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Devon at 10 months- wishing his Aunt MoMo a happy birthday!
Thursday, February 28, 2013
An Article about Parenting
I came across this article the other day and found it really interesting. Give me your thoughts!!
The link to the article can be found here: http://growingleaders.com/blog/3-mistakes-we-make-leading-kids/
Three Huge Mistakes We Make Leading Kids…and How to Correct Them
February 15, 2013
Recently, I read about a father, Paul Wallich, who built a camera-mounted drone helicopter to follow his grade-school-aged son to the bus stop. He wants to make sure his son arrives at the bus stop safe and sound. There’s no doubt the gizmo provides an awesome show-and-tell contribution. In my mind, Paul Wallich gives new meaning to the term “helicopter parent.”
While I applaud the engagement of this generation of parents and teachers, it’s important to recognize the unintended consequences of our engagement. We want the best for our students, but research now shows that our “over-protection, over-connection” style has damaged them. Let me suggest three huge mistakes we’ve made leading this generation of kids and how we must correct them.
1. We Risk Too Little
We live in a world that warns us of danger at every turn. Toxic. High voltage. Flammable. Slippery when wet. Steep curve ahead. Don’t walk. Hazard. This “safety first” preoccupation emerged over thirty years ago with the Tylenol scare and with children’s faces appearing on milk cartons. We became fearful of losing our kids. So we put knee-pads, safety belts and helmets on them…at the dinner table. (Actually I’m just kidding on that one). But, it’s true. We’ve insulated our kids from risk.
Author Gever Tulley suggests, “If you’re over 30, you probably walked to school, played on the monkey bars, and learned to high-dive at the public pool. If you’re younger, it’s unlikely you did any of these things. Yet, has the world become that much more dangerous? Statistically, no. But our society has created pervasive fears about letting kids be independent—and the consequences for our kids are serious.”
Unfortunately, over-protecting our young people has had an adverse effect on them.
“Children of risk-averse parents have lower test scores and are slightly less likely to attend college than offspring of parents with more tolerant attitudes toward risk,” says a team led by Sarah Brown of the University of Sheffield in the UK. Aversion to risk may prevent parents from making inherently uncertain investments in their children’s human capital; it’s also possible that risk attitudes reflect cognitive ability, researchers say.” Sadly, this Scottish Journal of Political Economy report won’t help us unless we do something about it. Adults continue to vote to remove playground equipment from parks so kids won’t have accidents; to request teachers stop using red ink as they grade papers and even cease from using the word “no” in class. It’s all too negative. I’m sorry—but while I understand the intent to protect students, we are failing miserably at preparing them for a world that will not be risk-free.
Psychologists in Europe have discovered that if a child doesn’t play outside and is never allowed to experience a skinned knee or a broken bone, they frequently have phobias as adults. Interviews with young adults who never played on jungle gyms reveal they’re fearful of normal risks and commitment. The truth is, kids need to fall a few times to learn it is normal; teens likely need to break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend to appreciate the emotional maturity that lasting relationships require. Pain is actually a necessary teacher. Consider your body for a moment. If you didn’t feel pain, you could burn yourself or step on a nail and never do something about the damage and infection until it was too late. Pain is a part of health and maturity.
Similarly, taking calculated risks is all a part of growing up. In fact, it plays a huge role. Childhood may be about safety and self-esteem, but as a student matures, risk and achievement are necessities in forming their identity and confidence. Because parents have removed “risk” from children’s lives, psychologists are discovering a syndrome as they counsel teens: High Arrogance, Low Self-Esteem. They’re cocky, but deep down their confidence is hollow, because it’s built off of watching YouTube videos, and perhaps not achieving something meaningful.
According to a study by University College London, risk-taking behavior peeks during adolescence. Teens are apt to take more risks than any other age group. Their brain programs them to do so. It’s part of growing up. They must test boundaries, values and find their identity during these years. This is when they must learn, via experience, the consequences of certain behaviors. Our failure to let them risk may explain why so many young adults, between the ages of 22 and 35 still live at home or haven’t started their careers, or had a serious relationship. Normal risk taking at fourteen or fifteen would have prepared them for such decisions and the risks of moving away from home, launching a career or getting married.
