I Spanked My Child

I spanked Nathan a few days ago. It wasn't a spanking but it was a swat on the butt. Nathan is easy going. He's a bit quiet and shy, and he loves to help Mom, Dad, and Grandma. This is the second marriage for me and my husband so the mixed family makes Nathan the youngest of eight. His brothers and sisters are all adults now so he is effectively being raised as an only child. I have raised a lot of kids and he is the most easy going of the bunch.

My granddaughter, Jayden, is an only child, too. When the two of them are together, all of that pent up energy comes flooding out and I swear the walls of Jericho are coming down. Cushions are off the couch, toys aren't played with, they are dumped and thrown. Every word out of their mouths comes out with a high pitch scream. They are excited and having fun. I'm exhausted.

I had picked Jayden up from preschool and was keeping her for the night. I wanted to go to Whole Foods and debated it. Trying to manage the two of them in a store is not easy. I decided to make the plunge. We got in the parking lot and I talked to both of them. This is a store and we need to not scream and run and touch things.

They were on a dead run when we got in. I'm trying to get what I went for and keep up with them. Nathan was grabbing the side of my cart and tipping it over. He was crawling and rolling on the floor. They were screaming and having a great time. I put them next to the cart and told them to stand still. Don't move. I was looking up at a shelf and I hear glass hitting glass. Nathan was amusing himself by rubbing his hands along glass bottles, listening to them clank against each other.

I swatted him on the butt. I didn't even know I was going to do it. It was done before I even thought. Both of those little faces are looking up at me with this look like, "you did NOT just do that". I wanted to laugh so I turned around and started to push the cart. Then - SWAT! The little bugger whacked ME on the butt. I turned around and I'm sure I had the same look that they had when I did it. He had an "uh, oh" look on his face. Here we are. I just hit my child. My child just hit me back. I don't know what you are supposed to do when that happens but it was FUNNY. All three of us started laughing. So I failed in the discipline but it was funny.

The Thing

Family traditions. We all have them. In our home, it's a huge Christmas Eve party at our house with both sides of our families, or our yearly week long camping trip with about fifty of us from my husband's side of the family. Traditions are what build memories.

One of our family traditions that has come and gone is The Thing. We were unpacking Christmas decorations one year and somebody pulled something out of the box that none of us knew what it was. The plastic container looked like something that a corsage may come in but what was inside was unidentifiable. The container was passed from one child to the next trying to figure out what it was. Did it live once? Is it gross or not gross? It got to me and I determined that 1) it never lived, 2) it wasn't gross, 3) I wasn't sure what it was but it was probably some kind of fake plant matter.

I told the kids that it was The Thing. "What's The Thing?", they asked. "It's a thing that you pass around at Christmas and tell it something", I tell them. "What do you tell it?" "Anything you want."

So began the Christmas tradition of The Thing. I don't remember what anyone told The Thing. I wish I did. It was probably things like "thank Santa for the toys". I do know it wasn't thank you for our blessings type things. We all recognize that we are a blessed family and are grateful for that, but we just aren't the sit around, hold hands, and sing Cum Bi Ya kind of family.

When everyone was done telling The Thing whatever they had to say, we put it back in the Christmas box and forgot about it. The next year, we were pulling out the decorations and someone said, "Look, it's The Thing". We had another round of passing The Thing around and everyone telling it something. Several years went with the same tradition of put it in the box and forgetting about it until someone stumbled on it the next year.

The Thing disappeared and I have no idea when. None of us even noticed until a couple of years ago. Most of the kids are grown now. I have been so grateful that even grown, they come home to help decorate the tree. We were going through our decorating ritual when my daughter asked, "Mom, what happened to The Thing." None of us remember the last time we saw it.

So comes and goes the family tradition of The Thing.

So, You Want to Date My Daughter

I used to get really irked when men gave me the cat calls or the ass stare down while I had my kids in tow. Do they want men doing that to their mother? Think boys, think. Not only was it rude, but they were blowing the whole Virgin Mary persona I had worked so hard to create.

As much as that bothered me, it was nothing in comparison to how irked I got when I realized those weren't for me anymore, but for my daughters. Again, the persona thing. I had worked hard to create their pure innocence in my mind.

