Finding my way...

I'm making lists again. I've figured out this is one of my coping mechanisms. Making lists is a stress reliever for me. Is that odd??

I have my BTS list started (Back to school)
I have my everyday "To Do" list started

I'm working, once again, on my FlyLady inspired "control journal". This is like the be all and end all of "To Lists". You keep everything in there. I know I can use my cell phone to do in essence the same thing but in this one respect (and maybe one or two others) I am old school. I like writing things down. I like have something tangible in my hands. A cell phone just doesn't cut it.

Don't get me wrong. My cell phone is my life line. If I accidentally leave the house without it I feel naked. If I'm close enough when I discover my faux paus I turn around to go back and get it. This is probably not something I should be bragging about. Our parents and their parents before them survived parenthood without the modern day convenience of cell phones.

I see seven and eight year olds at the end of the school day texting from snazzy fancy cell phones that are nicer than mine. What in Sam Hill does a seven or eight year old need a cell phone for??? Are they often out on their own without a responsible adult?????? Ok the argument could be made that it would come in handy if said child were to find themselves lost in a mall or theme park. But really??? Do they need it IN school?? Where their entire day is policed by teachers and other support personal?? I don't think so. But apparently this opinion makes me uncool.

Wow... it's happened. I have become my parents. The one thing I have fought against my entire life. I have become the parent who knows it all, has no idea what it's like to be a teenager in THIS world and is a blithering idiot in the eyes of their children. Yay me. What an achievement. I know someone, somewhere is thinking "that IS an achievement!!" Please free to tell me that.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky. Unhappy children are generally safe children. Yeah, that came out wrong. Children who are supervised and disciplined accordingly when some transgression has occurred are, generally speaking, more successful than those children who were raised in a permissive environment where the word "no" didn't exist. Wow... that sounds harsh huh? And a tad bit superior. Eh.. I call them like I see them.

This doesn't mean I haven't been known to give into a temper tantrum simply to gain a little peace. As Bill Cosby said in "Bill Cosby: Himself", "Parents aren't interested in justice. Parents just want quiet!!" (I'm paraphrasing) But tell me it isn't true at least some of the time??

Some days I don't care who did what. As long as no one is bleeding, showing exposed bone and I don't smell smoke I just want them all to sit the hell down and BE QUIET for a little while!!!! And if I have to give in to some outrageous demand like a pony as a pet I'm going to give in to it!! Hence the reason we have a small menagerie of animals and have had more than this at one time or another.

We currently have one dog, two cats, a guinea pig and a gecko. We HAVE had in the past five years. Two other dogs, five other cats, two ferrets, two bunnies, two guinea pigs and two turtles. So you see how often I cave into temper tantrums (and sometimes just sweet faces pleading with me). Mind you I only punish myself further since I'M the one who primarily cares for all the fur kids. Imagine that.