Well, I gotta tell you that I was not planning to do anything special for Mother’s Day, but a good friend of ours from college invited us to D.C. to have dinner and to just hang out. After a hectic day in the nursery at church (it’s once a month and I tell you…I couldn’t do more…it is not easy dealing with your children when you’re working…BBB, bighead, bigcheeked baby, for you new readers…he was off the hook), I took a nap, but the kids were so excited to go to our friend’s house. It warms my heart that we’ve extended their sphere of safe people and safe places. You all know that I just don’t let my kids hang out anywhere, especially at “family” gatherings, but this was different.
I got up late/we rushed to DC/food was good/fellowship was great and then…we got to talking. You know how we do after the grub, we have to sit and chat a bit.
I try to avoid touchy topics in mixed company. I’m pretty passionate about my issues-education, child rearing, family, politics. I just try to listen, but they kept drawing me in.
“Your daughter is so mature and well spoken. That is so awesome.”
“Thank you!” (Oh, the proud mama moments come just when you need them)
“I just don’t know how you do it with 5 kids. I take my hat off to you.”
“Thanks. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely worth it. I’m pretty hard on ‘em.” (Now why did I say that? I…I think I’m opening up a can)
See, I realized recently that not everyone is hard on their children. Actually, in my opinion, parents are a little soft, like pillow soft, like…punk soft. When did parents have to ask their children permission for stuff? When did children start sharing their feelings about what they don’t want to do? Ok, ok, I’m not going to tell you where the conversation led or who said what. Other than me making comments like,
“Walking out of my house looking like a trick on the street is not happening…no matter how much their exploring their femininty.”
“Who cares what other people are doing? I’m setting the friggin standards in this piece, I was chosen to carry them for 10 months, not society.”
“I don’t let my kids hang out with too many people at our house because my basic rule is if you’re hanging with mine, I’m treating yours like I do mine. If you don’t want them disciplined like I do it, keep your kids at home and we’ll meet at the park.”
Yeah, it sounds harsh to some, old-fashioned to others and you know what, I don’t care. You judge a tree by its fruit and ounce for ounce, I got good fruit.
So, to all of the mothers, young and old, who care enough about their children to show them the craziness of this world from a distance and to give them safe places to grow and flourish without getting sucked into the craziness, to the moms that are NOT being punked by their kids…Happy Mothers Day!

Ever wondered what it would cost you if you had a larger family? Thought about travelling, especially car travel with them during a holiday week? Let me share with you unexpected costs:

• 9 expired items in the first aid kits (yeah, I have one for the car and one to give to the grandparents. Should be updated every year, but I’m a little behind.) 
• 2 days of missed blog posts (read a couple of different books for Financial Friday and I wanted to sit still/break it down/got caught up typing packing lists/researching summer reading lists…did I mention that I’ve recently been inducted in the Overacheiving, Obsessive Perfectionists Hall of Shame? Yeah, I wasn’t good enough to get it to Hall of Fame.  :lol: )
• 2 girls night out activities (didn’t feel right hangin’ when I had another 10 loads of laundry to do, even though DH hung out with his boy who was going to Brazil for the summer…guess he missed the 10 loads of laundry or the smelly food in the refrigerator)
• 11 hours of sleep (I’m a light sleeper, but I do believe that good, sound sleep is critical for total health…but I wonder is good and sound possible when your three year old foot is in your mouth?)
• dry contact lenses (not really associated with the travel plans, but I thought I would throw that in there)
• over-inflated car tires (I couldn’t very much read the tire gauge while my sons were arguing abou who was going to play Dragon Ball Z first when we got home)
• $58.50 (the total cost of the overdue DVD, video games from the library and from Blockbuster)
• a good bra (not paying attention…ended in the dryer/underwire gave up/expensive tragedy)
• 3 broken nails (not gel or acrylic, but mine…the ones I’ve been trying to go for friggin weeks. All because I was looking through a box of tapes looking for the 5 or 6 DVDs that seemed to have walked out of the cases. Does this happen in your house? Are the DVDs joined with the toothpaste caps, the remote controls and those dayum single socks? And, can I note that I wouldn’t be watching ANY of the DVDs so why did I have to dig? Another post…)
• important items left behind
  • Both of my daughters left their jackets after they went in for a bathroom break..even though I asked if everyone went to the bathroom. (My girlfriend has a portable potty in her car…do I need to go out like that?)
  • Video camera (wrote a checklist for the whole family while I went to get the car checked out…made 4 copies/taped the list on every reasonable surface/DH was responsible for the video camera, but he missed the list/was sorta sleepy…see above statement about hanging out for more details)
  • Pajamas for me (luckily, I’m staying at my parent’s house, but let’s see I remembered everything for the kids down to the A & D ointment, the plastic spoons for the fruit cups and the special glass cleaner and car freshener that I like, but sistah didn’t have enough of a spare brain cell to get some pajamas for herself…sad but true)
• a part of my hearing because between “Stop Khari!” (which is the mantra that everyone has when it pertains to the throwing/hitting/kicking/choking antics of our two year old), “How much longer?” and my fave…”Did you consider us taking a plane home? I’m just curious.” I think I damaged something when I was covering my ears and screaming, “My name is not Mommy and you can’t guess what it is, so I’m not answering.”

Although it’s 1:06 AM on Tuesday morning and it costs me a lot to get here, sitting here in the quiet, knowing that I am going to be without the busy-ness of my full life for about six weeks…it was worth it.

