EXCUSE ME, YOUR FOUNDING FATHER CALLED....

   One of our Founding Fathers called today...I believed it sounded like George Washington, but then again he tends to sound a lot like Thomas Jefferson.  He was in quite a lather, so I never did get a chance to ask for sure who he was.  He kept wanting to speak to someone that was in charge.  I told him he may as well speak to me because I really can't tell who's in charge.  He explained that he feels like a dad who died and left everything to the kids in his will and then the kids turn on one another.  He feels he and the other guys left a pretty good thing ( I assume he means the Constitution) and wants us all to knock off the bickering.  Here is a direct quote.....

"Its soul, its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people, and manners. My god! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!"

I felt ashamed.  Damn when he originally said this, they were still riding horseback to get anywhere.  There was no real good way to communicate.  They didn't have Internet, phones, electricity, indoor plumbing,(for reading the newspaper on the Lou)  or Fox News.  WHAT!  NO FOX NEWS, CNN, CNBC....Good grief, how did they know who to vote for?  Who was there to uncover and record Washington hittin' the peace pipe?  I mean that cherry tree thing just came out of no where.....Yet, even in his day, they still had it better than anyone else in the world.  Imagine how much better we have it now and we take it for granted. 

 Washington assured me he hated actual war, but he firmly believed our country needed to be war ready and very strong.  He went on to re-quote a quote....( I mean I couldn't get a word in, he was so upset)

"Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession."

"If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War."

He then went on to quote Thomas Jefferson: 

"For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security."

I said  "ok George I really need to get going, I have a cake to bake for the picnic. Perhaps we can hook up again on the Fourth of July or something.  I will spread the word that you are very upset and don't really care for the direction we are going.  If you still need to talk, please call my mother. She has some very strong opinions and would love to hear from you.  I will spread the word of what you trying to remind me"   

So from George's mouth ( Jefferson's also) to my ear what they were trying to say is this:  instead of complaining about our military or cutting spending to our military, we should be making sure that not only are we war ready, but our soldiers and those that have served are very well taken care of. Wouldn't you think our military, at the very LEAST, should have the same health insurance as our congressmen?  They are, in fact, a government employee who works really hard for our country.  They literally put their own lives at risk and for less than should be expected.  When government is talking spending cuts, this group of employees shouldn't even be mentioned. 

 We only have a soldier to thank (and God of course) for our freedoms and our liberties.  Unfortunately we didn't gain these privileges through talking and reasoning with the enemy.  I wish that could be done, then there would be no need for war, but unfortunately, others cannot listen to reason.  (remember there are still countries where human rights do not exist.  Women get hung for "letting" themselves be raped!)

We, The United States of America, need to stay strong and be proud of what so many of our military have laid down their lives for.  They didn't do it for nothing.  We owe them and our forefathers more than we can ever return. I, along with every other Miss Universe wanna be, would love to see World Peace.  However, the Bible says in Matthew 24:6 "there will be wars and Rumors of Wars....." We cannot become weak....

God Bless our Servicemen and women, both past, present and future.   let's please give them the respect they deserve!  Our country needs to remain militarily strong!

LET'S TALK ABOUT SACRIFICE

I vividly remember John taking me to see Private Ryan at the movie theatre.  I knew this wasn't going to be my type of movie because I'm more of a chick flick girl and would rather not think too deeply when trying to be entertained.  As we are watching one of the first scenes (actually it was a scene that lasted about 27 intense minutes) where the soldiers are running off the boat and storming the beach, I could  barely watch.  I screamed at John..."I HATE THIS F'ING MOVIE!!"  Just as I screamed the movie got real quiet and my voice echoed through the theatre.  I couldn't help it, I didn't do it to be funny, I just really hated the movie.  Why did I hate it?  I hated it because it was too real.   Too realistic.  My mind couldn't grasp that there is so much ugliness in war and that those guys who were storming the beach were real people, with real families.  These were ordinary people plucked out of ordinary lives to fight for an extra-ordinary country.  I find that very overwhelming and hard to compute.

