As usual, Thoughtful Thursday blog hop is brought to you every week by Jessica and Sweaty and of course, little old me.

A few weeks ago, I picked my son up from school. He was visibly upset, trying SO hard to hold back the tears until he was within the privacy of our car.  Before he could shut the door, the dam broke.  In-between sobs, he choked out a story about what happened in his 2nd grade art class that had made him this upset.  That actually seemed to have crushed him a little.

He had to draw a picture of a person

He worked REALLY hard on his eyes, he stressed to me.  He was enjoying this art project, which is a rarity for him, he’s never been an arts and crafts type of kid.

He worked on the shirt.

He worked on the background, needing help with the swirls that he was having a hard time with.

Then it was time for him to color the skin.  He couldn’t find a skin color he wanted, or so he says.  He was looking for white or tan.  They were being used by his other classmates.  So, he chose grey.  To him, it didn’t really matter what color the skin was, after all, his entire class didn’t just have white skin anyways.

The teacher, when she saw how he had completed his project,  got angry with him.

So angry because she didn’t like his color choice.

Not only did she humiliate my 2nd grade son in class but she also refused to hang his picture that he was fairly proud of, in the school hallway.

He was the ONLY child in his class whose picture she outright refused to display.

Because she didn’t like the color my son chose for the skin on HIS picture.

Which really, on so many levels, does not make sense.

The color of paper he chose for the entire person…it’s yellow.

He worked hard on two different colored eyes…just like he has.  Something he is so proud of.

She also didn’t like the hair he drew so she made him redo it.

And isn’t the beauty of art in the eye of the creator anyways?

But forget that she is imposing her views of how art should be onto my child.

She REFUSED to hang his picture in the hall.

He’s in 2nd grade.  8 years old.  A BABY.

That made such an impact on my son.  She made him feel that he was worthless, that his picture was a disgrace not fit for human eyes.

After he told me all about this incident, he never brought it up again, it seemed to have been forgotten…

Until today…

When he brought the ostracized, rejected picture home with him.

He held it, crinkled in his hand, and thrust it at me.

“Here”, he said angrily, the upset resurfacing,  ”This is the ugly picture that my art teacher wouldn’t hang with the rest of my class.  I suck at art Mom.  Duh”

I looked at it and all I saw was this…

A picture fit to hang alone on a fridge, displayed for everyone to admire; not hanging in the school hall, lost amongst the other students pictures.

A creative, beautiful masterpiece, created by my child.

For an art teacher, she seems to have no appreciation for originality and creativity.

No wonder he doesn’t like her art class, he’s too advanced for it.

It was just yesterday I met her. Five year old, wide eyed exuberance. Bursting with energy, bubbling over into laughter. Hair thrown into lumpy, lopsided pigtails. Gaping holes where baby teeth once were, waiting for their permanent arrival. Scabbed knees and runny nose. Oblivious and carefree, crawling affectionately into laps.

Eleven years later, the five year old is gone but not forgotten. Hair neat and straight parted. Permanent teeth pulled straight by braces about to come off. Faded scars, the only thing left from scabs. The wide eyed exuberance is now focused on music, boys and fashion. Hot isn’t a temperature, it’s a guy.

The girl has become a young woman.

Sixteen is the magic number. Drivers licenses and dates without parental chaperone.

Today, is her first real date. We are sending her off with a boy she’s had a crush on and apparently, he her. The minute she turned sixteen, he asked her on a date. She asked permission, we gave it, she accepted.

And now begins new and unfamiliar parenting territory. One that our parents went through with us and now it begins in our lives. We are on the other end of the interrogation.

Now is the time, as a mother, that I am going to have to really stress to my daughters that they must never define themselves by the boys they like or date and they must never let the boys define who they are or what people think of them.

I am going to have to start stressing, once again, the importance of reputation protection, along with other sorts of protection.

I’m going to have mourn the loss of flying braids and freckles, cuddles and surprise kisses.

My girls and boys are becoming men and women. Their journey is just beginning as we watch from the sidelines trying not to prompt them too much or impose our opinions too heavily.

No, I don’t think tatted up guys with cigarettes are cute but if that’s what you like, then fine. Just don’t expect us to let them in when they show up at our door.

No, I’m not thrilled about the fact that most of the guys you like are ones I’d never pick for you.

But yes, you’re 16. You’re learning who and what you like. Your taste will change so often, the same as it does with perfume and clothes.

