Just Simply Holly

I’m sitting here watching The Today Show. Meridith is talking to a lady on a segment called “Today’s Family: Dealing with kids’ gross behavior”. I missed the name of the woman she is talking to, so I apologize. The general “air” of the segment is obviously dealing with the gross things that kids do. The first thing they talked about was farting. Now, my family is weird because we laugh our butts off over farts. Hey, come on, it’s a natural part of life!

I grew up with a sister who is a “fart supresser” meaning that if she could not excuse herself to “pass gas” she would hold it. Now, I’m not the type of parent who encourages unacceptable behavior from my children when they are in public, and from what I’ve been told by people, I have very polite children. But here at home when it’s just the four of us, that’s a completely different story. Farting does not bother me at all! So when I heard this woman who was talking to Meridith say something like “If your teen won’t stop farting, take away the lap top for a week”. WTH is THAT about? Are you SERIOUS? Punish a child because they are FARTING? No, I’m sorry! As a parent of a 15 year old and a 12 year old, I have MUCH bigger battles to deal with compared to farting! I would much rather hear my child fart than find out that they are doing drugs or drinking. I would much rather that my child fart than treat people disrespectfully!

Am I the only person that honestly feels that farting is not a bad thing? Am I really that far off as a parent because I don’t punish my child because they won’t stop farting? I’m sorry, but I’m just blown away by that segment!

****UPDATE****
You can read about the segment HERE but they only talk about younger children and how to deal with them if “You think they’re farting on purpose”. This is their exact quote:

And, if you think that it’s been accomplished on purpose, then several minutes in timeout may be in order so that he’ll think twice before doing it again!

YOUNG MAN, YOU’D BETTER THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU THINK ABOUT FARTING IN THIS HOUSE! OMG, SPARE ME!

****SECOND UPDATE****
I decided to email The Today Show about this segment. I thought I’d share the email that I sent them with you:

In response to this mornings segment and this article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23018000/

As a parent of a 15 year old boy and a 12 year old girl who I feel are great children I can’t help but wonder if you’re kidding! As a parent in today’s society I face many different situations with my children where punishment is completely justified. But while watching the segment with Meridith and Dr. Peters this morning my jaw dropped to the floor over Dr. Peters suggestion to “Take away the laptop for a week” over a teen passing gas. What kind of totally not right “Doctor” is this woman? And have we as a society become so “righteous” that passing gas has become such a major thing?

Before you ask, NO, I do not encourage my children to pass gas or burp in public. They know that it’s not something that is acceptable and they do excuse themselves if they do so in public. However, for a “Doctor” to suggest that I should punish my child for FARTING in my own home only tells me that that doctor has NO business treating children or telling people how to parent. That is, unless, that Doctor specifically caters to the rich and elite. I watch The Today Show religiously from 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM every day and this segment has to be the biggest joke I have ever watched. I certainly hope it was a one time only thing and not a trend.

Yes, there are many things that children SHOULD be punished for, but passing gas is NOT one of them.

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There are many things in life that never cease to amaze me, but I’m about to talk about something that totally blows me away! As you know, about six months ago, we helped my sister and her family move into their new home that we also helped them completely remodel. I was talking to my sister on the phone the other day and she told me that she and her husband had gotten into a HUGE argument. As with most couples, the argument started over bills and finances. But what her husband told her to do is what has me blown away! At the end of the argument, before he stormed out of the door, he told her that she needs to call their real estate agent and put their new home on the market, because he doesn’t want to have to deal with it anymore. HUH?!?! You want to sell a house that you’ve MAJORLY over mortgaged six months after you moved into it? I love when people say totally stupid things in a moment of anger because it gives me something to laugh about for a long time afterwards!

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I wish I knew what it was that is so deeply on my mind that is keeping me from sleeping lately! I don’t feel stressed, I’m not in a bad mood, nothing is going on with the hubby or the kids. I’ve even had a couple of really nice phone calls with my mom lately, although she’s in a heck of a spot right now, thanks to my darling sister!

