The Modern Parent

I pose the question to you, what exactly is a "modern parent"? Is this just a made up term?

According to Wikipedia "The Modern Parent" is a comic strip from the British Comic Viz.

Not exactly the definition I was looking for.

When I first became a parent, years ago, my parents defined the term modern parent as those who "failed to reprimand their children and let them get away with murder". 

That's obviously open to interpretation. Or, perhaps just bad parenting. Who knows.

One day Emily came home from school and told me our neighbor down the street, who is 15, was having her boyfriend sleep over this weekend. 

Ex-squeeze me?

A couple of weeks later we were visiting my husbands relatives. Sunday morning we were all excited for an English "fry-up" and we all trotted happily downstairs for breakfast, including the boyfriend of my husbands 17 year old cousin.

Mortified, I asked my hubby's aunt and uncle post fry-up, "what up with b-friend spending the night?"

Their answer: "You have to be realistic about these things. It's going to happen no matter what so either it's here under our roof or in the back of a car in some parking lot."

"If we didn't allow it we would never see her anyway."

Hmmm. As much as I respect their opinion, not sure I agree with it. No, I'm ABSOLUTELY SURE I don't agree with it.

What happened to boundaries, rules and curfews? And come to think of it, plain ol' abstinence?

Are these things not realistic anymore? Is this how I'm supposed to parent my soon to be teenager?

Gone are the days when the biggest parenting  issues I was faced with included, how many minutes to put Emily in a time-out? How many pieces of broccoli were sufficient at dinner? Was a forty five minute bath or shower too long for a little girl? And finally, what was the appropriate age to start sleep overs?

If being a "modern parent" is about giving in rather than teaching than please, call me old fashioned.

What do you think? Do you or will you let your daughters boyfriends spend the night?

Food for Thought

Ok, so now we know, thanks to The Guider (thanks Guider!) that male midwives exist but they are not called midhusbands they are still called midwives.

What about male nurses in the UK? If a female nurse is called a "sister" is a male nurse called a "brother"?

My First Midwife

On Wednesday I had my first appointment with a midwife. This was very exciting to me. I've never met a real life midwife in my 33.8 years.  What would she be like? What would we be doing at the appointment? And most importantly, What did she say her name was again?

I have to admit, I was a bit put off by having a medical appointment at my house. Would she exam me? Nah. 

Right?

11am on Wednesday. As 11 am got closer and closer i became more and more nervous. Consequently, I gave my husband the guilt trip for not attending the appointment. He of course rushed right home to be with me.

11:15 and no midwife. Is she standing me up?

11:30 and the door bell rings. I open the door and a jolly, plump and seasoned woman holding a black briefcase smiles and greets me, "Hullo". 

Rosie the midwife has arrived.

I'm pretty sure Rosie is a friend of Mary Poppins. She was just a bundle of jolliness.

After we made small talk with Rosie, she handed me about 1,000 pages of leaflets about pregnancy to read at my leisure and we got down to business.

I asked Rosie a lot of questions and said quite frequently, "Well in the United States..." to which she finally said, "i think in the United States they are a little more advanced."

 This of course shut me up.

The appointment concluded with Rosie asking me to pee in a cup. 

Ok. Not that big of a deal. I pee in my bathroom all of the time. I've also pee'd on many a sticks in that bathroom. I can do that.

After I handed Rosie the cup, in my living room, she opened it up and dipped a little stick in it. Iw.

Than she handed me the stick to dispose of. 

Iw. 

Than Rosie wanted to draw some blood. In my living room.

Iw. Iw Iw.

Her phone rang. Phew, saved by the ring cause that can't be very sanitary, drawing blood in my living room. What if blood got on my couch? Or the carpet? 

Iw.

Rosie left in a hurry and to my dismay her main means of transport was not a black umbrella. 

After Rosie left I couldn't help but think: are there no male midwives? and if there are, would they be called midhusbands?

Yo, Ja, Moi, Me!

Copied but not plagiarized from jenontheedge (thanks Jen!)

All About Me

1. Political Show- The O'Reilly Factor

2. Picnic food- hmmm....tough since my culinary tastes change HOURLY these days. I'd have to say ginger tea since right now I have morning sickness and the thought of any type of food makes me sick to my stomach.

3. Mixed drink-chocolate martini (still crave those :) )

4. U.S. President-Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, he never received the credit due to him.

5. Kind of student to teach-The little, little, ones, Kinder to second grade age.

6. Hobby you do or wish you still did- play the piano. Mom, why did you let me quit when I was in second grade???

7. Sports Commentator- who? what??

8. Sport to watch on TV-College basketball. Go 'Nova!

9. Animal to have as a pet-I'm against  pets since I'm the one who always ends up taking care of them so none.

10. Halloween costume you have worn-Starsky from Starsky & Hutch. My friend Fabiola was Hutch. Oh no wait, I was Hutch and had a blond wig and she was Starsky!

11. Kind of desert-sticky toffee pudding. Delicious!

12. Comic strip-hmmm....can't say that I have one.

13. Style or make of footwear-Aerosoles. Most comfortable shoes EVER.

14. Ice Cream flavor-NY Superfudge chunk.

15. College or university president-I can't answer this question nor do I want to. RANDOM!

16. Internet news source-Fox News and yes...yahoo!

17. Vacation Spot-The Shangri-la in Oman. It's total and utter relaxation!

18. Wine-Veuve Cliquot which technically is not a wine but still my favorite!

19. Way to waste time instead of working-watching QVC, facebooking, and blogging.

20. Student excuse for late work-We had homework?

21. Reality Show-Reality Shows have contributed to the demise of modern civlization as we know it.

22. Jewelry on a man- none unless it's a wedding band.

23. Pizza topping-sausage

24. Children's Movie-As cheesy as this sounds, High School Musical 2!!!

25. Celebrity you wish would retire- Regis. It's time Reg. You've had a lotta good years but all good things must come to an end. 

Glutein-free ice cream + glutein-free cookies = really bad heartburn!