The Good, The Bad, & The Dragon

I was browsing SocialMoms daily blogging prompts, I noticed one that was submitted by Raquel Masco from  Jesusdiva Blog, and it jumped out to me because the question (or questions) was What positive parent strategies have you taken and used from your parents? What negative habits have you broken? Or not? Have you become like your parents? This jumped out at me I believe because I’ve done a lot of reflecting lately on how I was raised and now that I’ve stepped away I can see my parents for who they really are and it makes so much more sense on why they’ve had the relationship they’ve had. It also makes me realize I can’t say I’ve learned a lot of positive things from them, though I’ll always appreciate my father stepping in and treating me like I’ve always been his first born. That’s something I can never thank him enough for.

The negative habits I’ve broken are a list a mile long and I have to admit that when I say things a certain way I run for cover because I think the dragon is after me. It scares me because that’s the last person I want to be like honestly and I know that’s for my health and O’s health. But this prompt is interesting because I was just talking the other day how their negative patterns have scared me in ways that it probably shouldn’t. As you know O is about to turn 7 this year and being that we’re about 4 years away from 30 (eek! how did THAT happen?!) we’re trying to decide if we should have another baby or go about our lives as a family of 3? Normal people wouldn’t have to think about it for SEVEN years …. but I have to because I’m always terrified I’ll end up like the dragon and I don’t want O or any future children to feel how lonely it felt in the house because Mama favored one over the other. I could never pit my children against each other than constantly yell at them for arguing all the time. Why wouldn’t they argue all the time? They’re fighting for my attention duh! I’m terrified that ugly gene is stuck hiding somewhere deep down inside of me waiting to burst out the moment I bring home a brand new baby.

I know that knowing this happened to me growing up actually helps me because I can make sure it doesn’t happen if we should have more children. I don’t want that hostile environment for my family. I want them to know they can come to me with any problem and they won’t be judged or feel that I love them any less. Even if I’m never having anymore babies, I want O to know that I love him and just be there for him in ways I never felt the dragon to be there for me. Honestly looking back I always remember my grandmas & grandpa being there for me and helping me become the hard headed, independent woman that I am today. Maybe that’s why we don’t get along, I don’t need her to do for me what others may. I’ve taken on the responsibility of O ever since I found out I was pregnant & Jeff’s always been there for me no matter what. I know the biggest thing I want O to NEVER have to wonder is if he’s feeling left out, lonely, or unwanted because he ruined my life. That was a big thing I always felt at home even though I shouldn’t have. There is NEVER a day I regret the choices I made when it comes to O and I hope he never thinks that.

So when it comes down to it, I’ve learned a lot of things that I don’t want to do with O and am breaking a lot of the negative molds I had growing up, but sadly I can’t think of any positives. But that’s okay because that means I’m working on starting new and showing him what positive things he should be doing, since you know that’s my job as a parent.

Are you participating in these prompts? If so link me up, I’d love to read them.

Sunday Citar – Feel Lucky Punk?!

Welcome to Sunday Citar! This blog quote meme was created by Tabitha @ FreshMommy. You can stop by her blog to see the quotes and photos that she and everyone else is loving right now. Speaking of quotes we spent all day Saturday at my neighbor’s for a birthday party. It was a fun western theme. So when I pulled photos off the camera, well this quote just stuck out like a sore thumb: “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well do ya Punk?” — Clint Eastwood. With a photo like this, I mean how could I not use that quote. it was just calling to me? It’s totally perfect (minus me cutting his feet off … oops)

Now this photo also got me thinking about the SocialMoms daily blogging prompt that Shannon Flora, who blogs at Shannon’s Tales of Motherhood, asked about: How do you feel about your kids playing with toy guns or weapons? Which this ‘stance’ was tested again today at the birthday party when they got too excited and someone took a nerf dart to the eye. Poor kid. Growing up we always played with guns, I mean my grandma was southern born how could we not right? We knew the rules …. NO POINTING AT THE FACE. It was a simple and easy rule to follow, no one ended up hurt and no one is out there being murderers either so I figured it was safe to let O play with them, mainly because Jeff & I have more fun with his nerf guns than I think he does sometimes.

