What Makes a Hero?

Unless you've been living under a rock lately, I'm sure that you've seen the hoopla created by Caitlyn Jenner's magazine cover. I usually try to avoid commenting on controversial stuff just because I don't like the drama, but there's one aspect of this one that I just can't shove under the rug.

Let me start off by saying this - I fully support Ms. Jenner's right to do whatever she wants with her body. It's her choice. I may not "get" it and I may not understand it, but at the end of the day it's her body.

I fully support equal rights - for everyone.

I don't care what religion anyone is.

I don't care what color anyone is.

It all boils down to this - if you're a good person, you and I will get along just fine. But if you act like a dick, go and do it elsewhere. Period.

I'm also going to say this - my cousin is in the process of transitioning from female to male. So if you're going to bash anyone in the transgender community, you're screwing with my family. Trust me - you do not want to go there.

Now that all of that is out of the way.....

I've seen several memes floating around questioning whether or not Ms. Jenner is a "hero". Generally, it's a picture of her side-by-side with a picture of a war veteran who has obvious injuries.

Is that veteran a hero? Damned right he is - no question about it in my opinion. My father, my brothers, my nephews, and too many of my friends to count have served (or are still serving) in the military and every single one of them is a hero to me.

Does everyone agree with that? No. There are some people who are anti-war or anti-military for various reasons, and they don't believe that these people are heroes. Do I agree with them? No. Do they have the right to believe what they do? Yes.

What about a police officer? A man who had an officer rescue him from an armed robber might consider that officer to be his hero, while a man who was wrongfully arrested for a crime he didn't commit might not think that officers are heroes.

How about a teacher? She might never put herself in physical danger in her classroom, but the little girl who looked up to her and decided to be a teacher herself might consider that woman to be her hero.

What about the neighbor who called 911 when she saw smoke coming from a nearby home? Because of her call, the house was mostly saved from destruction. I wouldn't be surprised if the homeowner referred to her as a "hero" during an interview later that day.

What about the child who was climbing around on his brother's bed and got his leg caught between the mattress and the headboard and had to yell for his mother to come and "rescue" him? What if he brought this piece of artwork home from school a few weeks later and handed it to his mom, proudly saying to her "you're MY hero, Mom"?

Are you going to tell him anything different?

Caitlyn Jenner might not be a hero to everyone. She might not be a hero to the majority of people in the world. But I promise you this - somewhere, there is someone struggling with his/her sexual identity who is looking up to this woman and who is thankful that she has had the courage to take a very private journey and share it with the world. And that someone might just consider her a hero for it.

We don't have the right to tell other people what to do with their bodies.

We don't have the right to tell people that their belief system is wrong.

We don't have the right to dictate who can or can't be a hero to someone else.

What we do have the right to do is simple -

Stop judging. Be nice. 

Seriously. It's that easy.

Electronic observations

I had to take Daniel to an ENT today because we found out last week that one of the tubes that was put in his ears in 2009 or 2010 is still in there. He hasn't been having any issues with it (obviously, or we would have known that it was there) but his pediatrician wanted to have it checked.

Because of the distance and timing of the appointment, I pulled both him and Alex out of school for the afternoon. The Dude went with us and we headed out for the appointment. When we got there, The Dude and Alex hung out in the main waiting room while Daniel and I went to various locations throughout the clinic - one place for the check in, one place for the hearing test, another place for the actual exam....

While we were in one of the waiting rooms, I watched a little girl who couldn't have been more than about 2 years old. She was there with her mother and as soon as they walked in, the mother handed her cell phone to her and the little girl proceeded to watch a video or something on it (I'm not sure what it was, but the accompanying music was ...... interesting). I didn't think too much of it until the phone dinged with what I assume was a notification, and the mother took the phone from her to check it. The little girl FREAKED OUT and started screaming, until the mother handed it back to her. A few seconds later - same thing.

Around that time, a boy walked in with his mother. He was older, maybe 4 or 5. He sat down and immediately started doing something on an electronic tablet gizmo. When they got called into an exam room, he pitched a fit about having to put the tablet away.

In the meantime, Daniel was sitting on a chair beside me, reading an old copy of Sports Illustrated. He occasionally pointed out a picture to me or asked me what certain words meant. When it was his turn, he put the magazine back on the table and walked into the exam room.

The exam went well. This is a new ENT to us because ours apparently left town at some point in the past few years, but this guy seems pretty cool. Daniel's hearing is perfectly normal, although the wayward tube does need to come out of his ear. It's not an emergency, so we're waiting until after he is done wrestling in a few weeks to do it. It's all good. No biggie.

When we were done, we got The Dude and Alex from the main waiting room where they had been reading an issue of Time together. I said something to The Dude about the kids in the other waiting room with their electronics, and he said that he had seen some of the same while he was waiting for us.

