Humiliated

My earliest memory was being dropped on my head. But since I really can't remember the details...only that it hurt, a lot....and a story without details isn't a story at all, I will tell you of the first memory that I can remember.

So my first real memory is of me hugging a stranger's leg. What? You didn't hug stranger's legs? Me either. I think that is why I remember it so well.

I am pretty sure I was like 2 or 3 years old. I remember my dad was wearing this turquoise suit. Yes, my dad was all that...whatever that was. This may also be a reason for remembering the hugging...grown man in a turquoise suit, traumatizing. Who makes that kind of suit....I mean...yikes! And who buys them...zoik!!

It happened in the front lawn of our church. My dad was talking to some guy...who apparently had legs that looked like his. Not paying attention, I grabbed onto the man's leg, thinking it was my dad's.

I know I held on long enough for my dad to notice and to say my name. I remember looking over at my dad and up at the man and then realizing, "Hey, why do you have my dad's leg?"

Then I cried.

This was the first time I remember feeling embarrassed and humiliated. Don't you feel that way when you grab something that doesn't belong to you.

Like the time I was a senior in high school and I joined band because I loved it so much!! Okay, so maybe my boyfriend was in band and they were taking a trip to Six Flags. That may have influenced my decision to join...a little.

I, of course, spent the whole time with him. Standing in long lines, going on rides, standing in long lines, holding hands, standing in long lines. It was in one of these long lines that I reached back to hold his hand. I grabbed on, only to realize that my boyfriend was standing to the side of me and I was holding a total stranger's hand.

That was embarrassing. But when I did it a second time, 10 minutes later to the same guy....yeah, I felt humiliated. And I cried.

And I remembered the turquoise suit.

Re-Post:So I married A Deaf: Speak Up Sony.

Resist the urge.

When you meet someone who is Deaf, do not talk louder. Resist, I say.

Resist unless that person is over the age of 75 and has a lot of white hair and at least one person calls them Grandma/Grandpa. If this is the case, then by all means, shout away.

But if the person is like Hubs, Deaf from birth or an early age, no amount of voice raising is going to change that the fact that they just can't hear a word you are saying.

I think it is just natural that when we are told someone is Deaf, we assume that means that they simply can't hear us. It is true. They can't. So we take our voices up a notch.

Not only does this draw attention to you, the person who is yelling, but also the innocent Deaf person who may or may not be wondering why everyone around them is staring at them like they must be dense to need this person to yell their conversation. All for naught.

It is really funny, however, when that person knows Hubs, knows that he can't hear diddly squat and still...

My mom,  for example. She knows Hubs. She knows Hubs can't hear. At all. So why, for the love of Pete, will she call out, loudly, for him to turn around. Or why, when she is trying to communicate with him, does she speak in an abnormally loud voice.

Did she forget?

It doesn't bother either of us, really. We are used to it. We simply laugh it off. And my mom isn't the only one. Many friends and acquaintances, family and professionals do the same thing.

Resist.  Believe me, if they need you to speak up, they will tell you.

So let me save you the trouble. Hubs is opting out of the shout.

Because if you talk louder...

...he still can't hear you.

5 passions

If you are passionate about something, you would spend every waking hour with it. You would surround yourself with that thing.  One look around your house and people would know...that's your passion.

One look around my house and you would assume that my passions were:

Laundry... because you know I have a ton of it. And I practically spend every waking hour with it. I have piles and piles and piles. Practically in every room of my house. Dirty. Clean. Folded. Unfolded. We have laundry.

or

Soccer balls. For whatever reason I seem to have an abnormal amount of soccer balls. If I had to count I would guess I have 13+ soccer balls. Between me coaching two soccer teams last year and one this year...then add to it that to get the great deal on soccer shoes and shin guards, you have to get a ball...times 2 boys times 2 years. Then I bought them the wrong sized balls but couldn't return them because we had already used them. Don't ask where the other ones came from....yes there are others....because I don't know where they came from.

