A Society of Gun Worshipers

A friend of mine and I have recently begun having a conversation about guns, particularly her extreme pro-gun stance and my questioning of any gun that takes more ammo than one has fingers. Grab the popcorn, this Facebook drama just got real!

So, this most recent conversation started because of her sharing and commenting on a post about a Texas school district arming their teachers with guns. I know that when my husband went to school to become a teacher, it was so he could carry a loaded gun into the classroom as part of the required uniform! Don’t want to carry a gun? You’re fired! How many of these teachers who don’t feel comfortable carrying a gun will do so because they fear their jobs are at stake? Do you really want your kids in a classroom with a teacher who has a loaded firearm? Better pray to God that your kids don’t talk back or they may just get a cap in their ass! Seriously people, fear tactics only lead to more fear. Having a false sense of security looks good on paper, but until you get to the root of the problem, it will only continue to get worse.

What, then, might those root problems be? For starters, perhaps if we as a society actually cared about our children, then perhaps we would properly fund their education instead of constantly cutting back, closing schools, and increasing class sizes beyond what the rooms were designed to hold just to save a buck or two in taxes each year, then blaming teachers that their kids are failing because instead of getting an actual education, they are being taught to take a test which has no real world bearing whatsoever so they don’t lose funding, forcing the schools to close and teachers to be out of a job. Perhaps then these kids wouldn't grow up to become sociopaths because the adults around them actually showed they cared. I’m not so sure I want to live in a society where children are taught that the only way to survive in this world is to kill or be killed.

By no means am I anti-gun. While I personally do not own a gun, I grew up in a household where there were guns, I knew where they were, I knew they were loaded, and I knew the only time to ever touch one was for self defense. However, when there are guns specifically targeted to the five and under age group, it makes me question both the parents buying said guns and manufacturers who feel the need to arm our preschoolers and kindergarteners. I was also taught the value of life, specifically that life has value. We live in an age where many kids don’t get that anymore. It’s no wonder there has been an increase in kids killing their siblings, either accidentally or on purpose because they wouldn’t share a toy. Since a majority of these people tend to be on the conservative Christian side, perhaps they could actually read their Bible. It’s not like the blurb, “You shall not kill,” is some obscure reference. A 2-shot rifle or a handgun are more than enough for self defense, you do not need to have a gun that has 30 rounds or more of ammunition to fight off an intruder unless you plan on committing mass murder, but if you have those in your house, educate your children on how dangerous these weapons really are.

If we want to counteract violence, more violence is not the answer. If we want to protect our children, stop treating our schools like prisons. If we truly want to have a safer society, then we need to start showing it. Get involved in your kids’s lives. Know their friends and those they hang out with. Teach them how precious life is and not just how to take a life. Children are not born wanting to commit violent acts, but they are taught either through actions or neglect.

Colors

Yesterday at church I was asked by a nine-year-old girl, “Why do you wear pink and purple so much?” And I answered, “Because I like pink and purple, and blue and green and yellow and orange… I like colors.”

So why is it that one has to defend wearing certain colors because of their gender? Personally I feel that if you like a certain color, wear it. Besides, I look good in pink and purple. It compliments my skin tone.

Sunshine and Time

Gardening is a great example of learning the value of patience. It is also a great example of reaping the rewards of hard work.

Last year, I found it humorous that upon putting a tomato plant in the ground, a child asked if the tomatoes were ready to eat now. I told him it takes sunshine and time to grow. He looked up, saw the sun, waited a few more seconds and re-asked the same question. I told him it takes months not seconds, but it would be worth it. Teaching kids the value of patience can be difficult, but I believe letting them plant and work a garden is a perfect way to do so.

Adventures in Babysitting

The other day I got to watch four-year-old twins. We had an amazing time together.

