I've been listening to vinyl lately, so much vinyl, so little time, but so much time, nothing is as it seems. It's not that I do nothing while listening, but there is always music now. Music came back, it had hitched a ride somewhere, and when I woke up, three years ago, it was drilled into my skull, The White Stripes, and Ween. This one has been a good old friend.  Beck, One Foot In The Grave  There's just something about my turntable, damp weather, and vinyl.   Nothing of consequence has happened in the four years or so since I disemboweled this blog.  I started another one, but then said, phooey.  It wasn't laziness, lack of want to connect, I have no idea what it was.   I realized a long time ago, to put my feet on the floor every morning and say "I know nothing."   "Well, there ain't nobody left to impress And everyone's kissing their own hands This 666 on the kitchen floor Ain't no fire in the pan? I get lonesome So glad to be a slab Stiff as a stick on a board I get thoughts and dirty socks Piled in the corner I get lonesome Getting fat on your own fear Bring that beer over here I stomp on the floor Just to make a sound" Beck Listen to it again and again. . . that is all.

Well, it's cold and wet, rain. . . I was planning to kill the rest of my garden today.  I may still.  On the weekend, I took out everything, I mean EVERYTHING, except two plants I am saving for a friend. There has been guilt with the garden, that I "shouldn't" mess with it, as it's been here since the house was probably built. I have four pots of grasses that grow fourteen feet high, and another butterfly bush (mine was swallowed by the garden last year).   On the other side of the garden are stunning eight foot high fall yellow bloomers.  I have put the word out to friends that they are free for the taking, just gimme a call, and bring a shovel. The hollyhocks, well, they just had a hard summer (again), any seeds (which were minimal) were cast against the fence, in hopes of a new crop next year. Life was so crazy this summer that many projects that were meant to happen fell by the wayside.  It happens. It's hard not feeling guilty that stuff did not get done, but shit happens I suppose. Maybe I will go out in the rain, with my boots on and maybe the rain will help loosen the weeds and wayward  plants. What I do know, is that I fell in love with this house for the hollyhocks, but those hollyhocks are now growing in a different location, and are happy swaying against the fence line.  They will multiply, and they will thrive.  I just don't know what to do with the grasses.  How to arrange them on the slope of the garden, or if I should just wait another few weeks, move the rose of sharron bushes over to the side of the house into the blank garden and put the grasses elsewhere.  Who knew a garden would be this confusing.  I may need a fresh set of eyes from WB.

Don't Sweat It

People like to believe in the lowest denominator.  I realized this after eating more than fifty rocket suckers within two days.  My salivary glands began to puff up, I thought for sure the next morning I would be dealing with a case of mumps, rather it was over use of the sour taste buds, which made my tongue raw, and glands puff in response.  I also realized this after I experienced some ridiculous gossip, which I will address in my next post, The Lowest Common Denominator And Adults. LOL Is it the internet, is it because now media wants us to believe that everything is a worst case scenario?  Do we worry because there are now labels like ADHD, ADD, varying degrees of autism, if our kids are not compliant in school? Thirty years ago, parents didn't use these labels.  There were no labels to define behaviours or they just weren't popularized.  We would just say "boys will be boys" , or "nice girls act that way", and that made everything okay.  Teachers were comfortable with kids who were more active or inactive (think my brother attached to his stroller at the age of six).  Now, it seems that there is a carbon cutout ideal for elementary school kids, preschoolers, and even adults. Our kids are expected to be able to absorb everything around them.  They have a huge amount of "things" that divert attention, I Pods, Playstations, Facecrack, television, to name a few.  We didn't have that growing up, we did have Saturday morning cartoons, and about an hour of Scooby Doo after school (if we were really young, that bear named Jeremy, or if we were really lucky, the Littlest Hobo). Only the rich kids at the end of the street had an Atari system.  Oooooh.Our parents did not schedule us normally.  Now, kids seem to have much more on their plate, hockey, horseback riding, playgroups, bowling, and trying to be the "perfect" kid. Einstein didn't talk until the age of three (or so the myth goes, and it is debatable), here's one take  ( http://physics.about.com/od/alberteinstein/p/einsteinpro.htm  and another http://dyslexia.learninginfo.org/einstein.htm ) by the time a child hits the eight year old mark, they pretty much know how to learn.  Unfortunately, parents are pressured to hit benchmarks that are possibly to early.  Edit here is a fantastic link (with other links that I will check out later :http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/What_is_Gifted/2echildren.htm . The Lowest Common Denominator also ensues competition between parents which is extremely detrimental, and will most definitely at one time or another, blow up in their faces.  Many parents love to hear about the child who isn't speaking French by age four, but they do not like to hear about the amazing invention that another four year old made using a crystal radio and a wad of gum. In a conversation the other day, a question arose, should X be toilet trained by the age of two. Now, I am by no means a parenting expert, but, my response was, at Grade 8 graduation, there are no children in diapers, don't rush it, it will come on it's own time.  Like everything else, including speaking.  I remember having to learn how to pronounce my L's and R's in a speech therapists room (actually, I am pretty sure it was just a teacher reading from a book).  I was approximately eight years old. I think parents worry way too much. Parents are fast tracking their children, much like themselves.  Unless there is something desperately wrong, don't sweat it.  Your kid will fling their diapers when they are ready, not when you or your mother in law are ready.  Your child will enunciate when she wants to.  Sure, take time with the kids to help them with their L's and R's, but also be aware that kids compartmentalize.  They may be mechanical and focus all their attention at a certain age by building with Lego and don't care if they are two years old and not commenting on current events, or the upheaval in Libya.  Or you could have a child that is three, and is commenting on the possible Air Canada strike, but refusing to listen. Just wait it out and consider the fact that their peers become a great leveler with social behaviour.  But also realize that trying to keep up with the neighbours and after school activities might be tiring your kids out.  Also realize that our world that we live in is changing exponentially, and that now kindergarten kids are carrying cell phones.   The old "normal" may not be what it was when we were kids or even when our kids were young.  The responsibilities that are placed on kids are enormous, and could we have handled it twenty or thirty years ago if the gods just dumped all the electronics and television shows on our laps at the ripe old age of two, I think not.

