Facie’s Ramblings

This evening, after hearing the kid whine about something, I wearily begged her to stop, saying that no one likes a whiner. J's response, which I have heard all too often lately, was that I don't like her for who she is. Sigh. I love my child more than anything and, like most parents, more than my life. I genuinely want to be with her as much as possible (which is why for the first time in four years I am sad that school is ending). But the kid can whine better than a three-year-old, and it is getting old. And when she says to me that I don't like her, or even that I don't love her, I reply, just as my one grandmother often said, "I love you, but I don't like some of the things you do." But that is almost not the point (though if you have any suggestions for how to get her to stop whining, I am all ears). My larger concern is her lamenting that I (and others) don't want her to be herself. I tried to explain, as best as I could, that there are thi...

Yesterday, I nearly finished a lengthy blog post, but then decided against posting it because it was focused on things that made me sad, which is going against the way I am trying to be. Then I took one piece of that post, and worked on that a bit, but that topic was too distressing. Last evening, as I was reading some article about a prison guard being attacked, I thought about writing a more lighthearted post about jobs I would never want to have. But I never actually put fingers to keyboard. So this morning, after being awake way too early, I decided to write about something more personal but hopefully not so negative: friendly relationships I am grateful that I have a handful or more of "true" friends who I know like (or at least accept) me for who I am, with all my faults and quirks, and whom I can trust. If I had only one or two of these people in my life, I would be luckily, but (yeah me!) I have more. Next there are those who although might not be the people I can ...

An Indiana County (where I grew up) photographer has pretty much gone viral with the way she stood up to some high school bullies. This woman, Jen McKendrick, came across some online bullying on Facebook. When she realized that some of the bullies had scheduled their senior portraits with her, Jen took a stand and emailed the kids and their parents to tell them that she could not be their photographer because of what they did. As Jen says it, she did not want to spend several hours with people who are ugly on the inside. Here is a link to her blog, which explains what happens in her own words. WTAE Channel 4 in Pittsburgh also featured her in a brief clip yesterday. I "liked" her Jen McKen page yesterday on Facebook, where she now has over 6,600 10,500 12,500 17,000 19,000 followers, up from over 2,000 when the story first came out (I am guessing she had a few hundred, perhaps close to a thousand, followers before all this happened). It was from that FB page I learned t...

I sent Jordan to school today (Friday) with turkey pepperoni. A smarter, less controversial parent would not have done so, but my kid wanted the pepperoni, and she is not doing anything wrong! And now that the kids know the Lenten guidelines, they really should leave her alone. Will they? Well, I guess we will find out. To follow up from earlier this week, the girls at Jordan's table (including Jordan) did meet with the principal on Monday, although no one admitted to taking the sandwich or seeing anything. Regardless, I consider the issue closed, and I hope whoever took it will learn something from this. One of the moms did email me asking what went on, as her kid was apparently upset by the principal confrontation. I emailed her back what I knew, saying that most parents would be concerned if their kid's lunch was taken. I also said it was good for the kids to hear the correct guidelines (of course, Jordan brought in the guidelines and shared them with the kids at lunch pri...

If you thought my last blog post went on, I am thinking this one is going to be worse. Ladies and gentlemen, Mama Bear is mad. As my alternate post title says, "Stop being mean to my kid!" I subbed for Jordan's class a few weeks ago, and it went rather well. However, she later told me that during the day one boy had told her to shut up, apparently because she told him to be quiet when he was talking when they were not supposed to be. Later, this boy apparently referred to Jordan as "Jordan the jerk." I never saw this happen, which bothered me (which once again shows how difficult it is for teachers to keep track of every student while trying to teach). Regardless, I told Jordan that some kids are simply not kind, kids are going to say mean things, probably much worse, throughout her childhood, etc. But when Jordan told me this is not the first time this boy has been mean to her, and I could see this was bothering her, I thought maybe I should not let this g...

If I am not reading about another shooting right here in the Burgh, I am inundated with tragic headlines about teenage suicide. Or, at the very least, I see road rage on an almost-daily basis as well as kids being mean in the Catholic school where I regularly substitute. Sigh. Have we become this appalling of a society? This self-centered, unfeeling, uncaring, and just plain mean? And worse, of course. I am afraid the answer is yes. But it does not have to be this way. Two of my favorite classes in college were psychology and sociology. I am very interested in human behavior and the whole nature-versus-nurture debate (full disclosure: I have not read much about this theory since college 17 years ago). I tend to lean on the side of nurture; if you grow up surrounded by hate, you will probably continue down that same path. I don't remember kids being so mean to each other (and disrespectful to authority) when I was a kid. Sure, some would make fun of others (I was much m...

I don't have to look at my blog posts from previous years (but I will, after I finish writing this) to know what I wrote about 9/11 the last two years. I have no doubt I said that I used to be paranoid about things (planes flying overhead in particular), but that eventually I stopped being consumed with worry and feeling that impending sense of doom. Time marches on, and people go back to the way things were, as much as they can. (I still don't like to fly, but I did not care for it before 9/11 either.) The reality is that we have tragedies every day. People get sick. People die. People are hateful. People do bad things. But people get better. People continue living. And many people are loving, kind, and compassionate. I don't think I will ever forget 9/11, what I was doing and how I felt. But as important, I want to do my best to be tolerant of others and not to generalize. We must remember that just because one person or even many people from a group do something or...

The P-G recently published an editorial/article from a mother of an autistic child in the Hampton School District. Apparently some parents of her son Jake's high school classmates felt that Jake was disrupting class too much and taking time away from their kids' learning, which they feared could ultimately hinder their kids' chances of getting into a good college. Not willing to own up to their feelings, these "concerned" parents sent an anonymous letter to Jake's mother Renee asking her to consider an alternative setting for Jake. Wow is all I have to say. Well, almost all. As I blogged about last year, there was a mildly autistic child in the vacation Bible school class I taught. It was very challenging for me, someone who had pretty much no experience in that area, but I was glad that child was able to do what all the others did that week. I think we all benefited from the experience, and I would not have traded that opportunity for anything. In fact,...

I have to say that my last day at work yesterday went pretty well. I was positive I was going to cry, but not once did I shed a tear, even though others did. Perhaps I had cried enough earlier in the week. I think it also helped that I said my piece (and by piece, I mean peace) to my bosses at the end of the day before. I said things that I needed to, and I was pretty darn proud of myself, if I do say so myself. Even one of the bosses told me the next day he was proud of me for saying what I did, and he said he knew it was hard for me (it was). Following is the farewell email I sent to the staff. I wrote most of it sometime between 2 and 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, although not everything made it into the final version I sent just before I walked out for the final time. I did cut out some things that although I thought were pretty good, they may have been too much for some. Some might argue that a few things I left in were probably a little much, but I am leaving true to myself, someone ...

I may not have had a lot of jobs in my life, but I can tell you that parenting is by far the hardest. And I am very aware that the most difficult years are yet to come. More than anything, I want Jordan to treat everyone with respect and be as nice to everyone as much as possible. During the past couple of months, I was made painfully aware that racism is still alive and well. Not as bad as some would have you to believe; after all, Obama would not have been elected president were it not for the white votes. But, as one poster in the P-G forum accused me of, I had been living in La-La Land, completely unaware that there were more than a just a few people who harbored racist feelings and agendas. I live in a community where I am in a minority or close to. On my street, if nothing else, there are more black people than white people. Having grown up in a town that was about 98 percent white, I welcome this, and truth be told, I was a little prejudiced growing up. So I think it is great th...