Captain Me Planet

I felt I had to vent, already.

Who are these people? 

 

Between the pregnancy, the other 3 children, the remodel, the putting the house on the market, packing, the pregnancy, the remodel and the packing, and the pregnancy, I’m going on Blog Hiatus. 

Unless something so compelling occurs that I must wax on in my pithy, insightful way, I’m going to suspend the minor drivel.  Unless I just feel like doing that, as well. 

All in all, I just do what I feel like, so I suppose, that’s nothing different.

I will say that news stories coming out of Portland, OR, detailing Forestry Service supervisors losing their jobs if they do not become bilingual (to speak Spanish), as opposed to the new hires being required to learn English, bugs me quite a bit.  Doesn’t the idea of coming to this country sort of mean assimilating to this country and its language, and customs?  The big melting pot?  Immigrants half a century ago certainly knew if they were to succeed, they’d better get the language down, and learn to deal with America and Americans, in the way things are already being done.  If I moved to Germany, I would learn German.  And how Germans live life.  Not expect my boss to learn English (although, he/she would already probably know it).  I would never expect my host country to become more American.  I’d acclimate.

What is up with this story?  Principles in Dallas, TX, for 30-35 years, being told to become bilingual or lose their jobs?   This certainly seems to be political correctness to the most backward degree.  Kind of up there with changing the lyrics to Baa Baa Black Sheep.  When is this nonsense going to stop?  Is it going to stop?

Britney Spears.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  She’s on Matt Lauer’s show, Dateline, explaining that she’s not a redneck.  Not cheap.  Not sold out.  So happy. 

Then what is THIS outfit?  She’s showing everything but the nips in this top, on the show, trying to prove herself as serious, with Matt Lauer.

 

On the show, her boobs are carrying on their own interview.  Which, trust me, is fine with me.  I’m jealous of the boobs.  But to be trying to be serious?  Wear more of a top, dammit!  It isn’t hard.

Look, I don’t have a profound point.  Or anything earth-shattering to share.  I’m just looking at a chick, crying about how she’s not taken seriously, while her pregnant boobs spill out of low-cut peasant top, to Matt Lauer, while they all four get national attention.  Let’s not even mention how much leg is showing, pretty much all the way up to the hoo-hoo.  Fine.  Again.  But she want’s to be understood.  I’m just saying, these choices are stupid.  At least, hon, bring the top up a few inches.  That’s all.   Unfortunately, these things send a message.  She knows this.  Surely.

And oh, stop cracking the chewing gum.  There’s nothing wrong with it, but it doesn’t help the overall-non-redneck persona.  Really.  Cracking gum, with your boobies about to pop out into Matt Lauer’s face, puleeze.  Not a good choice for a national interview.  

She wants to be taken seriously?  What planet is she recording on?   Good gosh, gotto go, I’m nearly blinded by the flesh taking up the TV screen.  Britney.  I have no judgement.  Just help yourself.  Help yourself.

*edited to add

And tone down that hair a notch.  For all your money, it doesn’t have to look like it comes out of a bottle of Clorox.  This would help.  You really are not maximizing your very pretty, natural self.

**as if Britney would ever see this…what kind of moron am I? Methinks I need to get a life.

 

I’ve been a mom nearly 11 years.  Not forever, but certainly, I’m no newbie.  And in that amount of time, I have spent hours, nay, days worth of time, sitting in doctor’s offices.  Between 3 children who have always loved to slobber on each other, and share drinks, the germs have a field day around here.

And an appointment for a sick visit goes something like this.  Forget well visits.  I’ve stopped going.

8:30 am, I call:  Um, I have a child, running a temp of 102, headache, stomach ache.  Been 24 hours or more this way.

Nurse on call:  Let me see.  You have a child.  Does he have a fever?  For how long?  Any other symptoms? 

Me, repeating with slight annoyance, and say: we need to be seen right away.  I understand you’re probably booked now, and that we’ll be a work in.

Nurse:  Um, we’re booked at this late notice, for how long has your child been ill?  If you come in at _____time, we’ll try to work you in. 

Me:  Alrighty then.  Now that we’re clear, we’ll be there.

