She came and is wonderful and beautiful, sugar and spice and everything nice and just a little bit of spicy tortilla, because she wouldn’t be part of the group if she weren’t a little feisty, right? It’s easy to adore her and, for the most part, April’s pregnancy and labor went beautifully. Mom and baby are fine, Daddy is beaming and everything is happy. They are adjusting well to their new situation and those of us who waited for them to become a family can feel the love and watch them glow as they grow in their new life together.

However, sometimes challenges arise that threaten the happiness. They often do and they often will when you have a child. Some of them are under your control and some are not. Something has come up that April and Chris prepared for, but due to negligence, has fallen out of their hands. I want to draw your attention to Chris’s post where he explains this fully, but Baptist Hospital in Nashville, where they gave birth, is trying to steal from them. Yes, those are harsh words. This is a harsh situation. See, a deal is a deal and April and Chris made a deal with the hospital to pay them money for the labor and delivery up front. The hospital kept their money for 2 months prior to the birth of their child and then the hospital was supposed to offer them a discount on that labor and delivery. It is to ensure the hospital is paid in a timely manner and that if something were to happen to April and the baby prior to that date that they would still get some of their fees.

Again, this was a deal that they make with perspective parents as an incentive to give birth in their hospital and birthing babies is a lucrative practice. In a city like Nashville where there are 2 or 3 hospitals in a ten mile radius, where you give birth is important. You go to the place that you trust to take care of not only your child, but also mama and daddy. My understanding is that the care Chris, April and sweetpea received was wonderful while they were in the hospital. It is the shoddy way they are being treated now that is unfair and wrong.

The gist of the story is that April had false labor and instead of applying the money she had already paid to her labor and delivery and giving her the discount on that, which was the DEAL, which is what she had ALREADY PAID FOR, they put the money paid onto her bill for that evening. Now, the way I see it, the bill for the labor and delivery should already have been generated and marked PAID with that money and anything extra should have been billed later. If something happened and April did not give birth, then they would need to refund the money. It’s that simple. What is happening now is that Baptist is seeing a way to milk two young parents out of much needed funds and this is not just wrong, it’s bad business.

What I am asking from all of you is for your support for these two as well as what can they do in this situation? Can they report them to the better business bureau? Who should they talk to regarding this? Do they need a lawyer? What are their options? Any support you can offer would be greatly appreciated. If you have time to go read Chris’s blog and offer him support there, I know he and April would appreciate it so much.

What Baptist Hospital in Nashville is doing is not ok. A deal is a deal and you get what you PAY for, not what someone else decides you get. What awful customer service!

Edit: Well done, Baptist! Baptist has decided to fix this oversight and do the right thing! It’s nice to see someone step up to the plate!

My son, AJ, is 10 years old. He is in the fifth grade.

Ashlynn Conner was 10 years old and in the fifth grade. Ashlynn’s mother reported that, last Thursday, Ashlynn came home from school and asked to be placed in homeschool because other children called her fat, a slut and bullied her constantly. Ashlynn’s mother declined, as most mother’s I know would. Unlike most mothers I know, she did not press the issue further. The following morning, Ashlynn’s sister found her hanging from a scarf in her closet.

I’m about to get judgmental and self-righteously angry. If that kind of behavior bothers you or you want to play the “no blame” game where the lives of children are concerned because the people who knew her are being punished enough right now, you should probably stop reading.

Ashlynn’s mother, Stacy, notes that Ashlynn had come home crying from school two weeks ago because kids were taunting her. She states that she “thought her kids were strong kids” implying that kids that can’t handle bullying are weak and that her own daughter, who committed suicide, wasn’t strong because she couldn’t handle what was coming at her because Stacy’s “guidance” should have been stronger than the constant barrage of nastiness coming at her at school. I want to challenge that statement with perhaps her daughter didn’t feel supported in any environment.

Stacy noted that kids both at school and in their neighborhood bullied Ashlynn and called her ugly and she hopes that Ashlynn’s story will prevent other kids from being bullied. What stopped this mother from preventing her own child from being bullied? What allowed her to step back and let kids in the neighborhood and in her school overtake adult sensibilities and prevent her from protecting her child in her learning environment, at the very least? How does allowing the death of her child to protect others absolve her from how very little she did to protect her child?

