Thursday, June 23, 2011
A few changes
I recently changed the focus of this blog, from general ranting to my other pastimes: running, reading (possibly writing) Fanfiction, and anything else that comes to mind. I also have a Twitter (@runnerchickff) where I will be commenting on whatever strikes my fancy.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Other people's kids
Since I am trying to become an educator, I do my best to have patience with all children that I come into contact with.
Even MY kids.
I try to see the best in all of them, and treat them accordingly.
That being said, there are some kids that I'd like to smack upside the head. Especially the one's who are jerks to my kids.
Not that my kids are angels all the time. Oh no, I have lost track of the amount of times that one or more of my kids have done something cringe-worthy or made me just /facepalm.
And before I plunge headlong into this rant, let me first say that I know part of this is due to the fact that I don't know other people's kids as well as they do, so therefore their behavior could be completely normal for them, or due to some other unknown factor.
The tween diva is in 4th grade. While I know things have changed since "my day" in elementary school, I was wholly unprepared for the selfishness, the cliquishness, the pettiness, and the all out "Mean Girls" attitude that I have seen from some of the kids whom she's gone to school with over the last 4 1/2 years.
She's been in two different schools in the same town. She knew almost next to no one from preschool who went to her 1st school. She made a few friends, but she's had the unfortunate honor of losing friends at the end of every year, due to them moving, just switching schools, or HER switching schools. As such, finding new friends has been difficult. Before this year, I could count on one hand the amount of times she'd been invited to playdates, parties and sleepovers - in 3 years. Between K -2 grade, she came home more often than not, crying over how someone wasn't her friend anymore or how someone said something really mean to her. Now, she also has quite a few social issues. She's socially immature for her age, and as such, can take things to the extreme. But, even I can't explain some of these things away with that issue.
As her current teacher put it, my daughter is just "on a different wavelength" than most of the other kids her age. She has speech, reading, writing, and social issues. But, she's not cognitively impaired. She has the dubious honor of being one of the first kids in her class to need a bra, and she's also one of the tallest kids in her class. Her shoe size is just two 1/2 sizes away from my own. I said she was 10, right? Yeah, you can see how this might become a problem.
With the exception of a few kids, she's treated like a virtual pariah by the rest of the entire grade. She'll come home and tell me about how some kid on the bus told her than he didn't want her sitting by him because she was weird. She was told the other day that using her finger to help her keep her place while she was reading was dumb, and it was bugging someone. She's been told (at a birthday party no less) that the reason why a particular girl was being mean was because "I never told you I liked you, so why should I be nice to you."
WTH??? Where are these kids getting their lack of social graces?? I know that kids have differences in likes/dislikes etc., and I know that every kid is not going to get along with everyone else. I've tried to explain this to her, and she understands that even though someone isn't her best friend, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with her.
Of course, try getting a sobbing 10 year old to grasp this when she's being called names for still liking Disney Princesses.
And the worst part is, while I want my child to grow up and mature like the rest of her peers, I don't want it to be because of peer pressure. It's a fine line parents walk when it comes to what they expose their children to: do we try to keep them at a lower level of maturity in order to avoid the questions we're not sure we want to address? Or do we assume that eventually they'll grow up so why not treat them as such now?
Since the tween is our oldest, I have no model to look back to, to make sure I'm doing the right thing. Both hubs & I are firstborn, and as such we were also our parents' guinea pigs. There are many times when I feel like I've failed her, in many different areas.
And the idiocy of other people's kids aren't helping matters.
Even MY kids.
I try to see the best in all of them, and treat them accordingly.
That being said, there are some kids that I'd like to smack upside the head. Especially the one's who are jerks to my kids.
Not that my kids are angels all the time. Oh no, I have lost track of the amount of times that one or more of my kids have done something cringe-worthy or made me just /facepalm.
And before I plunge headlong into this rant, let me first say that I know part of this is due to the fact that I don't know other people's kids as well as they do, so therefore their behavior could be completely normal for them, or due to some other unknown factor.
