Do you allow your child (under 9 years) to cross the street alone? Educate yourself and them...

This blog comes out of concern for children whose parents allow them to cross streets unsupervised. I constantly witness little kids riding their wobbly bikes on the road, chasing balls, skating, etc in the street without adult supervision. I'm talking about 5, 6, and 7 year olds. As a registered family daycare provider for ten years and a mother of four, I am very experienced with the capabilities of little children.

First and foremost, if you're allowing your young child to cross the street and basing your decision to allow them to do so on their level of maturity, you need some information. Regardless of how "mature" you think your child is, small children have physical limitations that make it dangerous for them to cross the street unsupervised.

There is a child in my neighborhood who crosses back and forth across the street multiple times each day... he is FOUR! His parents are in the house while he is outside playing. This whole scenerio is dangerous on so many levels but the fact that he crosses the street (without looking) is scary. Small children most often have tunnel vision. When he is crossing to get his light saber, all he is thinking about it that toy. I plan on speaking to his mom hopefully, she'll receive it well. I just know I couldn't live with myself, if he got hit by a car and I didn't even try to speak to her.

Here are some facts:
Children are children, not young adults. It's important to understand children's limitations in understanding traffic.

Specifically, children:

* Have a narrower field of vision than adults, about 1/3 less.

* Cannot easily judge a car's speed and distance.

* Assume that if they can see a car, its driver must be able to see them. However, children are easily hidden from view by parked cars and other objects.

* Cannot readily tell the direction a sound is coming from.

* May be impatient and impulsive.

* Concentrate on only one thing at a time. This is likely not to be traffic.

* Have a limited sense of danger.

* Often mix fantasy with reality.

* Imitate the (often bad) behavior of others, especially older children and adults.

Parents... if nothing else, educate your children. This Safety Handout is a great tool for teaching how to cross the street and also for educating yourselves. Know someone whose child is too young to cross the street alone but is allowed to? Care enough to print out the handout and give it to them.

Do working mothers contribute to teen delinquency?

Do you believe that many mothers that work outside the home do so out of "crass materialism" as was posted on my last blog by someone? Do you believe that because a mother works outside the home their children often end up being delinquents? I personally think this is a generalization that is way off the mark; actually I think it is out in Mars! While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I disagreed strongly with this viewpoint and said so. But it prompted me to find out what others out there think on this subject. Check out my other blog (Blog: EXTRA EXTRA...Parents Your Job Is To Be Unpopular) and weigh in....

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it. PARENTS…YOUR JOB IS TO BE UNPOPULAR!

Chronicle Headline....

5 teens face charges over mailbox bomb
Mother says she bought supplies
By Johnny Edwards| Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 13, 2007

So and so (name omitted), 39, of So and So Drive (address omitted), told an investigator she bought the materials for the device at Wal-Mart. She said she knew the boys were making something that would explode but she saw no harm in it because they were only repeating an experiment they had learned at school, Chief Allen said.
She told police she did not know they would put the device into a mailbox, much less the one belonging to the principal and his wife, Renee, who teaches at the high school.

Want to read the rest?
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/021307/met_116309.shtml

If making a bomb wasn’t so dangerous this story would be comical. The fact that the mom bought the supplies and then said she didn’t know they would put it in a mailbox is hilarious to me. I'm sure this is probably a true statement. It's probable she didn't know exactly what they would do with it but I'm thinking...Nothing good can come of this.

Yes, they might have done a similar activity in school but they learn about wars at school too. Are you going to allow your children to re-enact the civil war in the front yard with live ammo? COME ON!! Let’s see… what was the difference between the school experiment and what they did at home? SUPERVISION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although, I would love to know more about the school that is teaching kids to make explosives.

Then there’s my personal favorite… yesterday on some Dr. something or other show there were parents seeking help. The show was called something like, HELP MY TWEEN IS OUT OF CONTROL!"

Their TWEENS (that’s 11 and 12 year olds, people) are WILD, you see. They are dressing provocatively, drinking, smoking, dancing a la Britney Spears when they go out with their friends, they are disrespecting their parents, they’re on the phone talking to boys all day long, and they have a different boyfriend every other day… “What should we do?” they asked.

Maybe I’m just old school but, I want to know…

 Who buys their clothes? Last time I heard 11 year olds couldn’t work.
 Where are these girls ALLOWED to go that they are able to dress provocatively, go dancing, smoke and drink, etc? How do they get there? Who is supervising them?
 Why is it that parents allow themselves to become hostages to their kids?