If you read my post(s) about the party for my mother and step father that was held a month ago, you know that my sister got all crappy with me because I couldn’t pitch in on an expensive gift that all of the kids wanted to get for them as a combination 70th birthday/Christmas gift. Although I was apprehensive about even going to the party, in the end I had a very good time and was glad that I did go! At the end of the evening everyone was giving/writing checks to my sister, which were everyone’s portion of the gift. While talking with my mom last night I found out that my sister cashed everyone’s checks and rather than paying off the charge for the TV, which was put on MOM’S credit card, she spent the money. So now mom has this HUJASS credit card bill and my sis called her to find out what the absolute minimum payment on it was because she’s broke right now. Can you say WTF?!?!?!? She had the balls to be a HUGE “B” to me over the fact that I couldn’t pitch in when the money that was paid didn’t even go on the damn bill? I want to call my sister on this SOOOOOOOOOO bad because this is so wrong in more ways than one!

OMG, I have to tell you what happened tonight at dinner! We all were sitting around the table eating and talking. I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and had used a different sauce than I normally do. We were talking about the sauce and what we liked and didn’t like about it when I mentioned that the only thing I didn’t like about it were the chunks of tomato. Granted, the chunks of tomato in this sauce were smaller than many other spaghetti sauces that I’ve used, but I personally just don’t like chunks of tomato in my spaghetti sauce. I don’t know why, because I do like tomatoes! Anyway, my son made the comment that many things are made from tomatoes, to which I said, “Yeah, like onions”, which got us all laughing. He started talking about the things that are REALLY made from tomatoes when my daughter said something about cherry tomatoes. He looked at her and said something about cherry tomatoes are exactly how they’re grown and aren’t really used for much. I looked at him and said “No, they’re not exactly how they’re grown. Cherry tomatoes are made from big tomatoes. They just take this scooper thing and make a scoop then take a piece of the skin from the big tomato and stretch it around the scoop of tomato so it fits just right”. My son, who is without a doubt one of the smartest people I have EVER known looked at me and said “Really”, like he really believed me! At that point my daughters mouth full of milk came flying out of her mouth and nose all over my husband and myself! Hubby wasn’t too happy about it, but I was busting a gut laughing. Not because of her spitting the milk, but because of the fact that my son remotely believed what I was saying, even if it was only for a split second!

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Just to forewarn you, in case the title didn’t, this is going to be a rant.  I promise you, however, that I will watch my language!

A few months ago my husbands cell phone, that we have on a family plan through our phone company, was suddenly snapped in half by an irate mother because her son picked it up and called 911 and told them “Help me, there is a crazed lunatic in my house”.  I was pissed so I grabbed it out of his hand and rather than hang the phone up, I snapped it in half.  Hind sight is 20/20, dumb butt me didn’t put the insurance on the phone, and when I called the phone company I was told a replacement phone would cost almost $300.

Now, enter the hubby.  He called the phone company this past Tuesday trying to find out if he could get a replacement phone and have it added to the bill.  Amazlingly he got a customer service rep who not only was glad to help him, but actually figured out a way to get the hubby’s broken phone AND the kids’ phone replaced for a total of $30.  This my friends, is a VERY good thing!  The lady told him that they would be shipped ASAP and all we would have to do is call them to transfer the service over to the new phones when they arrived.

They arrived today.  But past experience with me and the customer service reps from our phone company has shown that it is not possible for me to call them for ANYTHING.  The last time I was on the phone with them was the day before our service was to be transferred here, and it almost resulted in us having service through them suspended indefinitely.  I don’t like this phone company, they are a bunch of butt tards!  So, I waited until the hubby came home from work to let him call them to activate the new phones, just to be on the safe side ;)  At this point, I am still in a good mood.

