Troubling Television

       Sometimes I find myself wondering not just how much television my children should be allowed to watch, but also what they are really watching. One night my daughter and my nephew were sitting watching Spongebob Squarepants. Spongebob is an extremely happy, fun-loving aquatic little cartoon who famously, “lives in a pineapple under the sea.” There was no real pause for concern for me as a parent, since it was on Nickelodeon; I figured it’s a kid’s network so life is good. As I folded my laundry, however, the cartoon characters did a multitude of inappropriate and suggestive things. Such as, Squidward calling Spongebob an “idiot” and an “imbecile,” these things just don’t fly with momma. Likewise, in one episode there are suggestive jokes as Spongbob and Patrick wrestle in their underwear.
     A friend of mine suggested this was because the creators of Spongebob didn't intend it as a children's show at all. However, I've found that it isn't true. Spongebob was meant to be a children's cartoon from the beginning. He was supposed to be this creature who smiled brightly and was happy through any adversity. And so he is.
      Ironically, it is not Spongebob's character I question. It is the adversity, and the language used in that which I question. Let him conquer evil, let his optimism overpower anything. Teach my children that hope is more powerful than everything else. However, don't teach them so if Squidward has to call names or I have to explain to my kid what that dirty joke actually meant.

Here is one example, to show you what I mean.
Most of these aren't too bad, as long as your kid is too young to understand.

          This one I thought was a little more of a legitimate example: Spongebob Watches Porn

 My kids may not understand what the joke was, but that doesn't mean I want it in there.

So lately, I have begun to look at my kids’ movies a little more carefully. Last night I began with a newer continuation of an old classic, Toy Story 3.
                The beginning is very action-packed and very thrilling. As always with Disney Pixar, the animation was superb. My husband and I were immediately drawn in, and my five month old was captivated by the colors, if only for the few minutes he was awake to see it. The plot of Toy Story 3 is about, as always, Andy and getting older. This time Andy is off to college and the toys in his room wonder, what’s going to happen to us? Complaints of having not been played with in years ensue and as Andy’s mom presses him to make decisions about where all his stuff is going, a mishap happens. Mom accidentally throws the toys in the trash, and then they get donated to a local daycare. Nearly seven hours of play, every day, with endless amounts of new kids to play with, seems like heaven to the new toys, but heaven is soon too good to be true. Although the movie is action-packed and thrilling, I found that it is the appropriate amount and type of action for its target audience. There is no shooting, no one blows anyone up and no one pops any caps.
                 During the movie though, some mom alarms definitely went off. Not nearly as bad as some Disney movies I have seen, with adult undertones and innuendos, there were still some moments where I felt certain phrases or expressions could have been left out. For instance, Lotso-Hugs, who is ironically the antagonist, calls another character an idiot. This was really not as terrible as it could have been though, since immediately the other characters on his side looked at him differently, and saw it as a mean gesture. Likewise the producers made it very obvious that it was not something that was not nice or appropriate. Similarly, Buzz Lightyear stumbles upon what is very obviously a game of roulette. I thought the fact that gambling was in a children’s movie was inappropriate, but I approved of how the creators set it up. The setting was very dark, with a green, somewhat evil hue to the room. It sent a message that they were doing bad things, and were definitely not behaving. That much I appreciate, although they probably could made it more appropriate.
                Woody is a character that kids can relate to, and so are all his friends. After this movie, there is a definite reaction. It pulls at your heart strings, it makes you laugh, and it even makes you wonder. Much like, when I saw Transformers and afterwards I walked out to my car, only to stare at it and wonder; “Why can’t you do that?!” I wondered about my own toys, where they were now and where my kids' toys would be when they grew up. Even though we made a deal and they aren't allowed to grow up!