or

Smiths plastic bags. Remember, I have 7 people in my family. We eat a lot of food. So it is no shock that I often visit the grocery store. And since I want to destroy the Earth I make sure to get as many plastic bags as I can get each time I visit. Which is a lot. Too many. They're taking over my pantry. I do throw them away because, again, Earth hater.
or

Toys. This week it's Lego's. Other days it's Galactic Heroes. Blocks. Cars. I've tried to get rid of them....but they are like rabbits...they multiply in the box. I am not even kidding. Okay, yes I am. But wouldn't that be insane. Can you imagine? If toys could multiply and replenish the Earth? Yeah, now take that image and write Stef's House on it. Too many toys!!

or

Hair. I know. That's gross, right? Not gross because it sounds like I am confessing to being a hairy...not that there's anything wrong with that...err...ummm. But let's be clear: I am not hairy. But I shed. More than I knew. Plus a have a daughter with long hair. She inherited my sheddy-ness. I also have a lab....not a place where I do experiments on my children kind of lab, although...hmmm... I am talking about the barking, fetching, wet nose, mark my bedroom kind of lab. The dog kind. And he sheds more than all of us. Boy, do we have hair.

Are these my passions? Not in the least. But if you walked into my house...

....you might disagree. 

What's your passion??

If I had twins...

Sometimes I run out of blogging ideas. I know. Hard to believe that my little brain would run out of things to say, but it happens from time to time. And when it does, I look for random questions to help me pretend I am clever.

Cat's out of the bag now....

So the question I came upon this time was this....

If you had twins what would you name them?

Okay, first off, if I had twins I think I just might kill myself. Women who have multiple babies are amazing...but on the same day and live to tell it, they are going straight to Heaven. And if I went to Heaven right now I think I would get a swift kick in the butt and sent back down the yellow brick road that leads to a much hotter place that includes hockey sticks.

I'm not Heaven ready.

I mean, besides the pain, and you know there would be a lot of it, you have to come up with two names that both people can agree on. I mean, it's hard enough coming up with one name. Did I tell you that Hubs was totally serious about naming our first child Cosmo....you know, after the BYU mascot. Not because he knew the guy who played Cosmo, he just loves big, furry, stuffed cougars...that or he loves BYU. I like BYU, but not enough to name my firstborn after the cougar named Cosmo.  Oh, and if my first was a girl, he wanted to name her Peekaboo.

Yeah, I know. Thank goodness my children have me.

I did promise, however, that if I ever had twins I wouldn't dress them the same. Not because it isn't cute....okay, dressing twins like twins actually bothers me. As if looking alike isn't enough, why would you need to dress them the same? Do you not want people to be able to tell them apart? 

But, whatever. If you dress your twins the same, don't be offended. I'm not offended when people say, "Your son doesn't have shoes on and needs his face washed." Nope. The truth never bothers me.

So, if I had twins...what would I name them?

I definitely wouldn't have similar names...

Kayla and Kyla....nope. Mike and Mark...uhhh uhhh. Joan and Joanne...nope.  Meagan and Reagan....individually they are great, but for twins. No. Colby and Kobe....don't do it. Give the poor kids some independent identity. Cut down on the chaos. I also wouldn't name them all George. That's just weird. 

So, if I had twins....wait a second. That is never going to happen. And I do mean never. He took care of that...Hubs. Okay, well, technically it was the doctor....and more technically that doctor was my brother-in-law, a little awkward, ....but having twins is no longer a possibility

So if I had twins I would name them:

Howtheheck and Didthishappen. 

Overprotective....?

Common sense.  Prudence. Good judgement. Discernment. Wisdom

All things missing from my son's middle school social studies teacher.

Let me put this out there first off. September 11th was horrific! A day that should never EVER be forgotten. It was awful and unbelievable and mortifying all at the same time. I am not one to shelter my children from what happened that day.

