ammogirl

John and I had to run to the store for last minute “i absolutely need [x] before I go to Iraq!” stuff, and when we got back, the girls showed us what they had been doing while we were gone:

Indeed. No animals were harmed in the making of this video. No really, I swear.

Tschuss!!

I had a mini-breakdown on Friday night. I couldn’t help it. My youngest daughter has entered the phase of I hate everything that is mom. It’s harder when it’s your baby, you know?

The girls have their own laptops, and spend a lot of time IMing with their friend. We monitor these chats occasionally, to make sure they aren’t running an underground porn ring or smuggling drugs through the Ukraine, and maybe you think that’s intrusive but I will say it’s really none of your business, because it really isn’t. But recently I’ve noticed this trend where Taylor, who loves to hermit herself in her room as much as possible, tells her friends stuff like, ‘ohhh, i can’t have a sleepover, because my mom says no. like always.” or, “no, I can’t stay on base after school, my mom would NEVER let me do that, she’s so mean.” And I think to myself, “huh. did she…ask me if she could have a sleepover? I don’t remember.” or, “wait, Taylor wanted to stay on base? when?”

I let it slide the first few times, and kept my ears open for any sort of clues that she was throwing out about wanting to do these things I was not letting her do, and then I started reading things like, “god, i’m so borrrreedd. like always.” or, “no, i can’t call you, my mom gets really mad when i use the phone.” And that’s when I said, hold the fucking bus, sweetheart. Things are a bit awry, here.

The thing is, she never asked me to do any of those things! Never. The phone thing? Our phone bill last month was…wait for it…$275. Local calls are not free here. And what I had actually said to Taylor was, “hey, can you not talk on the phone so long? Our bill was really expensive last month.” That makes sense, right?

But my own personal favorite, the, “I’m so BORED blehhhh” refrain that she likes to repeat over and over? Aghhhh!

She never WANTS to do anything! We ask her all the time: Board game? nooooo…. DVD? nooooo. Wanna go for a walk? nooooo. Here’s a really great book, I loved it when I was growing up, want it? noooooo…

Art supplies. Tennis lessons. Going out to the movies. Christmas crafts. (let me repeat that one. Christmas CRAFTS. me.) Cooking. Challenges on the Wii. All of it, turned down, and still, STILL! I’m the most boring mom.

I asked her about it last week, about why she tells her friends I won’t let her do stuff when she’s not even asking, and she said, “I thought you’d say no.” I said, “well, TRY, silly! I might’ve said yes!”

So she did. She asked if she could stay after school on Friday, and I said yes, and she was joyous and we picked her up at 6pm and she was happy and we ate dinner and played a new board game I had bought specifically because Taylor loves board games and I stayed quiet while she made fun of me for following the rules so precisely and while she bagged on the game and then when we were getting ready for movie night I peeked at her message history again, and maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did, and I saw this: “omg I’m soooo BORED tonight! I wanted to do a sleepover but my mom said no. Just a regular boring day for me.”

AGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

I got really upset about that, and took it out on everyone, and I went upstairs and cried myself to sleep while everyone watched the movie, and when John came to bed I got bitchy with him until I finally got to the real thing, the whole thing, and that is I feel like I’m losing my baby, my BABY, and I won’t ever be able to get her back.

I know that’s dramatic, I do. I know I spent last year saying the exact same things about Lindsey, and crying over her; I also know this year she tells me everything, even things I don’t want to hear. I know things will get better but holy crap, I miss the days when I was the only thing shiny in Taylor’s life.

Anyway. Like always, when I have a problem, I start typing fairly upset and by the bottom of the page I realize the sky is not actually falling, it’s just clouds that are blowing by. It’s easier, when you can’t see the people you’re talking to.

You guys are the best form of therapy.

Tschuss!!

Every time someone comes out of that audition room clutching a golden ticket to Hollywood and their family freaks out with happiness, I almost start crying. Every. Damn. Time.

Anyway, my favorite so far is the girl who sold her favorite barrel horse to fly to Philly. Why?

1. She’s from Oregon

2. She KICKBOXES

And, she can sing really well. Heyyyyy…Oregon, martial artsy-type things, great singer…that could be me! Not really.

Enough of the American Idol talk. That was boring. Let’s revisit Darren Barefoot and his 55 topics, shall we? Today we will briefly cover # 18, The Cause I Really Believe In.

It hit me today, as John and I were having a mildly heated discussion about the Air Force’s fitness program, that I’m very, very passionate about being healthy. And I don’t mean living in my world where being healthy equals relationships with food and exercise that are loaded and really weird. No, I mean trying to, on a regular basis, eat as much non-processed food as you can, and getting a little exercise every day. It’s just to me, it’s such a basic premise: being healthy is…well, I mean, it’s being healthy! I can’t understand why so many people shun at least trying.

But…bleh. There is no way to talk about this without seeming accusatory or superior or what have you. But the thing is, how can people learn to make good choices about living a healthy lifestyle if as children, they got soda…in their bottles? Or when they started school, the teachers award them with candy bars, and the school lunches are full of processed crap?

When we were stationed in California, it would amaze me to read the school lunch menu the girls would bring home and see that three meals a week were “sponsored” by fast-food chains. There was a girl in Taylor’s 3rd grade class whose mother brought her Burger King EVERY DAY for lunch. Barf.

We are raising our children to be fat, and then wondering why the obesity rates in America are rising, rising, rising.

I’m not going to go on about this, although I could. It already makes me feel sort of funny in my stomach when I use my blog for soap-boxy type issues, and on this one I can easily go into wild-eyed crazy talk mode. You know, refined white flour is the devil, high fructose corn syrup is his bride, trans fat is the spawn of the two, blah blah blah. So. Oh, also, I’m having a hard time defining the actual Cause I Believe In in all that. Is there a cause called don’t feed your kid boxed crap and canned sugar? If so, that’s what I believe in. It just makes me mad when I see parents yell at and about their kids running around like wild people, and then handing them a bottle or sippy cup or can full of soda and some candy, on a regular basis. That is not solving the problem, that is perpetuating it.

Anddd…there I go again. See? I can’t even stop me!

You know what other cause I really believe in? Naptime during the work day. Now THAT I can really get behind.

Tschuss!!