The twins were a little shy when they first arrived, so I decided to check if Sesame Street was on. It was. This also allowed me to finish up what I was doing on the computer, like checking my email and Facebook and Pinterest; you know, the important stuff. Anyway, it didn’t take long for them to warm up, even though our dog Lucy was constantly in their faces… literally. As soon as the credits started rolling, one of the girls grabbed The Muppets and said they wanted to watch that next. I certainly wasn’t going to argue about that! I love the Muppets! Before the day was over, we’d played Uno, ate macaroni and cheese with broccoli (which they LOVED), colored with both crayons and chalk, read The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (one of my all time favorite books) and danced to the YouTube video “I’m Elmo and I Know It.” We had so much fun and the day was filled with so much silliness that I can’t wait to do it again.

Spare Room

Last night when I got home from work, my husband asked me to go into the spare room. He’d packed away all of the boys’s stuff. I feel like I’m, I don’t know, still in denial and yet at the same time have a sense of immense loss. How is it that those two small kids could have such a huge hold on my heart like they do?

So for now we have a spare bedroom and both of us are in agreement that we like having the office and craft room combined, which means there would be no reason to move anything else into it. My husband has also created an incredibly useful workbench in the garage that doubles as his model station. We’re talking geekaholic here. But, I have to say that the model of the Reliant from Star Trek he’s working right now is incredible and I hope when he’s finished with it he will display it somewhere in the house. Yes, it’s that awesome. As for the spare bedroom, I think I’m going to finish cleaning it and we can use it for a guest room. I might even put the futon back in the upright position to be used as a sofa and maybe make it a quiet reading room or something.

Life is full of ups and downs. I’m ready to make 2012 an up year. No more pining for the past. No more worrying about the future. Simply living for the day.

Busy Non-quilting Weekend

This weekend my husband and I decided to make a To Do List. Half of it is crossed off.

Christmas ornaments put away: Check. Tree boxed up: Check. Department 56 North Pole Village packed and bookcases reorganized: Check. Naked looking living room: Double check. Chicken coop cleaned and chickens fed and watered: Check. Deck hosed off of excessive amount of chicken poop: Check. Okay, so that was all done by midday Saturday, which meant we probably could have completed our To Do List had we really wanted to. However, the next thing on the list was packing up the boys’s stuff and I just couldn’t do it.

It has been four months since we’ve seen Josh and over five months since we last saw Logan, but I can’t stop fighting back tears every time I open their room door. I’m sure that once all reminders of them are boxed up and donated or put in the garage it will be less intense. That and the bedding needs to be washed and floors shampooed because I still smell them both while I’m in there, especially this last Christmas when I used the room to wrap presents. Perhaps tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll work up the courage to do what has to be done.

Advent Festival

With all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season in full swing, sometimes you just need to take a little time out of your day and make a gingerbread house. Or thirty-five of them.

After weeks of planning and stressing over the Advent Festival, it, as usual, went off well anyway. Honestly I don’t know if anybody had doubts, but still, these things take careful preparation. Most of the preparations were done two hours before the event started, which of course meant lots of down time. We apparently all assumed that since we put the youth group in charge it would take longer, but the opposite seems true. The adults in the group kept the kids occupied by having them grab this or that every now and then.

As for the gingerbread houses, or more accurately graham cracker houses, the final count was thirty-five. Due to the abundance of children either eating an average two pieces for every one they’d place on their house we ran out of candy before houses. I had to tell the last few people, “Check the cookie station. They have sprinkles.” Oh well. Of course, this should have become apparent that if you wanted a gingerbread house you need to be there first thing since my table was overflowing with architects while the other four were empty for the first half-an-hour. Alas, at the end, a lone house stood naked and unadorned. I left it in the kitchen for someone just in case.

Dealing with Disappointment

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you I’m terrible at dealing with, well, just about anything. Especially when there are emotions involved.

Perhaps there is a little bit of leeway in trying to describe how I deal with life. When I’m sad or grieving I tend to use humor more than usual. Actually I tend to use humor in a lot of circumstances. Making a joke in the middle of a very serious argument, however, is not always recommended, and rarely does it have the intended effect, but I can’t help it sometimes. That would be like telling a dog not to bark or a cat not to meow. I don’t know if it is possible for me not to inject humor into just about any circumstance, and I have the scars on my tongue from literally having to bite it in order to not say it aloud sometimes.

