This Really Needs to Stop

For the loooooove! When will "the world" stop influencing my child?!? Oh, silly me! Never.

M: "I know what those I heart boobies bracelets mean."

A: (thinking) Oh, that's just great. Here we go again, me having to explain something I shouldn't yet have to.

A: "You do, huh? What do they mean?"

M: " It's for you know, when someone has cancer in their boobies. So people will donate money to make a cure for it."

A: "I think you're right! But Boobies really isn't the best word to go around saying. It's kind of inappropriate."

M: "Oh yeah! I know. I just wanted to tell you what they're for..."

She obviously made the connection that children shouldn't participate in things that are inappropriate and the conversation continued ...

M: "I wonder why kids wear them then?"

A: "Ya' know, that's a great question. Why do you think kids wear them?"

M: (shrugs)

A: "Would you like to know what I think?"

M: (shakes her head yes)

A: "I think it's okay to support causes, things like trying to find cures for diseases such as breast cancer or autism or anthing else you see bracelets & t-shirts & bumper stickers for but sometimes companies use their slogan or logo, I heart boobies is a slogan, in a way that attracts negative attention."

M: "What do you mean negative attention?"

A: "Well, remember we said boobies is an inappropriate word, right?"

M: "Mmhmm."

A: "When whoever made those bracelets chose to use that word, they knew it would make people look twice at the bracelet, it would draw attention."

M: "Ohhh, yeahhh ... cause it's a bad word."

A: "Right.", "So while it makes them see what the cause is, helping people with breast cancer, it's doing so by drawing attention to a negative word."

M: "Ohhhh, so just like I wouldn't stand up in class & say, Miss Wolf I needa take a grunt?"

(laughter)

A: "Yes, just like that." (more laughter)

M: "I'd just say I need to use the restroom because that's more appropriate."

A: "Exactly."

Hunks & Chunks

When I first heard this term, I thought “Hunks & Chunks”? Hmmm … that’s a great way to say fit vs. flab … I still don’t really know what it represents but when I describe to you the example I was given of “Hunks” & “Chunks” you’ll probably wonder what kind of soap opera, love story my 2nd grader is endulging in! Hey, whatever juicy storyline it takes to teach phonics works for the Walkers!

M: “Oh! Mom. I have to tell you something!”, “You and Dad will loooove it!” “You’ll laugh.”

M: “We have these things called hunks and chunks …”

A: I interrupted with an exaggerated gasp followed by “MACY! You can’t be tellin’ people they’re chunks!” and then I sang the line from the song in Madagascar 2 “Chunky, Chunkay, chunkay …” but she cut me off with her cute little giggle ...

M: “No, there’s one I wanna’ tell you.”

A: “Okay baby, I’m listening now.”

M: “ ’E’ said, (very exaggerated lovey, gushy, mushy voice) Oh, I loooove you ‘A’! ‘A’ said absolutely nothing. So when you see ‘EA’ you say ‘E’!”

My take on this whole Hunks & Chunks thing is it’s love story between letter sound combinations. Is that what you call them? Letter sound combinations? For the love of Pete people, I don’t know! I’m just glad to see my kid’s teacher is more creative than the age old, “I before E except after C.” I guess nowadays it’s like reality TV for letter sounds! I’m in as long as the letters don’t end up with 16 & Pregnant in there anywhere!

Oh, and this is a sidebar but the two words together, Hunks & Chunks, makes me wanna’ sing this MC Hammer song. Can't you hear it? ... Hunks and a Chunk, Hunks and a Chunk we like the sounds with a Hunks and a Chunk ... Yes, I just made up my own song, don't judge.

She's Got Re-spon-si-bil-ity ... Walk. Responsibility. Talk.

Yeah, yeah so I ripped off the title from Lloyd Price's song, Personality so what? The point is ladies & gents we have a seven year old who's ASKED for responsibility! Now, mind you she asked with a price tag attached but that's okay--it let's her understand the value of working hard for something she wants.



In our home, we've not really practiced having chores with payment attached. Sure, we agree with providing an allowance and sure we agree with expecting participation in chores but monetary value on doing those chores has not yet been discussed .. that is until today! In the past, Macy has just done as we've asked.



Macy accompanied me on a Sonic run today. While we waited for our drinks this is what took place:



M: "Mom, do you think I could start earning an allowance?"

