We all have a story about how bad our parents were. We love to bring it up at family gatherings for a laugh or two. I promised my mother that I would never mention it again because, being a parent, my children now have stories. I know how she feels.

So… this is the last time I will mention it!

How I Torture My Mother: 

My Mom claims not to remember the incident; I am sure she doesn’t because we suppress memories like these for our own mental health. Who can admit to being a bad parent, right? Anyway, my siblings and I were all between the ages of 10 and 4, and somehow, mysteriously, suspiciously, an old coffee can filled with crayons had spilled in the closet where they were kept. All my mom wanted was for the perpetrator to ‘fess’ up and clean up! So we all just sat there in a line waiting for someone to confess. I remember feeling pretty bad for whoever committed the crime. I knew I didn’t. I imagine now that we were all thinking the same thing. None of us remembered spilling the crayons, accidently or otherwise. Finally, after what seemed like hours, the oldest of us, Cher, said that she had done it. She hadn’t of course but she took the responsibility so the rest of us wouldn’t be punished and have to sit there for like… forever! Ah… Cher, the first of many adventures in sibling saving. You are my hero!

Why I Will Stop Torturing My Mother:

My son claims not to remember the incident; I am sure he doesn’t because we suppress memories like these for our own mental health. Who can admit to having a bad parent, right? See what I did there? Clever! Anyway… Ha! When my son, Kyle, was about 4 years old, I made these adorable little Santa magnets out of beads, cross-stitched, only with beads instead of embroidery floss. They were so cute and sparkly, and Santa! He loved them. He would take them off the ‘fridge and play with them; he wanted them in his room so he could look at them; he just loved them. I thought they should stay on the ‘fridge. One day, I yelled at that poor little boy who just loved that cute, sparkly thing that I made. He loved something I made! That something that might have become a wonderful childhood memory. That something is now just a horrible thing because when I see it I remember.

Honestly, this is all part of being a parent. We are human, we make mistakes… blah, blah. I know this. What I really didn’t know was how I was making my mom feel every time I told the crayon story. We all just thought it was funny, we have no permanent damage. Now I know.

Why My Daughter Can’t Torture Me:

And then there are the other stories of bad parenting that I have no remorse over. This time, it is I who claim not to remember. My daughter, Sheli, tells a story about me, throwing a ladle at her from the kitchen and hitting her right in the forehead! I think this never actually happened because, first, she doesn’t remember why, and second, she never got into trouble when she was younger. She was in middle school when this was to have taken place. The only believable thing is that I hit my mark! If I actually was going to throw a ladle, I would aim exactly for the forehead!

Finally, Why I Must Stop Torturing Myself:

I bought the El Camino, pictured above, for my son. When Kyle was 4 or 5 years old he saw an El Camino for the first time and remarked excitedly, “Mom, it’s a car and a truck!” Also, it was born the same year as me! So… when he was about 15 and we needed something to do to keep him out of trouble, not that he got into a lot of trouble, I thought it would be the perfect project for us. We could sort of learn together. (Now all I really want is for Top Gear or Classic Car Rescue or Pimp My Ride or Trick My Truck or one of those tv shows to do it for me… for freee!) He loved that car!

After his first girlfriend broke up with him, he was pretty upset. To try and make him feel a little better, I thought, “I know, let’s take the El Camino for a ride!” Now remember, Kyle is 15, not a whole lot of driving experience, absolutely zero experience with old cars that do not have power steering or power anything for that matter. I hand him the keys. Oh my gosh, his whole face lit up! He backs it out of the driveway and into the street. Pretty sweet! Then he begins to turn the wheel and gives it some gas, just a little… BOOM! Right into the curb, not just any curb, the highest point right above the drain. Pops the tire, dents the fender, he gets out of the car, leaves the door open and runs into the house. Thanks for trying to cheer me up mom!

I was talking to my mom the other day about music. I LOVE music! I can probably define my whole life with songs that have meant something to me through the years… and years. I listen to all genres however my SiriusXM is tuned to Octane, new hard rock (oooh… with the bad words). Why am I telling you this? It seems that there is a (new) trend now, a positive message in the lyrics opposed to the not so long ago ‘love to hate you’ message. There is a song in particular that pretty much sums up my feelings about this blog; 

I wouldn’t change a thing about the past.

Anyone who knows ME, knows I love being creative. They may also know that I love photography. Hmmm, maybe just a little.

Before digital camera: 36 photo albums containing every single picture I took (yes, even the blurry, dark, unrecognizable ones) after my daughter, Sheli, was born in 1980.

After digital camera: exactly 78,801 photos (to date), after purchasing my first digital camera when my son, Kyle, was in 8th grade. Probably 78,000 of these taken since my granddaughter, Harlow, was born in 2009! Kidding!

This is where the worlds collide! I always made clothes for my daughter, every special occasion (or just because), she had a new outfit. I enjoyed creating something one-of-a-kind for her. Of course I took photographs! I also make something special for my granddaughter for ANY occasion, and then some! And… um, yeah, I take probably 3 times the amount of pictures.