I understand Stacy is hurting. Never, in anything she tells the press, did anything she say indicate to me that she took any measure to protect her child. It takes a lot for a child to come to a parent begging to be removed from a school environment. I don’t pretend I know what kind of child Ashlynn Conner was. I don’t know if she was a dramatic child who overemphasized everything, but I highly doubt that there were no signs that this child was struggling, especially considering her mother admitted to them. There are national laws preventing bullying in school systems. Where was this child’s teacher? Where was this child’s school staff? Where was the communication between them and the parent? You can try to justify to me that a teacher has 30 students, but not every teacher in this child’s day had no time to notice what was going on if she was being called “fat,” “ugly,” and a “slut.”

Someone explain this to me, because I don’t understand why no one is being called on the inattention to her cries for help or the inaction by any adult in the life of this 10-year old child. On a personal note, my son left his last school, on the last day of school, with his school tshirt covered in black marker thanks to two bullies in his class. I immediately contacted his principal and informed him that the teacher was notified and she did nothing. I also let him know that she’d been notified that these two children had continued to bully my son throughout the year and she’d promised me that she was “taking care of it.” I was aware of the school bullying policy and the national laws regarding bullying and that he was welcome to call me to discuss it. That teacher was not asked back to teach this year.

This year, my son started school and one of those two children was in his class and immediately started the same issues. I contacted the teacher and stated that I would like a conference with her regarding this. Within 30 minutes of school starting the following morning, both boys were in the guidance office and the issue was fixed. I can’t discuss why the other boy bullies, as it has to do with his own personal issues, but he does not bully my son or the other children at that school anymore. I stepped in when his guardian wouldn’t due to her inattention or unwillingness because I have to protect MY child.

Being an interactive parent is one of the most important parts of parenting. There is no excuse for not being an interactive parent. I have as many irons in the fire as anyone I know, and if you read this blog, you understand why. I am as involved in my son’s life as I can be, even on the days where I don’t get home until it’s time for him to go to bed.

Not every parent has the proper skills for parenting. To me, that is not a get out of jail free card when you fail your children. It does not mean that you use your story as a warning to other parents to absolve yourself. It means you buck up and take the punishment when you fail them so miserably that you’ve caused neglect through inaction or death through negligence. Where were the school counselors? Where was the mental health help here?

Absolutely, use Ashlynn Conner’s death as a warning to other parents, but don’t let this slip into just another story we forget next week. Use it to promote better policies and procedures in school. Force interaction between staff and parents. Use it to promote outreach to parents on protocol when their child is bullied and for the sake of all this is good, parents and teachers, bullying is ZERO TOLERANCE. Don’t toe the line with it. Little bullies grow up to be big bullies.

Edit: Another 10 year old girl, this one from North Carolina, has hanged herself. Jasmine McClain hanged herself on Monday after being bullied badly in school and, apparently, on Facebook (it’s possible that the sheriff just noticed kids coming forward to comment on the abuse on Facebook). She had left her school for a while to escape the bullying, but returned a month ago. Her mother says she was “unaware that Jasmine was so tormented.” Again, in this situation, I have no idea how someone claims to be unaware after removing her child from school and only allowing her back last month. I’ve already backed my opinions up in the comments, though, so please read those if you would like to fricassee me for being upset with the mother in this case. If parents and school administration are not prompted at this point to take a hard stand about bullying TODAY, AT THIS INSTANT, then we as a society need to force the issue. ENOUGH. No one is allowed to claim ignorance about this anymore. No one is allowed to blame others. We must address this and it must happen now.

Also, I saw this while I was reading last night and I thought to myself, “If this is what our special needs kids are dealing with we need to flush out our schools completely and start over.”

Edit: 11/20/11 Excellent information on what a parent whose child is being bullied can do. I found this on Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is an amazing website. Please go look around on there. They have warning signs, a pledge to stop bullying, and a few other things that are tied to this specific topic. Plus, they are a good site to have on hand with the rate of suicide in our country.

Edit: 12/16/11 Jerome Sattler, considered a founding father where school psychology is considered because he writes the books that are considered the “bibles” for the profession, has done a great public presentation on bullying/cyber bullying that I highly recommend. You can find it here at the psychology page for San Diego State University where he is a Psychology Professor.

I’ve been out of my mom’s house since I was 20 (12 years now) and I’ve never been on a government program or expected someone to pay me to do nothing. I am absolutely struggling but still working my butt off for a better life. THAT is what it means to live in this country. The hope and chance to make it despite the difficulty. It does not mean I get a handout because I was born in this country or because someone else makes more money than I do. I pay my taxes and I give when I can. Struggling is part of being an adult. Yes, I would like to see our economy change. No, it shouldn’t happen that we all get freebies because life is hard on the dimes of people that have more than we do while we do absolutely little to nothing to earn it.

