Accident at the Disco

Remember when you were growing up and you would play outside for hours? You would come inside for a quick snack, and then hurriedly rush back outside again so that you didn't miss a minute with your friends? And remember "holding it" as long as you could, to avoid having to rush back inside to go to the bathroom? It was such a nuisance to have to go allll the way back home just to pee.

Scarlett recently went to "the disco" with a bunch of her friends and had a blast! They saw a play; there was dancing, choreography, and singing. She went with other friends that are her age, along with a few adults for supervision - they had a great time. The performance was at a mega arena where there were also plenty of concessions, souvenirs, and other exciting treasures for the taking, in exchange for a pretty penny, of course.

The adults let the girls get a drink and a snack before the play, took the mandatory potty break, and then went down to find their seats. Scarlett got a drink and an icy/slush. "Lots-o-Liquid" might be the favorable term for her snackage choices. *CHEERS!*

Anyway, after the play had been going for a while, the next event in the sequence occurred...Scarlett needed to go to the potty. My little darling, who has a bladder the size of a nickel, had reached her limit and was in desperate need of a bathroom...QUICKLY. She let one of the adults know that she needed to get moving and the adult told her to just sit tight. After another minute or two she mentioned AGAIN that she needed to go to the potty and was told, "If we leave now we'll miss part of the show". Well, DUH!! So she sat there....trying to hold it....and finally, when she couldn't hold it any longer, she told the adult, but they didn't move fast enough and she went. Scarlett didn't just go a little bit either, she went A LOT. So much that she had to wrap a jacket around her waist.

Once the adult finally got her ass in gear and began trying to do damage control/clean-up, she had the audacity to ask Scarlett why she didn't speak up earlier. WHAT!?!

I found out about this embarrassing fiasco after Scarlett got home. And I was PISSED. Scarlett hasn't had any accidents in YEARS! Yes, she tends to wait until she almost "pops", but not ACCIDENTS, for crying out loud! Which makes me even more irritated, because she told her leader that she needed to go to the bathroom THREE times - not just once.

I knew that if I made a phone call to the adult/leader it not only wouldn't go down well, but it wouldn't pack the wallop of a face to face "discussion". So I waited. It was hard though. Nobody jacks with my kids and gets "a pass", it just doesn't happen.

Finally we saw them last weekend. I kindly asked what had happened and gave her time to explain her side. To which I replied, that my daughter hasn't had an accident in YEARS, and it was infuriating to hear that she had told "you" three times that she needed to go to the potty and was told to "just wait". There were other comments and issues addressed, but it was discussed face to face, and the adult could not hide from the issue or avoid the confrontation.

It still makes me angry.

Once it was all said and done, I talked to Scarlett about it one last time. The embarrassment of the incident still stings, but she is okay. This particular situation also gave us a great segway into discussing how she is ultimately one responsible for taking care of herself and her body as she gets older. If someone isn't providing for her, treating her with respect, or ignoring her needs, it's HER job to get their attention and not just sit back down and wait for something that may never happen.

If you want something, sometimes you have to stand up and fight for it!!

~Ethel~

Bullying- Part2

If you missed part 1, you can read it here.  I was new to my school and two classmates started bullying me on the playground unexpectedly.  When the incident was over, I thought and hoped it would never happen again.  It did.

A few weeks later, a classmate invited my best friend and I to her slumber party.  We were so excited and quickly made plans to stay up all night-giggling and doing all the things girls do at slumber parties.  I couldn't wait.

The day of the slumber party, my best friend was sick and didn't go to school and was unable to attend the slumber party.  I was sad, but still looking forward to the party.  The girl that invited me lived in my neighborhood, we got along well and there were others from my class invited, so I was feeling pretty good about it.  That is, until I actually showed up.

The two mean girls were there.  I hadn't even considered the fact they might be invited.  My heart sank, but I was already there and didn't want to leave.  The whole evening was a blast- we had pizza and cake and watched the birthday girl open presents.  There were games and laughing.  Her dad and stepmom were there the whole time and everyone was really nice and the two mean girls, just didn't really interact with me.  They weren't ugly to me or anything, they just kept their distance.  I figured I could make it through the night by just hanging out with the people I liked and avoiding them too.  I was wrong.