2. We Rescue Too Quickly
This generation of young people has not developed some of the life skills kids did thirty years ago because adults swoop in and take care of problems for them. We remove the need for them to navigate hardships. May I illustrate?
Staff from four universities recently told me they encountered students who had never filled out a form or an application in their life. Desiring to care for their kids, and not disadvantage them, parents or teachers had always done it for them.
One freshman received a C- on her project and immediately called her mother, right in the middle of her class. After interrupting the class discussion with her complaint about her poor grade, she handed the cell phone to her professor and said, “She wants to talk to you.” Evidently, mom wanted to negotiate the grade.
A Harvard Admissions Counselor reported a prospective student looked him in the eye and answered every question he was asked. The counselor felt the boy’s mother must have coached him on eye-contact because he tended to look down after each response. Later, the counselor learned the boy’s mom was texting him the answers every time a question came in.
A college president said a mother of one of his students called him, saying she’d seen that the weather would be cold that day and wondered if he would make sure her son was wearing his sweater as he went to class. She wasn’t joking.
This may sound harsh, but rescuing and over-indulging our children is one of the most insidious forms of child abuse. It’s “parenting for the short-term” and it sorely misses the point of leadership—to equip our young people to do it without help. Just like muscles atrophy inside of a cast due to disuse, their social, emotional, spiritual and intellectual muscles can shrink because they’re not exercised. For example, I remember when and where I learned the art of conflict resolution. I was eleven years old, and everyday about fifteen boys would gather after school to play baseball. We would choose sides and umpire our games. Through that consistent exercise, I learned to resolve conflict. I had to. Today, if the kids are outside at all, there are likely four mothers present doing the conflict resolution for them.
The fact is, as students experience adults doing so much for them, they like it at first. Who wouldn’t? They learn to play parents against each other, they learn to negotiate with faculty for more time, lenient rules, extra credit and easier grades. This actually confirms that these kids are not stupid. They learn to play the game. Sooner or later, they know “someone will rescue me.” If I fail or “act out,” an adult will smooth things over and remove any consequences for my misconduct. Once again, this isn’t even remotely close to how the world works. It actually disables our kids.
3. We Rave Too Easily
The self-esteem movement has been around since Baby Boomers were kids, but it took root in our school systems in the 1980s. We determined every kid would feel special, regardless of what they did, which meant they began hearing remarks like:
“You’re awesome!”
“You’re smart.”
“You’re gifted.”
“You’re super!”
Attend a little league awards ceremony and you soon learn: everyone’s a winner. Everyone gets a trophy. They all get ribbons. We meant well—but research is now indicating this method has unintended consequences. Dr. Carol Dweck wrote a landmark book called, Mindset. In it she reports findings about the adverse affects of praise. She tells of two groups of fifth grade students who took a test. Afterward, one group was told, “You must be smart.” The other group was told, “You must have worked hard.” When a second test was offered to the students, they were told that it would be harder and that they didn’t have to take it. Ninety percent of the kids who heard “you must be smart” opted not to take it. Why? They feared proving that the affirmation may be false. Of the second group, most of the kids chose to take the test, and while they didn’t do well, Dweck’s researchers heard them whispering under their breath, “This is my favorite test.” They loved the challenge. Finally, a third test was given, equally as hard as the first one. The result? The first group of students who were told they were smart, did worse. The second group did 30% better. Dweck concludes that our affirmation of kids must target factors in their control. When we say “you must have worked hard,” we are praising effort, which they have full control over. It tends to elicit more effort. When we praise smarts, it may provide a little confidence at first but ultimately causes a child to work less. They say to themselves, “If it doesn’t come easy, I don’t want to do it.”
What’s more, kids eventually observe that “mom” is the only one who thinks they’re “awesome.” No one else is saying it. They begin to doubt the objectivity of their own mother; it feels good in the moment, but it’s not connected to reality.