                         All in all, I have no problem with this movie. But what about others?
       Are there any movies or TV shows that are supposed to be for kids that you've caught?
                          What do you deem appropriate for your child's age group?     
 Personally, I wrote a letter to Nickelodeon after watching the new Fred movie with my nephew. At one point Fred opens the fridge, where his dad is supposed to live, and exclaims "Damn it!" very loudly when his dad isn't in there.
                  What shows, if any are your kids allowed, or not allowed, to watch?
                         How do you feel about adult language in shows or movies
                                 that are supposed to be rated G or at least PG?                                       What have you banned from your house?

Whitey white white.

How can I express my astonishment and elation to walk into my spanish class the first day and find a stout little white man?! He was not a dark, tan woman with dark eyes and an indistuinghishable accent. He did not have bright, vibrant colors on, no, he was wearing a UD hoodie and jeans.
     Now I have no problems with those women, or teachers like that. It is simply so INCREDIBLY reassuring to me that, although I am not from nor will probably ever live in a foreign country, there is still hope!
    I want to be a spanish teacher, and there was something about that man, he just made me so ecstatic. He grew up in the same city as me, and was doing what I wanted to do!
     Who gives you hope at random times? Do you ever get random bits of happiness? Not the serious kinds you expect like family members or paychecks.
     When have you been surprised happy?
      When the vending machine at work suddenly has your favorite candy?
         When a random rose appears on the bush that didn't produce any the year before?
                    When a note is left in your lunch that says I love you?
           What makes you happy? That random, out of place kind of happy?
        

PERPLEXING PORNOGRAPHY!

          Today I "Google'd" Carter Sauce. I was pretty content with my original nickname for him, and then I was really really disappointed when 9,660,000 search results popped up. I mean I knew it wasn’t totally original, but I mean I figured less than at least two million. Anyway, I searched it AND now I may have to change the name of this blog.
   

    Apparently there is a Facebook group called Carter Sauce, and it's some type of "F8ck Palace." Needless to say I didn't click on the link to find out more. Although to be honest, I probably would have had I been at home. My curiosity is pretty overwhelming. However, sadly, I was at school and they generally frown upon you using their internet access to look (possible) porn sites. LET ALONE in the middle of the library.
   With my luck it would have been a video entrance to the site with sounds and all. Can you imagine walking past THAT in the library?

So guess that our discussion of the day is?!!!!  
That’s right, PORN!

Maybe in your world PORN is a four letter word. But maybe in in some others, it’s four letters of fun!

         
  This leads me up to my
    Questions of the day!!

For everyone:
 Has anything like this ever happened to you?
 Have you been trying to look up something online and found something inappropriate instead?
Ever look up Dicks.com with your mom standing behind you? ....Yeah it's Dicksportinggoods.com.
 God that was awkward.
                                 
                                                          Guys:
Have you ever been in your dorm room looking at nudies when a roommate walked in?

How often do you REALLY watch it?
Do guys share porn?
Magazines or internet? Both?
Married men, be honest. Post anonymously if you think the “Mrs.” might see.

Don’t feel bad. When I was in fifth grade the new computer lab teacher, Mr.Something-er -Other typed in whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov and showed a SOLID thirty seconds of porn to a room full of eleven year olds.

How about you Lovely Women, Lovely Wives, Mothers?
     
 Have you ever walked in to your husband watching it?
Ever found it on the computer?
                     How did you feel?
                      Do you do it too?

Again, don't lie. According to an article on CNN's website "In the first three months of 2007, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, approximately one in three visitors to adult entertainment Web sites was female; during the same period, nearly 13 million American women were checking out porn online at least once each month."
Click HERE for full article.

To me this makes sense, Cosmo is basically porn. At least the good issues.

So come on, tell us. We are all big kids, if you have kids you have some experience.
     
   

 How about Rated-R movies?
My sisters tricked me in to watching American Pie with my Grandmother.
My dad and I watched the unrated version of Forgetting Sarah Marshall together AND Good luck Chuck. Actually, we turned the first off after about thirty seconds, and the second off when he goes on his sex-scapade.

