Buckle your seatbelt or you could die!

I know, I know it has been forever since I have posted. My bad! I came back though! When I have a lot to say this is easier then making the longest post in history on Facebook and annoying all my friends. I was reading on Huffington Post: Parents and article by Susannah Lewis on parenting mistakes. I think mistakes are human and the ones she brings up everyone is doing the majority or all of them! She uses humor to open the discussion and make you realize just because you may have done these your child is probably not going to turn into a serial killer (I hope!). I know I do things I shouldn't do all the time and they are little things that make me feel bad after, but it is in no way mentally scarring or abuse. It is fight every night to get L to get to bed. Like yelling and threats to get this kid to lay down and be quiet for 2 seconds because that is all it takes for her to fall asleep! I like sleep she likes sleep why won't she just lay down?!

L graduated to a booster seat after she turned 4 and everything was great for months. Then in the last few months she decided she doesn't like it, it hurts her bottom, she needs me, and a million other excuses why she can't sit in it. Imagine all this whiny is a very sad, tearful voice. Do I cave? H to the no! Safety is key! I tried telling her to leave it on and not to unbuckle it. I tried threats about unbuckling. Finally I tried to explain to her if you don't leave you seatbelt on and we are in an accident you could die. What her 4 year old mind got apparently if you don't do this (insert anything you are not supposed to do) you could die.

We saw a no parking sign the other day which was a P with a red circle and line through it. L thought it meant no Ps allowed. I explained the P was for parking and it meant no parking. Last night we went to the restroom at Walmart and they had one of the baby seats in the bathroom that has a warning on it with the correct and the incorrect way to strap in a baby/toddler. L's take away of the example of the baby not buckled in and falling out of the seat with a red circle with a line through it...if the baby falls out she could die! I awkwardly tried to explain that while I guess that could happen if said baby fell directly on her head in some freak accident, but the baby would probably just be injured. She had some long explanation about how if the baby fell the doctor would have to come, but she would die because she wasn't supposed to do that.

Beginning to rethink my example of not wearing your seat belt in an accident could lead to death. Maybe it was a little over the top although she has been better about not unbuckling!

Furlough and the Single Parent

Its always exciting not knowing when or what your next pay check will be. Its actually not. It can be a little scary, but as this is only the first day of the furlough its not really the time to start freaking out yet! As a single parent with only one source of income its feels a little more uncertain. What about the other parent you say? Well he is supposed to be paying child support that I haven't had increased since my daughter was first born, but that only happens when the state can track him down. He changes jobs like most people change underwear! He tries to stay ahead of the state to avoid paying child support and seems to not care one iota if his children have what they need. It gets on my nerves at times like this when money is tights and I have received $40 bucks in the last 3 months. I had to put off paying my daughters preschool today because I am to worried about what will happen later this month if we are off for an extended period of time. 

I was doing ok this morning trying to prioritize bills until my mom called and seemed to want to stress me out about crap that didn't have anything to do with furlough or was out of my control. Anyway back to the single parent and furlough part.  Is it scary having one income that is now in question? Uh,  hell yeah! Am I going to sit in a corner rocking myself and crying? Uh,  not quite. I will survive and hopefully I can lean on some family if it gets to bad. Things could be worse I could  have no one to fall back on. Oh yeah did I mention my only living parent is also a federal worker?! Hopefully she is more prepared then me! Times like these are a little hard,  but that has been most of the last few years. Doing it on your own will always be a struggle no matter if the government is a pain in the booty and decides to shut its doors cutting off my pay or not. Now in closing never ever ever under any circumstances tell a single parent that you feel like a single parent because your significant other is working hard bringing home a paycheck and you feel all alone. You are probably really not and it just pisses off the single parent! It has happened to me more than once and just makes me want to tell people to grow up. Someone always has it worse than you and when you are bitching about your life you probably are oblivious to what is going on around you.

Tatted Up

Shaping a Small Person

I am a single mother who is raising a crazy kid far from family with little (really no involvement) from the other half of her DNA contributor. I sometimes feel bad for my daughter because even though she is three you can tell she kinda wonders why her dad isn't around like her friends dads. Myself and everyone I know who or has met him thinks she will be better off in the long run with no influence from him. I was raised without my father around as he passed away when I was a baby, but I did have good role models in my grandfather and other family members. Luckily I have some great fiends that are always willing to lend a hand.

 I do the best I can even though I wonder sometimes if my best is good enough. I am not the best with money and I hope I don't pass that down to her because I think some of my issues came from my family.  I do hope she get my compassion, willingness to help those less fortunate (humans and animals), love of travel, and love of reading. Oh yeah and my commonsense, a little goes a long way! This was not at all what I planned to write about this morning, but I guess that can wait until another day.

Let's Talk About Bathrooms

I'm not talking about kids using the bathroom, I'm talking about them bothering you when you are! Maybe they are trained from when they are toddlers and you force them in a stall with you are in public places. L would try and escape the stall as soon as you were not watching her like a hawk. Now though at home there is almost ZERO alone time. It drives me nuts! I don't want or need an audience. I don't even like the dog greeting me when I am half awake in the morning! Mind you my house has 3 1/2 baths for two of us. For some reason the easiest accessible/best working bath L has decided is hers and freaks out if I ask her to leave while I am in there. Sometimes things go down hill and it turns into to an angry, screaming argument. I don't know what to do, but sneak in there when her attention is diverted. This does not give me hope for the future.

There's a Spider!

Last night my 3 year old went to the back of the house to her toy room and quickly did a 180 and came back screaming about a spider and a spider web. Things like this usually happen about .2 seconds after I sit down. This was probably the case because I have to turn on her tv so I was likely just back there. I got up after she pulled on my hand for a second and I went on a hunt for the great spider. She stood in the door way refusing to come in the room. She kept pointing and saying there's the spider as I tried to get her to point it out to me because I really didn't see anything. I tried for a few minutes to figure out what she was pointing at and finally gave up. She still insisted there was a spider and/or spiderweb and refused to come in the room.  In frustration I swung a towel around the walls pretending to wipe it off and then she really started to freak out and ran away screaming!

I came back into the main part of the house and she demanded to call her Grammy who lives half a country away. I dialed for her and told her they may be sleeping. When my mother picked up L started going off about the spider and the spider web. My grandmother who lives with my mother than picked up the other line. The kid went off the spider for 15 minutes! I was laughing and she did not want to let it go. I eventually told her I threw the spider out in the trash and she kept looking in the can telling her Grammies the spider was in the trash. The rest of the night she kept a wide berth around the toy room and looked at it suspiciously!