Misadventures of Global Commerce

On a recent shopping trip, Erika, Alex and I found ourselves out and about at lunch time. We stopped at a food court to get something to eat. After eating just her hot dog, Erika carefully separated the two sides of her hot dog bun. She then handed one side to Alex and an epic battle commenced, the hot dog buns standing in for swords. With a magnificent swish of his "blade" Alex broke Erika's weapon in half. Sadly, Erika picked up the pieces of her bun and remarked, "This hot dog bun must have been made in China, it broke way too easy!"

Misadventures of Misplaced Modesty

I feel that I am really making progress with my children when it comes to modesty and respecting personal space and boundaries. Now what would give me that impression? Since it's my blog, I will tell you.

As I was getting out of the shower the other day, I had one foot over the edge of the tub and was just reaching for my towel when the bathroom door burst open and Erika came trooping in. With complete disregard of my unclad state, she pulled down her jammies and climbed up on the potty. I quickly wrapped my towel around me and gave her my sternest look of disapproval. Her response, in a rather scandalized tone, "M-O-O-O-M, don't look at me! I'm going potty." At least she's respecting her own personal space and boundaries.

Misadventures of False Modesty

I sincerely hope that this post is not offensive to anyone. It has been my experience that false modesty usually is a little offensive.

My folly this time lies in being either too specific or not specific enough when speaking to my children (girls especially) about what is considered modest.

I have had many talks with my girls over the years discussing modesty. Not usually big sit down talks, but when we're out and about and we see advertisements with clothing on them we discuss why we keep our bodies covered. We love and respect our bodies so we cloth them modestly. We show this respect by covering our shoulders (though, to tell the truth, I don't have as big a problem with this as Daddy does) and our bellies and not wearing short shorts.

Please try to imagine my utter horror when little Erika came to me a few days ago and said that she had found a magazine that showed ladies' private parts. With great trepidation, I asked her to take me to the magazine. My astonishment grew and grew as I followed her to my nightstand. I can't even begin to describe my relief when she picked up one of my fitness magazines on which the model was wearing a tank top that was lifted a little to show her nice, flat tummy. "See, Mom, you can see her shoulders and her belly."

I guess that it is time to have a big, sit down talk as it seems some explanations need to be made.

Misadventures of Disagreement

My folly this time was pursuing more education than I actually needed.

This morning, when I was helping Erika put her shoes on, Erika held up her left foot and said, "Mom, this is my right foot." I said, "No, that is actually your left foot, this (holding up her right) is your right foot." She thought about that for a minute then said, "But, Mom, this is my right because Nicole said, 'You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out.'" OOh, she had me there. How can I argue with legally copyrighted lyrics?

Misadventures of Distraction

My folly this time was (drumroll, please) getting too distracted.

Erika's imagination has been on overdrive lately. I'm always hearing things like, "For the game, I'm a dragon and you are trying to catch me", or I'm frantically running to save a child screaming, "Help!" only to discover that her cat was in danger. And I can't even count the number of times I've answered to "Mom" and been informed that she wasn't talking to me.

This afternoon, as I was messing around on the computer, Erika came in and said, "For the game, You are the Mom and I'm your little kid and you are reading this story to me." For the game? I guess it is time to stop letting the computer distract me, I've got stories to read.

Misadventures of the Best Intentions

This time my folly lies in my inability to separate my ego from my children. I tend to believe that any flaw found in my children is a personal attack on my parenting abilities. I like to think that I'm not the only mother who is guilty of this particular folly, though I know the children of the world would be much better off if we could rid ourselves of it.

