RedHead Confetti

This is a ramble, a meander, more like a stream of conscious than anything. But I need it today. If you came to my blog for funny, snarky thoughts on random shit, this entry isn't for you. I'm not going to go into everything that's been going on, and contributing to my impetus to write this-- but I know that you'll understand. Thanks for reading! <3 I've had a shit couple of weeks-- close to 6 weeks, if I'm completely frank. I know everyone goes through tough times, so I've tried to keep my head up, my eyes open, and do what I have to do to get through it. You know how it is, it's not easy to put on your "helpful telephone voice" to deal with the same four questions over and over again*, when your stomach is in knots and you haven't had a good night's sleep since May. But, if you're like me, you keep using that perfectly cultured telephone voice, sometimes in person with clients and people around you, and pushing through. I...

Trigger Warning: This one meanders badly. I tried some editing, and moving things around, and I think I saved the flavour of the blog but was unable to make it more linear. I touch on abortion, mothers, and unconditional love. This might be triggering for anyone who a mother who resented them. I don't want to trigger any bad feelings or thoughts, so if you're one of the millions of us who had a mother who didn't want you, you may want to skip this one. As always, if you're in need of someone to talk to, there is help out there! Please don't think you're all alone; you aren't. You know, I wasn't going to write this one. I've been trying not to write too many intense things too close together. It seems to be hard on my mental health. But this blog keeps bouncing around in my head, trying to get out, so I guessed I needed to put fingers to keyboard, and get it down. It stems from two different things I read-- two that don't go together in a way...

Well, summer's over at our house. The kiddos start back to school today. I know there are, technically 13 first days of school for American kids, K-12th grade. But every single one of them is different. Today I'm just musing on this first, and will return to the haphazardly posted blog talking about religion and politics and feminism that you're more used to. My oldest is in high school, and he was pretty excited when he walked out the door at 6:30 this morning. We'll see how excited he stays, having to get up and out the door while everyone else is sleeping! His first hour starts at 7:10! I didn't have to be to school until 8 or 8:30 in high school, but then he does get out about 2-ish, so that's a nice exchange if you ask me. His high school has this thing they call Freshman Academy-- it's district-wide, and it's a way to segregate the Freshmen from harassment and the sometimes overwhelming nature of high school, and still get them into the actual ...

“Most parents today were brought up in a culture that put a strong emphasis on being special,” [Madeline Levine] observes. “Being special takes hard work and can’t be trusted to children. Hence the exhausting cycle of constantly monitoring their work and performance, which in turn makes children feel less competent and confident, so that they need even more oversight.” ( page 2 , emphasis added) I saw a little blurb at Slate on Monday, and then Wednesday- another one at Jezebel. So I got off my ass and went over to the New Yorker to read this article, “ Spoiled Rotten, Why do children rule the roost?” I've said before that I'm not the best parent. I don't helicopter, I don't over-play or schedule; I don't ask, actually. I tell. I don't look at my children as friends of mine. In fact, not one of them would be someone I would choose to be friends with. They're too young, to immature, and their world-views, while larger than their peers, is ...

My youngest son is eight years old. He has been in speech therapy since Kindergarten, and every year we have to meet with the Speech teacher to go over the IEP for next year. The IEP, or Individualised Education Program, is a fancy way of saying, "here's where the kid is, here's where we want them to be, and here's how we're getting there". That's it, that's all, it's very simple. So, every year, around about May, just as school's letting out, I go see the SLP (that'd be Speech and Language Pathologist. I've been blessed to have an SLP at both his elementary schools). Some times the physical therapist is present-- as it's pretty standard to work to improve children's fine motor control as they work on their speech. For my son, working with his fine motor has helped him voice his missing sounds, so I would guess that it's that way for many kids. I'd spoken to his SLP a couple times, as this was his first year in the S...

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. The second Sunday in May is a day set aside to honour your mother; to show her how much you appreciate all the sacrifices she made, everything she taught you, how much you were loved! It's a day to celebrate the perfect mother you were blessed with-- or have to pretend you had in order to fulfil said holiday. The perfect Mother's Day mother is sweet, kind, always happy, able to cook anything at a moment's notice, always there, listens, never scolds. The perfect mother is Betty Crocker, crossed with June Cleaver, with a dash of the perfectly styled Claudia Schiffer thrown in. She's never late, never forgets appointments and is never frazzled. She's a consummate juggler of children, spouse, time, pets and activities. She does not exist! But we have to pretend she does, in order to fulfil out kidly duties for this Hallmark holiday. We have to swallow the knowledge that every mother, no matter how wonderful she is, is a deeply ...