I made sure O knew the rules of no pointing/shooting in the face. I just wasn’t comfortable with that … even though I know he does it when him and daddy play because daddy doesn’t share that same view lol. I understand how people can say guns promote violence but once O started getting into zombies, the Army, and such and killing zombies with daddy on Call of Duty, I figured we better up the talk about guns. Though O’s a great kid when it comes to video games and such. He knows they are fake and that what goes on in the games can NOT under any circumstance be repeated by him in real life. He knows he’s not allowed to touch real guns and if he sees one laying some where (we don’t have one in the house of course) what to do WITHOUT touching it and we’ve never had any problems with them thankfully. So I think if you set rules and explain things in terms their age range can understand it should be good. But then again unless I ask the Mom/Dad first we never buy gun toys for any kid parties just because you never know the stance of that kid’s parents and i don’t want to push the “Oh he’s a boy and boys shoot guns” thing down someone’s throat or even seem like that’s what I’m doing lol.

Are you participating in Sunday Citar? What about your stance on kids playing with guns? Sound off in the comments as I’d love to hear your thoughts. Link up any posts as I’d love to read them!

Reflections of Grandma

As I was browsing today’s SocialMoms blogging prompt that was submitted by Jennie B Moye (blogger for Southern Mom of 4), it seemed like a happy coincidence that the prompt was: What is your most memorable time with your Mother and/or Grandmother? Of course this is ironic because today marks the 3rd anniversary of my Grandma Mother losing her brave fight with Lung Cancer. 3 years and forever to go has been the motto for today. I was really happy to see this prompt because it helps take some of the sadness out of my heart and remember the good times. So since I can’t really pick just ONE moment I’ve had with her I’ll share some of my most favorite times with her.

The very first one would be our summer trips to Arkansas. We use to go just about every summer and it was my favorite time ever because my cousins from Michigan would come down to go with us. We’d pile into my Uncle’s van, all 6 of us grandchildren, with our pillows/blankets and a couple things to do on the long drive. We always started the trip with an early breakfast at Denny’s. That was my Grandma Mother’s favorite place to get everyone together. After that we’d load up into the car and travel through Illinois & Missouri stopping at various rest stops, trucker stops, and even little Mom & Pop type stores. I think that was my favorite part, visiting places where we’d be able to buy unique things to remind us of our trips that we wouldn’t find in a normal place. One specific memory was riding to Arkansas for my Great-Grandma’s funeral (in picture above she is the 3rd adult from the left). Not only were my cousins there (3 boys and 2 girl), but my sister/brother as well and Tina, my uncle and aunt. Well half way to Arkansas we stopped at Steak and Shake to get a bite to eat. My sister and I go to the bathroom and …. it happened. My period for the VERY first time. I freaked out and Tina and my Aunt were all excited and even told my Grandma Mother not to tell anyone since she has a habit of talking about stuff and not realizing we may not want it to be shared. Well of course she told my cousins to be nice because I started my period. My oldest male cousin comes up to me and says “Don’t worry Brandy it’s something ALL women go through!” Oh talk about embarrassment lol.

My next favorite moment would be the holidays. All of them were shared at her house and she went all out to decorate for them …. even the ‘little’ ones lol. It was the best no matter if the power was out (this happened one Christmas we spent most of the morning at my Grandma’s without power and thankfully she had a fireplace and it was daylight out lol. It was interesting to open our gifts that way let me tell you) or the food was cold (she was notorious for worrying about not having anything cooked that it was all done WAY too early but let me tell you that was the best “cold” food I had ever ate and I’d kill for some right now). All that mattered was the house was FULL of family, laughter, playing from the younger kids, and chatter of both telling stories of holidays past & what was going on in the other room with the boys and their sports game. It was a time that looking back made the holidays. She made the holidays for us. She called us to let us know when the holiday specials were on, reminding us of the parades, and just enjoying those moments when we think that it will ALWAYS be like this and that our children will have the same thing. Even if Owen doesn’t remember it I’m glad he had 3 great years full of holidays including Easter which was our last together and it’s always the hardest.

