Goodnight FBF

Ode to FaceBook
At first you sign on just to take a look.
Then you're at it all night.
And that's just not right.
You try and try with all of your might
to say "Goodnight"
As the sun peeks over the clouds you realize
you haven't slept a wink, eyes all red, you never went to bed.
...and it impairs the way you think.
As soon as you get off, you're right back on
Farmville, Yoville it's all a thrill!
Pop Quiz, What your name means, blah blah blah
Everybody's talkin sayin' nothin'
Well Facebook here is my status and what's on my mind.
ACCOUNT DELETED.

...and that Ladies and Gentleman is how I feel about a social network that helped me achieve ... nothing! Today I freed myself from wanting to wake up and say "Wonder what's going on Facebook? Hmm I'll just take a look.

Perhaps because I am not hip, up to date with technology or the fact that sometimes I enjoy face to face interaction with real people not pictures of people. I enjoy seeing your expressions, I enjoy being able to give you a hug when you need it. Thanks for the memories FB it's been a blast but our season is up.

I'm going to Read a good book no make that The Good Book.

PEACE OUT FB FAM!

Shhhhh...mom's little secret!

The title "Shhhh....Mom's little secret" is also subtitled "How to get rid of unwanted toys while your daughter/son is away. I am sure that there are plenty of mom's out there who has this secret.



While my daughter visits my parents for the summer I get bizzzzzay! Throwing away toys and garbage created by my little one over the year. YES!!!! YES!!!!! There I feel so much better now. I confessed and I didn't go to a priest.



In addition to her toys my child collects slips of paper, receipts, toilet and paper towel rolls, used printer paper, etc. So this year I started early filling a garbage bag with all the little toys (mostly collected from McDonald's...need I say more), and other things that sit untouched. I placed said garbage bag in my closet anticipating my Suga Wuga's (Shooga Wooga) departure.



"C" Day arrives so I put my plan into action.



PHASE I

See daughter and mother off. Give lots of kisses and hugs to both as I scheme in the back of my mind.



PHASE II

Begin clearing out toys and paraphernalia which included a dilapidated bookcase and some colorful bins.



PHASE III

Purchase four large Rubbermaid (C) containers with drawers (from WalMart of course).



PHASE IV

Begin pitching anything loose or without parts. That's when I noticed my mouth began to curve in both corners (like the Grinch that stole Christmas when he plotted to steal Christmas from theWhos'). Yes I had a ginormous smile....Heh heh heh!



PHASE V

Organize and place items in appointed drawers. Two of the containers were dedicated to books and stuff, two of the containers were dedicated to toys.



Hold it! Remember the trash bag I secretly hid in my closet? Um-yeah well I didn't. But that did not stop my cleaning madness. Hah hah! I not only organized the bins, I placed a poster and a Spiderman on the wall. I'm goooood! After several hours of sorting and discarding my body began to ache, I felt like I moved a whole apartment by myself. Now you don't think that stopped me do you?



I also did not keep this dirty little secret to myself. I had to drag my oldest daughter Keshia (see My Assets) into this mess as well as the grandmother. WHAT! I needed accomplices.



The area looks like Trish Suhr (I adore her) from the show Clean House organized it.



PHASE VI

Suga Wuga comes home checks out her play area and she was very pleased."Oh mommy you put up my Spiderman!! Thank you mommy! You put up my High School Musical poster" and she squeezed me with the biggest hug she could give. My covert clean up was well worth that soft squishy hug and that beaming little face.



NOW I have a 96 gallon beast in the corner of my living room filled mostly with stuffed animals and a few toys.....Christmas is coming and Suga Wuga will visit the grandparents again.

I can hardly wait... shucks might as well start now while she is in school. Hah ha ha hah!!!!!!

This covert operation brought to you by WalMart and Rubbermaid.



PS I bought a label maker and labeled each drawer. I am good!

