The children are excuse they thought that understood our conversation to mean that we were having a party tomorrow.  While indeed, we are having a cook-out and since my cousin that lives with my mom has a son with a birthday today, we will be kind of celebrating a birthday too. 

My kids have been walking around for 3 days asking when the party starts.  I also made the mistake of mentioning that we would put the slip and slide in my mom’s yard for tomorrow and the boys will have something to do.  Between that, the bouncy house and other toys that aren’t really toys, they will have a blast. 

So, exactly what is it that you might want to try for your holidays.  Well, I am going to tell you a few things I consider tradition an a few things I found new all over the web but honestly, I have no clue where I saw them.

First of all, grilling hamburgers and hotdogs, having al the fixings (as we eat hotdogs at home a lot with nothing more than ketchup), having a strawberry shortcake, a watermelon and homemade ice cream.  I am not too sure but I maybe getting left out on the homemade ice cream front this year but that’s fine, a new tradition will be born.

The new tradition will include some kabob sticks, with strawberries (the red), miniature marshmallows (the white) and blueberries (the blue) on kabobs.  the directions stay to start with the fruit because otherwise the marshmallows stick to the stick. 

And, of course, we will be celebrating at my mom’s this year as oppose to my house since the lawn is in better shape…meaning it is shorter than knee-hide to a giraffe like my own.

If you have any cool fourth of July tips or tricks to share, by all means, share them here, at least we will have something to look forward to next year.

My oldest son is very gentle and rarely fights back when his younger brother is mean to him.  He desires to be liked and does as much as he can to play up to everyone.  He wants everyone to like him and he is willing to do whatever he has to in order to be special.

But, the younger child….has a temper that cannot match that of anyone I know.  My husband is quiet, humble and rarely raises his voice.  And, while I am loud and rambuctious, I am not mean.  I want to be liked and I do try to be funny in order to gain attention.

But, Jace, the four-year-old is quite the firecracker.  He gets in trouble for something relatively minor but then when he is admonished for him, he turns into a wild animal.  He goes to his room as he is instructed but within seconds of his arriving in his room, it’s not uncommon to hear him hitting the wall or throwing toys. 

He has been in therapy and to be honest, he isn’t near as bad as he once was so hpefully he will outgrow it but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a bit concerned.

So, how do you handle angry children?  Not a child in trouble, not the actual act of discipline but the anger that he shows after getting in trouble, how or what would you do?  Help me please you are the experts I trust most.

I had attended a really small school where no one really paid attention to fashion at all up through the 8th grade.  But, when I transferred to the new school in the 9th grade…it was all about the trends and Pollo Shirts, layered at that and Nike Tennis Shoes were all the rage.

So, where does that land me now? 

I am a bit of a conformist I admit.  But, at the same time, I still like to think I am well adjusted and doing my own thing.  I’m not sure how true that is as I can’t think of any good examples to use to plead my case in one direction or another. 

I do know that I was an outsider where my child’s education was concerned.  No one else seemed concerned with the candy treats or the field trips to the zoo in another state that was snatched away and turned into a field trip to…the bowling alley.  But, I as with the group regarding the trip to the Alabama Ballet and the traveling with 1 adult to 15 children.  There was obviously more people unwilling to allow their children to go or they wouldn’t have cancelled.

So…

Just from what you know about me here, what do you thing?  Conformist?  Rebel?

I am drinking the last of my package of drinks, the Strawberry Orange ones and I have to tell you, I am sad that this is all of them.  When I can go back to the store (broke leg, remember me), I will get me some more and I think…so far the strawberry orange is my favorite.  I love strawberries so that may be why.

Either way, you need to give these little drinks a whirl.  Wait, one more thing….I told you, I am not a big fitness guru and we eat for crap around here but these little gems are quite filling if you just want to know.  As a matter of fact, this is what I am having for lunch.  And, there’s less than 7 oz in this little bottle but yummmy.

And, 73% use cell phones while 91% have an email address.  So, this is where it gets tricky.  How do you monitor your child’s online personality without invading their privacy?

Does your child have an email account?  What about facebook?  Do you have control so you can see what they are doing if you need to?

If we break this down, 14% of teens have a blog, 22% have a webcam (and I would think this is where many would get in trouble), 27% have a game system with chat (I don’t even know what this is), 59% have digital cameras (another place I think that would need monitoring closely), 60% have an ID for an instant messaging account of some kind. 

But, when a group of teens were polled, 59% believed that posting personal information on a public blog or social network was unsafe.  But, at the same time 62% have posted a photo of themselves.  So, that could be an issue.  Just make sure you are keeping up with the photos that your children are posting and you and your child should be fine.  But, insist that even your location remain a secret.

As an adult, someone could easy find me if they tried hard, but in most cases, I still list my hometown as No Where Alabama.  It wouldn’t take much to find out where No Where is but, I’m grown…so I guess that’s where you say, do as I say not as I do.

