White Trash Mom Troop Beverly Hills Camp Out Part Two

Dear WTMs, The following conversation sums up the Girl Scout camping trip experience. Dig if you will, the picture. It's the morning after the campout. Girls are eating breakfast. I am standing there with my daughter and some of her tent mates. Tent Mate 1-Did you HEAR that screeching animal light night? Tent Mate 2-It was so creepy! Tent Mate 1-I think it was a racoon or something...being attacked. WTM's daughter -No guys----THAT was my mom. SFX-All 12 and 13 year old campers start LAUGHING hysterically. Reason for the "screaminglikeananimalinpain sound"? There was a moth in my tent. It was a big moth! My daughter was a pretty good sport about what a weenie I was, since it created such an entertainment factor for her friends.

White Trash Mom Troop Beverly Hills Camp Out

Dear WTMs, This might be the last post you have from me, since I am going camping this weekend with the Girl Scouts. My older girl is a Cadette Scout and now my younger girl, Miss Minnesota/Margarita is a Brownie. I was a troop leader for the Scouts, along with some of my best buddy WTMs, when my older girl was in 1st grade. When I told my husband that I signed up to be a troop leader, his snarky reply was: What are you going to do for an activity? Take them shoe shopping at Nordstroms? Naturally, my husband was, in fact right on target and so my buddies and I gladly gave up our leadership roles to a wonderful woman after just one year of being in charge. She has been the troop leader since. Bottom line is this: I owe her one as she bailed me out (because stuff like Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts is FOR LIFE. It is very hard to find volunteers because it takes up a lot of time). Fast forward, the girls are in 7th grade. Wonderful scout leader calls me the other night. She needs warm bodies to camp out. In a tent. On the ground. With a bunch of pre-teens. White Trash Mom's idea of camping....is staying somewhere with no room service. Lame but true. I say yes. I tell her that I don't know how much practical help I will be-----but I am in. However, being the resourceful leader, she doesn't tell me that my best friend, Senor Patron, cannot come to the camp out until AFTER I commit. The woman is shrewd! However, it is too late to back out, despite the ban on alcohol for adults, so hopefully I will post when I return.

ADDDDDDDD & White Trash Mom

Dear WTMs, I am sure it is no surprise that I am a product of the 60's and 70's and I have major "ADD". My career has been spent in advertising, where ADD is kind of a prerequiste for the industry (being child like and hyper makes you a lot of money). Sorry if this is too much information but there is a point here. I will get to it, I promise. So...two years ago when my 12 year old was at the old school where she was getting bullied to a pulp....the school suggested I take the child to a doctor to check for "ADD" since she seemed very "distracted" in class. Naturally, being the obedient mother, I take the child to the doctor to see if she has "ADD". We go to the shrink doctor and she talks to my daughter for a bit and then talks to me. My daughter is fine. She probably has mild ADD but the reason she's "distracted" at school is due to the fact she is getting BULLIED daily. After giving me the lowdown on my daughter, the doctor pauses and says: Have YOU ever been tested for "ADD"? The bottom line of the visit was that my daughter was relatively fine-----however she thought I could benefit from some ADDERALL, the ADD medication! THAT my friends, is the background for the story I am FINALLY telling you today. Whew. So at 43, along with 11 year old boys everywhere, white trash mom takes AdderallXR. It is really a godsend and has helped me be a better person, better wife and better mom by helping me FOCUS more. Okay----but the hardest part of taking the medication is going to the pharmacy to get the refills. What I am about to tell you I SWEAR is a true story. I am not embellishing at all (okay maybe a little). Dig if you will, the picture: White Trash Mom in jeans and clean shirt. At pharmacy waiting for ADD script to be filled. Nice blue haired ladies are chatting with me while we wait. I am nice to them, polite----just like the grandaughter or whatever. The nice old ladies were very sweet and we were having a love fest while we waited for our drugs, talking about Fall Mums. Then the pharmacist calls me over IN A REALLY LOUD VOICE and says: The insurance company will only pay for HALF of your prescription....they said that the drug is supposed to be for kids, not adults. You are taking more than they recommend for a child. The nice blue haired ladies immediately FLEW away from me, over the other side of the pick up counter. It was like I was TED BUNDY or some human form equally as gross! I tell the big mouth pharmacist in a normal voice that the she needs to call my doctor so that the doc can CALL insurance company. I tell the pharmacist I will be back shortly to pick up my "crack" and I slink out of the store....feeling like I did something wrong. I really don't care about the fact that a prescription can help me in my daily life. I am way over that. I just get bummed out that I get treated like a "crack" addict for taking a FDA approved drug that hurts no one and has made my life a better place to live! It is pretty funny, in a sick kind of way, so I had to share.