Inevitably, we arrive, with sad, feverish child, and sit.  And sit.  And sit some more.  Read all the old Peoples.  Foolishly attempt to keep other children, who are yet to be ill, from getting ill as they lick the train table and chew on germ infested books.  Lay around in the floor.  Play on the public toilet.  After 2 or so hours, I sigh.  Loudly.  Maybe shift noticably.  Harumph a time or two.  And then we are escorted to the room, where we repeat the repeated.

Second Nurse:  So, what seem to have us feeling sick today, hmmmm?

Me: Well, WE are running a fever of ____, and have a headache, and a stomachache, and _________.  For 33.5 hours now.  No meds.  Just fluids.  No vomiting.  

Second Nurse:  So ______ has a fever…how high?  And the other symptoms?  And for how long?  Have you given him anything?  How is he tolerating fluids?  Has he vomited? 

All this gets recorded, in their handy dandy file folder system, and said system is put in the little clear plastic thingy on the door, presumably for the doctor to review before entering the room.

Aaaaand, the doctor enters the room some 45 minutes later. With handy dandy file folder in hand.

Doctor Brilliant, who obviously graduated med school without being able to read:  So, what seems to be making us so sick today?  Mom?  Tell me what’s going on?  The last time this happened, I actually said that I did not quite understand the procedure, as this was the third time repeating aforementioned info.  Why have the nurse even come in an record all this?  He looked a bit startled, and started ahead.  It was if any attempt to answer this and decode the time honored system would cause mental implosion.  I had a feverish child.  I let it pass.

Me:  answering for the third time.

Doctor:  Alrighty then.  We’ll get Nurse-Make-You-Repeat in here for a blood test, she’ll bring the scripts, and call me if this doesn’t do the trick.

3 hours and some change later, and a big chunk o’ change, it’s viral, we can’t do anything but wait, and there are no scripts to help.  Gee.  Glad we did that.

But this past weekend, I fell in love.  With a little place called the Minute Clinic.  In a CVS, in Marietta, GA, 2 CNPs (certified nurse practitioners, the kind I often see at the doc’s when they are overloaded) are there, 24 hours a day.  In shifts of course.  

There is a marquis, no wait, that’s a royal title, a markee, outside the clinic door.  Listing precisely what certain services will cost.  They will file insurance, if you’re in state.  Otherwise, they give you the paperwork to do so.  And they promise prompt, caring service.  And by damn, it was just that.

We walked right up, with our feverish child.  No phone call prior.  No system to wade through. We told our story one time.  To one woman and her assistant.  And went through the work up on the spot.  In a private room about twice the size of a utility closet.  It was beautiful.  I almost cried.

They assessed quickly.  Were gentle.  Endearing to our 5 year old.  Gave us a timely evaluation (virus, go home and ride it out), and took our money.  Gave us follow up papers, like the hospital will give.  Covering what they told us.  What meds were good.  Dosages.  Now, we know these things, but the point was that is was nice.  And thorough.  We went on our way, tucked our boy into bed for the day, go on with other things. 

Time spent getting to, filling out paperwork, being seen, and getting home?  65 minutes.

And today?  I got a note card in the mail from those two wonderful CNPs.  Get well to our boy.  Hope you feel better.  Can you beat that?  Can you just beat it?  Nope.  You cannot. 

We are supposed to be in Marietta before the fall is out.  I may not even try to find a family practitioner.  Medicine, insurance and health care have changed so much, it’s just not worth it.  In most areas, the days of individual, take-your-time care just doesn’t exist anymore.  I know my own doctor, from the time I was a little girl, and for my parents until just a few years ago, went ahead retired because it was so depressing for him to go into the office each day.  To make a buck, he had to see 2 and 3 times the patients he had when I was young, and could call in ill, and be seen by him, personally, right away.  And who would call in a script based on the description of our sinus infections, which we got annually. 

That, seems to have gone the way of rocking chair front porches, and Sunday Dinners.  In most places, it just doesn’t exist anymore.

For us, and our money?  We’ll be at the Minute Clinic.  Getting in, and getting out.  And going on. 

We’ve lived in Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina.  And are now returning to Georgia.  Now of these lovely southern states, which, do you suppose, has the most backwards requirements for schooling at home?

Yes, that would be Georgia.  Who knew?  