Further, Dr. Robert Cloninger, at Washington University in St. Louis has done brain research on the prefrontal cortex, which monitors the reward center of the brain. He says the brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through. The reward center of our brains learns to say: Don’t give up. Don’t stop trying. “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards,” Cloninger says, “will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”
When we rave too easily, kids eventually learn to cheat, to exaggerate and lie and to avoid difficult reality. They have not been conditioned to face it. A helpful metaphor when considering this challenge is: inoculation. When you get inoculated, a nurse injects a vaccine, which actually exposes you to a dose of the very disease your body must learn to overcome. It’s a good thing. Only then do we develop an immunity to it. Similarly, our kids must be inoculated with doses of hardship, delay, challenges and inconvenience to build the strength to stand in them.
Eight Steps Toward Healthy Leadership
Obviously, negative risk taking should be discouraged, such as smoking, alcohol, illegal drugs, etc. In addition, there will be times our young people do need our help, or affirmation. But—healthy teens are going to want to spread their wings. They’ll need to try things on their own. And we, the adults, must let them. Here are some simple ideas you can employ as you navigate these waters:
Help them take calculated risks. Talk it over with them, but let them do it. Your primary job is to prepare your child for how the world really works.
Discuss how they must learn to make choices. They must prepare to both win and lose, not get all they want and to face the consequences of their decisions.
Share your own “risky” experiences from your teen years. Interpret them. Because we’re not the only influence on these kids, we must be the best influence.
Instead of tangible rewards, how about spending some time together? Be careful you aren’t teaching them that emotions can be healed by a trip to the mall.
Choose a positive risk taking option and launch kids into it (i.e. sports, jobs, etc). It may take a push but get them used to trying out new opportunities.
Don’t let your guilt get in the way of leading well. Your job is not to make yourself feel good by giving kids what makes them or you feel better when you give it.
Don’t reward basics that life requires. If your relationship is based on material rewards, kids will experience neither intrinsic motivation nor unconditional love.
Affirm smart risk-taking and hard work wisely. Help them see the advantage of both of these, and that stepping out a comfort zone usually pays off.
Bottom line? Your child does not have to love you every minute. He’ll get over the disappointment of failure but he won’t get over the effects of being spoiled. So let them fail, let them fall, and let them fight for what they really value. If we treat our kids as fragile, they will surely grow up to be fragile adults. We must prepare them for the world that awaits them. Our world needs resilient adults not fragile ones.
What do you think? Leave a comment below.
- See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/3-mistakes-we-make-leading-kids/#sthash.O1mnBqzp.dpuf
Monday, February 18, 2013
Growing up, I don’t think my parents even once had a pizza delivered to our home. My mom never fried a chicken. Candy rarely found its way into our house. I was raised in a healthy home with parents who always encouraged us to be active. My parents were not health nuts by any means- my mom can eat an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream in one sitting and my dad has had a “belly" on him for most of my life (though, in the past year and a half he has finally gotten serious about his health and has lost a considerable amount of weight. He looks awesome now!). I am so thankful though for the dietary habits my parents instilled in us from an early age. It is a blessing that I will carry me for the rest of my life.
A few years ago Glenn started doing a lot of research on nutrition. The obvious began: we tried to eat mostly organic, stayed away from processed foods, etc. Our eating rules had relaxed quite a bit since then. Our grocery store has a very limited organic section and I’ve probably grown a little too fond of the taste of butter (thanks a lot Julia Child). Grocery shopping was a lot easier when we lived in the UK. Europeans just don’t use the preservatives we do. Even their processed foods are a lot more “natural." Though it was frustrating to have food spoil so quickly, it was a little disconcerting knowing just how much longer food lasts in the US- you can keep strawberries in your fridge for a couple weeks in the States. In the UK you’ll be lucky if they last more than a couple days. What are we eating?!
So I thought I’d share this really interesting article about the ingredients used in many foods today. I’ve included the link to the article and copied and pasted it here for you to see.
