@!@#?>!

I am thinking and speaking in symbols things not lawful to be uttered.

Note to Self: Have tubes tied at first opportunity. Also sue Crayola. Buy more Woolite.

Things I Have Learned as an Adult

Things I have discovered as an adult:

• Owning a couch with removable cushions while raising toddlers is directly associated with facial tics and premature balding.
• Never underestimate the intelligence, resourcefulness, and tenacity of a child capable of any sort of movement.
• Never assume that my $100 vacuum can pick up Froot Loops. (It can’t and live to tell about it.)
• WD-40 gets gum and all manner of sticky crap off of other crap.
• Advil works better than Motrin or Tylenol at relieving headaches fast.
• Never let the words "fart" or "dog poop" slip out around your child. It will come back to haunt you.
• If the oil in your car’s engine looks and feels like beach sand, it’s time to change it.
• Never leave popcorn in the microwave for the time printed on the bag. There’s like a millisecond between being done and oh-my-God-open-the-windows-and-wave-the-broom-under-the-smoke-detector done.
• Being a vegan is impossible.
• How fantastic it is to be a kid.
• Pregnancy changes your body irreparably, and no amount of underwire or Spanx changes that.
• Fighting a pretend battle with the monsters in your kid’s closet is so much more effective than trying to tell him that monsters aren’t real.
• Kids can get stuck in just about anything.
• Ketchup should be its own food group.
• It is nearly impossible to substitute decaf for regular and live to tell about it.
• Kids are instinctively driven to eat dirt the same way that dogs are instinctively driven to eat grass.
• Spray paint and sandpaper are the best (and cheapest) decorating items for a quick change.
• Microfiber couches + children = four bottles of Woolite and six hours of fruitless, back-breaking labor.
• Necessary items for carrying around in the car if you have kids: WD-40, coloring books, crayons, Van Halen CDs, trash bags, baby wipes, Goldfish, water bottles (full ones for drinking and empty ones for peeing), extra clothes, scissors, and duct tape.
• You can buy a new printer for the same amount of money you would spend on new ink cartridges for the printer you already have. Seriously.
• Never speak the words "Christmas", "Santa Claus", or "Gigi's house" until 30 seconds before it actually happens.
• Boys will pee on anything and everything just because they can.
• Your metabolism grinds to a screeching halt as soon as you hit 21.
• They will have elliptical machines in Hell.
• If I was stranded on a desert island and I had only a few things with me, those things would be: Bear Grylls (because then I could actually get OFF the island on a boat made from oyster shells and braided armpit hair), Frances (my personal waxer, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Bear Grylls would also be there), Zoloft, and Mountain Dew.

This is So Important - Please Read!!

First of all, I'd just like to apologize for not posting in such a long time. Sometimes I just get so disillusioned with writing (I'm my own worst critic) that I just don't have the energy or chutzpa to write. Plus I feel like I work so much of the time, I hardly have time to breathe (or shower) much less post to my blog. Having said that, this post is going to be a little different than my other ones. Something's come to my attention recently that is so frightening and so monumental as to render the mind unable to comprehend it. Let me preface this writing by saying that I do not consider myself to be overly involved in politics or government policy. I'm a dedicated voter and I try to pay attention on what's going on in the political world, but as a rule my thoughts on that are that the administration is nothing but a slimy bureaucracy of even slimier politicians who use U.S. policy as a means to fatten the wallets and the egos of the wealthy government "officials" who stand to profit from the demise of the American working class. Call me uninformed, call me whatever you like. I won't get into my stand on some current political issues because I'm not in the mood for inflammatory political debate. However, I feel absolutely, fervently obligated to post here and now my total and all-encompassing objection to a piece of legislation that was, for all practical purposes, virtually tiptoed into the Senate by the Clinton administration behind the backs of the American people. This little piece of sunshine is known as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Because this issue has unfortunately just come to my awareness, I'm going to use some quotes from various websites to help me expound on this subject a little better, along with paraphrasing some of the concepts as well.