A: "Well. Sure. I think that's a great idea! When we get home, we should sit down & discuss what some appropriate chores might be. What do you think would be a good idea?"

M: "Hmm .. (thinking) I think making my bed."

A: "Everyday."

M: "Yes. Everyday."

A: "Okay, that could make the list."

M: "How much do you think I can get paid for doing chores?"

A: "Well, that depends on what you do. You'll only get paid for work you do-you either do ALL of it or you don't get paid. But we'll come up with some ideas when we get home. We'll write them down & make an agreement."

M: "Okay! That sounds good to me."



I wanted to give her time to think about the things she could reasonably do. When we got home, she pulled out a spiral notebook and we began making a "contract". We agreed that it would last for 2 weeks to see if she needed to increase or decrease her responsibility. She was advised if her responsibility decreased, so did her pay.



As we discussed some of the things (you'll see the final list below) the subject of pay also came about.



M: "I wonder how much all this is worth?"

A: "Well, what do you think it is worth? What seems reasonable?"

M: "Um ... (thinking) I believe it's worth five dollars."

A: "So if you do _______ (listing off all the chores she agreed to) then you'll earn $5. But what
should be the consequence if you don't do all of those things on the day you agreed?"

M: "Then I shouldn't get paid!"

A: "Okay ma'am. It's a deal."



We shook hands. She signed the "contract".



*Editor's Note: Some of these items she already does because they're expected. The point is to have her understand the purpose of responsibility and how "working", works. The contract is subject to change after the 2 week period ;)

Flowers & The Trees.

Ever been around a toddler that learns a curse word? Sometimes they use it in context but sometimes they just throw it out in a random place within conversation to see what reaction their parent's give. Usually they do this because they know it's not an everyday word, the word has a "special" meaning, they're just not sure what.

Well, I'm afraid we had a case of the toddlers on our hands this evening. Take a read at what ensued.

"Mom, what are we having for dinner?", asked Macy.
"Oh, I'm not sure yet but I do know I need to go to the grocery store.", I replied.

Macy responded, "Well, sometimes I get nervous about eating other people's food."

"You get nervous about eating other people's food?" I asked, "What does that mean?".

"You know, like when we were at that chili thing at your work?" (referring to a chili cook-off I judged at my workplace), said Macy.

I thought, "Oh, you mean you don't like to eat in front of other people?"

She clarified, "No, like it makes me feel like when I have puberty ... like that."

"Makes you feel like when you have puberty??" At this point, I belted out a very boisterous laugh, I know. It was wrong, but I couldn't hold it back.

"What is puberty? I don't get it?", I asked.

"Then why are you laughing?", she said.

"Well, because I know what nervous is so I'm trying to understand how nervous equals puberty.", I responded.

"Well, I don't really know.", admitted Macy.

"Ohhh, where'd you hear that word? Maybe we could ask them to help us understand. Could we ask them? Who was it?", I pondered.

"Well, I can't really remember. I just heard the word.", I suppose she didn't want to fess up.

"Ohhhh, well. I believe I know what puberty means, I just wanted to know if there was a different meaning for it cause you called it the same as nervous.", I went on to explain.

"Puberty is when your body goes through different levels of changes somewhere between oh, 10 to 12 years old. You'll probably get zits, you'll get little boobies, you'll have a period--you know like when mommy has blood from her vagina & has to use tampons? That's a period. It happens one time every month. You will also get hair under your arms and on your goober."

She just looked at me like oh no you di'unt just sit there & say all that!

We both went from serious to busting up laughing.

"I said nervous was puberty!", she roared laughing even louder.
" Yeah, now you see why I laughed?", I asked.

"Gross.", Macy replied.

Fast As Fast Can Be, You'll Never Catch Me!

We had a small earthquake in Oklahoma yesterday. I anticipated Macy Walker would have one heck of a story on her account of the event; instead all I got was "Eh, it was no big deal." Well, okaythenma'am.

We went on to discuss much more important things, like ...

"Hey Mom, did you ever ding dong ditch when you were little ?",

said with a grin & slight laugh.

Me, baffled for a nano-second at how my precious, innocent, sweet little 7 year old baby already knew what ding dong ditching was, I paused only to quickly spit out,

"Ding dong ditch? What is ding dong ditch?", wasn't that the right thing to do?

