Take A Walk With Jan #14

Hello, friends! I am one frustrated mama right now!

Daily Prompt 6/20/2016 | Summer

[In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt 6/20/2016 | Summer]

Spiders on windows
Pesky flies in the kitchen
This is summer to me.

Sleeping in later
Is a myth with a toddler
This is summer to me.

Red, chaffed, chubby thighs
Too-easily sunburned skin
This is summer to me.

Parties on my block
Obnoxious noise in the streets
This is summer to me.

Half-filled kiddie pools
And mosquito bites galore
This is summer to me.

Blasting the cool air
Binge-watching Netflix online
Ideal summer for me.

Jan

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Daily Prompt 6/8/2016 | Everybody Poops

In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt 6/8/2016 | Embarrassing

Becoming a mom has transformed my life in so many ways, but one thing I did not expect to change, was my absolute fear of embarrassing myself. I was pretty awkward as a kid, a trait I inherited from my mom, and this caused me to develop some pretty bad social anxieties early on, which I still struggle with. Growing up, I was terrified of everything having to do with failure and embarrassment in social situations. Because of this, I avoided going to dances, joining clubs, playing sports, and hanging out with friends, because I just felt like everything that I did would end disastrously. What if I tripped? What if I farted? What if I sneezed AND farted? WHAT IF I HAD TO POOP AT SOMEONE ELSE’S HOUSE?

Well, let me tell you, all of that anxiety flew out the window when my son was born… actually, it dissipated pretty quickly only a few months into my pregnancy. I found myself pushing my boundaries, reaching out to friends, as well as strangers, and talking about things having to do with me and my body, that I previously would have been embarrassed about. That strange comfort is still with me today. Sure, I have a whole new set of anxieties that I deal with, but when it comes to embarrassing bodily functions? Ha!

Example: Pooping during childbirth. Very common, most women do it. I did it. Yup, I did. Get over it. Your mom probably pooped, too! I didn’t even know about it until one of my nurses let it slip later on, after my son’s arrival, and honestly, I wasn’t embarrassed. I laughed! And everything that followed the birth of my son… I will save your sanity and stomachs, for those who are unfamiliar with what happens to a woman’s body after birth, but let’s just say, I accepted all of it. I wasn’t embarrassed to tell people that I had to go change my pad for the second or third time while visiting their houses, or that my boobs felt hard and painful, and leaked all the time. I wasn’t ashamed. I wasn’t embarrassed. I had already pooped myself in front of half a dozen people, while crouching naked on a bed, pushing a human being from between my legs (graphic, sorry).

Why should I be embarrassed?

Whether you’ve had a baby or not, everybody poops, everybody pees, and everybody farts. Most women have periods, and use pads, tampons, or menstrual cups. Most men get erections, sometimes quite unexpectedly, and unwanted. It happens. The human body is weird, and complicated, and sometimes gross, but it is nothing to be embarrassed about.

I should take my own advice, as I am still embarrassed about a lot of things about my body (adult acne, anyone?), but I’ve gotten so much better at accepting all of the strange things that my body does, and you should, too! Everybody poops.

Thanks for reading, friends.

Jan

I’m Sorry, But WHAT?

Okay. I don’t tend to focus too much on my blog stats, but sometimes, I do get curious about my referrers, clicks, search terms, etc. This morning, after getting up with the baby, I turned on Special Agent Oso for my little man, and plopped down at my computer to check how my blog did yesterday. I was a bit surprised when this popped up under search terms for this morning…

Yep. Someone actually searched for THAT in Google, and my blog popped up. Supposedly. For scientific research purposes, I Googled that exact search term, and… guys, DO NOT do it. Just don’t. Now… it was only 6:00 in the morning where I live when I checked this. So either someone is an early riser (if you know what I mean), or maybe they were outside of the U.S.? I don’t know. Heck, they could have been trying to look up a movie that wasn’t porn… but if the search results that I got when I searched were any indication of the movie that they were looking for… then I highly doubt it.

Oh, and for the record, I scrolled through 5 or 6 pages, and my blog never popped up. So how the hell…?

On second thought, I don’t want to know. Nope. Nope nope nope.

Thanks for reading my non-porn blog, friends.

