First things first... There are some major changes to my blog, but not so major that you might not notice unless I tell you... Maybe they're not that major then.. But they are important! The look of the blog is relatively still the same, but, there are some options along the right side of the blog that may make it easier for you to follow and read my blog if you so desire. Here are the additions to the blog:
1st - The first option on the right hand side is an option to share my blog with others. I give full permission for anyone who reads my blog to share it if they so feel compelled to do so. The options for sharing are to share it on Facebook with your family/friends, or to Tweet out my blog on Twitter if you go that route. I write because it's fun, it's therapeutic, and it's a nice little escape for a little while to sit and mindlessly hammer the stories of my life and kids. Especially if someone else can get a chuckle out of it the way I do living it. So share it, spread it around like the plague, Tweet it out to the masses!
2. The second option is a Contact Me option. Once you read the blog and share and tweet it to your friends. You can fill out that nifty little form on the right hand side under the Contact Me. This is significant for two reasons. 1. So you can let me know who you are, where you're from, and share your life stories with me, leave me a comment, ask me a question, or even give me some topic ideas to write about in the future. 2. If you fill it out and leave me your address you can opt into having my blog sent directly to your email so that you don't have to open up a browser if you're at work. Just shoot me your email address, and when I blog I will throw your email address in there and you will have a blog in your inbox as soon as I hit publish. Pretty sweet...
3. And the 3rd change is a subscribe option. This is if you don't want it emailed to you but want to be notified that a new blog has been posted. You can click the button under Subscribe To Deep Meanderings Of A Clueless Mind and either click Posts, which will get you subscribed to my blog entries. Or you can also click All Comments, which means when people comment on my blogs (or IF they do) you will see those as well and can converse with people, meet new people, make new friends, find true love, get married, have kids, name one after me..... Sorry, got a little carried away..
But those are the changes to my blog. Hopefully to make your life and reading about my life a little easier for you. Because I'm all about making your life easier.
With that being said there is one other major idea I've had recently and I want to bounce it off you guys. I have had an increase in traffic to my blog recently which I love and appreciate all who have stopped by. And I've had a couple of people tell me I should look into writing a book. And that idea has stuck with me and embedded itself into my brain. It wouldn't be a novel or anything because the world has enough trashy, smutty, western robot erotica and stuff. If I were to attempt this, it would be a book consisting of a collection of stories or essays about my life as a parent of four boys, their exploits, my life experiences, with touches of sarcasm sprinkled in here and there. Basically I would be taking this blog and some of my entries and turning them into a book. I like to share the stories of living with four boys and tell it with humor, sarcasm and honesty. And I would like to share it on a larger scale if possible. I know the process is difficult and that realistically I'd have a better chance of waking up with a six pack (not beer) and look like Mark-Paul Gosselaar or Kirk Cameron or whomever you crazy kids are hanging posters of on your wall from TigerBeat Magazine than to have my book published. But, I also feel that if I didn't explore that avenue and see what I could do then it would be a "what if" for me. So what do you think? Do you think it's something I should or should not pursue? You can use that nifty Contact Me option on the right hand side to share your thoughts with me.
Alright, That in itself should have been a blog... But now, we'll get down to business with the actual blog.. So here.we.go.
Caleb had his second art class this past Saturday. For those of you who didn't read the last blog (and you should have by now, if not, stop immediately, go back, read ALL my blogs leading up to this one.. We'll all wait for you to catch up....) I was subjected to what could only be described as an assault from a Stage Mom.. Ok, so assault may be a little strong of a word but she did make her 6 year old daughter go through all the ranges of emotion for MY benefit, to show me what a good little actress she is and that she is her mom's meal ticket out of Jackson and onto bigger and better things.. Hey, I couldn't make this up if I tried. Those were the actual words out of the mother's mouth. She has all her hopes and dreams pinned on the shoulders of her 6 year old.. Anyway, back to this past Saturday. I was sitting in a different spot this time, after surveying the empty room I strategically picked what I thought was the best space to be left alone. It was sitting at a table, far side of the room, not in the path of major foot traffic or overbearing stage mom's who feel the need to share their kids facial expressions with me. I brought my Droid phone with me this time so that I can pretend to be doing important things like ignoring overbearing stage mom's ( I know, go ahead and judge me for being one of those people who would rather bury their face in a phone looking down than to talk to others). So I take my seat, pull out my phone, set my coffee in front of me and pray for time to fly. Not more than 5 minutes later I hear her voice, and I know it's her because that voice has been burned into my brain. I cringe and immediately start playing on my phone like I'm attending to important business, if you call playing Angry Birds- Star Wars Edition important business... Only this time the lady has brought an entourage with her trailing behind the 6 year old like she's Beyonce. And where do they stop and set up camp for the next 10 minutes?? If you guessed directly across from me at my table you'd be correct... Out of ALL of the 8 tables, 2 benches, and circle of 8 chairs in the room, all of which were empty, they come directly to MY TABLE... There are about 6 of them this time. Not wanting to be a complete roach (although I desperately wanted to ignore their existence, or even make them disappear) I look up from my phone quickly to give a polite smile and a "good morning". Then directly back to my phone.. Not so fast.... The lady again mistakes my politeness as an invitation to over share and over step social boundaries. Instead of returning with a "good morning" and going about her business of overbearing stage mom, she instead decides to fill me in on who all the people were and why they're there.... I got to meet her brother and his wife, her sister, her auntie, her mom and a family friend.. I got names of all of them but didn't care enough to commit them to memory, I was too busy contemplating the survival percentages of throwing myself out the 2nd story window at that point. I was then informed that they were all there to see their little princess act and light up the stage in the room. After forcibly holding back a dry heave, I again politely smile and say to the little girl "looks like you have a good fan base already, that's awesome." I know the little girl isn't at fault, but this is a learned behavior and she will turn into a monster of her mothers creation. Where every church function, school play, etc will be a "performance" and despite the fact she's a TREE in the play with no lines, she will be the main focus because her mother has taught her that she is so. But I digress, the people around her although nice enough and friendly enough people are only helping to fuel this transformation from innocent little girl into an attention seeking monster. Luckily this week I was spared the facial expression obstacle course and after small talk that seemed to drag on for weeks they finally all got up, put her back on her pedestal and carried her into acting class.
