There are several “crafty” type things we’ve been wanting to finish the last few weeks. Unfortunately, with so little ass-sitting time, we’re not making much progress. Of course, there’s more than just the time limits holding me back.

My crafty skills are limited to painting things with stencils or using stamps on paper. I don’t have a lot of natural skills, in other words. Two of the projects I’m working on are the tops of the two stools in this picture. I started out trying a bit of free-hand and have since repainted the tops of the stools SEVERAL TIMES. Which is the main reason the projects are so delayed. I thought I’d try to actually be ARTSY. I’ve learned my lesson. Back to stencils for me.

NikkiZ loves arts and crafts of any sort. Glue and stamps are her favorite, of course, because they’re INSANELY MESSY. I can removed water-based acrylics with a baby wipe - ink from stamps? Not so much.

But it occurred to me last night. I kinda don’t care. The craft work we did yesterday made a substantial mess on clothes and on the table. Some of it was removed easily, but some was not. And might not be removed at all. And I kinda don’t care.

I don’t know if it’s because I spend so little money on clothes for her, or because we don’t have a lot of nice furniture (we have three dogs and two cats…”nice” furniture is wasted on us) or maybe it’s just because? I’m kinda lazy and would rather just put my daughter in stained clothes from craft night than stress out about how to avoid the stains in the first place. One of the many times I think that my inherent laziness regarding might actually work to my kids’ advantage.

I love it when that happens.

I did something really crappy this weekend. I yelled at my son for something that was totally ridiculous. And I was mean about it. And in reality? It was just an outburst because I was feeling insecure and he just happened to have done something that I could twist into a “cause” enough to justify yelling. So I yelled and was just simply…a royal bitch. I mean - I was the biggest bitch I’ve probably ever been to ANYONE. EVER. And you’ll just have to trust me when I say, I’ve been quite a big bitch in the past. So this time? Was really ugly.

I apologized and tried to backtrack a short time after my initial outburst. And I think I’ve padded on a healthy layer of positive reinforcement to help negate the SUPER BITCH action I applied first. BUT STILL. I can not shake the feeling of disappointment in myself.

I know many of you can see how amazing my son is in my stories and pictures. But none of them truly paints the honest picture. He is beyond amazing. And the shit he’s had to live through in his life, and the great attitude he still has in spite of it all, is inspirational.

He is sympathetic and understanding. He feels the pain of those around him and often gets the most frustrated when he can’t do anything about it. He sticks up for the little guy and puts up with a bunch of shit from the bigger guy because of it. He’s more mature at 13 than I am at 32. He is kind and loving and has an amazing sense of humor. I can not praise him as much as he deserves. I have tried, but it all just seems to fall short. He has blessed my life and made me want to be a better person. And I shoulld probably find a better way to repay him besides letting my stupid insecurities manifest into total freak-out sessions at his expense.

I hope maybe he’ll stumble upon this entry today. He doesn’t read my blog everyday, but sometimes he gets bored and likes to entertain himself by reading my embarrassing stories I’m admitting to the world. So, today? I’ll just tell him, “I’m sorry.”

There has been a lot of discussion around the intraweb about what parents will and will not let their kids watch for entertainment. I thought I’d chime in to share my “rules” for LilZ. Except that there really aren’t any. But, before I get into that, let me give a little background on those regulations (or lack thereof) by explaining key factors about how MrZ and I grew up.

1) I grew up with a few friends who were very strictly banned from watching anything rated PG-13 or higher. Even in high school. So, they simply lied to their parents. We still watched the movies either in the theater or at other friend’s houses, their parents just didn’t know. I remember one friend who told her Dad at least half-a-dozen time we were seeing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. When we never had even seen it once.

2) MrZ and I both grew up with few restrictions on what he could watch ourselves. Especially in terms of horror movies. In Junior High, the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th movies were staples for sleepovers. In my group (of girls) we watch those as well as Dirty Dancing at our slumber parties. I bet I saw Dirty Dancing 50 times before I even entered high school.

First of all - I’m fairly confident that my Junior High child is going to be seeing Rated-R movies at some point in time regardless of the rules I set. I’m sure there are parents who successfully protect their children from Rated-R movies through Junior High, but I just don’t really see that as a possibility in our lives. I don’t have the desire to call Moms before sleepovers to make sure no movies are rented that I don’t approve of. I don’t feel like escorting my child to the theater to buy tickets to a movie to make sure it’s PG and not PG-13. In terms of priorities in my parenting world? None of those things are very high. I’m too busy trying to figure out if I can wait one more week before washing the sheets on my kids’ beds before they’ll disintegrate under the filth. If I can squeeze in one more episode of Samantha Who? before I do laundry, then I consider it a good day.

