Toy Guns

I know certain therapist that thinks toys should be part of their toys to help play out aggressive tendencies. Some people think guns are a natural toy that boys should play with, a toy that seems to attach or get them familiar with their masculinity. There are those that see toy guns as a step in the learning process to using guns responsibly. I have even heard, “Well they just pick up sticks and use them as guns anyway.”

To these ideas, I just have to shake my head.

The idea of playing with toy guns is something that is hard to study. It’s hard to see how playing with toy guns can have a scientific foundation on the propensity to use a gun later in life for a violent crime. There is just too many variables to make a statement like that, so if you think that is what I am saying, you are not understanding me. What I am about to write is my gut feelings as an educated mother. I am a liberal California hippy chick tree hugging momma who loves her children and wants to keep my kids sweet disposition for their entire lives, so from this point of view I realize I am bias. I admit that if my kids never killed an animal, or shot an intruder in their entire existence then I will be very happy. So with that I say this:

Guns are not Toys and Toys are not Guns.

I watch my kids. They are creative and artistic. They love hide and seek and bubbles. They make up their own games and I need to take stock in crayola. They color rainbows and play tag. I watched as my son, picked up a toy gun for the first time at a friend’s house. His demeanor changed. He was no longer into collaboration in his game types but started playing with the idea of shooting people dead. This wasn’t the first time they played with the idea of death, but there was a difference. Yesterday, it was my youngest laying on the ground because an Elephant stepped on him, then sat on him and farted, so that made him flat and dead. This time, there was a hunt… a ferocity that came along with the game.

He saw me watching him with a concerned look, and I asked him to put the gun down. He told me, “Mom, we are just pretending.” I explained, it’s not that you are pretending, that’s fine. It’s the way you are pretending. This toy changes your thinking. Thoughts moved from rainbow and bubble gardens, to ultimate victory to the shooting death. I told him, “You are a sweet and kind boy, and this type of play is changing the way you play and think. What kind of boy do you want to be?” He agreed and put down the gun surprisingly without an argument. He hasn’t asked for any type of gun toys since. Apparently he enjoys being a sweet boy too.

So no, it’s not scientific and it’s just one of the many reasons I am over the top.

Guns for adults… I still believe in positive in and positive out. Guns for protection, I trust a baseball bat. I refuse to live in a world where I only feel safe with access to a deadly weapon. Positive in, positive out to create the world I want for my children.

Hopefully the only kind of "gun" my kids will ever use:

Farewell Eyebrows and Dignity

Nothing like submitting yourself to the torture that we label self care, and have to tip for the extra jovial insults that just don’t quite make it across that language and culture barrier. Yes, that’s right folks, today I got my eyebrows waxed.

It wasn’t the first time I have had my brows thinned and plucked, nor was it the first time I have been oh so gently insulted while having hot wax applied to my face and ripped out the hair by the roots. It’s no wonder why I have it done maybe once every two years at best.

The first time was when I was in California. My friend was on the other side of the half wall from the waxing room where she could hear the gentle soothing sounds of ripping flesh and my skin screaming, when she heard the lady say to me, “Oh, you have very hairy face.” The next sound I heard was the ripping of what was left of my upper right eye lid, followed by the petite giggle of my friend busting a gut on the other side of the half wall.



So fast forwarding into today’s festivities… and that’s what they were. My girlfriend and I decided today was a day of celebration and self care, and off to the Mani/Pedi department AKA nail shop in the strip mall next to the Starbucks. You all know it, everyone has one. It was the usual; pick a color sit in the glorious massage seats as you soak our feet in heavenly hot water. It was wonderful, as long as I kept my eyes on the mural in front of us. Otherwise, I would feel guilty when I looked at the small little woman, scrubbing my feet that were the size of her entire arm. I felt like I was breaking some child labor laws… no one that size should have to scrub feet the size of my clod hoppers. Eyes forward, heaven awaits. Pretty feet, pretty toes and nails are on the way.

Half way through my manicure the poor girl obviously can’t handle it another moment. “We do your eyebrows, huh.” She finally mutters out. Mind you the woman has said nothing to me up until this moment, even when I was giggling wildly and pausing barely to take a breath when she was scrubbing my feet. That elicited no reaction, but my eyebrows were now apparently her nemesis. I could hear the doomsday music looming in the background as I followed her to the torture chamber, AKA the waxing room.




I am no stranger to this, and brace myself as she blows on the wax before placing it on my eyelid. “Thin, yes?” NO… I have Brook Shields eyebrows, think thick! She rips off the strip of wax which was indeed hot enough that I am sure it killed off anything she might have blown into it with her high tech cooling process and she starts telling me…”Look. Look!” I am doing my best to unglue my eye lid and open my eyes to see what must be my entire eyebrow hanging from the strip buried in yellow wax. With each strip she applies and rips, I can’t help it but my body jumps in reaction. “Everything scare you.” She says slightly disgusted. Wow, imagine that ripping out my hair with hot plastic cow byproducts feels unnatural to me; Yeah, I guess I am a bit jumpy.

