not canceling anything or getting off the couch.


4. "Talking Them Half to Death" or "Preaching." This is especially effective with teenagers. They will do anything, ANYTHING, to get you to stop preaching. Even delete bad songs off their Ipods. Even if Lil' Wayne is the only one who understands them.


I'll leave you with some great parenting quotes. If you know of any others, or have one yourself, leave em in the comments! (and admire my copying and pasting skillz, will ya?!)


A child is a curly dimpled lunatic. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson


No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.
Erma Bombeck


My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first one being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
Erma again


Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.
Phyllis Diller


The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found." 
 Calvin Trillin 


To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. 
Oscar Wilde


Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective. 
P. J. O'Rourke

Daffy

Why in the name of all that is beautiful and lovely, do I even try to attempt to homeschool in Spring??
Really.
I must be daft.
My children are possessed by chocolate covered, ants in their pants, wiggle worms of the worst variety. They do not know their own middle names at this point; why am I trying to coax fractions or geography out of them?

Here are a few samples of how my offspring's brains turn to porridge this week:

Cora (supposed to be getting dressed...at noon): I hate these socks! They're holey!

Anna: You don't like holey socks?

Cora: No, I hate everything holey!

Anna: MOMMMMMMM!  Cora hates Jesus!!!!!

Or take Gianni aka I-Do-All-My-Own-Stunts.  His injuries are outnumbered only by his knee jerk reaction to say either of these two things every three seconds:

Huh?

and/or

Why?

You could ask him to please not stick his head in the toilet especially when he hasn't flushed yet and he would literally say,
"Why?"

Well, son of mine, do you want the answers numerically or alphabetically? Shall we start with feces and how most SANE people don't want them to come in contact with their faces?
Huh?

Then there's Anna who decided to write her book report in Gnommish.
Yep.
I was forced to give it an A seeing as how it could be the best thing ever written. If you're a Gnome.

Then there's the time she feverishly searched high and low for Egypt.
On the map of America.

Anytime I tried to intervene, she shushed me and shouted,
"I can do it! Leave me alone! Don't help! I've almost got it!"

Oh, and let us not forget the fact that my sweet baby, Feces Face, is out front, stalking  birds with a plastic, sawed off shotgun. It's not really sawed off, it got stepped on, but I don't think the neighborhood watch will notice the difference. Or the plastic. Turn in at five to see us on the news. I'll be the one popping garlic stuffed olives in my mouth like Xanax.

So, I think I quit.

I bought those garlic stuffed olives yesterday, along with some hummus, some sharp white cheddar, and a bottle of something red. I figure I don't have to come out of my room for at least a week.

I'm A Veterinarian Cuz I Don't Eat Meat

"There's no food in your food."  - Joan Cusack in Say Anything.


"I think this horse has turned..." - O Brother, Where Art Thou?


This post is brought to you by Food, Inc, FoodMatters, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, several other books/magazines/documentaries, and my own conscience. Any resemblance to your eating habits is entirely coincidental. 


First of all, yes, this will be a slightly serious blog (scramble to get out now if you must, Chicken BobBabyPants) and no, I am not giving up meat and going vegan.  Although if the payoff is to have Shania Twain's rocking abs, then I may reconsider.


But I am going to try to change the way I eat and shop and cook and I need you guys, my little sweetie muckins, to keep me accountable and maybe even join me in my journey.


I don't mind eating meat.  I'm an animal lover as much as the next gal; I have my doggy, Mr. Milo Farts-A-Lot, and I've had horses and chickens and kitty cats, but I'm not hypocritical about killing and butchering and eating Bessie the bovine.  I love all meats really; besides the boring ol' chicken breast I've had goat, bear, bison, alligator, lamb, octopus, and I don't really turn up my nose at anything someone feels like cooking for me.  After all, I don't understand why us white bred (or is it bread? haha!) Americans will snarf down a hamburger or a chicken nugget but make gagging sounds over other animals.  Have you ever looked into a big old cow's brown eyes?  They're stinking adorable.  Chickens are snuggly little fuzzy cuties.  If you can eat that you have no business getting all appalled at munching on some lamb chops.  But that's not my point.  Where was I?  I have no idea.  Right.  


Meat.  


After living the last year in a group home where we ate only meat people gave us or the food bank sold us I have been more diligent than ever to get that @#$#%^ out of our system now.  We were eating frozen chicken that didn't come with labels.  Just huge unmarked fowls from some nameless factory.  Rolls of ground beef (or horse, who the heck knew).  Anyway, it gave me the creeps to eat it but eat it we did.  You put enough Rooster sauce on something and it's gonna be tasty.


