Myspace, your space and photos

My kid got a Myspace – I’m not thrilled about it but couldn’t keep her from it forever (especially after she’s been grounded from ALL computers for the last 5 months).  Be that as it may, she decided to take pics of herself to share with the world.  Don’t worry, they aren’t bad…and they aren’t bad!   Take a look at my cutie kid and guess which one is my favorite.

Isn’t she cute??  lol  Oh, and just so you know where she gets it – here’s a pic of Jesi, her gorgeous big sister (whom she of course idolizes).

 

Parent: verb: To act as a parent to; raise and nurture:

It’s the verb part of the definition that confuses my ex-husband.  Not what a parent IS (ie sperm donor with visitation) but what a parent DOES.  You cannot say that you are a parent if you don’t DO anything about it.

So, when you say we are both going to punish our daughter for stealing and the punishment will be picking up dog poo at your house (because grounding her from electronics like I did means she’s going to whine at you and you don’t like that) you have to actually MAKE HER PICK UP DOG POO!

This is where he fails and she wins and I suffer.  I make a punishment (1 month no electronics of any kind) and his brilliant idea is that she has to do chores at his house and clean up dog poo every day she’s there.  But then I found out last night that not only is she not actually having to pick up the poo, the reason she doesn’t have to do it is …wait for it….. SHE DOESN’T LIKE IT!  So instead, she just has to stay outside until he tells her she can come in.  Essentially doing what she would do at his house anyway: getting a tan.

Brilliant I tell you, fucking brilliant.

So because my ex is an idiot, my kid has learned the following:
1.     If I  don’t like something, just be stubborn enough in my refusal and I won’t have to.
2.     Mom’s punishments mean jack because if I’m patient, I can just go watch t.v. at daddy’s, play on the computer and call my friends from there
3.     Daddy’s a sucker
4.     Stealing isn’t that big a deal and,
5.    Mom’s the mean one, dad’s the fun one (that’s my favorite).

When I freaked out on him about it, he had his patent response: “I’m not married to you…you can’t make me punish her at my house (apparently he’s two and “you can’t make me” is a good enough response for him)… I want to have fun with her when I see her … this is my house and you can’t control what happens here….grounding/punishing her sucks.”

No shit Sherlock, you think grounding her at my house is FUN?? You think she doesn’t argue with me every fucking step of the way?

Trying to talk to him more gets the second patent response: “you just think you’re the perfect parent and you’re not – you need to back off”

Of course I’m not the perfect parent – of course I don’t think I am – have you MET ME?? All I want is for him to back me up so I’m not doing this again next week when she steals from me again because she knows she essentially will get away with it.

Bet you can’t guess why we’re not married anymore.

 

Embarassing statements and white trash neighborhoods

I nearly came on here during the whole bathroom debacle and wrote “Man, I worked in the bathroom all night long and my ass is killing me!” Yeah, it would have been really funny when people started laughing at me and asking if I needed more fiber in my diet and I didn’t get it.

While taking a walk through my neighborhood today I noticed a few things.

Why is it that just taking a walk is fine, but the minute you put on headphones and bend your elbows (ala speed walkers) you are immediately not just out for a leisurely stroll, you are officially EXERCISING and people know it. It’s so much pressure!! So now, when I’m on my walks I have this horrible dilemma – do I bend the arms and announce that I’m exercising? What if people wonder why I’m not going faster, or wearing workout clothes? What if people see me and think “oh, honey, you are beyond help, you might as well just go eat bon bons and wait for death”?? Yes, these are the things I think and yes, I do believe that everyone that sees me actually has some thought about me – because I know I’m thinking about them!

I also noticed on my walk just how charming white trash can be.

First I noticed the 4 year old outside in 65 degree weather with her swimming suit on, no shoes, hose running/spraying “washing” her bike. Now I’m all for cleanliness and even for a little fun with the hose when you’re 4 but a swimming suit?? Really? In April?? Come on! And of course, it wouldn’t complete the scene unless the house she belonged to didn’t still have their Christmas lights still up!

And then, across the street and down one house from the poor unsupervised child was a woman walking to her car wearing a winter coat and ear muffs. Seriously – is the weather really that different from one side of the street to the other?? It reminded me of one of those collage scenes you see on posters with little vignettes for every season. I was just waiting for a snowman to show up in a yard around the corner.

Anyway, those are the things I noticed today.

Other news tidbits: American Idol got it right this year, the final three is nearly exactly as I said it should be all along, except it should be Carly, not Syesha as the last girl. I love both the Davids and can’t wait to see which will win. I love Cook, but Archuleta has all those teenie boppers voting for him and what else do they have to do all day but vote?? Come on, we old fogies are going to have to dial our poor fingers off! Cam you imagine American Idol before redial or before push-button phones? Hah! Each person would get 420 votes and they’d be thrilled!

Carrie told me all about Google Reader today and I’m trying to figure it out, but I can’t understand how it’s any better than an RSS reader I can put on my desktop. I’m going to keep futzing with it because Carrie is usually right about cool stuff (if you ignore the unhealthy obsessions with paper) but I’m not optimistic.

I am still on the search of AR books for Ally – this is the most cruel invention on earth. Give a kid a “reading level” that they are supposed to only read from (for Ally it’s 5.2 – 7.0 which means she can read books that are considered 5th grade through 7th grade appropriate) and then DON’T HAVE BOOKS SHE WANTS TO READ IN THOSE LEVELS!! Argh You don’t even want to know how many countless hours I have spent trying to find adventure/ghost/scary/cool/funny books that are #1-appropriate (ie not too scary), #2-interesting to her and #3 categorized as an AR book so that she can get credit for it!

