A giant bunny or a man in a costume?

While we were at the park the other day a little boy who couldn't have been much older than my 7 year old daughter, over heard us talking about our plans to see the Easter Bunny this weekend. The boy then told my daughter that the Easter Bunny was really just a man in a costume. I quickly jumped in with a "No, he's wrong" but in that split second she looked truly heartbroken. This seems to be an epidemic among elementary school children. My friend's 6 year old came home one day very upset because another kindergardner had told her the same thing.

I asked people on Facebook about this and the general opinion seems to be that by the time kids reach about 7 or 8 years old, they no longer believe, that they're pretty much just humoring us. Can that really be true? And if so, how did it happen? Is our society so bad that our children can no longer believe in the magic of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Clause? How can we fix this? Is it even possible? Have we as parents gotten lazy? Are we so busy and self-involved that we don't take the time to make holidays special and memorable anymore? Have candy and gifts become more important than family and friends?

No matter what life throws at us, we always try to do something special for our kids during the holidays. This year for Easter, we visited the Easter Bunny and had free pictures taken, made Easter drawings to hang in our windows, baked Easter cookies, and the actual holiday isn't even here yet! For St. Patrick's Day we all wore green and my daughter wore green eyeshadow to school. (Which she still talks about!) And at Christmas time we made snowflakes for our windows, and had a cookie decorating party where Santa and Mrs. Clause made a special guest appearance. All these small things make such a difference to our children. It gives them priceless memories to hold onto and cherish when their worlds get turned topsy turvey.

The moral of this story? Don't let your children give up on the magic. Make the effort to do the special things that make the holidays and just being a kid so special.

Feel free to comment and tell me about special holiday memories or traditions that you and your family share. Happy Easter everybody!

P.S.
I found this site last night where you can get personalized letters from the Easter Bunny.
http://www.theholidayspot.com/easter/bunny_letters/

Kids and college

If you've read any of my other posts then you know I have three young children, so it's pretty safe to assume I have a huge case of mommy brain. Add to that a husband who is more of a hinder than a help and what do you get? A frazzled, sleep deprived mess! Am I hearing sleepy murmors of "Yeah, me too"? Well, I added to the maddness. I deceided to become a full time (14 credit hours to be exact) college student. Before somebody yells "Get the straight jacket!" let me tell you this, going back to school was one of the best choices I've made in a long time. It's not easy by any means. I'm even more tired than I was before, I have more to do and less time to do it in, and my favorite time of day (the kids' bedtime) has become my study time. But it's worth it. I love my classes and I love being with other grown ups for a few hours. And I love that not only am I improving myself, but I'm working towards bettering my children's lives. I didn't go back to school for me, I did it for us.

"Is your Mommy or Daddy here?"

OMG! I was dying my hair the other day, and since only my daughters were home with me, it was easier to do it in the bathroom without clothes on. Somebody knocked on the door and since I could peek around the corner to see the door, I told my 7 year old to answer it. I hear a ladys voice ask "Is your Mommy or Daddy here?" to which my daughter answers "Yeah my Mommy is but she's dying her hair so she's naked!" I was laughing so much I almost forgot to be embarassed...almost!

Can you blog with a straight jacket on?

My aunt and I were talking earlier about ideas for each of our blogs, we're each other's inspiration and motivation. She had just posted a really good blog that I thought was a great idea to let people get to know her better and get a sense of who she is. I made a comment about wondering what I could write about to accomplish that as well. She told me to write about my life. My response? "I want to get people interested, not try to have me commited!" This led to a discussion about both of us being commited and being roomies. We both thought it would be a great vacation but that with our luck we wouldn't get pretty straight jackets. A vacation would be so nice but it would probably be too hard to blog with a straight jacket on!

Bedtime Woes

Bedtime was once my favorite time of day. As much as I love my little monsters...I mean my precious children, come night time I'm more than ready for them to go to bed. This should be an easy, painless process right? If you think so you obviously don't have children.

