The other day, I happened to be driving to work and was enjoying the morning. The rain that had been greeting us every day for the last several weeks had cleared, the sun was shining brightly, the clouds looked like the ones you see in children’s books (fluffy and round) and the weather was a perfect 72 degrees.
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.
For the last week, it’s been raining cats, dogs, iguanas and banana popsicles where I live. What that means is that my poor little boy has not been able to play his baseball and his poor parents have been missing their socialization time. It’s not something the league advertises; It’s simply a perk of being the parent of a talented little player. You become part of the screaming, yelling, slowly losing their sportsmanlike behavior exhibiting pack of hyenas known as Ball parents.
We’re the ones that make the poor high school Umps wish they’d taken that job at the Baskin Robbins. We love our kids and it’s almost impossible to tone down those Mama Bear instincts. I’m not saying we don’t try, but what you have to remember is that, if our kid is in a sport, chances are that one or both of his or her parents were in a sport. It’s hard to turn off that team spirit aka the “argue button.”
I first realized this was a problem for me when AJ played basketball. Out of nowhere, the words would come flying out of my mouth. “C’mon Ref! How come you didn’t call that?” The refs at the local Y didn’t appreciate that as it’s supposed to be a place motivated by the love of Christ. I was motivated by…look, he was BLIND! Couldn’t he see it was a foul?! You get the picture.
Baseball is much better for me. I played basketball for only a year, but softball for 8. To say I love everything about the sport is an understatement and having AJ play baseball is awesome for both of us because Leon played baseball as well. We don’t care about him winning, we just want him to do his best.
I just lied. To you.
I want him to skunk the soup out of those other little boys. I want them to run after his hits and overthrow his bases. I want him to raise his hands and jump on the bases and I’ll even let him twirl on third like he did last week (please don’t ask). I am FAR too competitive and I’m aware of my fault.
Baseball has been gone for a week. Little league is better than the majors, in my opinion. I miss it so much that I was tempted to pick a fight in the grocery store tonight just so I could ask someone if they were blind. With my luck, I’d pick on the one blind person in the store.
Come back, little league. I need other parents that understand and an outlet for my aggression.
Never once have I pretended that I know everything about having a healthy body. It has only been a recent development in my life that I care what I choose to nourish my body and the way that I view it. I willingly admit that I have not always made the best decisions where my body was concerned and there were times that I should have said no to the french friends and yes to the fruits where AJ was concerned. With that said, I still feel perfectly fine saying that, when I read this article in the Mail Online, I was pretty floored, and not in that happy excited way that I get when I find a new coach purse (more later on my designer tastes while being stingy with my money). No, this was a different feeling. It was anger mixed with contempt. I admit that I judged this woman.
Here’s why: I have no idea how big 30 stone is. I don’t care if you are 2 stone, 30 stone or 3000 stone. Because I don’t know what that means and I’m too lazy to look it up, it suddenly becomes irrelevant to my story. What is relevant is that the woman, presumably she of the 30 stones, is nourishing her children with McDonald’s at 6 months old.
I’ll wait for your shock and awe to pass. Look, there may be some extenuating circumstances that I don’t know about and I’m prepared for that. If there is something I don’t understand, someone contact me and I can say I’m wrong. Check back for the edit and it may eventually be here. I doubt it, but maybe. However, as a mom, I feel like this is pretty irresponsible.
Within the article, it notes that the babies consume about 1,250 calories a day. Listen, I don’t talk about my lifestyle changes a lot here, but I don’t consume much more than that. I’m close to 6′ tall. I’m a large woman. These are infants. 8 months old. Most 8 month olds cannot even walk, so it’s not as if they are burning calories. This cannot bode well for these children. How is this not considered child abuse?
Studies have shown that children who are obese that have an obese parent have a 79% chance of being obese as an adult (Whitaker, et. al, 1997). What do you think the opportunities are for these children to avoid heart related illness?
As parents, we are called required to be diligent in how we teach our children to make choices about their bodies. There is a reason they use the word “neglect.” It’s negligent to give a child who is still developing nothing but this junk. In the last 4 months, I’ve watched AJ change his way of thinking about food. He’s still able to eat the “good stuff” now and then, but he doesn’t live on it. Since then, he’s been sick much, much less. He doesn’t get winded as easily. He’s a happier person. I’m not saying you have to be thin to be happy. I’m saying, give your children the choice of whether or not they want to have high cholesterol or other heart related issues. Don’t force it on them due to your own laziness and neglect.
Citations:
Whitaker, R.C., Wright, J.A., Pepe, M.S., Seidel, K.D., & Dietz, W.H. (1997). Predicting obesity in young adulthood from childhood and parental obesity. The New England Journal of Medicine. 337(13), 869-873.
This will not turn into Jillian’s whine and moan weight loss journey. I’ve been there, done that, bought the tshirt and then turned the tshirt into rags to clean my bathroom. However, this blog is my whiny, narcissistic anger management journal and, by all that is holy and reverent, if I don’t get off my weight loss plateau, I am going to explode. I mean it. I will cover this whole house in cellulite and don’t think I won’t do it.
ONE MONTH. One month of no movement on the scale. It taunts me. I’m at *mumble*.2 pounds. Seriously. *Mumble*.2 pounds for a month. It’s the .2 pounds that’s taunting me. And now, it’s starting to move up. My nutritionist, Fran, has finally given me the go ahead to drop down 200 calories because, frankly, I think she fears the cellulite explosion.