The first time he called them the customer service rep couldn’t even find the order for the new phones, she put him on hold once for over 10 minutes, came back to say she was still looking and when she went to put him on hold again, she disconnected the call.  So he called back and got someone else.  This person was pleasant, according to him, but TOTALLY clueless!  It took her over an hour to get things set to activate the two phones.  Now comes what has me so pissed off!  After getting all of the numbers off the old AND new phones she then asks him for the number off of my cell phone.  I found it curious as to why she would need this because nothing with my cell phone was changing.  My hubby gave her the numbers, they talked for a few more minutes, I hear him say something about 24 hours, say “yes” a few times, then say “Thank you, I look forward to hearing from you tomorrow”.  He then hangs up the phone, looks at me and says, “They have to reset our entire package, all phones are off for the next 24 HOURS”.  I’m like WTF?  EXCUSE ME?!?!?!  He said they had to do that since the three phones share a family plan.  OK, I can understand this somewhat, but my thought is that shouldn’t she have forewarned us of this BEFORE she did it?  No, I am not one of those people that is constantly on my cell phone, I use maybe 100 minutes a month, if that.  But tomorrow is a week day, the kids will be in school, and I have several things I HAVE to do in town.  What happens if the kids’ school has to get ahold of me while I’m in town?  I won’t have a cell phone, and town is a 20+ minute drive from home.

Yes, I know, this is all probably VERY trivial, but it still makes me mad!  I’d have been fine if this would have happened on a weekend, it wouldn’t have have hardly any affect on me.  But to have it happen on a week day really messes things up!  And no, I’m not going to call them and complain, I’d probably end up costing us our cell phones, the house phone AND the DSL for an indefinite period of time.  And if that were to happen, I can guarantee you, I’d go postal….LOL!

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Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you see something happen and you think to yourself, “Did I REALLY see what I think I just seen?”. I’ve had a few of them, but one that happened a few years ago sticks out to me more than any other.

We used to live in a large mobile home community. Rather than everyone having a mailbox on their own property, we had those large community cbu mailboxes, the ones that you pull up to and each person has a key to their own box. The ones in our community were located in these circle cul-de-sacs at the end of each street.

Anyway, I didn’t live far from the mailboxes, so I would usually just walk down to check my mail. One day, as I was walking down to the mailboxes, I seen a large delivery type truck going around the circle where the mailboxes were. The next thing I knew, I heard this loud scraping type noise, then I heard the sound of metal breaking. As I got closer to the mailboxes I realized that the delivery truck had literally torn the mailboxes right off their pedestal. It seems that there was a car parked in the circle and the truck was trying to squeeze between the car and the mailboxes. If the driver would have had any common sense, he’d have realized that there was no way his truck was small enough to do that.

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You know, I may not have much to offer as far as things and money go, but the one thing that I do offer to the people in my life that are important to me is loyalty.  If there is something I can do to help them, I will, if they need to talk, I listen.  I just got a phone call from my sister a couple of minutes ago.  This is the same sister whom we helped paint and prepare her new home every weekend for 3 months charging them not a single dime for any of the work we did.  Yes, they did give us a beautiful entertainment center once they moved into their new home, but there was also another agreement between us and them as to a used Chevy S-10 pickup that we were to buy from them for $500.  They knew that we were waiting for our student loans to come in to buy this from them and they were perfectly fine with that.  That was until I talked to her this morning.  It appears as if someone has made them an offer on said truck and, well, they’re in a “bind” right now and really need the money.  Her exact words were “I know you guys are in a jam right now because of your car breaking down and that you’re basically down to one vehicle and you were planning on buying this, but we had someone else make an offer, so basically now it’s going to go to whoever brings us the cash first”.  EXCUSE ME!?!?!

I’m done!  I told my husband that it’s simply time for me to cut ties with my family!  I’m tried of crap like this!  I’m tired of being told one thing one minute then them turning around the next minute and changing their minds!  I’m tired of the fact that whenever she calls and says she needs me, whether it’s to come and help her do something or just someone to talk to, that I’m there for her, but when the table is turned, she could care less!  I’m just tired!

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