The Great Debate

It's Wednesday and I am over this week already. I have been over it since Sunday night when I realized that it was time to go back to work.

I do have a three day weekend because of Emery's 1st birthday. It is her 1yr checkup with what I am sure is a few shots. I always hate the well baby appointments. It breaks my heart to watch my kids poked with a needle. Of course there isn't ever just one shot, it is usually 3 or more. I do this to keep my kids safe and protected. I am a member of a debate forum and this topic comes up often, to vaccinate or not. I of course vaccinate my kids and cannot understand woman who don't. They always say their choice was an informed one and they believe they are doing what is in the best interest of their child. BUT.. a big fat HOWEVER, they don't consider how their choice could potentially affect the many other children who are too young to vaccinate etc... This is always the main topic of the debate. Woman who choose not vaccinate are risking other childrens lives if their child were to ever get, say, smallpox. I completely agree and would not want that guilt on my shoulders if I didn't vaccinate. So, as hard as it is to watch my kids get poked with a needle, I know that I am doing the right thing for my child.

And so this begins my theme for todays post. The many debates that are out there. I am going to hit a few and give my opinion of them. First, a little prenote. I am a very lax person and don't usually care what other people do with their kids and how they choose to raise them. It is none of my business and I would prefer if they stayed out of mine too. I do find that their are so many woman now that get on this soap box and feel superior to other woman who don't choose or can't do what they think is the "RIGHT" way to raise their child. It is rather annoying and I guess I just wish more woman were like me. :) I think that as long as your child is healthy, happy and well-behaved, whatever you choose to do to get them that way, is your choice and noone else's.

1. Breastfeeding/Bottle Feeding: This is a huge debate, ALWAYS. I of course think that breastfeeding is the best way to go for your children. It is the most nutritious and obviously cheaper. When I had my son, he weighed in at 9lbs 2oz. I desperately wanted to breastfeed him. I did well in the hospital with little difficulty in the latching process. I did have a lactation nurse who stopped by often and would gather up my breast and always manage to get my son latched. There was a technique and she was good at it. In fact, she made it look freaking easy. No problem right, I can easily do this at home. We get home and my son starts crying because he is hungry. So, I gather up my breast, tickle under his chin and attempt to shove it in his mouth. No luck! After about ten attempts and a screaming son, I start crying. I felt like a failure and didn't understand why I couldn't get this "technique" down. It isn't easy when you are so stressed about it either. I know that he could feel me tense up and that only made it more difficult. So, I tried to just let him go hungry and if he got hungry enough, he would latch. No Luck! After 2 weeks of pumping and trying to breast feed, I gave up. I then had my daughter and I tried too with the same results. Maybe I gave up too quickly, maybe I am not cut out for it. What bothers me is the woman who have great luck and think they are superior. Always a fun debate.

2. Spanking/No-Spanking- Maybe I am old school and a tad bit conservative but I do think that spanking is important when parenting younger children. I believe there is a huge difference between spanking and abuse. When a child is young and communication/language skills are still developing, it is harder to get your point across with danger etc.. When children are older and better able to communicate you can easily sit them down and talk with them about the behavior and put them on restriction or ground them. Because it is more difficult to communicate with younger children a spanking is necessary to prevent accidents, injury, and bad behavior. The debate stems from most people believing that having a talk with your child about their behavior and maybe a time-out should do the trick. I don't think that helps with a child between the ages of 1-6. Spanking will lessen as the children get older and your technique changes. Restriction and grounding becomes a much better form of punishement for children ages 6-18.

So, there are a few debates that I have come across and my views regarding them. I will do a great debate day every wednesday on my blog from now on. Hope you enjoy and I look forward to any comments that are left. Whether you agree with my opinions or not, I love to hear both sides!

Rather Annoyed

Ok, I have Four things today that are starting my Tuesday out on a bad foot!!!!

1. Last night my friend Julie and I went for a walk. It was a great walk and I felt great afterwards. I wake up this morning to find that the devil (mosquitos) has literally eaten me alive. I have bites in places there shouldn't be bites. How in the WORLD do they manage to get under my clothes??? I plan to bring a can of OFF and the OFF clip on my next walk. They will not defeat me this time. I realize I am rather SWEET, but lay off me already. :)

2. I could not, for the life of me, fall asleep last night. The last time I looked at the clock it was 2:30 am. I have to get up at 7:00 am for work. Now, some people may think that 5 1/2 hours of sleep is plenty, but for me, I need at least 8.