The tween diva is in 4th grade. While I know things have changed since "my day" in elementary school, I was wholly unprepared for the selfishness, the cliquishness, the pettiness, and the all out "Mean Girls" attitude that I have seen from some of the kids whom she's gone to school with over the last 4 1/2 years.
She's been in two different schools in the same town. She knew almost next to no one from preschool who went to her 1st school. She made a few friends, but she's had the unfortunate honor of losing friends at the end of every year, due to them moving, just switching schools, or HER switching schools. As such, finding new friends has been difficult. Before this year, I could count on one hand the amount of times she'd been invited to playdates, parties and sleepovers - in 3 years. Between K -2 grade, she came home more often than not, crying over how someone wasn't her friend anymore or how someone said something really mean to her. Now, she also has quite a few social issues. She's socially immature for her age, and as such, can take things to the extreme. But, even I can't explain some of these things away with that issue.
As her current teacher put it, my daughter is just "on a different wavelength" than most of the other kids her age. She has speech, reading, writing, and social issues. But, she's not cognitively impaired. She has the dubious honor of being one of the first kids in her class to need a bra, and she's also one of the tallest kids in her class. Her shoe size is just two 1/2 sizes away from my own. I said she was 10, right? Yeah, you can see how this might become a problem.
With the exception of a few kids, she's treated like a virtual pariah by the rest of the entire grade. She'll come home and tell me about how some kid on the bus told her than he didn't want her sitting by him because she was weird. She was told the other day that using her finger to help her keep her place while she was reading was dumb, and it was bugging someone. She's been told (at a birthday party no less) that the reason why a particular girl was being mean was because "I never told you I liked you, so why should I be nice to you."
WTH??? Where are these kids getting their lack of social graces?? I know that kids have differences in likes/dislikes etc., and I know that every kid is not going to get along with everyone else. I've tried to explain this to her, and she understands that even though someone isn't her best friend, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with her.
Of course, try getting a sobbing 10 year old to grasp this when she's being called names for still liking Disney Princesses.
And the worst part is, while I want my child to grow up and mature like the rest of her peers, I don't want it to be because of peer pressure. It's a fine line parents walk when it comes to what they expose their children to: do we try to keep them at a lower level of maturity in order to avoid the questions we're not sure we want to address? Or do we assume that eventually they'll grow up so why not treat them as such now?
Since the tween is our oldest, I have no model to look back to, to make sure I'm doing the right thing. Both hubs & I are firstborn, and as such we were also our parents' guinea pigs. There are many times when I feel like I've failed her, in many different areas.
And the idiocy of other people's kids aren't helping matters.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Like nails on a chalkboard
I consider myself to be a pretty tolerant person. I don't hate any one group of people, or really any one group of anything. I may not love it, or understand it, but I don't hate it.
With the exception of the sound of people chewing food. Loudly.
I love most things about my husband. Even the things that I don't particularly favor, I can handle, because I love him. And I KNOW there are things about me that drive him up the wall. That's what a relationship is about: finding a balance.
That being said, there are times when I could just scream at him,"Will you PLEASE stop chewing your food like a g*ddamn cow???"
People are loud and noisy. It's just part of being a walking, talking, sentient being. We fart, we burp, we laugh, we cough, we cry, we blow raspberries on other people's stomachs. Some of these noises are pleasant, some are not, but necessary so we don't explode or die from our lungs filling up with phlegm.
So, when I'm sitting at the table, trying to read or study or even surf the Internet, and it's quiet..and peaceful..and my husband sits down with a bowl of something, and proceeds to chew it so loudly, I'm surprised our sleeping children aren't awakened by the jackhammering that his mouth is doing, needless to say I can get a little irritated.
And he wonders why I always have my earbuds in.
It's not like my ears are that sensitive or that he's extremely loud. I think it's just one of those things where it REALLY bugs me. Like bad drivers, or whiny children.
Come to think of it, a lot of shit bugs me.
With the exception of the sound of people chewing food. Loudly.
