Ooops...

Since the only people that read this already know me, you are aware that I have two children. Both of them are very good children. Sometimes I think people think I am a good mom, when, in actuality, my kids are just good kids. I don't think we do anything that extraordinary. God just blessed us with good girls.

Anyway, I have a specific point to this post. I am a little frightened of my children. Not frightened in an-are-they-going-to-stab-me-with-sharp-implements-when-I'm-not-looking-because-I-wouldn't-let-them-have-juice sort of way. It's really more of a these-kids-are-way-smarter-than-me-and-I-could-really-screw-them-up way. Let me provide you with an example.

A few days ago, Sarahbug was up from nap earlier than BigE. We were sitting on the couch. I was reading email and Facebook. Sarahbug was watching Oprah. Yes, I know. Oprah is not the best show for a almost-two-year-old to be watching, but, I honestly didn't think about it being on. I was paying no attention. She was sitting on my lap, perfectly content. As I was rabidly devouring the status updates of a bunch of people I rarely speak to in real life, I heard her say, "Ewwww! Icky!"

Very few things make my younger child spontaneously say, "Ewww! Icky!" I glanced at her. Her face had a look on it that can only be described as disgust. So, I glanced at the TV. Lo an behold, Oprah was doing an episode on slaughterhouses. Yeah. Lovely. At this point, they were using a chainsaw to slice a cow (minus head, skin, and other body parts) in half. Yum. Sarah turns to me and states, very clearly might I add, "Icky. Cow bad. Cut the cow. Yuck. Sad cow." Hmmm...I didn't expect her to draw the conclusion. I doubt I would have connected the fully alive and happily chewing cow that was at the beginning of the episode, and the currently being sawed in half carcass hanging from a hook. At least not at 21 months old. I changed the channel rapidly. Well, I mistakenly thought, that's over. Alas, it was not.

The next day I decided to read her a bedtime story about farm animals. As soon as we reached the section about cows, sure enough, "Mommy. Man cut cows. Ewww. Icky." Yes, my daughter was remembering the slaughterhouse show from the day before. Great. Now, she sees a cow and remembers a slaughterhouse. Nothing like drawing a good connection. As soon as Sarah figures out that hamburgers come from cows, she'll be vegan.

So, how does this make me frightened of my children? Well, it's actually quite simple. My 21 month old can reach the conclusion that the happy cow at the beginning of the show is the sad cow at the end. Now I have to worry about EVERYTHING she sees. I have been on guard with what BigE sees for awhile now. But not this early. For her, we had to guard what she heard. Now I have to guard what one sees and one hears. How in the world do I do that??? How do I prevent my children from seeing or hearing anything??? I already screw up. Imagine what will happen when they are older and really get it! I have two children that remember everything. Do you know how many things I do during a day that I want them to forget? How is it possible to get them safely to adulthood without majorly screwing them up? I don't think I can do it.

Stream of Consciousness

I am a bad blogger. I do not do a good job of keeping my blog going, which I am sure the two people that read it know without me telling them. I do feel that I would do a better job if I was paid. However, I am not alone in this failing. Lots of people are unable to keep a blog/journal/ diary going. My problem is not procrastination, nor is it lack of ideas. On the contrary, my problem is an overabundance of ideas all pouring into my brain at once. A deluge of random thoughts and tangents that derail any attempt at organized blogging. So, at a suggestion from a very close friend of mine, I decided to write a stream of consciousness blog. I intend to start writing and continue for approximately 10 minutes. Whatever pops into my brain, I will write. Maybe I'll come up with some ideas that I will be able to carry through!

Currently, as I am typing, I have noticed the abysmal number of fingerprints smearing my little laptop. The black shiny plastic is a fingerprint magnet. As is stainless steel. That is the reason I will never have stainless steel appliances in my kitchen. It would be a losing battle to try and keep all the fingerprints and smudges off my appliances. Not that I plan on buying stainless steel appliances anyway. They only seem to be suited to huge kitchens that are featured on HGTV. My little 1974 kitchen is not likely to be featured any time soon. Unless, of course, they decided to come and do a "Save My Tiny Kitchen!" episode. In which case, they have plenty of work ahead of them. Jason and I planned to fix it up a bit, but we had kids and bills instead. So, at the moment our cabinets don't even have handles. We took them off planning on redoing the cabinets and that was as far as we got. We did manage to replace the counter tops. We also want to redo our pantry. Whoever designed it apparently did not think about the amount of dead space that comes when you make shelves almost three feet deep. Hey! The last three words in that sentence all have the "ee" spelling in them. That probably is pretty rare. I mean, think of the number of words people write in a day. How often do three words in a row have the same double-vowel pattern? The letter "e" by itself is fairly common. Actually, I believe it is the most common letter in the English language. Certainly it is not the most used in other languages. I would wager there are some languages that do not use the letter "e" often, or at all. I learned something new the other day. I discovered the origins of the ampersand (&). If you look at it closely, you can see that it looks like a capital "E" and a lower case "t" that are intertwined. Originally, it was easier to see both the letters. Anyway, et is the Latin word for "and." Back in the day (I don't know exactly how long ago) students in one room school houses were busily learning everything without the aid of computers, and in some cases, books. They relied a good deal on oral learning. Teachers, trying to get across the knowledge that "a" and "I" are both letters and words, would have the students recite "A per se A" and "I per se I" which meant "a as the word a." As time went on, they decided added the phrase "& per se &" which meant "and per se and." English speaking students being what they are, began slurring the phrase until it became one word, "ampersand." So, there you have it. You know, saying "So, there you have it" reminds me of My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding. Actually, that whole story I just shared would fit in that movie. "Kimono, a robe you wear in the winter. So, there you have it!" That is a pretty good movie. I might need to watch that sometime soon.

Well, there is my 10 minute mark. Yes, I did time myself. My phone has a lovely, and easy to set, alarm on it. Of course, the sudden vibration just about made me throw my computer on the floor. Luckily I didn't. My husband would not have been too thrilled.

So, I am sorry this was kind of a lousy post. Someday I need to do a real one. However, I think I write that almost every time. Or at least I think it, and now you know how that goes.