Distracted Driving

So it dawned on me yesterday as I was driving all three of my kids to a therapy session for my youngest, that there is no other driver more distracted then a mom with three kids in the back seat of her car.

I understand that there is a huge push against texting and driving, for very good reasons.  We have changed laws, had protests, lead by example and now it is illegal in many states if not all of them.  Yay for democracy!

But what about the rest of us?

I remember driving BC (before children) and I would see moms leaning into the back seat as they are racing 70 mph down the freeway and I used to think (God, I was so cute) is it that important that they couldn't wait until you stopped or at least slowed down?

Flash forward 8 years and 3 kids later and this is what my morning commute looks like on a regular basis:

1. buckle everyone into their carseats while they wiggle, cry, whine and ask for everything under the sun.

2.  Starting the engine means the immediate and dire importance of what we will be listening to because apparently the radio isn't good enough.

3. Pull out of drive way, while somebody cries that it is there turn to listen to their song.

4.  If I haven't plugged in my iPod yet everyone starts asking what the heck is going on in their native language of "Scream"

5. Drink coffee.  Now I am out of my neighborhood.

6.  Someone is asking for water.

7. Two kids are now asking for water.

8. Two kids are now using their native tongue for water.  *See #4*

9.  I turn on the iPod to "Let it Go"  Because it is the first freaking song on the play list.

10.  Two kids are now crying that this isn't their song while one child sings at the top of her lungs.  Ps: one of the crying children is still asking for water.

11.  I get water for crying child.

12.  I scream at other child (because it is their native language and seems to be the only thing they understand) and explain the nuances of something so backward as a "playlist"
We are only about half way to school by now.

13. I remember that I packed breakfast.  Which consists of a protein bar.

14.  Three kids in my back seat demand I share it with them.

15.  In their native language I tell them that they already had breakfast and that this protein bar is most likely going to get me through till dinner.

16.  Kids resign and switch to asking for water again.

17.  I dig through my Mary Poppins bag where I can apparently pull out everything from a hair tie to my kindle without looking but the water bottles are lost forever in the abyss.

18.  After narrowly hitting someone at the next red light.  I finally look while digging through my bag to pull out three waters.  I throw them into the back seat.  Inevitably, someone does not catch theirs.

19.  One uncoordinated child is now crying for their water that is rolling around the floor.  I manage to catch it as it is rolling under my break pedal.

20.  After another close call of almost ramming the person in front of me.  I use the native language of my people and inform them that I will no longer be of any use to them other then driver for the rest of the trip.

21.  Quite for 20 seconds.

22.  My youngest takes this opportunity to point out every little thing out the window and then yells at me when I don't look.  Most of what she is looking at has passed us ten minutes ago.

23.  My son is now crying because his song is over and now its another girl song.

24.  Coffee is still being consumed along with the last of the protein bar. (I can see the school from here)

25.  One final turn but now I am getting into a lane with 25 other distracted moms and it's basically a free for all as we pull into the parking lot.

26. Park.  Turn off car and have everyone cry because the song wasn't over.
...

it's kinda like this but now picture that entire
back seat lined with crying children. 

I think we should start making a law that mini vans can only be manufactured with a dividing wall between the cabin and the rest of the seats in the back.

Where's my bumper sticker?


Antenella

Am I doing it wrong?

I get the feeling that I'm doing it wrong. 

Yesterday was a low day for me.  I’m gonna be honest, I was not winning.  The twins were crying non-stop from 7 in the morning and by the time 6 pm rolled around I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I sobbed like, well... like a three year old.  Complete with hacking coughs, running snot and gagging.  It was not pretty.

Does anyone else do this?  

The worst part about it is that I can’t even hid in my room and quietly have a nervous break down by myself.  If I am out of my children’s sight for even a second they come searching for me like it’s CSI Miami, and I can't even think about locking them out of my room.  

Not only will it turn into a choir of screaming voices, add a cacophony of noise made on my bedroom door by anything as simple as their feet to things more complex like the t.v. remote control.  So, yeah.  locking them in their rooms?  You'll end up getting more of the same.

As for time outs, spankings, getting down on their level or threatening them with: "Wait till your father comes home.", nothing seems to make a dent!  I'm not asking for the sun.  I'm asking for 10 minutes to be left alone!  