I love most things about my husband. Even the things that I don't particularly favor, I can handle, because I love him. And I KNOW there are things about me that drive him up the wall. That's what a relationship is about: finding a balance.
That being said, there are times when I could just scream at him,"Will you PLEASE stop chewing your food like a g*ddamn cow???"
People are loud and noisy. It's just part of being a walking, talking, sentient being. We fart, we burp, we laugh, we cough, we cry, we blow raspberries on other people's stomachs. Some of these noises are pleasant, some are not, but necessary so we don't explode or die from our lungs filling up with phlegm.
So, when I'm sitting at the table, trying to read or study or even surf the Internet, and it's quiet..and peaceful..and my husband sits down with a bowl of something, and proceeds to chew it so loudly, I'm surprised our sleeping children aren't awakened by the jackhammering that his mouth is doing, needless to say I can get a little irritated.
And he wonders why I always have my earbuds in.
It's not like my ears are that sensitive or that he's extremely loud. I think it's just one of those things where it REALLY bugs me. Like bad drivers, or whiny children.
Come to think of it, a lot of shit bugs me.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Miss me? Yeah I thought not.
So...yeah.
It's been awhile.
I'm not even going to make up some wonderful, fantastic excuse. Cause I don't have one.
Suffice it to say, the last 6 months were abnormally stressful.
And let's leave it at that.
Things are better now...ish. I'm still very ready to yank all my hair out due to the amount of things I have on my plate, which are on the verge of falling off and rolling under the couch, never to be seen again. But, at least now it's only one of us who's doin' the yanking, instead of two.
I'm now the only one in college, as the hubby gradumacated last semester. But, I'm also now a full-time student, along with working more than part-time. And our kiddos still have things to do, places to be, etc.
To be honest, I don't know if I even need to continue this blog, as I doubt anyone reads it. But, I will most likely keep chuggin' along.
Because this is cheaper than therapy.
It's been awhile.
I'm not even going to make up some wonderful, fantastic excuse. Cause I don't have one.
Suffice it to say, the last 6 months were abnormally stressful.
And let's leave it at that.
Things are better now...ish. I'm still very ready to yank all my hair out due to the amount of things I have on my plate, which are on the verge of falling off and rolling under the couch, never to be seen again. But, at least now it's only one of us who's doin' the yanking, instead of two.
I'm now the only one in college, as the hubby gradumacated last semester. But, I'm also now a full-time student, along with working more than part-time. And our kiddos still have things to do, places to be, etc.
To be honest, I don't know if I even need to continue this blog, as I doubt anyone reads it. But, I will most likely keep chuggin' along.
Because this is cheaper than therapy.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Do I smell bad?
Friends.
I used to have them.
But, somewhere along the journey of marriage, 3 kids & moving cross country, they seem to have disappeared.
I have people I know pretty well, acquaintances, co-workers I get along with, classmates I see outside of the classroom and wave to.
But, friends? Not so much.
I can count on 1 hand the number of people I can say are my honest-to-goodness friends.
And none of them live in this state.
One I haven't seen since my mom's funeral, 2 years ago. The other I see once, maybe twice a year.
I suppose, if we had decided to stay in the po-dunk little town we went to high school in, like apparently everyone else we went to school with did, maybe I'd have some people to hang out with every once in awhile.
Normally this kind of shit doesn't bother me, because, well, I really have no life. I get up, I cook, I wipe butts, I clean, I go to bed. That's the gist of my day. But everyone once in awhile, I get a bug up my ass, something stuck in my craw, sand in my vagina, whatever phrase you want to use, and I get a tad bit pissed over the situation.
Like tonight. The hubs is out at a bar, with a co-worker. He's been gone for 4 hours. He'll likely be gone for another. Once again, I dealt with the end of dinner, and the whole bedtime routine with two extremely cranky children all by myself. He went out earlier this week, and did the same thing. He goes out every week for dinner & drinks with his geek buddies.
I have no one to go out with, no one to do anything with.
