Standardize the Panty Tag Thing, Please

Ahh, this post hearkens back to the great debates of my time: Beta or VHS, DSL or ISDN, Blue Ray vs. HD DVDs, and now, the left side panty tag, or tag less.

I would like to request that all manufacturers of panties for little girls standardize the left side tag or tag-less with writing on the back thing, please.

You see, learning which way to put on your panties is hard enough when you are three years old, but when your parent has to use "if, then" statements, you can just forget it.

The Little One must think I am crazy. I am sure she must think I really don't know which way to put my panties on, either, since we have to keep changing her panties around. Every day, there is a 5 minute discussion as I again go over the way panties are put on, depending on if there is a tag, or not. I don't imagine that walking around with panties on the wrong way is very comfortable for her, either, until I find the error and assist her with it.

So, please, help a little girl out, and her mother.

Pick a method of labeling the underwear. Either put tags on the left, or make them tag less with the writing on the back. That way, I can give The Little One just one simple way to figure out which way her panties should go on. I'll be fine with either one. Just let me know which way you are going and I will throw out all the non conformers and replace them which ever design gets chosen.

Let's just move on this quickly, please. I would like to keep tomorrow's discussion on which way her panties go to 30 words or less.

Thank you for you time.

Oh You and Your Part Time Vegetarianism

As I have clearly stated before, I am a vegetarian. If you want me to be specific, I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian, though I really need to cut out the ovo, and maybe the lacto.

Anyway, what that means is that I eat no meat at all, but I do eat eggs and dairy. I am also a very strict ovo-lacto-vegetarian. I check everything I can for any animal product, and forgo anything, much as I may love it, once I find out what it has. This means I can't eat at so many Mexican restaurants because of the lard in their food. This means that I can't have jello shooters anymore (not that I have actually ever had one) because gelatin is made from animal hooves. The gelatin thing also leaves out a lot of desserts, yogurt, and even marsh mellows, but so be it.

I try my best to buy shoes that are all man made, which let me assure you, sucks when it come to finding great footwear.

I do all this, and more, as a choice. This is my lifestyle. This is the way I want to be.

Let me also state that I do not think it is wrong to eat meat, but I think it is wrong for ME to eat meat. I do not expect anyone else to make my choice. If you eat meat, great. If you don't, great, let's exchange some recipes. I really think that whatever you choose to do, be happy with it, and it is all good.

However, there is one thing I don't understand, the idea of part time vegetarianism. This is the big movement now where people only eat meat sometimes. They may do it for different reasons, but not every meal has meat. In the south, we just called that poor. You see, not everyone, even those with farms and animals of their own to butcher, has enough to have meat at every meal. So, the reality is you don't have it. I doubt any of them are calling themselves Part Time Vegetarians (PTVs).

My own father has eaten meals without meat. He may not like it, but that's how it is sometimes. I dare you to call him a part time vegetarian to his face. Double Dog Dare, even.

My own children could be called PTVs, I suppose. The Big One only eats chicken now, and it must not resemble an actual piece of chicken in any way for her to eat it. No. It needs to be ground, breaded, and shaped, preferably like a crown or star, for her to be into it. I by no means consider her a PTV, nor do I care for anyone else to call her that.

She eats meat. She may not eat much of it,but she likes it when she eats it. She doesn't have a guilty conscience if she eats it. I think all of the disqualifies her from being any kind of vegetarian at all.

I read someone liken being a PTV to being a Part Time Christian somewhere, and I nearly wasted perfectly good Coke Zero. The idea of a part time Christian, only when it suits you, is funny. No one would go around and proclaim part time Christianity. To me, both are based on deep personal beliefs. Granted one is a religion, but both of them represent specific ways of life that you choose to live.


So, why is it ok to only hold true to certain beliefs sometimes, when you think you can count yourself in, but not when it matters. To me, you can't count yourself into the crowd until you are really willing to follow through. We aren't even talking about making mistakes here, but intentional choices. You either choose to eat meat, or you don't.