If you haven’t seen the list of demands from the Occupy Wall Street people, you are in for a treat of epic proportion:

The first demand is that minimum wage be bumped up to $20 an hour. Gosh, we should pay the people who can’t get my order right at McDonald’s or those who didn’t bother finishing high school, the same amount of pay that an entry level engineer might make? You know, the person that had to pay for at least 4-6 years of college education? Uh-huh. Unicorns and rainbows, my friends.

Another demand? Let’s get rid of health insurance because it takes money away from those of us who are health professionals. As a health professional, I don’t personally take health insurance because of the nuances of health insurance and letting a bunch of people who have no business looking through your personal stuff look through it in order to “authorize” your visits to me. However, let’s consider having to pay every single visit out of pocket. In the Nashville area, a single doctor’s visit runs $125-$260 a pop. I can say this after being on crappy COBRA insurance for six months that is bleeding me dry and having to meet a $2500 deductible before they pay anything. My doctor’s visits? Not covered. This means that if I want to go, I pay out of pocket. You accept these demands and you understand that you are going to pay out the wazoo next time you have a respiratory infection. Some of you are prone to them. What if you get a bad rash that just won’t go away? A nasty case of poison ivy? Yep. $300 out the window PLUS whatever the steroid shot costs. See what I’m saying?

Free college education is another demand. Who is going to pay the people that teach you? As an adjunct, I’m not going to put the effort into teaching you for free. I don’t have time. And if everyone has a college degree, guess how much those are valued now? Guess how many people are going to sit their butts in college indefinitely and take out limitless student loans for living expenses?

All these requests for freebies and I’m wondering WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR ANYTHING? Who is going to pay the $20/hour? The government? The government gets its money from the citizens who plan to sit on their butts doing nothing or getting a free education which will be paid for by…no one because no one will actually be working.

Outlaw all the debt? Awesome. I’m down with that, but how many companies will be going under because of that which means how many more of you will be out of jobs and how much more will our nation be in debt due to the government loans that won’t be paid back?

I’m already bored with this. Seriously, if you are buying into this, you don’t really understand how the system works. Feel free to read through the demands and keep insisting that this is the way to fix everything. Feel free to keep protesting a flawed system. I’ll protest that one with you. But how about using all that free time you’ve got and the brain power you are wasting by coming up with real solutions instead of something that is inherently flawed and would only zap what little resources we have left, eh?

Thanks.

One of the remaining tax-paying citizens who isn’t making much but is still trying

Edit: 11/14/11 I just wanted to note that Occupy Wall street protesters are now upset with Jay-Z, who was attempting to “support” them by creating “Occupy All Streets” T-shirts. However, he chose to do this by embracing capitalism and charging for the t-shirts and then making the large error of not giving any of the profits to Occupy Wall Street. The Occupy Wall Street Protesters saw this as a huge slap in the face and embraced capitalism and demanded some of the profits. Unfortunately, they did not earn them in any way other than by creating the idea, which they didn’t patent. Jay-Z pulled the t-shirts, didn’t give them any money, OWS chants “we are owed this” and the entitlement continues. In all fairness, Jay-Z probably should have given them some of the money. However, had he done it, it would have contributed to the entitled nature of the movement and would have left us without the irony of them demanding money from the capitalist venture. I can appreciate it.

Another Edit 11/19/11: This week, Occupy Nashville protestors invaded Donald Rumsfeld’s book tour dinner in Nashville calling him a war criminal and disrupting a $125/plate dinner. A friend of mine asked if I expected anything different from Occupy protestors and I said, “This is Nashville. We are better behaved folks than most and I EXPECT MANNERS. I expect people to follow the rules of peaceful protest or get out of my city. We are known for being a genial people and if you don’t want to follow the rules you can get out.” I think that what the Occupy Nashville people did by going into Donald Rumsfeld’s dinner and calling him and war criminal was tasteless and tacky. I am vehemently against the Occupy movement and I am disappointed in this kind of tactic. There is a difference between peaceful, non-violent protest and something like this and the things I’m seeing in Oakland and the other areas where things are getting violent. I’m disappointed in us as a people. This doesn’t feel like a freedom and power to the people thing…it feels like an entitlement and attention thing and I’m over it. See their triumphant self-congratulatory after-party here.

Not everyone. Some of us think Verizon Wireless can die in a fire.