10 minutes that didn't involve me having to do something for you.  10 minutes that didn't involve me listening to you scream for hours on end. 10 minutes of not having to referee fights, make snacks, change the television show or wipe your butts.  10 minutes where I didn't have to hid in a corner and make myself as small as possible praying that you won't notice me so I can eat a sandwich without having to divided it into three equal parts so that I can share it with the three of you.  (No, my math is not wrong)

Am I the only one who is spending their nights dreading what the new day will bring them?  What horrors of constant nagging will be revealed in the wee hours of the day.  When the birds are just beginning to sing their musical melodies of the morning I almost always have spent anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour of discontent screaming.

What am I supposed to do?  I'm out of ideas, I'm out of options.  

And I am just... plain... tired...

Is it just me?

And I feel like a failure.  I hear that voice in my head that tells me how grateful I should be for the mere fact that my kids are all sound of mind and healthy enough to drive me crazy.  And I am.  But it doesn't make the days any easier.  

I know I should probably be praying more, or getting to spend more time with God.  That's supposed to make my spirit joyful.  But how rejuvenating can a time of worship be if most of it is spent trying desperately block out your three year old who apparently suffers trauma every time you sing.

I know I’m not supposed to compare myself to other people, especially other mom’s and most definitely not pintrest mom’s but I get the feeling that I’m the only one that is losing their mind on a daily basis.  I know a lot of my insecurities are unfounded since I’m comparing my private life with everyone else’s public life.  But I can’t shake the feeling that everyone else is doing it better then me.

And I'm just tired of looking like that frazzled women who is in over her head.  I'm pretty sure it's all in my mind but I feel like people roll their eyes when they see me coming in the mornings to drop of my daughter at pre-school.

"Look who's coming.  I can hear her a mile away.  She's screaming at her kids again and they are following like howling Monkeys."

It's just embarrassing.

Maybe that's just it.  Everyone else seems to be able to keep their private life...well, private!  Why can't I do that? What is wrong with me?  Why am I constantly wearing my heart on my sleeve so everyone can see the crumpled mess that I am consistently in?  

Why can't I just look put together just once! Where I just grin and bear it and make some surface comment about the weather when I drop my kids off in the morning?  Why can't I get my kids to stop crying long enough to get through a shopping experience without the little old ladies giving me the stink eye?  Why can't I just not look so washed up and exhausted when ever I leave the house?

How is everyone else doing this?!

I guess that's what makes this road so hard to walk alone.  If we don't talk about our frustrations, if we don't find common ground, if we can't be willing to relate to each other and share our flaws and insecurities then this world called parenting is unbearable!  

Maybe that's why I'm an open book.  Because maybe, just maybe, in those off days when I am struggling to keep from screaming, I am keeping another mom from crying.   Because she can see in me a kindred spirit and I still keep at it.  Day after day, night after night and when she is having a morning from hell she knows that I will be there, looking like death and screaming like the uncouth drunken sailor that I am.  

And maybe, just maybe she can carry on for one more morning because she knows she's not doing it alone.

Maybe... just maybe.

Antenella

the Little Princess

This is my daughter:                                                   This is me:

On a good day we play "one of these things is not like the other" and on bad days I have people trying to take my kid to the security dest because they thing she is lost.  Of course, I wouldn't have it any other way.  (So many jokes!)  But being an adoptive parent puts you in situations that most normal families just wouldn't have to face.  

One of them being, what do you do when your kid starts asking about their birth mom?  What do you do if the probability of them finding the birth mother is slim to nil?  What do you tell them when they start asking about who they are, where they came from and the history that will forever be an unknown?

I would imagine that the best way to confront these issues is to create an environment for them to grow and flourish in a way that involves positive reinforcement and a view of the situation through rose colored glasses.  

Basically... I get to make it up.

It's not lying, per se.  Stop it!  It's called optimism.   Creating a best case scenario of the situation that is unknown.  Not lying.  Unfortunately, for my beautiful daughter, I am somewhat imaginative and I have noticed some characteristics that seem to fit my story to a tee.

We stole her.  Yup!  Daddy and I are fugitives.  We stole her from a small country somewhere between the continent of Africa and the Mediterranean.  She is the sole heir to the throne and terrible missed by her loyal and loving subjects. We originally were going to hold her ransom, you know, since her mom and dad where the Kind and Queen of this country, but we just loved her so much we ended up wanting to keep her.     