For those of you who are not aware, the UNCRC is basically a collection of concepts and directives designed to ensure "positive means of holding countries accountable to protect children". While I understand and appreciate the need for children to be protected and nurtured, the UNCRC is very much more than that. Basically the UNCRC takes upon itself the right to define the relationship between the child and the state, and the right of the government to determine "the best interests of the child". On the website parentalrights.org you can find the following: "Article 3 of the UNCRC states that 'in all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.' In other words, policies affecting children at all levels of society and government should have the child’s best interest as the primary concern. The trouble occurs when this principle appears as a guiding principle for parents in article 18(1), which states that 'Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child. The best interests of the child will be their basic concern.'"

In the last thirty years or so there's been the emergence of "nouveau parenting", which is based on the garbage that’s continually spouted by psychology professionals and "child-rearing experts" advocating, in short, the "democratic family". Child advocacy groups and educational institutions have seized on this psychobabble and made it their soapbox. Almost every old-fashioned tenet of discipline and parental authority has been undermined by this new child-rearing movement. Basically the idea is that anything that might be construed as "damaging" to the child's self-esteem be officially recognized as such and thus made taboo, with definitions of "damaging" being formulated by institutions outside of the family. If you're interested in more of this subject, I highly recommend the book A Family of Value by John Rosemond. There are some pretty amazing and in-depth discussions of the psychological, political, and educational ramifications of this type of "nouveau parenting".

These same child advocacy groups and psychology circles are pushing hard for the ratification of the UNCRC. To date, every member country of the United Nations has signed and ratified this treaty except for the United States and Somalia. Senators in the U.S, of which Jesse Helms was at the forefront, have stated that "this treaty marked a significant departure from the originally constituted relationship between state and child. They found, in fact, that it was literally incompatible with the rights of parents to raise their children as well as a wholesale giveaway of U.S. sovereignty". American family law has always held that parents typically act in the best interest of their child and so the government has no place in defining those best interests. "Except in cases where a parent has been proven to be “unfit,” American law presumes that the parent is acting in the best interests of the child, and defers to that parent’s decision."

I really don't want this post to be ridiculously long-winded and involved, but this issue is so important and so explosive that it demands the attention of the American people, parents in particular. In a nutshell, the UNCRC would enforce "government-supervised parenting", complete with new bureaucracies formed with taxpayer dollars to investigate, observe, define, and enforce the government's position on the "best interest of the child".

"Any parent who claims that other interests might just be more important than the state’s characterization of the “best interest” of the child could end up battling the state to protect their rights as a parent."

In effect this completely pulls the rug out from under parents and will allow children (key word here is "children") to dictate their own rights and make their own decisions regarding such things as freedom of expression, what does and does not constitute "abuse", i.e. spanking, restriction, loss of privileges, etc. This whole idea of damaging a child's self-esteem by using firm guidance and requiring the child to be accountable for his or her behavior, and allowing children equal decision-making rights within the family is preposterous. John Rosemond has a lot to say on this subject and he's so worth reading.

This piece of legislation, if ratified by the United States, would have absolutely devastating consequences to the traditional American family and would put the power to determine what's best for our children into the hands of the government and the children themselves. I for one will not stand by and passively let my children's needs and interests be determined by some dispassionate government entity determined to usurp my rights as a parent and as an American. Our kids have already been damaged enough by being forced to carry the responsibility of raising themselves and making decisions they are not equipped to make. If you love your kids, as I do, you know that guidance, discipline, and great love make happy, healthy kids who grow up equipped to be independent functioning members of society with respect for adults and peers and for themselves. If the UNCRC is ratified, the United States would then be required to report every few years to the U.N. and provide proof and explanations regarding how this treaty is being enforced and regulated, and children would be required to be registered at birth in order to be monitored and observed to conform to the directives of the treaty. Parents would essentially be baby-sitters for the state.