It seems in the fair land of Scarlett, O’Hara, I must submit monthly attendance forms, showing that I comply with teaching my children 180 days a year.  At least 4.5 hours per day.  And my fabulous local school superintendant will file these on my children, and keep me out of jail, or from fines for truancy.   Should these be later than the 10th of each month, he or she can call on me and verify that I am, indeed, being true to my children’s education.  And are they freaking kidding me?  Don’t all parents teach 24/7?  If you’re children go to school, they learn there, and then come home and you teach and influence them some more.  It has to be one of the 3 "R"s to count? 

If that’s what needs to be kept up with the most, other than, say, quality of character, morals, or a common  sense of courtesy and decency, maybe this explains the quite often found current state of children and their behaviour.  They ought to be asking, if they really care, for parents to submit forms on the number of lies told, or ugly backtalking spewed, and consequences received.  But then again, I don’t want to be communicating on any level, for any reason, with any state official over the state of my children’s development.  It was just a pot shot at what’s getting emphasized, and what’s not.

Blech.  Blah.  (me sticking tongue out, and considering the finger) NUNYA.  (as in none of your business) 

I had no idea we’d been so free to do whatever we have wanted to.  What else is necessary out there?  What states are even more stringent?  Tell me.  I don’t want to go there.

I have this sick fantasy of non-compliance, wherein I am possibly large with child (not that we’re planning), and my other children are clinging to me, as the Sheriff hauls me in for not sending in my attendance forms by the 10th.  I see photographers.  TV.  Primetime network coverage.  Interviews.  The HSLDA sweeping in on our behalf, and ground breaking legislation from the trial wherein I kick the state’s ass and reming them that our teaching our children is NUNYA! 

But.  And big BUT.  That would take an awful lot of energy.  And I’ll be challenged to just get those damn forms in on time.  So I’ll do it.  I’ll do it begrudgingly, but by-gum, it’ll get done.  

So we can keep doing what we feel is our right, and not a privilege, as some legislators apparently feel.  Send your children to school, if you choose.  Private, public, magnet, charter, whatever.  Or do it at home.  I just think anyone else ought to regulate what that choice is.  Even though, I know, at it’s origins, maybe, these laws were enacted to protect children who’s parents may not be able to, or choose to, place any importance on their future education.  I doubt these laws would really help that, afterall, though.

Doesn’t it often seem the very laws intended to protect one group, often become a hinderance for others, and have no positive effect on the original group to begin with? 

I happen to think it’s much more than that.  Something along the lines of control, and often NEA quoted opinions of parents’ lack of qualifications to teach at home, you know, because they didn’t major in childhood education and learn how to teach politically correct nursery rhymes to 22 children at once, and surely that being a parent to a child gives no qualification to being able to raise them the best you see fit, but regardless, I have to live with it.

I’ll do it.  I’ll send in the forms.  I’ll register with my local superintendant,  but I won’t like it.  And I’ll huff and puff all the way to the mailbox. 

Maybe I’ll send a little note with each attendance form.  Just to keep him up to date with what we’re doing, of course. 

 

Here we come…it. will. not. be. the. first. time (to the tune of "California, Here I Come", which is sorta funny, as that is where I was born, but I mostly raised in the Atlanta area). 

Looks like the Colonel is giving notice tomorrow, and Georgia will be on our minds.  

Pray for a good, quick sell, and that we don’t lose our minds finishing up the renovations.

I think, that this is going to be a good thing. 

 

 

 

in which, I feel I must be going mad.  It’s been busy around here, the Colonel overloaded.  The kind of overload to agree to for the money, oh, we’ll pay of this, we’ll get that, and then you find yourself wrung out and thinking you were stupid.  Colonel being busy, to which I agreed, means Captain Mom is on her own with the privates.  Every. hour. of. every. day.

And today, it may mean they meet their maker.

I have. had. it. with them.  And they aren’t even being bad.  Just constant.  Constant noise.  Constant needs.  Constant desiring nutrition and clean clothing.  Today, it’s like nails on a chalkboard.  Sandpaper in my eyeball.  Just go on and back the car over me now.  The Colonel even left the truck.  It’s heavier than the MPV.  Oughta work out fine.

Upstairs.  slam, bang, run run run, thump whack thud.  Scream. Hysterical laughing.  Door slamming.  Nooooooooooooo, doooooonnnnnn’t.  That’s miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!  Stop stop stop, I’m telling mooooooommmmmmm, run, laugh, cry, you hit me, did not, you meant to, did not,  I wanna try, I wanna try, no I wanna try, no I wanna try.  That hurt.  I told you.  No you did not. Scream scream run run, thud thump whump whack.