I’d be interested to hear any thoughts about it.
Click HERE for the original link.
Food Babe Investigates: How Food Companies Exploit Americans with Ingredients Banned in Other Countries
Vani Hari (a.k.a. The Food Babe) is a regular contributor on 100 Days of Real Food. To learn more about Vani check her out on “Our Team” page.
Thoughts of outrage, unfairness, disbelief, and ultimately grief consumed me while I was doing this investigation. A list of ingredients that are banned across the globe but still allowed for use here in the American food supply recently made news. While I have written about some of those ingredients before, this list inspired me to look a little deeper and find out how pervasive this issue is for us. Could these banned ingredients be contributing to the higher mortality and disease rates here in the U.S.?
The health of Americans is downright grim according to a report just released by theInstitute of Medicine and the National Research Council. It declares “Americans are sicker and die younger than other people in wealthy nations.” The United States spends 2.5 times more on health care than any other nation, however, when compared with 16 other nations we come in dead last in terms of health and life expectancy for men and near the bottom for women.
Here is the breakdown for you:
- More than two thirds of United States citizens are overweight – 33% being obese.
- 32% of children are either obese or overweight.
- 43% of Americans are projected to be obese in 10 years.
- After smoking, obesity is America’s biggest cause of premature death and is linked to 70% of heart disease and 80% of diabetes cases.
- And 41% of Americans are projected to get cancer in their lifetime!
These reports and statistics scream the word HELP!
Recently, I spent some time down in Mississippi volunteering in the most obese county in the nation. I found that while social and economic factors do play a part in this epidemic, the main culprit was the lack of nutrition education. The victims of obesity are likely the same victims of systematic brainwashing from Big Food marketers, relying on diet soda or low fat products or looking only at calories on product labels. Basically, they are doing what the food industry has been teaching them about losing weight versus finding out the truth about real food.
And that’s the problem – the food industry is the one leading our conversation in this country about food and nutrition, educating the mass public about what to eat and what not to eat. Coca-Cola recently even went as far as creating a special campaign to combat obesity – yes you read that right – a sugar filled soda company trying to stop obesity. (You can read my reaction to that here).
Unfortunately, the doctors in this country are not exactly leading the discussion either, since nutrition is not currently a focus in medical school. And the government has their hands tied by big food industry and chemical company lobbyists that basically control what the FDA approves, deems safe for human consumption, and our overall food policy.
So who is going to finally tell us the truth about our food?
The food industry does not want us to pay attention to the ingredients nor do they care about the negative effects from eating them. They certainly don’t care about the astronomical medical bills that are a direct result of us eating the inferior food they are creating.
The HELP we need starts here. We as a collective nation must stop this trajectory of sickness and rising health care costs, by understanding the ingredients we are putting into our bodies. We must challenge the U.S. food industry to discontinue the use of banned ingredients that are not allowed elsewhere in the world. We deserve to have the same quality food without potential toxins.
Food is medicine, and plain and simple, if our food is sick (filled with GMO’s, chemicals, additives, artificial ingredients, and/or carcinogens), collectively we as a country are going to continue to be sick.
Using banned ingredients that other countries have determined unsafe for human consumption has become a pandemic in this country. To prove this point, I found the best and easiest place to look for evidence was just across “the pond” in the United Kingdom, where they enjoy some of the same types of products we do – but with totally different ingredient lists.
It is appalling to witness the examples I am about to share with you. The U.S. food corporations are unnecessarily feeding us chemicals – while leaving out almost all questionable ingredients in our friends’ products overseas. The point is the food industry has already formulated safer, better products, but they are voluntarily only selling inferior versions of these products here in America.The evidence of this runs the gamut from fast food places to boxed cake mix to cereal to candy and even oatmeal – you can’t escape it.
Some of the key American brands that are participating in this deception are McDonald’s, Pringles (owned by Kellogg’s), Pizza Hut and Quaker (owned by Pepsi), Betty Crocker (owned by General Mills), Starburst (owned by M&M/Mars), and Ritz Crackers (owned by Kraft). In the examples below, red text indicates potentially harmful ingredients and/or ingredients likely to contain GMOs.
