Baseball, Terrorism and Some Curiously Strong Mints

At the age of 38 I am still amazed that there are things I don't know about myself. For instance, I recently discovered that I am a huge fan of Texas Rangers Baseball. Unfortunately, with five children to feed, I don't get to attend games at the stadium very often. Recently, however, we did attend a game as a special occasion for our son's birthday.

Upon arriving at the Stadium we held out our tickets and began the process of passing through the security screeners. First, I must say that they were all very courteous and friendly. This always makes it easier when I have to open my purse and reveal its contents to a total stranger. Since 911, this has become a common practice when entering almost any public venue. I don't mind having to go through the screening process to ensure the safety of everyone in the stadium. However, on this occasion, I happened to have a bottle of expensive red fingernail polish and a small tin of peppermint flavored Altoids - The Curiously Strong Mints. They politely informed me that these items would not be allowed into the stadium and offered to transport me via golf cart back to my vehicle to safely deposit my items. I appreciated the offer but decided to walk back to the van by myself. This would not have been a problem except for the fact that, on this occasion, I forgot my keys at home. To complicate things, I told Will and the kids to go on without me and I would meet them at our seats. After the long walk to the van, I discovered that I had forgotten my keys. Will, as usual, had his cell phone ringer turned off so he didn't answer the phone when I tried to call him 16 times on the way back to the gate. I was left with no choice but to reluctantly dispose of my nail polish and breath mints before going back through the security process.

The lesson - don't take your purse to the ballgame. All you really need is your cell phone, credit card, one form of ID and your keys. All of these should fit in your pockets easily. So, I was a little bit disappointed about losing the equivalent of the price of at least three gallons of gas, but I got over it and went on to enjoy the game.

Three months later I was at home watching the Rangers play the NY Yankees. It was the bottom of the 9th inning and Derick Jeter was up to bat. He hit a foul ball down the first base line and THEN I SAW IT! As the ball flew past the foul line and almost into the crowd, an older bearded gentleman in the front row jumped out of his seat and reached over the rail into the field in an attempt to capture the baseball with what appeared to be a four foot long ALUMINUM FISHING NET! At that moment, it all came back to me. How is it that my small metal box of Altoids - the Curiously Strong Mints - were a threat to national security, and yet this man was able to take his metal fishing net into the baseball stadium? I know that the Altoids box says that they curiously strong mints but I think the four foot long metal object being waved in the air was a much greater security threat.

Go Rangers! I'm cheering for you. but I seriously think you owe me at least three gallons of gas.

The Perfect Gift - DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME

I'm not sure where this story originated but I have seen it posted on several blogs and emails.

Ladies, before you read this, go the the bathroom and empty your bladders. This is so hilarious I almost peed my pants. Seriously, I have given birth to five children and it doesn't take much to make me lose it. This story is so funny I had to stop to wipe the tears from my eyes so I could keep reading. So, Enjoy!
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The Perfect Gift

Pocket Taser Stun Gun, a great gift for the wife. A guy who purchased his lovely wife a pocket Taser for their anniversary submitted this :
“Last weekend I saw something at Larry’s Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 22nd anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized taser The effects of the taser were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety….
WAY TOO COOL!
Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two triple-a batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button. Nothing! I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button AND pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I’d get the blue arch of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs.
Awesome!!!
Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Betty what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.
Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be all that bad with only two triple-a batteries, right?!! There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised.
Was I wrong?
So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and taser in another. The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries.
All the while I’m looking at this little device measuring about 5″ long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-a batteries) thinking to myself, “no possible way!” What happened next is almost beyond description, but I’ll do my best…
I’m sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as to say, “don’t do it master,” reasoning that a one-second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn’t hurt all that bad.. I decided to give myself a one-second burst just for the heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!
I’m pretty sure Jessie Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs. The cat was standing over me making meowing sounds I had never heard before, licking my face, undoubtedly thinking to herself, “do it again, do it again!”
Note: If you ever feel compelled to “mug” yourself with a taser, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one-second burst when you zap yourself. You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor. A three second burst would be considered conservative.
SON-OF-A-… that hurt like …..!!! A minute or so later (I can’t be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. How did they up get there??? My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs.
I’m still looking for my testicles. I’m offering a significant reward for their safe return.”
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Wow! What a thoughtful gift and he was so wonderful for testing it to make sure it really worked before giving it to his wife!