Now anger and frustration have a fairly odd effect on me. I get the urge to clean. I don’t know if it is a psychological therapy, one where taking something not in order or dirty and making it look all shiny and new, is the reason for it. Of course, I could have gotten it from my stepmother who I’m fairly certain went on cleaning sprees after having to deal with her ex-husband, so maybe this was a learned behavior. Actually, curiously, my dad tends to crack jokes at inopportune times as well so maybe it is part nature and part nurture. Either way, the house gets clean as I take out my anger on the toilet bowl before flushing it down.

However, currently I’m having difficulty figuring just where to place my emotions as they all seem to be jumbled together where our kids are involved. It’s been months since we’ve seen them and while I have slowly been taking reminders of them and putting them out of sight I still can’t figure out just how to deal with such a loss. It has especially been difficult since we were supposed to finally see them again last night and in typical fashion it never happened. I don’t know why I even allow myself to get my hopes up any more. I don’t know why I can’t get past the denial stage that we very possibly will never see them again. I don’t know why I can’t let go. Wait. Yes I do. Because I love those boys more than I ever should have allowed myself to.

Now What?

Just when you think life has one plan for you something goes awry and changes everything. Hardly ever does it turn out for the better.

With it coming up on almost a month since the boys’s mother has bothered to contact us and the crazy lesbian aunts holding them hostage, I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever see them again. While part of me is okay with that, as it will mean far less drama to deal with, a very large part of  me is not. I’ve come to think of these boys as our kids over this last year and to suddenly have them yanked out of our lives makes me both sad and angry at the same time.

However, with that being said, I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet. The other day my partner asked one of the aunts via text message if we could have the boys the next weekend because we miss them. A little over six hours later we got a response that they didn’t want to. This isn’t at all surprising because over there they get cookies for dinner and watch movies and television all day. What kid wouldn’t want that over having a structured day where they have to eat their vegetables and brush their teeth and actually use the toilet to pee instead of wetting their pants?

I guess now is the waiting game, but for how long? When is giving up the best option? As tempted as I am to simply take over any of their stuff we have over here and just leave it on her doorstep, a small part of me still thinks there might be a glimmer of hope after all. Albeit, I don’t know how much longer I can hold onto it.

Less Naked

Vaulted ceilings suck. I’m just going to go ahead and throw that out there.

After going through what artwork we have left, I decided on the three Van Gogh prints for the living room. At one point we had ten but the other seven were either unsalvageable or not worth saving. Living in a house infested with constant mold problems will do that, so when we moved I opted to only take the good ones with us. Besides, the ones we took were also framed.

Anyway, trying to decide on placement was a challenge. We have our sofa currently against the tallest wall in the house and every morning I blog I see it, this vast open space begging for a splash of color and interest. So instead of try to clog and clutter the area, I thought that by simply placing the artwork where I would normally place it had the ceiling been lower, it would draw the eye downward. Of course, maybe I’m just not used to it yet because now the space looks even emptier since putting the print up! Okay, maybe emptier isn’t the word, but perhaps accentuates the size of the wall more by putting yet another thing on it to emphasize its massiveness.

So herein lies the dilemma; I can either leave the artwork where it is or I can come up with another plan that will cover a larger portion of the wall. My original thought was to make an art quilt and use it as a wall hanging, but I don’t know how I’d feel about that since I think of quilts as usable and functional pieces. Even the baby quilts I’ve made for family and friends were intended to be used as blankets until they outgrew them and then could be hung from the walls, although some people only used them as wall art and that’s sad.

Quilts are in many ways story tellers themselves with all the memories and scars of life, and without the element of using them for a purpose, they never gain a soul and personality. Not that I’m saying that inanimate objects necessarily have these attributes, but, unlike a print, you can cuddle and play with a quilt. Yes, this increases the chances of stains and tears, but that only adds to the character of it.