It takes desperation to get to that stage of thinking, my friends. Let me explain my situation.

In February of 2010 I got the Droid Eris. I enjoyed that phone a lot. It was cute and man could that thing zing along. Unfortunately, my Eris had a sickness. When I would type on it, it would scroll to the left and stay there or mix and match my words. It did this on all models and it finally became a known issue and around Christmas of 2010, Verizon offered to replace my Eris with the Droid Incredible.

Keep in mind I pay money every month for an extended warranty to make sure that my phone works.

From the beginning of my time with the Droid Incredible, the phone would randomly reboot. I didn’t notice it but once or twice a week because my phone generally stayed on silent. When the random reboots started taking place in the middle of my phone calls, I decided to start seeing if there was a pattern to the problem. None was found. I left the ringer and notifications on and realized that the reboots were taking place at least once within every 12 hours. This was unacceptable to me and I called Verizon.

I explained that, in my job, it is important that I not inadvertently hang up on clients who may not be ready to deal with my hanging up on them and then not being able to call them right back because my phone is busy saying, “Droid!” and rebooting. They sent me a refurbished replacement Droid incredible. Within 12 hours the phone had rebooted again. I called Verizon back.

Over the course of week I spent over 10 hours on the phone with Verizon reps who generally put me in tears with their lack of understanding and down talking to me and went through 4 phones. Few of them made decent notes on my account and I was forced to re-explain my situation every single time I called. I also had to talk to two reps on every call (Tier 1 and then a Tech). I made 3 trips to Fed-Ex, a 20 minute drive, to either pick up phones or send them back. Finally, an understanding rep sent me a different model. Before I agreed to it, I asked her to look to see if there were any known issues with that phone. “Nope, there are none!” she cheerfully stated.

She cheerfully lied.

When I got the phone, a Samsung Fascinate, I was excited. No random reboots here. I was pleased. I loved all things about the phone and I thought that I could finally relax.

This was until I went to work the next day. I rely upon my GPS to get me everywhere. I use Waze to show me accidents or hazards on the way there and I also sometimes have to go places that I’m not familiar. I need my gps because I’m honestly not good with directions.

Tonight, I called Verizon and talked to Charles. Charles ran me through some fun tests and listened when I told him I’d tried everything I could find on the net (remember, I like this phone–I liked my Incredible, too) and checked his own known issues where he confirmed that “yep, this is unfixable unless you want to do things outside of what I can help you with.” Yep. I know. Rooting is the only known fix for this and I wasn’t about to void the warranty I pay for every month. He was very nice and offered to replace the phone with a different phone. I considered it, but the phone he wanted to replace the Samsung with also has known issues with rebooting. I am not wanting to get into that particular bag of nuts yet again. I politely declined and told him I’d try to stick this out a bit longer.

Two hours later, I went on my evening walk. For those that don’t know, I try to walk as often as I can and one of the things that helps me the most is my application for Cardiotrainer. What I didn’t realize is that because my GPS always says “still searching,” my Cardiotrainer wouldn’t log my workouts at all. This was a dealbreaker. I walked home in disgust and immediately called Verizon. Charles had politely offered so surely this wouldn’t be an issue for me, right?

Wrong. Remember how I told you how I was treated with the Incredible? Here we go again. “I’m sorry, since we sent you the Fascinate, I can’t send you another device.” What? Charles said you could and had your rep been honest in the first place, we could have avoided all of this in the first place. “I don’t know what Charles told you, but he didn’t indicate that you went through anything technical nor do his notes indicate that he offered to switch out your device.” Well, we’ve already noted that reps don’t write anything except the bad stuff in my file, so color me unsurprised. How about when I told her how I did a factory reset and, because I’m clearly a lying liar, she asked me in a smart tone, “Oh? How do you do a factory reset.” I said, “Really? I’ve done these with every phone I’ve had. I’m not new to this. I don’t have it in front of me so it’s going to be hard for me to remember the steps very well but…” and then I went on with the steps. Thank you, tech, for implying that I lie because clearly my new phone isn’t NEW ENOUGH for me. Even though I said at the beginning of the call if “someone could fix this problem in this particular phone I would like to stay with this phone.” Hey, you’re a clever cookie. You got me. I was so jonesing for something else that I didn’t do everything in my power to keep this cool freaking thing so I could get a phone that frankly is a smaller and a little heavier than I wanted.

Also color me unsurprised that yet another rep is willing to work with me on fixing a problem that I shouldn’t even be having.