It’s not helping. If anything, I think I may gain because of this. I’ve read the googled sites. They say that I need to “shake up my routine” and exercise more, which is out due to my knee. Eat at different times. Eat more. Eat less. Eat upside down, which is my preferred sleeping position according to Husband since all this started. Eat less carbs. Eat more protein. Hop on one less and shout your grandmother’s middle name while tugging on your earlobe.
I’m to the point where I’m wondering if donating blood would get rid of that pesky .2 pounds, at least until it regenerates. I’m trying the eating more thing. The problem is that I’m not hungry. There. I said it. Throw your stones. I don’t eat when I’m not hungry anymore. 4 months in and I just don’t do it and I’m not going to and sometimes that means that I can go a week at 1,000 calories a day and now that means I’m not losing weight even if I have one day a week where I eat anything I want and can get 2500-3000 calories that day.
Fran and I need to have some one on one time. It’s scheduled for the end of the month. Our relationship is suffering. I’m going to jump back on the physical therapy and try to get to where I can do exercise. I have no idea what to do abotu food other than eat when I’m hungry and eat right. I just bought a new scale to show the old one who is boss. It’s pretty and glass and the old one is dirty and plastic. Who is in charge now? The only problem? It actually shows me as heavier than Old Faithful.
I rarely see red, but when someone makes a comment that is so clearly ignorant and damaging to so many people, I lose my noodle. Here, let me let you read it and then we’ll talk. A friend of mine, who knows my affinity for the game, sent me this message. I assumed it was a joke or hoax, as I couldn’t find the origin, until it was clear it wasn’t when the local television station in Columbia, Missouri, KMIZ (their local station, not mine), chose to write a couple of articles on it. As an aside, KMIZ has prudently chosen to remove the initial article, but has left the reiterated “warning” up.
Police have condemned adults who play the latest in Nintendo’s popular Animal Crossing series, “Animal Crossing: City Folk”, as being predatory paedophiles, saying “There is no reason an adult should have this game”, and claiming that the only motive an adult could have for playing it is to seduce children.
The warning comes from the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force, where investigator Andy Anderson warns that any adult playing the game “is likely doing so for the wrong reasons”, and points out that online predators could be lurking in the game thanks to its multiplayer capabilities.
Anderson further warns that police just don’t have the resources to stamp out the Animal Crossing lolicon menace, meaning parents may even have to resort to supervising their own children: “The equipment is real expensive and we cannot afford to buy all of the systems and do not have the resources either to examine all of the possibilities.”
The source darkly talks of the game’s relationship building system, where players can exchange letters, gifts and favours in pursuit of friendship, implying out that these elements are tantamount to putting children on a nationwide lolicon meat-market.
First, it’s personal. I play the game. I do and I love it. Oh, yes I do. It’s a fun, non-challenging, mind-numbing game that allows me to connect with my 8-year old. I watch him play the game, he watches me play the game, we compete for whatever goodies are in the recycling bin, we negotiate for furniture and items, he learns the value of a dollar and he’s already learning that he has to pay a mortgage and contribute to his community as he gets older. It teaches friendship and volunteerism, savvy saving and negotiation, taking care of a home and keeping a job, but also relaxing and fishing and playing hide and go seek.
So far, there are no little red flags going off about the fishing going on or the apple picking taking place in the game, but if I find anything “sickening” about the game, I will be the first to take Nintendo to task.
Second, the initial article stated that their was no reason for an adult to play the game. Well, was there a reason for an adult to play Mario Bros? Probably not, other than it was hellatiously fun. How many of the people on that force played Mario Bros? Or Zelda? Or Super Smash Bros? Let’s get me started on the fact that when I was first introduced to the game, through Nintendo’s excellence in marketing, it was through this commercial:
Anyone notice anything interesting about the people in that commercial? Do they look like little kids to you? I thought to myself, “Self, what a great way to connect with your friends and family.” My little sister is 12 years old and lives with my mother. My friends live all over the country and some outside of the country. With Wii-Speak, we could play a game together and hang out at the same time. What a fascinating concept? Nintendo had me hooked only to have these idiots call me a pedophile? What the soup?
Let me tell you how something like this affects people. Being called a pedophile, and having that suspicion cast on me would cause me to lose my job, the career I’ve spent over 8 years in school for as well as throw me out of my doctoral program. It would help me lose my child, with whom I have a fantastic relationship. I would be a pariah in my society.
Let’s think before we speak task-force. It’s something I taught my son when he was 4.
As a parent, monitor everything your child does on the internet and on anything that connects to it including gaming systems and cell phones. This is common parenting sense.
But if anyone truly thinks everyone who plays this game has these issues they really need to examine why they might believe that someone who likes an innocent video game for stress relief has those kinds of pathological feelings about children. “All” is a serious and damaging generalization and should be avoided if possible. And please don’t believe everything you see or read on the news or even on the blogosphere. It’s sensationalism and everyone writes for an audience. Myself included.
Life is like a game. We all have challenges, thoughts, opinions and beliefs. Often, it feels like something out there, life, karma, catty people, or blue shells (for the Kart lovers), seeks to bring us down. Luckily, we always get up. This is where I wear my heart on my sleeve and my foot in my mouth.
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We are members of one great body. Nature planted in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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The other day, I happened to be driving to work and was enjoying the morning. The rain that had been greeting us every day for the last several weeks had cleared, the sun was shining brightly, the clouds looked like the ones you see in children’s books (fluffy and round) and the weather was a perfect 72 degrees. 
Life is like a game. We all have challenges, thoughts, opinions and beliefs. Often, it feels like something out there, life, karma, catty people, or blue shells (for the Kart lovers), seeks to bring us down. Luckily, we always get up. This is where I wear my heart on my sleeve and my foot in my mouth.