Paging Doctor Danielle

Okay so I found myself in a situation like so many other moms. You know the one when your child tells you "Mom I need (fill in the blank) by tomorrow!, I simply must have (again fill in the blank) so that I can (you know the drill)." My little angel needed a doctor's outfit, yes that's what I said a doctor's outfit. So with much trepidation and just not wanting to, we took off later in the evening to the home of Geoffrey the Giraffe-yes Toys R Us. (I've always liked Geoffrey until I had my own children.) So anywho, we get into the door and behold it was if the angels in heaven were singing Hallelujah and welcome to all who enter, Danielle lost her mind, totally forgetting the reason we came into this little bit of heaven on earth. "Mom look!" "Oooooo, mommy!" and thus it went on for the entire trip, so of course I had to be the balloon burster and remind her of why we were there. I surrounded the store several times like the Calvary surrounding the Indians (oops Native Americans). I was beginning to droop after ten minutes. On the way to finding a store employee, I ran into a former co-worker and his wife and kids. We did the chat thing, kanoodled with the kids (they actually are cute), etc. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a store employee, so I excused myself from the conversation and shouted "Excuse me sir!" He gave me a dirty look but acted pleasant and informed me that he was with another customer and will be right with me. So me being the smart aleck that I am, said "No problem, I'm not moving from this spot- smirk smirk." Back to the conversation, we caught up with each other's lives and then said store employee returned with a smile I might add. He escorted me to the area where said doctor's kit was displayed and yes I had circled that area twice but missed it entirely. Oh well. Where was Danielle you ask? She was drooling over the LEGO display and chirping something about "See Mommy this is what I want." Needless to say that request received an "Um-hm." Not clever but it pacified her. Oh I forgot to mention, Danielle is a member of the birthday club and received a $3 off gift card in the mail. So for once my child who always begs for this and that in the grocery and other stores but never has her wallet or money, had said wallet with money and gift card. Huzzah! She of course wanted to buy something that she could not cover with the $6.00 in her wallet. Now I toyed with the thought of covering her, but alas and alack I simply could not do it. I felt that this was a teaching moment.
Lesson 1: learn to buy what you can afford. Lesson 2: Don't expect someone else to bail you out if you overspend. (Hear that GM and Tribune!) She did choose something more in her price range and with her gift card, paid less and took home some change.
Lesson 3: Use coupons and gift cards to take the sting out of your purchases.
With our purchases we schlepped home happy and satisfied.
This Public Service Announcement has been brought to you by one grateful Mocha Mom on behalf of the Moms of America.
PS my little angel was upset that the doctor's kit did not come with a doctor's coat. So we borrowed one of her daddy's white shirts. Everybody all together.... Awwwwwwwww!

2 Weird

Today I had two very weird nightmares. The first involved me being fired by the head of the local YWCA even though I was working for a television station. She could be heard screaming my name and another person's name. How could we be so careless and not check what was being aired, etc etc, blah blah! She then proceeded to round the corner and scream for me and the other person to clean out our desk. However I already knew what was coming and had already began to clean out my desk. I was even giving away some of the little tchotchkies (promotional stuff on and in my desk) I had collected over the years. As the shrew rounded the corner she was still ranting and raving and then she said the dreaded "D" word. "Denise I am so disappointed in you, because you are usually better than this!".

Second Dream
My nine year old (you remember the turtle) had driven our car out of my parent's driveway and was performing three hundred sixty degree turns at the top of the driveway near a fire hydrant. While we (her parents and grandparents) were frantically yelling for her to stop that madness and get out of the car she just gleefully spun and spun (her smile reminded me of the joker in Batman). Well needless to say that one woke up me up in a cold sweat. And all of this before the alarm went off at Six AM.

What does it all mean? I have no clue, I'm just glad to be awake and these were just nightmares.

I am a Mocha Mom. What does that mean? My style of parenting and being a mother are different than others. In other words WE DON'T TAKE CRAP!!
So when my youngest daughter told me about an incident with one of her classmates...it was on.

(Read below)
[Once again my claws were showing because someone had hurt (physically) one of my children. I am not one of those mothers that thinks her child can do no wrong. (Come on, I live with them.)My youngest daughter informed that one of her classmates hit her in the nose yesterday. I asked her to tell me what happened? While listening to her story I tried to have compassion for the other child as well as my daughter... but this was the second incident involving this little girl. She stole a pen out of my daughter's book bag and when asked to return it she proceeded to stomp on the pen and break it and then threw it in the trash. Can you say "Enough is enough!!!]

I had a meeting with the Principal and the Vice Principal - unannounced. Well they were just so accommodating. But I smelled a rat and that odor was confirmed by a third party. You see the other thing we Mocha moms have are another set of eyes to watch out for our babies. As this journey unfolds I will keep you posted. I sent a letter to the Superintendent of schools and I placed a phone call to said person. No answer today but like Scarlett O'Hara said "Tomorrow is another day." Stay tuned.