Having a pre-made box of flour, baking soda and sugar all ready to go saves time for some people when it comes to making a cake, but does saving time have to come at the expense of chemically derived and potentially toxic ingredients?
The United States version of Betty Crocker Red Velvet cake not only has artificial colors linked to hyperactivity in children, food cravings, and obesity, but it also has partially hydrogenated oils (a.k.a. trans fat). Trans fat has been shown to be deadly even in small amounts. “Previous trials have linked even a 40-calorie-per-day increase in trans fat intake to a 23% higher risk of heart disease.” This could easily be the amount of trans fat in one serving of Betty Crocker icing alone.
Sodium benzoate is an ingredient that Coca-Cola actually removed in their Diet Coke product overseas, but you’ll still find it in their product Sprite, cake mixes and loads of other products across the USA. The Mayo Clinic reported that this preservative increases hyperactivity in children. Also, when sodium benzoate combines with ascorbic acid (vitamin C), it can form benzene, a carcinogen that damages DNA in cells and accelerates aging.
Fast Food giants like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut are just as guilty as General Mills’ Betty Crocker.
Look closely at the ingredients in McDonald’s french fries above. Do you see how the french fries in the U.K. version are basically just potatoes, vegetable oil, a little sugar and salt? How can McDonald’s make french fries with such an uncomplicated list of ingredients all over Europe, but not over here? Why do McDonald’s french fries in the U.S. have to have TBHQ, trans fat and “anti-foaming” agents? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I checked – I didn’t think Americans liked foam with their fries either!
The anti-foaming agent – dimethylpolysiloxane – is a type of silicone used in caulks and sealants and as a filler for breast implants. It’s also the key ingredient in silly putty.
Thanks FDA for allowing companies to put silly putty in our french fries. Seriously – this is out of control.
McDonalds Strawberry Sauce in the United States includes high fructose corn syrup, red #40 and sodium benzoate, while the citizens of the U.K. get off scot-free. Instead, they get 37% real strawberries in their product and no additional flavoring or harmful preservatives.
Pizza Hut does a huge disservice to us (and their workers) by using Azodicarbonamide in their garlic cheese bread. This ingredient is banned as a food additive in the U.K., Europe, and Australia, and if you get caught using it in Singapore you can get up to 15 years in prison and be fined $450,000. The U.K. has recognized this ingredient as a potential cause of asthma if inhaled, and advises against its use in people who have sensitivity to food dye allergies and other common allergies in food, because azodicarbonamide can exacerbate the symptoms. However, Pizza Hut and many other fast food chains like Subway and Starbucks use this ingredient in their U.S. bread products.
Natural and artificial flavors and hidden MSG (in the form of autolyzed yeast extract, in this case) are commonly found throughout products in America but not elsewhere.Junk food companies intentionally add this combination of ingredients to create sensory overload by exciting your brain cells to remember the food you are eating and make less nutritious ingredients taste better to you.
I’m not saying that the food industry has completely eliminated these same tricks abroad – but when you look at the U.K. version of garlic cheese bread, the ingredients look pretty basic. Many of the ingredients you could use at home to make garlic bread. I’ve never found TBHQ in the baking aisle at the grocery store, have you? TBHQ, by the way, is a preservative derived from petroleum and used in perfumes, resins, varnishes and oil field chemicals. Laboratory studies have linked TBHQ to stomach tumors. This preservative is also used by Chick-Fil-A in their famous chicken sandwiches.
Reviewing the ingredients in Pringles really got me worked up….ever wonder why you can’t stop eating chips after having just one? MSG is the culprit – and in the U.S. version of Pringles, it’s added twice! Once in its known name and again in a hidden source, called “yeast extract.”
This begs the question “Why are Americans so addicted to processed food?!” The food industry has designed it that way on purpose to line their pockets with profits, at the expense of our health.
