People, I Have a Problem!

So. We have acquired a kitten. I know you’re thinking to yourself “how does one just acquire a kitten?” Let me answer that for you. I belong to a page on Facebook for military wives. I am no longer a military wife, but my kids are military kids and it’s nice to have a group of ladies that understand the struggles.

Anyway, someone found an itty bitty kitty playing in the road outside of the base. They of course posted an adorable photo of the kitten asking for some pushover (raises hand “me”) to foster or adopt the kitten. I have too many animals, and some may question if I have too many children as well, but I thought I could totally foster this tiny baby cat until we collectively found her a forever home.

I picked up the cat like an obvious drug deal going down in the middle of the parking lot of a local bakery, but instead of exchanging drugs for money, we exchanged a kitten for a handshake and gratitude. Well, I can’t think of a good reason that I shouldn’t keep her. She’s got a sweet round face and patch work fur. She squeaks and meows. She does obvious cat stuff. She adopted us as her people, and now I can’t give her away. 

No one let me foster another animal. I cannot handle the responsibility. I just can’t do it. I’m a few animals away from being a hoarder.

Yes. I know I have a problem.

Meet our new kitten, Callie Cat!

One day, I too will be a motherless mom

My 36^th birthday crept up on me very quickly. It truly feels like I just turned twenty-five last year, but I digress. This past year I have become more aware of my mortality, as well as the mortality of my parents, but especially my mother. Sure, I learned about this stage of development in adults entering middle age and I understand that it’s perfectly normal. I guess I just didn’t expect for me to hit me at the most inopportune time, my birthday.

Every year my mom calls me for my birthday and before I can speak, she begins singing me the Happy Birthday song. Every year without fail, she sings me the song and proceeds to tell me that my birthday isn’t really until later in the evening, around 7:10 EST. I know that I can count on this phone call, no matter what she’s doing. This year she was at work, and made a point to step out during her morning break and call me for my birthday song. This year was also the year that my adult brain decided it was time to hit this developmental milestone of the middle aged. As my mom happily sang to me as she’s done every year that I can remember, the backs of my eyes began to sting, and a lump formed in my throat. 

For the first time in my entire life, it dawned on me, that I should soak up every pitch of her voice and the way she formed all of her words, because one birthday the phone wouldn’t ring. One birthday instead of awkwardly smiling while she finished the song, instead I would be crying because it would be the first year that I didn’t hear that high pitched squeal following her melodic celebration of my birth. 

Now, as a person in my thirties, I certainly have experienced death, and have several friends that have lost one or both parents. Knowing someone that has lost a parent is not the same as losing one yourself, and the weight that comes along with it. In fact, I’m not sure I would know how to parent without my mom. I still call my mom for all kinds of advice or when my feelings are hurt. I can’t help but want my mom to help me feel better. 

For now, I have decided that I can’t fear what may come in the future. While I still have the luxury of celebrating major life events with my mom, I’m going to enjoy it. I’ll just be sure to cherish the things that I once took for granted. I’ll ask the questions that I don’t remember the answers to. I’ll call and do my best to visit more. I’ll soak up her scent and commit it to memory. 

My mom is one of my very best friends, and when she gets old my siblings and I will likely fight over who she is going to live with (seriously, I see this becoming a very real issue for us). She has taken the time to make each of us feel special, and has nurtured our individual personal relationships with her. I strive daily to be at least half the mom that she was, and is to me. 

One day, I too will be a motherless mom, but today I’m just not ready and may not ever be.

~J~

Don't Pee on That!

Kids. They truly just amaze me. Unpredictable yet predictable. Sporadic yet consistent. And just when you think you've got their tricks down to a science, they make a complete game changer!

 

When my girls were younger I thought, “Oh I got this! These girls are a piece of cake.” Now that I have a boy, man have my thoughts taken a complete 180!