We need to fight this treaty tooth and nail. So far the Senate refuses to ratify the Convention, though President Clinton signed the treaty in 1995 (with one of the most fervent supports of the UNCRC being First Lady Hillary Clinton). There are some great informational sites where we can go and be fully educated and informed, one of them being parentalrights.org. On that website you can also sign a petition to oppose this Convention. The UNCRC is the most insidious attempt yet at the government worming its way into constitutionally protected family life, and to dictate what values should and should not be taught to our children whether we agree with them or not.

Please go and inform yourself on this issue because if this treaty is ratified, the effects would be catastrophic. I apologize if I've misquoted any information, but that's why I'm sending you to other websites and books to inform yourselves.

Okay, I'm done now.

I Got Tagged! Seven Random Things People Would Just as Soon Not Know About Me

Here are the rules:
1. List 7 random things about yourself that people may not know.
2. Link the person who sent this to you, and leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours.
3. Post the rules on your blog.
4. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, linking their blog. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I got tagged by Cousin Lu, so here it is. My only thing is that I don't actually have seven random people to tag. I'm not that sociable.

1. I still sleep with my baby blanket. Yes, I am mother of two myself and I still sleep with my baby blanket. It’s a large blanket that my great-grandmother, Mom Broggie, made for me as a baby gift for my mother before I was born. She used a Sesame Street fabric and sewed the batting and the hem herself. It has a lot of sentimental value to me and it still gives me a lot of comfort when I’m upset or can’t sleep. Plus it makes a really great head wrap when I have a migraine. It’s not that I have some weird unresolved childhood issue and I can’t live without it, because I could. I just like it, so bite me.

2. I have seven tattoos. Most people know that I have tattoos, but some of them are not as, um, visible as others. So I will now document the location, type and meaning of each of my tattoos. My first tattoo I got was on my right hip. It was the letters “gha”. I will not say whose name these letters stand for. Suffice it to say that it was someone I thought I was going to marry when I was young and impressionable and phenomenally stupid. That tattoo is now covered by a Chinese dragon and three Chinese symbols for peace, the ocean, and strength. My pregnancy with the twins completely ruined this tattoo and the dragon now looks like a condor. Because I learn life lessons by the two-by-four method, I then proceeded to get my second tattoo several years later on my right shoulder blade of someone’s initials, yet again, except this time it was “BTG”. I won’t say whose name this is either, but again, someone I thought I was going to marry and was in fact engaged to. I really do have lots of common sense. I just choose to ignore it. My third tattoo was a series of Chinese symbols on my right ankle meaning “one love for all of your life”. This was during my optimistic, rosy-spectacled phase before I became the pessimistic, cynical individual I am now. My fourth tattoo was yet another Chinese symbol on my right forearm meaning “ocean waves”. The beach is the be-all and end-all of my life and I feel closer to God and home there than I do any other place on earth. My fifth and sixth tattoos were also on my right forearm. One is another set of initials, but I will love and be loyal to this man for the rest of my life. That man is J.R.R. Tolkien. I have a passionate and undying love for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and have had since I was seven years old. The sixth tattoo is an Elvish word also from LOTR, “namarie”, which means “farewell with blessings”. The Lady Galadriel says this to Frodo when they’re leaving Lothlorien to go to Mordor. I look at that one and think of blessings for my life with each new day. My seventh and final tattoo (for now) is on my left hand between my thumb and forefinger that has the letters E and J hooked together, the J attached to the E. These are the first letters of my sons’ names, and they’re twins, hence the attached letters. So that’s all my tattoos for now, but I’m seriously considering another one. They really are like crack.

3. I read. A lot. I know this was supposed to be random, and anybody who knows me knows I love to read and have since I was four. But what people may not know about that is that I read seven to eight books a week. I’ve been told that I read really fast and how can I get the information if I’m reading so fast, but seriously, I don’t think I read fast. Or if I do it’s not fast to me. It’s just….reading. I love it and I devour books alive.