After that, we decided to take the boys and go see a movie and get something to eat. We had a blast just hanging out and goofing off and made total pigs of ourselves at the restaurant. While we waited for our food to arrive, the boys worked on the word searches on the kids menu, and then had more fun finding words that weren't even on the list. But while we were sitting there eating, I noticed it again. There was a little girl, maybe 7 years old, playing on an iPad-like gizmo. But she wasn't just sitting at her table - she was wandering around the restaurant with it, staring intently at it the entire time. She didn't look up and ran into several people, including waitstaff with trays full of food. The adults with her (I assume her parents) just let her go for the most part, although I did see the woman go and get her and bring her back to the table a time or two.

When we go on our family road trips, people always ask me what video games I take along to keep the kids amused. Or they want to know if we want to borrow their portable DVD players for the ride. They are always stunned when I say that we make these trips without the electronics. (The girls do have iPods that they bought with their own money, but without wifi all they can do is listen to music that they've downloaded - which they do because they don't like our music.) Instead of playing with the electronics that would inevitably get lost, broken, or tossed aside with dead batteries, we play those silly old travel games. Or we look out the window to see the scenery. Or we teach the kids how to read a map. Or we talk to each other.

Personally, I think it's pretty cool that we do the road trips the "old-fashioned way".

Seriously people - when did it become "normal" to shove an electronic gizmo into a kid's hands and count on that gizmo to keep the kid amused instead of doing it ourselves?

I see it more and more. Kids who are barely more than infants who pitch an absolute screaming fit if Mom takes away the phone or the iPod or whatever the gadget of the day is. Older kids who can't even go to the grocery store without their iPod. Teenagers who aren't able to find their way to the local grocery store because they are so busy playing handheld video games that they've never paid attention on the ride there. Kids who have crappy social skills because when they go to the neighborhood block party they are too busy looking at a screen to even figure out that there are other kids there and they could all be running around playing and having fun if they weren't trying to get the next high score.

Why is this becoming the norm? Why have we become so electronics-centered that we can't go anywhere without them?

I'm just as guilty as the next person when it comes to my phone. It goes everywhere with me for many reasons. Besides the fact that as a single parent I rely on it in emergencies, it's also the only way that the school can contact me if something happens with the kids. It's how my family reaches me if something happens with my parents, which sadly is happening more and more often these days. But I also play around with it in waiting rooms at doctors and while waiting for my food to arrive - but I can also put it away while I'm eating or while I'm at the movies or whatever. Other than the girls and their iPods, the kids don't have electronics. If we go somewhere that might involve waiting, they bring books to read or draw pictures or people watch.

We don't have video games at home. We don't even have cable. They watch DVDs or occasionally play on my laptop - or they read or color or play with Legos or ride their bikes or play ball in the backyard.

They aren't perfect. They can act spoiled or self-centered or entitled or downright nasty at times. But for the most part they are fairly well-behaved and can have awesome social interactions with people and are excelling in school and sports and almost everything else that they do. There is no way to know if it's because they have limited screen time, but I do think that it has something to do with it.

I do know that when they get bored, they can usually create a game to play with each other. Granted, sometimes it ends in a fist fight, but more often than not they can amuse themselves for several hours.

I know that they love to go to the library to get new books to read, and that even my very hyper and active boys can plop themselves down on the couch when the weather is bad and get lost in a pile of books for an entire day if I let them.

I know that they enjoy the road trips and love to talk about things that they've seen along the way, even if we didn't stop to play tourist at that particular spot. They've also asked me to find out more information on things that they spotted, so I know that they're paying attention to the world around them.

I also know that avoiding electronics is impossible in this day and age. I just wish that more parents would find a better balance in their use.

Using it to my advantage...

So Alex is in Scouts. And part of being in Scouts is doing all sorts of little activities in order to move up the ranks.

I admit that we've been pretty lax in getting things done. Life is crazy, and it's hard to remember to do things like this all of the time. But I went through his book earlier today and discovered that two of the electives that he could do at home could definitely be used to my advantage.

One was helping in the kitchen, and one was helping to make a snack.

Can't have too much cheese....keep adding!

I knew that this could either be a good thing, or be a disaster. Patience and listening are not two of this kid's strongest qualities. But, we gave it a shot tonight.

If you were to ask him, he would say that he made supper all by himself. He'd be close to right. He did pretty much all of the work, with me telling him what to do and only helping him when he needed it.

After we got supper made, he helped me to make some banana bread too. Of course that was more fun because that involved smashing things and breaking eggs.

Smashing bananas.

He actually had a good time helping, and did better with it than I really thought that he would. Like I said, he's not the type of kid who will sit and listen and follow directions, so I thought that he would get distracted after a few minutes and want to go and do something else, but he stuck with it.

