Obsessions of a 9 year old boy

I was just peeling potatoes in the kitchen when my 9 year old son who struggles with some OCD tendencies walked up and said, " " That, of course, represents the long pause it takes for him to get his words out and the time he gives me to prepare myself for the confessions of an OCD 9 year old. After the long pause, he said, "I like Betty's." I didn't respond. I don't know what Betty's are or what he likes of Betty's. Furthermore, I don't really want to know. Most of you if given the choice would not want to know what 9 year old boys think about all day long. As a matter of fact, we've insisted that most of his confessions be given to my husband who is in charge of teaching him to "be a man." There's a whole other post in and of itself. However, he wasn't happy with the silent treatment he was getting and said again, "I really like Betty's." Me still thinking, I really don't care to know. "Cabetty's." At that point, I realized he was actually working on one of his other obsessions. I said, "Do you mean Cabelas?" He said, "Yeah, I love Cabelas." My niece and nephew took him there yesterday and they must have text us five times asking if he could have a gun or a crossbow or maybe just a rated T video game. He didn't actually buy anything but he had a great time.

Do you "friend" your children?

When are daughter joined Facebook, she sent both my husband and I a friend request. We talked about what to do about it and decided not to friend her. Honestly at that time, we had no idea the implications of either decision but basically decided that we aren't usually quick to decide and let the request sit in there until it went away. Perhaps we even clicked the ignore button . . .I can't remember. We knew that for sure her mom (my husband's ex-wife) would friend her and I for one certainly didn't want her picture popping up saying have you thought about friending . . .? That would not, in fact, make me think about "friending" her. So, we just let the opportunity slide. When she asked us about it, I said, "Oh, my gosh, I'm not sharing my friends with you . . .then you'll know for sure who my boyfriend is" and let it go. She laughed it off and we went on with life. Tonight, though, sitting in her therapist's office hearing her talk about how we don't trust her, it occured to me that I could show her that, indeed, I do trust her. And, I could do it without ungrounding her. Ungrounding is most definitely her first choice. But I realized that I could actually reach out to her and friend her showing her that I trust her. I raced home to facebook and popped her name into the box . . .twice, and got nothing. What does that mean? That she doesn't exist or she's totally private or she has just selected certain people (her parents) who can't see her at all. The psychology of social media . . .at least I know what we'll be talking about at her next appointment.

za, qi, and my loss of faith in merriam webster

Two Christmases ago, my oldest two children bought me the most coveted gift of Christmas . . .the new Fourth Edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. We as a family had been waiting for it for quite sometime. Dreams of triple triple z's danced in our heads. When the dictionary actually appeared on our playing table a couple of nights later, however, something unexpected happened. No one played za or qi. As a matter of fact our children rotated through two weeks of custody changes before anyone played za or qi. Now that we'd invited za and qi to the party, no one wanted to talk to them. When our daughter finally did play the first za, I looked over at my husband and we did the parental internal rolling of the eyes. It was clear that neither he nor I were ever going to play these two little guys. So, we went forward getting our pants beat time and time again because we refused to put pretend words on our Scrabble board. Then one day we were playing and with just a few letters left, my only option was to play the qi or give him my ten points and allow him to beat me. Those of you who know me from other places know how this ends. I couldn't actually allow him to beat me no matter how much I hated those guys. Perhaps now you can see how I've come to social media. I love you (Facebook) I hate you (Twitter) I love you (LinkedIn) I hate you(Blogger). Actually that sounds like most of my relationships. I see now that those little words were just the beginning of leaving my comfot zone. So while I think a little qi would encourage Facebook and the guys to run out for za and never come back, I feel at the top of my game for grabbing them by the horns and playing with them.

Yet . . .

If you look closely at yesterday's entry, you'll see that my sources for defining w00tmom were urbandictionary and unword for the w00t and webster's new world dictionary for the mom. Yes, I actually stood up and walked over to the bookshelf so I could give you the "real" definition of mom . . .the safe standard definition that could only come from Webster for a word as old and upright as mom. Of course, in between giving you the definition for w00t and the definition for mom, I thought I might just get you a definition off of the internet merriam webster dictionary. However, as soon as the page appeared on my screen I noticed that the fourth or fifth definition was actually mother#*%$!^. WHAT? Dictionaries known as unword and urbandictionary (sounded very suspicioius to me) did not in fact throw this explicative out as a definition of mother. Goodbye faith in all that is tried and true . . .mother#*%$!^ Merriam-Webster how dare you put that word in your online dictionary.

Thus, trust is gained in dictionaries that I've never held in my hand . . .I'm guessing that it's not even possible to hold unword in my hand or to take the walk up to the podium at the library that holds the urbandictionary and stare in wonder at the vast expanse of page after page containing so many tiny words that as a child you wonder if people who know all these words are born with better vision than the rest of us such that they could have easily read this thing from standing distance. No, urbandictionary, you probably can't be held and much like wikipedia you are probably an unending conversation between many and not really the authority we short bussed GATE kids wanted.

Thus I venture into this social media world dancing with strangers not really minding that I didn't take the 20 minute lesson first. We all get to grow up eventually, right?

on becoming w00tmom

Definition of w00t :

as defined by unword.com
1. (interj.) Celebratory exclamation used especially in online role-playing games.
2. (acro.) We Owned Other Team. Alternatively spelled w00t or w007.

and as defined by urbandictionary.com
"Wow, loot!"

Definition of Mom:

as defined by Webster's New World Dictionary copyright 1988
colloq. Mother
1. a female parent
2. the source of something
3 a women who is the head of a religious establishment

So here I am then, a Gen X often mistaken for a Gen Y, hired by a company that most certainly believed my life was somehow mashable with all internet social media when in fact I didn't even recognize social media as a term until perhaps a month ago. So I attended a number of trainings all, of course, pushing social media as the next great thing . . .yadi yadi yadi and I really had to question the choices that I've made or not made over the last twenty years. For instance, my email address has remained the same since I moved to AOL from CompuServe. (Yes, should you decide to email w00tmom, you will actually be emailing an AOL account) Like keeping my maiden name, though, I've decided to keep that one. However, other decisions had to be made to face this social world. Surely the company hired me soley because someone must have told them of my ability to find the name, number, address of the guy in the green shirt who bought a tall latte at Starbucks last Thursday. Big secret, folks: I use that same set of internet skills to find and communicate with all of my old boyfriends . . .Todd Kahm you remain a mystery and that was so short lived don't be offended. Oh, and baseball player that Missy and I picked up in the station wagon when I was living out of it, I never did know your name. Other than that, they are all there . . .lined up like ducks in a row providing years of entertainment really. So there I was last week at a national meeting with @AnnEvanston telling us we would have to be authentic and transparent on our social media and hoping like hell that I stopped getting old pictures in the mail with demands for money and knowing that I must decide . . .can I do this? Can I come out of all the closets that I'm in including the one reserved especially for people who refuse to trust and/or learn anything about Facebook, Twitter, or yes, sorry, Blogger, blogs? I struggled and struggled with this and all the while the company was putting on a fantastic national meeting . . .the CEO was attending training with us and we were having dinner on the set of Indian Jones at Universal Studios and my colleague was trying to show me how to snap my bra straps into my evening gown and I was falling in love. Falling in love with this company where almost ever person I met was so nice and so genuine . . .falling in love with the job and the travel and the people . . . falling in love with this working woman that I was emerging as . . .Social media has been given to me as a gift to become the girl I am. The same medium that I feared would somehow unravel me has allowed me to define myself. w00tmom . . . @joelcomm who said I shouldn't include numbers in my tweeter name. Sorry, buddy, I had to do it.