Who is One Blunt Mom? Here ya go.

At one point or another I've pretty much covered all of this on Facebook or on the blog. But we've got lots of new people, so here's a synopsis.....


- I make no apologies for who I am. I will be the first to apologize when I am wrong about something.

- I live in Texas. Rick Perry is an ass, Ted Cruz is worse, and I could go on and on listing the problems with the "good ole' boy" network prevalent in this state. Wendy Davis is going to change that, though. <3

- I was born in California, raised in Texas, and did a 7 year stint living in Massachusetts until last year. Kind of gave me a new perspective on lots of things.

- I'm mom to two beautiful girls, ages 8 and 3. The oldest is in third grade and the youngest is in preschool. I usually refer to them as D1 and D2. Although, I might change that to Thing 1 and Thing 2, considering they're both tiny tornadoes in my house. They are the lights of my life, sometimes the bane of my existence, and they make me crazy a lot of the time. And I wouldn't trade it for anything.

- My husband is amazing. No, he's not perfect by any means, but he provides well for his family, he loves me, and his two little girls have him wrapped around their little fingers.

- I'm 42 years old. I tell you that so that you get a perspective of where I am in life. I'm not just starting out, I have plenty of life experiences, etc.

- I've worked with children since I was 12. I have a background in early childhood education, I worked in preschool, and I taught elementary school. My degree (which I paid for, working full time while going to school full time) includes a double minor in math and reading. I stopped teaching when D1 was born to stay home and raise her, and then her sister arrived. :) With regards to teaching, I have some pretty strong opinions. The No Child Left Behind Act was the worst thing to ever happen to the education system in this country. It assumes all children learn the same way at the same rate. They don't. I also despise standardized testing. I think it should be done away with. Here's my solution to the problems with the education system: pay teachers a livable wage, reward good teachers, get rid of the bad or ineffective teachers, and then let the teachers do their jobs. It's not that hard.

- The hubs and I met when I was teaching. I had my own apartment, I was paying my own bills, living independently. On a teacher's salary, that was tough a lot of the time, so when I met him I was working a second job in retail to make ends meet.

- I volunteer in my community, I'm involved in local politics, we give to charities, and we are involved in our children's schools and in our neighborhood.

- I believe in manners, courtesy, politeness, and kindness, but I also believe in not letting anyone walk all over you. Use your voice, but use it well. That being said, if you come on here and the first thing you do to argue is insult me, it's on. Try "I don't agree, and here's why....".

- The hubs and I are agnostic. We were both raised in "Christian" households (his more than mine). He says that he was disillusioned because there seemed to be so many hypocrites, and his family seemed to pick a church based on how pretty it was more than anything else.  My parents were divorced when I was nine.....a nasty, hate-filled debacle. My mother remarried, a man she didn't love, and they were miserable for 26 years. I watched people profess to follow the Bible while living completely differently. I have family who are true, Southern, Bible Belt Baptists, and some of them are the most ignorant, intolerant, hateful people I've ever known.

- I respect other religions. I really do. I've said that I envy people with strong faith. I have NEVER, EVER harbored the attitude that just because someone else believes differently than I do, that makes them wrong. For all we know, they could be right. What I do have a problem with is people who think the lives of others should be governed by their own beliefs. If you believe the teachings of the Bible, good for you. You do not get to tell others how to live their lives because of it. If you come on my page and start telling me or anyone else that we're all going to hell because of what the bible says, you're going to be banned. If that's what you believe, fine. Your faith should be between YOU, your GOD, your family, and your church.

- We teach our girls to be respectful of everyone. I don't care what color you are, where you are from, what you look like, what you wear, or anything else. If you are a good person, you are kind, and you treat people with respect unless you are given a reason not to......then you will get the same from us. Children are not born bigoted, racist, or intolerant.

-  I completely, unequivocally believe in equal rights for all. If you don't agree with that, I am sorry for you. Who are any of us to deny anyone else the chance to be happy? Life is too short for that.

- I also believe in some form of gun control. No, I do not advocate repealing the 2nd Amendment. But the founding fathers never imagined the level of weaponry we have readily available to the general public today. Just this morning there was another story of a toddler finding a loaded gun and killing herself. What is it going to take for that kind of insanity to stop?

- I am a HUGE, GINORMOUS advocate of common sense. That means thinking for yourself, researching what you don't know, admitting when you're wrong, and knowing what's right and wrong, and what's fact and fiction.

So that's it. That's pretty much me. If you have a question about something that I didn't cover, please just ask.

And THANK YOU for reading and following.

XOXOXOX

One Blunt Mom

The Day I Almost Threw My Baby Down the Trash Chute

Yeah, so let me explain.....before Child Services and the FBI show up at my door. Wait, there's the doorbell.......pizza's here!

So there was life before children. You know, life where you didn't worry about getting home at a certain hour, where staying out until last call was pretty much a given on the weekends, and you could go to the grocery store whenever you wanted, even a couple of times in one day if you had to. Alone. With time to browse. Actually read a label or two. Grown up stuff.

Now I don't know about most of you, but I didn't have my first child until I was over thirty. Before that, I worked in child care, retail, and as a teacher in elementary school. I've worked with kids of all ages since I was twelve.....babysitting, working with camps, at church (yes, I actually went to church), and volunteering. I'd always wanted to be a teacher, and so I put myself through college, got my degree, and worked for the public school system for several years.