Secondly - I would much rather my son see one of the Rated-R comedies in the theaters (Sarah Marshall, Superbad, Knocked Up etc.) than half of the forensic/crime dramas on television right now. To me? Sex jokes and naked bodies are way more tolerable than Bones or CSI or especially Law & Order: SVU. That show talks about rape and pedophilia and show graphic shots of abused bodies. And it’s on network television at PRIMETIME. I just have a hard time getting worked up over nude scenes and sex jokes in movies when NBC is showing a dead girl who has just been raped by her uncle.

Lastly - have you listened in on any Junior High or High School kids lately when they didn’t think you were? I sit in a line to pick up my Junior High kid several times a week and hear groups of well-dressed, well-groomed kids walking by cursing like sailors. For example, I saw a name-brand wearing kid whose Mom drives a car with a church sticker on the back say, “She’s just a fuckin’ whore. Screw her.”

There’s a lot of talk about sex and drugs in the schools as well. And LilZ attends a very well-ranked public school in town that has minimal negative reports in terms of academics or discipline. It’s kinda snobby, almost. The kids that go there dress better than I do. (Which, isn’t that hard to do, I’ll admit.) This is a “good school” with “good kids” but I’m still no longer naive enough to assume that means they’re all angels with nothing on their minds but good grades and God.

Case and Point: The other day I asked my son what a drug was because I hadn’t heard of it. Or at least, I wasn’t positive I knew what it was. And he knew the answer. Not because of some DARE program, but because kids talk about drugs at school. They talk about sex at school as well. A LOT. And the girls? Let’s just say that as I drive through the line watching the girls leaving the school I wonder how skimpy the clothes will be when NikkiZ hits Junior High if there’s already so little left to work with. There are girls with belly-baring shirts and panty-flashing skirts. And again: THIS IS JUNIOR HIGH.

I think I just have always hoped that if I’m open with LilZ about my opinions but let him make his own decisions, then in the end I’ll have an honest and well-rounded kid in my home.

Maybe I’m just jaded. Or at least the complete opposite of naive. I just feel like there’s not too much of a point in keeping my 7th grader from watching a movie he’ll probably watch at someone’s house when it comes out on video. At least now I know what he’s watching and I can watch it too. Maybe not with him (he feels uncomfortable laughing at sex jokes if I’m in the room) but at some point so that I’ll at least know what the kids are talking about.

And also? Some of that shit is really funny. And if we can’t laugh at a guy who is getting dumped while he’s completely naked - what can we laugh at?

My mission yesterday was to clear out the 20+ 30-gallon bags of clothes out of our garage and take them to Goodwill. I wasn’t sure how it would work as I’ve never dropped off stuff at the new facility, so I took a small load the first time. There wasn’t anyone to help me throw the bags in the bins, but I saw where other people were putting their bags, so I did it myself. The next trip, I filled the car to maximum capacity: 15 bags. Again, no one was out there helping so I threw them all in myself. The third trip we were lucky enough to have MrZ join us because he was home after a doctor’s appointment. So, of course, the time he was with me there were two guys that came out to help. That is just my luck.

Needless to say, my back was a little sore yesterday evening. So - LilZ spent some time with NikkiZ in her room yesterday afternoon while I soaked in the tub. After I was done, I checked in on them playing in her room and found her in the excersaucer.

Swoosh!

I would have never put her in there as I just always say, “You’re too big!” But evidently? Not so much. LilZ used my camera to document their playtime which is where I found evidence of her in the basketball goal as well. Another activity I wouldn’t have considered. Put her in the basketball net? Why would I do such a thing? But LilZ did it and she cracked up over it.

The best, though, was when he put her in the pull-up boxes. She laughed that deep infectious laugh we don’t hear all that often because it takes extreme measures to produce it. Evidently, sticking her in the box her diapers came in is a good start.

So - new things added to my list of ways to entertain a toddler: Basketball Simulation, Excersaucer, and Cardboard Box Storage. I wanted to share these things with you in case you aren’t lucky enough to have someone living in your home that thinks outside of the boring “MOM” box when it comes to entertaining a child.