A Change ... Will Do You Good

I had a rather interesting conversation with my teenage daughter recently. We were playing corn hole, and while my little bean bag's corner was tilting wildly close to the edge of the board's circular hole, it wasn't tipping in -- or scoring me points. Unacceptable. I expressed my frustration eloquently, I think something along the lines of "ARGGGHhhhhhhh," to which my daughter replied:

"Change something."

"But it's so close!" I said. "Every single time it is almost hitting the mark!"

"Almost, but it's not going in," she said. "So you need to change something."

This advice, while wise and useful, wasn't the clincher for me. That comes next, but here's what you need to know: I'm a planner. A strategist, a brainstormer, a maker of to-do lists. Give me a plan with a sound strategy to back it up and get out of my way, cause I'm about to make something happen. It may get messy, but it WILL get done. 

I also respect persistence, an ability to stay the course when the going gets tough and doubt sets in, making you question whether it's worth the trouble. Let's just say that if I played slot machines, which I do not because ewwww the germs on those coins and probably casinos in general, I would be one of those people who would hunker down at one machine and stay there all night, refusing to move lest some greasy, toothless n'er-do-well reap the rewards of my persistence. Or stubbornness. Whatever. Stay the course, I say.

So on to the part about this conversation that has stuck with me for more than a year. For a moment, my teen child and I traded roles, I becoming the somewhat sassy and argumentative teen, she the sage -- calm, sensible and comfortable in the wisdom she was to impart.

"This should be going in! I should be winning!" I said. "My stance is perfect, my toss sublime, the follow through supreme! What do I need to change?!"

I may have stamped my foot in frustration.

"I don't know what you need to change, but what you're doing right now is definitely not working, so try different things until you figure it out," she said. 

Record scratch and what the what?!

So you don't need an 12-point plan with spreadsheets, pie charts and market research to change course? Particularly if the consequences won't set you back any further than your current status?

Huh. Ha. Interesting.

I don't know about you, but lots of times if I don't know exactly what to change, I change nothing. I file lots of things under the "I'll eventually figure out what to do differently, but until then I shall continue to do exactly the same things that I know are not working, mostly out of habit. Please do not disturb." 

At least that was the case until that lovely autumn day when the child took her Mom back to school. And her Mom is still grateful, because now whenever I'm feeling stuck I ask myself "what have I been doing, and what's something different -- anything different -- I can try?"

I swear these words are magic, their magician a teenage girl.



XOXO--


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Is There Such a Thing as a Bad Compliment? (Correct Answer: Yes. Yes There Is.)

Ah, the well-paid compliment. Nothing adds a spot of sunshine to your day like a genuine effort of admiration given to you by someone you hold in high esteem. Or a well-dressed stranger with a nice haircut. Truly, it matters less who is delivering the compliment and more that it's sincere -- and that the person stops talking before accidentally undoing the compliment. Some real-life examples:

Good compliment:
"Mom! I'm so glad you wear cute clothes so we can share!"

Undoing compliment:
"Except for pants. I don't think we can share those."

The save:
"Only because your legs are longer than mine!"

Just this week:

Good compliment (by a teenage girl who probably wanted to go shopping or something, but whatever):
"Wait, Justin Timberlake is only 33? Dang, you have almost 10 years on him and you look waaaaay younger than him."

Undoing compliment (by another person after hearing said compliment):
"Yeah, Justin Timberlake looks OLD."

The save:
"Whoa, that came out totally wrong. What I meant was you definitely look younger than a 33-year-old!"

I'm trying to teach my girls to look for opportunities to pay genuine compliments to people. To notice their fellow human beings have made an effort and to give them a little love for it. Why? Because a sincere compliment leaves a person feeling warm, and appreciated, and better off for having encountered you that day. And they will generally remember those lovely compliments well after you've crossed paths. Which is nice, too. It does seem, however, we still have a little work to do on the "seizing opportunities" front, as evidenced in my recent Facebook post:



It's a work in progress, people. Also, I would like to genuinely compliment you each and every one for your outstanding taste in blog reading. Exquisite!

XO --


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Sound Bites in my World

Sound bites (in the world of public relations) are carefully crafted statements used by an authoritative source to convey a memorable piece of information to an audience.