So that's what we did.  We settled down with our partners in crime, her now, brother and sister and decided to walk away from a lucrative life of crime and live in the suburbs holding down a nine to five job in the hopes that we won't be discover for the international fugitives that we are.

Too much?

But hear me out.  This could totally work.  My youngest is a princess!  I know you're thinking your kid is a princess and I am sure that they are.  But this child is an actual princess.  If I hadn't met her birth mother myself, I would have believed the made up story of stolen princesses because this kid is... a... princess!

I'm talking about yelling commands at people and then giving a look of disbelief when her insane demands are not met.  I'm talking about going up to the nearest stranger and asking them to do anything for her.  From tying her shoes to buy her a toy, as if this is totally normal for complete strangers to want to do things for her.  I'm talking about standing in a puddle and crying because no one has had the decency to take off their jacket and lay it across the wet so that she could walk over it with out her delicate toes getting wet.  I'm talking about a three year old that still manages to get random people to spoon feed her.

All the while these complete and utter strangers are wondering where the heck her mother is.  And as the said mother, it is hard to teach my spoiled child anything of living in the peasant world when everyone she runs into treats her as the princess that she is accustom to.

So I'm just going to go with it.  And the next time she turns to a well meaning women behind me in the check out line and asks her for a candy bar off the shelf I'm just going to look at that women and say as sternly as I can muster:

"What are you waiting for women!  The Queen has given you for request, you will do well to obey it or I will have you taken away in shackles, peasant!"

Let child services figure that one out...

Antenellat

Karma's a Witch

I remember the days when I slept in till noon and did nothing but read books all day with a cup of hot cocoa on my lap.  I remember when my biggest concern was where we were going to eat on our Friday date nights.  I remember being able to spend hours in front of the television watching what ever I wanted without worrying about what little eyes might be seeing.  I even remember being able to sing along to the radio without someone having a nerves breakdown in my backseat.  I can remember a time without kids.

I can also remember a time being a “Judgey Mc Judger”.

I know what you're thinking.  "What?! You?! NO!  You are the most beaten down mom there is!  You would never have any room for judgment."

Alas, I wish it were true.  But no.  I have a troublesome past rot with pre-conceived notions of motherhood. 

I remember when I would see mom’s with their kids in target or walmart and they would look so frazzled and their kids would be running around like demon children and I thought. “Oh, that would never fly in my house.”  Or, I would see kids with runny noses and the mom would make no attempt to wipe it and I’d think, “Oh, that would never fly in my house.”  Or the best would be when I’d see a toddler screaming “NO!” at his mom at Publix and think, “Ooh, that would NEVER fly in my house.”

Oh yes, Karma is a bitch.

Because guess who that frazzled, snot stained, degraded mom is now?  This lady!

And just because God loves me best, He has found a way to constantly remind me of the error of my ways.  A continued reminder of how far I have fallen and will forever remind me of my sin of judging others.

Back before I had children my husband and I would sometimes go out late.  Why not?  We're adults!  We have no curfew!  We can do what we want.  And some times I would have a hankering for Mexican.  And some times we would go to this hole in the wall authentic Mexican place at 10:30 at night because it was authentically open late and usually full of Mexican's.  (That's how you know its good.)

I remember almost every single time, as soon as we would be seated I would see kids, young kids, littered all over the floor of this restaurant. 

Eww!  I would point these toddlers out to my husband and whisper things like:

"Ugh!  Why are these kids even awake?  Shouldn't they be in bed?" 
"They are like, on the floor!  That is so disgusting!"
"What kind of parents keep their toddlers up past 10 and then let them take a nap on the floor of a restaurant?"
"That would never fly in my house!"

...

Fast forward about 6 years and now I have not only a wonderful magically well behaved daughter but I also have a child that will make me regret every "Judgy McJudger" thought I have ever considered having.   My son.

Do you know what I catch my son doing more often then any other bad behavior you can think of?

Mexican kids!
Always on the floor!
(At target)

You guessed it!

I am forever finding my son on the floor, like it's his job and ever time I turn around hoping to find my son vertically following me down the aisle of Target, I more often then not find him sprawled out on the floor as if he is the latest "Life Line" commercial.