Do you watch HBO? You watch True Blood don’t you?
What do you think about them?
Are they lighter versions of porn for women?

Romance Novels?
Erotica Novels?
Are those any different than your husband going to porn hub?

I believe, No matter how you feel. Find some-real- loving at some point in your life.
   Remember my motto:

Don’t be afraid of your own body. Because sexually frustrated people
kill other people.

Chicken Noodle soup for the lovers soul

Not the book, but the I actually got home from work and my wonderful love had made homemade chicken noodle soup for us. It was delicious.
   And it got me thinking, I needed to give him sime credit. We have been fighting but he needs to know-since I know he reads this- that he is pretty awesome.
    Let's see how can I describe my pregnancy? How can I sum it up? How about tempermental? Yeah I think that best describes it.
    I spent the first five months of my pregnancy with my head down the toilet. And the first two trying to hide the fact that I was always sick. Jon caught on real quick though.
       He was always there, bringing me ice, holding my hair. He didn't even get mad when I was so sick on my birthday that we couldn't go see the movie he had already paid for. Not to mention that on Christmas Day he had to pull over three or four times so I wouldn't throw up in his Mustang.
    After the fifth month it all got better, we were all moved out and I wasn't throwing up as much. But the heartburn sucked pretty bad.
           And there he was again. We live behind two Speedway's and we kept them in business. I seriously went through like ten slushies a week.
         Now don't get all angry, not all of them were soda slushies. AND did you know that one slushies is only like ten percent soda for flavoring? The rest is just ice. So Carter and I really didn't even ingest all that much.
                 Jon has been there so much, as well as for Chloe. He always makes sure she is safe and having fun and makes sure we are all taken care of.
          Everything went pretty smoothly, until the doctor told me that I still hadn't gained any weight, not enough weight, any weight. He said my muscles had began to atrophy. Which is the thing that anorexic girls get where there body literally eats their muscles. Except it was Carter was taking my muscles away. This, as you can imagine was not good news. He said I needed to gain weight or Carter could be born premature, or with learning disabilities and have a ten times higher SIDS rate.
   I began eating as much as I could keep down, it was hard. I worked forty hours a week at Spagh House, which has amazing food but gets old after a while. I was always eating and still it didn't seem to make a difference. I took food everywhere, peanuts, grapes, crackers, candy bars, pickles. SO MANY PICKLES!
At one point I walked around Kroger for an hour, crying and thinking to myself "This is America it can't be that hard to find something incredibly fattening."
   As I went into panic/determined mode Jon went into husband/daddy mode and went out and bought me this protein shake crap. "I promise baby, it tastes like chocolate milk." Maybe after chocolate milk sits in a hot car out day and then gets throw out the window and someone licks it off the pavement.
  However, despite it being awful, it worked.
           Not only my pregnancy, but through my life, as my best friend, he has been there. He was the one I called at three in the morning, who listened to me cry when I had a broken heart. He was the one who watched me fail time and time again, who watched me get my heart broken, and break a few my self and loved me anyway.
              But the dream, and the reality are all the same, to love, forever and far beyond that.
        What about your man/women?
            What do you wish for in a man?
                    What's the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for you?

Carter kisses and singing silly.

Yesterday I laid just a little bit down from Carter, facing him and we made silly faces at each other. Before I knew it he had moved his little head down and was kissing my nose.

    Rather, his version of kisses. Which is open-mouthed slobbering and trying to suck my nose.

   But I feel like for a three month old that definitely counts as kisses.
    Right now he is sitting in his moo cow chair watching me type. We don't put him in it unless we can watch him these days because the kitties like how it bounces and try to bounce off him. Plus he squirms out of it.


