Archive for December, 2009

Have we just gone too far?

In this day and age of being politically correct, using terms like “flight attendant” instead of steward or stewardess, postal “worker” instead of postman, have we just reached too far in our quest to be fair and neutral?

I read this morning about some feeling as though Christmas itself is under attack. Everywhere you look, it seems there are news reports about a Christmas tree being removed, Christmas programs being renamed “Winter Concert”.  All symbols of the holiday being replaced with friendly, non-denominational snowmen.

Yet, I never hear of a Star of David being taken down.  Or a harvest display placed in celebration of Kwanzaa coming down because someone was offended.  I have yet to read  about anyone getting upset at seeing a banner of crescent moons hung in celebration of EID.

So just what is it about Santa Claus, Christmas trees and carols that incites such furor?  Why do people feel so threatened by them?  If I see a menorah I don’t immediately feel I’m being pressured into converting to Judaism.

Seeing symbols of someone else’s culture or religion should be a learning experience.  An opportunity to discover more about the people around them.  It doesn’t mean you have to become them.   In our quest to be a more tolerant society, I fear we are swinging too far in the other direction.  We run the risk of disrespecting a Christian’s right to celebrate their religion.

I’m not a deeply religious person. I’ve talked about that here before.  I was raised as a Christian.  I do believe in a God.  A supreme being.  Whether his name is Jesus, Mohammed, Jehovah, or even just plain old Bob, I don’t know.  What I do know is all Gods preached tolerance.  Even as the holidays approach, many people seem to have forgotten that.

So if you walk by a Christmas tree, don’t frown if you aren’t a Christian.  Don’t look upon it as a personal insult to you and your religion.

When I walk by a menorah, or see a display for Kwanzaa, I promise I won’t get my knickers in a twist and call the ACLU.

Take time to learn about your fellow man.  Educate yourself.  You may be surprised at what you learn.

The lovely and talented  Issa, tagged me with this beauty.  She’s on a blogging break at the moment, but feel free to go over and peruse her archives.  There is some kick-ass writing over there.

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you.

Ronald Reagan.  When I was a kid, and he was president I sent him a birthday card one year.  I got back a little letter (Form letter, of course, with a stamp) but I thought it was cool.  Still have it somewhere.

2. Where was your first kiss?

Um, don’t remember.  Must have been a doozy.

3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else’s property?

Does writing “asshole” in the dirt of someone’s car count?

4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?

No.  But I decked a girl in high school.  Broke her jaw.  I was a lot more….aggressive..then

5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?

Yup.  Senior year in high school my best friend and I entered a singing competition.  She played the piano and we both sang.  We sang “The Rose”.  We came in third.  Not bad considering we ended up in the orchestra pit for our performance since the piano on stage was busted.

6. What’s the first thing you notice about your preferred sex?

If I’m up close, it’s scent.  Farther away…the eyes.

7. What really turns you off?

Stupidity.  Arrogance. Cruelty.

8. What do you order at Starbucks?

Not a coffee drinker ( Ok, Issa, stop gasping, now.) So I usually get hot chocolate or a warm vanilla creme.

9. What is your biggest mistake?

Whew..I’ve made many.  Probably not pushing harder to stay in college. 

10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?

Um, no.

11. Say something totally random about yourself.

I love to eat chocolate cake with a dill pickle.  I love the combo of sweet/sour.

12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?

God, no.

13. Do you still watch kiddie movies or TV shows?

Oh yes.  In fact, I can’t wait for Ava to get older so I can share my childhood favorites with her.  I will drop everything if I find Looney Toones on.

14. Did you have braces?

Nope.  Probably should have though.  I have a nice overbite.

15. Are you comfortable with your height?

What height?  You mean my lack of it?  At 5′4″ ish.  Yeah, I suppose so.

16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you?

I know there is something, but my brain can’t come up with anything.

17. When do you know it’s love?

When you realize you can put up with all the little things that annoy you about someone.

18. Do you speak any other languages?

Only in curse words. 
19. Have you ever been to tanning salon?

Sadly, yes.  I fried myself to a crisp as a teen.  I will pay for that one day, I know.