The U.K. Ritz Crackers ingredient list resembles items that you’d find in every household around the country – but the United States version goes the extra mile to include trans fat, HFCS and natural flavor. Natural flavor can be also be a hidden form of MSG, which, again, is an additive that will likely make you eat more than you would otherwise.
In the United States, Quaker Oats has several different flavors of oatmeal that contain different fruit flavored, artificially dyed pieces of dehydrated apple but that don’t actually contain any of the fruit shown on the package. But in the U.K. – they don’t even attempt to sell that garbage. They instead have a product called “Oats so Simple” that actually has REAL strawberries in it – light years ahead of our version that includes trans fat, artificial food coloring, and artificial flavors.
There’s only one difference in Rice Krispies between the U.S. and U.K. version – but it’s a big difference. It’s one ingredient that is banned virtually in every other country, except here in the United States. That ingredient is called BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) or BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) and is a very common preservative used rampantly throughout packaged food in the U.S.
Test studies published by the IPCS (International Program for Chemical Safety) “show tissue inflammation, enlargement, and/or growths in 100%, and cancer in 35% of [animal] subjects” as reported in this article. How can the U.S. allow this chemical in our food – much less in cereal aimed and targeted at our kids?
And speaking of targeting our kids – food companies have found a way to naturally color candy all over Europe, but our candy here is still full of artificial substances made from petroleum and GMO sugar. Looking at the ingredients in Starburst Fruit Chews provides a great example of this disgrace.
I saved the most startling fact for last. One very cautionary set of ingredients that are included in almost all of the American products but not the U.K. products are GMO’s, in the form of either corn or soy.
There have been no long term human studies on GMOs and preliminary studies on animals show horrific consequences. For instance, a study showed GMOs caused toxic and allergic reactions, sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ studied in lab animals. Another study revealed that female rats fed GMO soy for 15 months showed significant health issues in their uterus and reproductive cycle, compared to rats fed organic soy or those raised without soy. A 2009 French Study concluded that Glyphosate (used on GMO soy) can kill the cells in the outer layer of the human placenta, the organ that connects the mother to her fetus, providing nutrients and oxygen and emptying waste products. A Russian study conducted on hamsters that were fed GMO soy diets for two years over three generations found that by the third generation, most of the hamsters lost the ability to have babies, showed slower growth, and suffered a higher mortality rate.
In the U.K. food companies are required by law to list if a certain ingredient is derived from a genetically modified or genetically engineered material on the label. Out of all the products I researched, I couldn’t find one product with this label. (See example from GMO-Compass and BBC above of what it would look like if I did.)
This was very telling considering that not only have food companies taken out all sorts of hazardous chemical ingredients abroad – but they also have willingly reformulated their products without GMOs.
Food corporations in the U.S. claim reformulating their products to remove harmful ingredients or changing labels would be too expensive – but they’ve already done just that in Europe and in many other countries. Their governments listened to the outrage of their people and took the safety of their citizens’ health above everything else. Is it too much to ask the same for us in the United States of America? How much do our sickness, obesity, and mortality rates have to worsen before they respond to us?
I will leave you with this note: Lisa and I are very disturbed about the shameful hypocrisy allowed to happen with our food supply here in the U.S. In fact we are feeling very compelled to do something about it. Stay tuned, because we are going to need every one of you to help when we are ready. In the meantime, I hope you’ll come check me out at Food Babe and also share this article (you can use the green ShareThis button below).
Vani Hari a.k.a. Food Babe is an organic living expert, food activist and writer on FoodBabe.com. She teaches people how to make the right purchasing decisions at the grocery store, how to live an organic lifestyle, and how to travel healthfully around the world. The success in her writing and investigative work can be seen in the way food companies react to her uncanny ability to find and expose the truth.