How do we guard them from the most dangerous elements? 

How do we go about raising healthy and happy children?

I’m going to just give you the tips from the article, you can go read the discussion with each on your own.  I certainly do not want to be accused of copying someone and I want to give credit where credit is due, but these are just too good not to share. 

Unfortunately for you guys, they come with my commentary from the peanut gallery.

1. Let your child know you are excited to see them when they enter the room. (is that not the case with anyone?  I mean, I can see where it is of major importance with children, but in my opinion, it’s just a natural and polite thing to do, but hey, what do I know?)
2. Teach your child it’s okay to be bored (by all means, please….my mother plays 900 games of Go Fish a day.  I have a cast on my foot and right now, she is caring for my kids way more than I really would have ever dreamed I would have allowed, but I’m kind of in between a rock and a hard place – I am in a cast and immobile and have been since January – but anyway, my kids do not know how to be bored and they have to learn AND SOON!)
3. Limit your child’s media.  (by all means please.  I remember watching the news after 911, that’s how I equate this because the way I see it, it was tough really tough on me with all that being shoved at me, and for a child, the same would be the case with a few news stories a week, overwhelming and could be very saddening)
4. Let your child make a few of the rules. (I read the full discussion and all I am going to say on this one is – agreed)
5. Teach your child - don’t assume it’s all happening outside the house.  (This one is the one that I hoped to bring to this blog……homeschooling is ever parents job, regardless of whether thy attend public or private school or they are homeschooled, parents have to learn to take the responsibility for educating their children AGAIN.  I say again because I think it was a big deal many years ago but with the advancement of our society, people quit parenting as much as their parents did.  Why?  I really don’t know but I know that it happened.)
6. Model appropriate behavior. (Yes, please)

Side Bar – I rarely ever cry anymore.  I don’t mean for this to see like I am pointing fingers but….I simply don’t cry.  And for those of you who don’t read my Mental and Emotional Health blog, I have a therapist, a psychiatrist and I suffer from depression.  At this point, I am apparently severely numbed by life.  Because we don’t let our kids watch grown up tv, we dvr our crime shows and other that The View, that’s about all we watch.  Still no crying.  I couldn’t tell you the last time I cried at a funeral. 

So, with that, tonight I was watching the segment ABC on teenage pregnancy.  The young girls on the show, or one girl in particular, had a set of twins.  She had agreed to give the babies up for adoption.  They showed her in the hospital and holding her babies.  It was painful.  The young girl was crying, holding her babies, talking to the adopting parents.

I burst into tears as she handed one baby to the adopting mother and she handed that baby to the adopting father and then the birth mother handed the adopting mother the other baby.  Oh the tears.  I had one of my kids in my lap scratching his back and the other lying on the sofa beside me an I was…scratching his back as well. 

I realize that I am not a very good parent.  I realized I haven’t really ever understood much about my own parents.  I also realized that those teenagers make a very difficult decision. 

And, so I kept crying.

Ok so what I was trying to tell you earlier was that tonight, on ABC, there was a segment on teenagers and sex.  And, apparently I was very naive to what the real world looks like for teenagers.  Everyone thought my dad was too lenient but honestly, I gave him no reason to not trust me.  I only know of one person that had a baby in high school.  That’s every person to come through that school in my four years so in my opinion that’s a lot of people, right?

Well, apparently, teenagers are having a lot more sex than I realized.  Yes, teenagers in my circle were having sex.  One of my favorite teachers told me this one time, “the bad girls never get pregnant, they know how to prevent it, it’s the good girls that get pregnant”.

That stuck with me and I wondered where I fit in that puzzle because I was a good girl and I wasn’t pregnant in high school.  My group of friends were considered the good crowd and none of them got pregnant either.  So, that brings me to teenagers and sex. 

Am I delusional?

Anyway, I’m about to make this a 2 part post because…well you had to have the history so, stay tuned…….Part two….tomorrow…

We aren’t technically Indians but you get the picture right.  I am not dummy, I know that research says the color of a babies room and the color of the children’s rooms and the daycare was painted with bright beautiful colors and the kids loved it. 

So, moving on, there’s a commercial on late night TV here for some brand of paint.  It starts out with 2 kids running inside their house, slamming the front door and headed up a large set of steps at warp speed.

The next thing you see is a woman painting a wall, a really not-so-pretty green wall.  She looks at her husband and make some kind of statement about painting the entire house that color because of the the transformation in the children

Camera pans around and you see those same to children sitting individually in these little kids chairs and they are holding these some pretty big thick books and are supposedly reading.

Now, if I could get my kids to sit still and be calm when they read?  That’s be a good deal.  But, not my wild ones, they want to bring 30 books out at a time…I’m certain it is a plot against me.

So, if your kids are acting up, my all means, go paint the inside of your house kiwi-green.  Yea, nasty eh?