A Backpack is NOT a Weapon

Dear WTMs, Please go to one of my favorite songs in order to flashback to my day:

They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa. They're coming to take me away, ho ho, he he, ha ha, To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time And I'll be happy to see those nice young Men in their clean white coats and They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!

The song listed above (with link included) kind of sums up my day. I know are of you are familiar with the kind of day that STARTS out with the words:

"A BACKPACK IS NOT A WEAPON!"

If you are a mom (or a dad) you've had days like today. It's in the manual. There is no need to relive the day-from-hell. I just wanted to post the appropriate "Song of the Day" with a few choice words, for those that need a reminder why birth control is sometimes a good idea. Dig if you will, sisters in WT, some of the words that ACTUALLY CAME OUT OF MY MOUTH TODAY: "A BACKPACK IS NOT A WEAPON!" "Let's just drive over and talk to Father Kent. You can explain to HIM why you think it is so COOL to do the sign of the cross BACKWARDS" "A BARETTE IS NOT A WEAPON!" "If I had to be either Lindsey Lohan or Britney Spears, I would be neither" "A PUG IS NOT A WEAPON!" I don' t need to go on. Let's just say that Monday happened on Tuesday today at WTM's house. Let's hope Wednesday is more like Friday. Or I better get a Senor Patron IV.

Bad WTM This Week, Good School News

Dear WTMs, Sorry for the lack of blog posts this week. I found a school for my daughter and am very excited. The good WTM karma and prayers really worked because we found great school that is a perfect mix of structure, technology with a great principal and teaching staff. It's 3 minutes from our house and she can go there for 7th and 8th grade. We are so excited and better still...SHE is so excited. Will be back in snarky form next week with lots of reports from the field. Thanks again my WTMs for all the good stuff that came our way. I know it helped.

Love that Deep Fried Coca Cola!

One of my favorite new blogs is AGENT BED HEAD . Agent Bedhead has given me inspiration today and I just had to share with the WTMs! Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, America invents something even more...WHITE TRASH. Read AGENT BED HEAD's news from the White Trash front:

There really isn’t anywhere to go from here. Using a lethal combination of American know-how, a perverse imagination, and appallingly poor culinary sensibilities, Abel Gonzalez, Jr. has invented the laser-guided, heat-seeking nuclear stealth missile of junk food—deep-fried Coca-Cola.

Granted, I am no fan of junk food, although I’m pretty live-and-let-live when it comes to other people’s preferences. But this sounds like revolting overkill, like topping off your bowlful of Lucky Charms with a handful of Gummi Worms. On the bright side, if you strapped down Nicole Richie and force-fed her a couple of these monstrosities, she’d probably look like John Travolta as he continues to come to terms with his inner who-knows-what.

Thank you AGENT BED HEAD for finding just another example of why most of America is overweight. Grab a Deep Fried Coke and throw in some pork rinds and some funnel cakes! YUM!