20. Have you ever ridden in a limo?

Yes.

21. What’s something that really annoys you?

People who don’t think the rules apply to them.

22. What’s something you really like?

Chocolate.  Caramel.  A good mystery. Snuggling with Ava.

23. Can you dance?

Can I dance?  Yes.  Can I dance well?  Noooooooo.

24. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room?

No.

25. Tag 5 people! Because pretty much everyone I would tag with this has already been tagged, I’ll pass on this part.

A fellow mother on Twitter lost her little boy yesterday.  He was 2 years old.  This mother and her friends asked for prayers and condolences.  Many were given.

And yet, there is always a seedy underside of Twitter that always seems to surface in times of sadness.  It hides, lurks under the radar and then quickly rises up to catch us all by surprise with its ugliness.

I don’t know any of the parties involved.  I don’t follow the mother.  I saw things being re-Tweeted.  I saw expressions of sadness and condolence for the family from my own circle of friends.  As a mother, it is the unthinkable, to lose your child.  Yet so many mothers have had to shoulder that burden.  I logged off for a time, wanting to place some distance between myself and the sadness.

Today I log on again only to find that darkness…that ugliness showing itself again.  Tweets from strangers saying vile things.  Questioning the validity of the story.

I’m no stranger to controversy regarding an untrue story.  Even with that, it never once occurred to me that this woman was lying.  She asked for nothing from us but prayers.

What she got, in addition to those prayers is unforgivable.  And it leads me to ask this series of questions.

Why would you take the time out of your life to not only cause a grieving mother more pain, but to go so far as to write a whole blog post about your “doubts”?  Going so far as to publish her timeline of tweets for the day?  A perfect stranger to you, by your own admission, and you put that much time and energy into questioning her story, continuing to do so, even after the news did indeed prove it true.  What do you get out of critiquing her parenting?  Does it make you feel superior? Smug?

If you’re just looking for ways to increase you follower count and page hits, I can only say, I feel very sorry for you that you would choose to exploit someone’s pain for that end.   Actually, I feel sorry for you anyway.  I cannot imagine how sad and depressing it is to go through life distrusting first.  Out of consideration for the family, maybe, just maybe you could have held your opinions to yourself.  If you were proven right, then, congratulations for you, here’s your gold star.  If not, in this case, you should feel shame that you added more grief to the mountain that is this woman’s to bear.

Thanks to Megan over at AMomTwoBoys for coming up with this awesome idea.  Head on over to her site to check out all the other beautiful holiday cards.

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I was not a blogger last year.  I was not a Twitter-er last year.  But this year I am both.  The love and support that I have found doing both has been amazing and outstanding.  If I can give back to you just a fraction of all that you’ve given to me, I feel I’ll be doing well.  Thank you for reading and sharing in our lives.  You are definitely a blessing to be counted this holiday season.

I hope your Holidays are filled with laughter, love and joy.  May the coming year be kind and gentle to you.

All my love,

Jenna

Sometimes I don’t know if I’m cut out for this parenting gig.  Take this weekend, for example.  I had some shopping to do at the Hallmark store, so we all bundled up and headed to the mall.  We made the decision to ditch the stroller, since at 18 months, Ava really won’t sit still in it for any length of time.  We snapped on her new doggie back pack, with a handle for mommy or daddy to keep hold of her.

Now, go ahead and yell at me for humiliating my daughter by putting a leash on her.  Tell me what a lazy mom I am for not wanting to chase a toddler down every 5 minutes.  Go ahead; get it out of your system.  I’ll wait.

Ok, now if we’re done with that, let’s move on.

So off we strolled into the mall.  Ava was happy as a clam, being able to walk around.  She had a HUGE grin on her face.  We headed into the store, where I let Darin take over “handling duty” while I picked up the items I needed.

