I don’t know what’s right. I don’t know when to push and when to shut up.
Morgan started health class yesterday. She will go for and hour and a half each day for a week, I believe. Yesterday, I tried to get her to talk about what she heard. I’m curious and I want to know how much of it she understood. Her reaction was exactly what I expected. “I’m never talking about that. I’m never believing that. I’m never doing THAT. THE END.”
Perfectly normal reaction from a ten year old who isn’t ready to learn about something. It’s okay for her to feel that way. Maybe in some way everyone does.
Yet…I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know what to do. I’ll be honest and tell you that I was FULLY willing to sign the form to get her out of this, half because I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t know how to help her with this. I didn’t sign the form, because I knew it wasn’t right for her. I made her go, because it was the right thing to do. Not because I wanted her to go. Just…it was right. I try so hard to do the right things by my kids even when it hurts me. This one is hurting me.
I’m sitting here writing this through tears.
I am afraid that I’m ill-equipped to deal with this. My view of sex and all of that is skewed. I was abused as a child. I was younger than my younger daughter is right now when it started. Barely seven years old. I cry when I look at my girls and remember me at their ages. I’ve come to terms with that…as much as I can at least. But it doesn’t mean I know how to keep my child innocent while making sure she learns what she’s supposed to learn.
I don’t know how to do this. Do I let her stay silent? I know for her, it’s just embarrassment. Nothing has happened to her, this I am sure of. She is just embarrassed. At some point she will get curious and bring it up. Do I wait? Does it matter if it’s a month from now? Or a year? Do I push it? Give her time and space? Bring it up occasionally? I honestly don’t know. I need you guys to tell me. What’s normal in this situation? I am not normal. I am broken. In this way, I am broken. My baby isn’t. She is perfectly normal.
What do I say? What do I do? One of you has to know. Please help me.
I can tell you how I’m doing. How I caught the cold from hell…possibly over the Internet, last Friday. I spent the better part of the last week, only breathing through my mouth. It’s sad how much I take breathing through my nose for granted until I can’t do it. I’m mostly better. Say at about 80% or so. That’s a vast improvement. Thankfully colds don’t last forever, even when they feel like they will.
I can tell you how I’ve bruised my tailbone. How or when? Well…as usual I have no idea. What can I say, I’m clumsy. I know it’s pretty much killing me right now to do anything. Yet here I sit working anyway. I’ll tell you…putting on socks is something I take for granted too. If anyone knows of any pain reliver/tailbone relief let me know. Besides lay in bed or go to the doctor. Those are two things I have no time for.
I could tell you how much tax season sucks…but we’ve already discussesd that and well it hasn’t changed.
Mostly though, I’m curious about all of you. I wish I had time to catch up with everyones blog. I wish I had time to spend shooting the shit on Twitter. Or really even answering emails. But I don’t. Time is something I don’t have right now. My Twitter stream sits mostly empty, my blog reader consistently full, my emails sit unanswered. The only TV show I’m up to date on is The Voice, which is currently my favorite show.
I’m hoping you’ll all humor me and tell me something that is going on in your life. I’m truly curious. See a good movie? Read a good book? Anything good happen? Anything bad I should know about?
1. In almost a week exactly, I will be landing in San Diego for BlogHer11. I wasn’t going to post about it at all, however curiosity got the best of me. Who’s going? Who wants to try and meet up? It can be hard to find people in a sea of 3,000 people. It was near impossible last year to locate people and it was all in one location. This year, there are people spread out over two hotels and the convention center is in a different location. Basically, what I’m saying is, let me know now if you’d like to try and meet up. You can always DM/Email me when I’m there. I am one with my iPhone.
Last year, I only went to two events the entire weekend. The Voices of the Year and Sparklecorn. I had a teeny love affair with NYC. It was near impossible for me to be in the hotel. NYC called to me. This year, I have sessions I plan on attending as well as parties. So I will be around a lot more. (I love San Diego, but I’ve been there many times.)
My only advice that I’ll give is be you and try to step out of your comfort zone and bit and talk to new people. You never know who you will meet. Most people at BH are super nice. Really? We’re all geeks who spend way too much time online.
I will be the one in capris, t-shirts and flip-flops giving out mini-moo cards with sarcastic sayings on them. Come say hi if you see me. I’d love to meet you.
ps. I will be hosting the Serenity Suite on Saturday from 2-3pm.
