Stay at Home Mom.com

What a week! The dog got hit by a car, the second teenage boy in the house reached driving age (not related to dog being hit by a car), and the fish died. The memorial day weekend brought massive rainstorms and a houseful of runny noses, high temperatures and sore throats. I now have my alarm clock set for every four hours so I can remember when it’s ok for every one in the house to have another round of tylenol (most of all me).

My teenager just came up to me and asked I saw anything in his ear. Oooooh….. yuck. Something in his ear? Fortunately, he told me this 10 minutes before his doctor’s office closed instead of 10 minutes after. We zipped down to the office and the report is good - yes, the kid is sick - no, there’s no critter in his ear. Just a good old fashioned earache that goes along with a sore throat.

The dog is in the house and there is dog hair everywhere. ugh. Usually, the dog spends most of his day outside and comes in just to sleep.

The pizza in the oven is completely black. Oh well, missed that one. Guess it’s peanut butter and jelly for dinner tonight. Although, everyone is still getting over colds and no one is very hungry anyway.

There is so much housework to do it’s mind boggling. It hardly seems possible to even make a dent.

Even in the midst of piles of laundry, dead fish, and burnt dinner there is so much sunshine. There is peace in the smile of your child, the hug, the littlest words of appreciation. While I was down at the doctors office the 8 year old called me and in his sweet little voice and said “Mom! I have something really important to say to you.” So I ask him what it is and he just replies “Bye. Just wanted to say that”.

There is a cheerios commercial playing right now that shows a dad eating cheerios and his infant in his arms eating dry cheerios one at a time. It is a sweet little commercial and it reminded me of the days my little darlings were that size. I remember being tired and always having too much to do and not enough time. It is one of the sweetest times as a parent when your baby falls asleep on your arms and you have that moment to just sit there with them and enjoy that moment.
Then all of a sudden they are teenagers. And being a mom becomes even more fun - and more challenging.

So, what is the point of all this? To me, it is important that we love every moment of this adventure and totally enjoy those little moments of joy and sunshine that are always here even through the rainclouds.

Another MySpace.com story. If you haven’t heard about MySpace.com then you probably don’t have any kids in middle school or high school yet. MySpace.com was an idea that went out to almost every high school across the country. The school system provides each student with their own webspace that they can use to develop their own websites. It was a nice idea, I suppose, to give every child, regardless of ability to have internet access in their homes, to have their own website. Level the playing field I guess. The only problem was that the schools didn’t even really seem to know how to fully teach the kids about the tool they had given them.

Now in this most recent story a kid posted jokes about a teacher on his MySpace site and is being sued by the teacher.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Without knowing more than what is posted on the news site I am sort of on the kids side on this one. And, in general, when it comes to myspace.com, I am on the kids side. We have given them an incredible tool but we didn’t give them any guidance. Even if we don’t fully understand the technology and its full implications we need to keep our kids safe.

Only a couple of more weeks to summer vacation!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The “Mother’s Day Proclamation” by Julia Ward Howe was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother’s Day in the United States. Written in 1870, Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe’s feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.

Today, the proclamation is included in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition.

Mother’s Day Proclamation

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Retrieved from Wikipedia