 

When I was pregnant and found out I was having a boy, let me tell you….I was not a happy mama!! I did not want a boy. I didn’t know what to do with a boy. I am a girly girl, and just the thought of a boy and dirt and sports I was so lost….for the rest of my pregnancy. Once he got here though, man was my life complete. Even to this day he is the light of my life. Don’t get me wrong, so are my girls. But they don’t want much to do with me anymore…unless it has to do with fashion, nails or hair go figure! Lil man, well he is still all about me and that’s perfectly fine with me! I know this won’t last forever, so I want to soak it in while I can. J

 

The one thing that gets me the most is how drastically different boys are from girls. I mean my girls were so mellow and calm, he is so wild and crazy. They were clean and he is definitely not. There are even times I question my sanity due to the things he does. I mean I find myself saying phrases I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I'd hear anyone say. This past week alone I have caught myself saying….

 

"Don't pee on the cat!"

 

"Don't draw on your wee wee!"

 

"Why is your butt colored like a rainbow?!" 

 

"Stop showing your wee wee to the neighbors!" 

 

Come on now, you know I can't make this stuff up!! 

 

Truth is my life revolves around my babies. All 3. It just so happens my 2 year old does things that are so comical it shows me how much to appreciate every moment with them. They are only little for a short time, that the little things (yes, even peeing on the cat) make it all worth remembering! Maybe this will be a perfect story to share at his wedding!!

 

Be fabulous!

Xoxo, Heather

I Shaved with Conditioner so You Don't Have To!!

A few weeks ago, I read an article about making shaving your lady bits a little easier. I'm not quite sure why this has become this huge movement. Going bare, or nearly bare down there has become so popular that seeing a woman in her natural hairy glory is abnormal. We shave, wax, tweeze, and Nair just about every part of our bodies, leaving our eyebrows and lashes to have a lonely party with the hair on our heads. 

The article I read was about women thinking it was more hygienic to go bare in their nether regions. It's not. It's simply for aesthetics and can actually cause painful in grown hairs as well as unpleasant infections or razor burn. In this article they gave a list of several options to try to get your lady bits as smooth as Georgia peach. 

One of the options was shaving with hair conditioner. Maybe I'm just not that cool, but this thought never crossed my mind. I was genuinely intrigued and happy about not having to spend any money on some fancy new shave cream. Most households have conditioner. I'm going to go out in a limb and assume that most people wash their hair from time to time, which made this personal challenge a no brainer. 

Let me tell you this. It was fabulous! No pulling. No razor burn. Nothing unpleasant to report. Use a small pea sized amount and handle your lady business. The process feels a little like slicing through butter with a warm knife. After the amazement at the ease of this new process, you shock yourself back to reality with closing your pores with cold water. You can use a cool wash cloth, but I'm a rebel and just turned the shower to cold for 5-10 seconds before hopping out. 

Using this method, the hair didn't grow back any slower, but there were no ingrown hairs or razor bumps to complain about. Overall, it was fairly pleasant and before heading to the beach, I'll likely use this method again to keep things less offensive for the other beach goers. As always...

Stop yelling at me...please, 

~J

An Open Letter to All the Moms of the Children Lost at Pulse Night Club

            I call them children, because they are your children. You may have carried them within your body for nine months, on your hip for several years, or walked beside them through life when their biological mothers couldn’t. You knew these men and women like no other person could and loved them unconditionally. In their last moments of life, they may have reached out to you wanting your comfort, because no one could comfort them in their time of fear like their mothers.

            Mothers are nurturers. You are the ones that kiss the pain of a skinned knee away. You are the ones that argued for your child to be accepted as who they are. You are the ones who have stayed up late nights wondering if they were OK when you put them to bed with a fever. Mothers are the givers of the best hugs, and the ones who can tell all of your hurts by hearing a simple “hello” when you answer the phone.

            In this tragic time, I look at you and wonder what you must be going through in these days, hours, minutes and seconds of this horrific act that took your babies away. There are people on social media that are saying terrible things about your children, but I hope that you don’t see it. I hope your hearts are inundated with the love, support, and prayers that are coming from around the world. I hope that you can find some solace in the togetherness of the millions that are rallying around you and your lost children.