2. Last night it came to my attention that I am incapable of re-reading Berenstein Bears books for the third go round. CANNOT DO IT. Reading one last night made me want to gorge my own eyeballs out. With a spork. However, my tiny son has finally grown tired of his Cars, Toy Story and dump truck books. So he started looking around at other things and found a huge stack of the bears books. Those bears have to go. I need to buy him more books though. I’d given away the girls toddler/preschooler books. Or most of them. The bears will somehow be given to my ex. Let him read that crap.
I could really use suggestions on books your kids love/loved at 2-3 years old.
3. At some point in the last month or so, I finally relented and let Morgan put Radio Disney as a preset button on my XM radio. It annoys the crap out of me. Not just the music, but the NON STOP commercials and talking. THIS IS XM RADIO PEOPLE! I pay for it, so I don’t have to listen to that crap. If I wanted to listen to constant talking, I’d listen to REAL RADIO!
It’s a mark that I’m getting more patient and nice though as I age, that I put up with it. The girls have this new thing of constantly asking me if I like an artist. It doesn’t matter which station. They want my opinion. On Radio Disney, instead of saying, hell no this is all crap and it’s making my ears bleed, I say oh she’s okay. Or, I don’t mine this song. See? Growing up. Heh.
4. I am learning something new at work. It’s a challenge to learn new things at times, but I’m sorta happy that I am. Means my brain isn’t as atrophied as I sometimes think it is.
5. One week till vacation. I am taking a week off. BlogHer first and then a few very much needed BFF days after. I truly can’t wait.
I’ve wanted to be in a book club for a long time. I was in one once, a great one online with many people. After a few books though, it got to be too much work and people stopped reading the book. I think that tends to happen over time, especially during the school year.
This being summer however, I’ve really been wanting to join a book club. The problem is, I don’t know many local people. The people I do know are not interested in starting a book club. It kinda bums me out. I have books sitting on my Kindle that I want to read. I want to read new books. I want to talk about books. I love to read. But I sorta feel like I need a push to start reading again. Or well, start reading something besides blogs and Twitter.
Anyway, so I’m wondering if anyone might want to maybe join my book club? I was thinking we could maybe vote on books. Try for one a month or something? I don’t exactly know how we could do it. Maybe a post to talk about it? Maybe we could take over my comments section one night? Maybe there is a way to set up a chat room to discuss it one night a month. There is a way, I’m sure, I just haven’t thought of it yet.
I guess what I’ll ask is this. If you are interested, tell me what book you’d like to maybe read and I’ll set up an email list to everyone. I’ll call it: Issa’s summer book club. (I am all ingenious with names, aren’t I?)
One book idea that I had was Sisterhood Everlasting, by Ann Brashares. It’s something that looked good to me. Although, I promise I’m open to any and all suggestions.
So…..thoughts? Anyone interested in joining? Book ideas?
**Updated with book ideas:
Me: Sisterhood Everlasting Or maybe BossyPants by Tina Fey.
Greis: The Help
Renee: Cutting for Stone
Lex: Hunger Series
Kathy: The Glass House
DawnK: Maine
Marinka: The Weird Sisters
Kirsten: The 19th Wife
Kristen: The Paris wife
This week, as most of you likely know (because I’m a Twitter complainer), I was hacked. Hacked at the server level by a evil blog eating clown. It destroyed my entire blog and corrupted the server database. This was what I found when alerted that my blog was gone on Tuesday:
I hear there was creepy music as well, but since I keep my computer speakers off, I never heard it. That was what was left in the place of my blog.
Gone. In an instant, three years of my life was gone. Every word. Every photo. Every comment. Luckily, most have now been restored. The rest are gone for good. Photos in any post are forever lost. Some comments as well. There is no way to get them back.
After waiting for three days for my old blog host to cough over my corrupted server, my best friend Jenna has managed to resurrect my blog. She is a hero. My own personal savior. I owe her big time. I offered her my first born, but a bossy nine year old with stinky feet didn’t seem to be something she wanted.
It’s not just my words that I lost this week. It was my heart and soul. I pour both into my posts and they felt stolen. I have felt very violated this week. I still do, even though I now have a place to call my home again. It felt like someone came and hacked off my leg. I needed that leg. I need that leg. This has been emotionally and mentally exhausting.
I readily admit to being dumb. I used the same password for years and years and years. It was the same for my blog, multiple email accounts, Facebook and Twitter. I am not kidding when I say years. I’ve used the same password for six years. Now of course all of them have been changed. I’ll start changing them on the first of every month.