It's really hard for me to imagine having little kids in the house at my age.  Many friends are just starting families and I wonder, how they have the energy.  Those little kids move so fast, and squirm.  With my one daughter, who was more like a little boy, active, mechanical, and dirty, I was tired in my mid twenties.  When the 7:30 pm bedtime rolled around, it was elation.  At one point, we had to make her run toddler laps around the property to tire her out. She did take a nap in the afternoon, but that was a small respite.  I was one of "those mothers" who owned and used a baby leash.  When it came to that, I felt like the worst mother in the world, other mothers would stare in disbelief. It was used for safety after she had a hissy fit and ran into traffic. Yet in Belgium, baby leashes are common place, a friend said, and now they make them look like backpacks! For the last few years, many friends have had toddlers in tow, and it seems as if these kids are just like my Tibbles, loud, active, rambunctious, and moody.  Tibbles was what I would consider at times "difficult", her face was always sticky with god knows what, and she could scale walls and get up into the locked medicine cupboard.  There were calls to poison control, there were accidents from her jumping off furniture.  I wished I could harness that energy for myself, and get her a toddler type hamster ball.  This post actually may seem contradictory to my last, but make no mistake, I salute parents out there with active kids.   The only person who believes me is my mother, who could not babysit her, as Tibbles was an entity unto herself.  She still is, in a different way.  The energy is directed into music, and learning.   So, anyone out there with active kids, kudos to you. And although I feel tired and anxious,  just watching your little fire balls, this stage will seem like forever, but there will be an end, and you will have different trials and tribulations. All of us have been there, but many parents forget.  Remember that in Belgium, leashes are the norm, and you as a mom, know best :)