4. My cars (thanks Lu!) are also named, albeit not with the Wizard of Oz characters. My first car was a red Volvo 940 and my sister christened it something that I can’t remember now because I’m old and decrepit. My second car was a green Acura Vigor and we christened that one the Green Goblin, especially after a fender bender coming home from ASU one weekend and having to stop at some hokey Wal-Mart in the mountains to buy bungee cord to keep the hood from flapping up in front of the windshield like in Tommy Boy. I was really mad about this. My sister thought it was hilarious. My present vehicle is a black Jeep Grand Cherokee and it is my mechanical pride and joy. My sister (who has christened all of our cars) named this one Black Booty. I decided not to get a vanity plate with this on it because it sounds like a really bad multicultural porn. Of note, my sister’s first car, a silver Volvo, was named the Silver Bullet. The Silver Bullet just got consigned a few months ago to a salvage yard with many tears and a goodbye party. My sister then purchased a little tiny Yarus go-cart and named it the White Virgin, aka Little Moo.

5. I snore. Really bad, apparently, or so I’ve been told. Like, hold-on-Bessie-the-tractor-trailer’s-gonna-crash type snoring. I’ve been told that I actually choke myself at night and I’ve woken myself up before because I can’t breathe. This is what’s called sleep apnea. My dad also has sleep apnea and has to sleep with a CPAP machine that pumps pressured air into his nose and mouth to keep him breathing and not snoring. It’s been recommended that I start this too. I told my boyfriend about it and once he finished laughing uproariously and picked himself up off the floor (at the thought of me in an oxygen mask at night), we decided this might be a good idea and a fantastic method of birth control to boot.

6. I’m a huge fan of the Ladies Man. I loved this skit with Tim Meadows on Saturday Night Live and when they made the movie I was thrilled beyond words. Ladies Man: Hey, baby, can I buy you a fish thandwich?” Lady: “C’mon baby let’s go back to my place.” Ladies Man: “Well, um, we could take my car, but it is nonexithtent.” I love it!

7. I anthropomorphize my houseplants. It’s true. I have a philodendron that was given to me five years ago as a Christmas gift. His name is George and he sits in pride of place on top of my entertainment center. George is great because you can talk to him and he just listens quietly and doesn’t give you advice. He doesn’t eat much but he grows really fast and grooming him is a very relaxing task. He has graduated from the little plastic pot he came in to a slightly bigger terracotta pot, and now to a nice big stone planter with little green leaves stamped on it, and a plant stick in his soil that says “Live your Dreams”. George is awesome. My boys say hello to George every morning and fight over who’s going to water him. My sister’s philodendron she got for Christmas five years ago died and so George, being an organ donor, gave us a little bit of root and stem to put in a jar with some water and try to grow George Junior. My sister killed that one too.

Problems

So I'm standing outside the other night by the side door of my house, smoking a cigarette. My porch light, despite having a light bulb purported to be invisible to bugs and therefore won't attract any, attracts bugs like a magnet, regardless of the season. Lately I've seen one or two of those gi-normous "garden" spiders that I was told by my very competent exterminator are "harmless". I'm sure you know what I'm talking about - those massive, striped freaks of nature that build those huge ropey webs that stretch literally six feet across. I feel like I need a spear and a machete and Kevlar body armor whenever I go outside. Since I don't have any of those things readily available I go outside armed with my broom.

Well, there's been one of those spiders hanging out right in the corner of the house next to the door where I smoke. A spider that looks like it crawled out of Chernobyl. Jay is outside with me on this particular night. I'm all Mission Impossible 4 trying to keep my eye on it so I'll know exactly where it is the whole time I'm out there. So I take my eyes off of it for one second because Jay is teasing me about my arachnophobia. Which, admittedly, I do have.

It was only for a second. A split second. And that was all it took. I look back up and that decroded piece of crap spider is gone. Vanished. And Jay is like, is this a problem for you that you can't see where he went?

This is a problem like herpes is a problem. Like climbing Mount Everest in a string bikini and stripper heels is a problem.