As we celebrate this weekend, let's put our politics aside. Let's remember those who gave and sacrificed the ultimate price so we could enjoy the simple freedoms we have  today.  I did nothing to earn these freedoms, someone else paid the price and for that I'm grateful.

Let's continue to pray for our men and women in the military today and everyday. I personally only know two currently serving in Afghanistan, but I pray for them all.    Many of us have loved ones that are sacrificing at this very moment.  Let's continue to pray for their safe return. 



Joey Marcoaldi and his dad last Memorial Day. 





Ben and Joey, please stay safe and know that everyone is praying for you and we are counting the days until your safe return!



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The hardest "see ya later" EVER!



















THIS TOO SHALL PASS (UNTIL THE NEXT TIME)

It's obviously been a long time since I've had young kids.  As most of  know, Ben is deployed and it's just Sam and Taylor hanging out until he comes home.  If you read the literature written by the deployment pros, they will tell you that you may see a change in your child's behavior while dad (or mom) is away.  As Sam can attest, the experts in this case, are correct. 

This child can go from being the sweetest thing on the face of the earth, to closely resembling Satan's Spawn in just a matter of minutes.  There are times where the horns come up and the fangs come out.  Sometimes I swear of all my children, Sam and I are the most alike.  Patience is not a virtue we possess.  As we were going to dinner the other night, heading towards a nice little Amish Restaurant, Taylor begins the incessant whining that drives us NUTS.  She wanted to go to McDonald's.  It went something like this....in a three year old whine..."I wannnnaaaaaa go to McDonald's.....I WANNA GO TO MCDONALD'S.....I WANNA GO TO MCDONALD'S!!!"  (repeat this 35 times)  All three of us tried our best to say something, anything that would make her stop, including bodily harm to that damn clown.  We went through the entire gamut.  From reasoning, to bribing, to threatening her very existence.  Nothing worked.  As we were walking into the restaurant she was still chanting her love for McDonald's. Sam told us to go ahead and go in because she was going to have a little talk with Tay ...uh boy I didn't want to witness that.  I'm never sure if a talk is a talk or if the talk may include a swat on the butt. I didn't want to know.  I'm not sure what was said, but Tay ended up turning back into that nice little girl we love to be around. 

Here's Dr Grandma Bobbie's professional opinion on the entire thing.....Small children have no idea how to articulate what's going on.  They recognize the change and have no way to say "hey, I noticed that there have been some changes around here lately and well, I was wondering if there are more to come, or if I can just go with the flow on this one?  Change scares me and I may need your help putting my mind at ease, so please tuck me in and maybe lay down with me for a few minutes and make me feel secure in the midst of this change"  OK if a three year old said that, we would be asking Harvard to allow them to speak at commencement.   However, because they can't say that, they act it out and we suffer for a few days or weeks, until their "change" then becomes normal and they are then off to the next shenanigan.

Below is a quote from someone who has a mommy blog...I found it to be so honest and funny....

"About two months after Leta turned three years old (during one of her epic, inimitable body-throwing tantrums) I remember thinking that I would rather have my vagina sewn shut than have another kid. Is that too gross?"

Fortunately, for pro-creation's sake, A sweet acting child has the opposite effect. It can be a moment where for a split second you believe you could handle ten more just like her.  I'm very thankful this is not my decision to make.  I need to remind everyone, especially her mama, "this too shall pass."   Every stage brings a new behavior that they will annoy you and some behaviors that will make you swoon and fall in love all over again.  Hang in there and never give up.  The good outweighs the bad.  I told Ben he needs to hurry home and resume his disciplinarian role, he said he would after he hugged her for the first few months he was home. 

The little girl of which we speak!  How can you not love that kid?

HILLARY WAS RIGHT: IT DOES TAKE A VILLAGE

First, it's just like a woman, on Mother's Day, to go back 15 or so years ago and dredge up an old fight.  Yep that's me.......