Verizon, you place your reputation on excellence in coverage and customer service. I’ve received neither of those in my entirety in this contract. What I know is that you are wasting my time and your money by sending me defective devices and giving me the runaround when I call you on your behavior. Fix the devices, fix the problems and send me a phone that works and you won’t hear from me again.

What’s sad is that I’m a throwaway customer to them, even though I’ve been a loyal Verizon customer since 2003. 7 years is a long time. Longer than some marriages. After all the pushing you did on me last week to go ahead and upgrade early, can I just say that I am incredibly thankful that I was smarter than that. Why on earth would I re-upp a contract with a company who treats me in a way that puts me in tears after a phone conversation? Who feels like it’s ok to waste 2 hours of my time a night when I’m working on my dissertation with their nonsense instead of just doing the right thing?

Verizon, I’m done. You and I are breaking up. At the end of my contract, we’re through. I’d sooner get a pre-paid junk phone than deal with awful customer service and phones that don’t work. You’re no better than Sprint when dealing with your customers. You have a lot of growing up to do if you want to stay at the top. Just remember it doesn’t take much to fall.

Person A: “Hey, you were late. I assumed you’d be here at 1:45 because the play started at 2.”
Person B: (In snarky tone) “Well, that’s what you get for assuming. You know what happens when you assume right?”
Person A: (blank stare and extreme self-control stops them from making the other person a sad person)

Essentially, what has happened here is that Person B has abdicated responsibility for his or her actions based on a snarky response that he or she believes is clever but really shows exactly how very little person B knows or understands about him or herself as a person. It also indicates that they have no respect for the person they are talking to and that they consider themselves far more clever than they really are and have no excuse for what they’ve done.

Why do I say that they don’t understand their personhood? Well, from the time we are infants, we observe the world around us and based on those clues (assumptions!), we grow and develop. Without social learning we would have no idea of social customs, culture or social norms. How often do you see generally sane adults making faces at babies? Why do they do that? Because babies, who imitate, will do it back…and frankly, it’s just adorable. Infants pick up on the assumption that if they make those silly faces back at that crazy adult, the adult will reward them with a smile or a clap or a loud noise. It’s how we learn, people. Some of those assumptions that we’ve made, at some point or another, were facts. And, to be honest, the majority of the ones we make as adults are pretty truthful, as well. Not always, but a good majority of the time.

So, unless you plan on going around calling perfectly adorable babies ____es, please stop using that cliched phrase and start taking responsibility for your business.

Honestly, I rarely go to your store for a cornucopia of delightful reasons. The main reason being that when I go into the store I come out feeling musty and dusty and like I need to take a shower. While you may have a more varied selection than my preferred store, Target, I’ve noticed that some products look like someone has run them over with a Hummer and that they have been opened, sampled and then put back like I won’t notice that someone else has taken a huge bite out of the Doritos I plan to purchase. Consequently, I no longer purchase Doritos, but I will talk about that in a later post.

In any case, I frequent your store in two circumstances: when I’m in a city, like my hometown, that does not have a Target, or when the item I need is not one that Target, Best Buy or any other store in the whole world (the whole world being a 15-20 mile driving distance) sells. In this case, I was looking for a 16G Zune player. This was necessary being that I was overly zealous on the treadmill the other day and whacked my rhapsody player off the treadmill deck and sent it spiraling to the belt where it promptly went zinging to the back of the treadmill and skidded 5-feet across the gym floor. It inadvertently almost knocked a boy off the elliptical behind me because he was laughing so hard he couldn’t stay upright. I realized it was unusable when it popped open in my hand. After trying other rhapsody players from my beloved Target, I gave up.

Wal-mart online showed me a Zune player that was $30 less than Best Buy. By this time, I’m already crabby because I haven’t worked out in 24 hours and I am kind of wishing I’d pushed the boy off of the elliptical machine. I got to Wal-Mart and, lo and behold, they have the Zune in stock. For $30 more than they advertised online. This isn’t new. Wal-Mart frequently discounts their items on their online store and charges more for their items in-store. So, to get something that is IN STOCK, I get to pay $30? Pass. I’ll go to Best Buy where I get a clean store, great customer service, a Best Buy rewards system and can use my $5 certificate for my rewards and where that same player will count towards MORE rewards. Oh, and hey, where BEST BUY won’t UNDERCUT ITSELF online. I’ve heard stories about Wal-Mart doing this with various products and refusing to honor the prices in their stores. If I wanted to wait five days, I could get Amazon free shipping. Or, better yet, use Amazon.com and get prime shipping or one day shipping and pay $30 less than both Wal-Mart & Best Buy.