To call yourself a vegetarian, in any way, when you actively partake of meat on at least a part time basis, is a bit demeaning to the term. I actually am a bit offended. You are not a vegetarian. You just eat less meat. If I walk into the woods dressed in camouflage, am I suddenly a hunter? In my case, I would probably be there to scare the animals away, but still, I participated in half of the appropriate related activity. So, under this same misguided premise, wouldn't I then be hunting? Maybe I would actually have to carry a gun. I certainly wouldn't have to kill anything because many hunters come back with nothing to show for their efforts, even though they wanted to. So, you can't make that a requirement.

I hope I am not alone in seeing the absurdity of someone who is a meat eater calling themselves a vegetarian. Don't get me wrong, I think it is great if you want to eat less meat. Good on you. However, if you really feel the need to label yourself something special as a reward for your effort, try a different word or phrase. I hear people use flexitarian, and that is at least not offensive as calling yourself a vegetarian. Instead, how about you forget about trying get other people to pat you on the back for your sacrifice, and just enjoy a wonderful, flavorful, healthy meatless meal.

Leaving Mommy at Home

Tonight was great. I left Mommy at home, and went out just as me; that fun loving, long talking, but not when I'm watching a movie, chick that I used to be a long time ago.

It was really fantastic. We saw a movie, and then actually discussed the movie. I did not buy popcorn in order to appease anyone. In fact, I didn't buy anything but a ticket. I did not have to run to the bathroom during the movie, and miss any part of it.

The best part, though, was standing in the parking lot beside our cars, just chatting. Talking about boys even. Well, men, but its all the same when you feel like you are young and alive again. Also, to be fair, we were talking about men for someone else.

I loved it.

It wasn't a group, just me and a friend. That's all you need, though, to have a little fun sometimes. You just have to get out there, and remember what it was like to have fun a long time ago. You have to

While I can never truly leave all the mom parts at home. I will always have My Girls in mind, and be thinking about how they are, what they are doing, etc.

Still, It was nice to do something again where you feel like one of the girls again, and not just a mom.

I Am The Queen....

I believe that I am the queen, the tittle holder, the reigning champion, if you will, when it comes to vomit and kids stories. You see, I have yet to hear anyone else who can compete with some of the fantastic vomit moments that I have had.

Last night, I believe I re-earned my icky crown.

I was laying in bed with The Little One, who has been sick for days. She has a nasty, stomach curdling cough that wont go away. Its one of those coughs that just keeps going, and you are sure is only going to end when she actually spits a lung out. The coughing fits make her turn red, and keep her from being able to breath. They are really terrible. They also choke her until she vomits sometimes, as kept happening last night. Usually she holds the vomit at bay quite well. She hates to vomit, or spit as she likes to more gracefully call it. So, as the coughs came, I kept asking if she was ok, or needed anything. After a while, she finally fell asleep.
I pulled my out fantastic Droid smart phone, and was able to silently check my email without getting up.
As an aside, let me tell you that I love my phone. I got a Droid just a few months ago, and I love that thing. I use it for EVERYTHING. It goes way beyond just a phone or even an Internet connection for me. I use it for music when I run. I use it for blogging. I use it constantly. Now that I have it, I don't know how I ever survived with out it, and if it came down to it, I would give up a couple of meals a month just to be able to afford it. Really. I would.
So, anyway, I lay there, checking my email, getting ready to respond to someone, when her coughing started. IT was hard. It was icky. Then suddenly, it wasn't just couching.
The Little One turned toward me too fast for me to react, and vomited all over my phone. Of course, she got my hand, clothes, the bed sheets, herself, and more as well, but none of that was nearly as shocking to me in the moment as realizing there was vomit on my beautiful purple cased phone.

