I turned out OK....mostly

I don't have any little kids around but I can't help but see articles on kids, from birth to teens on the internet--some are newspaper articles, some are blog posts.

They didn't have them when I had young ones around, but apparently, there are books that tell you what your child should be doing at any point in his/her life--how they relate to family at certain ages, when they discover their own sexuality, and lots of other things that I never thought about, much less worried about, when raising a baby. It never occurred to me that a baby would be 'finding his/her place in the family' at any particular age or discover the difference between friends and family at a different age. I'm sure that there is value in knowing some of these things, but I fear some parents tie their kid to the timetable in the book and that's a scary thought.

And, then there is the assuming that your kid does fit the book and you want to be the perfect parent and encourage at just the right moment. I can understand wanting to do all the right things and say all the right words and read all the right books to your children. But, come on, if you screw up--and you will because you're human--I don't think it would permanently damage any kid. If anything, kids are resilient and forgiving.  That's based on actual experience because my parents were not perfect and I didn't start a cult or go live in a cave because I was disillusioned with the world. 

Not long ago, I read a blog post about the possibility of confusing a little one about Santa Claus.  I'm not an expert by any means, but, I don't remember anything from being two. And I certainly never had any anxiety about confusing Santa with the neighbor or any other man as I grew up. I remember my phone number from when I was 3 (It was ATwater1-4346) and bringing home our puppy, Bruno. Other than that, most of my early 'memories' are based on hearing the family talk about the 'early days'.

I just feel that, sometimes, trying too hard can be more difficult for the parent than the child. Don't try so hard. They'll be ok.

Let there be ice

The first time I ordered a drink in a restaurant here, I was surprised that my drink had no ice in it. It was nice and cold, but without ice. I immediately thought of someone I grew up with that always ordered 'without ice' because he wanted his money's worth of drink, but I digress....

It seems that all drinks are served here without ice. In fact, in any store I've looked, it's not even easy to find ice trays for the freezer. They are available occasionally (like everything else) at the bargain store, and I bought a couple, but, I really didn't use them that much, so the ice ended up evaporating. 

To be honest, until this summer, there was never any weather 

warm enough to require ice in a drink since I've been here. 

So, on a whim, I picked up some Glad brand ice cube bags. It was mostly out of curiosity, and it seemed like an 

interesting experiment, even if Hubby did chuckle at me for 

buying them.

Come to find out, they are absolutely wonderful for the sun tea I make now and then. I'm not usually impressed with 'stuff' but these things are very convenient since you don't even have to lay them flat in the freezer for them to form cubes. And, then, to get the cubes out of the package, they easily squeeze out through the perforations, so you can use as many or few as you want without much fuss at all. I just use three or four for a glass and they throw them back into the freezer drawer until the next time.

It sure is a long way from those metal trays with the lever. Remember them?!

Bring up the past

In the last few days, I have had some comments on a post I wrote on the 29th of October, 2008, called
Rude Kiwis...again!  You can click here to read it if you want. I blogged about this subject on several occasions, mostly as a matter of cultural differences and have since moved on to other things to blog about.

This particular post has had 2051 views so far, so, obviously, there is a fair amount of interest in the subject matter. That makes me wonder why people end up on my blog. I know that a couple of my posts have been discussed on some forum boards, but I can't pinpoint any reasons for this one to be so popular.

Funnily enough, this was one of the first blog posts that I got a comment on, but I decided not to publish it because it was from a New Zealander (one of more than a few) who proved my point by telling me to go back where I came from because I'm not wanted here, anyway. Anonymously, of course--which is why I don't allow anonymous comments any more. Ah, the irony.