And he didn't get into quite as much trouble as he usually does.

Maybe I've found something that will actually keep this kid occupied. All I know is that if it works, he will be my permanent helper in the kitchen.

Breaking eggs - and not getting into trouble for it.

Making brownies for his birthday
treats for school tomorrow.

 So now I get to go finish a couple more loads of laundry, get lunches packed for tomorrow, package up the brownies to go to Alex's class in the morning, and maybe get some sleep. Tomorrow involves getting the kids to school, going to a geography bee, getting The Flu-Ridden Dude to the doctor, and about a million other things, as usual. Yay.

Hell: frozen

Yep, that's right. At this point in time, I feel pretty confident in saying that it's freezing in Hell.

Why?

Four kids (which turned into five when Alex got home) all playing together. Nicely. Without arguing.

OK, maybe a little bit of arguing.

But seriously, this was probably the best day behavior-wise that we've had in a very long time. I don't know what's gotten into them lately, but they have all been at each other's throats. Constantly. It's been horrible and it has made me seriously question my ability to deal with it at times - which of course makes me feel like a complete and utter failure as a parent. Now, I know that I'm not a failure - but there are those days that really make me wonder. I know that's all part of being a parent, but honestly, I get tired of it (not being a parent, but having the bad days).

Being a single parent makes it that much harder. I don't have someone here with me every evening or on the weekends to "tag in" when things get rough. When the poo hits the fan, I can't take a breath and walk away and take a break - I have to deal with it unless The Dude happens to be here and can lend a hand.

But then there are days like today - and they make me realize that maybe, just maybe I'm actually doing something right.

Jared made this one for me.

I'm quite sure that they'll be back to bickering again in no time - but at least we had some peace today.

Frustration

I've been having some issues with Alex. My darling little redhead. The only way that I can describe this kid is that he is what you would end up with if the Tazmanian Devil and the Energizer Bunny had a child - he never stops moving and he leaves a path of destruction everywhere he goes. He wakes up at 90mph and doesn't stop until he goes to bed at night. His mouth runs constantly as well as his body.

He is super smart and he has a memory that stuns me at times. We can go somewhere that we've never been before - like to a friend's house - and if we go back a year later, he remembers how to get there, can describe every room in the house, and will tell me what everyone was wearing during the first visit. He's amazing like that (and certainly doesn't get that trait from me).

Anyway, along with his energy comes a definite lack of impulse control. He does whatever he wants to whenever he wants to do it and doesn't think about the consequences. This is something that we have been working on for what seems like forever. Lately the big thing has been stealing food. Now, the kid is not starving by any stretch of the imagination. He's a big boy, yes, but he's built just like his father. He's active and his doctor has no concern about his weight - she feels that he'll grow into his body as he gets older. But I do make an effort to watch what he eats without making a big deal out of it. I try to limit all of the junk food that the kids eat but I'm far from being a health nut.

He has also been having toileting issues for as long as I can remember - something else that the doctor thought that he would eventually grow out of, but so far no luck. He's been having accidents both here and at school almost daily. I've talked to his teacher (who is wonderful) and we have both stressed to him that if he feels like he has to go, he doesn't even have to ask permission - he can just get up and go regardless of what the class is doing. He says that he understands, yet it still happens.

So, after a particularly trying couple of days with him, I decided that I was going to start with him writing sentences. Yesterday, he got to sit at the kitchen table with a spiral notebook and write a page full of "I will not steal food."....and a page full of "I will not touch other people's stuff."....and a page full of "I will not poop my pants."

And then he stole a container full of muffins that I had made yesterday - I found them under his bed this morning. Apparently, he didn't like them because he only ate half of one instead of all 6 this time. *sigh*

I talked to his teacher today when I picked him up from school and she has been noticing that he has been acting out a little more over the past few weeks. She can't really pinpoint anything "major", just little stuff that she has been having to warn him about more than she has before. So, she and I are going to put our heads together and try to come up with *something* that we can both do with him - some kind of a reward system - at home and at school to give him as much consistency as possible. And I am going to call his pediatrician tomorrow and see if we can come up with some explanation for the toileting problems.

I've had him in counseling before too. He went for a year or so, maybe more. The counselor couldn't come up with anything other than "he's just an active boy" and let it go at that. Not that I want him to be diagnosed with anything, but I need something to go on before I lose what's left of my mind. About the only thing that is saving me right now is knowing that even with the issues that he's having, he's still doing great in school - he's ahead of the class in just about every area (which I know, could be leading to some of the problems) and he loves to go to school.

So hopefully, in the next few weeks, after talking to his doctor and working out some kind of system with his teacher, I'll start to see some improvements in his behavior. Otherwise, I might need a vacation....in a padded room.