Want some more?  I’ve got more. 

Private 3 decides to bring the fun downstairs.  With 2 small kitty figurines.  

The scene: Private 3 trying to balance the kitties on the edge of the bar, back feet on, front feet off.

The outcome: Constant dropping, clinking, clunking while I fill out the Title forms for the DMV, for our new car.  He tried again to defy the odds of gravity.  Over and over and over.

Next scene:  Me, calmly telling Private 3, you must stop doing that now, while he holds one tiny plastic kitty on the edge of the counter again, it’s making too much noise. 

The outcome:  Clunk, clink, chunk as a plastic kitty nose dives to the hardwood floor again.  I thump Private 3’s head.  Oooowwwwwwww, why did you dooooooo thaaaaaaaaat?  You did it AGAIN.  AGAIN.  I just said not to do that!  What did I say, huh, tell me, what did I just say?

His reply:  Ooooh, I thought you meant the other kitty.  This one has a purple bow. 

Today, just might be the end of me.  THE END OF ME.  Send my husband covered dishes after the memorial.  He really doesn’t know how to cook. 

We should be eating better in the department of variety, less chemicals and artificial hormones, and more fruit and veggies.  And oh, less Chick-fil-A kids meals.  Leave my wine out of this, I can buy organic. 

We used to be total vegetarians.  Yeah.  Miso soup.  Kombu.  Wheat germ on our 2 year old’s cereal.  Made my own yogurt, bread and grew my own sprouts.  Live food, baby, live. 

Then you know what happened?  I got pregnant with number three.  And all I wanted for 5 days straight, and got, dammit, was a Wendy’s cheeseburger and fries.  With a chocolate frosty, thankyouveryMUCH.  That was tell tell, I tell you.  And 6 years later?  We’re average.  Well, above.  But not great.  I watch the sugar.  Very few sodas for the kids.  I encourage water.  We have a platter of raw cut veggies nearly every night.  Of course, it’s always just carrots, cukes, and cherry ‘maters, but that’s better than Cheetos.  And we are occasionally suckers to pizza delivery.  It’s just soooo easy.  Does it count if you order veggies on it?

So this is what I did.  Forewent my weekly Aldi trip, where I get scadoodles of groceries for about $125, and went to Whole Foods, where I got 3 items for $897.37.  OK, not really.  But let me just share.

Whole Foods - 4.5 bags, packed moderately with groceries

items like:  organic frozen edamame, sea salt pita chips, chick peas, organic cheddar puffs, oranges, grapefruit (which are gooood!), a persimmon (I’ve never had one, I don’t recommend), organic yogurt, parsnips (Private 2 loves them), veggie egg rolls, Boca chicken patties, avocado, flax oil, and wheat germ.  Some tea, and turkey sausage.

Total?  $172.19  OhMyGOSH.

At Aldi, weekly, I get more bags than I can fit in the cart, filled to the brim with foods, for about $125.  Frozen chicken breasts, low fat beef,  and yogurt.  Crackers.  Nuts.  Canned stuff.  Rice, and pasta.  Paper goods (chaps your butt, but it’s cheap - and I am starting to feel bad, even my children are complaining).  But they come with the hormones, and chemicals.  Sure, eggs are .79 a dozen, but what the heck are they feeding those birds?  We get lesser fat things, but they’re all with sugar, and trans fats, and hoodly boodly, and all that.  We can eat for that money for a week or more, but what are we eating?

Blue’s favorite apple cinammon oatmeal from Aldi:

whole grained rolled oats, sugar, dehydrated apples treated with stuff I can’t pronounce, salt, cinnaomon, guar gum, some B vitamins I’ve never heard of, and pryidoxine hydrochloride.

Blue’s fav apple cinnamon oatmeal from Whole Foods:

whole grain rolled oats, germ of the wheat, dehydrated apples, succanat, concentrated apple juice, and, and, and…NOTHING ELSE.  

So what do I want to give my 5 year old 3 packets of every morning of his life, and sometimes for lunch and dinner?  I think that’s obvious.  But the price?  Aldi - $1.29, Whole Foods - $3.79.  And when you go through at least 2 boxes a week, it begins to add up.