For any of my four readers not intimately connected with my family, let me introduce you to Erika. Erika is my three (almost 4)year old little girl. Those of you who have read "Kate's Treasures" will know that she is very funny, definitely the clown in the family. She is incredibly smart, she has a way of putting ideas together and coming to conclusions that amaze me; for example:One day she wanted a treat for keeping her bed dry, I told her she could have some lemonade. She explained that because everything we drink turns to pee, lemonade could not be a dry bed treat and I would have to think of something else. Erika is also cute as a button, she has a hundred different smiles ranging from shy to huge to mischief. It is impossible to know Erika and not love her. These are the facts that I associate with Erika. There are also a couple of other facts that go with Erika: when she was two and a half she was diagnosed with cataracts and was discovered to be blind in her right eye. After my initial devastation (okay, devastation followed indignation, "How dare they think that I could produce a blind child!"), we dug in and got the problem treated. She had corrective surgery, she got her little bi-focal glasses, and she wears an eye patch to strengthen the eye. She also has some quirky speech issues. I call them issues because they are not officially problems. Even the experts are ranging in opinion from saying she is right on course for a child her age to saying she is harder to understand than a child half her age.

I write the above to explain the struggle I find within myself. When I look at my Erika, what I see is that smart and funny and beautiful little girl that I know so well. What I fear that others see when they look at Erika are the bi-focal glasses and the girl with the quirky speech. Because of my determination to give her the best possible start that I can, I have been fighting to get her into speech therapy. When I finally peeled back the first few layers of red tape within the district and got to the people that I needed to talk to, I nearly hung up on the nice lady on the other end of the phone when she told me that they were the ones that handled children with special needs. How dare she! My child doesn't have special needs! She just has a quirky way of speaking. How many weeks had I been fighting this fight? How many phone calls had I made? And I had finally reached the person who was going to get me an appointment with the right people, and I was going to hang up because I didn't want my child to have special needs. When I went to the appointment (which was a total fiasco far too long to detail in this already long blog entry) one of the nice ladies asked about her eyes. I had given them a detailed history of her eye issues in their paperwork. The woman said they would like to have a copy of her eye reports when I get them from Erika's Dr. to keep them informed of her progress in that area as well. She said that they would like to keep informed so that they could provide Erika with any extra assistance she might need throughout school, such as front seats in the classroom. How dare they! I am taking care of Erika's eyes. I will not have my child defined by her little bi-focal lenses. I smiled, Thanked her for her assistance, and made a mental note to get them as much information from Erika's eye Dr as I can.

I realized that day that, although I am fighting a lot of battles telling people that I don't want Erika to be held back by her glasses or her speech, the only person allowing her to be held back is me. I am letting Labels and my own ego interfere with what everyone is trying to help me do, and that is doing what is best for my Twinkling Little Star!

The Misadventures of Kharma

On our outing yesterday, the kids bought a package of Ring Pops. Nicole thought that this giant, shiny pink ring was the finest thing in all the world. She put hers on her finger and refused to eat it. She felt so glamorous with such a beautiful ring on her finger.

Then, this morning, tragedy struck our little house. While going to use the bathroom, Nicole had left her ring on the kitchen table. When she came back out, the ring was no where to be found. Erika was also no where to be found. After a little searching, Erika and the base of the Ring Pop were discovered behind the couch. Alas, the lovely pink jewel was gone from the base having been devoured by a greedy 3 year old. Many bitter tears were shed at this terrible turn of events.

Unfortunately for Nicole, Mom saw a definite parallel between Nicole's prized ring being eaten and the despoiling of some prized Barbies. Erika got sent to her room and Nicole, in spite of my current parenting philosophy that doesn't allow explaining or lecturing, got a lecture and an explanation. I couldn't help but try to make her see that, in the same way that she didn't understand me trying to save Barbies instead of playing with them, Erika couldn't understand not eating candy that was available.

The Misadventures of an Unclear Post

There has been a little concern expressed to me about my previous entry "The Misadventures of a Good Deed". People feel that Erika was treated unfairly in the situation of losing band-aids, bubble bath, and pizza due to the reprehensible behavior of her older sister. Please allow me to set the record straight. Although, she started the journey walking next to the cart, her frequent trips down a different aisle or refusing to leave her current aisle forced me to put her in the shopping cart. Erika had already lost her privileges due to the oft repeated offense of not staying with me. Please excuse my lack of clarification in my previous entry and realize that I'm an equal opportunity punisher.