When your kids get to the ages of my kids (one is a teen, one is almost a teen, both think they are 25), you start to realize your days are limited to impart a world of knowledge ... with the hope they will permanently weave the most important ones into the fabric of their being.

As such, I've started creating sound bites (in the world of Amy Mac.) These are life lessons I hope to impart upon my daughters, and recognizing their lack of desire to listen to verbal dissertations on my life's philosophies, I have distilled them into relatively brief notions and layered them atop a chevron pattern -- which I have recently discovered captures the attention of nearly every teen girl alive today.

Here's hoping your weekend is adversity free (but if it isn't, that you remember you are bigger than any problem that comes your way. And that cute design cures most ills.)

XOXO--  


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I Once Was Lost, But Now Am Found

A recent conversation at my house during the breakfast hour:

Me: "Hello? Anybody here?"

(Sound of crickets.)

Me: "Heyyyyyy! Where did everyone go? Hadley? HADLEY?!!!"

Hadley: "Are you calling me?"

Me: "Oh, thank goodness! Is Callie still here too??"

Hadley: "Um, as far as I know ... yeah, I think I hear her drying her hair."

Me: "Whew. Because I was scared for a minute there."

Hadley: "Scared of what?"

Me: "That the actual rapture happened and I had been left behind! I was terrified there was a clerical error resulting in me being left on earth to deal with the headless horsemen and such, because WHY ELSE WOULD YOU LEAVE YOUR BREAKFAST DISHES ON THE TABLE LITERALLY MID-BITE? It makes no sense from a responsible, smart and loving girl like you. Also, there's that random sock on the chair right there. I thought your socks were literally knocked off your feet during the process. You have to agree, all physical indicators point toward the rapture." 

Hadley: "OMG. Sorry, I'll clear my dishes. You didn't have to bring Jesus into it."

Me: "Well, I thought about alien abduction, too, but I figured there would at least be some green goo on the chair or something if aliens had been in the kitchen." 

Are there any teens on earth that pick up after themselves without threats of the apocalypse? Please advise.

Hope y'all have a great weekend! XO --

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Pizza & Cupcakes, Wine & Cheese

This past weekend, we hosted a birthday celebration for my youngest daughter's 12th birthday with 30 of her nearest and dearest friends. She was permitted to invite 30 girls and boys because I assumed half of them wouldn't be able to come. I mean, it's a Friday evening in September. High school football. Soccer practice. Flu shots. Busy times.

So naturally, because I counted on around 20 kids actually attending, not one single person declined the invitation. Then, when my older daughter asked if she could have a few friends over, too, I figured ... hey, we'll already have pizza and cupcakes, what's 5 or 6 more teens gonna hurt? So grand total, when you mix in the preschool set already at the park, I think there were like 87 kids there. Not exactly, but you get my point.

(Side note: before our guests started arriving, a loud and boisterous scuffle broke out amongst a handful of preschool boys as to the rules and regulations around a vampire attack. Callie said "how funny would it be if I ran down there and screamed 'Bad news! Vampires aren't real!' and I said "Not nearly as funny if you ran down there and screamed 'I'm a vampire!!!' and started biting them." I really like to encourage my children to raise their game at every opportunity.)

The good news is the party was at the park, and it's a fabulous group of kids (the ones we know, not the preschool vampire hunters) ... well-behaved, lovely manners, and at this age they blessedly require no entertainment by adults, so Jake and I were able to stay in the pavillion swatting at bees and musing about the bizarre lack of humidity while the kids wore themselves out.

However, by 8 p.m., I was exhausted. And starving. I'd been up since 6 a.m. gathering supplies and baking cupcakes (lie. I totally bought pre-made cupcakes) and cleaning and such, and pizza that takes only 2 minutes to cook makes me nervous, and somehow ALL of the bottled water was consumed before I got any, so revision: I was exhausted, starving AND dehydrated.

So naturally the most sensible thing to do was head to the grocery store, because I always make terrific, sound decisions when I'm in virtually the same state I'd be in if I'd been on a 12-hour trek through the wilderness. Except with fewer abrasions and bear sightings, and much cuter shoes.

But the trip was a good reminder on why you should never go shopping when not entirely in control of your good senses. Because I'm pretty sure I've never in my entire life come home from the store with only two bottles of wine, cranberry cheddar cheese and citrus-mango-pineapple juice (I drink maybe one glass of wine a week, I had no crackers upon which to eat the delightful cheese, and I do not even like nor drink juice.)

