Damn You Fail Whale

When I sent my daughter off for her first day of high school I expected her to come home with tales of being froshed, and a list of school supplies she needed which I had neglected to get.

What I didn't expect was for her to walk through the door on her first day of school, walk over to my computer and pull up my twitter page.

"Mom, I need a twitter account."

Well why don't you just cut my heart out with a rusty spoon instead? It would be far less painful and likely less traumatic.

It turns out; some of her teachers are using that new-fangled twitter thang as a way to help further their outreach with students. And there is a social media component to one of her classes.

It all sounds a tad new-agey to me and quite frankly I miss the days of slate and chalk.



You see I'm a firm believer of separation between church and state. I think this is a good rule. I apply it to many aspects of my life, from the trivial 'the peas must never touch the gravy' to my husband should never know what Facebook is, let alone use it.

Twitter is my last bastion of privacy. And by privacy, I mean, it's the one place I can publicly discuss my chin whiskers and how I'm so lazy I'd prefer to let the dogs lick the plates clean instead of loading them into our dishwasher.

No one reads my twitter stream. I mean, no one that I know offline. My husband tried keeping up with my tweets but it turned out, I talk too much on twitter and since I regularly chatter his ear off in real life he didn't have the space in his head to make room for my twitter inanity. I've never loved him more than the day he swore off twitter.

Other than one cousin on my husband's side, there are no family members on twitter. There are a handful of people I know offline who use twitter and quite frankly, I like this. Twitter is my space. I don't want to share it with people I can run into at the grocery store.

How on earth can I mock life in general if I will be held accountable for my tweets?

Isn't it enough that I willingly friended both my mother and my mother-in-law on Facebook? I all but axed my personal Facebook page so that my children could have a sliver of online privacy when they started their own Facebook profiles.

I can't share twitter space with my child. I'd have to filter. I filter here on the blog (shush up, I do!) I don't want to filter on twitter. I want to talk about dead chickens and Sarah Palin and write odes to Nickelback on twitter.

My daughter, after listening to me rant as my head exploded, looked at me and calmly replied, "Not everything is about you, you know."

Touché.

"You just don't want me to tell people you aren't really all that cool."

Oh sweetie. Everyone who reads me already knows this. They love me anyways.

So we're at an impasse. I don't want her on twitter, not even with a locked profile, and she thinks I'm hogging the Internet.

Which I am.

I freely admit this.

But I'm clueless as to how to navigate social media while raising teens that are going to need to learn to be social media savvy when they grow up.

Maybe the problem is, I'm not ready for them to grow up, read my tweet stream and kill any last thread of mommy magic I've spun for them.

Maybe the problem is, I'm not ready to grow up just yet. I've obviously never learned to share.

High school. It's only just begun and already it's one giant fail whale.



*Opinions are welcome. Whose side are YOU on?

Photographic Evidence

On Friday, in a moment of generosity I'm sure they are regretting by now, my parents decided to whisk my children away for the long weekend to ring out summer in a final hurrah involving camping, fishing and fire.

When I asked if I could join them on their last minute getaway, my father stared at me like I just grew horns out of my head and said, "No. Find something else to do."

Well, okay then.

There is nothing quite like finding yourself unexpectedly alone at 5 pm on a Friday night of a long weekend.

If I were younger, or you know, had a life, I'd have gussied up and headed into the city for a weekend of unfettered fun, free from the burdensome responsibilities of parenting.

Instead, I turned on the television and settled in to watch three days worth of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes. My patheticness was only made more charming by eating ice cream straight out of the container with a spoon.

I was feeling slightly ashamed of myself. I mean, I may feel like I have the spine of an 80 year old arthritic woman and my personality may resemble that of a cranky geriatric shaking her cane at the youngsters of society most of the time, but even I know that when life hands you a long weekend with no kids when you are 35 years old, you should make the most of it.

And 'making the most of it' it shouldn't mean cleaning out your refrigerator, watching 90's vampire shows or self-medicating with mint chocolate chip ice cream.

But life has a funny way of turning around just when you are hip deep in self-pity and reaching for the dry cereal to munch on.

My weekend alone turned out not so as I ended up having a good old fashioned slumber party with a friend I've known my entire life.

You know what happens when two moms who have no children to take care of and no husbands to wive or toilets to scrub do for a long weekend?

They raid the liquor cabinet, watch cheesy romantic comedies while slightly inebriated and eat more junk food than once thought possible.

Sadly, there were no pillow fights but there was a lot of farting.

Beer, apparently, makes me as gassy as my dog.

There were, however, photos. Lots of photos.

Because every drunken slumber party should involve a computer, a camera and a twit.

It was like I'm 21 all over again. Minus the small waist, perky breasts and high alcohol tolerance.

I'd totally be that girl who would publicly post drunken photos of herself on Facebook if I was 21 and then wonder why I can never get a job.

Thank God I'm 35 and have a blog. I'm so much better than that 21-year-old.

This weekend I was reminded of the value of a good beer, lasting friendships and the importance of keeping your pantry stocked with munchies.

But most importantly, I remembered why drunk people shouldn't be allowed near cameras of any sort.

Because one is never too old to make a fool of themselves while drunk and then post about it on a Monday morning.

It Boggles The Mind

Somehow, I am old enough to have a daughter in grade ten. A son in grade nine. Another in grade 2.

A high school student, a junior high student and an elementary student. This will never again happen at any other time in my life. It's like the planets have all aligned or something.

I'm kinda stuck on the idea of my daughter turning 15 in two weeks. You know what I was doing at age 15? Falling in love with my children's father.

Ya.

The idea that my child may soon be old enough to feel any such emotions boggles my mind.

The fact that my son is now the second tallest child in his entire grade boggles my mind. I remember when he was 22 inches long and skinnier than a starving chicken as he shook his angry little newborn fist at the heavens.

The problem with children, my children, and I'm sure yours as well, is they grow up. While we grow older. And then one day your kids are in high school, you are staring 40 in the face and it hits you: You are middle aged.

I swear I was 16 just seconds ago.

Fric, Frac and Jumby getting ready to conquer high school, middle school, and grade school.

The fact there was a time Jumby wasn't my son boggles my mind.

Don't mind me, I'm just sitting here, all boggled right now.

And apparently, I really like typing the word boggled. Bog-gled. It's a much better word than panties or moist.

Just saying.

In other news, I wrote a post over at Hogwash from a Hoser, once again illustrating the reasons my husband may have been insane when he decided to breed with me.

I'm sure his mind is perpetually boggled over this.

Boggled.

It's a the word of the day today.

(Click me and I'll take you places, baby. Promise.)

Have a great weekend everyone. See y'all next week.