As she’s starting on my left eye, she’s just starting to get plain giddy now. This was the comment that earned her the big tip. “Your eyebrows are just out of control,” she says. “It’s kinda fun to work on.” Yeah baby, it’s just not a wonder why I don’t do this more often.

However, when I got out, my girlfriend started raving about how great my eye brows looked, saying I looked younger, like I had a face lift, that they were fantastic thin… and I realized at this point, wow… my eyebrows really were also the bane of her existence as well. I never realized my brows were so offensive. Imagine my success if someone would have told me earlier, it’s not skinner or smarter people with more money… it’s all about the brows. Oh, the jobs I could have had; the millionaire I could have married… only had I known the precious ring was really hot wax and tweezers! I’m curious to know what life of luxury I would have if I started waxing the southern regions, taming those jungles and mowing the lawn. I’m sure Hollywood would be calling and I’d be living with some old dude and blond bombshells in a mansion.





Now I am off to put on my shape up shoes, Reebok toner pants, push up bra and wax something important so I can be beautiful on the inside.

Crazy Professor

I had a professor at Cal State Hayward, now which is Cal State East Bay to which they changed their name in an effort to attract more of the international crowd, who used to insist that our emotions caused weather patterns.



Yes, it has been some years, as you would know if you knew the original name of the college, but I promise you this professors theories sounded just as hair brained then, as they did now. However, I can see how human emotions pull a strong correlation to the weather and natural disasters. Perhaps when we see Japan falling under siege to a Tsunami, it puts us on alert for those emotions and we then play those out in our lives. So when nuclear disaster is pending on the outskirts, we turn to our relationships and act as if the same type of meltdowns are going to occur.

I have done no research, and I have not even fully thought though my own theories on the subject, but suddenly in taking stalk of my own experiences, this professor doesn't seem like such a half wit to at least recognize a correlation as he once did.



Here is Jersey, the seas are calm and Tsunami free, but destruction of friendship and marriages, neighbors and family seem to be hitting the shores under the destruction of stress, economy, gossip, love lost and poor decisions. Even the best intentions are under scrutiny as no one is safe and everyone is seeming to feel alone on an island. Someone needs to pour water on all our emotional nuclear reactors.

It's pretty unlike me, the budding professional school counselor to pass along a sentimate such as this, but here is goes... So what!
Someone mentioned my name in conversation... so what! At least your husband didn't leave you. You got your feelings hurt, so what? At least you still have all your arms and legs and you aren't physically hurt. Seriously people, even if you don't want to step back and take a look at the bigger picture out across the sea, step back and look at the smaller one. Trust your friends and neighbors to know that they love you and have the best of intentions.

I cannot go around in this world thinking that people are anything other than good by nature. I cannot go around being wary of the million people who would help me in a heart beat, because one person might not. At the same time I no longer will let the feelings of other people count more than my own. As long as I am doing my best to be the best, and I believe the same of my friends, family and even aquaintences, all the rest falls into the abyss of so what! You were right professor, we create more than we account for ourselves.

Forgive and do yourself the favor to forget.

There are so many other things in life that will spin up into a Tsunami all on their own, let's not add to it by making our own tornadoes.

Emotional Me

What are you so emotional about? Who me? Yes... You! I'm not emotional. Then why are you crying to Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eye Peas?


(Maybe if it was "I got a Feeling" because that's one's a real tear jerker.)


Yes, it's a sad truth that this once hard as nails party animal has now been hormonally and situationally shifted into the weepy marshmellow in emotion and stature that now you see before you today.




Is this situation to be remedied? Will I ever get the "old" me back? I have heard a lot of my friend ask the same question as we all step though our life transitions and cling to our youth. "I used to be funny..." I tell my husband as one of my many jokes take one if it's many bombs. Do I miss the old me? Would I change if I could?




Not if you paid me.

Rant or Rave for Valentines Day

Let’s face it, Valentine’s Day is one of these double edged swords that can slice men and women alike if we don’t play by the rules set forth to sell us under quality over priced sweets, cards and flowers. If your husband is anything like mine, the mere mention of the day sends his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Yes, it’s a chick holiday and this is something that every well trained husband in American has come to accept if he wants to make the transition from February 14th to February 15th a smooth transition.

The harsh reality however is that men should embrace the holiday. Come on, the bar is set pretty low. You can grab a bundle of “One day until they wilt” flowers in the $2.99 bin at Wawa, scribble out a note on the back of a shopping list and you have fulfilled your duty. It’s even lower maintenance than a birthday or anniversary because the reminders are everywhere. And guess what, if your man fails to perform on Valentine’s Day with these small tokens of ceremony, it’s also hard to forget. The tale will be taken to task for weeks to come most likely in front of a marriage counselor.




So here is the question we ask ourselves as we stare at our sink of dirty dishes and toss ravioli can’s into the trash because we didn’t actually plan anything for that big dinner in hopes that there really was just no way he was ignoring the entire day… Is it selfish to set Valentine’s Day expectations? Is it right to assume that because he doesn’t care about the day, that he doesn’t care about me? And how do we calm our seething soul when everywhere we look we see all the celebrations of love and have to fain smiles for the really nice tokens and “bling” our friends splatter all over their facebook page?