So, every time I think about all the bacteria he is rubbing into his hair and clothing I am reminded of all those years ago when I thought I had it together.  When I thought that I would be different.  That I would be that mom that gets it right.

Yeah...

It's a Party!  At Party City.
(the ghetto one, yay) 

Karma's a Bitch.

And PS:  Now everything flies in my house.

Antenella

Remember the time... (2)

You knocked out your front tooth a whole year before it would have fallen out on it's own?

About 5 seconds before the accident...

You can't make this stuff up.  Last week it was the Jellyfish sting and this week my kid looks like she a  French-Canadian hockey player.

What had happened was...

The kids had been asking to go to the zoo for weeks now and we have family passes and we just didn't have any more excuses.  Other then the fact that I was sick as a dog and running a fever.  But everyone knows that mommy sickness isn't really sick.  It just means I'm more bitchy then normal.

Anywho, we're having a great time at the zoo.  The weather was awesome, the tylenol kicked in and we even got ice cream.  It doesn't get any better then that.  So after making it more then half way around the park I suggest we go home.  It's getting late and lets not ruin a good thing with staying past our moment of bliss.

But of course the kids have a fit and my husband decides we can look at the rest of the animals on our way out.  We make a bee line to the exits and the kids get to see some animals as we speed walk by. Win-Win.

So of course my kids are hyped up on sugar now and they are running around like crazy animals and I keep yelling at them to "Stop running around!" and "Watch where you're going!" and "Stay where I can see you!",  (There is a lot of verbal cues in my household) and my oldest gets too far so I yell for her to come back and as she's barreling back towards me, it was as if a magical invisible hand came up behind her, grabbed her by the neck and slammed her face directly into the concrete path.

I saw the whole thing happen.  If I didn't see it, I wouldn't have believed it.  It happened so fast that my brain didn't even have time to put this life threatening moment into slow motion.  She was up and then she was down and then... she was covered in blood.  All the people around us saw her go down and the crowd let out a collective groan.

It was bad.

And all I can think is,  "Why doesn't anyone listen to me?"

So I pick her up and drag her and my youngest daughter (who was actually listening to me, my favorite child) to a nearby table and have her sit so I can asses the damage.  There is a perfect ring of blood and dirty around her mouth starting from the bottom of her nose to the top of her chin.

I clean her up.  It doesn't look to bad.  Looks like her lip took the brunt of the fall, I should check her gums.  Oh crap...

My heart drops into my stomach.

Her tooth is gone.  Like full on gone!  You couldn't have pulled it better!  I might have whispered "shit" under my breath because my daughter asks what's wrong.

"Well,"  I say, "Your front tooth is missing."
"Oh no!!" she wails.  My heart breaks as she becomes so distraught over the thought of losing her tooth.

Everything in me is on the verge of panic and I am holding back a shudder but as my oldest starts to shed big tears over the loss of her beautiful smile I pull myself together.  I take her face in my hands and I tell her that she's a big girl.

"You're five now!  Lots of kids your age lose their teeth".  (So I might have stretched the truth a bit)  "We're just going to go to the emergency to make sure that there isn't any infection and to make sure all your tooth is out.  Okay?"

"Okay" she sobs.

My husband has the clarity of mind to go back and look for the tooth.  Looking back now we must have been quite a sight.  My husband scourging the ground, my oldest bleeding profusely, her face in my hands and two tiny toddlers hovering over my shoulders with looks of awe and amazement at the tragedy of their older sister.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, my dentist is already in the office with another kid that did the same thing.  So we rush over to his practice and on the way I check the mommy mirror in my minivan to see my daughters look of immense sadness.  But she's not crying anymore, so I guess that's a good sign.  I tell her that she's going to look so cute with a space in her teeth.

She starts to cry again...  Too soon?

We get to the dentist and my oldest is just happy to be in the office.  She loves it there.  And I must say, it's a pretty cool place.  I ask if she wants to see her tooth and she lights up when I show her the tiny tooth I'm holding in my hand.  She's smiling, that's a good sign.

after the dentist.  We're much happier.

 The dentist sees her quickly.  I show him the tooth and he assures me that the whole tooth came out and the only thing we have to worry about is the healing of her lip.  Also since she fell at the zoo, it's kind of unsanitary so he gave us some antibiotics.