            The man who committed this act does not deserve for his name to be known. Instead, we need to only focus on the names of your children. It was you who suffered one of the greatest losses a parent could ever face, and it’s your children’s names that need to be shared repeatedly and remembered. Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar III, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, Juan Ramon Guerrero, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, Kimberly Morris, Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, Darryl Roman Burt II, Deonka Deidra Drayton, Alejandro Barrios Martinez, Anthony Luiz Laureanodisla, Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, Amanda Alvear, Martin Benitez Torres, Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, Mercedez Marisol Flores, Xavier Emmanuel Serrano, Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, Oscar A Aracena-Montero, Enrique L. Rios Jr.. Though all of the names have not yet been released, it is still important to honor those that have been confirmed. They deserve to have a voice, and their voices deserve to be heard.

            For all the mother’s still awaiting news on your child, I wish that our prayers and thoughts were enough to abate the fear and pain you and your family must be feeling. I know there needs to be action, but what I don’t know is what action needs to be taken. So for now, while the world grieves with the city of Orlando, and the families directly affected by this tragedy, know that we understand you are grieving a loss that no parent should ever have to face. As one mother to many, my heart hurts for you.  

Stop yelling at me, please
~J

The Inevitable Acceptance of Rape Culture as a Parent

           Something devastating hit me while I was driving back to work from my lunch break. I drove past this car lot full of cars with their brightly painted windows displaying the down payment price. I saw a cute little red car that looked like an Easter egg, and thought to myself how my daughter would probably like a car like that because it would remind her of Deadpool. Just as fast as I had that thought, I immediately had the thought about how I had failed to teach her about being pulled over at night. I didn’t tell her that she’s not supposed to pull over on a dark country road, because not all officers are actually officers. Because not all cop cars are actually cop cars. Because not all men who wear blue are there to protect and serve. I didn’t tell her that pulling over on a dark road for flashing blue lights could also mean she’s in a position to be sexually assaulted.

            Now, this isn’t a police bashing post, so untwist your panties. This is a reality post. How many of us women have been told to pull over in a well-lit area? Several years ago in the state that we live, there was a man going around in an old police car that he purchased at an auction, raping women that he would pull over. The police at the time released a statement advising women NOT to pull over for unmarked police cars on isolated roads. The bad guys were wearing the good guys’ outfit, and creating chaos. This realization, that I hadn’t told my daughter to find a well-lit, well populated area to pull over to reduce her chances of being raped by someone disguised as one of the good guys filled me with a sense of urgency to right this wrong.

            I don’t think I am the only parent that has had these “is my daughter prepared to enter the world unguarded” moments. The shift to accepting rape culture by parents is so gradual that you don’t even realize it is happening. When your daughters are little, you laugh a little uncomfortably about the old beating them off with a stick compliment of your daughter’s beauty. That harmless comment is step one of the infiltration of rape culture. We talk to them in the preschool and school age years about boys being rough when they play, excusing the scrapes and bruises these boys cause by playing too rough. By the time our girls reach the teen years, we are teaching them about dressing modestly, as to not attract too much undesired attention. We teach them about ignoring cat calls, and walking fast and with a purpose when around unknown men. We teach them from the time they start developing parts of what makes them inherently female, they are to be fearful of anyone with a penis that they don’t know.

Just when our girls are comfortable with the Stranger Danger memo, we throw them this curve ball…you are more likely to be raped by someone you know. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it’s true, and most women have been warned of this multiple times. So, if I myself, can’t go out into the world unguarded, how the h*ll am I supposed to prepare my daughter? I shouldn’t have to sign my daughter up for MMA classes, so she will know how to get out from underneath someone who is forcing himself on her. MMA should not be a prerequisite for college, but in my house, for my daughter, it is. I shouldn’t have to spend time teaching her how to properly hold her open cup or container while at a high school or college party, because guys should know that she is not some thing to be taken without permission by slipping her a little GHB. I shouldn’t have to tell her that if she sets her drink down, even for a second out of eyesight, that she needs to pour it out. I also shouldn’t have to tell her that if she is being attacked that she needs to be sure to scratch and bite to collect as much DNA material as possible, and leave visible marks, so someone will believe her story.