On to the next seasons styles.

First five. Then 16. Next, you’re my age.

Every step my children take in this life makes me realize how unprepared I am for the next step because I’m still reeling from the last.

I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for them to grow up.

But I have no choice, just like my parents and their parents before them.

Here we are, we’ve met at the same crossroad. Getting ready to leave, slowly. Getting ready to let go, maybe a little slower.

Teary eyed, looking at the past while tiptoeing toward the future.

Trying, unsuccessfully, to slow it all down while they are trying to speed things up.

High five-ing at that cross-road, best of luck, love you. See you at the next one.

Being a parent is NOTHING like I expected it to be. Although, I’m not EXACTLY sure what I was expecting to begin with.

Yes, I love my children more than life itself. These people are the most important and precious humans on the planet to me.

So why is it that sometimes I feel like running away and leaving them all behind?

Sometimes, I just want THEM to just shut up and disappear and leave me alone to do my own thing.

Looking at those words makes me shudder because really, the thought of them not being there is horrifying.

But still.

I find myself getting jealous, sometimes, of the non-custodial parents in our families equation. They can come and go as they please and our house is the child depository. They go on vacation or just don’t feel like being a parent that day, no big deal, we are here. The constant.

We can’t do that. EVER.

But what if?

When the kids come home from school and each, with individual needs and immediate wants, get in my face at the same exact time. The only thing I can do is sit there and listen, trying to focus on whose need and want is most immediate. While wishing them away. Because otherwise, I get lost. My voice, my entire being. I disappear as a mom and become the life complaint center with very dissatisfied customers.

I get overwhelmed in them and their issues. I’m their mom, they expect me to, IMMEDIATELY if NOT SOONER, make things happen for them that they want to happen. Taking no for an answer doesn’t always seem to be in their realm of reality.

I can’t afford something. They want to know when it is that I’ll be able to afford.

I can’t do something immediately. They want to know when, as close to immediately, I can do it.

And all I do during this bombardment is wish them away. I wish them to be somewhere else. Demanding, needing, wanting from someone else. Because, at that particular moment, the only thing I wish for is to be gone. I picture myself in a little cottage overlooking the Mediterranean, perhaps the South of France. Or a villa in Tuscany looking at the rows and rows of grapevines bending and twisting toward the sun. I sigh, content in these fantasies.

But what if?

The trouble is, I’d never leave. That is never even close to being an option.

But still.

They take turns, my kids, being havoc wreakers. If it’s not one, it’s another. Or another. And the other.

I. Just. Want. QUIET.

I want them to UNDERSTAND.

I want the to give back, in some way, the way they expect us to give. Even 50% to our 100% would be nice.

I wish they would understand that life doesn’t alway revolve around their needs and wants, other things factor in. Perhaps it’s my fault, I let them think the moon rose and fell around them when they were little.

They were easier then.

The problems were as little as they were.

Their needs were more manageable.

I never, ever thought they wouldn’t be easy still.

I never thought their needs would become so BIG.

So overbearing. So emotionally toiling.

I don’t remember being like that as a teenager. Perhaps I was. And if I was, I owe my parents so much more gratitude than I ever thought I did. Because I don’t know how they lived through being parents. Being Mommy and Daddy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Without losing themselves or their sanity.

I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t. Because I love my children with every single beat of my heart and every single breath I take.

But sometimes I wonder…

What if it were just me.

Just for a moment.

But still.

As usual, Thoughtful Thursday blog hop is brought to you every week by Jessica and Sweaty and of course, little old me.

The SOPA STRIKE PLUGIN didn’t work

Pretend I’m blacked out.

Watch this video, it’s fab SOPA/PIPA

Sign the petition.

Sign the petition.

Don’t let the Government break the Internet.

We have a voice, let’s use it. SCREAM!!!!!!