After my friend's parents went to bed, it was like a switch was flipped.  All of the girls assembled in the living room and sat on the couch to watch television.  The two mean girls spread out a little so that there would be no room for me on the couch.  I noticed, but pretended I didn't and went to sit on the other end of the couch at which time one of the other girls kicked me off.  Literally kicked, with her foot.  They told me that babies couldn't sit on the couch. And, still too stubborn to leave, I sat on the floor to watch television (secretly feeling sick to my stomach) and one of the Meanies, turned off the television and announced very loudly that she wanted to play a game.  They went down the line on the couch one-by-one and basically said something about me.  "You have chubby thighs."  "You're ugly."  "You're stupid." " You're a baby."  "Those are ugly pants!"  and the abuse went on.  They laughed and giggled and went down the row over and over throwing insults at me.

I couldn't understand what I had done to deserve this.  Why did they dislike me?   Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and I felt the tears welling up and I got up and ran back to the girl's bedroom.  I have a very vivid memory of sitting on her bed trying to nonchalantly play with her Rubik's cube while staring at tears falling on the brightly-colored squares of the toy.

They followed me back there.   " Oh look! She IS a baby!  Cry baby, cry baby... go home to your momma!!"  And that was really all I wanted at that point, but it was almost midnight.  I didn't care, and I picked up the phone to call my mom to come get me.  As soon as I picked up the phone, the girls continued to taunt, but the birthday girl panicked.  I don't know if she was afraid she would get in trouble or what, but she started begging me not to call my mom.  By then, I already had my sleepy mother on the phone and I asked her, through sobs, to please come get me.  She said she was on her way.  About ten minutes later, her car drove up an I left.

I don't know what the birthday girl told her parents about why I left, but I do know that the following Monday at school, she told me that her stepmom said I wasn't allowed over at their house anymore.  Leaving me to feel that I had somehow done something wrong and that I was to blame for the whole incident.

For reasons unexplained, the bullying from those two in particular let up a few weeks later.  I don't know if they felt I was sufficiently tortured or if they found someone else to go after, but it stopped and I was thankful.  One of the girls moved a few years later, but the other one went to school with me all the way up until we graduated and she never liked me.  And I never knew why.


**Note- Until that point, I had never even considered myself fat (and I wasn't) but I suddenly started seeing extra skin as fat.  I WAS fat and I WAS ugly.  Stupid too.  I began to believe what they were saying.  And this caused undue stress as a teenager when I weighed NINETY EIGHT POUNDS and thought I was fat.  I don't care what people say- bullying does have lasting effects on those that were victimized.


~Lucy

Toy Hoarding, Rough Play, and Daisy

We have a neighbor that drives me FUCKING NUTS.  Daisy can be as sweet as pie one minute, and as irritating as hemroids on a hot August day the next.  She's just that way.  She is the mother of two heathens that we will further refer to as "Frick" and "Frack".  Frick, the older child, is slightly more tollerable than his little bastard brother Frack, but they are both a pain in my neck.

Since they moved onto my turf our street, a case of excessive tutelary toy hoarding has surfaced.  Because she is so obsessive about their things not getting broken, she will have her boys take their things inside rather than keep them out for others to play with and risk damage to their belongings.  Daisy fusses and gets her panties in a bunch when her kids' toys get torn up, a Nerf gun bullet goes unaccounted for, or someone rides her boy's bikes a little too rough.  This isn't just a one sided deal, though!  We've ALL sacrificed toys for the good of group play, and most times the toys aren't broken intentionally.

News flash to Daisy...KIDS TEAR SHIT UP, and yours are not blameless!

Example #1:  Frick came out to play with my youngest's brand new RC car that he got for his birthday.  Frick decided that he wanted to KEEP the RC vehicle as his own.  Frick was told that he had to hand it back to my son, and then Frick proceeded to pull the antenna right out of the car, rendering it useless.  

Example:  Frack scratched Fred's precious foreign import vehicle because Frack's mother wasn't paying attention when he went into our garage, unattended, with a long stick of some sort and managed to scratch the car coming and going.  Grrrr.

Example #3:  Fred installed special valves on our outside water faucets because Frack will come over to our house, turn on the water, and LEAVE while the water is still running.  Now the little pecker has figured out how to maneuver the special valves, so I have to watch him when he's in our yard again...because his mother DOESN'T.  Shocker.