Friday, February 15, 2013
The Deep South
While taking the dog and child on their walk this morning I began an inward debate about how I felt about the Deep South. It’s a complicated question. We have now lived in all three of the “true southern" states: Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. I say true southern because that is how many people from here view it. A good friend of ours works on a rig just off the Louisiana coast. He is repeatedly called a Yankee by his coworkers from Louisiana. He’s from North Carolina. Once, while living in Mississippi, I had a local girl emphatically tell me that she could never live anywhere outside of the Deep South. “What about someplace like Georgia?" I asked. “Georgia? Heavens no," she replied, “they really aren’t part of the south."
We have lived in this region for four and a half years now. Words like y’all and wonky and geaux saints slip easily from my lips. I even know how to pronounce Tchoupitoulas and Tchoutacabouffa. I can hold long, intelligent conversations about deep sea drilling and ship building. I know that a transducer is not a made up word. I’ve kissed and alligator. Ive also eaten one. I’ve pet a nutria. I refuse to eat one of those- though I know the government once hoped that we all would. I make dang good shrimp and grits. I am excited for the day that my little girl will wear bows roughly the same size of her head. This place has made it’s mark.
There is a lot I have not liked about this region. Chiefly- it is unbearably difficult to be a part of a community around here. People already have their friends, they’ve known them for ages, and they just don’t need anymore. We get it, but it doesn’t make the rejection sting any less. We have learned that the locals are friendly, even warm, but not to expect much more. Ive learned not to tell people about living in New York or England- it’s better to just say that your dad was an army man, your husband a Texan, and just leave it at that. Three states and four churches later we have discovered that the trick to making lasting friendships down here is finding the “expats" - people who have somehow made their way to the region, or, at least, those who left town for a while and only recently have returned. There we have formed some of our most precious friendships- people who we will love for the rest of our lives.
Other things I don’t like? The insects. Good grief there are a lot of them. And they aren’t anything like the ones you are in the rest of the country. These guys are evil. Demon gnats that leave marks on your body for months, mosquitoes by the billions, nasty love bugs that eat the paint off your car and- by far the worst- fire ants.
I am mildly allergic to fire ants, my body swells wherever I am bitten, and I itch, no BURN, for weeks afterwards, so I am a **bit** more dramatic about them than your average bear. My first full blown episode with the dreaded creatures was while we were living in Alabama. My husband wanted me to mow the lawn. That in its own right was a bit of an event because, you see, I grew up in a household where anything outside of the house was considered “man territory." I never touched the grill, scooped snow, trimmed hedges, plucked weeds, and certainly never mowed the lawn. I have cleaned gutters, but only because it was great fun climbing ladders and getting to be on the roof. In my mind it never fell into the category of “work" and so I happily would go outside and do it. Glenn, on the other hand, did not grow up with such a family and did not think too highly of my notion of gender roles. Apparently they all pulled weeds. What a disappointment. On that particular day, I had lost the argument and was sulkily dragging the lawn mower out. Now, as I tell this story, bear in mind that I was a complete lawn mowing novice. I did not know how to make pretty or straight lines, that you shouldn’t wear flip flops or even that you need to tip the front end up in order to turn the darned thing. So there I was, in flip flops, sweating in the hot southern summer sun, muttering unladylike words because I couldn’t figure out how to maneuver the cursed machine. So I improvised: I would push the mower forward, rotate the dumb thing to the left, and then, walking backwards, pull it back to the other side of the yard again. It was an entertaining sight for all the neighbors, I’m sure. About halfway through the front of the yard, while walking backwards and focusing on not running my toes over, I stepped into a massive fire ant pit. Within seconds my feet were covered and, in perfect unison, they all began to bite. (Which is another wicked thing about those buggers- they wait to bite you, and then all do it at the same time. What the heck is that all about?!) I *might* have freaked out a little. And possibly panicked. And run screeching into the house like a lunatic. Five seconds later I was naked in the shower washing the spawns of hades down the drain, but the damage was done. My feet were on fire and I was beyond upset. So I did what any mature, independent, confident married woman would do- I called my daddy. It was the right thing to do, of course, he sympathized and agonized over my misery and agreed that it was very silly of me to even consider touching a lawn mower. My husbands reaction? Oh, he laughed. And then showed me how to properly operate the machine. Though that was a bit of a futile gesture- I have yet to touch the thing since.
