Peanut Butter Blogger Time! Peanut Butter Blogger...Werd.

So this is going to be a short, quick blog, because I have another hilarious blog that will be coming later on today…

Last night at Wal-Mart I needed to purchase some peanut butter, because at our house, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches might as well be freaking crack. So if we run OUT of peanut butter, the boys start jonesing for it hardcore.

Now for those of you who know me, I am cheap. C.H.E.A.P. cheap. What’s that you hear? A bird? Cheap. Cheap. Cheap? No, it’s me, being a tight-wad. So of course there is rarely any name brand stuff in our house. Great Value is a daily staple at the Price crib.

BUT!!!!!

Last night at Wal-Mart…they were OUT of Great Value peanut butter. OUT! Gone, vamoose. Non-existent. I was SO sad. Because that meant I had only two options. 1. Don’t buy ANY peanut butter and face the wrath of Jack or 2. Break down and buy the $4.18 dollar jar of flipping Peter Pan peanut butter.

WHY. Someone please explain to me WHY groceries are so flipping expensive? If I didn’t love eating so much, I would totally stop JUST to save money. Bull. Bull corn.

Of course, I broke down and bout the $4,000,000 dollar jar of peanut butter so that my kids and husband could be happy…but not before I stood there for at least 5 minutes contemplating my excuses of coming back WITHOUT peanut butter. Which, I probably wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale today if I had.

A day in my life, for real. :)

Did I Win the Lottery?! No!

So Fishstick goes to daycare, and I LOVE his daycare. I love the girls that work there, and it’s just awesome…It’s reasonably priced so I can’t complain, and I really would recommend it to friends. My sister on the other hand…got the short end of this stick apparently. Her youngest son started “pre-school” this morning along with about 3 million other kids…but apparently he is starting a school that either A) has absolutely NO money or B) Has absolutely NO idea what they’re doing…I personally think it’s probably both.

Now, before I tell you why I think this school is out of their effing mind, I just want to say that, we are in a really piss-poor economy, IN CASE YOU WERE UNAWARE. So for those of us who weren’t born with silver spoons in our mouths, or have procreated to the point of poverty, we just can’t afford to drop $1,000 green slips on SCHOOL SUPPLIES!

Yes, SCHOOL SUPPLIES. Crayons, glue, scissors…the usual. Or at least it used to be. When I bought school supplies this year for Jack, my 1^st grader, I only spent a grand total of $130.00 bucks, give or take a little, and that included about 6 new outfits, new tennis shoes, new flip flops, a back pack AND a lunch box!

I am about to show you something that will shock the living daylights out of you…This is my nephews PRE-SCHOOL, school supply list. Now of course I have added in my own little quips and comments to make it funnier, but on a serious note – this thing is re-freaking-donkulous.

·         Two bottles Elmer’s Glue – Because 1 Glue Won’t Do!

·         1 Pair scissors

·         1 pkg. loose leaf multi colored construction paper

·         2 pkg. white copy paper – Are they learning to FAX??

·         1 pkg. 8 washable markers

·         1 pkg. 8 Jumbo or Chubby crayons – Do I DARE make a ‘chubby crayon joke’ There’s just too many to choose from really, so I’ll pass J

·         1 pkg. 3 or 4 Play-Doh NO Rose Art – Um, excuse me? Are you trying to be fancy when you let 9 different children stick they’re booger and peanut butter covered hands into the modeling clay?

·         Glue Sticks – Wait…didn’t I just buy liquid glue?! Yes, yes I did!

·         Water color or finger paint

·         Paint smock – Why yes Timmy, Daddy’s old Hooter’s T-shirt will make a PERFECT paint smock! Great idea.

·         Bag of play sand – Wtf. Who was the half-wit who came up with the idea to bag up sand and sell it?! You know he did not come up with that game plan sober.

·         Tooth brush – Because apparently as parents, we are incapable of making our children brush their teeth at home…what were WE thinking??

·         Tooth brush cap to cover ONLY the bristles not entire toothbrush – So what, the rest of the toothbrush isn’t afraid of the dark?

·         Kid’s Toothpaste – Again, my child has great dental hygiene and the idea of having a toothbrush in a classroom where kids are sick ALL THE TIME is a little strange to me…

·         Bottle of fun foam – This sounds like something you would buy at a sex store…Don’t tell me you didn’t imagine some oily-beau-hunk on the bottle in a silky pair of shorts…jusssst sayin…

·         Kleenex – Achoo.

·         Band-Aids – Ouchies. And if they think they are getting ones with Buzz-Lightyear and Charlie Brown on them they are SADLY mistaken…

·         Envelopes – For all those letter’s they’re going to be writing…IN DAYCARE.