That was where the trouble started.  Thank you Hallmark for putting all the plush toys right at eye level for an 18 month old.  She made a beeline for the display.  By the time I had selected my items and checked out, she had gathered up no less than five animals and was walking around looking for more.  She was shopping.  Now, as adorable as that sounds (and trust me, it was cute as all get out) I knew there was going to be a price to pay.  Because I really didn’t want to buy five stuffed animals.   We were able to get one away from her without incident.  The next two were not so easy.  The crying started.  At that point, I simply couldn’t take the remaining two away from her, so we bought them.  Now, my heart was telling me to get them all, because she was loving on them and they were making her so happy.  My head was saying “NO! She has tons at home and doesn’t need more.”  Part of me is feeling guilty for not getting all of them and eliminating the meltdown.  I know she would have forgotten all about it soon after leaving the store.  But in that moment, she was so happy.  Having so much fun.  The look on her face is one I will never forget.  It was sheer joy.  And then I came along and destroyed the fun.

I don’t want her grow up and be a spoiled brat.  We are fortunate that we make a good living and are able to provide not only for her needs, but her wants as well.   It’s so hard to know where and when to draw that line and say no.  If I can afford it, my heart tells me to get it.  I went without a lot of wants growing up.  My parents simply did not have the money.  I want a better childhood for her.  I know that when she looks back, it won’t be the stuff that she remembers.  My head knows all of this.  Now, I just need to convince my heart.

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In other news, we finally surmounted another food mountain this weekend.  We finally got Ava to eat an egg.  Scrambled.  With cheese.  But she ate almost the entire thing.  Now I know you’re rolling your eyes right now and thinking “Big deal”.  But to us it is.  Ava did an about face on eating once we ditched the baby food.  My sweet girl, who happily ate any baby food you gave her, looked at “real food” as if it were the enemy.  Her diet for months has consisted mainly of fruit, cheese and crackers.  The occasional piece of chicken, ham or turkey was ok. Vegetable?  Oh hell no.  We keep trying and she keeps rejecting.  She does love beans we have discovered.  Pinto, kidney, black.  She has yet to turn down any bean offered.

However, last week we discovered she’s developing something called Toddler’s Diarrhea, which is usually caused by too much fruit juice ( or just fruit, in her case) in a kid’s diet, and not enough fiber/fat.  So we’ve been looking for ways to increase the fat in her diet.  We’ve added peanut butter (with her doctor’s blessing) and decided to try eggs again.  This time was a hit.  She ate almost an entire egg.  Wahooo!

I also am going to try avocado on her again as well.  She’s eaten it in the past and seemed to enjoy it.

What are some things you feed you toddler to get some “good” fat into their diet?

I’ve been having a hard time coming up with a blog post this week.  There are lots of things I could write about, but I am not ready to discuss them at any length yet.  I suppose I could just take a hiatus, but somehow, that doesn’t feel right either.

So instead, I offer you this totally lame list of things that you probably don’t know about me.  Try not to grip the edge of your chair in excitement, mmmkay?

• I cover my mouth when I laugh.  Always.

• When I do laugh, and I’m REALLY cracking up, absolutely NO sound comes out of my mouth.  I do wheeze, sometimes alarmingly so to friends and family.

• I am a complete freak about my bed sheets.  They must be super soft.  No pilling, nor the slightest bit of scratchiness will do.  I have been known to take my own sheets on vacation.  *cough*

• I HATED the taste of Pepsi until after Ava was born.  Now I cannot stand the taste of Coke.  Go figure.

• When I’m tired or stressed, my Southern drawl comes back full force.  Or as it’s called in our house, my “twang”.

• I am more comfortable around men than women.  I never feel that men are judging me based on my clothes, hair, make up, weight, etc.  It’s easy to talk, because I don’t feel that I have to compete in any way.

• I swoon at the sound of a British accent.  It sexier to me than Italian, Spanish, French, anything.

• I have a serious love affair with office supplies.  I am a total pen whore.  Every time I go on vacation, I have to come home with a pen from that place.

• I own two sets of Christmas dishes, and four sets of every day dishes.  Plus one set of fine china.  I *might* have a problem.

• I cannot go to sleep if the room is completely quiet.  Just a fan, or white noise isn’t enough.  The TV or radio has to be on.

So now that you have some useless trivia about me in your head, maybe you can parlay that into something interesting, like a drinking game.  Or, you could just tiptoe quietly away from this post and forget that we ever had this talk.  Personally, I’d go for the latter.