Now that we're back to being able to shop the way I want, I still haven't made that leap to buying organic meat.  It's so unbelievably expensive!  No, wait.  It's not.  It's just that compared to the mass produced nastiness you can buy for a couple greenbacks a pound, it's expensive.  But have we really sunk so low, folks, that we would buy steak at the Dollar Tree?  


I'm not kidding.  They had it last week.


After learning that our chicken we buy is soaked in chlorine to get the bacteria to die and the beef is treated with ammonia for the same reason, I'm not sure I want to eat it again.  There's so much feces in our meat that I'd like to quit thinking about it now.  I mean, I'm a mom; I've dealt with poop on epic levels.  But I draw the line at eating it.  You do know that you have to cook meat to certain temperatures not because it's dangerous to eat the meat itself under cooked, but because you need to kill off all that lovely poop so you can eat it and not get sick.


I knew about soybeans and corn and GMOs.  I knew about organic dairy and I've been buying that for years.  I knew about free range chickens and I much prefer handing over my wrinkly dollars bills to a neighbor down the road for eggs.  But I've buried my head in the sand, so to speak, about the meat.


Now I'm not really talking about going vegetarian.  I love a medium rare steak.  I love chicken.  A meal without meat feels incomplete.  But I certainly can't afford to feed it to my family of five seven days a week.


So what Mike and I are proposing to the girls is to be meat free four days a week.  And on the three where we can have it, it'll be the good stuff.  This will be harder for them at lunch because I'm going to stop buying nuggets and fish sticks, which is their lunchtime staple food.  What about lunch meat?  I'm gonna assume that mechanically separated animal parts smooshed back together probably isn't super natural.  Who knows how many different turkeys are smashed into one paper thin slice?  We can't have peanut butter remember, due to G's allergies.  No one cares for the almond stuff.  There may be a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches in the Williams' future.  Ideas, please?


Is it really so bad?  Well, you could ask the workers who work at these plants (only 13 in the nation and they control the whole industry.  Fifty years ago there were thousands.  Isn't that weird?  How powerful are they?) but most are illegal and aren't going to talk to you. 


Sometimes I think that a hundred years from now, scientists are really going to shake their goatee-d heads and mutter about our stupidity.  Why are we questioning the onslaught of cancers and autism and ADD and diabetes and all of these maladies that are so on the rise, it's disgusting?  I can picture them saying as they nibble on a real tomato and not the kind that's been unnaturally ripened with methane gasses, "can't believe our ancestors couldn't figure out they were killing themselves...raising money for cures while they consumed huge quantities of pesticides, bleaches, GMOs, antibiotics...what a bunch of morons..."


Am I overreacting?  What do you think?  Does Tyson deserve our respect as long as their chickens are pumped full of so much food their legs can't support them and they've never seen daylight?  I have a soft spot for chickies...my sister had a brood as a kid and they all had names.  She also had a chicken hat that she wore in public just to humiliate me but that's another story for another day.


So what do you think?  Should Mike take up hunting?  Is organic milk not enough, should we go to raw?  Can we do this pseudo vegetarianism?  Will I lose weight?  Will I become an annoying person who refuses to eat at other people's houses and has weird restrictions that really make everyone want to smack me?  Will I have to wear patterned tights and put my four year old in a sling and only shop at fair trade markets?  Will I have to brew my own beer and go to story time and march in protests?  Will I start looking at clothing tags next?  I don't look good in patterned tights and Birkenstocks...  Will I start hanging out with the recyclers?  Cuz I stink at recycling and I think they'll vote me off the island eventually.  I have zero desire to own an electric car.  Can a liberal eater still vote Republican?   


Who's with me?


Criminy, I really want a flippin' hamburger now.   Get it?  Flippin' burgers??  HAHAHA!

Subscribing

Let's try something new and exciting!

I won't try to talk you into being a follower again.

I know how you feel about Kool-aid.

Never mind that seeing the cute little faces over there piled up and growing gives me a cheap thrill.

But you can skip that part if you're so inclined.

Just scroll down far enough to Subscribe To Posts and sign up for that.

It'll be our little secret.  Actually, I don't think even I will know who does it.  But it will save me from sending out emails which will save me like, two minutes a week.  Two minutes that could be nibbling Lindt Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt.  Two minutes that could be spent showering.  Or unpacking a box.  Or reading a book.  Or writing a book.