Alas, it appears as though I may need some time to think about it. Maybe what I need to do is actually start quilting and stop talking about it. What I need is for the kids to be here to keep me focused. It’s funny, but I always thought that having kids would be a hindrance to my creativity, and since we haven’t had them in a while my creative side has severely diminished. Yes, they are exhausting, but worth every minute we get to have them in our lives.

Well, it appears I’ve gone on enough tangents for one post. I’d have taken a picture, but honestly, it is just sad to see the lonely print of Van Gogh’s Irises above the couch. Maybe it will just take time to get used to it all.

Family Day

Every weekend during the summer, my aunt and uncle have people over at their house to play in the pool and eat and chat. Yesterday was the first time we were able to bring the boys.

Scheduling conflicts prevented us from going to Family day most of this summer. Either it would be canceled from a conflict on their end or we’d not be able to go because of a conflict on our end. However, yesterday we finally got to take the boys swimming. Okay, by we, I mean my husband took them swimming while I safely watched from a distance. I swear they were in that pool from the time we got there until we had to leave, save every five minutes the younger one had to pee or while they ate dinner. Either the boy absorbs water like a sponge or he was drinking the pool water.

Everybody commented on how well behaved they were. I’m not sure if they were commenting because they were surprised at such a thing as well behaved boys or the fact that this was only the second time most of them had seen the kids, the first being a very crowded baby shower. And so we would thank them and say that indeed they were acting within the realm of acceptable behavior. Only one near temper tantrum over a half-eaten donut left on a plate that the oldest wanted to eat, but after explaining that it was somebody else’s he was fine and ready for sunscreen reapplication and more swimming.

I’m so glad we got to do something fun while we had the kiddos for the brief time we did this weekend. Being poor sucks, but at least we have family to keep us entertained.

Quiet

It has been unusually quiet at the house lately. Must be the lack of children.

We haven’t heard from the boys’s mom or the boys since we left for church camp last weekend. While we were supposed to have them this week while she recovers from surgery, her sister had other plans. I’m all for them spending more time with their cousins, but we haven’t been able to contact her at all and apparently we aren’t alone if the messages on her Facebook page are any indication. I’m not at the worried stage yet, as this was a pretty extensive surgery, and we don’t have any contact with her sister or her sister’s partner, but still, one has to wonder what is going on. As a writer my brain is on overtime lately with scenarios and plots, but as a friend to her and parent to her boys, I am concerned to say the least.

At seven in the morning I am used to hearing the sounds of morning Public Broadcasting programs such as The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That or Super Why. However, it has been weeks since those shows have been on in our house. I’m also used to hearing, “Good morning, Daddy Cory!” followed closely with, “I want up,” which is the older boy’s way of saying he wants lifted up in a hug. The sounds of laughter, the cries of pain, the shouts of anger and the whispers of apologies all have been missing in our lives lately.

While I have so many questions to ask, the person who can answer them hasn’t been responding. Perhaps a little more time is required, or perhaps a little more persistence. I don’t know. I suppose a little more patience is needed on my end.

Driving... With Children

My nightmares about taking the kids with us for a car trip to see my family were apparently just that. Turns out they ride quite well.

The night before we were about to drive to see my family in Wenatchee, I had some serious qualms about how well they would do on a long car ride. I had printed out quite a bit of stuff for them to color and finished up the activity binders I had made. As it turned out they didn’t even touch them. They each had a book and some free window clings from the gas station and the rest of the time seemed content to simply look out the window and watch the world pass by. Tunnels, bridges, waterfalls, rivers, trees, cows and cars.

So all in all, it looks like any fears I had about taking them on trips were quelled. Well, except for the Great Poop Incident. Apparently the thing about kids is that sometimes, even after they just pooped, by the time it takes to walk back to the car from the restroom they may just have to poop again.

Kids Activity Binders

When going on a long car trip with children and without the aid of a portable video player, it’s a good idea to have other activities. I decided to make the kiddos activity binders.