Boys will be boys and girls will be girls but the one that really gets me is the 50+ men staring my girls down. Now, WHAT are you gentlemen (used loosely) thinking? I was in the car one day when one of those gentlemen in a car next to us was drooling at my daughter, who was about 19 at the time. I looked at him and the only word that could come to my mind was, 'huh? See her, see you, huh? WHAT do you, a used up old man have to offer my smart, beautiful, full of life daughter? It makes me sick to know what you are thinking about her. She is a kid and you are a pedophile.

Ok, I get that I am Mom. I view my daughters in this world differently than others do.

I have been there, though. I have heard the reason these older men (or leches, you pick) think they are a catch to a young girl. Because they are experienced in looovveee making. Yea, baby, they can show you what it's like to have a man, a real man, make looovvve to you.

Get over yourself. Just because your penis acts like a propeller pushing you through life doesn't mean it has that same effect on women. How often does that work for you? What do you think that young girl is thinking when you tell her that? I'll tell you what I was thinking... 'Ewwwww, you want me to have sex with you? Garosss!!!'

If you were a man, a real man, you would have half way figured out what women are about. We are emotional beings. The greatest love making most of us have ever experienced has been because we felt LOVE. Hence, the term Love Making. Knock, knock, are you in there? Get it?

So, 'gentlemen', if you would like to date my daughters, I don't mind if, first, you don't mind me dismembering you...slooowwwlllyyyy.....with a dull blade. Until then, put your tongue in your mouth and take a cold shower. It ain't happening.

My Most Passionate Love Affair

I was thirty eight years old when the curtain opened to give me the full view of love, passion, and sensuality.

I had met him almost twenty years before. He had a girlfriend then and her brother was my boyfriend. He and his girlfriend broke up and me and my boyfriend got married and had a family. He eventually married and had a family and we both eventually divorced.

We started talking. I didn't think much of it at first. He was interesting. My marriage was just ending and he had been divorced for a couple of years. His divorce had hurt him and I was impressed with the way he moved through that to get grounded rather than wallow in it and drown in self pity.

The first time it hit me was with a wham! I was talking and he leaned forward in his chair, looking at me with complete focus and interest in what I was saying. My heart skipped a beat. It was magnetic. I was drawn to him in a way that I had never felt before.

From that moment he was in my head. He was on the edge of every thought. Little things would make my heart skip and send butterflies through my tummy. Watching him engrossed in a conversation with someone else and noticing his deck shoes with no socks. At a restaurant with one of his friends and watching him leaning back in his chair with his head turned, trying to see the game on the television.

We started going on long drives around Lake Tahoe or to Genoa and stop at restaurants to eat and talk, and take walks on trails and paths.

The first time he touched me was on my leg. He was sitting and I was standing. He reached out and gently rubbed my calf. I felt electricity move through me.

That was the beginning of the most passionate love affair I have ever had. Every day and action was just a movement to be able to see him next. I craved him, his voice, the way he touched me, the words he said.

There was a time that I had to go out of town and all I could think about was getting back to him. It was late and the friend I was with thought we should stop to get a room and finish our drive the next morning. I told her to sleep, I would drive, I wanted to get home. By the time we got to town I knew it was too late to see him. I let it go and decided to call him the next morning. I pulled my suitcase out of my friends car and walked around the building to my apartment and he was there, sitting on the steps waiting for me.

We would be in a room full of people and he would look at me from across the room and I would feel like we were the only two people there.

I was completely in love with this man.

It's been eleven years since my husband first made my heart skip a beat. He is still my love and my passion. I can get caught up in the responsibilities of life and I lose track of that. There are times when he feels like one of my responsibilities and I'm overwhelmed by him.

Then I look at him, or he touches me, or kisses the back of my neck, and after all of these years my heart still skips and I still get butterflies in my tummy. I am still having the most passionate love affair of my life.

I love you Jerry.

I Dropped My Panties

I have spent most of my adult life self employed. I had a few years in there that I didn't work at all. I stayed home with my kids. After my divorce, I had to go back into the work world. It had been 13 years since I had a boss. I got a job as an auditor for a relocation company.

During the training period, my new boss had to review my audits for accuracy. I was sitting in the bosses office, going through one of these reviews of my audit. I was confident and ready to dazzle my new employer with my brilliance and my accuracy. It took about 15 min. of sitting in a chair, watching and waiting in silence while every detail was checked.