So when it comes down the most memorable moment that I remember with my Grandma Mother, these may be two examples but they are full of 22 years of memories, 22 years of living the ‘dream’ even if behind the scenes my family was slowly being un-stitched at the seams. One thing this taught me was that you need to appreciate the days NOW because you may hear stories like this all the time and think that “This couldn’t ever happen to me,” but it could and very well will. I thought we had forever and 3 years ago after 5 months of fighting a brave fight to beat Lung Cancer (and even thinking it was gone at one point) to having one last holiday were I didn’t have my camera attached to my eye … and ironically enough it was my niece’s 1st birthday. This is a day I really regret because if I had known I would’ve taken more photos. NEVER be to ‘good’ to take photos because you never know who’s going to miss not having any of you after it’s too late to take them. Also if you are in need of some great Awareness products please check out Awareness Gift Boutique on Cafepress. This is an awesome place to get your awareness products and Sandy is such a sweet person to get your things from.

Using And Many More by Wishing Well Creations

5 Important Lessons

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As a parent you want to (hopefully lol) raise good children. With today’s society being full of a bunch of crazy weird people it’s always important to teach kids that you can NOT talk to strangers cause sadly you just don’t know anymore what their intention are. So after reading the post at TwitterMoms about 5 important lessons I want to teach my kid it got me thinking and here are the important ones I came up with:

1. Use Your Manners — This is a big one for me because I believe that manners are VERY important and that you should use them. I always make sure he says please and thank you for things. I’ve taught him that it’s important to use your manners because not only is it the right thing to do, but in general people like being around polite people. I know that I’d much rather be around someone that uses manners at least most of the time than a rude person who just demands things.
2. If You Don’t Mean It Don’t Say It — I want him to know that if you say things like ‘I love you’ or ‘I hate you!’ that they carry strong feelings and meaning and if he doesn’t mean them he shouldn’t say it because that’s wrong. I am a big believer in if you don’t really know if you love someone or something do NOT say it because that sets someone up for a lot of hurt. In this day you hear the word love being thrown around a LOT and people use it so frivolously that it almost feels like it’s lost it’s meaning.
3. Treat People Respectfully — I’m sure this could go with using your manners but I wanted to show O that it’s important to be respectful to people (and yes even those that may not be respectful to you) because not only is it the right thing to do, it shows you are able to be the bigger person. I know all too well how it’s easy to sink to someone’s level but by still being respectful of a person and NOT sinking to their level you may just maybe be a good example for them.
4. Be Honest — No one likes liars, no one trusts liars. Sure we’ve all lied but it doesn’t mean we need to. I’m not perfect and I’ve told some lies and I know how has/will as well but I still try to instill in him that it’s better to be honest and more or less straight forward then to sugar coat things and lie about it. I would rather him be honest with me and tell me things I may not want to hear than just tell me what I want to hear. Sure it’ll still receive consequences either way, but I know for me the punishment will not be as severe if I know he’s being honest with me (and of course this depends on what the ‘crime’ was lol).
5. If You Don’t Mean It Don’t Say It — This is a big pet peeve of mine as well as a good lesson I believe. I want him to know that no matter WHAT it is (relationships, offering to help some one, etc) if he doesn’t fully intend on owning up to what ever he said he was going to do (within reason I’m not talking about stuff that will get him in trouble lol) then he better do it …. even if that means playing dress up as a girl with his 4 year old cousin LOL. I’ve grown up with a lot of people saying one thing and never following through and I hate it. I think this is very important to learn.

So all in all I believe that these are some great lesssons. I want him to be a well adjusted, polite, and respectful person. I want him to use his manners, treat people right and enjoy his life … isn’t that what every mother wants?

I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Nanny McPhee Returns blogging program, making me eligible to get a $50 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.