Milk from Aldi?  $2.69.  From Horizon Organic at Whole Foods? $4.29.  We go through 3 gallons a week.  The list goes on and on and on.  Why should we be forced to choose budget over health?  It’s ridiculous.  If I want to feed my family coupon purchased Hamburger Helper and 30% fat ground beef 5 nights a week, we’d spend about $30.  But fresh produce?  Organic?  Natural?  Get a loan, baby.  And go ahead and win Let’s Make a Deal if you want to purchase eco-friendly house products.   

I’m just ticked.  And I’m just saying I am.  It shouldn’t be that you must be wealthy to feed your family well.  Maybe there’s room in the budget if I buy less wine….Naaaaaaaaaa.

I just posted a cartoon.  It basically makes fun of many public school atmospheres out there.  And since we homeschool, and get so many critical questions about whether or not we’re doing the right thing, what about socialization, aren’t we over-insulating, my first reaction was ha!  this is hysterical.  And I posted it up tout suite, at about 4 this morning, when I couldn’t sleep. 

I have a dear dear lifelong friend.  Whose heart is as honestly desiring the best for her children, as any I’ve ever met.  Who longs to raise her girls unto the Lord.  And whose children go to public school, in a small town south of Atlanta, GA.  Friend, I will keep your anonymnity, but I’d like to quote you here.

You KNOW I love you, and I KNOW your heart and that you do not sit in judgement of people who don’t homeschool.  But, cartoons like the one posted … are very hurtful.  Yes, it’s true, a lot of terrible things go on in public/private schools.  But, a lot of terrible things go on at home, in families, too (and at church and the grocery store and at the office and basically everywhere in life).  I have a very close friend whose family homeschooled and her father also slept with her from the time she was 11.  The truth is most of us want to protect our children…most of us are doing the best we can, praying and making decisions accordingly…seeing something like that comic implies that some of us are intentionally putting our children in harm’s way with no regard for them.  which, as you and I both know is NOT true in most situations.  Things like that just give fuel to the judgemental, "we are right and you are wrong" group of people out there.

I think she may be right.  The cartoon is a (sometimes) truth in jest, yes, but just may be more harsh than I intended to be, and add to that judgmental fire which I have no desire to fuel. 

Thoughts like that pop into my head.  Primarily as a response to the dubious questioning we often get, for our choice. But maybe should be screened a bit more carefully.  What my friend says is true.  Most parents are doing their very best.  And their best, and where and what they’re led to do, just may not look like our household. 

I asked the Colonel about it.  I set him up.  Hey, look at this (show the cartoon).  He chuckled.  And then I showed him my friend’s email.   And he poured his coffee.  Thunk on it.  Added sugar and cream.  Stirred.  And said I don’t think that’s very Christ-like (the cartoon, not my friend’s email).  Now, I’m not quite as tender as my sweet husband, and sometimes I get perverse pleasure out of being controversial and hard-headed, but he might be right.  And if he’s not, I respect his gut on things enough to acknowlege I may have been hasty.

And even all that aside, and if I polled a thousand people who all said it was funny, and not hurtful in any way, shape or form, any thing I would or could ever due that would be hurtful to my friend, I am sorry for.   Her feelings count more than me trying to figure out if I was right or wrong to ever post in the first place. 

I love you, friend, and I am sorry if that silly cartoon caused any hurt.   Thanks for pointing out another perspective.

The mixture of Goo Gone and Melaleuca’s PreSpot, removed the washed in, dried in sugarless grape bubblegum.  And saved Private 2’s little life. 

It also removed all the dried on bubblegum in my dryer, that wall all over the barrel, and in the lint trap.  Fun time here, that was. 

And on the poked with scissors eyeball of our 5 year old?  Seems to only be a nice red spot.  Should heal on it’s own, right? 

 

note:  On Melaleuca…I DO NOT get into these types of businesses.  I am wary of any product line that will need to be sold to the "friends and family" you already have.  But my dear friend Shelli convinced me to just let her put me in her rep line, I signed on to buy their stuff, and I really, really like it.  If you have a desperate stain, and want to try PreSpot, I’ll connect you with her.  I’m not selling, just buying.  She is wonderful, and these products actually are very very good.  I figured that bubblegum was going ot KO our new spring/summer clothing, and the Goo Gone did not do it by itself, as it said it would. 

I’ll also vouch for their SPF lip balm, and Relief Lotion.  Good Stuff.