I got her to sit up, and once she stopped coughing, I pulled her clothes, and ran for a wash cloth. I wiped the phone off, then ran back her her. I got her cleaned up, and layed her down else where for me to take care of everything else.
Eventually, I got all of the lesser stuff cleaned up, but my poor phone, still stunk. I had to take off the cover, clean it gently, and the let it dry. It may never be the same, though.

The Little One will keep getting better, and hopefully be over this completely soon. Until then, i think I'll just put my phone up to charge when we lay down at night.

While I would love to think this is the last of my vomit stories, I truthfully doubt that. Though, I do hope that no more of the stories involve my phone. I think that I will retain this stinky and unwanted championship for for some time. I would gladly pass this baton on, though, should anyone think they can give me a run for my smelly, wet money.

I Was Wrong

This post is dedicated to the one who was right and in honor of Father's Day, because he would love nothing more than for me to say "I'm wrong and you are right".

That wouldn't be me, though, because I was wrong.

You see, if you know me, you know that I love a bargain. I do not believe in paying full price, unless I have to, and cherish a deal. That deal shopping mentality includes my grocery shopping as well. If I have to buy something not on sale, I always look for the cheaper store brand, because I refuse to pay for a name. Store brands are generally as good as a name brand, and are usually much cheaper.

At least I thought so.

My husband loves Frosted Flakes cereal. Loves it. We just call it Daddy's cereal in our house. The Girls will actually come into the kitchen and ask me if they can have a bowl of Daddy's cereal. He loves it that much.

However, without a coupon or sale, or even better if it is a sale and coupon, that name brand cereal isn't cheap.
I buy The Girls the cheaper off brand versions for anything they ask for. My Husband, though, required the good stuff. I found that to be ridiculous. I could save over $1 a box. That would be at a minimum $2 a month, and $24 a year in cereal alone.
So, once, I bought the knock off brand and took it home without consultation. The instant he hate it, he told me it was terrible, and he hated it. I told him it was the same thing, but cheaper. He disagreed vehemently. This actually became a small point of contention for us at some point.
I couldn't believe that he could hate the knock off that much. I even thought about switching out the bags, and putting the cheap stuff in the good box to see if he still felt the same way. I never did it, and just started begrudgingly buying the expensive brand.

Yesterday, I had a break through. I realized just how wrong I had been. I bought The Girls a knock off Cinnamon square cereal. This is one of my favorite cereals, if I do ever eat cereal. Last night, I had a little of the knock off as a snack with them. It was terrible. Not only could I tell the difference, but it didn't even look right to me. Even The Big One came to tell me that it didn't taste right. I may have just been the particular knock off I had, but regardless, there was a huge difference between that and the real deal. I was floored, and a little disgusted with the cereal itself.

There was a difference. He could tell, because it was one of his favorite things, and it mattered to him.

So, to my husband, I'm sorry. I will search high and low, and stock up on the good stuff when ever I can. If, heaven forbid, there is no sale, I will just buy it for you, with a warm heart, because you deserve the good stuff if you want it.

To Tell The Truth, Or Not

As I have well established, The Big One is quite a character. Though bright, she is often lost in her own world, and will say things that are very honest, but not always very appropriate. I generally attribute this to her blonde type personality. I work with her, reminding her when to speak out loud and when to use the voice inside her head only, or when she needs to wait until she is in private with an appropriate adult like mom or dad to ask these things, and we will continue to have to work on this. I Perhaps it is my strong southern heritage, but I am really hung up on making sure that we establish a and grow the filter that runs from her brain to her mouth at a young age. It isn't that I think you should always filter what you say. In fact, there are many instances where you shouldn't filter what you say, but be brutally honest. There in lies the hardest lesson to teach: when to speak up, and when to let things be.

The other day, after a long trip home, I realized that I may make this a more difficult lesson for my children to learn, because when I choose not to utilize my own filter, it often comes at odd moments.