Super Nanny Marathon

Dear WTMs, Tonight I am watching the SUPER NANNY marathon that I tivo'ed on Sunday. I don't know if you have watched SUPER NANNY but I L-O-V-E the show. I'm sure SUPER NANNY could do some work in the WTM HH at times, since I am far from the perfect mother. However, some of the mom and dads that SUPER NANNY works with make Britney and K-Fed look like model parents! OMG! Some of the parents are complete and total idiots. REALLY. The idiot parents have kids that "Damien" from THE OMEN would be afraid of! Example: The four year old girl that BITES, HITS, KICKS the mom. When she is trying to get her ready for school. The mom just cries that she "just doesn't know what to do". She doesn't know what to DO?? Here is a hint: If you can't control a 4 year old enough to get dressed, you might as well go and buy the child a conversion van and some pot TODAY. Because in 10 years, that 4 year old will be 14...and living in the conversion van with "Steve" her 24 year old boyfriend. After she dropped out of middle school. EW! Example: The family that can't control a five year old because he runs outside the front door, out into the traffic! The clueless parents just shake their heads because the 5 year old just "doesn't listen". WTM is no SUPER NANNY but I will tell you this: Try opening up a can of WHUPASS and see if that doesn't help. In the words of my wonderful Catholic neighbor, Martha: JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH! My kids have had their share of tantrums and we're not a model family by any stretch of the imagination. But some of those people on SUPER NANNY should NOT BE ALLOWED to breed! It's so bad...but so very good. That's why I am watching it. Ladies? Anyone? Are you SUPER NANNY fans?

9-11 Tribute

Thomas Fitzpatrick is the man that I am paying tribute to today. This blog is a part of the 2,996 project. I don't know much about Thomas Fitzpatrick but here is what I do know: He was a husband and a father of a little boy and a little girl when he died. He was 35 years old. He lived with his family in Tuckahoe, New York. Thomas Fitzpatrick was a Bond Salesman Financial Adviser, Sandler O'Neill & Partners. He had to be Irish...Fitzpatrick is a pretty well known Irish name. These words are not enough and this tribute is not what he deserves. I read something recently in the Zero Boss blog . He says it better than I ever could. How can I call forth the people who knew him to give him a proper remembrance? It doesn’t matter who he was or what he did or didn’t do in his short lease on Earth; he deserves this memorial. We all do. After all, it could have easily been me.

And isn’t that the moral of this story? It could have been me. Hell, I used to work across the street from the Towers in Bankers Trust Plaza. Why Karen Helene Schmidt, and not Jay Andrew Allen? No reason. Circumstances sent her one way, and I another. The particulars of our two lives are divergent; our fates, however, are interchangeable. We are all equally conditional creatures. Strip us down to brass tacks, and we all sparkle with the same radiant essence. That my essence is still attached to my body and Karen’s does not is the result of a coin toss, and nothing more. But Karen’s memory means more to me than a sermon on the sins of procrastination and sloth. Thinking of her agonizing over my memory the way I’m agonizing over hers, I feel a vivid connection to the moral core of our species. Through her memorial, I awaken my own humanity.

As for the particulars…no, I don’t know that much detail about Karen Helene Schmidt. Yet. My tribute to her is that I’m posing those questions, and searching for answers.

My tribute is that I care enough to ask.

Have a good day and say a prayer or think a good thought for Thomas Fitzpatrick and his family. Remember.