Example #4:  Frick plays full contact sports.  The fun part comes when their dumbass mom doesn't scold them for "playing" full contact with the other kids on the block who are not trained in such sports...  So the other kids end up getting hurt, and Daisy's brilliant response is...are you ready?...  "Well that's what he's been trained to do."  Holy.  Shit.

I wish that these kids had been blessed with two sensible parents.  Parents that had half the sense that God gave a billy goat.  Billy goats aren't that smart, so you get my drift.  And one of these days, I hope that they can stand back and see WHY the other parents on the street try their best to keep interaction as limited as possible with their family.

DUH.

~Ethel~

The Soccer Gospel According to Lucy

Dear Soccer Parents of Three-and-Four-Year-Olds:


First of all, the Parent Information Letter you received when you signed your sweet, tiny little soccer star up stated very clearly that this league is instructional only.  That the sole purpose is to begin to teach the kids to dribble the ball, not to touch it with their hands and touch on other fundamentals such as passing.  It all clearly stated that because this is most of the children's first soccer experience, once coach cannot possibly cover the entire team and parents are EXPECTED TO PARTICIPATE WITH THEIR CHILD.  


Just to clarify- and I realize this is MY interpretation of the above- but "participating" does not mean pulling up your folding chair to the sideline and texting/making phone calls/ updating your Facebook status/armchair coaching from the sidelines.  It means get off your lazy ass and get out on the field with your child and help them understand what it is the coach is asking of them.


 I do.  Every bloody week I haul my non-athletic ass out on that field and I help my three year old understand the instructions.  I'm not there to stand in for your lazy ass and help your kid too.  I think your kids are adorable, all of them, but I'm trying to concentrate on my child. So, your child constantly tapping me on the shoulder and saying,  " Umm... my dad spanked me on the way here."  and "Excuse me... I has new pink shoes." while very informative,  is really taking away from my task at hand.   I'm trying to help MY child... I can't help it that your child is feeling neglected.  That's because your ass is sitting on the sidelines not even watching except to glance up every once in awhile and shout, "Go, Timmy!" which is actually inappropriate because Timmy is currently sitting midfield picking his nose.


And I'm a bit annoyed that because no one else.. not one of you fucking stellar parents got up to help and it was just myself and the coach, that I sort of ended up being the "assistant coach" and asked desperately by the coach to help by taking half the team and running drills with them.  Here's a tip:  I don't know anything about soccer beyond- you gotta kick it in the goal and then shout, "GOOOOAL!"- so do you really want my fat ass responsible for teaching your child soccer rudiments?


Because if you don't, then get off your lethargic lazy ass and get out there and help me.  And if you don't care who teaches your kid or if I even know anything about soccer- then you'd better look up from your iPhone once in awhile.  Or else I will teach them to kick you in the nuts/nutella.


Signed,
~Lucy

I've Done My Time

I remember how it felt when my children were young. It was fun, exciting, chaotic, noisy, adventurous, and busy. I worked full time until our first was well into school, and then became a SAHM when the others came along. When the juggling act would become a little overwhelming, I would sometimes think about how many more years I had until they were all graduated and out of the house. It sounds awful, I know, but anyone who says that those thoughts NEVER cross their mind is just flat lying.

At any rate... It is fucking irritating amusing to me when I am having one of "those" days and mention my struggles on a certain social networking site, only to have someone say "Well I have a lot longer to go than you do". Whaaaat? Are you kidding me? Because last I checked, I started having my babies when you were in elementary school biznatch!!

I have EARNED each and every day of mothering that I have under my belt, and if you don't like it I really don't give a shit! Suck it up and breathe through it. Motherhood is no picnic, so if you need someone to pat you on the back or give you a hug when you've had a hard day - I'm your girl, I've been there too. Just save the sappy, needy responses about how much worse your lot in life is than mine.  Even though my kids were reading on a collegiate level in preschool (hahaha!), my kids didn't exactly potty train themselves.

No more potty training, no more weening them from the binkie, no more screaming temper tantrums in the grocery stores, no more preschool. I have traded all of that for trying to make sure that my child doesn't sneak out of the house at night, arguments before school about appropriate school attire, why MY money is not THEIR money, discussions about a first car (that's a laugh), and being "The Enforcer" on days when homework doesn't have quite the same appeal as playing outside.

I've done my time!

~Ethel~