What I know is this: I won’t be using Wal-Mart. And their policy of not meeting their own prices? Bull. This isn’t a franchise. This is a corporation. All the money goes to the same place. Enough is enough. I walked out today even though I really wanted that player and I had spent time, gas and money going there.

Places that continue to give me good service, Target, Best Buy, Amazon, the little stores around here? They’ll continue to get my cash. Keep up the good work, Wal-Mart. You make it easy not to give you my money.

Sincerely,

I’m veering off topic by a lot. I’m just going to say that my son is not worldly in the slightest and move on.

We were in the car on the way to my office when AJ asks, out of nowhere as per the norm, “Why do we celebrate 4th of July?” I’m not good with history, but I did my very best to explain our declaration of independence from England and why we chose to do so. He took this to mean that “we’re at war with England!” I explained that this was a long time ago and we are fine with England now. In fact, we’re pretty good friends. We like them. We do tea without tossing it over boats.

No. This is unacceptable. They were bad. They must pay. Grudges must be held.

I could feel the stewing going on in the back seat…and I chose to ignore it.

Until trivia night last night. There was a question regarding the back of the new quarters and the design on the back of one of them. The question had nothing to do with England, nor did it have to do with 4th of July or our war with England. But AJ chose to answer the question as “Florida. Because it has a direct line from England.”

I may not be strong in history. He’s not strong in geography. We’re both strong in grudge holding, but I think he’s got me beat. He mutters “England” in the same voice I utter “Derek Jeter.”

That’s my kid.

England, you better watch your back.

Last night, as I sat in the rain to watch my 9-year-old play, after my full day of practicum and class, I watched you make a donkey of yourself. You made me really angry, so what I am about to say is probably going to shock you and several other people, but I’ve had a really bad several months and you know what they say about my give a flip…it’s busted.

When you ran over to the umpire to not just chastise him for a call, but yell at that 17-year old kid because of the placement of the glove on the little kid’s chest, it was all I could do not to take my super strength golf umbrella and define “rip him a new one” for you without using google. Do you know what that phrase means? It means that you can push a 17-year-old kid around, but you are modeling behavior for my 9-year-old kid. Not doing the same poor behavior in front of him is the only thing that stopped me from showing you that you cannot bully everyone.

In the South, they call what you did “showing your ass” and sir, you certainly did. For the rest of the game, the parents did not focus on their children. They nervously bit their lips and watched your reactions. You were the free entertainment. Your own child, whichever poor soul he was, was certainly not focused on the game.

I have dealt with people like you before and let me tell you, they get what they deserve. Maybe not on a little league field, but in life. The manager who browbeat her staff got fired hardcore and couldn’t find a job for months. Karma is a very real thing. Last night, we all got a nice little treat of how you act, but the worst part of it was that we saw what your family puts up with on a regular basis and we felt for them.

It might be time to relax, my friend. Strokes and heart attacks are not to be messed with. Deep breathing and some time at the spa might do you, and the rest of us by proxy, some good.

Sincerely,

Me

The only child would go down the well-kept knoll to the house of the children of a divorced home who were well-adjusted and liked the only child a great deal. They treated him well, for the most part, with few spats.

However, the hippie parents were those permissive kind. You know, the kind whose kids would NEVER do anything to hurt a fly and who can stay out as late as they want and burn puppies. The kind of parents who raise little smart alecks who don’t have a problem talking tough and being mean to sensitive little only children by throwing water on them while they are playing their mom’s very expensive Nintendo DS. Or who throw stuff at the fun loving dad’s new Honda Element that he loves more than whiskey. Or who ring the doorbell just to upset the four precious, beloved dogs who live in the house and then run away so the fun loving mom can’t smack them in their fool head.

So, the knoll has become volatile as the fun loving dad has sent email after email only to have hippie dad say “boys will be boys” and “I don’t take secondhand information as fact.”

So the fun-loving mom is keeping her eye out. And the hippie parents are gonna get smacked in their hippie heads and the hippie kids are gonna get hit with fun loving paint balls that the fun loving mom is going to go out and buy this weekend because private property is private property and a hippie kid looks an awful lot like a fox or a coyote.

Little hippie brats.

And we’ll all live happily ever after.

However, I think that my time being out in the schools for my practicum is softening me up a bit.