I still haven't found it. I'm so getting a machete.

Inspiration

Okay, so I was all inspired by Cousin Lu's redesigned blog and decided I had to keep up with the times. However, I may have gone just a bit overboard. But then, I tend to do that during basketball season. Everything turns a perplexing shade of light blue and I find myself with a Tourette's-like display of various Tarheel fight songs, cheers, and expletives regarding whatever game is still replaying in my head.

My boyfriend always says that as soon as basketball season rolls around we do this whole Freaky-Friday-Body-Snatchers thing where we have this inexplicable role reversal. I'm on the couch with a cup of herbal tea (read: Corona) watching the game (or having the score texted to my cell phone at two and a half minute intervals if I can't watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio), and I'm wearing all my Heels gear and screaming incoherently at the TV at intervals. I refuse to make any plans whatsoever on the days that I know there are games. He, on the other hand, is now standing around with his arms crossed complaining that I'm not paying any attention to him. And I'm all, after the freaking game, already. Now move. I can't see the shot clock.

See, he's from up north. Way up north. Yep, one 'o them thar Yankees. He's from Massachusetts, but he's lived here in North Carolina since he was eleven. He is now twenty-nine. (and he still thinks if we drive a couple of hours in either direction it'll be something straight out of Deliverance.) He still doesn't get the whole basketball thing down south, because apparently up north they have some weird sport called "hockey". I've tried several times to explain that this is just the way I grew up, that I love basketball anyway and for heaven's sake every member of my family graduated from UNC except for me. And I have a big family.

But he doesn't get it. At all. He actually leaves the house when there's a game on and refuses to watch it with me. Unless Carolina is playing Boston College, and then he watches and cheers for Boston College, just to see me have a myocardial infarction because he is on the brink of death, Deliverance-style, in my house. And he always goes, I don't understand why you southern people who love basketball always say "we" when you're talking about your team. It's not like you're out there playing, right? So, how is it "we"?

He's not a very big sports fan. But that's okay. Because I have enough team spirit for both of us.

So, anyway. Basketball season is here, the season opener was tonight against Davidson, we won. I like my ram on this new page, but I'm not sure about the basketballs. I'll think about it.....

Family

I remember as a kid the excitement and anticipation that was always associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas. That hasn’t really changed much, but then I don’t think I’ve really grown up much either. And I’ll tell you, a lot of the anticipation had to do with the fact that my family did the same thing every year. The “same thing” might sound really boring and whatever, but it wasn’t at all.

I have an extremely close-knit extended family. Growing up, this was no big deal to me. I thought this was just what families did and why should my family be any different from anybody else’s? The older I got, though, the more I realized that there was a reason for the expressions of surprise and even envy on the faces of my friends when I described my family’s holiday traditions. My family really is the exception to the rule I think, in more ways than one.

I remember every year piling in the car with my sister and my mom and my dad to drive the few miles to Grandmother and Granddaddy’s house. They had lived there literally for as long as I could remember and we went there all the time just to visit, and every single Thanksgiving and Christmas without fail. There was always the excitement of seeing my cousins and aunts and uncles that we hadn’t seen for awhile maybe, and my sister Betsy and I would start planning weeks ahead of time and counting down the days. We also have a large family – my mother is one of five sisters, all of whom have at least one daughter if not more, and there are a couple of sons thrown in for good measure.