Learning through children

I wrote this e mail to my mother six years ago. I found it while looking for something else, but it is timely because the same type of incident happened again.
January 21, 2003
I received a call from day care that another child had hit Danielle in the nose and that she had a bad nose bleed. She bled all over her clothing and her new boots [the ones you gave her for Christmas]. My first reaction was to slap the child that hurt my baby, but after talking to the Lord and expressing my true feeling, I have now forgiven that little angel. Danielle's teacher told me what a trooper she was and that she seemed fine. But knowing my child I surmised that she would turn on her dramatic switch and go into Act 1 Scene 1 and cry and scream about how someone had hurt her. Okay - I was wrong. When I arrived at the day care she was playing basketball in the dining room and seemed just fine, not traumatized by the incident. She's fine. There is some swelling, but I called the doctor and was told to give her some Tylenol and put ice on her nose to reduce the swelling. Keep an eye on her nose after the swelling has gone down to make sure it is not broken. I gave her Tylenol and walked her down to her class room to continue the day's activities and she said "I want more mommy", I want more medicine!" I told her "not now baby - mommy will give you more later." She proceeded on to her next plan of action which was to play and said "Bye mommy, I'll see you later!" to which I replied "Bye baby" and threw her a kiss and she threw one back. which I caught and now hold in my heart. If only I were resilient as Danielle is, whenever I am wounded in my spirit and able to climb back into my Heavenly Daddy's lap and be comforted. Lesson to be learned at the feet of a child when all is said and done -- bounce right back and go play. All is well grandma. Take care.
This lesson came into play again because once again someone hit my little girl and once again I have to learn to climb in my Heavenly daddy's lap for comfort knowing that he has it all in control.
Peace and blessings.

Journey into Wiiville

First let me say that I do not like following fads. I am not now nor ever will be a fad follower!

Now that I've gotten that off my chest. Last Christmas my husband and I purchased a Wii for our youngest daughter Danielle. When the Wii first made it's appearance I was totally against it. Much like I am totally against buying a an overpriced flat screened HDTV but that's another post. So for years I fought against the impulse of buying one. That is until my father offered to buy one for our daughter. (See it was okay for him to buy it.) However once he found out the price, he said and I quote "No way!!!!) well actually he said more than that, but I am not allowed to print such language. So okay now what? My husband (said father) was determined to purchase one for his little princess. However he made a firm but stupid decision to not do any Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving. Now we all know by that time it is too late to look for a Wii. Forward ahead now to one week before Christmas, we made our trips to Walmart, Target, Sears, even K Mart and guess what, No Wii. (Were you surprised? I wasn't) Next I cruised the stores online and lo and behold NO WII! Arrrgggh!!!!! All because Daddy cheapskate wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving. Mama was getting angrier and angrier by the nan second while daddy snored the night away. After several hours and cups of coffee, I found a wonderful website lowestdeals.com and a promise that the said Wii would arrive Dec. 23. Okay now the wait. On the first day of waiting I stayed glued next to the front door, no brown truck. The next day I left for five minutes. The third day (Christmas Eve) I finally heard the awaited tapping at my door (Poe Reference) and I gushed like a school girl seeing her musical idol, "I am so glad to see you. You don't know how glad I am to see you!" Mr brown truck guy said " I came yesterday but there was no answer." at that point I wanted to slam the door in his fat little face.(Yes I do have anger issues...so what!) FF to Christmas morning and the opening of gifts. Our darling little princess opened her gift lovingly placed in a XXL gift bag and got to the Wii and screamed like she won the grand prize in the lottery. Hook it up, hook it up! She squealed with delight. Can't now we must take flight to visit our relatives , maybe tonight. Daddy when are you going to hook up the Wii?" " I will." (Notice there is no date of commitment.) Finally the day came when he decided to hook up the Wii. That's when we encountered a problem, we couldn't hook up the Wii in the living room because there is nowhere to hook it up. We called two people for advice. (They were no help.) The said game ended up in our bedroom. Now let me just say there is barely enough room in our bedroom for the two of us. Be sure to peruse the photos in this blog, that will tell you how small this room is. So until we are able to hook up the Wii in the living room this is where it lives. I am still against spending thousands of dollars on an overpriced TV, but who knows that may end up in our bedroom too.