·         Crib sheet – Fair enough.

·         1 pkg. of cotton balls or brown paper bags – I just hope this is for crafts, because the last time I tried to take off nail polish with a brown paper sack it didn’t turn out so well

·         Paper plates – Again with the frivolous killing of trees…jerks.

·         Magic erase cleaners – NOT regular erasers….MAGIC ones…for walls…

·         Clear contact paper – I wish I knew what this was so I could honestly come up with a witty response as to why it’s useless.

·         1 roll of colored duct tape – no silver! – Because let’s face it, only backwoods hillbillies use NORMAL colored duct tape that is $3.00 cheaper than hot pink duct tape with Hello Kitty’s face plastered on it

·         Pre-cut foam shapes or craft sticks – What in the hell is a craft stick? Is that the same thing as a Popsicle stick? Here Timmy, become a diabetic and eat these three boxes of discounted popsicles instead…I’m sure it’s cheaper and with Obama-Care you’ll get free insulin…It’s all good.

·         Colored feathers or pom-poms – Seriously?? Just…wow. If I see my colored feather I paid $4.00 for in some little kids hair I will flip out.

·         Googlie eyes – Presumably to use my glue to stick to my paper plates and call it a monster…I hope.

·         Self-stick Velcro – We all know non-stick Velcro just won’t work as well

·         1 bag of beads or buttons – Here, go pull the buttons off of all of grandpa’s pants, he doesn’t remember to button them anyways these days…

·         Crepe paper – I’d rather just eat crepes…oui oui!

·         1 pkg. of AA or D batteries – What in the hell was on this list that required batteries?! Nothing? Oh ok, good just wanted to make sure that my hard earned cheddar was going to something my kid would ACTUALLY use. Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up.

·         1 disposable camera – I better be getting AWESOME pictures…approximately 27 of them to be exact, and I want the high gloss finish.

I actually went through and did a rough total of what all of this would cost plus sales tax, and I was well over $200 because not only do they have to buy THIS now, they have to buy it AGAIN in February! So I totaled this up and then multiplied it by 2. Ridculous.

Plus, not only does my sister have to buy all of this, but she also has to pay $100.00+ a week for the actual childcare, so what I want to know is what the hell that money is paying for!!!! And the kicker is this stuff doesn’t even stay specifically with HER child…it gets thrown into the box for the ENTIRE SCHOOL to use…No no no! Jeez people come on – you should be questioning what you are paying for, don’t just give away your hard earned money!

Do NOT get me wrong, I am all about my kids’ education and if the school told me I had to go out and buy them a $300.00 laptop because it would help them reach their goals, you’d better believe that I am right there in line buying that laptop. But when it comes to buying supplies for the teachers and the school as a whole, I am MORE than happy to donate a few extra packs of markers, or even some cotton balls here and there. And I can even understand everyone chipping in a package of dry erase markers, some Kleenex, and soap because I remember having to buy that stuff for our teachers. But being REQUIRED to spend $400 dollars twice a school year and then $100 dollars a week in order to stock up the daycares art supply box, I don’t freakin’ think so Pal!

I’m just saying, I have a huge respect for our Teachers and what they do, I just can’t afford to pick up the slack for the entire school…and we shouldn’t be asked to. We purchase these things for OUR children, for THEIR educational experience…not everyone else’s.

That is all.

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby!

I already know that this blog is going to ruffle some feathers for several reasons, and frankly my dear I don’t give a damn, but I will gladly play Devil’s Advocate and take a look at them.

1.   I live in the Bible Belt, and I do NOT mean that in a bad way. God’s presence is everywhere in our house and in our lives…but let’s face it, there are some people out there who take judgment into their OWN hands and they don’t dish it out lightly.

2.   Sex seems to be the most awkward subject between a parent and their kids. I even feel awkward talking about it, so don’t worry – I get that.

3.   “Abstinence” Is all anyone around here knows to teach, and when you even think about bringing up sex education, you might as well go join the Lepers, because you just signed your own death warrant.

4.   Kids are a touchy subject. What should they hear? What do they already know? They’re our babies, we need to protect them. They’re our babies, but they need to know what the “real world” has in store for them.

These are all DIFFICULT decisions and situations to have to handle as a parent, and I completely understand that!

Which leads me to today’s blog post…SEX. The big nasty, the horizontal mambo, the dirty deed, whoopee, WHATEVER you prefer to call it. This is it.

I’m still a fairly young adult and I remember what I learned in my high school health class with Mrs. Bryant, and it definitely was not anywhere NEAR sex ed. We learned what foods were healthy, that STD’s were out there, and that babies came from your uterus. That was about the jest of it. How did those babies get there? No idea, of course we all actually KNEW how they got there…but aside from that, we pretty much had to either A. Ask our parents or B. Ask our friends about the P’s & Q’s of sex.