For years I had the chance to observe the parents of the children I worked with. Parents of varying age, experience, backgrounds, and ideas. I would think to myself often that, "I'll do that differently", or, "Wow I'm going to have to remember that when I have kids," or, "Oh HELL no that did NOT just happen."

Kids throwing a fit in a restaurant? Oh my children would be taught to know better. Child pitching a fit in the grocery store over candy? My children will be standing quietly, hands folded behind their back, waiting patiently for me to finish checking out. Teenager in the department store arguing about why she needs a $100 pair of jeans? Oh no, my children will be taught to be respectful and to value themselves, no matter what they're wearing. I was full of judgement and self-righteousness, knowing that when I had my own children, things were going to be different.

And WOW are they different.

We all hear the saying that babies don't come with owner's manuals. There is SO MUCH that you don't get told about what it's like to all of the sudden have this tiny life literally in your hands. And you're expected to keep it alive. For like, EVER. Sure, they'll help you learn to breast feed, they'll ask you if you know how to change a diaper, they'll even help you give the baby a sponge bath in the hospital. They'll show you how to swaddle, how to support her head, the basic stuff. Then they'll send you home  like you know what you're doing. And you leave the hospital absolutely terrified.

And then it sets in. PARENTAL PARANOIA. Come on.....you know you've had it. Situations that before seemed completely innocent are now danger-prone death traps that might harm your newborn baby. You'll conjure up these ridiculous scenarios of what MIGHT happen to the point that you'll give yourself mini panic attacks thinking they could actually come true.

Hence the trash chute. When my oldest was just barely a year old, we moved up to the Boston area. Until we found a house, we had a temporary apartment in the city. We were on the 8th floor. My husband went to work every day, leaving me, the baby and the dog to fend for ourselves in a city I knew nothing about. I do know that I am NOT an urban dweller. By any stretch. I need grass. (No, not that kind.) But I digress. Anyway, to take out your trash, you had to go down the hall, use a key to open the trash closet door, and put the trash down the chute. Most of the time, I was holding my daughter in one arm and holding the trash in the other. After doing that a few times, I told my husband that I would no longer take the trash down, he would have to do it. Why? Because I would have little panic attacks as I stood there and I would think to myself, "What if I put the wrong one down the trash chute?" I would envision this to the point where I would literally get sick to my stomach.

Now OF COURSE that wasn't going to happen. I am not a complete idiot. I do have my moments, but for the most part I'm a pretty intelligent, level-headed girl. Really I am. But having this little life that I was completely responsible for just changed my perception on so many things. Normal, every day things. Simple, common sense things. But you become so much more aware of the dangers out there, the things that can hurt you, your child, your family.........and I haven't even gotten to the dangers that include the crazy people. That's a whole other blog for a whole other day. Hell, that's a book right there.

So, parental paranoia. It's that feeling of panic when you can't see your child in the department store even though you know for a fact that he's standing on the other side of the t-shirt you're looking at. It's those ridiculous scenarios you'll create in your head when you're driving down the road about what exactly would happen if the car went into the lake.......how would you get out? How would you get the kids out? Then you realize you live in a desert. It's the wide-eyed panic you feel when your little one is eating a cracker and coughs.....and you're sure they're choking to death and you hope to God you can remember how to do the Heimlich on a toddler. It's seeing the video of the woman leaving her stroller on the train platform......and the stroller rolling off.......and the train hitting it (the baby, miraculously, was fine)......and thinking to yourself that you're going to handcuff yourself to the handle of your stroller every single time you use it from now on. It's checking on your newborn fifteen times a night during their first year because you've been staring at the video monitor for an hour and you just can't be sure they're still breathing. It's all of those things that common sense would tell you don't make sense, and yet it doesn't matter.

It's Parental Paranoia. And no one tells you about it. And it doesn't go away. But it's real. It's out there. And it's not fun.

Good grief......when my kids start driving I might just have to check myself into a mental institution.

OBM

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Hello and welcome!

Hello!

Welcome to my blog. This is my place to vent, to be grateful, to toot my own horn, to complain about current events and situations, and pretty much anything else I feel like posting. I am very direct and to the point, and I am of an age where I really don't take crap from anyone. That being said, my husband will tell you that I love to jump around topic wise, so you just never know what I might come up with!

Although not all posts will be political, I feel that I must make this disclaimer:  I do not consider myself liberal or conservative, democrat or republican. I listen to all points and I make my own decisions. (If only everyone would do that.) I am pro-choice, a proponent of equal rights for all, and of the general opinion that people should worry more about themselves and less about what others are doing. If you are easily offended or you consider yourself Right Wing Tea Party  (cough cough crazy cough cough), this is probably not the place for you.

Now, because my three year old decided that this was her night to stay up until 10:30 pm, I am not going to get to write the post I wanted. I would love to sit here and tell you that I calmly rocked her to sleep, telling her how much I love her the entire time......nope, the whole episode was more akin to "Go the Fuck to Sleep"......and if you haven't read that, you should, it's hilarious.

So I will add a few more pics here to give you an idea of where I am coming from, and then I will be fresh and ready tomorrow for some actual blogging. (Here's hoping.)

Just food for thought. Good night!

Blunt