Bully.

Dave and I watched Bully {<<affiliate link} last weekend on Netflix.   

If you haven’t watched this documentary, I really encourage you to do so.  It follows the story of families in which their child was being bullied, what happened, and how they coped.  Where possible, they also included school board or school administration’s involvement or lack thereof too.  If you are a parent and want to watch it with your child, please watch it yourself first.  It deals with mature subject matter and in my opinion, my first grader is too young for this.  Though, it very much did lead me to plan an age appropriate discussion with him.  I did see that they have an edited version available for younger viewers, but the full version is on Netflix.

Tell me why we’re teaching our children ‘new’ math, but we’re not teaching them empathy for their peers? 

It made me want to homeschool my children and box that abhorrent assistant principal’s ears in.  

I was infuriated, sad, and enlightened.  I think you will be too. 

Mostly though, I felt defeated on behalf of these parents.  How do you look at your child and realize that you have zero control over what happens to them when you’re not there?  How do you not absolutely lose your shit when your child commits suicide because that is a better alternative than dealing with repeated torment?  How do you not fall apart when you realize the extent of the torment the child you love has endured?  How do you impress upon the school administration that being repeatedly teased and tormented is not ‘kids being kids’ or your hypersensitivity?  Even more so, how do you impress upon them that THIS is just as horrendous as someone physically beating you up?  How can we make sure our kids aren’t the bullies or the victims?

There are thousands of kids, OUR KIDS, who deal every. single. day. with feeling unsafe, unloved, alone, afraid.  How is this ok? 

And what can we do to begin fixing it?

Have you seen the movie?

 

Updated to add:  If you would like more information on bullying, please visit the Long’s non-profit started in Tyler’s memory, Everything Starts With 1.

Oh, Her? It’s Probably A Midlife Crisis.

It sucks when you feel like you’re not living your best life.   Right now, I’m not.

Think I’m kidding?  My biggest accomplishment this week was not screwing up dinner with my in-laws and beating level 154 in Candy Crush.

There.  I said it. 

I just maybe, might be, possibly having a midlife crisis.  I mean, that would really piss me off because if this is midlife, it would only mean making it to 74 and that really isn’t long enough to spoil my future grandchildren and make inappropriate comments that only the curmudgeon-est  old ladies can get away with.  You all are well aware that I am totally going to be that old lady.  So, maybe lets call it a third life crisis instead?

Yeah.  I’m coining that right now.

So, this third life crisis, I’m not going out to buy a new sports car or anything.  One, sports cars look absolutely ridiculous with car seats in the back.  Two, I don’t have a small penis.  In the interest of honesty, I don’t have a penis at all, but I’d imagine it would be huge if I did.

HUGE.

I was thinking about taking a young, probably foreign, lover.  Dave says that if that happens, I’m going to have to go back to work full time. 

I was going to take a vacation, but I’d have to take that little one with me and that sounds like a lot of chaos and very little relaxation.  This morning, she told me my boobs looked like mountains.

This is my life.

Too many snow days.  Not enough sunshine.  Writer’s block something fierce.  Deadlines that are looming.  Aforementioned snow days making actually meeting those deadlines impossible.  Picking up the same Legos 372 times this week.  A vomit filled child… seriously WHERE does he keep all that stuff in such a little body?  Too much crazy on the news.  A massive need for a hair color touch up.  Hormones making my face break out worse than a teenager.  Ridiculous first world problems that I feel embarrassed to admit to myself, let alone you guys.

I need to get unstuck.  I’m just trying to figure out a way to deal that doesn’t involve copious amounts of Xanax or little children telling me I’ve lost my mind.

Advice?

Do You Want to Build a… NO!

This morning when I was driving the boys to school, I realized that I haven’t been out of the house in almost a week.  That little fact came to me when I stupidly asked myself, “where did ALL this SNOW come from?” 

Because, really…

  

An entire street lined with three to four foot snow banks as far as the eye can see.  You start to feel a little like the ball in a pinball game.  Don’t forget to hold your breath, make the sign of the cross, and attempt to pull over into a space where a driveway has been shoveled out if you need to pass another car coming the opposite direction.  This street isn’t big enough for the two of us.