A familiar story, one that seems to hold a common theme. This one is told by a woman who lives here in Michigan.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In November 2008 we called our mortgage company (at that time it was Countrywide) requesting a modification of our loan. We really just wanted a lower interest rate as ours was 10.99% but we weren’t opposed to them lowering the principal of our now underwater mortgage either. But we weren’t asking for anything more than the lower interest rate. They told us at the time we needed to be at least 2 payments behind to be considered for the modification. So we allowed ourselves to become 2 payments delinquent and got the ball rolling. We submitted the novels worth of paperwork the requested and were told it would take about 60 days for an answer. We waited the 60 days plus another 30 and still hadn’t heard anything. So I called the bank, which by this time was Bank of America as the whole Countrywide being bought by them fiasco had taken place. And was told that we were still in review and a negotiator would be in touch with me within 2 to 4 weeks. This went on for several months. During this time I started getting letters from the collections side of the bank stating if I didn’t pay my delinquent payments our house would go into foreclosure. Problem was I had been paying all along, but while your in the modification process they don’t report the payments, they hold them in some kind of limbo forever. But when I would call the modification department they would tell me not to worry about it since we were still in review we were protected and no we weren’t slated for foreclosure, but yes we were still in review and oh could we send the same 60 pages of info we had already sent in. This cycle repeated over and over again for the next 18 months, including the collection letters and even letters of impending sherrifs sale. Until I got fed up and hired an attorney.

It was amazing I hired an attorney and in less than 1 week I had a modification package in my hand. I never did talk to a negotiator, but they did modify our existing loan. Here’s where it gets really fun. The modification wasn’t super to begin with but we took it because it kept us in our house. The claimed we never paid during the almost 2 years it took to modify so they tacked all those payments on the back of my mortgage and then were kind enough to drop my interest rate. So we signed the packet, notarized it and I made sure it was received by sending it signature only. 2 weeks later I made the first payment at the new rate, this was in April of 2010.

I thought everything was back on track, until 2 months later I was on vacation and get a call on my cell phone from none other than BofA’s collections asking me why I’m delinquent on my account and telling me I’m in foreclosure. I needless to say went little crazy and cussed the barely English speaking lady out telling her I had been modified and have been paying my bill someone around there needs to do their damn job and leave me the eff alone. I hung up on her since she just kept asking why I was behind and when I could make a payment, and called customer service where I was told oh no maam your paperwork is here it’s just not been updated throughout the system that’s why their still calling. This went on for another 2 months and finally I got loss mitigation involved and was able to get one phone number that directed me to the same person everytime.

This should have led to an immediate resolution but it didn’t. After accepting 3 payments under the terms of the modification they were trying to tell us that the investors had rejected the modification. I basically told the guy after I submitted yet one more round of paperwork he better get it all straightened out before the week was out because even though I was no banker or law major even I knew they were breaking a contract. I also bluffed the hell out of him, up until that point everyone I had talked to outside of collections had repeatedly assured me that everything was fine, all our paperwork was in order it was just a matter of their system not being updated. So I told this guy I had recorded every single conversation I had with every person I had spoken to at that company and if they tried to screw with me he and I both knew in the end I would win. He actually said uh oh when I told him I had recordings. In less than 24 hours after that conversation he came back saying that the modification was good but I had to have an escrow account which put the payment right back where it was before this whole thing started. Not to mention on top of all the stress, and heartache those bastards still put a foreclosure on my husbands credit. How does that even work? We still live here, yet it shows the house was foreclosed, and there’s nothing we can do to get that off.

So this past April we decided we were done being a slave to BofA when a better opportunity presented itself, so we stopped paying them and started the short sale process. We sign the papers for the new buyers on the 6th, part of me is sad this was our first house together, where our kids were born, etc. but another part of me is just relieved to be out from under it. We owe triple what it’s worth and eventually the stress it was causing may very well have broke us.

I’m not going to get into a political rant because I don’t like sounding uneducated. Politics makes me sound like a moron.

I am going to say that, as a blogger who uses the Internet to speak her mind and as an American who was born with the 1st Amendment as a human right, I’m VERY, STRONGLY, VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED to the anti-piracy bills that our leaders are considering putting into law.

In my strong opinion, it seems that if SOPA and PIPA go into effect, it sets precedence for the government to be able to take away whichever rights we have. Which means eventually, we will have no rights.

Imagine being arrested for no apparent reason, just because of something you said, did, wore, believed in…that up until 2012 was legal.

Our freedom is in danger of being taken away. The masses are being punished for the crooked few, who probably aren’t even living in the U.S.

It is our obligation as citizen of this GREAT COUNTRY to make sure that SOPA and PIPA DO NOT HAPPEN.

In protest, on January 18th, I will be participating in the blackout that will be widespread throughout the internet. Rock and Drool, despite the fact that only 3 people read me, will be offline.

Below, I have listed links to various anti-SOPA and PIPA resources.
Please, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, google SOPA and PIPA and educated yourself. These bills, if passed into laws, WILL CHANGE AMERICA AS WE KNOW IT.