Pretend I didn't know to see just how much she knew or would tell??

Shrug-Oh well, I sure thought so!

This time I got a bellowing, HA.HA.HA. as if she was thinking, you're so dumb-you know nothing-kinda laugh and

"It's where you go up to someone's house, ring their doorbell & then run off!"

"Ohhhh", I responded. "Well, what happens if it's a really mean person

and they run out & chase you??"

"Then I guess I'd just run really fast to our house and lock the door!",

followed by more laughter.

I kinda chuckled too this time because a.) I hoped she'd ding dong ditch someone who'd scare the bananas outta' her so she'd not do it again but also because b.) I still don't know how the heck she so accurately knew the ding dong ditch concept ... she's SEVEN for cryin' out loud!

I asked how she learned to do that and warned only to do it to people she knows (apologies to our neighbors in advance), applied the concepts of stranger danger, politeness, etc, etc. but didn't say NOT to do it ... Gimme' a break, we aaaaalll know she would do it anyway but the best part came shortly after.

"Well, you didn't do it but I BET Daddy & Jen Jen did!!!",

she & I both roared laughing.

She's right ;)

Gasp ... And Then She Said It.

WARNING: Explicit language.

Casey and I made a pact long ago to always tell Macy the truth, even when that means we have to admit embarassing & not so pleasant things to her. Thus far in her life, we've upheld that pact and do not plan to deviate from it anytime soon. She knows babies come from vaginas (yes, we call parts the proper names when explaining) she knows the alternative is a c-section but she doesn't know HOW babies are made and frankly ... I'd like to keep it that way right now!

How? You might ask, does she know where babies come from but not how they're made? Well, we tell her just enough information. We answer her questions but don't offer anymore information than necessary. There may be a point in her life where background information or further explanation is needed for certain things but to this point it's the facts ma'am only the facts.

Every parent dreads the day their child comes home to ask about something-typically inappropriate, they've learned outside their home. I expected to answer questions about where babies come from. I expected to hear "Susie said the S word", I expected to explain why people go to jail (which I've had to do already this week--because so & so's Dad spent all his money on drugs and they only had one dollar left to get his Dad out of jail because his Dad was in jail for doing drugs), I expected to explain favoritism, nerd, stupid, fairness, responsibility, good character, I even expected to explain divorce. What I didn't expect was to explain THE mother of all words.

Macy wasn't even in the car 5 minutes when she said, "Mom, what does the middle finger mean?" See, I try really hard to get by with the simplest of answers but its becoming increasingly more difficult! "Well, it's just middle man. You know where is middle man, where is middle man, there he is, there he is ..." She laughed. "Nooo, it's a bad word. What does it mean?" Crap! I thought. Now what? What do I say?? I swallowed a big gulp, said a nano-second prayer for the right words to say and replied, "Well Mace, it's a really really bad word. It's so bad, I don't even want to say it. It's not a nice word at all & it's something you should never repeat." I really didn't know what to say! I couldn't bring myself to say THAT word. "Well, can I guess what it is? Would you tell me then?" Sigh, "she knows" I thought. "She already knows." Ugh. So I said, "Of course. I'll tell you."

She was somewhat reserved & hesitated a smidge, shrugged and wincingly said "ffff..uck. Is that what it means? Fuck you?" OH.MY.STARS! Did she just say that?? "Yes. Yes Macy, that's what it means.", "How'd you learn that?", "Somebody said that the other day at school." "It's a bad word, huh mom?" Here would be a good time to reintroduce good character. Ouch.

Aging

Elderly people often take a large assortments of medication, so much they often have those pill separators allowing them to plan their medications by day. Now, I just can't imagine those folks enjoy taking all that medication but I'd venture to guess they realize they're extending their precious time on Earth, they see its necessity.

When those same elderly folks were oh, let's say 5 years old I bet they fought their mommas & daddies tooth and nail when taking medication. "This tastes bad.", "I can't swallow this, it gags me.", "I don't like it.", etc. Their desire to get rid of the symptoms wasn't as great as their disdain for the medication. They knew it was relative to get rid of their illness but they weren't mature enough to understand that taste or gagging reflex was temporary.

But then they aged & maturity set in. They realized swallowing that nasty medicine was necessary. Macy Walker has now realized this and begrudgingly requested cough medicine. On her own. Without my suggestion.

Wow, maturity.