And this is not for lack of trying. But, something that I've come to notice about small towns is, once someone has a circle of friends, it seems almost impossible to break into it. We've lived here for almost 6 years. I've never had a girl's night out, my kids rarely are invited for playdates (although I have hosted quite a few), and the few people I can call the closest thing to a friend have almost NOTHING in common with me. They don't like the same music or movies, or they have completely different hobbies.
Not that I'm judgmental in any way. I'm open to pretty much everything. We're close friends with a couple who are baby-wearing, organic food buyin', compost makin', God-fearin' Conservative hippies. We're also close friends with a guy who is a gay Atheist. Like I said, completely not judgmental. It takes all kinds, and far be it for me say only certain types of people can be my friend.
Then, to add insult to the friend-less injury, I couldn't even find a damn friend to go with me to a concert in October.
Seriously??
I asked everyone I knew, no one was interest. It's not like I asked them to go to the opening of a porn movie. It's a damn concert. Are my interests and tastes THAT extreme that no one would even consider it? I was even willing to buy the damn ticket for them. The hubs was willing to go, but the ticket cost a hell of a lot less than a sitter for 6 hours, so we decided he would stay home and watch the kids.
The hubs has tried to help me. He's tried SO hard to help me. Trying to get me and the wives of his co-workers together, hoping that we'll be friends. I've tried, but nothing sticks. It doesn't help that I'm a 30-something college student, who is constantly surrounded by 18-23 year olds. Like they WANT a friend who has kids & a mortgage. No, they'd rather go out every weekend and get completely trashed like any good red-blooded American college student. I'm too old for the college kids, and too young for the wives of my husband's peers. I'm stuck in the damn middle. It sucks, big time.
I think the problem is, I'm not young & stupid enough to try and mold myself to whatever people want me to be. Yeah, I'm married and have kids, but I still listen to loud music. I can cook a mean chile verde and damn I make good zucchini bread, but I love video games (me & our RockBand have a standing engagement). I'm too old for the skinny jeans but not quite ready for the elastic waist polyester knit pants.
I'm in the no-man's land of womanhood.
I used to have them.
But, somewhere along the journey of marriage, 3 kids & moving cross country, they seem to have disappeared.
I have people I know pretty well, acquaintances, co-workers I get along with, classmates I see outside of the classroom and wave to.
But, friends? Not so much.
I can count on 1 hand the number of people I can say are my honest-to-goodness friends.
And none of them live in this state.
One I haven't seen since my mom's funeral, 2 years ago. The other I see once, maybe twice a year.
I suppose, if we had decided to stay in the po-dunk little town we went to high school in, like apparently everyone else we went to school with did, maybe I'd have some people to hang out with every once in awhile.
Normally this kind of shit doesn't bother me, because, well, I really have no life. I get up, I cook, I wipe butts, I clean, I go to bed. That's the gist of my day. But everyone once in awhile, I get a bug up my ass, something stuck in my craw, sand in my vagina, whatever phrase you want to use, and I get a tad bit pissed over the situation.
Like tonight. The hubs is out at a bar, with a co-worker. He's been gone for 4 hours. He'll likely be gone for another. Once again, I dealt with the end of dinner, and the whole bedtime routine with two extremely cranky children all by myself. He went out earlier this week, and did the same thing. He goes out every week for dinner & drinks with his geek buddies.
I have no one to go out with, no one to do anything with.
And this is not for lack of trying. But, something that I've come to notice about small towns is, once someone has a circle of friends, it seems almost impossible to break into it. We've lived here for almost 6 years. I've never had a girl's night out, my kids rarely are invited for playdates (although I have hosted quite a few), and the few people I can call the closest thing to a friend have almost NOTHING in common with me. They don't like the same music or movies, or they have completely different hobbies.
Not that I'm judgmental in any way. I'm open to pretty much everything. We're close friends with a couple who are baby-wearing, organic food buyin', compost makin', God-fearin' Conservative hippies. We're also close friends with a guy who is a gay Atheist. Like I said, completely not judgmental. It takes all kinds, and far be it for me say only certain types of people can be my friend.