The boys are addicted to the television as it is, which is why we limit their viewing. However, I must admit the temptation to simply put on a movie or two during a car trip has its appeal. We almost talked ourselves into packing it just in case, but decided against the matter. Instead we’ll rely on car games, activities and the binders I put together last night for the boys.

A couple nights ago I sewed together covers with pockets and a chalkboard fabric surface on one side and last night filled it with printed out coloring pages from the PBS Kids website (http://pbskids.org), plain paper for drawing and lined paper for writing. In the pockets I put a pack of crayons on one side and a pack of colored chalk on the other, along with the ear of a puppet I never actually put onto a puppet to be used as an eraser. It works perfectly.

While I’m not completely satisfied with how everything turned out, these are just prototypes and I will either add onto them or make new ones based off of what I learned making them. But I know one thing is for certain, and that is that I wish I had one of these growing up instead of lugging around reams of paper and coloring books and markers and crayons into a crammed car!

Burns

It’s time for another Good Idea, Bad Idea. Good Idea: testing chicken for doneness; Bad Idea: testing chicken for doneness while asking a child not to drink pond water and having said chicken jump out of the pot of hot, boiling curry and burn your wrist.

Burns are simply a part of the cooking life. I get them all the time. However, I will admit that I rarely get them on my wrist, which seems like the most painful place to get burned. Currently there is a quarter sized blister over a half-dollar sized red burn mark on my left wrist. Curse you curried coconut milk covered chicken!

After icing it while finishing up dinner, and after having a cold pack on it while eating, I slathered aloe gel all over the area to help cool it off because it hurt like hell. The effects took a while to kick in. That or my insistence on finishing up the kids’s activity binders I started yesterday morning helped hide the pain. I promise pictures tomorrow when they are finished! For now I’m going to try and not pop my blistered wrist all over patient charts at work.

Outdoor Movies

The weather last night was perfect for watching an outdoor movie. That is just what we did.

Our church has an annual outdoor movie night in the summer as a way to do something fun and not church-related with the members. While these do not tend to be well attended, they are still fun nonetheless. In any event, it was thrilling that the weather cooperated and we could actually be out on the church’s labyrinth again. Of course, the bugs were out too.

This year we also decided to do hot dogs and chips and lemonade before the movie, which fortunately with the donations for the food covered our personal costs since we were the ones who purchased it. Actually it covered our costs with a dollar to spare. Whew!

I’m not sure what we are going to show next year or if we will even decide if the event is worth the effort, but I do know that it was great to be able to take the kids with us. Even though the movie didn’t start until after their bedtime! I’m not looking forward to finding out just how cranky they’ll be this morning for church.

Watch Your Words

Kids pick up new words like they will readily eat candy for dinner instead of whatever you actually made. The same can be said of words.

While trying to teach our kids the proper way to say words, they easily get frustrated and shutdown. However, if an inappropriate word slips out of my mouth (as it is almost always me in this regards, not my husband) they repeat it faster than Clark Kent turns into Superman. This was quite apparent when they were playing dress up with all of the dollar store costumes I acquired last year that I planned to use for puppet outfits that never came to fruition. I noticed that two furry hats, one bright orange and the other bright magenta, were still in the bag and instinctively said, “Hey, what about the pimp hats?” and before I could correct myself, the three year old responded with, “Yeah, I need a pimp hat,” putting extra emphasis on the word PIMP, naturally. I haven’t heard him say it since, so hopefully it’s just another thing that goes in one ear and out the other.

All of this got me wondering, what is it about certain words that we don’t want our kids to repeat? This actually happens a lot, and I’ve discussed it on this blog a few times. I mean I personally feel like words are expressions of how we feel or to describe our surroundings, so why are so-called ‘bad words’ just that? Perhaps the question is much more philosophical than I am ready to engage in at only a few sips into my coffee this morning, but never-the-less I want to try and tackle it. I guess the biggest problem with some words is what other people may think if we use them. Just because I don’t get offended by using derogatory words doesn’t mean somebody else will not feel diminished or angry at those same words.