When I returned with my four items in tow, Jake said "what did you get at the store?" I'm sure he was hoping I'd had the forethought to grab something for breakfast the next morning.

I just laughed maniacally and said "no talking, please!"

Then I ate my crackerless cheese and drank a glass of wine and appreciated the fact that my kids have the sense to ignore me when I suggest they bite other children.

XO--

Calling in the Cavalry

At the risk of sounding unsympathetic and harsh, I'd like to share a little story with you.

It's day 11 of the new school year, and I get a call from the clinic that my precious youngest is not feeling well.

"She has a very slight fever, not enough for us to have to send her home, but she says she's been coughing a bunch and doesn't feel well," says the clinic nurse.

Precious and I have a brief discussion about the possibilities of her sticking it out since there are only 2 hours left in the day. She assures me she simply cannot carry on. I fetch her, not because I think she can't make it through the day, but because a point needs to be made.

"I was coughing NON-STOP," says she. "I have a cold!"

"I am aware of the cold, and I know they are not fun," say I. "What did you do to stop the coughing?"

"I went to the clinic," says she.

"Well, it obviously worked BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T COUGHED ONCE SINCE I PICKED YOU UP."

Now, when my kids are sick, I am quite nurturing. I make homemade chicken noodle soup. I rent tons of movies. I fluff their pillows and give them decongestants and Dr. Pepper and candy and all that stuff. But seriously. It's a runny nose. Power through.

So then we had a discussion about first-line solutions, like drinking ice water, blowing your nose, and having a cough drop to see if that will shape things up. Also about how coughing so-very-rarely kills an otherwise healthy human being, and how if she calls me again for anything other than essentially bleeding from her ears ... well, you get the point.

I think many of the problems in our lives, whether at work or at home, could be solved (or avoided altogether) if we didn't hit the panic button quite so quickly. I believe we have become so accustomed to the immediacy of our 24-hour-social-media-and-Google-search world that when we can't fix a problem right that second we sound the alarm bells and call for backup.

I'm trying to teach my kids that a deep breath and 5 minutes of thinking time will give you the tools solve most issues without dialing 911. That many times problems are only problems because you make them so much more complex than they really are. And that the sense of accomplishment of figuring out things on your own is so much more satisfying than calling in the cavalry.

Especially if your particular cavalry helps you get better with extra rest and a ban on electronics for 24 hours.

I swear to you it's a miracle cure, people.

XO --

All Hail the Bus Driver

Obligatory First Day of School Photo. I feel these facial expressions aptly foretold coming events.

When my older daughter was in early elementary school, I drove her to and from school each day as opposed to putting her on the bus. By the time the younger one was entering kindergarten, the older one -- then in second grade -- was chaffing for the tiny shred of independence provided by riding the bus to school. So I acquiesced, and packed them off to school on that gargantuan piece of yellow machinery.

Little Hadley came home that afternoon flushed and furious.

"That was TERRIFYING. The bus driver is a BUMPY AND TERRIBLE DRIVER! There were NO SEATBELTS!! She was RUNNING STOP SIGNS AND DRIVING SO FAST I COULD BARELY STAY IN MY SEAT!!! I will not ride the bus again. EVER."

Though Callie assured me it had not been quite the roller coaster ride dramatically described by her sister, Hadley's decision was final. Any attempts to put her back on that bus would end in child abuse allegations and hundreds of hours of therapy. I graciously accepted that her tender sensibilities were in direct opposition to the hardships she would face while riding group transportation, and queued back up in the carpool line for the remaining 6 years.

But folks, middle school would be different. She'd been toughened up by school trips (on chartered buses replete with air conditioning and facilities, but still), hardened by wandering the Atlanta airport (busiest in the U.S., natch) parking lot with her dad searching for a lost car for about an hour, and battered by a variety of illnesses, stitches and broken bones. Plus, her sister had been riding the bus to middle school for 2 years and threatened to disassemble anyone bothering her little sister.

So last Monday, we arrive at the bus stop 10 minutes early per Fulton County instructions. And I swear to you, right as we pull up, there's the bus ... lights flashing, stop sign out and doors open. As the girls ran toward the bus I hollered "make sure that's actually your bus!!!"

