"I am sooo not like you!" YOU WANNA BET!

Some things are expected in life, some are planned for, and yet others come out of the blue. Some things you see coming and some things in life blindside you and leave you feeling numb. It seems as if today was all of those things for me and as much as I feel sad about things that happened today I also know they happen for a reason. Oldest lovelie decided to tell me she was moving back with her Aunt and that I was by her account a terrible mother, who depended on her too much. Who was never there for her when she needed me, who had essentially failed her. She is right about some of that. It is funny though how we see things when we are 19. Today being her birthday, she gave me heck 19 years ago in the delivery room and ever since then we have had a love-hate relationship. Don't get me wrong I love my daughter, I just don't like her very much right now. Perhaps because she is like me in alot of ways and not like me in a lot of ways.

So here I am after our argument forced to look at myself again, like I was last year at this time, because she moved out then too. Then she came back and caused a lot of changes to happen in my otherwise running smoothly household. So here we are and I have to say that though I will miss my grandson I will not miss the drama that has happened in the house the last 6 months. This is giving me the opportunity to realign my self and look at my goals, just as I have encouraged her to do. She has always demanded a lot of attention and unfortunately I don't have enough to go around. She is after all 19 and she chose her path when she decided not to listen to me at age 15. So here she is a teen mom with no diploma, no job, on welfare. I only hope that she realizes that she needs to make her life better, get her education and move forward in a positive way.

In saying this I am forcing myself to do the same thing working on ones self is a lifetime project. I've made mistakes and choices that she watched and learned from. She being the oldest took on a lot of responsibility at a much younger age than her two siblings. They are very different from her. I asked them today if I was a terrible parent, to which they said "No Mom!" I know that I am doing the best I can but I also know I can do better. So what is stopping me? The fear of failure? The unkown, taking a risk. Life is about all of those things and so in her leaving I am learning that it is time for me. I don't have any excuses anymore no little ones to  worry about, no reasons except the money reason that I should not finish my schooling but that is an excuse that can be fixed. So here we go the both of us into this new adventure awaiting us.

I believe in her and I know that she can do it, but she has to believe in herself. That goes for me too! Like Mother like daughter!

WHEN A CAT IS A BETTER MOTHER THAN A HUMAN, MY THOUGHTS ON THE UPCOMING CASEY ANTHONY MURDER TRIAL

The Casey Anthony murder trial is a week away, almost three years after the disappearance of her young daughter Caylee Anthony, she will be tried in her murder. I have been watching some of the shows that are leading up to the trial itself. I only knew vague information about the case until just recently and was not really following it. When I did watch a news show recently it focused on the fact that the trial would be set in another county and that jury selection was going to be a big focus in this high profile case. The show selected a jury and and a case was presented to them, more than half of the people on the jury voted for acquittal of Casey Anthony. This is because of the lack of physical evidence in this case. I am saddened and hope that a verdict will not be for acquittal, but rather I hope one of guilty will be found. It is a very hard case for both the prosecution and the defense to present, but one nonetheless that will focus on the fact that Caylee Anthony just two at the time of her disappearance was murdered and tossed into a remote area like yesterdays trash. Casey Anthony did not report her child missing for 31 days, and only after her mother confronted her about her vehicle that she had abandoned did she concoct a story about Caylee being left with a non-existent nanny. Casey Anthony partied it up like any 22 year old would at that age. Her behavior would not be so questionable except for the fact that her daughter was missing.
Casey was a young mother obviously, one probably overwhelmed with being a single parent. Despite all of the help you have or support being a parent at any age is not an easy thing let alone being a single parent. At the heart of my post tonight is the fact that I think a lot of parents don't realize their breaking point. Don't mistake my post as having any sympathy for a person like Casey Anthony. I don't have any for her. I believe wholeheartedly she killed her child and went on living as if she never even existed. I believe she is a sick individual. What I am saying is that a lot of people do not know how to ask for help when they need it. If only she had given custody to her parents or had asked for help so she could get her life together then maybe Caylee would still be alive.
We all at times as parents have had to walk away from our children, who have pushed us to a point that we don't even recognize the person we had become. Whether through anger or frustration or an inability to cope we have yelled when it was unnecessary or spanked, or said something we regretted. If you tell me you have never done any of those things than great, you must be the patron saint of parenting, and I really don't believe you. What I do believe is that a damned cat can be a better parent than a human being can. Remember Scarlett the cat that saved her five kittens from a burning building? Being selfless is not just a human trait. Parenting is thee hardest job in the world! We are not taught, it is a learn on the job process. Some of us are better learners than others. If you are a young parent or single, or both, then it is doubly worse. I am not making excuses here, I am saying that some people are not capable of recognizing the warning sign telling them what they are about to do is wrong. They just do it and then later say they did not know what they were doing.
What made Casey Anthony lose it? I see single young mothers every day who are on the verge and the scariest thing is they don't even know it. What I want this post to leave you with is a resource. Someone who is readily available when you think you are at your limit, Parents Anonymous is a national group with local chapters  http://www.parentsanonymous.org/ and http://www.nationalparenthelpline.org/ or call the National Parent Helpline at 1-855-427-2736. Just because you can have a child does not mean you know the first thing about being a parent, being a better parent means you know when to ask for help.