Traveling with my children, or any child, is usually a working lesson in patience for parents. Our last trip was no exception. Even if your children are well behaved, there are inevitably other things that bring on extra stress, and having children there questioning why in regards to every issue increases the stress exponentially.

Our first stress full, filterless moment came as we entered the security line at out initial airport. I thought that at 5:00am on a Tuesday, there would be little airport traffic, and we should be able to get through the lines quickly. I was wrong.There were very long lines for everything, especially security.

After we checked in, we ran over to the security line. It was insane, and out flight was soon to be boarding. After a few moments, a security person came sort of close to use, and started speaking. She was close enough that I could hear her, but with the thick accent she had, she was not close enough for me to understand her. The next time she came around, and with the little bit we had moved closer, I realized she was calling out flight times. If you flight was at that time or before, they were puling you from the general line, and sending you through a short cut. That was us. We were running late. I grabbed The Girls and ran up to her. She checked our boarding passes and sent us to a short line. We bypass the entire maze of people, and were able to step right into the short lines for the x-ray machines. Just as another member of the security team told me which short line to get into, the real moment began.
As soon as The Girls and I stepped over, from behind me I heard,
"Oh, sure, let them go through, while I miss my business flight."

I turned to look at the man behind me. I wouldn't have really suspected him a business traveler, what with the scruffy jeans, vintage tee, and skate shoes, though I am sure he paid good money for his clothes to look that rough when he bought them. I turned back around, filter on, intent on ignoring him.
Until he started again.

"Sure. AS long as they get to go, everything is fine. If I miss my flight, I lose my job, but as long as they make it, everything is great."

At this point, the same woman who ushered me into my current line ask him when his flight was, and explained to him that they would pull him from the line as well, if they needed to, but that wasn't necessary just yet.
That, of course, did not pacify him. We got one more round of complaints, aimed at us.
At that point, I was done, and the filter was off for the remainder of the trip. I looked at The Big One, who had noticed the commotion, and said out loud, with intent, "Its ok, honey, sometimes, people are just jerks in the morning."
See. The filter came off. She needed to know that people act a fool, and he needed to know that he was acting a fool.

Honestly, it wasn't polite, and it isn't something that I want my children to learn at this age, calling names in particular. However, I also want them to understand that people don't have right to devalue them, or believe that they are any less important than anyone else in this world.

Had I been able to close off my children's ears for a moment, I would have loved to have told that man just that. He was no more, or less, important than anyone else in that line, and we would all be treated the same. Though it would have certainly been done with at least a modicum of profanity thrown in.

Our next filterless moment came shortly there after. On our outbound portion of this trip, we were actually required to run through the airport to make a plane change. SO, of course now The Girls think we must run through the airport all the time. It seems to be hilarious to them. So, we ran straight to our gate. Once we got there, the plane was already on general boarding. WE got in line, and once the boarding passes had been scanned, The Big One took off again to run. I called her back as The Little One and I were walking down the sky bridge.

"You don't need to run anymore. There is going to be a big line of people waiting to get one the plane."

And as I was finishing that line, we hit the line of people. WE took our place at the end, and The Big One looked at me quite confused.

"Mom, why is there a big line waiting to get on the plane?"

I could have been nice, at least, I think I still had the ability, and a little tact left in me, but I opted for a very direct approach on this one.

"Because people bring bags that are far too large to fit onto the airplane with them, bags that they aren't supposed to bring anyway, and that stand in the isle ways, blocking everyone else, and holding up the line, while they struggle to put these bags they shouldn't even have onto the plane. We have to wait until they finish to be able to get on the plane and take our own seats."

This made total sense to her.

"Our bags fit. WE don't' do that."

"You are right, but we still have to wait on people that don't follow the rules, and ruin it for everyone else."

I don't know if the man in front of me thought I was referring to him, because he instantly turned around. I wasn't, though. His carry on was just fine. I checked. He may have been looking to see if I looked as crazy as I sounded. I'm not sure. HE looked at me, then at The Big One, and then turned back around.