Oh, I know you Northern Michigan, Minnesota, and New York  peeps are rolling your eyes at me right now.  What is 62” of snow among friends, right? To put it in perspective, it’s almost three times our normal snowfall.  We’re woefully underprepared for both the physical, because where do we PUT all of it and the mental anguish of yet another snow day.

Let’s talk about that, shall we?

There has only been ONE completely full week of school since December 20, the Friday our winter break began.  ONE full week of school.  We’ve had eleven snow days.  I hesitated to add ‘so far’ in there because we’re only mid-February and I’m afraid I’m going to Beetlejuice that one right up.  In a normal year, we’re lucky to have one, maybe two snow days… there is celebrating and sledding and hot chocolate making.  It’s the best thing ever.

Do you know what happens after you hit eleven snow days in roughly a month’s time? 

Parents start to lose their shit. 

And, as a bonus, you’re stuck in the house with the very little minions whose wishes and hopes and snow day rituals have gotten you into this mess in the first place.  OK, OK, that and the jet stream, but I’ll go ahead and blame them flushing ice cubes and wearing backward pajamas and sleeping with spoons under their pillows.  Or Disney, because who was the marketing genius that came up with this campaign…

You know what we could do?  Unleash Elsa on Ohio, you know… we’ll make everything Frozen!  Do You Want to Build a Snowman? It will be stuck in their heads for months!  It’s genius. 

Not cool Disney, not cool at all.

Finn was really upset about going to school this morning.  I tried to be as cheerful as possible about it while holding off from doing a jaunty little jig at the breakfast table, but I get it.  They are so far off of routine and the level of work they have to make up is so daunting that they don’t even want to go.  These poor teachers don’t know what to do either, you start a lesson and have to come back to it a day or three or a week later.   

Fingers and toes crossed that this is the second full week of school since December 20. 

I’m holding out hope that my sanity returns sometime in March.

What Do You Mean You Had a Life Before Me?

Several years ago, my dad gave me a photo album.  It was in a box of stuff he had kept for a million years and he wondered if I might want it.  In it, he had saved a bunch of stuff from high school, including some cards from my mom.  There are school photos and all kinds of lovey snaps of my parents and pictures of my dad playing football.  Contained within those pages, are photographs of a trip to California that I have surmised that I was potentially conceived upon.  Let’s just skip that part, shall we?

This album is fascinating to me for two reasons.  One, when I was growing up, after their divorce, my parents pretty much hated each other.  Now, they would never come right out and say that they hated each other, but I'm going out on a limb here and saying they didn't like each other very much.   Two, I get to peek into the love-sick teenaged mind of my mother, right there in her own handwriting.  It is without a doubt one of the best gifts my dad ever gave me.

 

Last year, I was telling my aunt about this album because she was also on the California trip.  I have the bikini clad and blonde boyfriend pictures to prove it, but I’ll let her maintain her motherly image.  As often happens when I’m around my family, we start talking and inevitably the stories start happening and we all laugh and carry on for hours. 

I never tire of it. 

If you ever have the occasion to sit in a room with my mom and her sisters as they talk about growing up, grab yourself a large glass of wine and do it.  There was lots of subterfuge, under-age driving, rock concerts, and craziness that my Meme is happy to have been kept in the dark about.  My poor grandpa had five daughters and only one bathroom before my Meme went through ‘the change’ at age 42… that change turned out to be my Uncle Jimmy.  Because I’m in my thirties, there are very few stories that I haven’t heard them tell at least once.  Some, countless times from different perspectives, and I definitely have my favorites. 

I’m also old enough to remember my aunts as their younger selves.  My cousin, who is sixteen, was just flabbergasted that her mom, my aunt, was fun in her twenties.  She was in shock that she had a life before her, filled with fun and boyfriends and travel and an executive level career. 

She didn’t even drive a mini van.

It was about then that I realized that Finn is never going to believe there were ever any boys that adored his mother before his father.  Tate will never believe her mother did stupid things and got into trouble.  Those crazy, fun-Michelle stories they hear my sisters or my best friends howling with laughter about, they won't believe a word.

Because from the beginning of time, I was their mother.

And to my sweet P, doing teenaged things, figuring out which college will be lucky enough to have you, falling for boys, doing things you won’t share with your mom until you’re grown, laughing with friends, and conspiring with your sister…  Some day in the future, you will fight back laughter as your children don't believe you ever had a life before them either.