I’m not even going to say, “When I was eleven blah blah…” What I AM going to say is that I have an eleven year old daughter and guess what? I know where she is at all times, I know what she wears because I buy her clothes, I know who she’s talking to because I make it my business to know, I check up on her to make sure she isn’t giving in to the temptations of her peers and if and when she does mess up… I am right there to dish out the consequences and teach her better.

There is NO WAY she is talking on the phone or on the computer with boys because it is MY phone, MY computer and MY responsibility to assure that she be safe. I supervise to the best of my ability what she does and who she is doing it with. I teach her to respect others and herself. Parenting is more than a fulltime job folks so thing twice or a thousand times before you decide to procreate!

PEOPLE dare to be unpopular!!! Good parenting is NOT measured by how often your child has a smile plastered on their face. If you spend your energy making sure your child is infinitely happy, then you are going about it all wrong.

Children need to be faced with challenges and disappointments. This is part of the problem we have today with teens that lash out at the least provocation. Many of them have a sense that everybody owes them something.

This sense of entitlement often comes from parents that idolize the ground their kids walk on thereby creating a false sense of “I am the King/Queen". It's created, when we don't allow our children to fail or lose. There’s a difference between encouraging your child and creating a self centered person with a chip on their shoulder. This self absorbed person now cannot handle any rejection, criticism, or challenge so they have a melt down (often acting VERY inappropriately), when they’re disappointed in the slightest way.

Failures, challenges, hard work, disappointments are all good things, parents. These setbacks are learning experiences for children and teaching opportunities for parents. Learning HOW to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again is an essential life lesson.

Good parenting REQUIRES that you make the tough decisions even, when your child is heartbroken by it. Why? Because YOU know what’s best for your child. Come on now…. Think back. Remember what you thought you knew at age 12 or even age 18? You have to admit that looking back… you knew absolutely nothing. That’s why God gave us parents… to guide us. It isn’t fun and at times it is down right heart wrenching to do the right thing regardless how upset your child becomes.

Some parents don’t do a good job at guiding their children because they are so caught up in having their children “LIKE” them. I am a mother. I am tough, when I have to be. I am loving...always. I encourage my children and also hold them accountable for their mistakes. I am up on all the trends, music, technology, etc because it brings me closer to my children and being ignorant to what they are exposed to is a disadvantage to me as a parent. My children know I don’t mess around. They also love having me around. Their friends love me and I’m the mom every else's kid calls “Mom”. I don’t try to be popular with my children and their friends but I am.

They all know that I’m strict when I have to be but still love me and want to be around me and my home. Why? They need guidelines and sometimes they are craving for someone to steer them the right way. You wouldn't allow your toddler to walk across I-20 would you? Leniency and passive parenting is interpreted as uncaring a lot of the time.

Have I made mistakes? ABSOLUTELY!! I’ve made many parenting mistakes and I’m no expert but I think I’m qualified to give my opinion. I’m the mother of four children and have helped many children in last 11 years of running a Family Daycare.

I’ve made it a point to learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others. Which is what I want to teach my children as well.

There are no guarantees that doing everything perfectly will result in a perfect child. On the contrary, all we can do is equip them with the tools they will need in life and give them opportunities to practice with them while they are with us. Once they are on their own, it’s up to them to use them. Until then, YOU ARE IN CONTROL!!!!

So, don’t hand your kid a sledge hammer and walk off. Also, don’t go buy your kids materials to build a bomb and walk off. God only knows what will happen.

The next time your kid’s head starts to spin, their face turns blue, and they start spewing green vomitous across the room when they don't get their way, don't give in.

Walk away.

Roses, chocolate, candle light, slow jams... Is this romance to you?

What is romance anyway? I know that most people associate roses and candle light with romance but is this what romance really is? I'm thinking about Valentine's Day. Don't most men buy a bunch of crap to give to the woman in their lives just because it's Valentine's Day? I mean would you get the flowers on February 14th if it weren't Valentine's Day? Probably not. I think that slow jams and candlelight can create a romantic mood but there are other things I think are truly romantic.

My top 5 most romantic things:

1. When he holds your face gently and pulls your face close to his for that tender kiss. I'll tell you... this is VERY romantic!
2. When he places his hand on the small of your back and gently guides you through a crowd.
3. When he tells you that you're beautiful...and you're in your jeans and tee-shirt!
4. When you're in a group of people and you catch him staring at you.
5. When he tenderly kisses your forehead, eyes, cheeks.