However, even with words that have lost their derogatory value over the years, we as parents and parental figures still feel like we need to protect our little ones’s ears from such words by not using them ourselves in their presence and censoring what they watch and read. Personally I think that, since they will undoubtedly use these same words themselves when they grow up, it would make much more sense to learn by our actions when it is appropriate and not appropriate to use such language. Home: okay; school: not okay. However, I am probably in the minority, something I’ve become quite accustomed to.

So I suppose society will win this round again. Perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll find a way to explain why certain words are not appropriate, especially the word HATE, which is the only bad word in my book, and which ones are okay to use. Or perhaps I will simply need to bite my tongue a little harder.

Rain and Cupcakes

It’s Saturday, in July, in the Pacific Northwest. Naturally it is raining.

Rain isn’t that unusual of a thing for us Northwesterners, but seriously by this time of year the rain has limited itself to passing showers, not full days of non-stop onslaughts. At least it is only going to be in the seventies temperature-wise so it won’t be the hot and sticky rain some areas of the country experience.

To top things off I’ve got a large order of cupcakes to fulfill at the church for a baby shower tomorrow. That means that today after work I will be making them. I know I told a few of the people in charge of decorating that I would be coming after work to bake at the church instead of trying to keep a three and four year old out of the cupcakes and then try to transport one-hundred-and-twenty-plus of said cupcakes with the three and four year olds in the car, but I don’t know if they’ll remember. Eeek! I probably should’ve called to remind them, huh?

I did, however, manage to make all the cupcake batter and frosting last night before bed and after putting the kids to sleep, so at least I won’t have to bring along all the ingredients and the mixer and all that. I will, however, need to remember to pack it all with me before going in to work this morning. In the rain. Ugh.

Soccer

Yesterday’s soccer game with our kids was, well, interesting. It might have been more fun had more than three people from the opposing team been there.

While our team gathered in rather quickly, the other team they were scheduled to play didn’t so much. For the longest time there was only one player, which eventually became three… to our eight. At first I thought that maybe the coaches would decide on a three to three strategy, however he grabbed our two boys and one of the girls and had them go over to the yellow team to play with them. So we got up and moved to the other side. Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest which team they were on, but that they got to play. Once it was time for the game to start, the real trouble began.

It was a sea of blue out on the field, as our team of three and four year olds was basically playing each other. Why? All three of the yellow team members were in full breakdown mode. One of the kids was asked why he didn’t want to go play on his team, to which he responded between sobs, “I don’t have a team!” One didn’t want to leave her mother’s side. And the third was probably too shy to be the only yellow member out there. So the game starts and within two seconds our Logan has the ball, heads straight for the goal and kicks it in. Score!

Eventually all three of the yellow team made their way onto the field, after a little liquid courage in the form of juice packets. One was only out for a few moments but was so distraught after losing the ball she didn’t make it back in for the rest of the game. The other two seemed to require extra liquid courage after each goal was scored. All in all, between the drama and excitement, it was exactly like a grown-up soccer game. Except that Logan and Josh were in it. And they were awesome.

While there are still a few little quirks we need to work on, like not tackling your team members to take the ball away from them but instead work toward getting the ball to the goal together, I think they are really getting the hang of the game. I’m not expecting them to be really into soccer or anything, but I hope they both realize that it isn’t that important who wins or loses in a competition, but rather that they work together as a team and follow through with their commitments.

Books

I love to read. Our kiddos seem to be in the same boat.

Every night it is the same situation, one of the kids gets to choose a book for me to read to them. To make it fair, we alternate between the two. However, sometimes there is fighting involved over choosing a bedtime story, in which case either myself or my husband choose the book, and usually that book is super short. Why? Because by that point we are both exhausted from the seemingly unlimited amount of energy the munchkins have!

Lately I’ve noticed the older boy likes to simply sit in the room and read to himself. I don’t think he can actually read yet, but he seems to remember many of the words associated with the pictures, which makes me think it might be time to try more word recognition so he can start to read on his own. Of course, with our weather being so sunny it’ll be difficult to keep them indoors to work on this. I’m sure we’ll find the time.