Morning Poker with Miss Minnesota

Dear WTMs, If my youngest daughter, Miss Minnesota (aka Margarita) doesn' t make it in her sales career, she has a great shot for a career as professional poker player. She has the "gift" of the bluff and she perfects this gift every morning as she gets ready for school. WTM: You packed your lunch. MM: Yup. WTM: You've got your homework. MM: (Affirmative grunting sound) WTM: You're ALL ready for school. MM: Um-huh. WTM: You've brushed your teeth. MM: Ohyeasuremom. (Quick answers using multiple words are a red flag) WTM: Let me smell your breath. It is at this point in the morning "fake out" that she utilizes a variety of tactics. I will share with you her "Top Three" responses below: "Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em" response (Smiling brightly up her mom) Oh MOM! I was JUST KIDDING! I am doing it right now! "Academy Award" response (Small, half tears in her eyes) ALRIGHT! I haven't done it! I am SORRY! I know I was SO WRONG. "Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?" response (If she is feeling "lucky" that day, she keeps bluffing) Okaymomsurenoproblem. If I have to smell her breath to get my answer, I immediately invoke Mother Law #345. While she is brushing, I stand in the bathroom and lecture her using a combination of the following effective methods: FEAR DIDN'T I TELL YOU ABOUT MY COUSIN? SHE LOST ALL HER TEETH WHEN SHE WAS IN THIRD GRADE! SHE HAS TO EAT PASTE! GUILT WHY? WHY DO YOU LIE TO ME? HAVE I BEEN THAT BAD OF A MOTHER? SCIENCE I GUESS WE NEED TO MAKE A SPECIAL APPOINTMENT WITH THE DENTIST SO HE CAN SHOW YOU JUST HOW EASY IT IS FOR YOUR TEETH TO ROT! Dramatic? Sure. Crazy? A little. But no one ever said making sense or being sane was a part of motherhood. If you start out sane, your sanity is gone after the toddler years.

Fork in the Road

Dear WTMs, Thank goodness Tacky Princess has been posting good stuff lately because my input has, in a word, sucked. The WTM HH is currently in a crisis involving my oldest daughter. This is the daughter that I have written about that we pulled from her school near the end of her 5th grade year, due to the intense bullying she received from some very mean girls. You can read some background on this subject by going to a post I did about the subject in April 2006. You can also read this post by clicking on the title "FORK IN THE ROAD". My daughter is fine....great in fact. The next school year, after the bullying year, she went to a very small but great school that has allowed her to gain some confidence back and become ALMOST the kid that she used to be. We are very proud of her but there are still scars from that awful year. The school we have her in now is the school she went to last year. It is a great school but it is extremely small. We enrolled her in this school because we really did not know what to do for this year and needed more time to check out our options. At the end of the school year, in the Spring, she wasn't quite ready to leave the smaller school. But she had a great summer and really gained more confidence over the summer. Over the summer she told us that she WANTS to move on. She wants to go a bigger school...which is a very good sign. We have wanted this for her and this is very healthy. Her current school was great for a year but it is quite small and it is montessori based. That kind of learning has been wonderful for her but there are no secondary schools, high schools in our area that are montessori. So what in the hell is the problem? My husband and I are both scared. We have been visiting and checking out schools for her to visit. There is no "perfect" solution. I look around and see kids and I wonder "Will you be nice to her?". I look at the administration and I question whether they are telling me the real story or if they are trying to SELL me on their school. We want so much for her to have a good experience at this next school because she is ready. WTMs, please a prayer or a chant or send some good karma toward my girl and my family. My daughter is such a good kid and she did not deserve what she got from the place she was bullied. We need to have a good experience at this next school. Send some good stuff our way to help our family make the right decision. Thanks and I promise the next post will be full or humor and fun.

Some additional info on the homework question

Dear WTMs,

The homework issue really touched a nerve and I wanted to follow up on TP's rant with some research.

Studies of homework levels have suggested that excessive homework may actually be detrimental to overall academic performance.

Less homework given by teachers would give students the opportunity to have more time to do things on their own such as visiting friends or playing sports, which are essential elements in the development of the child, as well as give students the opportunity to study what they want to learn and not just what that school district or teacher wants them to.

Homework's defenders say it increases students' mental capabilities and organization skills, which are necessary to the success of the person in question later in her or his life. This may not happen if inability to cope with the homework results in the student's coping with life breaking down under the stress, in mental health episodes, or in a need to avoid education altogether after being over-pressured to develop skills irrelevant to the student's interests.

In one recent study, a correlation was shown between students' performance and time spent on homework. Some students notice a direct correlation between the amount of homework they do and the number of questions missed on a test.

In Australia, some teacher's groups have complained that the support for homework in the first three quarters of schooling comes mainly from parents rather than from the academic institutions