He took X-ray's to make sure everything was clear and sure enough it couldn't have been more perfect then if the tooth fell out on its own.  They can't really do anything for her since it's her baby teeth and they are supposed to come out anyway so we just have to wait a year or so for her permanent teeth to come in.

The dentist gave my daughter a box for her tooth so the Tooth Fairy can come and get her tooth and this just made my daughters day!

"The Tooth Fairy?!  I forgot about her!  Is she going to bring me something?"
Oh crap, the Tooth Fairy.  We weren't thinking about her visiting for a while still.  Great.

I text a girlfriend of mine almost immediately after it happened to get an idea of what to expect since her son did the same thing to his tooth at two and a half.  She suggested that we just spend as much time telling her how great she looks without her tooth as we can.  It helped that she and her two sons came over for a movie night so we could celebrate the loss of my daughters first tooth!

So in the end, everything worked out just fine.  My oldest got to eat as many ice pops as she could handle, she was a god in the eyes of her siblings for at least 24 hours and the tooth fairy even came!  As for my oldest being scarred for life, I think she's handling it pretty well.  Today she tells me:

"Mommy I am so lucky!  I got my ears pierced and I got stung by a jellyfish and I got my very first tooth!  I like being 5!"

Me too kid, me too.

the loot the Tooth Fairy left!

Antenella

Public Shaming

There has been a lot of talk about "public shaming" in the world of Facebook and beyond as of late.  Everyone has see the pictures of children standing with a sign presumably made by their parents with rushed handwriting scribbled across it.  The name of the crime committed plastered all over the web for the world to see.  Even I have been know to circulate this type of image around my Facebook page.  I realize that there has been a lot of negativity behind such acts of "Parenting" and I would like to be one more drop in the ocean of personal option.

I think there is a place for "Public Shaming".

Before you start dragging me to stockyard for my obvious lack of concern for children everywhere, hear me out.

Public shaming is not a new concept.  In fact it used to be a very important part of a vibrant community.  Think back to not our grandparents but to their parents and their way of grow up.  They were presumably part of a small village growing up in some other part of the world that we no doubt descended from and guess what?  They had public shaming.

If a child stole from a place of business that person would caught and dragged to the town square so that the whole community would know not to trust this "evil doer" in there stores.  The parents would be notified and punishment would be inflicted... Usually, in public.  So the village knew that this behavior was not tolerated and it would usually end there.  There is a reason for the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child."

Now say the crime was worse.  Lets say a pair was caught in adultery.  What would their punishment be?  Most of us don't have to have read the Scarlett Letter to understand that the people in question would either be killed or ostracized from their community and would be left to live a very difficult life indeed.

Was it cruel?  Yes.  Was it fair?  Who am I to say.  Did it keep crime and moral disintegration down to a low?  You bet your ass it did.  Who would be so brazen or petty to commit such crimes when they knew the ramifications of there actions could hardly be kept a secret?

Fast forward a century or so.  We now have things like the internet and social media and twitter where things are even harder to keep under wraps.  We are constantly complaining about the lack of human interaction and the fact that our beloved children are losing the concept of empathy with every new gadget that is added to the market.  Not only are our children being unnaturally bold on their social platforms but they are completely unaware of the implications of the deeds and actions that they post.

The number of teen suicides have sky-rocketed and that the largest demographic being added to the sex offender list is teenage girls.  Because our children are not realizing that their actions have consequences.  We live in a world where our children can get away with murder, literally.  When I was bullied as a youth, I could at least go home and be safe there.  In this day and age our children have no place to hid from there enemies.  There is no safe haven.  There are no boundaries.  There is no responsibility.

When are we going to start realizing that our kids are not growing up in a world that we had?  They are dealing with much higher forms of communication, clever and new ways to destroy one another consistently and all in the name of adolescence.  When are we as parents going to admit that the stakes are higher and things have to change?

With that being said, I will reiterate that I feel that "Public Shaming" has a place in our parenting arsenal.

Don't get me wrong, if Lucy goes over her texting minutes I don't think that her parent should drag her to the nearest intersection with a cardboard sign slung around her neck reading: 'lost track of time so I'm the idiot!'  This could be handled in many different ways that doesn't involve "shaming".  Since the crime doesn't involve society.