However, I didn’t hack myself. Some evil clown did. Just because he felt bored, most likely. I thought my host would protect me. They didn’t. In fact, they hold themselves 100% not responsible. They blame WP. They blame me. They accept none of the blame. Needless to say, I have now switched hosts.
Friends, I want you to learn from my mistakes. Back up your blog. Send a good back-up to your email once a week and keep it. Don’t trash them like I did. Keep them. If you don’t know how and trust me, I don’t either, then please go see this great post by Schmutzie.
Change your passwords every month. This was possibly my downfall. Use something odd. Don’t use your kids names. I thought I was safe by using my kids real names and not their blog names. Yeah. I wasn’t thinking.
In the end, it’s not possible to not be hacked. They, whoever they may be, are extremely good at this. It’s not personal to them, it’s random. I thought I was safe. I thought I was too small a blogger to ever be noticed, much less hacked. I was wrong. So very wrong.
You never know how important something is to you, until it’s gone. I now know without a doubt how very important this site is to me. I’ve been lost without it the past few days. I am so very thankful to have it back.
Please learn from me friends. Please. Protect yourself. Protect your words. Try and protect your heart from what I’ve been through.
**Thank you, thank you times a zillion to the amazing, talented Jenna.
I feel like I was better at this the last time. Maybe I was. Maybe my girls were easier to potty training. All I know, is we’ve only been at this for three days and I’m pretty sure I’m failing at it.
Do I care if he goes to kindergarten in diapers? I am really starting to think no.
My reasoning for starting now was simple. Diapers are expensive. I’m tired of buying diapers. It’s finally getting warmer and I’d like to get this done during a non-layer time of year. I also realized that soon I’m going to have to start buying size 6 diapers for my monster baby and that is just sad. Size 6. That’s as high as they go right? Do you know that I never had to buy size 5 before him? My girls are teeny. They were also both potty trained right at 2 years old.
But here’s this boy. My boy. Boy of a thousand words and ideas. He speaks better than some of the 3 year olds at his school. The same boy who tells me that he is a big boy mama, but my too tiny for dat. Dat of course is using the potty. He’s funny. He won’t use the potty or sleep in a big boy bed, yet he will ride a skateboard, jump off all of my furniture and most of the time refuses to use a cup with a lid. He gave up binkies a few months back, with almost no work on my part. But he refuses to sleep in a big boy bed. He’s an enigma.
On Friday I brought out the big guns. Basically I bought bribes. Stickers for peeing; matchbox cars for pooping. I even bought the dreaded Play-doh (big sets of it even) for a reward for a full day spent dry. Man I hate Play-doh. Yet, he loves it and wants it. When he’s completely potty trained? I promised him a Cars Power Wheels. I printed out the photo of it and put it on his bedroom door. Like I said, big guns.
Friday night we talked about it. He was excited about the big boy underwears. Thank you Cars and Toy Story. Saturday morning, he was less sure. No, my stay diaps mama. No bud, no more diapers. I was a bit less sure too, considering we had to go sit through a graduation that morning. Luckily it was at the girls school, so I knew exactly where every bathroom was. I brought extra clothes and I made him try to pee every 45 minutes.
Then we went to a party. We were there all afternoon. Like I said, I’m rusty at this…I forgot about potty training. Mama, I pwee. Oh yeah dude, looks like you did. Oops. No biggie. Change of pants, all was good. Till he did it again, an hour later. Right after he’d been on the dam potty.
Saturday there were three accidents. Harrison – 3. Mommy – 0.
Sunday went okay at first. We ran errands just fine. Then we got home and he peed in my kitchen. Hey, my floor needed to be cleaned anyway.
Sunday: Harrison – 4. Mommy – 0.
This morning he’s already peed his pants once. It’s not looking good.
Sometimes when he tells me he needs to go he doesn’t. Sometimes he does. When I make him go, it’s the same thing. But I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if he really knows when he needs to go, or not. All I know is, I took four pairs of underwear and pants to daycare this morning. They were thrilled that I’d started this. I doubt they will be thrilled to change his pants all day. They at least are better at this than I am.
So tell me Internet, what am I doing wrong? Is my son the only kid going to college in a diaper?