I remember years ago when Hillary Clinton got slammed for saying "It takes a village to raise a child"  Can someone tell me WHY that ticked people off?  Then Bob Dole got on the band wagon and said: "with all due respect, I am here to tell you, it does not take a village to raise a child. It takes a family to raise a child"  I think what he probably meant was " it doesn't take a village to raise a child, but a staff of nanny's sure does come in handy" 

Well Mr. Dole as an experienced mother of three who worked her ass off being both mother and career person, let me tell you it does take a village.  Granted, in this village there were a lot of family, but it's a village none the less. It's a village I can never thank enough.  First, I had an AWESOME babysitter.  That is the key to working....a great babysitter.  She had three kids of her own, was a wonderful Christian person, and treated my kids as her own.  Linda, came to my house, she would take them to pre-school, to the library, and basically just treated them as though they were hers.  When my kids were sick she stayed with them.  I did not have to miss work.  Believe me, as a working mom, these are things that you struggle with daily. 

There were times when Jonathan was playing ball I had to grovel to another parent on the team to PLEASE get Jonathan to practice or a game because I was tied up at work and couldn't leave. 

My Aunt Valeria who lives next door to me would go pick my sick kids up at school for me.  She would bring in an occasional dinner, or bake something. 

My biggest supporter and help however was my mom.  ..I had a ton of help raising my kids from my mom.  A ton.  She was a phone call and three mile drive away when and if I needed anything.  She always believed it was very important for John and I to get away.  She comes from the old school where you take care of your mate because that's who you are stuck with after the kids are gone.  I totally agree.  She would take the kids on the weekends to give us breaks.  She would cook meals, do laundry and occasionally clean my house.  I never had to be sick and take care of the kids.  She was my nurse.  She would talk me down when I thought I may have accidentally killed one of my own. When I had my first baby she would remind me often that babies are hard to kill and It probably wouldn't happen accidentally. (she was trying to get me to relax when handling the baby)  She was a wonderful grandma.  I never had grandparents so I was so happy that my kids could have good ones. The kids have wonderful memories of both their grandparents.  There is a certain amount of dysfunction in every family whether you want to admit it or not.  God put it there so we would have something to laugh about later.

People are often appalled because my mom will tell people she doesn't like kids. She told someone this when they were placing their kid in the church nursery and she was the babysitter. I'm not sure this did much to help church attendance.  She's like WC Fields she likes children......fried.  Well, it's just not true.  There were some years she liked me OK.  I don't think she was crazy about me in grade school.  Listen, if home had been more fun, maybe I would have thought school was more than to play and eat lunch with my friends.  I didn't realize math was THAT important. If you ever saw my mom with kids you would see, she is full of crap about not liking them.What she didn't like was the constant worry.  Hells bells I can relate to that, but it's part of life.  If we cut out the things that make us worry, we wouldn't have mortgages, jobs, kids or husbands. Worry and concerns are a part of life.

So Mr. Dole it does take a village. (is he the guy that does the Viagra commercials,  whose insurance pays for it?  I guess we are paying him to have sex....that slut!   sorry I digress yet again)    Mine happened to be a village of church family, Sunday School teachers, youth leaders,4H leaders, coaches, neighbors, friends and biological family.  I thank God for all of them.

I have always loved being a mom.  I know I kid around  about how "bad" they were,but do you really want to hear that they helped an old lady cross the street? Or received all A's and were constantly on the honor roll......Good, because none of that happened. 

So today I give kudos to my mom and the other villagers who did really nice, kind things for our family.  I know my mom loves me...... just two months ago she told me the one thing she would do differently in her life is have only one child, I'm pretty sure, she believes I'm the oldest.  That's my mom.

BOBBIE'S OPINION ON THE TIME COVER

Well, apparently Time needs a lift in sales.  What are your views on this? 