Something that anyone who knows me may or may not know, I save EVERYTHING!

I started this project THE DAY Harlow was born although I didn’t really know it at the time. I crocheted a baby afghan for my daughter while I was pregnant. Broomstick (literally, I used a broomstick) lace, white with little bits of pink, luckily, I had a girl! I crocheted another blanket for my grandchild, I gave more thought to the colour this time since we didn’t know the gender. I was very lucky to have been at her birth; having to fly from California to Pennsylvania, the minute my daughter told me she was in labor. The day Harlow was born I took photos of her wraped in each blanket.

Since then, my daughter and I have had so much fun dressing Harlow in her mommy’s old clothes, and of course taking pictures! So began the photo project ‘Just Like Me’!

On Christmas Eve, Harlow wears something of her mommy’s; on Christmas Day, she wears the new dress I made for HER! I find a picture of mommy with a toy that has now become Harlow’s, I photograph it. I find Harlow doing something similar to mommy, and at the same age, I photograph it. And so on…

As Harlow has grown, we share stories with her about when mommy was her age. Many times, the things we find bring back memories for her mommy, but that is a whole OTHER story…

“When I am 100 years old I will look like my gramma. I (will) also play with my granddaughter.”

Ohkaaay! Does this mean that Harlow thinks I look 100 years old? Or that she will look like me, as I am now, when she is 100 years old?  Does this mean that I don’t play with her and she wishes I did, or that she loves playing with me and will do the same with her grandchildren? Take it any way YOU want, I think she just wants to be like me when she is old! What a compliment!

What a huge responsibility. I read a post on Facebook not long ago; I wouldn’t change my grand-kids for the world, but I would change the world for my grand-kids. There are so many things I want to teach her, so many things I want to change for her.

I lead Harlow’s Daisy Girl Scout troop and one of the things Girl Scouts do is ‘make the world a better place.’  While discussing this concept during one of our meetings, I remembered an idea I had two years ago.  I wrote it down and put it away thinking I would come back to it later with fresh perspective. I presented this idea to my girls, they asked a lot of questions; they are 5 and 6 year-old girls! We decided we would try to ‘make the world a better place’ by at least trying to put this out there!

Dear (News Agency),

I would like to propose an idea that could possibly have astounding national, if not global, humanitarian consequences.

I would like to propose that one full day of television news coverage be given to the reporting of only good.  The day could possibly be one with the lowest viewer ratings, which in effect, might just turn that around.  Breaking (bad) news or headlines could be captioned and interested viewers could be referred to a website to obtain information if they want it.

In this time of nationwide/worldwide unrest, perhaps alleviating some of the hopelessness brought by being overwhelmed with almost nothing but dire news would have an impact on change.  The consequences for the news media/reporters/network would not only be building a better reputation with the skeptics, who believe the media enhances the problems (if just by the nature of the reporting), but it would require looking for and finding great humanitarian stories.  On the other hand, and what I am hoping for, is that the stories and all the wonderful things people do will become contagious because they are being acknowledged/reported.  The media would help promote this (or enhance the “problems” so to speak) by dedicating a broadcast day to only good and to really searching for and reporting the amazing things people do for each other.

We could actually watch the news with the whole family!

I personally don’t watch any news.  If there is something that I feel I must know I use the internet. This was not always the case however; although I won’t go into detail, some news should be preceded by a rating (G, PG, PG13 etc.).  I would absolutely watch the kind of news that I am proposing!

I am a grandmother of a 6-year-old.  I think that something like this would influence her tremendously.  I want her to know just how good people can be and also how good she can be.  I want her to learn compassion, love, community, kindness, charity, and that this world really is a great place to live in.

I am also a Daisy Girl Scout leader. One of our ‘Laws’ is: to make the world a better place; to leave things better than you found them. We have been talking about what we can do to accomplish exactly that. Our hope is to make changes in a very positive and lasting way and perhaps changing this one thing could be a start.

Sincerely,

There it is! What was interesting though, when we talked about the news the girls were exposed to, they came up with many stories: fire, burglary, fatal accidents, murder… I asked them to tell me stories about people helping other people, or people helping animals. Nope! Not much there!

As adults, we have seen some really great incidents of “compassion, love, community, kindness, charity, and that this world really is a great place to live in.” Where do we find it? Some news stations have added a humanitarian story to their broadcast, we can look things up on YouTube, Facebook , other social media; we can even participate in acts of kindness. But… how do our children learn about it? Well, we can model it; we can show them what we find on our social media sites; we can watch that one segment of news each night while covering their eyes and ears to the rest of the broadcast.They learn from adults. The information they get about the world around them, the world further than their immediate community,  should be immersed with good. I wish my girls had been able to tell me more about the humanitarian stories than about the troubles in our world. Perhaps some day. I do know however that Harlow, my granddaughter, will be exposed, by example if nothing else!