So then you'll get an email automatically.  I think.  I subscribe to a couple blogs and that's how I get notified.  And it's ever so nice to have them delivered to your inbox instead of Mrs Petunia Smith who wants to notify you of your African lottery winnings and wants to know where to deposit your millions.  Or Emma Clark who wants to tell you that she was surfing the internet like she always does when she found this amazing way to make a fortune by doing nothing.  Or Mr. Satisfaction who wants to give you a good deal on magic winkie pills.

Also, since Facebook is all funky and weird and annoying, my feed may not post on your page any longer and so Networked Blogs isn't as convenient as it used to be.

Thus the fact that my last several posts have very few, if any comments.  And you know how that makes me feel!

Alone.
Used.
Abandoned.
Lonely.
Testy.
Grumpy.
In need of chocolate.

So, doooooooooooooooooo ittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Let me have it!

I wanted to be a writer ever since I was pretty small.  I also wanted to be an archaeologist, a dog kennel owner, a horse trainer, a ballerina, a dance teacher, and a cartoonist for Disney, but  mainly, a writer.  I wrote all the time, filling up spiral notebooks with stories about talking dogs (1986-89) and silly detective adventures (1989-1991) and dark and gloomy poetry (1992-1994).  When I was 16, I completed my first book (ahem, make that my only book).  It sits in my trunk/hope chest.  When I started this blog a couple years ago, it was really the first writing I had done in a long time, and it was refreshing, to say the least.  And my fragile artist's ego was boosted by the kind feedback, I won't deny it.  Since then, I've reverted back to the days of daydreaming plot lines, characters, and stories, but I have yet to write them.  The reasons are as follows, and in no particular order:

1.  I have kids.  Through the years it may have been only one or two, perhaps three plus a couple dogs, or a slew of small humans.  But whether it's one or nine, it sometimes feels like twenty.

2.  I have a husband.  He likes to eat.  And have my attention.  And he needs me to wash his underpants.

3.  I can't get too far behind on my television shows.  If I do, I forget things.  And I get cranky, because sometimes I really just need a shiny box showing someone elses life for a bit, to stare at while I eat Cheezits.

4.  My dog needs his ears scratched on a regular basis or he gets anxious.  When he gets anxious, he gets gassy.

5.  I have to make things like French onion soup, and curried chicken, and oatmeal bread.  No, really, I HAVE to.  Otherwise I get anxious.  And when I get anxious, I get - oh, never mind.

6.  I have to peer into my son's ear canal and drop medicine in.  Cause he's my Pooky.

7.  I have to go to staff meetings.

8.  I have to throw snow balls at Cora.

9.  I have to wash underpants.

10.  I have to drink coffee with half and half.

11.  I have to finish "Eats, Shoots and Leaves."

12.  I have to edjoomakate my chitlins.

13.  I have to snuggle.

14.  I have to quote movies.  This takes more time and energy than one might think.

15.  I have to curse the printer.

16.  I have to play with Moose, all the while attempting to inject a little, oh I don't know, plot line into his scenarios, but finally just giving in to his world of shoot-the-bad-guys-then-bring-them-back-to-life-in-order-to-kill-them-again.

But I've decided if I let one thing go, I could, possible, just maybe, I'm sayin' perhaps, dedicate a little time to take a tiny plunge (a toe in the water, so to speak) by submitting articles to magazines.  If I'm rejected, hey, it'll be a great blog and we can all laugh at my nuttiness together.  Cuz we're in this together, don't you know?  We are.

So, here's what I need from you, and by "you," I am referring to all four of you readers who faithfully leave comments, the fifty something followers I am not sure are still out there, and all the rest of you incognito, plain clothed, Grouch Marx mustache wearin', lurkers, who tell me all the time they read this but refuse to make their presence known (are you hiding from The Man?  Witness Protection?  On the run from the FBI?  Are YOU the FBI?):

Leave me a comment and let me know which blog post is your favorite and which one could be transformed into magazine article, and which magazine you are thinking of.  If you have a fav homeschooling magazine, let me know what types of writings are published within.  If your favorite grocery store impulse buy is Good Housekeeping, let me know what you think they need.  Because I keep house.  And I'm good at it, if you consider washed underpants the definition of good.  And if you have always wanted me to write about something specific, like serving cheese burgers in the bathtub, or how to reuse paper towels, let me know, and I will oblidge.  Unless it's an article about car mechanics, because I will politely decline.  And if you've ever written a good query letter, give me some pointers!  Or, you know, feel free to write one for me.  Oh, and evidently, I have really high security on this (which makes me think men in black are gonna scale down the outside of your house if you try to leave a comment, Mission Impossible style, but I think I could be wrong), so you may have to REALLY prove your love by hitting the submit button several times.  Otherwise, you'll be like Heather B, who says, "But I comment all the time!" and then I'm like, "Uh, no you don't," and she's like, "Waaa?" and so on and so forth.