Where am I going with this??? Well, I think Valentine's Day is commercialized so much that it isn't romantic anymore. I don't mind the flowers and I love candles and music but I love those things every day. I think we need to get back to the basics. Get creative. The most romantic things are FREE! What are your top 5 romantic things? I'm just wondering what you think?

Where Oh Where has James Brown Gone? Oh Where Oh Where Can He Be?

James Brown left this world on December 25, 2007. It is now 2/6/07 and he is still not laid to rest! His family and attorneys can't agree on the details of his estate including where his final resting place will be so, James Brown's body is in limbo.

Of course, Mr. Brown's body, being the celebrity that he was, went on tour complete with wardrobe changes. First his body was brought to New York’s Apollo Theatre so fans can bid him farewell. He then traveled through Harlem by horse drawn carriage. After New York he was taken to North Augusta where a private ceremony took place for family and close friends. Then it was on to the James Brown Arena for a public viewing.

Once this viewing was over they took his body to a climate controlled room at his Beech Island estate. I don't know about you but I think that's just morbid and quite frankly a bit creepy. He stayed at the estate for 20 days under constant guard.

Now the word is that his body has been moved to a crypt in an “undisclosed location” by his trustees! Do his children know where this location is? I don’t know but it would be very disturbing to me to know my parent died and I didn’t know where their remains were.

Anyway, James Brown had a funeral fit for a king complete with gold casket (NO not gold in color...24 karat GOLD!) and celebrities. Now he gets to WAIT to rest in peace. I’m just wondering… what do you think?

Extra reading….
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
http://www.startribune.com/1526/story/964284.html
Last update: January 28, 2007 – 12:12 AM
…children are in a financial dispute with the trustees of the Brown estate, and it is possible that he will not be laid to rest until it is settled. In recent weeks, Brown's body, sealed in a gold-painted casket, has been kept in a temperature-controlled room at his home in Beech Island, S.C.
NEW YORK TIMES

http://www.eonline.com/news
Thu, 1 Feb 2007 10:08:00 PM PST
To date, Brown's body is still lying in a sealed gold casket that has been removed to an undisclosed location. The legal wrangling has postponed burial. Another Brown attorney, Debra Opri, told E! Online last month that the family is planning to turn the residence into a Graceland-style memorial site.

66 pets + 1 mobile home + 2 human inhabitants = ?

According to an Associated Press Story I read on The News Tribune website, health officials condemned a mobile home in Michigan that was FULL of dogs and cats. Sixty six animals to be exact. In this mobile home also lived a 68 year old woman and her 22 year old daughter. Both of these poor women knew their pet population was WAY out of hand but apparently didn't know how to deal with it. They did however, become "used to having their clothing, especially the lower parts of their pants, covered in feces. The women shared a bed, also covered with animal waste, and protected themselves from the filth by wearing heavy jackets and pants at night, deputies said."

Now, if this is not disturbing enough the article also mentions that they could possibly be faced with CRIMINAL CHARGES. Yes, I agree that animals do have the right to live their lives free from abuse. Yes, I agree that these women OBVIOUSLY let this get WAY out of hand. However, does it not occur to anyone that they may need some psychological help? Do we care more about the animals than the two women who didn't have the sense to seek help say 50 animals ago?

I'm just saying...this seems like a no brainer to me! They need help. Get the animals new homes and help these women get on the road to recovery!!!

I'm just wondering....what do you think? Read the article for yourselves.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/24hour/weird/story/3484058p-12736556c.html

Are You FAT? Are you sure?

First things first. This is my first entry. One might ask, What the heck is a blog anyway? A blog is a place for unedited personal expression (within reason of course!).

My blog will be tidbits that may not necessarily be of importance to anyone. That will make you want to read it, I'm sure! Anyway, this blog will be my take on the world, the events going on in our corner of the world or the corners of my mind (dusty at times), and on matters related to just about anything. Now that that is cleared up…

Are you fat? I mean are you really fat or are you just fat in your head? I can remember (back when I weighed a lot less than I do now) thinking, “Man, I am FAT!” NOW, I look back at pictures from that exact same time in my life and see a thin woman. So, the questions are…
 Was I fat then and now I’m just fatter so it SEEMS thin?
 Am I really fat now and just was messed up in the head back then? Which would mean that this whole Weight Watchers thing is probably a great idea.
 Who really cares if I was fat then or now?
 Why do we waste time thinking about how horrible we look, when chances are it is a warped vision created by our own traitorous minds? Besides, it’s all relative isn’t it? I mean, I’m thin compared to say an elephant.
I’m wondering…. Do you ever think like this????????

Note to me: You are what you PERCEIVE yourself to be.