Captain Underpants

The new hero around the Kiefer house is Captain Underpants. He defends against villains such as Professor PoopyPants, the Wicked Wedgie Woman, and is always getting the two main characters, Harold and George, out of trouble. The books have toilet humor, silly graphics, crazy antics, and out of this world plots. Did you catch that? THE BOOKS!  That is why I can celebrate Captain Underpants. My son, who I thought would never pick up a book for fun, can't put them down.  He loves reading and his standardized tests at school showed it!  Although great, his test scores aren't what makes me so happy about the reading.

In a world so lost from imagination, we have constant visual entertainment. We put little value on finding rest in quite activities that help promote mental focus and increased attention spans.  Although the constant rush of information, instantaneous communication, and fast graphics may help us to be more productive with tasks, I find that it slows us from creating authentic relationships and self discovery.  Being the mother of a very focus deficit child and understanding the struggle video games, tablets, TV and other media can cause in the home, I appreciate the time my son spends reading not to mention the two days that he spent creating his own mini-book (you'll need to rotate the images).  He illustrated and wrote it himself. His classmates received a copy and asked for his autograph saying that he would be famous. What a win!

Captain Underpants you are my hero! 

And here is our real life Captain Underpants for Halloween. The bottoms are actually a chef's hat and yes he did put shorts under it!

Shante

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Embrace the Mess

For those who know me, know that a messy house is not my normal. I am quite obsessive with cleaning any mess right away and putting everything back in order before bed. That isn't to say that I am right and someone with the opposite approach is wrong. It is just who I am, and I have learned to own it.  This is one reason for the "frantic" title I carry. When I am anxious, it gets worse.  I can clean the same counter space five times in a row!

Recently I have been working on some home projects and mess was inevitable.  I embraced it because I knew progress was underway and there would be an end to the chaos. I learned a great lesson from this mess, you can read more about that here.

For now, I will share rare photos of my home ... smile and embrace the mess!

Oh and there was an unmade bed too - gasp!!! LOL 

Now you should feel great about yourself, go and conquer your life! 

The Dollar Tree Gets Sexy?

Recently the kids and I went to the Dollar Tree to grab a few items for an upcoming school project. As we were headed to the checkout, I noticed an item hanging on the carousel by the register and  hoped it didn't catch the eye of my seven and eight year old kids.  Ignoring the item, I walked by trying to engage in conversation to distract children's curious eyes. While I was talking with my son, my daughter calls my name and points to the dreaded item. "It says push here to deflate," she said quite giggly.

Of course this led my son to look. Then he burst out into an embarrassed laughter as he saw a women in a low cut push-up bra pictured on the front of this product simply named 'Pump it Up'. I too laughed because of the giggly little voice of my daughter finding humor in the fact that whatever this thing was it had an inflate and deflate button. On the inside however, my heart broke because yet another piece of innocence was gone.  As we drove home, we talked about their thoughts.  My daughter maturely stated that the product would not have been as inappropriate had it been in a store for ladies or had a different (more modest) picture on the box. My son still embarrassed didn't have much to offer except it was inappropriate and didn't make sense. As a mother, I listened but know there is still a conversation to be had. I want my children to know that a woman's breast serve the functional purpose of feeding her babies. I want my daughter to know her value is not found in her appearance. If she ever feels the need to enhance a body part to get a guy to notice her then he doesn't deserve her.  I want my son to know that there is more to a lady than the outer appearance, and modest is beautiful regardless of what media displays. I want him to understand purity starts in the heart and mind and  images of immodestly dressed ladies can damage that purity and set him on a dangerous path. Being that my children are young, these messages will be simplified, but they must be spoken because if not my kids will become shaped by the world's message of sex and body image which isn't a message that I am ok with.

Shante