So I think it is AWESOME that New York schools are going to make sex education a requirement! And not only are they doing that, they are taking it one step further and requiring that students take it TWICE, once in 6^th or 7^th grade and again in high school. Of course, they have the option to “opt out” or “cop out” as I like to call it for those parents who just don’t want their kids “exposed”…I’m just like, “You live in NEW YORK! Take a look around, they’re exposed already, trust me!” But I think sex ed in schools is a great idea, and I think Northwest Arkansas is only being stubborn and ignorant if they don’t jump on this bandwagon. I think 6^th & 7^th grade is a PERFECT time to start introducing sex education, especially with everything that is going on in our world today and all of the information that is readily available to our kids. Anything younger than 6^th or 7^th grade seems excessive to me, and they probably wouldn’t listen very well, or take anything you say into account…But I agree with the officials in New York. Our kids need to be educated.

The statistics for teenage pregnancy are ridiculous! I’m sure shows like 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom (Which I am completely guilty of watching) don’t help, they tend to glorify teen pregnancy in some ways, and since I was a teen mother myself, I had our oldest son Jack, when I was 17. I got pregnant when I was 16 and I can testify that it is NOT glorious. I had to work hard to get where I’m at in my life today, and it was not a simple task. I love my boys more than anything on the face of this Earth, and I wouldn’t change any of the decisions I have made in my life, good or bad, because I look at them as learning experiences…but teen pregnancy is not fun, and if it can be prevented, then we should be the ones teaching our kids how to do so. Everything turned out great for me, but there are babies being dumped in trash cans and dumpsters because the mothers are too young to know how to handle that and they were too afraid to go to their parents for help for fear of what they would say or think…and that my friends HAS to stop.

Here in Northwest Arkansas the message is Abstinence. If they don’t do it, it can’t happen. Well duh. I would be willing to put money on the fact that 100% of the teenagers attending high school along with the majority of the younger school aged kids could tell you that. But at the same time, I would say that even though the majority of those teenagers know that if they just don’t do it, it can’t happen…there is still going to be a surprising percentage that are still doing it.

So WHY are we not equipping them with knowledge and power? Why are we letting young girls go into these relationships and get pressured without having ANY idea on how to protect themselves? Why are teenage boys so painfully unaware of what a condom is, or what STD’s can do to them!?

Here’s the answer –because we as adults, are just too afraid to talk to them about it. That’s the bottom line, you can twist it and turn it and try to justify it in any way that you want…but that is the fact of the matter. Adult’s feel uncomfortable talking to their kids about sex…it’s awkward. Hell yes it is. No one wants to imagine that their young kids are thinking about or even having sex!!! I don’t! But I also don’t want my boys to lose any opportunities in their lifetime because they were unaware of the consequences their actions held. I will NOT let that happen. So if I have to have an awkward conversation with them telling them to keep protection on them no matter what, even if nothing happens or nothing HAS happened…then that is what I will do.

Do I want my kids to go out and start having sex at a young age? No way, Jose! I don’t even want them to know what sex is! They’re my babies, and I want them to stay that way. But as a sane, well-educated adult, I know better. I know what kids talk about at school and on the bus, and I KNOW what the television shows and songs on the radio are ALL saying, even if it’s subliminal.

So I am going to teach them, that sex is something special that you shouldn’t just do because everyone else is, or because you “think” you love someone after a week. And that once they do it, EVERYTHING changes. You change as a person, your relationship will change, it is not something to take lightly.

There’s no need to go into detail about the physical aspects of sex, trust me, they’ll hear all of that from their friends and the internet I’m sure…but they need to know the basics. What condoms are, what birth control is…and MOST importantly, they need to know that they can come and TALK to you. That is going to be the most important aspect of your kids growing up. Communication. They need to know, that even though you don’t want to know they are having sex with the girl next door when you guys are still at work, you are still there for them to talk to no matter what.

I think we should all face it. Some kids, NOT ALL KIDS, are going to have sex at a young age…You can tell them that they aren’t allowed to have boys or girls up in their bedrooms or over at your house when you aren’t home, you can set curfews and be strict and authoritative, but face it…kids are resourceful and if they WANT to do it, they will find a way. So they should be educated and prepared.

Even though our kids watch us drive a car every day and they probably KNOW the basic idea of driving a vehicle well before they are actually old enough and mature enough to drive, we wouldn’t just assume that because they have been semi-exposed to the information they need that they could take our car on the interstate and know how to correct a spinning car on black ice. So why would we assume that they automatically know how to protect themselves when it comes to sex? We shouldn’t. Period.

Talk to you kids, it could be a changing factor for them and their decisions.