If you are reading this, this means YOU.  If I get one comment from someone and it says "good luck to you, weirdo," my self esteem will be completely and utterly damaged.  And you don't want to see what that looks like.  It involves sweatpants and Cheezits, and it's not for the faint of heart.

Post Script

I TELL YOU ROTTEN READERS I HIT A DEER AND NO ONE BOTHERS TO COMMENT AND MAKE SURE I'M ALIVE???????

HELLO?

ANYONE THERE?

I'M GOING ON A BLOGGING STRIKE UNTIL I GET SOME LOVE AND AFFECTION AND SOME HEARTFELT SYMPATHY AND CONCERN FOR MY WELLBEING.

HUMPH.
HUMBUG.

AND I'M FINE, THANKS FOR ASKING, YOU SLUGS.

FEELING IGNORED HERE IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELL!!  (AND IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELL, THAT'S WHY I USED TWO EXCLAMATION POINTS.  AND THE CAPS LOCK IS ON.  FOR EMPHASIS).

Moose balancing my checkbook for me.  And looking cuter than a button in Mommy's glasses.

                        You can't see him very well, but this is the latest capture of the amphibian sort.

If you ask Moose what the frog's name is, here is what he'll tell you:

"His name is Me!"

Confused?  So were his parents.

"His name is Me?"

"NOO! His name is ME!"

"His name is You?"

"No, no, no! His name is MEEEEEE!"

"His name is Gianni?"

"Yes, dat's right!"

So Gianni (the frog) got carried around by Gianni (the boy) all day today.  Carried.  Shook.  Dropped.  Squeezed.  Loved.  Cuddled.  Kissed. 

Gianni (the boy) is almost ready for his first haircut.  I know, I know, almost three years old and he just now has enough hair to trim.  It's starting to curl in his ears.  But I'm afraid if I cut it, I'll regret it.  What if it makes him look older?  Ack! My hormones can't handle that.  I'm already having issues with not having a baby in the house anymore.  I'm secretly hoping my sister is pregnant with twins and she'll give me one (she's generous like that.  Why, just the other day she offered to mail me one of her already born ones!) 

Speaking of haircuts, I got my semi-annual one done this week.  Every hair stylist always says the same thing,

'Wowwwww...it's been a while, huh?'

Then they finger through my locks looking bemused.  

I have never liked my hair and whenever it's rebelliously curly I want it straight.  Whenever, for reasons unknown to me, it's straight, I wish for my curls.  Usually it's somewhere in between with a good dose of frizz thrown in to keep me humble.  I bought new hairspray today, guaranteed to weather even rain (get it? weather? HA!) and all sorts of evil humidity Michigan can dish out.  We'll see.  I won't hold out for miracles (Heidi Klum-ish) but I would prefer a step above Side Show Bob. 

In case you hadn't noticed, I changed the blog look again.  No more serial killer house...just a lovely orange to go with lovely autumn.  The trees here in Michigan I have to say, are out of this world.  I passed a purple tree the other day!  A purple tree!  I love, love, love it.  And I don't even like purple; it's my least favorite color.  But on trees?  Fantabulous.  Autumn rolls out a whole new list of annual movies for me: 

One True Thing.  This movie is one I've watched every year for several years with my best girlfriends.  We pop popcorn (which I don't eat, blech), sip tea or wine, braid each other's hair, and sob over Meryl Streep dying of cancer.  Every year I sob harder.  I can't help it, that woman is good.  And William Hurt is amazing in that movie. 

Hocus Pocus.  The girl's favorite Halloween movie. 

Arsenic and Old Lace.  Definitely in my top five favorite flicks ever.  I heart Cary Grant.  He is so funny in this, I never fail to crack up every year.  Even though it's an old black and white movie with no CGI or Disney channel pop princesses, my kids love this movie too.  It is hilariously funny and if you haven't seen it you really really should.

What are your favorite fall movies?

I refuse to believe no one else categorizes their movies according to seasons. 

Hello?

update

It's official and the bags are packed! Check out our new employment/digs here:

http://www.baptistchildrenshome.org/

After you're done checking that out, come back and show me some love and support. I am feeling needy. Here's how you leave a comment and tell me you still love me:

scroll down to the end of a post...

