A Parenting Blurb...

Sorry... been out of the loop lately... working, puking, taking care of the kiddos, my birthday, you know... just busy :-)

But I came home at lunch and read this little article and I do believe it deserves some merit. So I will repost it here!

"Below is an excerpt from CNN commentator Jack Cafferty's new book, "Now or Never." Jack appears daily in "The Situation Room" on CNN from 4 to 7 p.m. ET.

In his new book, "Now or Never," Jack Cafferty says parenting might be on the decline more than schools are.

I never presumed to have any more answers about being a parent than anybody else.
There are no perfect parents, perfect kids, perfect families -- only degrees of dysfunction.
You get up in the morning and do the best you can. At the end of the day you say, "Okay, that wasn't so bad, let's try it again tomorrow." Some of my instincts were pretty good and some of them were awful.

I did stay engaged and didn't say to hell with being a father when my first marriage ended. With the younger girls, I eventually made the choice to clean up my alcoholism before I pushed things to the point of no return. But most of the credit does to my second wife Carol; to the girls; and to God Almighty. Ultimately, I've just been very fortunate.

I don't know the status of parenting in America. But I know a little about the status of education in America. Parents' growing inability to impose manners and limits on their kids when the kids are in school is reflected in record dropout rates, as well as teen drug and alcohol abuse, teen sex, and unwed pregnancies. Maybe it's parenting that's on the decline, more than the schools.

Exhibit A: My wife and I have just been seated for dinner when the maitre d' walks over and seats a young family at the table next to us and the kids start carrying on like orangutans on a leash.

The parents are going, "Timmy, that's not nice, don't throw your food, stop stuffing your mashed potatoes up your nose." Are mom and dad having fun yet, picking food up off the floor, apologizing to people like us, and wiping food flung across the table off their faces?
Some parents still have this attitude that their kids are too special to be burdened by discipline. And the rest of us are supposed to put up with their little mutants. That attitude really pisses me off.

I hate to break it to them, but the kids aren't special, and I don't have to put up with their behavior. If you can't control your obnoxious little brats, leave them home.

They don't belong out in public annoying other people, period. I don't remember a generation of kids ever so indulged and enabled to behave so badly. What's going on?

I remember as a kid I was expected to behave myself out in public or suffer the wrath of one very angry father. And of all the things that used to piss him off, those expectations didn't seem unreasonable. Something's gone terribly wrong here. My guess is it has to do with the breakdown of authority, the collapse of strong family structure, and the abdication of parental responsibility, dictated in part by the necessity that both parents work.
Plus, we have a whole generation of Baby Boomers who are too busy feeling entitled to prolong their own self-indulgent, self-absorbed adolescences to rein in their own kids."


AMEN.

I have long ago came to the conclusion that it's not so much the schools that are failing but parenting that is failing in America. This is just my opinion, being a mom of 3. I'm NOT saying that I beat my kids on a regular basis but by some standards, I am probably considered a "mean mom". My children are very loved, adored, and doted on.... however, I am the parent and I will not be disrespected. I have taken care of and observed a lot of children behavior in my short little life and I can tell you I have been hit, kicked, swung at intentionally, EVEN SPIT ON. I have to say that if my children ever thought of doing something as horrible as some of these things.... they will suffer the wrath of a mother....

Sorry... got me all fired up! Now I have to go back to work.... where I hopefully won't be injured :-) (Seriousley.... friday it took 2 nurses, mom, and dad just to hold a kid down for a FINGER POKE!)

Recycle People! And learn about it too!!

I got to go with Zaky on his little fieldtrip today and it was actually REALLY cool! :-)

We took a trip with his class to the local recycling facility. I think I had more questions then some of the kids in the class!!!

We try very hard at home to educate the kiddos on the idea of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" daily around here... We try to make it fun for the kids and also educational as well... little Zane even knows how to sort the recyclables now!

Anywho's... I thought it was great to go and find out what happens to our recycled materials after they leave the curb in front of our house... most adults have this concept of "out of sight, out of mind". Not me anymore... I now know exactly where the stuff goes, how it's sorted, what "numbers" actually mean on the bottom of plastics, what it's turned into, etc., etc....