***Updated because of a conversation of Twitter.
1. What’s the ring tone on your phone?
2. Are you going to BlogHer this summer?
3. If you have an iPhone or really an iAnything, what is your current favorite app?
4. What do you normally eat for breakfast?
5. Can you swim? Can you ride a bike?
*****
My answers: (because people always ask when I do this)
1. Michael Buble, I just haven’t met you yet. And I’m sick to death of it.
2. Heck yes. Can’t wait.
3. Mine is a tie between You Don’t Know Jack and Angry Birds Rio. Rio will win, once there are new levels. NEXT WEEK!!! Ahem.
4. I need something new. I was eating granola and yogurt, but my stomach can’t deal with the heaviness of granola right now. I’ve been making banana bread every week, but I’m starting to get tired of it.
5. Swim yes. Swimming is a must when you grow up in Los Angeles. Bike riding…um nope.
So my cousin, she says to me. It’s been a year. Over a year now. Are you going to try dating?There are great dating sites out there, maybe you should try one?
Um no, I answer. I’m not ready. I don’t care to date. I’m not sure I will ever care.
You know, ever is an extremely long time.
Yes, I know that. I’m just not even thinking about it yet. Can we talk about something else though? What school did Trevor pick?
The conversation easily changes when I bring up her son and his college goals. He’s a high school football champion, getting a full ride. Boy got offered six full rides. Anyway, we talk kids for the next 15 minutes and then we hang up.
A year. It’s been a year. I don’t….
Can I be honest? Are you guys okay with that?
I’m still in love with Logan. Not in the, I’d get back together with him, way. Nor in the, I’m sitting here pining away for something lost, type of way. Those ships have both sank. Dam icebergs.
Yet, I am still in love with him. I’ve never loved anyone else. I don’t know that I’m capable of moving past this. I don’t know how to date. I’ll be completely honest, it doesn’t interest me in the least right now. The thought of dating really hasn’t crossed my mind. Not in a positive way at least. The thought of trusting someone else? I can’t imagine that. He was all I have ever known. Maybe he was it for me.
I didn’t ask for him to leave me. I’d of stayed with him forever, no matter what. I have learned to live without him. Mostly. I’m still working on that in some ways. I have gotten stronger. I do what I want, when I want and how I want. He might have broken me though. Maybe I broke me. I’m not exactly sure yet.
However, I don’t know that I believe in marriage anymore. I don’t know that I’d ever want to do it again. Truly, I can’t imagine dating right now. Maybe I’m just not there yet. Maybe I’ll never be there. Does it matter? Do I fail life if I raise amazing kids and end up alone?
Some days I’m lonely. Some days I wish I had someone there when I went to bed and when I woke up. I had that though and it was amazing. How can anyone ever compete with what I thought I had? Would I ever want anyone too? I don’t have answers. Just tons of unanswered questions.
What I am sure of is this: I am not ready to talk about dating. I am not ready to date. If that means there is something wrong with me as a person, well we’ll just add it to the already long ass list.
I think this is a first. Generally if ‘m going to do a, ask the Internet for help, it’s for me. This time though? It’s for my girls. Although they don’t know, because well…they don’t know about this blog. Anyway, that’s a whole other story. Moving on.
My girls are readers. Big readers. I am frankly running out of ideas of books for them to read. That is where you, my lovely and amazing readers come in. One of the things we do at night, (after dinner, baths and once Harrison is in bed) is read three chapters before bed. Out loud. Morgan reads one, Bailey reads one and then I read one to them. We read from three different books. Which would confuse and annoy some people, but it works okay for us.
Problem is, I’m running out of books.
Morgan can read and comprehend, at a 9th grade level. However, at just turned nine years old, she can’t really handle the 9th grade reading level content.
Bailey is six and can mostly read level 3 on the I Can Read books, but none of those really interest her any more. They are and I quote “so baby boring mom.” She for some reason can’t stand Junie B. Jones books, although a few years ago, Morgan loved them.
We have read all of the Percy Jackson series. Twice. We have just started book 7 of Harry Potter. We’ve read most, if not all of the Ronald Dahl books. We’ve read the Bunnicula series. For some reason, we all like series. I think it’s because we like hearing about the characters. Not that we haven’t read some great stand alone books. But series tend to win out. We have read The Secret Garden, The Little Princess and finished the Narnia series in the past month and a half.
I just downloaded the Boxcar books to my Kindle, in hopes that they like them. But after that? I’m not sure where to go. My mom gave me the complete works of Hans Christian Anderson, which I’m going to start reading to them tonight.