Anywho, that is my rant. I know that I can’t change the mind of everyone in America, but if ONE person reads this blog and say to themselves, “Wow, maybe I should talk to my kids about sex education, they’re getting to be that age now…maybe they have questions…” That little glimmer of hope is all I need to know that I made someone think a little harder about one of life’s harder decisions.

The end. J

So NOW I want to know what YOU think! Should sex education be taught in schools? What about in Northwest Arkansas? Leave your responses and comments below!!!

It's Just Those Rainy Days

For those of you not from around here, or just completely oblivious to the ridiculous amount of heat we have been having this summer, the south has been in a bit of a drought. Extreme drought is what they called it on the weather this morning…and let’s be honest – it stinks.

Fortunately, last night and today since it has started raining, it has been a very VERY welcome sight J I am actually hoping that it rains all night and most of tomorrow so that I can adorn my completely adorable rain boots, so fingers crossed!

But all of this rain has kept me indoors and given me a lot of time to think of the things I LOVE about the rain. So in order to keep Zeus happy, and keep the rain a coming, I have decided to dedicate this blog post to my most favorite weather system…Rain – and all the things I love about it!

1.   Puddles. I love…L-O-V-E…splashing in puddles. It seemed a little odd doing it alone before you had kids, but now that you have them, you can splash equally, without fear of looking like a completely goof.

2.   Indoor Games. What better time to break out some Twister, Hide and Seek, Monopoly, or my personal favorite, Mario Party N64. Yes, I have whooped many booties at Mario Party on rainy days…

3.   Rainy Day Appetite. For some odd reason, I tend to crave chocolate more so on rainy days than any other days, not to mention chili, hot cocoa, and grilled cheese sandwiches. Nostalgic childhood foods? Yes, I think so.

4.   Cuddle Time. Need I say more? Whether it is with a book, the hubby, the kiddos, or all of the above, being cuddled up with a cozy Razorback blanket and listening to it rain makes for a pretty good day.

5.   Rainy day music. What is this, you ask? YES! There are a plethora of rainy day songs that just make the world go ‘round. Rainy Dayz by Ja Rule & Mary J. Blige, Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head by B.J. Thomas and Rainy Days and Mondays by the Mamas and the Papas. Unfortunately Rainy Days and Mondays is a bit of a downer…but you get the idea. Tons of songs dedicated to rain.

6.   The Rainy Day Movie List. This could literally go on forever if I let it, but there are about 5 movies that just deserve to be watched on rainy days.

a.    New Moon. Hello, show me ONE person who wouldn’t be thrilled seeing a tan, hot, Taylor Lautner in the rain in HD in your living room while it’s raining outside. Thank you Summit Entertainment…thank you.

b.   You’ve Got Mail. Simple classic feel good movie. Who couldn’t love this on a rainy day??

c.    The Notebook. Again, who wouldn’t want to watch Ryan Gosling rowing a boat in the rain? Not I. Please deal me that hand.

d.   Singin’ in the Rain. Self-explanatory, at least I hope it is. Gene Kelly is just…uh-mazing. If this movie doesn’t make you want to get up and go play in the rain, then you should just move to the desert.

e.    Last, but NEVER least, Just Friends. My ALL TIME FAVORITE movie ever. If you haven’t exposed yourself to this hilarious Ryan Reynolds comedy yet, I HIGHLY suggest that you do so. Now. Go, now, you’re still sitting here reading…hurry!

7.   Rainy Day Attire. Score! Rainy days give you so MANY different wardrobe opportunities, even in the middle of summer. You can wear rain boots, rain coats, have cute umbrellas OR if you choose to stay inside, it is perfectly acceptable to perform any of the tasks on this list in yoga pants and your husband’s Razorback hoodie.

8.   Coloring. Yes, I said it. I am a HUGE coloring fan. Give me a coloring book full of adorable puppies, a package of Crayola markers and crayons and I will literally decorate an entire refrigerator in less than an hour. Especially on rainy days. I even draw in my own little rain drops so they are weather appropriate.

9.   Sleep. I honestly cannot think of a time that I have ever slept better than during thunderstorms and rainy nights. It is so hard to get out of bed in the morning because of it. I could lay in bed and listen to it rain for hours.

10. “Rain” Dancing. Love going outside and playing in the rain! Dancing around and smelling the wet dirt. That’s kind of strange, but I LOVE the smell of the outdoors when it rains. Everything is so fresh and renewed.

So that is my blog post dedicated to rain and all the things I love about the rainy days…Feel free to share your favorite rainy day things in the comment sections! And make sure you follow me on twitter for Funny Things I’m Thankful For, Bad Ideas, and HILARIOUS things that my kids, and myself say! @JackNFishersMom