Then, to add insult to the friend-less injury, I couldn't even find a damn friend to go with me to a concert in October.
Seriously??
I asked everyone I knew, no one was interest. It's not like I asked them to go to the opening of a porn movie. It's a damn concert. Are my interests and tastes THAT extreme that no one would even consider it? I was even willing to buy the damn ticket for them. The hubs was willing to go, but the ticket cost a hell of a lot less than a sitter for 6 hours, so we decided he would stay home and watch the kids.
The hubs has tried to help me. He's tried SO hard to help me. Trying to get me and the wives of his co-workers together, hoping that we'll be friends. I've tried, but nothing sticks. It doesn't help that I'm a 30-something college student, who is constantly surrounded by 18-23 year olds. Like they WANT a friend who has kids & a mortgage. No, they'd rather go out every weekend and get completely trashed like any good red-blooded American college student. I'm too old for the college kids, and too young for the wives of my husband's peers. I'm stuck in the damn middle. It sucks, big time.
I think the problem is, I'm not young & stupid enough to try and mold myself to whatever people want me to be. Yeah, I'm married and have kids, but I still listen to loud music. I can cook a mean chile verde and damn I make good zucchini bread, but I love video games (me & our RockBand have a standing engagement). I'm too old for the skinny jeans but not quite ready for the elastic waist polyester knit pants.
I'm in the no-man's land of womanhood.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
What the hell???
Got word today that the daycare provider I've been using for the last year and a half no longer has room for my kid.
WTF???
Did I mention I start classes and work again on Monday? Pardon me while I go back to my padded room.
WTF???
Did I mention I start classes and work again on Monday? Pardon me while I go back to my padded room.
Conversations with Dora
Way back when, as a family, we decided that I would be a Stay At Home Mom, we did it because we thought it would be best for our kids (even though we only had 1 at the time). No child care to pay for, no commutes, no hurrying to get 2 adults and however many number of kids out the door at some ungodly hour. And I suppose all of that was true. Well, with the exception of the hurrying out the door part, as we were a 1 car family until only last year, meaning I still had to get a hubby & 3 kids in the car in the morning in order to drop him off at work.
One thing I really didn't consider was having adult conversations. I'm not talking salacious adult conversations, but having a discussion that didn't involve the mention of Blue, Dora, or Sesame Street. Or where a certain child's blocks are.
Or, god forbid, poop.
I consider myself an intelligent person. I'm no Mensa member, but I like to think I have an inquisitive mind and am able to keep myself abreast of current affairs. I've said before that I'm an insatiable reader. I have wasted too many days to count just sitting on my butt reading. Of course, there are certain topics I probably won't have a coherent opinion on...like physics. Or computer programming. But, if I were talking to someone who was interested in those topics, I would most likely pay enough attention to actually get something out of the conversation.
And while conversing with a 3 year old over the virtues of whether or not eating her carrots at dinner will actually keep her eyes 20/20 is fascinating, some days I just miss being able to talk to someone over age 10 and who's taller than 4 foot 8.
One thing I really didn't consider was having adult conversations. I'm not talking salacious adult conversations, but having a discussion that didn't involve the mention of Blue, Dora, or Sesame Street. Or where a certain child's blocks are.
Or, god forbid, poop.
I consider myself an intelligent person. I'm no Mensa member, but I like to think I have an inquisitive mind and am able to keep myself abreast of current affairs. I've said before that I'm an insatiable reader. I have wasted too many days to count just sitting on my butt reading. Of course, there are certain topics I probably won't have a coherent opinion on...like physics. Or computer programming. But, if I were talking to someone who was interested in those topics, I would most likely pay enough attention to actually get something out of the conversation.
And while conversing with a 3 year old over the virtues of whether or not eating her carrots at dinner will actually keep her eyes 20/20 is fascinating, some days I just miss being able to talk to someone over age 10 and who's taller than 4 foot 8.
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