     This morning we were singing our "Good morning" that I sing when he wakes up and before I knew it he was yelling and cooing. I thought for a second he was crying! Then I realized, he was actually trying to sing with me :) I was so astonished. We called daddy in and had him listen. Daddy says he isn't suprised. Everyone in this family sings to him.
          Jon actually has his own songs too. Although some of them will have to stop being sung when Carter can actually understand what they mean. Most of daddy's songs are meant just to amuse mommy.
     If you have ever seen the episode in "Two And A Half Men" where Charlie writes kid songs and becomes a hit sensation with songs like "Who cut the cheese" and "I drink from a sippy cup"

  
   Basically that's what Jon's songs are like. It's pretty hilarious. :) Next time he comes up with one I'll write one down here.

Do you have any weird rituals or songs?
     What is your routine like?
                Is there anything that you have found works best?

Response to someone who didn't quite understand my message.

First off. Own up. I'm fairly certain I know who you are anyway.
      Second of off, you don't know me. I have never cheated on anyone.
    Furthermore. You are completely misunderstanding what this whole thing is about. It isn't about holding on to A SINGLE love. It simply about holding on to the concept of love. Never, no matter how many times in how many ways you may be hurt, NEVER give up on loving.
   Love differently, love someone else, love HEALTHY for one. But love. Always, Always, ALWAYS. Must there be love again. What is your life if not shared again.
    As with everyone there are things that I may regret, but what I don't regret is giving my self and giving the love of my life his real chance.
    The point is this is not how I thought it would be when I was younger, but how wonderful it is that it turned out so.
    You are right, there is no love without trust, without respect. And you must reach a point where you know your self well enough to know you can't trust any more or to know that the mutual respect is gone.
  
  Be angry, be bitter. But move on. Let there always be love, make it new, make it wonderful and make it work.

     

In case facebook lasts a while.

Many who don't know me won't understand all the things I say in this. But it is my belief that everyone, in some way, will understand what I mean.

     Once upon a time, in the same land that exists today. A whole different world resided. It was one where someone thought Love ruled all. And it did. It ruled mind it ruled body and soul and logic. Love was this consuming force that overrides everything. But, in a land where Love is everything, confusion may consume it.

        Perhaps confusion isn't the right word. Ignorance?

 Whatever it may be. To survive, love needs friends. It needs a heart to guide it so that it may grow, but a mind beside it so it may think. For love is not always best. Sometimes love is worst.

     It is not cynicism, for love is indeed the greatest of all.

And love can return, greater than before, but it must be an army. It must bring an army. Love must be the general, with logic, and hope at its side. They must be the Captains. They must command troops and keep confusion and doubt, not at bay, but at least under supervision. For confusion is a natural ally of Love. It walks the thin line, with hate close behind if not monitored.

             Where does this come from? Think of that thing, something you wanted more than anything. You did not simply decide one day no I do not want it. Perhaps it was a process, call it growing though I think that is an understatement. Perhaps it is Fate, intervening. Maybe she simply said "I'm sorry my child, that is not the road you will travel."

            I have learned, to never say, well why to love if to lose. Nor to question is it better to have loved and lost than to never. For there can be no "never" there must ALWAYS be love. There WILL always be love.

       Love is not eternal in that your love may last an eternity. Love is eternal in that LOVE itself will last eternity. If not this love then the next, if not that then the next.

     It does not matter this love now should it leave so long as love is accepted again. ACCEPTED for love does not come, love is there always.

     Behind broken hearts and lives is always love. No matter how tiny or repetitious they may be broken.

            OH DO THAT YOU LOVE AGAIN. That. Is everything.

                 Love is a whole new world, in the very same place.

                                 

Chloe's Crafts

More often than not I find myself covering some paper, plastic figurine, or god knows what else in glue, glitter or glitter paint. this is because recently my step-daughter and I have found a mutual love of crafts and craft projects. We have made tissue paper flowers, painted ceramic princesses, made popo-up princesses, cooked heart shaped sandwiches appetizers for her birthday party, colored, printed out hundreds of our own coloring pages, you name it we've done it.
   What I love about Chloe is she keeps me in check, of course she requires mass-attention, as all four year olds do. But she sees her world with pure eyes and doesn't hold back. She came up to me one day and said "Wow you really love the computer don't you? You've been using it forever!" She didn't mean it in a mean way just a four-year old view of the world.