3. Every week I attempt to do a beautiful French Manicure on my nails. I have a very hard time with this because my left hand is retarded and it is nearly impossible for me to do my right hand. I always end up giving up after about the 10th attempt. Well, last night I did a beautiful job. In fact, I was so proud of my nails that I took pictures and posted them on Facebook to flaunt my manicurist talents. THEN..... I freaking nicked my pointer finger. So, in a fit of rage, I just took it all off and attempted to go to bed. Maybe that is why I couldn't sleep last night, the frustration from my nails kept me up all night. Anyway, Jeremy is now fed up with my attempts at doing a French Manicure myself and has told me this "you better just get those professionally done." UGH! I just might do that.

4. This one started like "yeah that is pretty typical of her" but has managed to fester into a "I freaking can't stand the biznatch" Here's the story. My husbands son asked on the way to him being dropped off with his mother if he could live with us. Of course Jeremy and me told him yes. We would obviously never tell him no. He said that he wanted to but was afraid to tell his mom because he didn't want her to be mad at him. We drop them off and next thing you know Jeremy gets a call from the mad woman. Crying, saying he can't take HER kids away from him, he has his own family. My frustration is, he is their dad when it comes to child support and a convenient babysitter every other weekend BUT heaven forbid one of the boys actually wants to live with us- Jeremy has his own family. SCREW her and I certainly cannot wait until his son turns 12 and he can choose and she won't be able to do a darn thing about it...

END RANT.... I like that I can vent here without a debate of some sort.

I guess I should get back to work.

Oh man, how I hate Mondays. My weekend was super boring. Friday night we sat around and did nothing. Saturday I took the kids to the pool in the morning but it was too stinking hot outside. I came home and did nothing again. I did finally take my phone back to Verizon. My daughter got a hold of it and messed up the touch screen. So, instead of a Blackberry Storm, I went with the Blackberry Curve. I don't like how little the letters are, but I do love that it doesn't crash on me as often. I guess I have only had it for a couple days now but it seems to be much better. I wanted to get the new Droid but I just couldnt muster up the 300.00 it would take to get it before I could get our instant rebate back.

Sunday we hung out and I napped for quite some time. We took the boys home and went to the grocery store. I hate how Walmart always seems to get about 150.00-200.00 out of me every time I go there. We did get my daughter her birthday present. It is a little stroller and a baby that when you push her tummy, she says "I love you" and makes kissing noises. SOOOO Cute!!! I can't wait until she gets older. They have the most adorable, fun, cute toys for little girls. I was a barbie fanatic when I was a kid and I cannot wait to start getting them for her. She has her first barbie that we got for her for Christmas. It is just a pretty simple princess barbie. They have way cooler ones than that though. And of course all the dress up clothes and I love the little pet shop toys.

Not much else is going on... Wait, we did watch Bounty Hunter on Friday, and although it had bad reviews, I thought the movie was super cute. For anyone that hasn't watched it, it is a really cute romantic comedy. I have come to the conclusion that any movie that gets bad reviews I usually really like it. Didn't Men Who Stare at Goats get an Oscar or something. Case and Point!

My very first post

This is my very first post and I am going to dedicate it to rockabillyholly. She has a blog and I started reading and was hooked. She inspired me to create my own blog and here I am. I don't know how well it will do but I am going to try! If anything, it will be a great journal.

First of all, my picture, I have no idea why it is upside down and I can't figure out how to turn it rightside up. It is not upside down on my computer!

A Spoonful of Sugar is already taken by someone else. Guess all great minds think alike. I am going to have to check out that blog. I only changed mine up a bit to add Hannah. I like the name, who cares if someone else thought of it before me, right?

I am work today and super glad that it is already Friday. I say already but the week actually sucked and was longer than usual. I credit that to last week being short because of the Holiday.

I guess I can introduce myself. I did a little in the about me section but I will here too. I want this blog to be something of insight into what it's like to be a mom these days. I am sure there a ton of these blogs out there but I hope that I stand out a bit. I was just talking with a friend from work at lunch about the Wash Park moms and their crazy ass expensive strollers and their Coach diaper bags. That is not me whatsoever. I live a modest life but I have expensive taste. I feel inferior at times because I don't live up to those standards. I want the best for my kids and I think I do the best I can for them. I hope that they understand that.

Tonight we don't have the boys because they have a birthday party to go to. We will get them at noon tomorrow. This is so they can come to Emery's 1st birthday party next weekend. Kind of weird that it has already been a year since I had her. Time flies. We are going to the lake tomorrow, hopefully. It is supposed to be 100 degrees. OUCH!

I will probably do most of my posting at work. The weekends will be my off-blog days. See you guys on Monday. I hope to have some interesting stuff to post.