There are a lot of things that we love about where we live too. The people are relaxed and unpretentious, there are tons of fun festivals, the weather is glorious from September til May (we won’t talk about the other months), beaches are close and beautiful, everything I need is close by, and the seafood is awesome. People here know how to have a good time. They value their families and their weekends. They eat obscene amounts of shrimp and crawfish and sell daqueris at the mall. After you have a baby, they write his name on a paper crab and stick it over his hospital bassinet.
For every frustration and major negative I find something great about where we are. Is this my dream place to live? No. Not by a long shot. But I am truly thankful for the time that we have had here. This is where I spent the tail end of my 20s, enjoyed being a newly wed, birthed my first child and cemented some of my favorite friendships. This place has grown me from a bumbling college student to a slightly less bumbling adult. Life has not been easy. But it has been good and I absolutely believe that I have been abundantly blessed.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
Mudding
The other day I took the little man outside to enjoy yet another glorious afternoon. I put him down on “high ground" in the grass, but try as I might I could not keep the kid up there. My son was determined to investigate the big puddles across the way. So I relented, because he is, after all, a boy and boys are supposed to be smelly and dirty and gross (or so I hear).
Devon certainly made the most of his freedom- wandering from one puddle to the next to the next.
He got a pretty good workout in.
He had a pretty great time. I wish I could say the same for the dog.
He got a little stressed.
And annoyed.
This might have contributed to the problem.
He’s just a little emotional sometimes.
He did cheer up considerably once I let him join in on the fun. I don’t know how that blind dog does it, but he always manages to find a nice big mud hole to stretch out in.
My three muddy boys! (They were temporarily banned from the house)
Big D at 9 months
I just thought I’d share some of these photos with you guys. I took them a few weeks ago while we were hanging out at our favorite park here.
One of our all time favorite things about living in the deep south is the winter weather. It’s pretty awesome. Most days it is in the low 70s, though every now and then the temps will drop to a “frigid" mid-40’s. Horrific, I know.
This kid cracks me up.
In other news…
I think my husband is secretly putting our child through three-a-day workouts or something. I laughed when D was 2 weeks old and his dad was “working on Devon’s squats," but seriously, the little man is getting STRONG. I suppose I would have super arm strength if I crawled around all day too (not a bad idea actually!!).
So check him out:
See him hanging there?! He can actually stay like that for a while. It’s pretty impressive. The best part though is his face. It kills me.
Kid’s all “Get me the HECK off this crazy thing!" Lol. My poor child.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
An unexpected kiss
While at the zoo in Albuquerque we were able to get a little up close and personal with one of the giraffes.
A little too personal, perhaps.
I think that in the summertime the zoo keepers allow people to feed the giraffes, but we were there on a cold day in December, which meant that not only were there no zoo keepers around to chaperone, but that the little guys were a bit starved for attention.
This guy came straight over to us and just demanded a little love. And when your 25 feet tall and growing you tend to get what you want.
So we pet him, and scratched his nose and ears. We oooed and ahhed and just when I was about to whisper a little sweet nothing in his ear the dude got a liiiiittle fresh on me.
That’s right. He kissed me.
Thankfully he missed my lips (those are for my luvah alone), but my neck and chin got QUITE the bath. It was quite exciting and gave me flashbacks to the day that a monkey jumped on my head. Remember that? Anyway, I kinda feel like I need to start a bucket list for strange animal activity. My next goal is to high five an elephant. I’ll settle for petting some kind of large cat. Like a cheetah or tiger or something. (Let’s be honest here, if I ever got to pet a tiger I would NEVER consider it settling) I have chased a lion once- but that is a whole different story.
An awkward little fact about me: when I was in 10th grade I hung out with a group of kids from my youth group. We thought we were outrageously cool because we called ourselves the Giraffes. I’m pretty sure our parents made fun of us behind our backs. Rightly so.
"Hey! Something in here tastes like chicken!"
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