Tonight, on the way home from school, it was lightly raining. One thing about Nashvillians that I can’t say anything positive about is the way that they drive in the rain. It’s like the grandfather Sunday driver who has taken his sleeping pills. It’s just that bad.

I was behind one such driver at a stoplight close to my home tonight. Generally, I’m in a rush to get home after being gone all day, but I was pretty mellow tonight. The car behind me wasn’t and, when grandpa didn’t get going, the person behind me honked LOUDLY and LONGLY. Is longly a word? Long-ing-ly is a word. I digress.

Normally, the point that the person honks at me is the point where I glare and start telling them all kinds of things in the privacy of my car. Tonight, I just looked at them and said, “I don’t have any idea why you are honking at me. I’m not the line leader.”

I’m not the line leader.

It didn’t even click for about 30 seconds what I’d said aloud.

Go ahead. I have no defense. Say what you will. I’m losing my edge.

After a fitful night of sleep, I woke up and got dressed and SHELL I had a migraine.

Leon was going out of town, so we decided to meet for lunch. On the way there, I bumped the side of my tire rim on a parking block. SHELL

I had an hour between lunch and a doctor’s appointment, so I went to the dollar tree for a little non-harmful retail therapy. I actually needed some toilet bowl cleaner (WOOO!), so it was productive. Until a woman in the cheeseball aisle walked directly up to me and burped in my face. And not a polite, oopsy burp. A full on sailor belch. I almost vomited. SHELL

When I got to the doctor, I sat in one of the 30 available seats and an old man came in and sat right next to me. Within 3 minutes, I heard a nasty noise, felt a small vibration on the connecting seat and it began to stink really, really bad. Then it happened again. And again.

The old man next to me was pooping in a diaper. Right next to me.

He turned to me and grinned.

He did it on purpose.

SHELL

More stuff happened, but I think that pretty well takes the cake.

When I picked up A.J. from school, we went to Sonic. I got a Route 44 (super huge) Sweet tea and got him a shake. I needed it.

If anyone feels the need to come sit right next to me, when there are 30 available chairs and burp in my face or poop, they can go shell themselves.

Edumacation Stats for one blueshelled GQ Southern mom blogger

4 years for a B.S
+1 year I lost in credits switching schools
+2 years for M.S.
+ 4 years for Ph.D
+1 year M.S. practicum
+2 years apprenticeship for M.S. licensure (70% done with this)
+ 1 year, PhD practicum
+1 year Ph.D internship
+2 years apprenticeship for PhD licensure
= not even close to the prestige that an MD gets for roughly the same amount of education.

I’m about to start the PhD practicum process, so you can see exactly where I am in this development. My M.S is in a different subfield of the Subject, so my PhD will not cover the licensure for it. But I think you get my frustration. Yes, my hours may be cushier and I may not have to do rotations, but I am a highly educated woman and I’m going to know a lot about a lot when I come out of this.

I’m just saying.

I’ll take this one from neatorama. She looks nice and scared. She can come home with me.

Here’s what would happen if I took Tubby home, though. She would first pee on my clothes while rubbing on both Leon and A.J. and destroying my dogs and their will to live. Then she’d eat all of my food and pee on my furniture, only in the places where I sit. Every time I bothered to look at my husband, who would be her new human, she’d glare at me with a look that said “I’m waiting until you die so I can eat your face.” Would you like to know how I know this? Check out this page and see the header “Francis.”

The only thing you really need to know from all of this is that I love animals of most sorts. Not all animals. PETA can come hate on me whenever they want. There are certain animals that scare the bejeebus out of me and that won’t change no matter how much paint or food coloring you splatter on me.

I have a particularly tender heart for animals, actually. I’m one of those people that love my pets like family and care about their well-being. So, for someone like me, the internet can be an unusually hazardous place to navigate. It also makes me angry beyond belief and right now my heart is breaking and my temper is lit like Times Square on New Years Eve.

After reading this article, I am troubled. There is no doubt in my mind that the media used the most flippant picture they could find of this young girl, but it’s hard for me to not want to reach through the computer and tell her some things. In the article, the girl, who is 17 years old and named Cheyenne, said that she roasted her ex-roommate’s kitten to death in the stove as a joke.

A joke.

She roasted a kitten alive as “a joke.” Normal people do not consider this “a joke.” This is after they broke into the person’s apartment and trashed it. That was the beginning of the joke. Then they threw the cat into the stove and left it there to burn. The article, written by Lisa Coleangelo, Erica Pearson and Bill Hutchinson states that she was charged with “aggravated cruelty to animals, burglary, arson, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.” They then released her into her mother’s custody, where she obviously has freedom to do whatever she wants in the first place.