Jan

Dream Journal 1/7/16

Past (?).

I sat in the back of a large van, filled with young adults, similar in age to myself. I looked to be just a few years younger, maybe 18 or 19. There were three guys, and two other girls, making six of us, plus the driver. The driver was an older, balding man, who looked eerily similar to Red Foreman from That 70’s Show.

We were complaining about being hungry, so the driver pulled up to a large, Victorian-looking building, and informed us it used to be his favorite restaurant in the area. We climbed out of the van and rush inside.

The inside was awful. The wall paper was peeling off of the walls, and the floor made wet, squishy noises beneath our feet. It looked as though the building had gone through a hurricane recently, and no one bothered to clean anything up before re-opening. The building was empty, but the tables and chairs were set up as through expecting crowds of people, and the lighting was bright and new.

A man rushed out from the kitchen to greet us. He was tall, with thinning, blond hair, and was wearing a hideous, baby blue suit. He shook the driver’s hand and guided us to a large table in the middle of the room. He took our orders without writing anything down (I ordered mushroom risotto, even though I don’t care for mushrooms), and hurried back to the kitchen.

The carpeting was so soaked, that it was hard to push our chairs in and out from the table, and there was at least a quarter inch of standing water in the room, which was soaking our feet and pants. No one really seemed to notice.

One of the girls started complaining about how the building smelled like a sewer filled with dead rats, and we all seemed to agree.

An hour passed, and we still had not been brought our drinks, nor had we seen the owner, or any other staff. The building was still empty, and no one new had come in. We stood up as a group and marched angrily to the kitchen doors to speak to the owner. When we opened the door, we saw that the kitchen was small. Very, very small. And it was in a closet. Along with this tiny, apartment-sized kitchen, there was also a very naked woman wearing nothing but a chef’s hat, and the owner, who was having sex with her, on top of the tiny stove, which was definitely on.

We stared at them in disbelief, and they didn’t even acknowledge that we had opened the doors. Nope. They just kept on doin’ it. We quickly backed out and waited outside the door, embarrassed, until they emerged from the closet kitchen… several minutes later. Still naked.

The owner, smiling, offered to give us our meals for free, but we wanted to leave. I don’t know why we didn’t just walk out, as we hadn’t received anything we would have had to pay for anyway. We all shouted angrily at the very naked owner and his very naked chef, until they told us to leave. Which we did.

As we were walking out, I started writing a very bad review on the restaurant’s Facebook page, which was filled with other reviews, all very positive. We got back into the van and drove off. We didn’t even turn our heads to witness the building bursting into cartoon-like flames behind us, and crumbling to the ground. Minutes later, there was a news report on the radio about the fire, and they cited the source of the fire as a pair of panties left on a stove top. Ha.

We were all still hungry, so we decided to stop at a local blood drive, and steal all of the cookies. We were on our way to the blood drive to steal their delicious cooking…

And then I woke up.

Sinking Ships

** EDIT: Last month, the individual I wrote about reached out to me via Facebook to apologize for her actions and words. Apparently, she was simply following the lead of two individuals, who I once considered friends, who were talking about me, my son, and my parenting publicly, behind my back. We have since reconciled our differences, and have moved on. Thank you, to everyone who came to my defense in the days following this incident. And to those of you who maliciously and ignorantly attacked me and spread lies about me on social media, you should be ashamed of yourselves. **
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I honestly can not even begin to wrap my head around the ridiculous drama that I witnessed on Twitter today, and I sincerely apologize to anyone who had to witness such ignorance and maliciousness in their timelines, but here is what happened in my little corner of the internet.

Today was… interesting, for lack of a more creative word. It started out normal, for the most part. Li and I finished watching Hercules (we started yesterday but never got to finish), then moved on to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. We’ve been on a bit of a Disney kick recently. We had Cheerios and applesauce for breakfast, and leftover rotini for lunch. But suddenly, I became aware of some not-so-nice tweets that I was seeing splattered across my Twitter timeline from several sources. I didn’t know what, or who, had caused this random shitstorm of judgment, or who they were all talking about, but decided not to get involved. Until I saw someone responding to a tweet that vaguely sounded like it could have been written about me… you know, if the person who originally posted it had been horribly misinformed. Or psychotic. Or something.