I have no problem buying older books. I’m just frankly drawing a bit fat blank when it comes to ideas. I look at Amazon and I get overwhelmed. We look in bookstores and wind up leaving with nothing, because the shelves and shelves of books overwhelms Morgan and I, while Bailey just wants to buy toys.
We need help.
What are your kids favorites? What were your favorite books at my girls ages? What say you, Internet?
I do. I lie to my kids. Innocent lies mostly. Lies to make my life easier. Lies to try and keep the magic of childhood alive for them.
I lie to my kids about Santa. Or well, I did for years. Now both of the girls know the truth, each told around age six by some punk kid at school. (Harrison doesn’t fully get it yet, but I plan on him believing in Santa as well.) When asked point blank by each of my daughters, I did tell the truth. I also made them swear to keep it quiet for other kids and their siblings. I believe in truth telling, when asked. I do. I find it to be important. You will never hear me tell my kids that the stork brought them to my doorstep.
I have never seen how it’s an issue. I see the distinction. Lying about Santa hasn’t ever been a big deal. It’s believing in what you can’t see. It’s being innocent. It’s believing in magic. How is that bad?
I guess to some people, it is bad. Any lying is horrible. We should all tell our children the truth. All the time. If we will lie to them about Santa, we are setting them up for failure later in life. At least that is what I hear from certain people who don’t tell their kids any lies ever.
Can you imagine that? Never, ever, ever lying to your children? Their are people online who claim they never do. Not about Santa. Not about anything. There were a few people who said as much in this post by Mom 101′s post on Santa last week.
I asked a few people I know locally. I had a woman tell me that she never lies to her kids. She tells them the truth about everything. They know about her budget/money issues. They do not believe in magic of any kind. They will never not know reality, were her exact words.
It was eye opening for me. Kind of sad in a way. That someone’s 9, 5 and 3 year olds should only know reality. Reality seems very harsh for a three year old child. It’s harsh as an adult. Why in the world should a three year old know that yet?
I don’t even necessarily care if you tell your kids the truth about Santa. Some kids prefer to know. Some figure it out. Some are Jewish. Or whatever. There are always going to be kids who don’t believe in Santa. I mean I wish those kids wouldn’t ruin it for other kids. But that’s part of life.
It was the, I never lie to my children that didn’t sit right with me. Really? NEVER?
I’m calling that a giant lie right there.
You never told your kids that broccoli are little trees? That the ice cream is all gone? That you were “wrestling” with daddy? Ahem.
You’ve never told any lie? I just don’t buy that.
Dora is napping. Lucky the dog went to live on a farm. Spotty the fish is swimming to the ocean now.
If you keep rolling your eyes at me, one day they will get stuck up there. How will you feel then?
Oh this? This is monster spray. It gets rid of all the monsters. Milk makes you grow strong muscles like Daddy. Green beans? Oh they make you super tall like Uncle. You want to be super tall don’t you?
McDonald’s is closed today. The park is closed today. Disney World is only open for kids over ten.
Oh that song by Miley Cyrus, Party in the USA? Oh it started skipping badly on iTunes, so I had to delete it.
Oh these Peppermint Joe-Joe’s are spicy son.very spicy. Ow. You wouldn’t like them. Here have a Chips Ahoy.
Some of those are just mine. I am funny, in that, I tell my children the truth on big things. Yet, I will lie to them on small innocent things, as witnessed above. Life is harsh. I’ve explained cancer, death, divorce, suicide, war and the Holocaust all in the past year. I won’t lie on those things.
My children know the correct names of their private parts and we’ve had many discussions about what is okay touching and what isn’t. I will never sugar coat that one. As much as I wish I could.
Yet the small, innocent, doesn’t hurt anyone, yet makes my life easier lie? I’m all for it.
I’m not alone either. I asked Twitter. Here were a few examples.
That was a great one. I need to remember it next summer.
This will come to bite you on the butt in a year or two friend, but I commend you on your answer to a seven year old. Sometimes, they don’t want to hear the truth.
I do this one all time. With Elmo. With Cars. With Toy Story. This is called, sanity saving.
Been there, done that. It only works until they learn where you hide it. Actually then they start using it back on you.
I got a lot of answers like this. I can text, email, call Santa. I myself used it for years.
I love that one. Pretty sure I used it a time or two in the past.
Little lies. Parents….well most parents tell them every now and again. Is it going to make our children all become ax murderers? Somehow I doubt it.
So…what say you? Do you lie to your kids?
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