Ok, let’s cast a little aspersion on character for just a small second here. Who, in their right mind, considers what this person did a sound idea? A just idea? When people start harming animals in adolescence, it often leads to stronger issues in adulthood. Of course, they don’t mention if she had any kind of mental check, but they won’t release that kind of information. We have to assume they didn’t or, if they did, she checked out just fine.

Where do we draw the line? If someone is 17, almost an adult, and they show this lack of judgment, what does that mean, if anything? We have graduated licenses for those drivers that aren’t quite ready for the responsibility, what about graduated adulthood? Granting those teenagers that show wise judgment the rights and responsibilities of adulthood and putting those that do not on a graduated course that they, ideally, should have already taken in economics, parenting, society and good common sense, in high school?

I know, I know. It’s a strong statement, but I’m feeling strongly about this today. Thoughts?

There are two things that are not a secret to anyone that knows me even a little bit:

1/I’m not a morning person. Really. I can’t even fake it when I give it the old college try.
2/I am prone to road rage when I feel like someone is a stupid driver. No, I don’t run people down or flip them off, but I will rant at them within the confines of my own car and it won’t be pretty, loving words.

However, this particular morning, I was feeling great. I was drinking my water and appreciating that I have the privilege of driving along a road that is almost entirely lined with trees for 20 minutes straight to go to a job I love with all of my heart and that I actually look forward to each and every time I go there. Life was good and I was happy.

Until…BABY ON BOARD!!!!! ALERT!!!! THERE IS A BABY IN THIS CAR!!! What this means is that I will frequently brake and jerk my car and you will be responsible for HARMING MY CHILD!!!! should you hit this car. I will weave in and out of a two-lane road and I may, without warning, brake for no reason! And you won’t know about it because my baby on board sign will be blocking the brake light in the back windshield and the brake lights will also be obscured by the sunshine! So, it will be an utter crapshoot as to when this will happen.

My good mood waned and irritation set in as it took everything I had not to use my cell phone light to start morse coding this person that her baby on board sign was blocking the only means I had to keep from driving directly into her trunk. I was carefully keeping my distance, but when I say this person was driving erratically, that is an understatement. I don’t know what the laws are about blocking that brake light, if there are any, but I know that it made driving near her (I’m assuming it was a her, but it could have been a man), very, very difficult.

Luckily, after about 10 minutes of this, she and baby drove off to irritate other drivers and I could proceed on to work. My good mood returned and the day turned out to be another fantastic one.

A more clever baby on board sign

I have to admit, though, if I’m being honest, that she may have conditioned me that people that use those signs have issues. If you want me to believe you care about your child, skip the sign and drive like YOU care about your child. Worry less about me and more about yourself.

William Cunningham is a man who, in a disgusting attempt to gain funds from Campbell’s soup, put lighter fluid in his children’s soup and almost killed them.

It is difficult to work in any kind of helping profession and not become an advocate for children. It’s next to impossible for a parent, working in that profession, to not get herself in massive amounts of trouble when it comes to things like this because her fury overwhelms her.

When I read this story, I was reminded of the anger and upset I felt when I heard about the Susan Smith and Andrea Yates cases. In this particular case, I don’t know whether or not he intended to kill his children, but the fact that he was using their lives as pawns in a sick money scheme for his own benefit has never been in question.

The other night, Leon was out of town and AJ was sleeping. Those moments when I can observe him like the possessive mother that I am are rare and precious because he rarely allows me to just WATCH him. He will make silly faces, or fill the silence with his boyish chatter. When he sleeps, I become aware of how vulnerable he is and how, even though he’s a tall child, he’s small inside with a big heart.

I continue to try to understand how someone can look at their child and see dollar signs. What compels that kind of behavior? I can look at it and diagnose it and think about it rationally and logically, but I want to understand the emotion that is behind that kind of behavior.

I spend many nights carefully considering the best decisions for my child in the long run. What happened within this parent that he didn’t? How quick was his snap to this level?

It doesn’t matter if I ever understand why someone can do this, and truthfully, I don’t know if that knowledge would soothe me or disturb me. The one thing I do know and recognize is that by seeing these cases 2 things are perfectly clear:
1/There are many parents out there that are doing the absolute best they can without harming their children in any way &
2/the only thing I can do in this situation is change my awareness levels and work to help others with their own.