Yeah, apparently they didn't hear that suggestion, because about 5 minutes later I get a phone call. Before I even say hello I hear Callie say to someone "actually this is kinda funny" then to me "Uh, Mom. We accidentally got on the high school bus."

Let's recap: My 11 and 13 year old daughters were in the very back seat of a bus FULL OF HIGH SCHOOLERS and they were en route to the HIGH SCHOOL.

Sweet Mary in the heavens.

Then Callie says that while the bus driver spoke very little English (awesome), he kept repeating that he would be going to the middle school. Which he did indeed do, but only after taking a very circuitous route to the school, thereby prompting Callie to threaten to call the cops if he didn't PULL THIS BUS OVER SO MY MOM CAN GET US.

I only found out later that Hadley was already preparing to dial 911 if he didn't meet Callie's demands immediately. Thank goodness he stopped and picked up some kids they knew, otherwise I am pretty sure you'd have heard about us on the national news and how some kid in Atlanta caused an Amber Alert because she didn't like the route the bus driver took to her suburban school.

In the end, they arrived safely at school, on time and with a pretty funny story to tell.

That night at dinner I asked if they wanted me to just drive them in the morning.

Callie said "Seriously? Are you seriously asking that question?" Hadley just shot her eyebrows up to meet her hairline.

So if you're looking for me around 8:15 in the mornings, you know where I'll be. And it won't be at the bus stop.

Learning About Laundry (and Other Fun Summer Activities)

When my girls were younger, there were many things they had to be taught to do versus just soaking it in from bearing witness.

For example, tying their shoes. I don't know about you, but my kids didn't learn to tie their shoes just by living in a house where shoes were being tied. We had to show them repeatedly, and patiently, giving them tricks to remember the exact steps and praising their success.

I would like very much to not talk about the fact my children -- both officially middle school students -- will wander around with their shoelaces flapping in the wind. (In fact, just the other day, I noticed the 13-year-old had shoe strings untied, so I stood on one of them while she wasn't paying attention. When she started to walk away and was abruptly snatched back to my side, do you know I didn't even have to say "TIE YOUR SHOES" ?!!  She instinctively understood the message. Parenting can be so rewarding.)

What's that phrase about leading a horse to water? Yeah.

So this may be a giant waste of my time, but this summer, I am spending a little extra time teaching them things that to me seem intuitive, but really aren't. Things like:

How to clean out and organize a junky drawer.
How to clean a bathroom.
How to dust and vacuum a living room.
How to organize your time so you get to the fun stuff ... while making sure you get chores done, too.
How to make a bet for maximum return without losing your pants. (The three of us played this game last night while Jake is out of town. We love it. I did a fantastic job teaching them, obviously, since one of them beat me handily. Look out Vegas, here we come.)

As evidenced by the photo above, there are some common-sensical items that are to be covered, too.

Anywho, if I'm not posting quite as often this summer, please do forgive me. I'm trying to teach the future generation that very often, that missing swimsuit can be located in the suitcase you forgot to unpack. It's very time consuming.

XO --

Margaritaville (or why my daughter almost tore her nose off with a pitcher)

I have a few stories to record for posterity. Mostly because my kids say "Mom, don't you remember??" about 1,000 times per day, so I assume I'm losing my memory and my mind. I figure here is as good a place as any to tell these stories. Please resist the urge to report us to family services.

My husband and I are not big drinkers. My husband mostly abstains because he is convinced every possible health ailment, including hearing loss and freckles, is the direct result of dehydration - and alcohol is dehydrating.  I bet the man hasn't had two beers this entire calendar year. I love the occasional glass of wine, but have to counteract my wine allergy with a Benadryl. Or two. So, wine + Benadryl = ...

I'll let you do the math on that one.

Anywho, we don't keep a lot of alcohol lying about the house. If you'd like a festive mixed drink at my house, we'll be forced to open a bottle of whiskey we received as a wedding shower gift 17 years ago. Also, we'd have nothing to mix it with. BYOB, people.

A few years ago, when the girls were about 5 and 7 years old, we were encouraging their increased independence. Little things like fixing their own waffles in the toaster and pouring their own juice out of a little plastic pitcher stored on a reachable shelf in the fridge. They were doing a bang-up job, slapping cereal onto the table and sloshing juice into their glasses like a couple of harried waitresses at a highway diner.