First words fumbles and fits.

My lovely mommy watched Carter today as Jon and I went to work. When I came back we watched her new home video she had made, of Carter cooing and ahhing and nearly saying the word "good." This is their game. She says "Are you good?" and he laughs and tries to say "Good..." It's pretty much the most adorable thing you've ever seen.
    I have to say we are truly blessed with this little baby, he sleeps through the night, he doesn't cry and he is all giggles and love.
      Of course, he is a baby. So when he does decide to have a breakdown he does it like a pro. Let me tell you last night this child apparently didn't stop crying on daddy for like three hours.
            Poor daddy for one, but for daddy's friends for two. Jon apparently had friends over who were a little uncomfortable once the crying began. Which I also have experienced first-hand. After Chloe's birthday party Carter, who had been passed around and kept from his many naps that day, was to say the least really angry. And a few of our friends stuck around the festivities after. Well Carter finally had enough and he was crying and screaming. This was when we had to put up with the many "What's wrong with him?" and "Why is he doing that? Cant you make him stop?" Well Jon and I are only twenty so the number of our friends with kids is rather limited, DESPITE what people would have you to believe. So our friends aren't used to the crying. I honestly think it frightens them and it ruins the mood or any chance of hanging out.

  

How do you adjust your friends to your kids, and your kids to your friends?
Must we wait for everyone to have one, is it simply a matter of putting up with friends leaving once a child starts to cry a little?

Bedroom Bedlham, just general confusion.

I feel as though I should define why I call step-mommyhood. The Other-Mother situation. For those of you with children, if you have ever seen the movie Coraline then you see where I get this reference from. Now do not get me wrong, I do not want to eat her or lock her parents in a dark room somewhere or anything crazy. I actually love Chloe, she is a bright, beautful, funny little girl that I do and will continue to treat as my own.
   I use this reference in only that being a step-mom, or her other-mother is a sometimes confusing, hard place to be. You see yourself as living in a unique situation, and you aren't entirely sure where you stand. Where the evil mom on Coraline tricked her and conned her with her wildest dreams, I love her and only tell her I will support whatever her dreams may be.
    The question I find myself asking more often than not is how to be both. How may I be her good other-mother without crossing through the little door over into her mother's territory. I have to say it's not very easy.

     Anyway! Jon and I currently live in a two bedroom apartment. It's a decent size, very nice little chalet by the river. It suits our purposes for now and has up til this point. However, we are looking for new apartments and possibly a house. Wooh houses!!
   Well after Carter was born, and with all his stuff now the bedroom him and Chloe share suddenly didn't feel big enough to me. So last Saturday we moved some of her things into the alcove in the livingroom we had already decided was going to be a play-area and switched their room around. We did this because I felt as though Carter didn't really get to have a nursery, and I didn't really get to give him one. Also, I really feel like this was a great idea because it's not really fair to her to have to come out of the room every time Carter takes a nap in there, so now she can just play out here and neither child is disturbed.
   Well this sparked a conversation between me and Jon. What is fair really? Jon had the very good argument that now Chloe only had the two walls in the room-the smaller half that Carter had before- AND all her stuff was in a different place. Not to mention Carter has a dresser but all his things also take up half the closet. She recently told us, that this wasn't REALLY her home anyway and that's why she got so homesick. We have been since trying to help her understand we love her too and we want her to feel like this is her home too.
      My argument was, however, that Chloe does have her own bed and her own toys, she even has a special place outside her room that is just her own. So each of them get the chance to be a little girl and a baby boy. Chloe has her own room at her own house and Carter doesn't. Plus she is only with us fifty percent of the time, so we can't be unfair to Carter either.
          This transcends past our current home as well, we both wonder who should get the bigger room in the new apt/house? Carter who is always there or Chloe who needs to feel like this is her home too?
    What a dilemma?!