But a lot of these "Shaming" stints shown on Facebook are having to do with the internet.  Namely, faceless bullying online. What happened to the punishment fitting the crime?  The reason that bullying  has gotten so terrible is because no one has to be held responsible.  With the introduction of Facebook, twitter, snapchat and everything else geared towards our teens they have less and less of a chance to actually take anyones feelings into consideration.

So maybe instead of complaining about the fact that our kids don't show empathy, we instead give them a reason to be empathetic.  Just like any other form of punishment, there must be rules to follow, showing that the discipline is in love and that there is a lesson to be learned.  I love what one mother did:

my name is Hailey.  I am a kind, caring, smart girl,
but I make poor choices with social media.  As Punishment I
will be selling my iPod and donating the money to the charity
"Beat Bullying" in hopes of changing my behavior as well
as bringing awareness to bullying.
Because bullying is wrong.

She starts off by telling the world that her daughter is smart, kind and caring but she makes poor choices.  She is building up her child and reminding her who she really is and then swiftly condemns the action and not the child.  Further more she give the child a tangible punishment which is the selling of her iPhone and then teaches her to pay it forward by donating the money to a charitably organization that stops the crime which she has committed.

There is nothing disrespectful about this.  Again, there should be rules.  "Shaming" should not be used as the sole purpose of embarrassing your child but there is a place for it.  Because in a world where we are all hiding behind the screens of our computers our children need to learn responsibility first.

Speaking of "Public Shaming", what boils my blood is the fact that the people who are condemning this type of punishment are the very ones who are implementing it.  I am a Mom.  I am a constantly source for public shaming. 

Now a days, any idiot with a blog (I include my own moronic thoughts as well) can blast who ever or whatever they want all over the internet.  All in the name of writing and personal option.  But as a mom I am the very person that is constantly on the receiving end of publicly shamed.  If I spank my kids in public, if I yell at them at the park, if I use a curse word in my child's presence.  Hell!  I can't even play candy crush without some moron blogging about what a pathetic excuse of a parent I am because I'm not looking at the majesty of my child begging for my attention.   Never mind the fact that I've been watching her twirl for the past four hours!  (Don't even get me started on that load of crap floating around Facebook.)

But in all seriousness, the whole reason I even wrote this blog was because I read an article about how "Public Shaming" is destroying our children.  I think we are doing our children a disservice!  The most obvious reasoning being that we as parents can't do anything without "destroying" our child's fragile feelings. 

Since when did our children become so helpless?  They are considered resilient when they are expected to endure years of teasing and bullying at the hands of their classmates, but then they are considered fragile when we are trying to discipline them for such cruel behavior.  So what is it?  Can they take it or not?   Because if we as parents, do anything outside the norm of parenting (which, by the way, is anything outside of getting down on their level and asking them in a calm voice to sit in "time out") we are crucified for it.  Don't even think about Taking their privileges away permanently or "forced community service" and omg!  Just drop dead if you make your child apologize for their actions on a public form!  Unacceptable. 

But guess what, some times what your kid really needs is a swift kick in the rear and a heavy dose of reality.  Our society is the first to complain about how lazy and entitled the younger generation is but as parents we have been stripped of any form of punishment to teach our kids right from wrong or just plain old fashioned manners.  

My kids are still young so this is beyond my realm of parenting... yet.  But there will be a day where I just might have to get creative.  Where I have tried everything else and the lesson is just not being learned.  There might be a day when I am desperate and I am trying to do right by my child.  So yeah, this might be me.  I might have to teach my kids a little about life with an actual life lesson.  (God forbid!) And if they don't like it and are scarred for life then they can pay for therapy with the money that they made from the secure job that they got for being a decent human being and a responsible respectful member of society.

Antenella

Remember the time...

I peed on the kids?

Hark!  Lend me your ears my fine and weathered friends, for I am to embark on a tale of epic pre-portions of love concurring the horrors of evil.  It is a tale spun out of the darkness of parenting with a hint of truth and warning for those to follow in the future.  The ultimate in sacrifice and the cost of the innocent to end an everlasting pain of the flesh...

It begins on a dark night...