Stupid Human Tricks - I learned it on Sesame Street

We have all done something stupid in our past. You know what I'm talking about...something that you knew you shouldn't do but you just had to do it. The impulse was so strong that you just couldn't stop yourself, and before you knew it you were right in the middle of something you couldn't get out of. You couldn't go back as if it never happened, and you didn't know how you were going to explain yourself if you got caught....and you knew you would get caught. The train had left the station and there was no going back – that stupid.

This is the story of one of my stupid human tricks:

I LEARNED IT ON SESAME STREET

1974: I was a huge Sesame Street fan. Occasionally they would show a clown jumping out of an airplane with nothing but an umbrella and he would float safely to the ground. Or, sometimes he used balloons and would float from the ground up into the sky.

I was a naturally curious and analytical child, even at the age of four, so I decided that I would do my own experiment. What was the worst that could happen? Actually, that thought never entered my mind. It worked for the clown, so obviously it would work for me.

I knew it would work because I saw it on Sesame Street!

So, umbrella in hand, I climbed up into my favorite tree - the only one I could actually climb - balanced myself on a limb about four feet above the ground, opened the umbrella and jumped. Suddenly I was lying on the ground, umbrella crumpled, and experiencing the bone jarring pain of the impact. I didn't cry and there were no witnesses to run to my aid. Immediately I knew where I had gone wrong, so I ran inside the house where I just happened to have two inflated balloons with strings attached. Obviously, I had not tried the correct method. I don't know why I chose the umbrella when the obvious choice should have been the balloons.

After all, I saw it on Sesame Street!

So, once again I climbed the tree - with balloons in hand this time. Out on the limb I went and without hesitation I took the four foot plunge to earth with all of the confidence of a true daredevil (I was also an Evil Knievel fan), never doubting that I would float safely to the ground - NOT!!! Again I hit the ground with a thud that jarred my bones so hard my ears started ringing.

I couldn't believe it. I saw it on Sesame Street over and over for as long as I could remember. Why didn't it work? OK - obviously it didn't work because I was too close to the ground when I jumped. Fortunately for me, that was the only tree I could climb because all of the really tall trees were inaccessible - otherwise I would have tried it again. I don't know where my mom was at the time so I never got caught. That was the end of my daredevil/crash dummy career. I lived to tell the story, and at the age of 38 I'm happy to report that I have never broken one bone in my body.

Back in the 70's "disclosures" weren't really a big thing. Today you find disclosures on everything including your hairdryer telling you not to use it while taking a shower - DUH. I don't know if Sesame Street still shows the clown jumping out of the airplane, but if they do they should definitely show a huge disclosure before the jump saying “DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME". Who knows, I might have listened if they did.

There are probably enough unsuspecting children who have tried this stunt and suffered serious bodily injury to qualify for a successful class action lawsuit.

After all, THEY SAW IT ON SESAME STREET!

Give, Give, Give

We all have a choice and an opportunity to give regardless of our circumstances or current financial standing.

Yesterday I watched a video of a 14 year old girl in Uganda. My oldest daughter is 14 so I gave close attention to the video. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I listened to her story of being orphaned as a baby, abused by her aunt and then forced into prostitution just to survive on the streets as a young teenager. She didn’t choose to be orphaned or to be forced to live on the streets and sell her body every day, and she didn’t know that she would one day have the opportunity to change her life. This was her entire world and her only means of survival. It was her daily existence - her only reallity.

We have all heard the horrific stories of starving, orphaned children in Africa. You can’t turn on late-night television without seeing fundraising programs sharing sad stories and heartbreaking photos while asking for your financial contributions. So why was this one different? Maybe it was guilt because I have seen so many heartbreaking stories and done nothing. Or maybe it is because I am a mother and shutter at the thought of my own children ever being forced into a similar situation.

These children are victims – victims of war, circumstances beyond their control, ignorance, hate, violence, hunger, disease…and worst of all, these children are the victims of apathy. For years we have seen and heard their stories and yet here in the United States, a world away from the pain, we have done little or nothing. After all, what can we do to make a difference? Any contribution I could make is just a microscopic droplet in the ocean of need that these children represent.

My 14 year old daughter keeps complaining that all of her friends have cell phones and she does not. Oh, the horror of it all! She doesn’t have a cell phone and nothing I can say has convinced her that this is not really an important or serious problem. No, this is not another “Shame on you America for your selfish greed” complaint. However, this is another “Wake up America” reminder. As you sit there in your air-conditioned houses watching cable TV while waiting for your pizza delivery, take a moment to consider and be thankful for what you have. Then take another moment to consider what you can do or give to change the life of just one child in Africa or anywhere else in the world. Don’t let today be the day you do nothing.