When it was done, I got rave reviews for my perfect audit. I proudly stood up from the chair to go back to my cubicle. I took one step and stumbled a little. My shoe had caught on something. We both looked down to see what caused my misstep and there, on my bosses floor, next to my chair, was a pair of panties. Turquoise panties. My panties.

I should have used Bounce. They had apparently gone through the wash inside the pants I was wearing and the static had stuck them inside my pant leg. Out of all of the walking, sitting, and standing I had done that day, that was the moment they dropped out of my pant leg.

I could have pretended I didn't notice them, or even better, given my boss an incredulous look like, 'what do you have going on in here'. I didn't. I bent down, picked up my turquiose panties, and walked out of the office.

I Married a Saint Bernard

Sometimes being married to my husband is like having an energetic Saint Bernard greeting me at the door, running full force, lunging at me, wagging his tail, jumping on my shoulders, throwing me against the wall, knocking everything out of my hands, and licking my face. Behind him I can see he has knocked the furniture over and tore up the couch cushions, partly because he was bored and partly because life is meant to be fun.

Ask To Understand

I have read a few interesting blogs recently that got me thinking about intolerance.

I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere in the 60's and early 70's. It was a conservative town that had no tolerance for races other than white, homosexuality, or men with long hair. I had never seen a black person other than watching The Mod Squad, didn't know of any homosexuals, and had secret crushes on the guys with long hair. I don't think I had even heard the terms black, African American, or gay. I had heard every other derogatory term associated with them. Growing up in that environment, I had never given any thought to what any of it meant. It was all worlds away just like the Viet Nam war was. None of it had anything to do with my world.

When I was 12, we moved to a somewhat larger town that had just a little bit more diversity. By the time I was 14, I had seen black people but never met one and had met gay people, but didn't know it. Gays were still very much in the closet. It was then that I started questioning.

I was sitting at the kitchen table and asked my dad why everyone hated black people. I wasn't challenging him or his beliefs at all. At that point in my life, I believed there was probably good reason to hate. It just didn't make sense to me. I figured that everyone else knew something that I didn't and I wanted to know what they knew. My dad kicked me hard enough to knock me off the chair and threw a Coke bottle at me (they were glass then). He told me to never talk to him like that again.

That was 34 years ago. In the time since, I still haven't heard a conversation any more intelligent than that one that supports racism or homophobia. I would like to add just for irony, not long after that, my dad was jumped at work by three white men, one with a tire iron, and he was beaten pretty badly. It was a black man that saved his ass.

It was years before I ever touched on the subject of race with my dad again. The next and only other conversation I had with him was asking him if he is so prejudiced, how did he marry my mom. She is a card carrying half-breed from the Chickasaw Nation. He said she lied to him. Mom is proud of her heritage and has black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin. She was also very beautiful. That tells me that racism holds water for only as long as it doesn't interfere with other desires.

One of the blogs I had read talked of an interview with someone that thought marriage should be between a man and a woman. That's how she was raised was given as her reason for her opinion. None of us are obligated to think about the issues that don't directly affect of us. It's helpful if we do, but I don't take issue with those that choose not to. I do take issue with those that have chosen not to think about them but are still willing to give their opinion. Because that's the way I was raised would be better stated as, I have never thought or asked about it. If we aren't going to think about it, or learn about it, we have no right to perpetuate intolerance with our lazy opinions.

There are those that glean their opinions on homosexuality from the Bible. I have my own take on that that probably belongs in a separate blog, and I am not expert enough on the Bible to refute what they say. I do know they are skipping the parts about tolerance, love thy neighbor, and judge not lest thee be judged. I do know enough to know Jesus loved everyone and didn't turn his back on anyone. I would like to see those that embrace the Bible embrace all of it. It would make them much better people.

I would like to see more conversations take place about these issues. We express ourselves and share our opinions among ourselves, in our own cultures, but we don't reach out to other cultures and ask questions. It still leaves us all a bit ignorant. It's far better than when I was a child but we still don't have the freedom to talk about these issues.

They are understandably contentious issues. There have been decades and centuries of damage leading to collective anger. As justified as that anger is, it stands in the way of the momentum towards acceptance and understanding that we could see.

We have to be willing to step outside of our own cultures and ask questions, even at the risk of sounding insensitive and ignorant. We have to be willing to listen and learn. If we aren't willing to do that, then we need to keep our mouths shut.