For my 7 year old it's the repeated chant of put your pajama's on, brush your teeth, clean your room, get your movie ready, (they get 1 hour of tv time in their beds before the Sandman comes), no you don't need another drink, didn't you already go potty? And this gets repeated several times in the process of getting ready for bed.

Then, there's the 3 year old. The chant for him is, let's brush your teeth, come get a diaper on (we're in the process of potty training), what movie do you want to watch tonight, say goodnight to Daddy, get your butt back in bed, no you already said goodnight, no you cannot watch more tv. For some reason this goes on longer than the one for his sister did.

This leaves the 13 month old. In some ways she is easier, but only in a few ways. I change her diaper, get her a bottle of milk, let her say goodnight to her Dad, and lay her in bed. She eaither lays there sweetly with her bottle or plays quietly with the toys in her bed. Then at about 1am she turns into a demon child. She doesn't wake up fussing. She skips straight to an all out scream. The problem? She can't find her bottle. I get up, give her her bottle back and back off to dreamland she goes. Until about 2 hours later when we go through this process again. And yet again every 2 to 3 hours until morning, with at least one diaper change in between.

During this time in the wee hours of the night, the 3 year old comes out to wake me up, after I finally fall back asleep, to say he wants to watch tv. I take him back to his bed while explaining that it's still night night time and he can watch tv when the sun wakes up. If I'm too tired to think rationally, I just tell him to get in bed with me and his Dad, which is most likely what he really wanted in the first place.

So after all the peaceful sleep I get, why is it that come morning I feel like crap? Sometimes I can't wait till they move out....

Mommy....Mommy....Mommy.......

Mommy....Mommy....Mommy....it seems like I constantly hear this chant. I have a 7 year old, a 3 year old, and a 13 month old, and the funny thing is I hear this endless chant mostly from my 7 year old daughter. I would expect for the 3 year old to drive me crazy with this, but no, in my house, it's the oldest one that drives me batty! I love her to pieces, but she is completly incapable of playing by herself for more than 5 minutes. I'm being nice, it's probably more like 2 minutes! And it's not just a phase either, she's been like this her entire life. She will "play" in the living room with her younger siblings while watching me to see if I'm watching her "play". I've asked her why she does this, she has no answer. She just gives me that blank "what are you talking about?" look. I try pointing out to her that her younger brother and sister can play by themselves, but it doesn't change anything. The really bad part is that I've been told I was the same way when I was little. Thinking back, it's true. But shhh, I can't admit that to my family! And even scarier than that, if she needs this much attention now, what is she going to put me through when she's a teenager?! AHHHH.........

Can men and women be just friends?

This is a question I've been thinking about for some time now, "Can men and women be just friends?" I asked my friends on Facebook this question last night. There doesn't seem to be any one right answer. Some said No, they can't, some feel that Yes, they can. But both seem to feel very strongly about their opinion. I keep thinking back to my friendships over the years. I have quite a few male friends, but the ones that I seem to be the closest to are the ones I have some sort of history with. Most of it is innocent history, boyfriends from high school but it's still history. Somehow it seems that the connection we shared then allows us to have a deeper connection now. Is this wrong? These boys from my youth are now men, some of them married, most of them have children. I've never been truly intimate with any of them. Is this what makes the difference? If I had ever been sexually involved with these friends, would we still be friends today?
But what about emotional intimacy? Since I have known these men since we were kids I'm able to talk to them on a deeper level. It's different then talking to my female friends. They give me a whole different perspective on things. Men and women see things so differently that it's nice to get an "inside" view on men. There's many times when a male friend has helped me work through a problem better than my female friends.
Another variable here is that my close male friends live in a different state. Would be still be able to maintain our "just friends" closeness if we lived closer to eachother? Is the physical distance what allows us to stay such good friends? I can't find any one right answer to this. It seems to all depend on the people involved and all the different variables.