Below is a great website I just found where you can watch the video “Prossy’s Testimony”. This is the story of the 14 year old girl I mentioned above.

Please go to the following website for “Love the Unloved”
Click on “visuals” in the bottom, right corner
Select "videos"
Watch the video "Prossy's Testimony"
Get your heart broken, and GIVE

http://www.lovetheunloved.com/flashindex.html

You may be wondering what I am going to do about this problem. First, I wrote this blog to get your attention. Second, I am currently working on a project to teach my children small, easy ways to raise money to give to children in need. We are saving and collecting aluminum soda cans to recycle for money. No, it’s not big but it is a start. I’m teaching them to take trash and turn it into a treasure for someone who just wants to be loved in Africa.

You Know You're a Mom When......

• You're driving home from work in your new Cadillac and you notice small human footprints going both up and down your front windshield.
• All of your children run into the house and disappear into a bedroom down the hallway. One of your sons immediately comes out to inform you that “there IS NOT a frog in Natalie's room." Two days later, you discover that the odor coming from her closet is a makeshift tadpole pond.
• You find cat poop in one of the kids' rooms but you don't own a cat - at least not one that you know about.
• You hear the sound of tiny reindeer on the roof but it's not Christmas, so you go outside to discover your two young sons on the roof...playing with butcher knives.
• The thing that went bump in the night was the sound of two boys throwing poop on their ceiling.
• You discover the all too familiar odor of urine in the carpet is the result of your boys' contest to see who could pee the farthest from the top shelf of their closet.
• You can’t find your favorite food storage container because your son just gave a dead rat a proper burial in the back yard. It didn't have a family of its own to give it a funeral.
• Your fifth and final child finally starts Kindergarten, and after a week you get a call from the Principal informing you that he is being suspended for three days for punching another student in the stomach.
• The good news is that you no longer have to buy diapers...The bad news is that your grocery bill has now tripled.
• All five of your children have a science fare project due on the same day - tomorrow - and you just found out about it ten minutes ago.
• The fridge door was left open and you can't find your three year-old son. Ten minutes later you find him hiding near the front door eating a stick of butter.
• Your husband calls you on your way to work in a panic because he can’t find your four-year-old son anywhere in the house. He has combed the house twice and has knocked on all of the neighbors’ doors for two streets over. Although you are 30 minutes away, you drive home to help search for him. As soon as you walk through the front door, you call down the hallway “do you want some ice cream?” - And your son calls back from inside his closet with a “yes.”

Combat Pay

Most girls grow up playing some version of dolls or house. We act out our fantasies of what we think grown-up momying is going to be like. Its usually all glamour and no grit. I played out all of those scenarios myself. But never in my wildest five-year-old dreams did I imagine it would be more like one of those army commercials that ends with a voiceover saying "We do more before 8:00am than most people do all day."



As a working mom with five kids - three boys and two girls - sometimes I feel like "an army of one." Everyday is a new battliefield but there is no combat pay.

The Old Woman And The Shoes

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn't know what to do.......

OK, I forgot the rest of the story. Does anyone know what happened to her? Here is my verson of it:

As a full-time working mother of five kids, I often feel like I've given birth one too many times. The problem is that I don't know which one it is. It seems to change periodically. I've discovered that I can only pay attention to four of them at a time, and sometimes I think they are conspiring against me. Not in a "me being paranoid" kind of way but in a "how bad can we be without mom finding out" kind of way.

One morning while I was trying to get the kids out the door for school, I noticed that Natalie, my oldest daughter, was wearing flip-flops with her school uniform. I promptly told her to go back to her room and find a different pair of shoes, reminding her that school policy did not allow open-toed shoes. As the other children kept me distracted, we all finally made it out to the car. Natalie arrived last, complaining that she had to change her shoes. After some back-and-forth banter on the subject, she informed me that she didn't understand why I was making such a big deal about her shoes. After all, she had worn flip-flops to school several times last week and no-one said anithing to her about it.

Thats when I realized I can only pay attention to four of my children at any given time. There will probably always be one out there flying free in the wind. I just hope at least one of them will still love me when they are grown.

The Man Who Can't

He was told “no” so many times as a child that, as an adult it became his standard operating procedure (SOP). His parents’ rule was to say no unless they absolutely had to say yes. We will call these the “no parents”. And so, with his own children today, he leads by the same rule of “no”. His life plan does not allow big dreams to become reality. In fact, his life plan doesn’t allow for dreams at all because he knows that somewhere along the way he will be told “no” and he will have no other choice but to stop, thus resulting in a failure. In his childhood “no” meant “do not question my absolute authority or you will face the most severe consequences. Therefore, you will accept no without exception and you will surrender.”