What’s really frustrating about the whole process is that she is so demoralized about the whole process, she is less and less interested in reading the more I have to tell her “you can read that, but you’ll have to read something else you’re NOT interested in if you want credit in class”. Sad part is, she’s not going to get to go to Silverwood with her friends because she’s 15 credits (or approx 3 books) away from the goal and she can’t find a damned book worth reading ( in her opinion) so she won’t apply herself. Eww, I can’t believe I just said that! If I start talking about her potential, someone had better just put me out of my misery.

So that’s been my last few days – hopefully this week will finish better than it started out.

 

Bathroom repair for dummies

I’m at work so I plan on this post being (relatively) short, we’ll see how that goes.

LOTS of stuff is going on right now. First, I have construction going on at home that will be finished (I pray) by the end of this weekend. When it’s all done I will have all new plumbing, walls, paint and tile in my bathroom. It’s a long story how it got started but suffice it to say that when my parents get an idea in their heads (such as a PROJECT) it’s really hard to stop them. They, and my beloved g’pa, are paying for the whole shindig so there can be no complaints. There are complaints – really there are – but I know better than to voice them. Anyway, I picked out the tile (it’s gorgeous of course) and we will be installing it today, I think. And by “we” I mean mom and dad with me telling them where I want them and then going to work. There really is something to be said for parents who can be a little, umm, overbearing, at times.

So, good news: new bathroom for free (ish) — bad news: I haven’t had a shower in 5 days. Not to say I’m not clean, I just REALLY can’t wait until I can take a shower!

In other news:

My kid and I were driving home from somewhere and saw a guy riding his bike (not motorcycle, a bicycle) in our same direction. As we’re sitting at the light forced to stare at this guy’s spandex-covered ass (as well as the rest of him) she says “spandex is disgusting, why do people wear it??” I replied that it was okay on athletes but on normal people it was gross. She said yeah, I suppose, but it’s those other people that wear it that gross me out. I agreed and said “if you ever see me in spandex…just shoot me” she looked at me in absolute HORROR and yelled

“aww mom!! eww!! I need a delete button in my mind!!”

heehee, that’s even better than “I need to poke out my mind’s eye!” which was the previous ‘bad image in your mind’ exclamation.

That’s about it – I will be posting photos of the bathroom progress this weekend so you can see how much I haven’t been helping.

Oh and one other thing – while riding her brother’s bike home to go to her physical therapy appt. (for her left arm that she shattered a few months ago), the chain came off and my niece Samantha went flying.  She landed on her right arm and broke her elbow. So, bad news: broke the arm, good news: there is absolutely no doubt she’s related to me nor is there any doubt about her paternity. We are the family of odd/stupid/coincidental injuries.   Cami, mom, the doctor and I (all individually) said that we’re going to wrap her in bubble wrap to protect her from herself.

 

Things I’ve learned this week

I’ve learned that I like red wine – not good wine, we’re talking the under $5 per bottle kind – but still, it’s wine and it’s in a bottle.  It’s a start

I’ve learned that I’m not happy being a homebody and I want to get out and meet people – any people.

I’ve learned that getting together with friends is one of my favorite activities.

I’ve learned that just because someone hurts you doesn’t mean you always get to act hurt for as long as you want.

I’ve learned that people who hurt you once WILL do it again – it’s not a matter of if, it’s when.

I’ve learned that being a good parent is more important to me than it is to others.

I’ve learned that I ROCK at Scene It! Even DeWayne says so, and that’s something!

I’ve learned that limeaid party isn’t as lame as it sounds…quite the opposite actually.

I’ve learned that being the bad guy is probably going to be my role in life for a long time and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I’ve learned that I’ve been giving away my control over if I’m happy or not.

I’ve learned that I’m a sucker for people being nice to me – even if they’re not really.

I’ve learned that being angry at yourself for being a sucker is almost as bad as the anger you feel toward the person you believed.

I’ve learned that some people don’t think my friendship is worth anything.

I’ve learned that I know better.

I’ve learned that my kid is HILARIOUS.  (If you ask, I’ll explain what’s so funny about a Vietnamese restaurant or her reaction to hearing what was really “wrong “with the cat.)

I’ve learned that cat’s go into heat as early as 4 months old – Oreo is 5 months old.

I’ve learned that I have very few social skills and I’m too shy to use the ones I have very often.  (okay, I already knew that, but it bears repeating)

I’ve learned that I can never remember if “its” is with or without the appostrophe if it is the possessive one but I’m too lazy to look it up every time and I’m REALLY too lazy to spell it out every time.

I’ve learned I can’t remember if it’s bears or bares when saying “it bears repeating”

Yeah, so obviously you can tell from all that that it’s been an eventful couple weeks around here.  I really don’t want to go into details, mostly because I’m so tired of it all.  Suffice it to say that there have been some major changes in my life and I’m pretty sure that it’s all for the best…once I get over the anger and hurt.

Now for the fun stuff – I got my tax refund a few weeks ago and, of course, went on a (reserved) shopping spree for all the things we don’t buy any other time of year.   Here is a list of some of the things we got:

A new office chair (for the house office)

New outfits for Ally and I

4 (count them FOUR) new bras – all of them a different (much bigger) size than what I was wearing before.

2 new cd’s by Ray LaMontagne  – awesome

lots of other little stuff we needed and….

A NEW CAMERA!!    A Canon EOS Digital Rebel.  It’s last year’s model and it was a floor model so it was on clearance.  Only problem is that now I want the really ooh la la lens for it and that costs almost as much as what I paid for the camera.  Oh well. maybe next year.

Okay – fingers are tired. I’m done for tonight.