tips from a cool mom...

I was a new therapist at an agency where I was to do "parent training" or parenting classes. The girl who was training me introduced me to one of the moms who was "graduating." She encouraged the mom to tell me a story about her daughter. Her daughter had a difficult time separating and so it was hard to get her to go to school. One of our local family court judges had recently been sending mothers of truant children to jail in an effort to get them to take it seriously. Our mom took it very seriously and tried everything from hand delivering her to the front door (and she ran out the back door and walked home) to dragging her to car to drive her to school (the neighbors called the cops and said some lady was trying to kidnap a girl). In frustration, the mom parked outside the local jail and told her daughter, "there are some bad people in there...people who rape and murder. They want to put me in there because you won't go to school." They both sobbed and finally the girl looked at her mother and said, tearfully, "I'll miss you..."'

I was a kid, what did I know...I laughed. I tell you this, on a week, years later, that at least one of my children has been hand delivered to the school and then walked out the back or, when I told another if they missed one more day of school the truant officer was going to put me in jail and been told, "I'll take care of the kids..." Karma.

In my defense, I am separated by several generations from many of my kids...its been many decades since I was one of them and I am not quite as up on the lingo or the culture. Still, I was feeling pretty good when my kids started referring to me as cool. It wasn't until earlier this week that one clued me in that cool stands for "constipated overweight old lady." Sigh...So on this, the eve of Mother's Day Weekend (we moms of 11 children have to take the whole weekend) I remind myself of the night that I closed myself in the basement and sobbed and yelled at God for not giving me a child and how He proceeded to Bless me abundantly. I am the mother of 11 amazingly wonderful individual treasures. While it isn't always easy, it is my life, and I love it. These moments will pass all too quickly and then I may no longer be a nerd (never-ending radical dude ;0)

ding dong the witch is dead

Wow, what a difference a day makes. Last week we were all crying about the government and our military guys and gals were justifiably upset because their paychecks were not going to arrive on time or at all. Today everyone is waving the flag and singing God Bless America! How convenient that, on a week when our military casualties were especially high, an almost 10 year operation to find that madman was completed. And why are we, as a country, compelled to give him so much air time. Hasn't he already taken enough from us. We don't need him or news of him to spur us on to remain vigilant; we have forever lost that sense of safety. We don't need him to justify keeping our boys overseas; we have other madmen to hunt. We're still busy. I'm glad there is some tiny bit of closure for Sept. 11, 2001. Yeah, I'm glad they found him but have to think it was just one item on a very long punch list. And I just can't find it in me to find joy in the death of any man who doesn't know the Way ...