Around this time, my nieces were approaching legal drinking age. Which explains (I hope) why there were lots of questions from my kids about alcohol. "Why can't you drink alcohol before you're 21?" was the favorite query. I answered them as follows:

"First, it's the law. If you are caught drinking before you're 21, you can be arrested and put in jail. Second, if you drink before you're 21, your body isn't ready and you vomit. Usually rather violently. Messy stuff." 

Which, if you think about it, is mostly true. How many underage drinkers do you know who practice steady restraint? We were hammering (haha - pun!) this information into their impressionable minds in the hopes that when the girls were a little older (like the ages they are currently approaching), we would have set a firm foundation that alcohol is to be treated with the same respect afforded a sleeping cobra: best left alone, if not feared outright.

On Memorial Day that year, we had a group of friends over for a cookout. It was a lovely day. We milled about, chatting into the evening hours, the kids playing in the backyard doing lovely things like catching fireflies (I can't remember for sure, so let's assume the fireflies thing. It sounds right.) There were hamburgers, and beverages, lots of great conversations and tired kiddos by the end of the night. It was one of those rare occasions we actually had alcoholic beverages on hand and were forcibly feeding them to our guests.

Fast-forward to the next evening. I'm fixing the girls something to drink with their dinner. I pour some juice out of the pitcher front and center in the fridge, only to immediately realize the juice was actually some leftover margarita we'd served the evening before. I said "whoops! That's not apple juice, that's margarita!" and poured the remainder down the sink.

When I turn around, the 7-year-old is doing the silent horror cry. You know the one: face red, shoulders heaving, tears streaming, no sound. "Baby, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Momma, I DRANK THAT MARGARITA THIS MORNING FOR BREAKFAST. I THOUGHT IT WAS JUICE!"

To recap: my second-grade daughter kicked off summer with TEQUILA -- for breakfast.

As you can imagine, I was horror-stricken. Images of my sweet baby stumbling around at 7 a.m. like a height-challenged drunk at a frat party pop into my head. I think I hear sirens, most likely carrying Drug Enforcement Agency officials and Mrs. Hannigan, who will take my children to an orphanage for children whose parents let them consume hard liquor in the morning in lieu of milk and cereal.

"How much did you drink?" I asked, starting to hyperventilate. She was crying like she was coming off a ten-day drunk, so I assumed the worst and prayed she hadn't drunk-dialed her grandmothers before I was even out of bed.

"I took one drink and thought it was rotten, so I poured it down the sink," she replied, dropping her face into her hands and sobbing louder.

"So you only had one sip?"

"Yes ma'am, and it tasted so bad I spit it right out!"

"Oh! Wait, if you didn't really drink any, why are you still crying?"

"Are the police going to arrest me for drinking alcohol before I turn 21??!!" she shrieks.

Now she is genuinely hysterical, a wild look in her eye like she might try to outrun the law if I reach for the phone. I paused for effect, as though considering what path I should take.

"Sweetheart, not this time," I said, giving her a benevolent look. She was quite relieved I wasn't going to have her thrown her in jail. I was able to explain away the "why didn't I vomit?" since she didn't really drink any, but warned her that was awful close. And that I'd make sure I didn't store alcoholic beverages in the same pitchers daddy mixed apple juice in anymore. Ahem.

She remained traumatized for some time, so we'd have to sneak off if we were going to snicker about the situation. The story could only be told in hushed tones. It was a while before she thought it was funny when my sister would call and sing "wasted away again in Margaritaville! Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt!"

So a few weeks ago, when the same child, now 13-years-old, was holding her nose and seeing stars because she'd pummeled herself in the face with a pitcher, I should have probably expected the "what happened?!?" answer:

"I hit myself in the nose because I had to smell the juice to make sure I wasn't about to ACCIDENTALLY SERVE MYSELF A MARGARITA."

Touché.

Source: thinkgarnish.com via Leslie on Pinterest

The Last Day of Elementary School

After Spring Break I came to the equally delightful and horrifying realization that my baby was in her last few weeks of elementary school. I started sneakily snapping pictures as she was leaving for school in an attempt to chronicle the mundane, everyday task that was leading to this momentous event. The task that would cease forever, morphing into leaving for middle school each morning in August.