I Don't Get Excited When Your Child Breathes

I've been thinking a lot about parenting, and possibly how I screwed up.  It's possible that my kids were not given enough self esteem.  Maybe, when they bumped their heads on furniture and cried, I didn't blame their mishap on the furniture that was bumped and say "Bad Desk", but cuddled them and said "oops, that dent will pop out on it's own, or we will use a plunger".  Maybe I made them feel small, by not feeding in to the idea that they were the centre of the universe.  "You are not the only pebble on the beach," was a mantra said many times when I grew up, and I believed it.  I still suffer the consequences of this, as I haven't made much of my life really.  No global impact at least.  I believed that there were always better people "out there", and that good things were not handed to you. Things that are given, always have a price. Good or bad, I have passed this down to my kids. Maybe I placed the onus on them to realize and learn from their challenges, and maybe that gave them too much responsibility, too soon.  Now they have a mental breakdown if their marks are less than honours, and they spend all their "free time" with their faces buried in books. My children are pale, very pale, and when hit by sunlight they shrivel and dehydrate like little albino raisins. I fail to grasp the idea of why when a child does a naughty or rude or disrespectful action that it does not become a learning or a disciplined moment.  As a parent, I rarely spanked (okay once prior to baby leash, because Tibbles ran into traffic, and once Gibbles had a one hour temper tantrum at a geriatric mall causing the elderly to stare, missing stitches in their knitting and forgetting what they were talking about, which was talking about forgetting what they were talking about), but I did give time outs or "the look".  If my kids did butt into conversations, with attention grabbing actions, because my attention was directed elsewhere,  I did pipe up and say "wait until I am finished" or absolutely refused to acknowledge them if it was inappropriate or irritating. It leaves a parent to wonder though, with this new sense of entitlement, does it make the child think that "the ends" is more important than "the means", and that everyone will have a reality television show when they hit a certain age.  That if they strive for anything more than mediocraty, that there will be accolades, an audience and possibly a clap track because a bowel movement came out in the shape of an S as Oprah strives for? There is a huge difference between the toddlers and young kids that I have met, what parents do to instill morals, etiquette and social skills and my parenting skill set.  I may have done everything wrong by today's standards. To be honest, there are few kids I actually "like", mainly because of what they have been taught, and how they function.  This does not mean I expect a toddler to automatically know to put a napkin on his or her lap.  I just don't feel that I have to put up with kids running amok in stores and bumping into me, pushing or yelling.  Goober, boogers and their dirty germ laden breath make me cringe.   I don't want to be expected to say "isn't that cute", because, frankly, I don't find it cute.  I find it cute when a kid says thank you, please, and acts like a robot.  Really all those little bundles are evil, puke-o-matics with pulsating veins in their foreheads. Do not get me wrong, I am not a hard ass or cantankerous, maybe a little bitter.  Maybe, by not giving my children that sense of entitlement, maybe they will not get as far as those that are entitled. My kids understand that bad things happen to good people, that not every cloud has a silver lining, and that skills, unless practiced are worthless.  It is a pessimistic, yet real view on life.  They see me, who spent 40,000 on OSAP and what have I done to put it into practice?  Raise kids, pick up dog poop, throw in laundry and pick up dog poop. The one thing I did instill was that I have made my children aware that it is okay to question "authority figures", not to just assimilate, but to ask valid questions.  This is by no means to irritate the person questioned, but to know that those we view as authority do make mistakes, are not perfect, and do need to be questioned when appropriate. I suppose now, into my thirties, when everyone else is starting families, that maybe I don't have the patience for the unruly kind of kids or the parents who think that they are the only ones on the face of the earth who have had a child. Parents that feel their offspring are the most fabulous gifts to the planet, just because they emerged out of a vagina at 9:56 pm during a silent birth with candles lit for ambiance. Am I supposed to ignore the fact that their prodigy has a cone head, and that it is ugly, and that I don't believe it scurried out of the birth canal spouting Latin? Thank God I had my kids when I did, because otherwise I would be childless.  Maybe my husband and I did do things backwards and it has been a rough road. Our peers were having a good time when we were buying second hand clothes that took four years for our girls  to grow in to. You can always roll that extra three feet of jean material up.  That snowsuit is big because air is a good insulator.  Maybe the late thirties and early forties sets of parents know something different, and are more comfortable in parenting. We were dirt poor.  We worried about our single friends or couple friends and didn't impose our kids on them, because we knew that they were not "into that scene", or were dangerous .  When we had to mingle, we tried our best to get my parents to watch them as we couldn't afford a sitter, or we just did not go out. Now it is commonplace for these little imps to take over social gatherings, and domineer conversations. They are everywhere, toddlers taking over television, uber toddlers that compete against each other for Little Miss Perfect.  Toddlers with attitude, Tweens with ego, and parents who have a temper tantrum when they cannot secure a babysitter so they can go to a Stag and Doe.  These mini adults also have cell phones and laptops.  They are defined in kindergarten by what their parents have bought them.  The age of being a kid and playing in a sandbox that has been used by cats is over.  Hey Mom, that sand is really squishy.  As young parents, I know that I was vilified by certain single friends, who assumed that because my husband couldn't come out to "play", that it was me stopping him. Au contraire, it was the fact that we were so busy and tired from being young parents, going to school, and working, and with lack of babysitters, that we were unable.  I recall one wedding where my husband was so upset, we couldn't budget a rented tuxedo.  It was a decision of diapers or dapper.  At the rehearsal dinner, they asked us to bring our kids to an outdoor BBQ, to my mortification, our eldest daughter decided it would be fun to remove foliage from the backyard garden and placed on my lap, fern leaves.  The stink eye that I received was laser beam quality enough for me, as a mother to really think about what events I should involve them in and what ought to be respected.  I do remember taking my eldest aside and saying do not destroy private property, as she was four and was cognitive.  As young parents we were also looked down upon by older parents, how could we possibly know how to raise a child?  Well, we are raising two, and although they are a little translucent, and overachieving, they are great kids, and we did it on our own.  And really, as parents, we are damned if we do, and damned if we don't.  I hope that I don't get old, I hope I leave a relatively good looking corpse, because if this generation of the entitled are running the homes for the aged, I would rather bite that cyanide pill while I am non arthritic.