Then and now.

One minute I'm a sophomore in high school, giggling with my friends and trying to figure out which boy to date. The next thing I know I'm married with three young children and having to make much more difficult choices. Where does all the time go?
It's been eleven years since I've seen most of my high school friends, yet thanks to Facebook I've managed to get back in touch with the majority of them. We have all changed in so many ways, moving to different states, getting married, raising children, you name it, one of us has probably done it. Yet through all these years and despite all of our differences we are still as close as we were then. In some ways, maybe closer. We're able to relate to eachother on deeper levels. We went from being boys and girls, to men and women.
I only hope that one day my children are able to find these same kind of friendships

Bus stop tears

There's a little girl at my daughter's bus stop that most of the other parents don't particulary care for. She's rude, bossy, and just a plain pain in the butt. The other kids kind of stay clear of her too. This morning when we got there though, she was crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said her step-mom tried to kill her. I thought she was exagerating the way seven year olds do and told her I doubted she was trying to kill her. She continued to cry so I asked her what happened. She was crying so hard I couldn't really understand her, then she said she just didn't want to talk about it. I took her aside so that the others couldn't hear and told her that sometimes you need to talk to other people so that they can help you. She said that she tells her dad but that he never does anything about it. Eventually I got her calmed down enough to get the gist of the story. Her and her step-mom had had a small argument over socks that morning, and the woman tackled her. She then went on to tell me that she does things like that to her all the time, and that she hits her. The bus was about to come so the best thing I could come up with was to hug her and suggest that she talk to the school counselor. After the kids all got on the bus, another mother and I were talking about what happened. Both of us recalled the step-mom telling us that she hated the child. I think it definatley explains the little girl's behavior most of the time. On the way home, I called the school and gave them as much information as I could about the child and what had happened. I also called children services. I was greatly disappointed in the reaction I got from cps. The woman seemed cold and unfeeling. She was only concerned with if there were any marks on the child. I told them it was cold so she was wearing a heavy coat, so it's not like I could actually see her body. They didn't seem to care at all about what the little girl had said, or to consider that there are many different forms of child abuse. I don't like to get trouble started or to get into a strangers business, but this little girl trusted me enough to tell her what happened, I wasn't going to just ignore it. I will also be checking back with the school to see if the counselor did talk to her or not. If a child ever tells you something like this, please don't "mind your own business." Make a call. You might just save a child's life.

How does the story end? (part 2)

I was 17 years old when my father deceided to touch my breast and tell me it was getting harder to think of me as just his daughter. I know there are many fathers who do worse stuff than that to their daughters, but for me that was devastating enough. All the years when I was younger that my uncle used to ask me if my father had ever touched me finally started to make sense. It wasn't too long after that that we moved out of state to be near my stepmother's family. For me that didn't last long. I went back to Ohio to live with my aunt that took care of me when I was little.
Long story short, life and who we become is made up of, and influenced by, so many different things. We are shaped by the things and people that happen in our lives. My mother was too young to have me. My father was too irresponsible to have me. There's no doubt that I love my parents, even if I don't always understand them. But I always end up dwelling on the things that have happend in life. They both had hard childhoods, which shaped who they became, and in turn shaped who I would become. The lack of attention from my mother is in part what I think made it harder for me to relate to my daughter the way I should when she was born. The being bounced around between family members, and all the attention they lavished on me to make up for my parents lack of interest in me, made me to where I didn't like to be alone. And I tried too hard to fit in and be what I thought other people wanted me to be. And whether I like it or not, my father was lazy and I ended up marrying a man who is also lazy.
None of these are excuses, they are just examples of our lives shaping us. But it doesn't have to be a bad thing. We can take the unpleasant things that have happend and turn them into life lessons and things to avoid. I try to do better with my children then my parents did with me. On some things I've succeeded and on others I've failded miserably. But I'm trying to realize these things now while my kids are little and to remember that it's never too late to change.