Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: birthdays, cigarettes, daughters, Dr. Laura, friends, girls, kids, mistakes, parenting, priorities, smoking, stupidity, teenagers
Tomorrow FD turns 14.I can’t believe it, seriously, I cannot believe that I have a 14 year old…..who’s half an inch taller than me, and I’m not short! It got me thinking about all of the stupid stuff I did at her age, and it made me very thankful that I’m a much more involved parent than CAM ever was (but this is not about CAM!).
By the time I reached the age of 14 I had already tried my first cigarette (and that’s all I’m telling you about). I will NEVER forget this story, mainly because I learned what an incredible idiot I was. I was about 12 or 13 and CAM was always working all the time, she didn’t get home until late. My friend Lisa was planning on coming over after school and when we got home she produced a cigarette that she had stolen from her mom. We really had no idea what to do with it but we were so excited we couldn’t stand it! Since we were so afraid that someone would see us, we decided that the best place to try this cancer stick would be in my bathroom, window open, fan on……that should take care of the smell right? Wrong. CAM came home about 2 hours after we had lit up and she could smell it from the front door to the back of the house. I was toast, as usual. Funny thing was that her ranting was so normal that I think I took to tuning her out really well. I’ve repressed the memories of the punishments……that’s not a joke, I seriously don’t remember what happened even though I know I was punished!
My point is that with everything that the kids are being taught in school there is no way that FD would even think about trying a smoke. The schools have these kids scared so straight I am amazed. And I’m not the only mom that feels this way. When I talk to other moms about what we did at this age versus what our girls are doing now we all laugh and thank God that we’re able to keep better track of our kids. And maybe that’s why we do it. CAM didn’t make me a priority and most of my other friends had moms that worked and simply trusted that the kids would be okay and stay out of trouble. But for those of us that got into trouble we’re so knowledgeable about what the kids could be doing that we’ve made a conscious effort to be home when the kids get home from school or volunteer in the classroom or get to know our kids’ friends parents or install home alarm systems in an effort to keep the kids in (not burglars out)!
Either way I’m thankful for the fact that the schools are doing a great job with drug and tobacco education, that there are people like Dr. Laura who aren’t afraid to tell people that kids are the priority, NOT careers and I’m mostly thankful for the knowledge that I gained through my own stupidity. My hope is that my children learn from my mistakes and that they benefit from my knowledge of what NOT to do! Well, one can hope!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: CVS pharmacy, daughters, friends, funny, humor, Menstral Cycle, menstruation, pads, Period, sex education, tampons
I felt like a change, I hope that you enjoy the new look of my site……I think it’s peaceful!
I must preface this post by saying that if you’re a man reading this, you may want to think twice. Although I think that this is an amusing little story about a mom explaining the facts of life to her daughter, a man may be put off. So there it is, I’ve given you fair warning!
4 years ago FD was about 10 and believe it or not she actually had friends that were starting to get their periods. (As a side note: I blame it on the hormones in milk and other food products, but I have nothing to back up this claim, it’s just my belief!) One evening she was complaining of a stomach ache and since I was so paranoid that she could be getting her period I decided that it might be time to have “the period talk” with her. I asked her to localize her pain. “Is it up here?” I inquired, placing my hand just below my chest “or is it down here?” I asked, very carefully placing my hand on my abdomen.
She must have thought I was nuts because that’s the look she gave me (and she gives me this look ALL of the time). Either way she informed me that she was sure that it was her stomach and not a pain in her abdomen. While this was a relief to me it also sparked the opportunity to ask her about her knowledge of the female anatomy. So I asked “Do you know what it looks like in here?” and I placed my hand back on my abdomen. She shook her head no and gave me an inquisitive look, so I made the suggestion that we find a picture of the female organs on the Internet.
Hind site is 20/20 and if I had to do it over again I would never have allowed my 10 year old to look over my shoulder while I googled “female organs”. It’s horrifying what you find……and it certainly sparks a whole plethora of questions! After my initial shock I suggested that FD “sit down and watch TV while “mommy finds an appropriate site to visit”.
Eventually I found the proper diagram and I invited FD back over so that I could show her where an egg develops and travels and what the uterus is all about. She seemed fascinated…..and then I got to the part about our “monthly visitor”. I prefer to call this visitor Flo, she visits every month, stays for about a week (just long enough to wear out a welcome), we’re glad when she leaves but we hope she comes again, same time, next month. OK, that’s not exactly how I explained it, but you get the idea. Speaking of ideas, I had what I thought, was another great one……..but remember hind site?
After I felt confident that she understood how periods worked, I decided to show her what tampons and pads look like and how they function. I thought back to an experiment that we did in sex education when I was in school. It must have had an impact on me because I can’t believe that I remembered it! Here’s what my health teacher did: she took a small glass of water and dunked a tampon into the glass. SLOWLY, the tampon soaked up the water, not all of it but enough that we all understood the concept.
Tampon technology has sure come a long way because that’s not exactly what happened in our experiment. I got the glass of water and went into the bathroom. I pulled out a REGULAR (not Super nor Super Duper) tampon and as I dropped it into the glass my FD and I watched in stunned silence as the tampon soaked up the entire glass of water in less than 1 second…..it may have even happened in a nano-second, it was that fast! She was horrified, completely freaked out, and I had a lot of explaining to do.
She vowed to never use a tampon and I was almost right there with her! I had to explain to her the science regarding the differences between certain substances but that really did nothing to calm her fears. In the end I apologized, threw out my mess and FD and I went back to what we were doing before our little chat began.
FD finally got her period recently and at an inopportune time…..while we were on vacation! I took her to the local CVS which was across the street from where we were staying and as we stood in front of the “wall of pads” we laughed hard about the different options. I had to explain that I had no idea what she should get since I used tampons, and based on our experiment from several years ago that was not an option for her. I asked her what her friends used and she gave me the “are you nuts” look again. It took a while but we finally settled on something with wings, to which I reminded her “when in doubt, take flight”!
I think that it’s great that I have a relationship with FD where we can laugh about “that time of the month”. Periods were no laughing matter when I was a kid….I was devastated and begged my mother not to tell anyone when I got mine. FD couldn’t wait to call her friends, she is proud and I am proud of her. Little does she know she has many, many years of fun times ahead!!