This “no” did not allow for the opportunity to learn because there was no reasoning or discussion allowed at this point. It was the only answer and the final answer, and it was the precursor to a life that would only allow for small dreams, if any at all, and low ambition. Therefore, he would settle for the status quo because it created a lower risk of disappointment and ultimate failure. Who in their right mind wants to be a failure? Why go there if you don’t have to? There is safety and relative comfort in keeping the status quo.

Now he lives in the world where “no” is the default assumption and one can never lose if one never plays the game. Thus he maintains the status quo in his own life. “No” has become his SOP and he will pass this legacy down to his own children unless he can learn to dream and take the risk of acting on his dreams.

I call him “the man who can’t” because he can always tell you why something can't be done, and when you ask him to explain the logic of his reasons the best answer he can usually give you is because he said so. It infuriates him to be questioned. His parents didn’t allow it when he was growing up and he will not tolerate it either. After all, that is the way he was raised and he turned out just fine. (Or did he?) Now that he is an adult, no-one can tell him what to do. He is the captain of his own ship now, and the course he chooses to navigate is the right one. After all, he has his reasons. Unfortunately, the man who can’t is one who is stuck in a bubble. Inside this bubble, he can’t fail if he dosn’t try. The view from the outside of the bubble, however, is quite different. He is self defeating but he can’t see it. He can’t see outside of that bubble to all of the possibilities awaiting him if he would only take a risk and dare to dream.

There is hope. We can take steps to change our way of thinking so we do not perpetuate the “no” lifestyle. We can learn to transform ourselves from “the man who can’t” to become the man or woman who can and will. We can learn to turn our dreams into reality.

This can be broken down into six simple steps that I like to think of as “stupid simple”. These are rules that anyone can use to achieve their dreams.

Step one: Dream
Step two: Write it down
Step Three: Set a goal or goals
Step Four: Risk Assessment
Step Five: Create a map to get there
Step Six: Take Action

These are not complicated rules or obscure business formulas made known only to college graduates. They are just the basic building blocks for success that anyone can use to turn their dreams into reality. They are so simple and uncomplicated that I call them “stupid simple”.

Dare to Dream

No dream is too big or too small. Dream little or dream big but just start dreaming. Give yourself permission to dream. After all, there is no-one who can tell you “no” in this arena. What can it hurt to dream?

Need some help getting started? Think back to your childhood dreams before you let the expectation of “no” shut down your desire and willingness to dream. Most parents – even the “no parents” – tell their children they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. Unfortunately, most of those parents, and especially the ”no parents”, inadvertently teach their children that they shouldn’t dream too big or expect too much out of life because they will only end up disappointed in the end. These parents were also the children of “no parents”, and they are simply trying to protect their progeny from the prospect of failure. As you can see, this “no parenting” is a repetitive cycle that has been handed down for generations. It is a curse that has to be broken or it will continue to plague our lives and our society for generations to come. It will turn your life into the status quo with no hope of escape.

Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying about saying “no”. There are appropriate times to say no (“No” you cant jump off the cliff without a parachute. No you can’t run with knives. No, you can’t throw poop on the ceiling with your brother in the middle of the night.), but when we make it the rule instead of the exception we set ourselves and our children up for a lifetime stuck in the dulldrums – our own self inflicted form of prison with no possibility of parole, no hope, no dreams and very limited possibilities.

Take a moment to examine your own life and ask yourself these important questions. Are you a “man or woman who can’t?” Or, are you a “no parent”?

If you answered yes to either of the above questions, ask yourself these questions: Do you want more than just the status quo for yourself and your family, but you are afraid of failure? What is the worst that can happen if you reverse your way of thinking and start saying yes unless you absolutely have to say no?

Say "yes" because it is the appropriate thing to do and reserve "no" for when it is clearly the appropriate answer that you can express a logical reason for. If you can’t give a clear, logical reason for saying no, consider the alternative “yes”. Ask yourself, “is there a moral, legal or ethical reason to say no?” Sometimes we say no to our children when we really mean “not now”, or “leave me alone. I’m too busy to take the time to interact with your world”, because we are not willing to take the time to explain why it needs to be postponed or done a different way. “No" is often used as a cover for our own laziness or unwillingness to move out of our comfort zones and interact with the world around us.

Start saying "yes" as often as you can and open yourself to the world of endless possibilities.