But all I turned out were these blurry images of her whisking away into her day. (This has nothing to do with the fact these images were taken pre-coffee, I am certain.) Grainy, unfocused, ghostly images chronicling the passage of time.

The images are a little like a fall day ... the ones where first thing in the morning when you step outside you can see your breath, just a little, but later in the day, you've long ago shed your sweater and you realize you're getting a little sunburn and  it seems like another lifetime when you proclaimed with slight shock "I can see my breath!"

I feel the same way about this week, about this child. Her last week of elementary school. My last child in elementary school. I feel 1,000 years old.

She's a ghost of the girl who when I took her to the kindergarten placement tests proudly proclaimed "I can read chapter books!" (She could, and I promise I did nothing to provoke this.)

A shadow of the kid whose kindergarten assistant teacher relayed (with much amusement) Hadley's story at share time, while the other kids talked about new shoes and soccer games, "this weekend my family is going to Knoxville for a football game ... but we really just go for the tailgating!"

Or when the same teacher found my child in the cafeteria having stabbed a Salisbury steak through the center and gnawing it around the edges like a gravy and meat popsicle. A phantom of the one who would burst with pride when she was the line leader, or had a speaking part in the play, or received a compliment from her teacher on excellent classwork.

But was it really that long ago? Seems like yesterday. Seems like forever.

Her older sister says "you're famous at middle school! Everyone knows you, even the teachers, even the boys, and they all LOVE you!" (I have a love/hate relationship with this comment.)

But then, somewhere inside the young lady who is now nearly as tall as me, resides that little kindergarten girl. Bursting with pride while doing the fifth-grade version of being the line leader as a member of Safety Patrol and student council. Performing on that same stage with 20 memorized lines in a Shakespeare production, or singing and dancing with her friends in the talent show.

And would you believe, that same kindergarten teacher ... the one who recorded her reading aloud and posted it online ... is one of her fifth grade teachers? And nearly caused that young lady to burst with pride and excitement just last week by complimenting her writing ability and encouraging her to grow this talent? Talk about full circle.

She may be taller. She may pack her own lunch to avoid cafeteria food requiring spearing. Now we share books, passing them back and forth and dissecting them later like a book club for two. I like to believe we're both older ... and wiser.

Let this be known: she can grow to be 6 feet tall and be the leader of the free world if she so chooses. Matters not. She will always be my baby, that little birdie with the bob haircut and big bow, the tiny Chiclets-size teeth and backpack full of well-worn Magic Treehouse books, saying "you know whaaaattttttt?" anytime she needed to buy a little time to fill the silence. (She still does this sometimes.)

It's the nice thing about being a mom. We may forget where we put the car keys, or to pick up the dry cleaning, but we never, ever forget our babies from when they were babies. Even when they do us the wild disservice of growing into lovely, independent young adults heading off to middle school.

Get ready world ... here she comes.

Summer Sunsets, Slumber Parties and Sanpellegrino

Doesn't a Sanpellegrino straight from the ice box sound like a delectable drink to get summer started? (Though not sure the word BLOOD in BOLD TYPE is a great marketing move. But obviously I work past that roadblock and drink it anyways.)


Please note on the slumber party snack tray, all food and beverage with precisely zero nutrition has been annihilated. The semi-healthy granola bars I tried to slip in? Returned to pantry undisturbed.


I know ... this looks just like every single sunset picture everyone has been posting lately. But it's just so pretty. And makes me think summer is finally here. Let's indulge.

Happy Weekend!

7 Rules for Kids on Instagram

I recently read a fantastic blog post written by a church youth group leader about Instagram. It's a very informative article with thoughtful advice on helping your kids guard against some prevalent pitfalls of  the photo-sharing website. (Read the original post here. For a very brief overview of Instagram, read this post.)

I have two daughters. Both will be in middle school in August. Both have Instagram accounts, as do the vast majority of their friends. But just like I wouldn't set them loose to babysit colic-ridden infant twins in an unfamiliar city without some thorough instruction, I definitely wasn't going to set them loose on the internet armed with a camera and the ability to type without providing some guidance.

Some of these tips I offered from the get-go, some we learned the hard way, and some I developed from plain ol' observation. This is certainly not a definitive list, but it has given us a common understanding on what's okay and what's not when it comes to Instagram.