There are lots of things I remember particularly about those days. I remember the Scary Guy who lived next door to my grandparents who was very mysterious, and we made up stories about him that scared the living hell out of us. I remember the basement that was crammed full of old toys and dress-up clothes and dolls and stuffed animals, and how the basement would get really spooky if you were down there by yourself, and how you wanted to look over your shoulder in the dark but just squeezed your eyes shut instead and ran back up the stairs. I remember the stool my grandmother used to sit on and smoke her cigarettes, dye Easter eggs, shell pecans, and distribute cookies from the huge cookie jar she kept for us young ones. I remember late at night after the meals when the kids would be playing outside, one or two of us would run inside to use the bathroom or get a snack and see all the grownups sitting together, talking about Deep Things, and we would wonder how they could be so insufferably boring all the time. I remember making a jump rope out of Grandmother’s old scarves tied together end-to-end and attached at one end to the stair railing in the basement so you only needed two people to jump rope. I remember the little shed and the pile of things next to it in the backyard that Grandaddy kept so carefully organized, and how we kids would go out there to build a fort, usually under the direction of Allie. I realized a few years ago thinking back on it that our grandfather never once in all those years said a word about us messing up his stuff. Never once, and he always went out after we left and cleaned everything up in his slow, purposeful way. He is a man of few words, but a huge heart. I remember the huge spreads of home-cooked food on the old gold-flecked Formica countertops in the kitchen. I remember the old organ that used to sit on the other side of the kitchen that barely played, but it would if you banged really hard on the sticky keys. I remember the piano in the “parlor” that we cousins who knew how would play at Christmas. I remember all of us crammed into that selfsame parlor every Christmas, surrounded by our grandmother’s elaborate Christmas decorations and the tree and all the lights, and piles of wrapping paper and all the moms reminding the cousins to say thank you to whoever for their gifts. I remember every single Christmas Grandmother and Granddaddy giving each cousin a Christmas ornament, a tradition we didn’t much care for as kids. But now? Every time I decorate my tree for my own kids at Christmas, and I hang those ornaments on my tree, the memories of all those Christmases past and the memories of my grandmother make me smile. She loved Christmas.

We lost Grandmother a few years ago. Towards the end she really couldn’t speak much, or chose not to because it required too much effort and pain. I remember when I brought my boys, just three days old and fresh out of the hospital right after Thanksgiving, she indicated by gestures that she wanted to hold them. I will never forget that day. She sat in her old rocking chair with a pillow on her lap and the boys on the pillow, just rocking and rocking and looking at them. She sat like that for hours. Not too long after that day she passed away, and most of the family was there at her home to be with her. The sisters, her daughters, joined hands around her bed, my grandfather on his knees beside her, holding her hand. Someone started to sing a hymn, one of her favorites. She died surrounded by the people who loved her the most.

That is what our family is, and has always been, about.

Things are different now. We feel the loss of Grandmother keenly when we’re together. The cousins are all grown and we have lives and families of our own. There are great-grandchildren for Grandaddy and new husbands and wives, new boyfriends and girlfriends, and new fiancés. Some of us are no longer there – divorce has affected us too. Some of us are now one who used to be two, and some of us are five where we used to be one. Some of us have been touched by the horror and uncertainty of the war in Iraq. Some of us have graduated high school, college or grad school. Some of us have new jobs, new houses, new babies. Our views on life have changed perhaps as we’ve changed and grown. Holiday celebrations are no longer at Grandmother and Granddaddy’s house. That house with its rooms filled with memories was sold after my grandmother’s death. I remember though, every time I drive by the street. We go to different places now, homes of aunts and uncles.

The one thing that’s never changed about these holiday celebrations is that everywhere we go, wherever we end up for whatever holiday or special occasion, there is always, always love there, and constant laughter. No matter how much things have changed for each individual person or family, the heartache and loss we’ve survived, births and deaths we’ve blessed and let go, all the little things that make up this eclectic mixture of people we call family, that love has never changed. Ever. And it never will. We cousins who remember this stuff may not be kids anymore, but those memories will stay with us forever. They really were, and are, a defining force in our lives, and I am so thankful that I get to experience this kind of love and this kind of family. Now we watch our own kids (and innumerable and beloved dogs) play with each other, and we’re the ones who sit and talk about Deep Things. And now we understand. We sit and we tell stories of when we were little and laugh until we cry and some of us are more than a little tipsy. And every time we get together, we build and we build and we build, and we learn something new about each other and poke fun at each other for the stupid things we’ve done growing up.

We’re different now, but still the same. Always the same. I love and cherish each and every one of them.