That’s when I posted a few sub-tweets of my own, calling out the bitchiness going on on Twitter, and urging people to be nicer. Yeah, didn’t help. Instead, it got me put on a few peoples’ blocked lists. Good job, Jan! If they hate you, that means you’re doing something right! Right?

So, this morning, I noticed that Li’s last can of formula only had enough for maybe the rest of today, and randomly tweeted about it, because that’s what I do. I tweet things. Now, this was not really a problem, since Kyle would be home from work tonight and we could get some more then (since as most of you know, we only have one car, and I don’t drive). We also have plenty of baby cereal and baby food to keep any little tummy rumblings away. Once again, not a big deal at all. At least, I thought so. Apparently I was mistaken about my own situation though. Who knew?

So there I was, skimming through my timeline, reading tweets from people who I once considered my “friends”, that were horribly judgmental and passive aggressive things about people who are in not-so-fortunate situations. I guessed who a few of them were talking about, although I didn’t agree with that they were saying. Some were even posting hypocritical things about how people complaining on social media is annoying… even though I had seen them do it themselves countless times. But, hey, what would I know? Maybe that’s just how it works. Not all of it was necessarily directed towards me/someone in an eerily similar situation to me, just towards a few random people that they felt compelled to judge for various reasons. Some were even comparing their own lives to that of those they know nothing about, and judging them for how they deal with the situations they’ve been dealt with. And let me tell you, I can not stand people who compare their past problems, with those that someone else is facing today. Saying things like, “I dealt with ___, so you shouldn’t be whining about ___.” or, “Get a job if you don’t have money!” Neither of which is helpful, or supportive to anyone. Just mean.

But back to my situation. It was brought to my attention that a random woman on Twitter (who I did not follow, and who did not follow me), had tweeted to me, and someone responded, which I saw. Apparently I had her blocked from something in the past, which I don’t remember anything about. Looking at what happened today, this is not surprising in the slightest. I looked at her profile to see what she had said, and was honestly appalled. Or shocked? I don’t really know what I felt. This random woman publicly talked about my parenting, and said that she felt “terrible” for my son, after assuming that several things that I tweeted were about her. Well, they weren’t. As I said before, and as I said to her, I didn’t know her. I didn’t follow her. The tweets I posted were directed to the handful of “friends”, who have now been removed from my life, who I witnessed posting all the vile and judgment within them. But, for some reason, this girl who does not follow me, was watching my tweets, and thought my tweets revolved around her, and responded negatively to them. She called me a bad mother, and took SCREENSHOTS of my tweets, posting them on her own Twitter. That gave me a good laugh. And creeped me out. Apparently she also had a problem with people who ask for help with money on social media to help with their unfortunate situations, and did not like how someone was trying to raise money so that we could get a vehicle. Who knows who she was talking about, I just couldn’t tell because of the abundance of sub-tweeting, and lack of actually mentioning people in the tweets. I don’t see how it was any of her business anyway, but ya know, whatever.

Did I already mention that she didn’t even follow me but was keeping track of my tweets?

Creepy. Seriously.

You know, everyone deals with their shit differently. Some of us are more vocal about our struggles than others on social media, but we all bitch and moan about something at some point. But just because I share certain parts of my life on social media, that does not mean you know 100% of the details, and get to judge accordingly. Most of the time, when I tweet, it is about something great happening, or something terrible. You don’t always know all the middle part that lead to either. But despite knowing none of the details, she took a screenshot of two of my tweets, one complaining about the dirty dishes, the other talking about being almost out of formula. And based off of those two things, she got it into her head that I neglect my son, and do not take care of him. Aside from being really creepy, this was also irksome. I’m not exaggerating either, guys, those were her words. She said I NEGLECT my kid.

There were also other postings (by this individual and a few others) about people who don’t sacrifice enough, or anything, in order to take care of their children. Because they somehow got a hold of these peoples’ financial information, I assume, and know exactly how much they spend on their kids. Now, I don’t know if any of those tweets were directed at me, but for the record, I’ve had the same off-brand phone for over 2 years, which has been out of minutes for almost 2 months. I play no games that require membership fees, don’t have cable, haven’t bought any clothing items for myself in over 6 months, haven’t gotten a haircut in even longer, and eat frozen meals and other horrible things that don’t cost a lot of money, just so that I can make sure that my son gets clothes, diapers, toys, and good food. And he does.