I was actually mildly disappointed when I found out where this awesome basket comes from... yes, it's made from recycled newspapers BUT it's made and sold at Pier 1. Blah.... I need to find that article I read once... how to make a basket/bowl out of recycled magazine pages...

This is a cool project for kiddos learning letters... it's made from the caps of recyclable bottles... stick a magnet on the back, cut out a piece of paper and put a letter on it, then stick it in the cap... awesome! Home made Leap Frog toys!!

This purse was kinda neat for the girly girls out there.... made out of used capri sun juices... they can't be recycled but they sure can be sewn together and reused!!!

There are a lot ways to practice the life of the three R's... have fun!

TMI Thursday: Digitally Unimpact

Heeeelllloooooo my fellow blogger friends! (yes... the caffiene has kicked in BIG TIME!) It's that wonderful day of the week again where we all get to share a horrific yet hilarious story about ourselves pursuing the ability to make people laugh, say "OH MY GOD!!!", or even "WTF!?!?"... you chose your reaction... So thanks to LiLu, I now follow the leader here :-)

(And I swear this is the last "poop" story I write for awhile... what can I say? I'm full of poop stories... and probably poop too... we all are you know :-)

As most of you may or may not know, I am a nurse. An actual RN... I know, coulda fooled ya right?

Now if you ever talk to a nurse, we have AMAZING stories that can be told... HOWEVER, with HIPPA in place, I have to tell this story in a round about fashion and change names...

I started my career as a Surgical Specialty Nurse... which means we were the biggest floor in the hospital and took ANY type of patient regardless of history. If they might be going to surgery, have all ready gone, or went to surgery a long time ago and are back with problems... we took them all.

And as a new nurse... you definintly get the shaft.

You get the patients that are hard to care for and that need special attention...

As in quadriplegics.... that are CONSTIPATED.

I swear... let's call him BOB.

Now Bob was great. Good person with a good attitude and amazing wife.

But Bob had ONE problem... he really needed to poop.

Now being the ever resourceful nurse that I am, I tried EVERYTHING. I tried suppositories, Milk of Mag, small amounts of Go Lytely (which if you have ever taken this stuff... you really don't go lightly), I even tried physical therapy on the legs to stimulate this much needed bowel movement.

Nothing worked.

After about 6 hours... this bitchy and conniving wonderful charge nurse who acts as my boss comes down to tell me that we need to move onto the next step....

"Dana, you need to go in there and digitally unimpact Bob."

"What? What's that?" (I'm totally pulling a blank here... do I need a digital thermometer? Should I take a special instrument in with me to stick in his boom boom? I'm totally new here really, and I swear I must have missed this terminology in nursing school????)

I look up to see her hold up a tube of lube and two fingers.

Oh Shit. Literally.

Now I have never done this before. I have never stuck my fingers into someone's boom boom hole and removed stool. And yet.... apparently this was the task at hand....

So as not to be a pussy nurse... I grabbed that lube and took me and my two fingers into that room. As soon as I walked in the room (out of sight of the other nurses) I let out a huge sigh of relief and stood there for about 10 minutes trying to remember how the fuck I was to do this task...

The wife must have noticed my hesitation and asked me if I had ever done this before... hellz no! (I was much more polite to her of course) She took amazing pity on me and volunteered to show me how it was done (ok... one, why am I doing this if you do it all the time? and two, thank you from the bottom of my feet for doing this for me!)

So on that wonderful night, I was schooled. I got to stand in the room and watch the lubed up two fingers dig around in the glory hole and observe the outcome....

Have a great day! And remember... nurses are the shit!

COme to Jesus...

We updated our WEDDING BLOG!!! Come on over and check it out :-)

Much Love,
Dana

New Tattoo!!

Well... Along with John I got a new tattoo as well! Yay!!! Mine has been a LOOOOONNNNGGG time coming! (even though John may argue, ask him how many he has gotten in comparison with myself in the last 2 years! :-)

So with out further ado....

Whatcha all think? The one picture is a little blurry around the kid's names but it's a tribute to my ability to be a mother and my accomplishment of doing it three times over again.... I think that's a great permanent addition to my body!