DON'T COUNT THIS GIRL OUT.......

At first glance my daughter Mak would appear to look like a boy to you. Long hair with a backwards baseball cap, size 10.5 men’s shoe and a large presence. In fact my daughter is what the AMA classifies as obese. She is 5’5” and 185 pounds at 11 years old. To look at her you would think she sits on the couch eating junk food and playing video games all day. What you don’t see when you look at her is an athlete with great skill, that is until you see her play any of her chosen sports. Her athletic ability was something I noticed when she was in kindergarten one day playing baseball in between the orchard and vineyard we lived in. I noticed that she could throw better than her older sister who we were practicing with, and that she could hit the ball pretty well too. It wasn’t until she was in second grade and brought home a flier for Bobby Sox that I thought, what the heck. She was placed on a team and was tried out at several positions and eventually piped up that she wanted to play catcher, so here we go she finds her niche. She was a natural with her large powerful thighs and ability to throw to second base from home, not any easy feat. So I was happy to see her active and enjoying herself, she was bigger than her sisters at that age and I worried her weight would be an issue for her. She played again the next year and then onto travel softball. I was so invested in her because it was then that she told me, “Mom! I am going to Fresno State on a softball scholarship!” This was after she had seen the team in action. I spent 250 dollars on catcher’s equipment that I bought large enough for her to grow into at least into high school, I thought. Wrong, here it is 4 years later and that gear is not going to make it to Jr. high.

My softball playing girl came up to me and asked me two years ago if she could play tackle football, to which I voiced some concern that it might not be for her. That is when I heard my Dads voice in my head telling me “no” when I asked to play football and I decided to go and take her to signups. Other girls had come before her to my surprise and we were excited at the prospects. She was first pick for her team after coaches saw her in the drafts they held over a weekend. She played offensive and defensive lineman, though in her heart she was hoping for quarterback. All they saw was her size and her standout ability to be quick and agile and mow ‘em down. She was one of the key reasons they went undefeated to the championship game. Everyone cheered her name in the stands but none louder than me. She played again this year and though her team was mediocre she still was a standout. She has said that she wants to play in high school and I have no doubt that she will. She plays her last season of community football this fall and then it is onto Jr. high. Most girls want to lose weight for vanity reasons. Not mine. She has said she wants to trim down and get noticed for her throwing ability so she can be a quarterback.
 
 

So here it is baseball season and yes I said baseball, she has forgone softball to play with the boys. She is in her second year of Little League, because she has not come up in the ranks here she has to prove herself, so for now she plays on a triple A team, not a Majors team, but my bet is it won’t be long before they know who she is. Her first year her old travel team coach picked her up for American Little League and it was not a memorable season, he tried her at pitcher, but she was too wild and his coaching style did not bring out the best in her. He was more worried about getting his grandson playing time anyway. So this year her old football coach picked her up as we moved and she ended up in National Little League. He saw her at the last tryout and picked her when he saw that she threw as fast as a grown man. He knew he had a future pitching star in his midst. We have several good pitchers which is great we keep them guessing, but my girl is by far the fastest pitcher. At one of the first practices she threw the ball so hard it hit one of the coaches feet, the next day he told us she split his toenail and it fell off. She can be cocky and full of herself and practice after practice she began to have attitude. One of our assistant coaches who is used to coaching kids from the Chicago projects and not Central Cali Valley farmland kids has a gruff exterior. Immediately he irritated her by singling her out. After all, her coach made her team leader and she was the player to look up to. She was put first in the line to lead her teammates in a run. She came up to me and said, “I know why he put me first, it is because of my size.” I said, “Then run too fast for the boys to keep up.” He got to her so much one day when she was sick I told her let’s leave after being there for five minutes. I spoke with the head coach and told him I did not like the assistant coaches tactics. So he said things would change and they did but then she started having attitude. She hated it and started complaining that she was bored because they were working on fundamentals, and after one day when she was particularly embarrassing I went off on her.

I had this loud tirade that started as we left practice in our van, and ended 10 minutes later in our front yard. I told her that her behavior was unacceptable, that she had embarrassed me. That she was not a know it all when it came to baseball. She said she did not want to pitch, the position they were grooming her for, she didn’t want to play. I yelled about how much money I had spent on her, and the enchilada dinners and fundraisers I had so she could participate in these sports. The time I had given up, and I added how I did not do any of this for her two older sisters. She started to whine and cry. “Is it too much pressure, what is it?”  I asked. She just shrugged. I told her that people were always going to judge her by her size, that they were going to have expectations of her. I told her I was not going to be there to intervene for every coach she did not like. I told her what a God given talent she had. I told her that she could be the fastest pitcher out there but if she didn’t want it someone else who was less talented would work harder to get it. I finished my tirade by saying, “If you quit this and let your team mates down don’t ever ask me for anything again! Sit here and think long and hard about what you want and let me know!”