...see where it says "comments?"

...lately it says "0 comments?"

...see how insecure and unloved that makes me?

...click on it...

...write me something, anything...

...poetry would be swell...

...tell me you're still reading so I don't feel like a dork writing in my diary...

...obey the word verification thingy...

...you can do it...

...sign in...

...creating a google account is easy - it's just your email and password...no one else will see that part...or you can use the 'open url...'which I do believe is simply your email which everyone can see...but who cares, cuz like, 4 people read this anyway...

...now, publish...

...and imagine my happy smile.

If you want to make me postively giddy with excitement, go to the right of the blog and click on to be a kool-aid drinker, er, I mean, follower. If you don't, I pretty much have terrible photos of all of you just about, so I can make my own with your names on them. Just sayin'.

happy 1 year anniversary to 3kidadventures

I must have offended people with that last post of my innocent curtain climbers expedition to a beer factory (as is proven by the sad lack of comments), so I will begin this post by saying, there have been absolutely no questionable activities of that particular sort this week here at three kid adventures. No field trips to Ciggarettes R Us, no tatoo parlors, no BYOB potlucks. We did return to said beer factory though, but hey, the clydesdales were out again, and Cora wanted to try out her theory of whether or not one could be shop lifted (that's a no can do, crackerjack). And while I am trying not to complain, I will anyway. If you don't comment sometimes, I don't know if you're reading, and if you're not reading, then why am I writing, and if I'm not writing than I will be forced to do things like clean my house and unload the dishwasher and pay bills and homeschool my kids. And I don't need that kind of stress. And I also don't need to return to my site a sad, sad 15 times a day, hitting the "refresh" button in the hopes that someone loves me enough to say hullo. And besides, it's sort of my blogging anniversary and I expect lots of love.


So after almost a decade of parenting here, I think I am just about qualified to speak "child," so I thought I would share with you my translations, which I do believe are pretty universal to kid-dom:




Mom: No.
Child's translation: Ask again and again, much louder.





Mom: Maybe.
Child's translation: Never in a million years, plus twenty.





Mom: We will talk about this when we get home.
Child's translation: You are going to get it when we get home.





Mom: You get what you get and you don't throw a fit.
Child's translation: You're eating spinach for dinner.





Mom: Go clean your room.
Child's translation: Go clean your room while your siblings get to eat ice cream, ride ponies, and relax.




Mom: Next time.
Child's translation: 5,000 years from now.





Mom: Because I said so.
Child's translation: Because I don't actually have a good reason for making you do this.





Mom: Sit still.
Child's translation: You're about to be bored out of your gourd.






Mom: When I was a kid...
Child's translation: yadda yadda yadda.







Hope this helps you understand the little monkeys; I know the veil has been lifted from my eyes.
My little Luigi is about to turn 2 here very soon, and I am NOT planning a party, and NOT buying him a gift, and NOT lighting candles for him to blow out, because I am NOT ready for this. The little imp has been busy, busy, busy lately. He manages to do the naughtiest things, while being so incredibly adorable, that the urge to duct tape him to a chair only overcomes me a scant few times a day. The other day I was having a sweet moment with him and said softly and with tears in my eyes,
'Are you Mama's boy?'
He kicked me in the shin and ran off shouting, 'Gwamma! Papa!' which I assume meant he was not my boy, but rather his Gwamma and Papa's boy. They can have him, as I am now icing my sore shin.
I think this may be the difference between boys and girls (at least the stereotypical ones): boys are rawther prone to violence and working things out with their fists and steel-toed boots, and girls prefer the talking you to death approach. Girls are sneaky. They go for your emotional well being when they get even, boys just get even and then they're done. Another difference between the sexes is illustrated perfectly by men being able to rib each other about their weight or gray hair or clothes. Mike and his friends are always insulting each other, and get this: they're still friends. Now I don't think of myself as overly sensitive by any stretch of the imagination, but if one of you poke my muffin top and make the Pillsbury Dough Boy noise, I will come after you like a spider monkey. And THEN I will go after your emotional well being.

post script

I'm sorry that several of you have tried posting comments (all half dozen of my loyal readers anyway!). I would love to tell you why some of you can and some of you can't and some of you can some of the time but not all time, but I really don't know the answer. But thank you for the kind emails - I love hearing from you in any way, shape or form! So I tweaked something from my end, maybe tweak something in your settings and it may work. ;)