Here are our Middle School Rules for Instagram (and really any social media. For that matter, life in general):

Make your account private. Only allow people you know to follow you, and do not assume just because someone is your follower that they are your friend. In fact, assume any 14-year-old girl you don't personally know who asks to follow you is actually a 54-year-old balding man with a protruding gut who smells of rancid bacon grease and wants help finding his lost puppy. In other words, run away screaming and let an adult know if someone you don't know tries repeatedly to befriend you online.

Never put anything in writing between midnight and 6 a.m. Here’s the thing: when you’re in middle school, the hormones are raging, you suffer occasionally from advanced stages of paranoia (“Is she looking at my hair? She hates my hair. My hair is terrible. Everyone in school thinks I am a loser because of my hair. I am SHAVING OFF MY HAIR THE MINUTE I GET HOME.”), and when in a group you can justify nearly anything being a good idea — almost all of which will be terrible ideas. Throw in a little sleep deprivation and you have a recipe for disaster. Give yourself the opportunity to make more thoughtful decisions after a good night's rest. Turn off that phone.

Ask Yourself: Would I Do This In Person? For example, would you sit at the lunch table and say "OMG, Becky! The party Friday was the BEST! Everyone had an amazing time! All the cool kids were there, and that boy you have a crush on? Totally there! Sucks that you were the only girl not invited. Must have something to do with your hair." Probably not. Good manners aside, you don't want to hurt your friend's feelings. So why would you post pictures that will do just that? Just because you can't see or hear the hurt doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does. Obviously every single person can't be invited to every single social gathering, but be sensitive to how your pictures impact other people.

No sending subliminal messages. Before you post a picture, ask yourself "what's my intention?" Because if you are posting a picture with the caption "I Love You, Kate! You know how to be a true friend. Unlike SOME people," this is called being passive aggressive. Big no no. This includes the "feeling left out" and similar posts where your intent is to get someone to say "what's wrong?" Post fun, silly pics all day long ... but don't drag 500 followers into your tussle with a friend or your personal moping session.

Will this photo be remembered at my high school graduation ... in a bad way? These photos of adorable, gorgeous, innocent middle school girls displaying their latest gymnastics technique in a most unflattering way? Or the ones with a girl performing a back dive while wearing a bikini that with the tiniest provocation will likely be located at the bottom of the pool -- without them in it? Terrible ideas. While not overtly or intentionally inappropriate, trust me when I say you must make sure your photos aren't going to earn you the nickname "butt-cheek girl" or worse. These are not names you want to be remembered by come senior year.

Follow the "Would I Do This In Front of My Mom?" rule. If you wouldn't do something in a room with your parents, your principal or your preacher (for example, use foul language), then don't do it online (like post a picture with the F-bomb superimposed on top of the picture.) Because guess what? We're watching. Incidentally, if you wouldn't say "I think it's awesome when my friend Sam drops the F-bomb" in front of that same parental crowd, don't like Sam's F-bomb photo. Because guess what? I can see what pictures you like, and ... have I ever told you about guilt by association? Because that applies here.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. I know this sounds harsh. But here's the thing: there are people who won't use great sensitivity on Instagram. Most of the time it's unintentional. Unfortunately, there are a few who will use it like a virtual weapon, trying to make themselves feel better by making others feel bad. We can't control what other people post, but we can control how we interact on Instagram. If it is going to bother you to see pictures of others doing things without you, stay off Instagram. Instagram is sorta like a prescription: the doctor prescribes a medicine because the benefits outweigh the nasty side-effects, and if the side-effects aren't worth the benefits you change course. Same with Instagram. If you find it's more upsetting than it is fun, it's time to take a break until you're feeling more secure.

Have my kids skirted some of these rules? Yep. How do I know? Because in order to have an account, they have to let me follow them. And I check up on them regularly, usually every day. It's not because I don't trust my kids -- I do trust them. But I also know it's a heck of a lot easier as a kid to follow the rules if you know there will be spot-checks, course corrections, and consequences for missteps. So I shamelessly stalk them online, and remind them with the occasional "Love that cute picture you posted today!" or by correcting their grammar in the comments section. Which is met with universal disdain, but sure does give me the giggles.

Moms and dads: do you allow your kids to have an Instagram account? What are your rules for your kids when it comes to Instagram?

Master of the Mental Game

Everybody. Always. Never.