Was I wrong? Probably, well yes, I was guilty of bad parent behavior, but I was right. The next day after apologizing to the assistant coach and getting one on one pitching practice she threw fast and accurate pitches. I will give him credit for helping her to develop her technical skills; she is a better hitter and definitely a better pitcher!

                                                       

                                                     

So here we are only two games in due to the rain, and my baseball playing girl has pitched a total of 4 of the 10 innings we have played thus far. We play five per game, in the first game she only allowed one hit which she threw out at first and then she allowed a few walks but struck everyone else out no runs were scored this day. Our last game she pitched the last inning and after beaning a poor kid she struck out the next three players and we won 5 to 1. We left the game in good spirits with grins on our faces and shared our high fives. Today I spoke to one of the parents whose son is on our team and she told me that after our game she stayed to watch the next one and people in the stands asked, “Who is that guy? Who is he? We need to test him for steroids because he throws so fast?”  To which she smiled and said, “That’s no boy, that’s a girl and she is on my sons team!” I relished the story second hand. When I got home I told her “You are already becoming a legend!” Needless to say she is raring to go this weekend. So don’t ever count this girl out when she plays with the boys!

SWEARING, FACEBOOK, GRANDKIDS AND THE "SPONGE EFFECT"

Do you swear on your Facebook page? When you comment or when you update your status? Someone said how much they disliked that today on my stream and she asked if she was wrong to feel that way. I of course had to answer in the smart alecky way that is pretty much who I am, with edited swear words of course. It turned into a lively discussion. One that got me thinking how many of us are really like our online persona's in real life. You say you don't like cussing but you do it? Or you say your life is wonderful but its really in the crapper. You have 500 friends but don't know more than 100 personally? I am pretty much what you see on Facebook except for some really nice angles when taking pics that shave off  some pounds I am, "what you see is what you get". In real life I have been known to swear at inopportune times and at times when for me it was a release.
I blame it on my mechanic father and his filthy mouth and those of his Hell's Angel's customers. In my very formative years I spent a lot of time around him and the motley crew that would take up a seat in his garage. I would sit and listen to their stories peppered heavily with the "F" word as I sat in a corner flipping through Playboy magazines. I was about 6 or 7 and that is when I was already very literately inclined. I read and spelled very well at this age.  I did not cuss because my father would have backhanded me had I done so. It was not until Robin Barrios, a St. Joachims school classmate dared me to say the "F" word and the "B" word one day on our walk home that I really felt the power that cussing released in me. My mother on the other hand never uttered a swear word, she was a drastic contrast to my father in every way especially this one.
As my siblings and I got older we spoke in this fashion when of course adults were not around. Our Grandmother my Dad's mom would scold my father on our Sunday visits when he spoke colorfully. "Aye Robert!" She would say and he would roll his eyes and drink his Coors. We would grin and look at each other to watch my Dad get scolded by his Mom. Later in life I seemed to develop some control when I was attending to business, but still thought nothing of cussing in casual conversation. I can honestly say it has really only begun to raise consciousness in me that what I say is being soaked up by the sponge of a grandson of mine. Why yes his little sponge brain is absorbing all of these amazing words like "freezing" and "supper" and he is even learning how to describe his feelings "I am mad."
He will turn three in July and yes he knows cuss words too.....yikes......people think that I am numb to the "F" bomb, but when he says things like "fatass" to describe a magazine pic of some teen mom, and "F" you to converse with my daughters then it is a wake up call. We say he will be kicked out of pre-school because he is going to tell the teacher something like, "I don't want to you fatass, "F" you!" All joking aside I know that swearing makes one appear uneducated and uncouth. I also know that forbidden behavior leads to rebellion. If we take what my grandson is learning now (the cusswords that is) and ignore it, instead of laughing...(we try really hard not to but it just kind of happens), it will probably disappear. I have over 40 units in Child Development, so I know that the thing that most kids do time and again is seek reward. Just as it was a reward for me to rebel and say those words I had never uttered, because I gained praise from a peer and even felt empowered saying them, they then became commonplace for me. We will ignore his cussing and hopefully it will dissipate as his audience grows bored with his antics. I hope.
What I do know is that I am not perfect and never will be, will I still cuss? Ugh....very likely, will I think before I do it? Highly likely, I must take into account the presence of those little sponges around me. Possibly this could be why I never went into teaching, I would not be able to cuss! Hah good thing I drive the bus.....not that I cuss doing that well never...ok can't say that...on a rare occasion I may have uttered a swear word. By the way my bus is equipped with cameras and I don't act like anything other than who I am, that would be way too draining. Good thing you can't pick your nose or scratch your butt on Facebook....I might offend someone else again!