For more information about developing a first-aid kit, click here.

How well do you handle preparation before the trip? How much does your family be in the vision and pitch in to help?

Parenting teens is tough work and this d*^%n white dress made parenting for me that much harder.

Now, I was raised by two wonderful parents who worked hard at teaching us right from wrong. The challenge is that my mother wasn’t taught about sex. She just kinda came across the topic, similar to how you stumble upon an uneven section of the concrete while walking. She was sheltered, bookended by two over-protective older brothers and a truckload of old school, prudish relatives from Mississippi who all migrated to Detroit and lived within one mile of each other.

So, what do she when she has three daughters of her own? Uh…the same thing. You couldn’t say sex in our house, let alone ask any questions about stuff you heard at school. When I started my cycle at the young age of 9, my mother took me to a doctor’s office and all I remember is a movie with birds, bees, eggs and sperm, which sorta looked like little worms lost in the ocean. After the movie, they showed us pictures of a naked woman and a naked man, but they didn’t elaborate much on sex, hormones, feelings leading up to sex. Nope. I was more confused than ever and my mother never asked me a single thing about it. She thought, “Whew! I did my part. Don’t have to deal with that anymore.”

I found out more from school (and not in health class) about sex and sexuality, than I ever did from that movie. I’ll never forget when my girl friends would bring Cosmo to school (the half-naked woman on the front is not new to the 21st century) and my guy friends would brag about the info they got from “Uncle Willie” and how he let them sneak a peek at his girlie magazines. How could we have possibly been expected to have any responsible, respectable relationships when boys in groups of threes would push their easily erected bodies up against you while your back was turned and you were putting stuff in your locker?

Man, we were in a world of trouble. We had a make-out cove in the E-Wing where couples could go and get in a quickie. Hello!

So, what am I doing differently with my daughter, hell my children, because if we only talk to the girls, that’s like throwing Danielle in the hungry lion’s den dressed in a full-length coat made of raw meat?

I’m teaching sex education as soon as they start asking questions or as soon as I think they are able to understand. In my daughter’s case, I taught intro to sex and reproduction in 5th grade. Shocked? Tripping? Think it’s too early? Check this. Read the rest of this entry »

As we’ve discussed in the past, I do have a bit of an identity crisis. Am I a parenting blogger, mommy blogger, homeschooling blogger, work from home blogger? Man, so many boxes and not enough room!

In an effort to balance my decision to stick to parenting stuff (mainly ), I have designated just a few days where I can talk about other areas of my life that might be of interest to you. So, on Wednesdays, I will be bringing you the WFHM/WAHM wisdom. Oh, the acronyms? WFHM (work from home mom, which I use for people who actually run their business from home. This would apply to people who are full-time, part-time or even hobby time in business) and then WAHM (work at home mom, which I use as people who work another organization, say a magazine or pharmaceutical company and they have an in-home office, commuter and flex time employees would work here). I adhere to these classifications myself even though there are many similarities. The question I get from most people at my workshop is How do you do it all? My response: What do you, Trump, Oprah and Tiger have in common? People start to think and after about 5 minutes, I say, “You all start out every day with 24 hours in it. The differences between you is how the hours are spent.”

Hmmm….is the response I normally get.

Every business, every organization, the world runs on time, timing, seasons. I’ve fought in many organizations about how inefficient and ineffective people were because they did not know how to maximize their time. I have offended many people because I was the manager who started meetings according to the time on the clock even when people were outside of the room talking, getting coffee, wrapping up their phone calls (which tended to be personal in nature anyway…another post, another post) and I NEVER saw fit to wait for people or encourage them to be in their seat. This is not elementary school, people, and if you need a bell to tell you to be in your seat, set the alarm to go off on your watch. OUCH! If looks could kill, I would be writing this from the Master’s office.

Time is a precious commodity. Don’t waste it on the phone, checking your emails, sitting in meetings that have no real purpose or better yet, no clear purpose. Is this what you’re doing in your home office? Then check out a few tips I have for you, so that you can make the most of your time and a couple of fun bonuses since it is summertime and the kids want to be a part of what you’re doing. Read the rest of this entry »

Growing up, I had a finished basement, a huge fenced in back yard and my parents knew all of our neighbors because we all went to school together, same summer camp, same recreation teams. I loved my suburban community, northwest of Detroit, Oak Park, Michigan.

Ms. Palaccio kept my youngest sister until I got home from school and she made the best zucccini bread. Even though my grandmother had a beautiful garden in the heart of Detroit, full of her Mississippi-reared faves (the green tomatoes were the bomb), I didn’t know what a zuccini was. Two doors down from Ms. Palaccio were the Carters. David and I got into my first fight at school when he accidentally hit me in the face with a snowball. I went off! He started crying because he thought we were friends and he begged for my forgiveness for…uh…the whole next semester. They adopted their cousin, Butter, and he throw a baseball in my parent’s bedroom window. Oooh, that was the first time I realized that my father had a gun in the house. AAAAHHHH! He was half-dressed, getting ready for his afternoon shift at the post office, and he grabbed that gun from the back of his closet and ran out the porch. My sisters and I were crying and all of the other kids on the block immediately busted Butter out. He had to work in our yard, in our garage, hell, he was an indentured servant for a good year.

I loved growing up in Oak Park. Just thinking about it makes me sad that my children may never have that. See times are a’changing, actually they have changed. And DH wrote a little bit about this in his post yesterday. I decided to sorta fill in the blanks. Read the rest of this entry »