My decision, move over satiated love life… momma’s gonna rant for a while. It’s actually harder to ignore the day than it is to just cow tow to the sentiment and break out a couple bucks for a balloon and card at the dollar store. There you are my king of overrated holidays who sits on the couch playing xbox while I cook your dinner, you chose your path and must reap my scorn. And we all know what they say about a woman scorn, but we also know what they say about making your own bed.

Tooth Adventures

The new source of delight and frustration. As Cody was so delicatly spilling water all over the counter downstairs and worked his way into the plastic veggie bag to get a green banana for breakfast, Aiden was petting a cat next to me on the bed when he discovered laying on his tongue was his tooth.

So as 7am I wandered my unstretched body downstairs to get the camera and the tooth container.





Then the cutest phone conversation I have ever heard took place as Aiden called Terry to tell him.

"Good Morning, Daddy This is Aiden I am calling to tell you that there is a hole in my mouth now where the tooth was." (Yes, he said this as all one coherent sentence.) After a small pause, "Yes, my tooth fell out."

I then cleaned up the spilt water from Cody, and since have been laying flat on my belly twice so far doing the great baby tooth search as Aiden is compelled to carry it around and drop it in our tooth colored verigated carpet.

UPDATE!
Since this just happened one hour later than the original blog post, I figured I'd just add it on as an update.

Aiden and Cody were goofin' around of course. Cody reared his head up and knocked Aiden in the mouth. He cried ouch and reached in his mouth and pulled out the OTHER tooth that was next to the one he just lost. That one was loose before, but not as loose, so this was a bit more painful to loose than the one that came out on it's own. This one still has a bloody little stump, which is causing Aiden some distress.



Poor Guy. After some TLC to both Aiden's mouth and Cody's head, Aiden is back to normal with the exception of a funny accent when he talks now. No determination if Cody is actually back to normal as normal for him is yet to be determined.

Here's the Summer Slam

Even over the constant request to keep blogging, I have denied my fans of reading my illustrious and sometimes illusive words so I may cater to my whims of self indulgence in summer activities such as.... school, and trips to far off places like Lubbock Texas. (Which yes, is exactly as enchanting as it sounds.)





Truth is, I have found my new addiction and quick fix to bloggers outlet in indeed the social networking system known as FaceCrack. The games, the funny quips of life and bizarre love hate relationships with the "Like" button take the larger part of my creativity and mutilates it into heaps of grain after being worked over with a mortar and pestle.

However, the summer has been filled with fun and friends that we look upon fondly, as the upcoming school year is upon us. This year both kids will be at the same school, and even though it's unclear how often I will be called to substitute teach, the days I do will be calmer and more controlled, shaving off a cool 45 minutes of drive time from shuffling kids from one side of the county to the other.


I have been making an effort to connect with my community. All 7200 residence that stay here in the winter, and apparently I am intent on meeting them all personally. It's not all fun and games however, as I try hard as I might to make all my efforts of volunteering in drug prevention groups and group facilitating a women's support group into something that might be resume worthy in three years or so. I have to admit, the "work" itself is really something I enjoy so if it never makes a relevant point, I am growing.

Speaking of growing, it's a well known fact that sitting on your butt, talking, writing papers and playing on facebook all lead to obesity. Yes, it's true... the lack of getting paid to work out and filling time with trying to fill my brain has also lead to me filling my body... back up. It's ok, I know I will just do it all again when I move back to civilization where they have real gyms and not port-a-aerobics stalls. I just won't go visit my Grandma Betty anytime soon, because I know it will break her heart.

Speaking of heartbreak, we had two of our most beloved family members of ten years leave us this year in a tragic way. Brie and Chianti have gone to a better place to chase rabbits in landfill. While my heart still is healing, the boys are thrilled because we opened our home to a pair of kittens. Skitty is the brother of the two, who has taken to sitting on my desk while I am typing and trying to get comfortable on my face when I try to sleep. Iris, is a lovable little girl who is a bit less demanding in the affection department but still has a great time in their $200 kitty tower that now occupies a quarter of our computer room. I am just happy they use the darn thing more than the kids do. Now it's a fun game of "Is that smell your booty, the cat box or just Jersey?"


Me in my neurotic motherhood, took Aiden to the dentist at the first sign of a loose tooth. I just had visions of extra teeth growing up and mangling his jaw bone so he would be wearing dentures at age eight. The Dentist assured myself and Aiden after a few x-rays that his teeth were perfectly positions and everything was fine. Aiden loves creeping me out by wiggling it all over the place. You can even see the dark root when he pulls the tooth all the way forward where it shows it's bloody little stump. AAAAAH! He loves it.


"Mommy, my tooth not only can wiggle back and forth but also left and right!" The next day, "Look, it can go around in a full circle." Meanwhile my arm hair is crawling out of it's follicles and running for a less stressful location, which appears to be anywhere my delicates cover as those places keep getting hairier and hairier...but I digress.

With that lovely image in your head, I will end it here. Thanks for being patient with me my bloggie fans. I will try to post more often. Oh, just one more picture of Cody with his new teacher!


Tootles!