Velveteen Mind

An Oreo Never Killed Anybody

Let me quote that again for anyone out there baking organic cookies and saying, "Weeellllll...."

"An Oreo never killed anybody."

This is good news for me and fantastic news for Pants, our resident Oreo addict.  For him, though, Oreo's aren't just a special treat, they are a memory in-the-making.

We don't keep Oreo's in the house.  We don't really keep many snacks in the house, mostly because our resident health nut can not control his snacking, so we have to eliminate temptation.  Therefore, Pants has to get his Oreo fix from my parents' house, which works out nicely for him as their house is in our front-yard.  It looks like I haven't mentioned yet that we moved into my parents' guest house after losing our home in Katrina.  We are certainly eagerly working toward moving into our own home again, but in the meantime we are grateful to not be in a FEMA trailer or Katrina Cottage like so many other families on the Gulf Coast.  But I digress.

I'm not sure when it started, but my dad gives Pants an Oreo almost every time he goes up to their house to visit.  It's a grandpa thing.  I had a grandpa thing with my Grandpa Charlie:  Starlight Peppermints. 

In fact, I remember the first time I saw Starlight Peppermints in a store.  I felt shocked and a little betrayed; I thought that they were my grandpa's candy, as in he was the only person in the world from whom you could get this stuff.  It seemed wrong that you could just buy it in a store.  And another bit of innocence falls away, sniff sniff.

Everyone should have a grandpa thing.  Hell, they should have a grandpa thing, a grandma thing, an aunt and uncle thing, a brother/ sister thing, and most certainly a mom and dad thing.  Lots of them, in fact. 

This is why I loved what I found on Paula Spencer's site and blog, Momfidence.com.  I heard about her on Rush Limbaugh (ever since becoming addicted to Radio for the Blind in New Orleans, I only listen to talk radio these days) and had to Google her last night.  Her book Momfidence seems so right up my alley.  Her tagline is "Lose the Guilt, Love Your Instincts."  Thank you.

I want to do right by my kids.  I really do.  But at the end of the day, I have to believe that I know what's best for them.  Yes, I read all of the parenting magazines and lots of books, but when I'm done with them, I walk away.  They aren't my Bibles.  I take what works for our family and leave the rest.  I choose my battles, as I know that if I trust my instincts (along with a healthy dose of education to inform those instincts), I will win the war.

Sometimes that means letting Pants watch hours (yes, I said hours) of TV one morning while I do something for Mom.  I'm right here with him, paying loose attention to him, but otherwise he's on his own.  For the most part, on those mornings he doesn't even watch whatever is on the TV screen.  He just plays in front of it on and off, using whatever is going on on-screen as inspiration for whatever play he's acting out with all of his "guys."  I'd love to feel guilty about this, but I would also love to remain sane, so you pick and choose.

Sometimes that means hanging out in our pajamas all day and snacking on and off on our favorite food.  No organized breakfast and lunch, just us cows grazing.

MoodSwingingMommy had a great post about this parenting approach recently.  One of my favorite parts:

I am no June Cleaver!  Today Dear Son was "feeding" his Cookie Monster the crumbs that he found on the floor.  Cookie Monster is mighty well-fed living in our house.

And yet, somehow, I doubt that they are filthy little buggars.  I imagine they bear the hallmarks of a lived-in home:  clean, comfortable, accessible...  amid all of the dinosaurs, Dora's, piles of books, balls, Cookie Monsters, and yes, crumbs.

So I ordered Momfidence from Amazon.com and will let you know how it turns out for me.  I'm looking forward to a little support for a parent who is simultaneously laid-back and not afraid to be the boss rather than the buddy.  I'm the Mom, aka The Omniscient Boss.  I do not quiver in the face of either parenting magazines or my own little cookie monsters.

Playground Political Primary

It is finally time for our little family to enter the land of Playground Politics.  Can you believe it has taken us this long?  Pants is 2 1/2 and Cheeks is 8 months old.

We have a new park in our neighborhood.  Actually, it's a revitalized old park.  Hurricane Katrina destroyed the little playground in Bayou View, which is our neighborhood, which then proceeded to just sit there, all broken and collapsing for the next year.  After discovering that no one was planning on fixing it anytime soon, a local resident started a campaign to rebuild the park, got the Junior Auxiliary involved, and viola--  a brand spanking new state-of-the-art park! 

So now we have to go.  All the time.