BUT NEGLECT NEGLECT NEGLECT, YOU GUYS.

Despite my trying to correct her and let her know that she was very much mistaken, she had nothing new to add to the conversation, and just kept publicly repeating that I need to take care of my child, and that she felt terrible for him because I’m such a bad mom. Blah blah blah, broken record. And when she felt backed into a corner, because she must have realized by now that her overwhelming ignorance was making her look ridiculous, she got defensive and acted like a victim, pretending to know about my situation, and trying to say that she had been there and that I should get help, etc. I don’t know what her problem was, or why she felt the need to single me out, but it was getting annoying.

I couldn’t even get mad at the situation, because… honestly? What? WHAT? How did she even get to that point of calling me a bad parent based off of ONE tweet that had absolutely nothing to do with my parenting? It was just so ridiculous! Anyone who has known me for longer than 5 minutes knows that I love my son with all my heart. I post pictures of him constantly, where he is always smiling and playing. I’m a stay-at-home mom and spend every second with my baby. We eat all of our meals together, play together, sleep together (sometimes), watch movies together, go for walks to play at the park every other day, and he even sits on my lap and watches YouTube with me.

This was taken just this morning and uploaded to Twitter, but apparently she missed that one. Li and I have been watching Hannah Hart’s “My Drunk Kitchen” episodes on YouTube lately, and this morning we sat at my computer and watched together while snacking on Cheerios, and it was funny! He kept waving his marker at Hannah and Connor and laughing. He also really seems to like PewDiePie (more than I do actually, haha), as well as Dan and Phil. My kid has good taste!  This is so weird to me, guys, because I’ve never had to defend my parenting to anyone because, once again, what?!

I have an intelligent, happy, well-fed baby boy. He is above average in height and weight, and is further along in his development than most babies his age. How do I know this? Because ever since the start of my pregnancy, and ever since he was born, I have done nothing but read and research on how to take care of my little guy properly. But most of you already know that, since I talk about all of his wonderful milestones and discoveries all the time! I’m a good mom, and I know that. The only person I have to prove that to is my son, and judging by the permanent smile attached to his face, he knows it as well.

Maybe you should stop judging people for things you know NOTHING about, things you yourself took out of context and manipulated. If I post a tweet saying, “Huh, Liam is almost out of formula.” That PROBABLY doesn’t mean that I can not afford to feed my child, or that he is starving. It also does not mean that I am a bad mother who can’t take care of my child, or needs help. It actually probably just means his fucking can of formula is almost empty, and I need to go buy some more. That’s it. You do not get to call me a bad mother, because you clearly know nothing about me. If I post that I am “broke”, it doesn’t mean that we are living in the dark, starving, and freezing to death. It means that I wish we had extra spending money to spend on things for us, since (surprise!), all of our money goes towards taking care of our child.

So you can go ahead and judge away about things you clearly know nothing about, or you can worry about fixing your shitty attitude about people, and figure out why you feel the need to judge others so harshly, and to manipulate the situation to make yourself seem like the bleeding heart victim. Like turning around, after causing all the drama, and try to play it off like you were just trying to get me help or something? Yeah. I don’t need help. I never said I needed help. We’re doing great! But thanks for your… concern?

Today, I learned that loving your child unconditionally means nothing, because if you post a tweet about almost being out of formula, you are a neglectful, terrible parent. Who knew? I also learned that I need to keep better company, because I’ve apparently been surrounding myself with assholes. You shouldn’t consider someone a friend based solely on the fact that you have one or two things in common, because they may turn out to be a crappy human being. But, I fixed that, and can continue on with my life with all of the numerous people who showed me support and shared kind words with me during this unnecessary, somewhat hilarious, harassment.

Moral of the story: Never let someone else’s ignorance get you down. You never know, they might just be trying to help. But, more likely than not, they’re probably just a manipulative, rude person.

Out with the toxicity, in with the positivity!

I can not believe I even had to write this all out, since 99.99% of you know how much I love my son, but thanks for reading anyway and for laughing at this whole situation with me!

Much love,

Jan