Ok, that was painful, but it was over. A quick glace at the time shows it's 10:20 am.. 40 more minutes. But it should be a quiet 40 minutes spent sipping coffee and playing Angry Birds... Again, I'm wrong... So terribly wrong.... As in walks a father, his daughter, and his two sons who can only be described as a cross between the Tasmanian Devil from Bugs Bunny, Screech from Saved By The Bell, and Satan... The daughter runs immediately to her class, the dad and two boys take up camp across the room from me about 60 feet away. Ok, cool, I can handle this, they'll be down there to themselves, and despite the fact they make more noise than 2 dolphins in a dryer full of rocks, I can still just play my game and drink my coffee.. But demon spawns 1 and 2 had other ideas for my time. They for the first 5 minutes stay by dad. Then slowly I notice them inching their way down towards me. Next thing I know, they are directly in front of me. One is standing on a chair, the other is trying to kill him I believe. This goes on for about 2-3 minutes with them yelling and knocking over chairs. Meanwhile, dad is sitting at the other end of the room one can only assume dying laughing in side because his kids are bothering someone else and not him and he finally has a moment of peace.. He's making NO attempt to stop, deter, or tranquilize his kids. I keep looking at my phone and then there's silence... I'm thinking they must have rendered each other unconscious. So I look up from my phone and immediately almost have an accident in my pants, as one of them is standing no more than 3 feet from me just staring at me.. How long had he been standing there? I have no clue, but he's just standing there staring at me and I'm pretty sure he's trying to steal my soul. The other brother is sitting in a chair across from me also staring... Great.. The boy standing then walks over and is standing directly next to me completely invading my personal space and looking at my phone. He then says "what games ya got on your phone?" My first instinct is to pie face the kid away from me because any closer and he'd be wearing my shirt with me. I say "I've got a few, Angry Birds, some baseball games, nothing big." He nods and continues to stand there, the level of awkwardness sky rocketing to everyone in the universe buy him. After a few minutes of this he finally slinks away. His brother lingers a minute longer before being called away by his brother. The hole time I'm sitting there I know the dad can see and hear these guys... Yet makes NO attempt to corral them, call them away from me, or anything. I mean for all the dad knows I could be some ax wielding child killer and he was content to let his kids hang around me. So thankfully the little demons stayed down by their dad for the remainder of the time I was there. I did see them however impose their will upon another small boy of 3 who came with his mom to pick up his sister. They immediately without knowing or even asking the boys name take him by the hand and lead him all over the room, the boy clearly wants to watch what they're doing but does not want to play. So he finally breaks free and with all the will of a hostage who's escaped their captor runs to his mother and clings to her leg.
All in all I really do like to just sit and people watch. I don't know what it is about people but I could be content to grab a coffee, find a place to sit in the middle of a mall (preferably one of those soft chairs) and just watch the people walk by. I can do that to a degree in Caleb's art class. It's almost like some kind of social experiment in Parenting. You see all kinds of parents walk by during that hour that I'm there. From the parents who truly support their children and want nothing more than to see them happy and succeed. To the parents who are hanging unfulfilled hopes and dreams on their child with the hopes of the child leading them onto bigger and better things. To parents who seem to have a general disregard for others and let their kids run amok and figure as long as they're alive and something isn't burning down then all is well... I know I fall somewhere in the middle of it all. I generally want my son to be happy and to be successful, I don't have any aspirations of him using his talent to benefit myself.
It is at times difficult to contain your children 100%. Especially if you're in a situation where they have you in a 3 on 1 disadvantage. Because they know they have the advantage, and they can smell fear... In that instance your best bet is to nip the one acting out the worst and pray the other two don't maim or kill anyone or set anything ablaze. But when I was doing deliveries there were people who would let their kids crawl behind a washing machine with me when there was barely room for my thoughts back there. And this little kid then proceeds to start punching and grabbing me. All the while the parent is on the other side of the washer laughing and saying such helpful things as "looks like you've made a new friend" or "someone isn't being shy around you." Meanwhile, I'm showing all the restraint in the world not to launch little Billy over the washer at his mom or stuff little Dakota in the dryer to test it out.. It's inconsiderate and dangerous. I don't know if anyone reading has ever taken a 220 volt zap before. But it's a less than pleasurable experience. A 110v can make muscle contract and hold, a 220v can and has put me on my butt. Usually resulting in tingling of that hand, arm, fingers, for awhile after depending on how bad you get it. I've had marks left on my hands from them. And unless you want to risk frying your precious little one, step in and take them out of the room. I'm more than happy to goof around and be punched when I'm not at risk of serious injury.. Call me crazy...
Like I said in my last blog. I'm not a perfect parent. I've made everyone's fair share of mistakes. From hitting my kids heads on doorways as I carry them through, to giving my son a bloody nose with an unintentional head butt to the face. And in my next blog I'll give you an instance where we were almost ask to leave due to the twins being little boys times 2....
Remember, take advantage of the new options on the right hand side. Drop by and tell me who you are, where you're from, and leave a comment, subscribe, ask a question if you have one, or give me some ideas on what you'd like to see written about in the future.
Until next time,
Be Well........
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