First the positives:

1.  Breast feeding is wholesome and nutritious.
2.  It's economical
3.  Some find it convenient (as long as you aren't sumo wrestling an infant to get it to latch on )
4.  No bottles and nipples to sterilize or contend with.
5.  Some people think it bonds them.
6.  As you see my positives are becoming more and more sarcastic.
7.  It gets a little less convenient when you have to tote a chair around for the little guy to stand on.

My View According to Bobbie and slightly channeling Vivian:

  I do not mind seeing a mom out in public breastfeeding.  Most women who do it, are very good at it.  I on the other hand would be like a bull in a china closet and my boob would be in my plate of spaghetti and meat balls. I am the reason a lot of people don't like to see public breastfeeding...I apologize to those who have the gift of BFing for ruining it for you.

I do however, find this cover disturbing on many levels.  Put the breastfeeding part away for a moment.  This is not a debate about that.  It's an udderly ridiculous cover.(hah get it udderly)   It is a damn good thing this mother is homeschooling .  I'm telling you right now, kids at pre school are not going to take kindly to milk and cookie time if his milk doesn't come out of the same 8oz carton as theirs does. 

If this kid went to a real high school, and his peers found this.....what in the world do you think would happen?  As wrong as it is to bully anyone ever, we have just put a known obstacle in this kids way. Being on the cover sucking on your moms teet at four years old is not cool when you are thirteen.  His mom thinks she is being smart, no, in my opinion this is one of the dumbest thing she has done and I believe some day she will look back and cringe.  (I'm not casting too big of stones here because we all have our cringe moments as parents)

If you notice in the fine print it mentions attachment parenting.....oh boy, here we go.  I want everyone to know and realize this is not new nor is it wrong.  I would bet anything that my grandma "wore" her babies.  They strapped their little papooses on their backs or in front and carried them out to plant the field.  When the baby got hungry she would pull out her self contained milk dispensers and feed him.  At night, because they lived in a small house and the other three bedrooms housed the other nine kids, the baby slept with mama.  This my friends is attachment parenting....it's not new and it's not unique. Some smart college grad didn't "invent" it.  Today we do a lot less of this because two people are  trying to eek out a living and have to detach from Pumpkin to do it. 

So there you have it...I think the cover is stupid and looks stupid and I have no idea what the purpose of it is.  I see a little boy being exploited by adults who think they are being smart.  From what I'm reading this even gives people who endorse breastfeeding palpitations.  I don't think the Le Leche League has put out a formal statement yet, but I hope when they do they step up and speak out that though breastfeeding is a wonderful thing, exploiting children on covers of magazines is just not cool. 

Ps.  The chair drives me crazy too.  If this picture HAD to be done, could we have at least made it a little less stupid.  sighhhhhhhhhhh.......

THE DYSFUNCTIONAL MOMMY BLOG CHRONICLES

    I'm not a mommy blogger, but I play one on the Internet.

 I dislike the term "mommy blogger"  my goodness whoever has children can call themselves a mommy blogger, if they can put two sentences together.  So here we go!

I learned quickly that apparently John and I didn't have to parent our third child.  The siblings seemed to mind each others business pretty good. (or is it well?)   Until of course the teen years where they made some sort of Geneva Convention type pact that said "Prisoners of war have rights too and began chanting "defeat and conquer the 'rants)  More on this later......

I seriously remember one thing, just one thing, that Jonathan did when he was young that he got a time out for.  The only reason he got the time out is because the other two siblings were testing my reaction to his transgression.  (He hocked a loogie on his plate when he was four years old)  Big deal!  I think he was choking and had no choice, but whatever.  The girls wanted him punished severely.  OK, so now I'm  taking parenting advice from 5 and 6 year olds, I put him in time out.  As I was walking out of the room he screams "I'm going to kick you in the crotch!"  I started laughing until I looked into the eyes of the wanna be moms and there they were with their arms folded in obvious disgust, and yelling "Are you going to let him get away with that!". (although I suspect they were the reason he knew the word "crotch" to begin with) Shamefully, I turned around and pretended to yell at the poor boy.  I was winking, so he knew I didn't mean it, I was just trying to satisfy the Hitler Sisters. 