They know that planes were hijacked by people who hate America. They know that some people died a horrible death. They know there were people who jumped out the windows of the WTC. They know there were courageous men and women who became heroes that day. Many of them dying. The loss was huge. One of the worst in American history.

My kids understand this.

All of them came home last week talking about the discussions they had in their classes. My younger ones had talked about it in their classes. My older two had watched videos. Kyla had watched the same video that we have at our house.

My son, however, watched a different video. A very different video. One that was going to be lasting more than 3 days. One that I am pretty sure I would NEVER have let him watch. I rarely let my children watch any PG-13 movies that I haven't previewed first. I have made a few exceptions, but they are few...very few and far between.

So when he came home telling me about his movie, I was a little disturbed. He told me about hearing the F-word over and over and over again. We don't use that language in my house and neither do most of the people that we hang out with, so to hear it repeatedly was noticeable for him. I am pretty sure the F-bomb puts any movie into the PG-13 rating.

But that's not even the worst part.

This film showed dead people. We're not talking about Hollywood's version of dead. We are talking about real people, recently dead people. Their bodies. Their faces. Eyes open and all. I have not seen many dead people in my lifetime, but the few that I have seen are seared into my memory. 

My son added that you could hear bodies hitting the ground in background. And he knew it was bodies because the camera guy said they were just falling from the sky. 

My question is this. Why do we need to expose our young ones to so much so young? I mean, really? I get teaching the tragedy of the attacks. But there are videos that show the tragedy without showing everything. And to me, that video was over the line.  

Maybe I'm over-protective, but it's my right to be that way. I don't see a need to have that age group listen to foul language, no matter the situation. It will only promote it. Secondly, once those images and sounds are in their heads, they will not ever leave. I wonder if he even thought about that.

It's one thing if he wants to show it to his own children. His prerogative. But he doesn't have that right to show highly inappropriate not to mention unnecessary disturbing videos to my child...not without my permission.

Yes, I called the principal. No, she wasn't aware of the video. Yes, she would take immediate action. The principal was great about it. She agreed with me.

Do you? Would you have a problem with that?

Don't mess with Mama

I had a dream and it went something like this....

Now that's funny

We were easily entertained.

Maybe because we would get tired of entertaining or being entertained by one another and anything was better than leg wrestling or pee-nuckle. Okay, so not my dad's music....that was not better...but pretty much anything else.

I have this memory in my mind of my whole family (that would be 10 of us) packed into our paneled station wagon, with all the windows down. And yes, that does include the back, back seats. You know, the ones where you were facing each other...we need to make more seats like those. But I digress....

I know it was a Sunday evening because we were taking our almost weekly Sunday drive. Oh, we would drive all over town. Granted, that didn't take long...the town had two lights. And let me tell you, a 4 minute drive around town was not giving my parents back any of their sanity.

So we took the backroads.

Where I come from there are lots of backroads. It is an area with lots of natural gas...meaning there are lots of gas wells all over and to get to them you make a road that leads to the middle of no-where. Technically we lived in the middle of nowhere so these roads led you to the middle of nowhere's nowhere.

Backroads were the best! They could take you to some really cool dirt hills to climb on and slide down. (Of course we would never do that on a Sunday.) There was normally no-one on these roads and so you could practice under-age driving...not that we ever did that, but I remember can imagine how fun that was could be.  It would also be a great place to make-out with your boyfriend....but I wouldn't know a thing about that.

But mostly we liked backroads because they had a lot of ups and downs. (Normal people call those hills. We weren't normal.) They tickled our bellies. Plus they were dirt and bumpy and windy.

This specific Sunday, as we were crowded in the car, with the windows down, driving down the dirty, bumpy, windy, hilled roads we saw a few cows. Cows in the middle of nowhere. So we did what any normal family would do. We stuck our heads out of the window and started "Moooo"-ing right back at them.

Oh, we thought this was funny.

Until another car, full of kids who also had their window rolled down and their heads sticking out the window saying "Moo" as well.

Now that was hilarious.

Easily entertaineded, I tell ya.