Various articles linked on Craigslist, another site that is opposed to SOPA and PIPA.

Change.org petition

Place a banner on your FB and Twitter avatars in protest.

If you blog and are self hosted, here are instructions on how to black out your site.

Add your website and join the blackout in protest of SOPA and PIPA here.

To get in touch with your local Representatives here.

We can’t sit around idle, hoping these go away. Tebow, Kardashian, Beyonce…WHO THE HECK CARES about them? Let’s focus on what really matters…our rights as Americans.

America, let’s stand together and use our voices.

While we still have the right to.

Being a Mommy was something I had dreamed about as far back as I can remember.

My favorite thing to do as a child was to play with my dolls. They were my first babies. I dressed them, fed them and loved them for many years, just like any good mommy would do.

Dolls decorated my bedroom probably far longer than what would be considered socially acceptable.

Toy highchairs, cribs and strollers mixed with posters of my pre-teen and teen crushes bombarded anyone walking into my private quarters. My bedroom screamed confusion; wanting to grow up yet wanting to stay young.

By the time I reached 6th or 7th grade, my friends no longer wanted to play, they wanted to gossip and talk about boys. My dolls sat, eavesdropping, taking it all in. Completely ignored by the world around them.

I think that I was in 8th grade when I realized that my dolls had been sitting, lonely for human touch, for quite awhile. So, instead of having them napping, eating and waiting for walks, I put them on my dresser for display and removed the rest of the toys from my room.

I was now a teenager. My love was transferred from dolls to Duran Duran. My room redecorated into a typical teenage hangout with adolescence tucked into storage bins or locked away in closets.

But always, I knew that I wanted to have living versions of the toys I played so longingly and lovingly with.

When I was 27, my first living and breathing doll was placed in my arms. I was now, officially and forever, a Mommy.

All my dreams had come true and was lying tightly bundled in my arms, looking into my eyes.

I became a mom to 3 children, my dolls. Real replaced play.

Then, these babies got bigger and just like I did with my dolls, I had to remove some of the clutter. Although, with my real babies, I didn’t put them on display on a shelf.

Here I am, almost 16 years after giving birth for the first time. Middle age is here, smacking me upside the head. Dolls and babies both a distant yet vivid memory that I take out and revisit, remembering the smells and sounds of childhood play and early motherhood.

Today, I went to my gynecologist. I’ve been having some girl bit issues that took me by surprise. I won’t get into those just yet, that’s another post, another subject matter for another time.

During our discussion, she asked me what contraception my husband and I have been using. I shared that information with her. She asked if we used it religiously and I said…um, pretty much, yeah.

She looked at me and asked me if I was done having babies. DONE. As in, never again would I feel a baby move inside me. Never again would I give birth. Never again would I be awakened in the middle of the night, numerous times, to nurse.

I said…Hell yeah I’m done.

And I meant it. Despite the lurch in my heart and the lump that formed in my throat when the reality hit me that I am now way past the age of having babies. My children are getting older, some of them will be going off to college in a couple years. My youngest is growing quickly and steadily. They all are. And my dolls remain, forever babies, on a shelf in my closet.

All those years of hoping, wishing and longing for babies has come to an end.

Instead of talking to my Ob/Gyn, she is now just my gynecologist. There will be no OB.

Instead of discussing Lamaze, hospital visits and pediatricians, I am discussing getting my tubes tied to prevent any unwanted pregnancies.

Because I don’t want any more pregnancies.

At least, not my own.

I now have to wait until my children are at that stage in their lives, the one I waited patiently for years to be at, to be able to hold my own flesh and blood babies once again.

It’s such a strange feeling. To realize that life has so rapidly come and is so rapidly zipping by. While I’ve been watching my children hit their milestones and stages, mine have been passing, virtually unnoticed.

Until today. When I really paid attention to where I am in my life. When I was really honest with myself. Having a baby, at my age, isn’t where I want to be. I am beyond that in so many ways. My life is starting to be my own. I’m becoming the person that I want to be.

So, after my next doctors appointment, which is next week, I will be making an appointment that I never foresaw myself making.

Permanent sterilization.

I will never again have a baby.

As bittersweet and momentous this is, it’s what I want.

It’s just shocking that this is where I am when I feel like I should still be where I was.

Thoughtful Thursday blog hop is brought to you every week by Jessica and Sweaty and of course, little old me.