Actually it was last Sunday... in the morning... at the beach.  I know most of you are going to hate me for starting a blog written in the beginning of January with the words, "It all happened at the beach..."  But trust me.  By the time you finish reading this you will be forever grateful for the changing of season and the forced seclusion and safety of your houses.  (I doubt anyone in Michigan is dealing with this crap.)

My husband and I are on the way to visit my sister who happens to live literally 5 minutes from the beach, walking.  (And that's only if you trip on the way.)  We are so excited to spend a fun filled day with the love of our lives, our aunty.  (I don't exist if she's around... whatever.)  We march up to the beach and being to camp out right beside the lifeguard stand, you know, for safety.

I point to the purple and red flag waving in the air and I tell my kids.
"Okay, kiddos.  We can't go in the water.  The red flag tells us that the surf is too rough and the purple flag means there is marine life close to the shore.  Like jellyfish, or sharks!"

"Sharks?!"

And with that they scamper off to the surf.  We haven't even dropped our stuff before my two oldest come running up the beach in desperation.  "What's going on?" I ask and after a few moments of ow! and muddled speech someone says something about a balloon and I knew exactly what had happened.

Welcome to Florida in the winter:

I'm just an innocent, beautiful ocean balloon.

Man 'o war are a basic staple for our southern shores and we are riddled with them especially in the winter time.  But anyone who has lived in florida for any amount of time knows not to touch these things.  I mean look at it!  It just screams "AHHHH!  Don't touch me!!  I will hurt you or eat you or expand to accommodate the size of your body and then ingest you through osmosis!"

Come here little girl... You taste good.

But alas, my children are brave beyond reason.

By now the stings are so bad that they are causing my oldest's arms to bubble.  Ugh!  I trek my screaming kids to the lifeguard stand.  He has watched the whole exchange and is already handing me the bottle of vinegar as I approach him.  Fat load of good it does, it just seems to be getting worse.  (ps: don't put vinegar on a man o' war sting)  The lifeguard suggests Benadryl cream. okay.  Did I mention we're on the beach?  Where the hell are we gonna get that?  We are only 5 minutes from the beach but more then 20 minutes from a drugstore.

My kids are screaming, my husband is starting to panic, my sister is panicking and all I can think is what a heartless mother I must look like because this kind of thing happens to me  on the daily.  "Constant Crisis" should be my motto.

I send my sister and her boyfriend to get the medicine at the closes CVS and my husband and I stalk back to her place with three kids, three bags, three bikes and a scooter.  Mercifully, the ice cream truck stops just as we're heading off the beach.  I figure, if they're in emergency room pain, they won't want ice cream.

With the appearance of the ice cream truck and his catchy jingle music, everyone stops crying long enough to tell me what kind of ice cream they want.  Whew! At least it's not a true emergency and I feel a little less stress with the prospect of ice cream raising everyones moods.

We get to my sisters place and everyone is covered in sand and ice cream and salt water and vinegar and tears that I don't have the heart to bring anyone inside just to destroy the place.  Did I mention it was raining?  Because it started raining about 3 minutes after getting stung by jellyfish.

So, now I have everyone sit outside huddled under the roofline.  We have 20 minutes before my sister comes back and the kids are still screaming.  I look at my husband and shrug asking:

"So... do you have to pee?"
He looks at me in horror.  What?  I heard that works and lets be honest, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've done to get my kids to stop crying.  (Forget the fact that these kids came out of my vagina!  Hello!  They've dealt with worse stuff then urine when it comes to my bodily fluids)

So I take a cup into the bathroom, pee out some battery acid since all I had to drink was coffee and start administrating the "medicine" with a paper towel.

In the time it takes for my daughter to tell me how bad the "medicine" smells the bubbling of her skin disappears... like magic.  I couldn't believe it!  I had just assumed it was an old wives tale passed down from one desperate mom to another but no!  the marks were gone.  Those crazy bitches were telling the truth!  The pain left almost instantly and in 5-7 minutes we had everyone doused in urine and eating ice cream like nothing had happened.

My sister comes back with the Benadryl and can't believe everyone is so calm.  She asked me what happened and I almost didn't tell her since it was her cup I peed in.

There you have it.  A tale woven in the depth of horror and brought forth to tell of the wisdom learned in such desperate times.  If your kid gets stung by a jellyfish or even a man o' war you have my permission to pee on them.  Not only is it effective but it's fun too!

Antenella