My daughter is a smart, funny, beautiful girl, who I am afraid to let go out into this world alone. So, do I accept rape culture? Yes. It is a real thing. Rape culture exists. No matter how many feminists blog about how it is unacceptable, we all accept it’s existence because we alone cannot change it. We women have to survive it. We parents have to raise our girls to be aware of it. We parents NEED to raise our boys to value women as people, and not things to be taken or had because “playing rough” has been acceptable all of their lives. We as a society need to raise better men than Brock Turner, his boys club father and old school judge. This is no longer a “boys will be boys’ society. We women deserve to take up space and feel safe while doing it!

Stop Yelling at Me! ~J

           

Photo credit: vagenda

Reasons Religions Suck and Why You Should Hate Them

The reasons religions suck is almost too many to count and list out while you all wait with baited breath. Let me start by saying, religion has caused wars and hatred throughout the entire world. When Christianity was started, it was considered a cult. Can you even imagine being part of something so new, and so radical that you would be considered part of a cult? Well, imagine it my dear! Christianity is still the new kid on the block as far as religions go, but let’s talk about the real culprit of all this terrorism and hatred. I hope that last line helped you figure out that I had you open this blog article under a rouse.

I know, I know, I’m a terrible person. Blame it on my religion. I’m pretty sure one of the commandments tells me to lie…or not. It’s a sad state of affairs in America, when people are more apt to read about something that is negative or bashing one group of people over the next. People that share these memes and negative stories “calling out religion” aren’t any better than the ones condemning Atheists, Agnostics and the LGBTQ community.

Here’s a little anecdote about religion, this will be a short post because the attention span of most folks reading on social media is limited to say the least. Two grown men walk into a local watering hole. Both men order whiskey straight. Now, the man with the brown eyes (did I say they had eyes? Well they do, in case I didn’t make that clear. Don’t want to offend the eyeless) drinks five glasses of his favorite whiskey. Brown eyed guy starts singing along to the music playing and gets up to dance a jig to The Devil Went Down to Georgia. He’s as happy as a clam, always is when he gets drunk. The guy with the blue eyes drinks five glasses of the same whiskey. Blue eyes guy become belligerent and tries to fight the barkeep and everyone that walks in the door. And before anyone says anything, they both had a fabulous day and have a fabulous life with 2.5 kids at home and a supermodel wife. So, no, one didn’t have a bad day and the other is out celebrating. So, now that we cleared that up, who do we blame in this little scenario?

The ALOCHOL!!!!

No. I have never once heard anyone blame the alcohol for existing and people choosing to consume it. Or people blaming the alcohol on how it personally effects them and their, or their partner’s behaviors. People, blame the person for their level of intoxication. Old blue eyes knows that when he gets drunk, he usually winds up getting thrown out of the bar or arrested, but he chose to drink anyway.

So, given the scenario above, why do people of the interwebs insist on blaming religions for terrorism, general hatred and closemindedness? I don’t know any religion that teaches these terrible things. I’ve never in my entire Christian life been to a church where they have told their congregation to hate anyone. Maybe at Westboro church, that could be their mantra, but hey, I don’t know their lives and I don’t pretend to know their walk with God. All I’m saying is, before you call yourself being a truth exposer, expose the right thing. Religion only teaches people to love their neighbor and to live like their higher power would. It also teaches us not to judge. I don’t judge anyone for the religion they practice, or don’t practice. My walk with Christ, is mine and mine alone. Your walk is yours. Let’s not hate the religions, but try to show people what love and acceptance really means. Live your life as an example, not in condemnation of others who don’t think as you do.

Stop Yelling At Me…

~J