When one of my girls throws out these terms (as in "everyone thinks this" or "I always forget my math homework" or "I'll never be able to do this") I put on the proverbial brakes.

"Name every person who thinks this. I want names."

"Have you literally not turned in your math homework ever?"

"So there's never been a time when you completed something just as challenging?"

Inevitably, only one or two names (if that) can be presented as evidence. The online math grade proves homework has, in fact, been turned in to the teacher. And the "never" can be reframed as "I have before and I can again now."

I think it's an important skill for kids to have -- how to stop runaway, often untrue, thoughts buzzing through their heads. Y'all, it's like I'm a modern-day Confucius. Except without a beard, and younger and not as wise, but at least wise enough to make sure my eyebrows don't grow off the side of my head like facial-hair antennae.

So imagine my surprise last week while at tennis clinic my tennis coach's reaction when I made a statement about my game. I swear if you listened closely you could hear the sound of screeching brakes.

"Do you want to stay at this level forever, or do you want to advance?" he asked. "Then don't say 'I have never been able to hit that stroke.' Instead say 'I am currently having some difficulty with this stroke, and here's what I can do differently,' because if you say never, you'll be right, and you'll stay right where you are." 

Then he fed me the ball a couple of times until I hit that stroke, thus dispelling the myth I really couldn't hit that particular ball. It may not be my finest or my favorite, but it is doable and has the potential to improve ... as long as I allow myself to believe it can and will improve.

Three things: first, it's easy to let little falsehoods slip in without even noticing. I hadn't caught that I was cursing myself with the "nevers." Second, my little people (who against all orders continue to grow taller and taller) will follow the example given to them. I need to guard against letting the "always, nevers, everybodys" into my life, too.

But most important is this: much of how you think determines how far you will go. If you think you can't, you can't. If you think I'll never, you won't. And if you worry about what everybody else thinks, you'll forget the most important person's opinion of you is your own.

Everyone knows that, right?

Do It Anyway

Following are a list of excuses from my children for procrastinating or avoiding altogether doing required tasks (like homework and chores):

I am exhausted
I have too much homework
I have practice with my team
I am hungry
I have sustained an injury. Examples used: sunburn, bumped head, injured hip (not even kidding)
I have too much to do
I don't have all the supplies I need
My teacher shouldn't make us do this in the first place
Someone else has to do something before I can do my part
It's someone else's responsibility
I shouldn't have to do this at all
I hate having to do this
I have worked really hard this week and deserve to rest/hang out with my friends/sit around in my semi-squalor listening to music 
I don't feel like it

To which my reply is:

"I'm sorry. I understand how frustrating it is to be (fill in with excuse) and still have responsibilities. Sometimes you have to ignore how you feel and do it anyway."

You can spend time planning, organizing, assembling the troops, clearing away potential obstacles, complaining about the situation, blaming other people ... and at the end of the day, you can probably find a million excuses to not do something that's important.

I find (and do my best to set a good example for my kids) that very often thinking and planning less and leaning in quickly DOING more very often changes how I was feeling in the first place.

So though I'd rather be doing things other than laundry, organizing my office and computer files, running loads of torturous errands and vacuuming up absolute masses of dog hair off various pieces of furniture ... today I'm going to remember for whom I'm doing the laundry, how much better I feel when my files and office are organized, how doing these errands today helps avoid emergencies down the road and that those darned dogs bring as much joy as they shed hair.

And I'll ignore the slight wine-induced headache and the lack of time and ...

Do It Anyway.

Happy Weekend Y'all!

*Thatcher maintains he sheds less than Watson. Excess of black dog hair says otherwise. Don't let his cute face above fool you.*

Southern Storytellers

Southerners are hardwired to tell a good story. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes they are sad, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes cautionary ... but be forewarned, you can ask a Southerner about something as simple as the weather and you will get a full-blown novella in return.

Some of my favorite times are when Jake tells a story at dinner and the girls are literally breathless with laughter, tears rolling down their faces, sides stitching from the sheer exertion of happiness.

Let the record state, that in late January, 2013, the two girls pictured above, the ones who have placed all manner of restrictions on his behavior to reduce their chances of being embarrassed by said behavior, were absolutely begging the man to keep telling funny stories.

They stalled at the dinner table, content to be with one another, and with us, well past when the dishes were were washed and put away.

That, my friends, is the happiest story of all.

Happy Weekend!