I fully realize that if my children don't quite get the filter thing right, I will be at least partially to blame. I suppose I can live with that, as long as they get it right most of the time, or at least know how to apologize should they need to. After all, sometimes, you just have to tell the truth. Nothing else will do.

My Mom Has The Right To Remain Silent, But Not The Ability

Let me preface this post by assuring you all the my mother did not get arrested and was not mirandized. However, as things go with my family, I wouldn't be surprised if she had been.

I am out of town right now. I left my car with my parents. My mom called once and ask if she could take my car somewhere. Apparently, that was a cart blanch approval for her to use it at will. Truth is I don't care that much, as long as she doesn't return it any worse than she found it. That includes getting me in trouble with the police.

Tonight, she was driving my car. I ask why, and she said something about taking ice to her shop, which must mean that my car hauls ice better than her car does. I think my car is just cleaner and has less crap in it. Anyway, she then told me it was a good thing that she was driving my car, because she was glad that she got the ticket instead of me.

Ticket? Oh yes.

As soon as she pulled out of her shop parking lot, she was pulled over. She got a ticket for having a tail light out and a brake light out.

You see, when I got there, I had an issue with my brake lights. The first thing I did was get my brother, who is an actual auto mechanic, and even manages an auto mechanic shop, to look at it. He checked my lights, and was supposed to buy my new lights. His shop, though, didn't carry the right very expensive lights to replace anything VW, and he was going to have to order them. I gave him the money and ask him to do so. That never happened. He actually took out one of my bulbs, and kept it to make sure he had the right thing. He still has it. However, I did try to fix my brake lights when we realized that all 3 of my lights couldn't have gone out at once. I ended up taking my car in to the dealer to have it fixed. It was fixed, mostly.

Which is why my mom was very surprised about the brake light, and mentioned that to the police officer. He told her the brake light was out, and she replied "Well, that is odd". He didn't respond to her fishing expedition as she hoped. So, she told him again "That is really odd that the light is out. I find that hard to believe." He just looked at her, not sure why she would find it so hard to believe. So, she just launched into a story.

"See, we just drove this car across country, and we didn't know that the entire trip the break lights were out. The whole way...."

I'm going to stop retelling her part of the story there.
It is true, we did drive across country not realizing that my break lights were out. At the very start of our drive across country to move from San Diego back to Tennessee, I had a little problem with my car. All the indicator lights came on. I lost power. This was all at the very start of our journey, as I began to pull out of my parking space. I simply cut the car off and back on, as a part of the computer generation that thinks everything can be solved with a reboot, and things seemed to be fine. The car did work, and so we came on, driving through storms and bad weather, with very low visibility some days. It wasn't until we got to Atlanta that we found out my brake lights were out. When we got back home, my brother looked at it, couldn't find the problem, but did note that two of my bulbs had blown, not both brake lights. I found out there was a recall on the brake light switched. That was what caused the odd power loss and indicator light thing at the beginning of the trip. The switch failed. It was replaced, and my brake lights worked again. Until apparently just recently, when a different bulb blew.

So my mom recalls part of this story for the police officer. Now, I may talk too much sometimes, but I do have the ability to realize when I am telling on myself, and not do it. My mom does not.

I can not believe that she told the officer that we did something so dangerous.

I ask if he responded to her story. He did not. He was probably thinking something along the same lines I did.

He let her go with the ticket, and thankfully didn't imprison her for something else she ended up tackling her self into committing, nor did he impound my car to keep it out of the hands of people who would admit their crimes as such.

My mom immediately called my little brother. She did not call to tell him that she needed the car light fixed, really, though that did come up. She called to tell him that he caused her to get a ticket.

I will say it is partially his fault, but let's be honest. If mom had just taken her own car, this would not have happened.
Maybe it was better that she got the ticket rather than me. I think I would have probably lost it, but I would have done so internally, at least until the officer left.