 Sarah has a propensity to whine about how special Jonathan was treated.  Really?  Really?  because when Sarah wanted something, she could wear me down to a mere skeleton of a human.  I would literally drop to the floor and say "whatever Sarah just do what you want to do, but PLEASE shut up.There has been no telling her what to do.  I have finally, because I have a will of iron that has been refined to ashes, decided to quit trying to push this square peg into a round hole.  Good Gawd.....just follow the rules of being a good human being and do your thing.

So there you have it.  Sam would just sneak around, Sarah would wear me down and Jonathan was raised by a clown.....I mean older siblings who knew more than the parents. 

Yes, I think I will write a book on parenting...it will not be how I fed my kids organic food, dressed their celery up like ants on a log to get them to eat, how we did arts and crafts at the kitchen table or how I home schooled them.....nope it will just be about how normal families with both parents working get the job done.  How your mind can get so busy with other things that you forget your kid at church, or when daughter #1 calls you at work to tell you her period started you refer them to the "P" volume of World Book encyclopedia, or if it's the second girl calling to give you the news you just refer her to her older sister.  Yes, my mommy blog will be about survival of the fittest....there was no time for attachment parenting here!  I think the kids grew up ok in spite of our lack of parenting skills. 

DARING TO DREAM

When I don't write for a few days a few folks want to know why.  Some apparently like reading this.  Well, sometimes I have so much going through my head I don't even know where to start.  If I'm not careful my posts could sound like a six year old with ADHD....I would be all over the place.

In fact today, I'm bitter sweet....sad, happy, worried, anxious, envious all at once.  This is either bi-polar or ADHD....Either way I feel like I need medicated. 

I don't want to go into too many details, but I have a friend who may be moving.  I'm guessing it really will happen and I'm so happy for him.  You talk about someone having a dream and going after it.  This person did just that.  It's not final yet and things could still go the other direction, but more than likely...... a whole lot of us that love him a lot will have to endure a big CHANGE... 

I really pride myself on not minding change. I believe change is good and it keeps us on our toes.   Now I'm not so sure I really like it.  This move will change so so much.  The part I'm most upset about is my twinge of envy.  I really need to get over that.  I wish I had awakened a little sooner in life and realized that you either live safely with no risk or take chances. I'm not a risk taker.  When you allow yourself to dream there is risk.  Yet, what really is the risk?  Failure?  If you have no failures you probably never did anything.  I know at work, I never ever beat people up for making a mistake.  When people are going literally 100 miles per hour trying to keep ten balls in the air, I'm not going to kick them when they are down.  (sorry ADHD moment)  Some, if not most, of life's greatest people have failed. 

Anyway, my soul mate and I really like our calm life.  All our choices have been super safe and very conventional.  I wonder what may have happened if we had chosen to dream.  I regret that I lived so frightened.  I regret that I worried when God had it under control the entire time.  I don't think I can look back on anything I had lost sleep worrying about, that God hadn't already handled.  My pretending to be in control and trying to worry my way out of problems, did nothing.  All it did was leave me enslaved to myself and life. I make this sound like I'm unhappy, nah......I'm not.  I am just a big cheerleader for people who pursue and conquer their dreams.  I'm not a big dreamer. I chose safe......you can't really go wrong with safe I guess, but you don't go to awful far either.

To my kids I say....You are young. Screw being traditional.  Be a good steward, be of good character, be very responsible, be considerate of others, love God, but dream.  Dreams don't just happen, they need pursued. Dreams require you take some chances. As long as you take responsibility for yourself and do not expect others to carry you, it's your life.  Whatever you do, try not to live in fear.  I mean there is logical fear....like swimming with alligators, I would be very afraid.....riding a motorcycle without a helmet....well that's just stupid.  Worry about your children.....I'd be mad if you didn't.  Please don't constantly be looking up waiting on the sky to fall, it probably won't.

Does anybody want me to speak at a graduation?  I think this "Daring to Dream" thing would be a good topic no matter what our age!