Contact

Navigation

Links

Have you seen Leanna Warner?
Click on photo for more details.

-

Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2005 @ 9:04 am
View my Guestbook
Free Guestbooks by Bravenet.com

Looks like Skippy my invisible 500 pound gorilla who has been hanging on my neck and abusing me the last couple days has decided to give me a break and go abuse my son instead. Yes, I am home with a flu ridden 11 year old.

Warren is one of those kids who never pretends to be sick or says he is sick unless he really is. This is the first day of the school year he has missed for illness. When my son goes to bed at 8am and goes to sleep voluntarily I know something is wrong. The rule at our house is, that if you are too sick to go to school than you must be too sick to do anything but lay in bed. TV is an option but going outside and running around and playing are not. If you feel good enough to get up and play than you are feeling well enough to sit at a desk and work.

First we were going to try and go to school, but then just as we got there he said he felt worse, like he'd been run over and could he please stay home. I could tell by the way he said it, that he wasn't kidding me. When he says he is sick he is. The fact that he has been asleep for over an hour, has me worried. Hopefully this is just one of those things that will pass. Getting sick is part of childhood. He is so rarely sick anyway, but when it does hit him, it hits him hard.

Normally he is one of those kids with the iron immune systems. I firmly believe that a large part of that comes from a)being nursed until he was ready to wean himself and b)not being raised in a sterile envronment but being allowed to go out and play and get dirty and be a kid. I don't believe in raising kids in filth, but I also think there is such a thing as too clean. Kids (those with normal immune systems that is) need to be exposed to the world, to play in the dirt and get a little in their mouths. One of the reasons kids get sick so much more these days, is that everything is so antibacterial and sterile that when thier immune system finally enconters a germ it runs screaming and doesn't know what to do. Kids who have had a bit of exposure will build up and immunity, naturally. Breastfeeding helps with this, so does not having antibiotics everytime the kid sneezes, as they do nothing for virus's and if not taken corrrectly only lead to stronger bacteria.

One of the reasons I won't buy Warren a video game system (aside from the fact I can't afford it) is that I want him to spend as much time playing outside as possible whenever the weather allows, I want him riding bikes and building forts and acting like an 11 year old boy. Not siting on his but on the couch watching imaginary pixilated characters. I don't have a problem with video games and sometimes we rent, and we also have a few on the computer but I believe they need to be limited. Same with television and movies. I love movies, and I love spending quiet time with my son watching a good movie, but I don't believe it should be a subisitute for me, or an electronic babysite. I admit to using it sometimes as much as any mother when I needed to get something done, but I also tried to get Warren involved in sorting socks or whatever.

I guess what I am saying is sometimes there is such a thing as too much protectiveness, and that can backfire. Dirty fingernails, bruised knees, worn clothes used to be childhood badges of honor, a rite of passage, now they are things to be prevented. And that takes something away from childhood. I don't think we should eliminate all safety measures, I am damn sure in favor of bike helmets, safety belts, knee guards etc.. but I also believe that kids need to bruise a few knees, scrape some elbows, get a few colds, eat a little dirt and learn their limits while pushing them, build an immunity. Life is too short, not to be lived.

I also believe in responsiblity, and treating kids like their age, if they prove they can handle it, give them a little more responsiblity. If they are going to be ready for the real world at 18 they need to start getting small doses of it long before. That means sometimes they win sometimes they loose, that means actions have consequences, that means money is earned not just handed out, that means a job done well and worked hard deserves more reward than one just slopped together, that means learning that effort counts, that means doing things for themselves as soon as they are old enough and mature enough to handle it. And unfortunately it means I as his mother have to start letting go and cut the apron strings gradually not keep them tied until his is 18 then suddenly cut them off and throw him to the wolves in the real world, with no idea how to cope. Even if it is harder on me than on him.

|

Prequels ~ Sequels

Daily Dumbass: no one today
Thankful For: Warren is getting some much needed rest
Music of the mind: : annoying Velveeta commercial

~*~Have you read these~*~

~ Ode to a child who is no more ~
~ She's baaack ~
~ testing ~
~ Facebook me ~
~ Bleech ~

Layout copyright Me, Myself and I. Correct viewing of this site requires IE 5.0 or higher. Use of any other browser may result in unintended results.(Netscape 4.0 or higher is passable however I haven't yet been able to get it to look right in Firefox)

All contents, (except graphics) unless otherwise specified, are the property of TheCrankyOne. Please ask permission before using. Person's caught using pics of my son without permission will be severely dealth with. Graphics are courtesty of Full Moon Graphics. If you want to use them, ask Kitty not me..

Also this is my diary and if you don't like what you read, then I suggest you move on to another diary. I do not write to please others, I write for myself. If you don't like my diary it is your problem, not mine.
Any rude comments, spam, flames etc.. will be deleted as soon as I become aware of them. Also if you wish to comment please have the decency to leave a valid form of contact such as a web address or email, unless I happen to know you and would know who you are.

This Web site is Registered with Published.com

/> This work is licensed
under a Creative Commons License.

Mini-Bio

In every neighborhood there is at least one house that all the neighbors gossip about. This is a diary from the woman who lives in that house. I am a single mother in her mid thirties. I live in North Dakota with my son, Warren.

I tend to be a bit of a slob, and am the opposite of a girly-girl. I am geek girl, who loves Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Buffy, Angel, action movies, science fiction, action adventure, Dr. Who, and so on and so on.

I love to write and while I don't post much fiction online anymore I would love to be a writer someday. I am also overweight, bipolar and suffer from allergy induced asthma.

Reads