Amazingly enough, we have never had the opportunity to really be a playground-going family until now.  When we lived in New Orleans, we went to the zoo or Audubon Park, but usually steered clear of the playground because I would see rats there at night, jumping around the trash cans.  Not that we hung out at the playground at night--  I would see them from St. Charles Ave. as we passed.  Ugh.

When we moved to Long Beach, Mississippi, I was all geared up to be a playground-going mom.  Pants was just turning one, so it was perfect timing.  Unfortunately, we went all of twice before the hurricane wiped out all of the playgrounds a couple of months later.  Another reprieve from the dangerous world of "playground politics" I had heard so much about so far in my young motherhood.

Now there is no more denying it:  the time has come to go to the playground.  Insert booming "dah duh daaaaaahhhhh" music here.   

The new Bayou View Park playground opened last weekend.  We missed the big celebration (bands, food, face painting extravaganza!), but did start going in the evenings this week.  Well, Al or my brother started taking Pants, I should say.  For very pathetic reasons (I wanted to wash a cute outfit, okay?!), I didn't go until Tuesday evening.  Yes, my official coming out event!

All that hoopla, and I didn't see a single cute mom to chat up in the whole damn park.  As we were there during dinner hours, it was just an odd mix of frumpy moms and their sort of loopy kids, none of which looked like they would want to visit.  None of which looked like they even wanted to smile.  Just a spotty sea of dirty faces and grubby clothes.  Hmmm, where were the moms like me?  Is all of this "playground politics" talk involving cliques just an urban myth aimed at keeping playground overcrowding at bay?

So today, on my errand-running way and brief escape from the house sans-kids, I decided to drive by the playground during what I figured would be peak stay-at-home mom hours and see if I could spot any potential like-minded moms.  Yes, I was cruising the park for mommy friends. 

Hopes high and a hint of butterflies in my stomach, I turned the corner and was awed by the sight before me: 

Industry of Cool

This weekend we headed off to Mobile for the Festival of Flowers and a visit with Al's parents.  I have set my heart on the lofty goal of starting a garden this weekend, so I thought a festival celebrating that goal would be the perfect encouragement.  Although I didn't buy any plants, I did buy lots of garden decorations (read:  more perceived "junk" to clutter up the house, as far as Al is concerned) and do feel rather inspired.

True inspiration was to be found, however, in a coffee date with the brilliant mind behind Suburban Oblivion , the lovely Sara.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm still struggling with the whole platform of blogging versus the traditional pen & paper journal.  She, however, is not.  She has fully embraced the blog as the ultimate journal, or, more importantly, journal for public consumption.  Aah, a brain ripe for the picking!

I used the word "pretentious" in reference to blogging earlier.  Why?  Simply, I find it pretentious to approach any of my friends or family and say, "Hey, I have a blog, wanna check it out?"  To me, this rings more closely to, "Hey, I am terribly interesting; wanna read the freakin' hilarious stuff I blather on about?"  I have a sneaking suspicion that although they may smile and say "sure," they will actually be thinking, "Why would I want to waste my time reading about your crappy day when I barely have time to think about my own crappy day?"  This is the reason I have so far told exactly two of my friends/family about this here piece o' internet gold.

So that leaves open the choice to simply not tell the people I know in real life, but rather teach myself how to link myself to other blogs (well, get them to link to me) and share my blog on message boards, etc.  For my internet "friends" only.  This is where I straighten my Star Trek posters and adjust my webcam, by the way.  But then, if I only tell them, that would seriously reduce the prospective audience I'm (possibly) trying to reach.  Smaller audience, fewer thoughts provoked, fewer comments...  and here we reach my true dilemma:

Do I want to make myself a comment whore?

Let me not fool myself--  I know myself well enough to know that once people start reading this, I'll want them to post a comment, and that's where my figurative levee is breached:  people start reading this, someone leaves a comment, then I'll start hoping for more comments, then I'll start eagerly checking to see if people have left comments, then I might start thinking to myself, "This would make for great blog fodder and elicit lots of comments!"...  and then I've sold my writing soul to the devil. 

Somewhere, deep in my little ego, tied directly into my thought processes, which leach out into my fingers, which push these little keyboard buttons, I will have spoiled the purist nature of journaling in a paper journal with a pen in hand, for my eyes only, and will begin to take my audience into consideration.  And then what?  I fear I will begin whoring myself out for comments.

So this is where Sara came in.  Yep, right there at the whole "whoring" point.