What's A Hoosier?

I received this a while back in an email...and it's all so very true. 

GUIDELINES FOR UNDERSTANDING 'THE HOOSIER CULTURE'

For those of you who are Hoosiers, this is so accurate it hurts. I mean really hurts!!! To those of you who are displaced Hoosiers, you may get homesick.

Know the State casserole. The state casserole consists of canned green beans, Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, and dried onions. You can safely take this casserole to any social event and know that you will be accepted.

Get used to food festivals. The Indiana General Assembly, in an effort to grow bigger athletes, passed legislation years ago requiring every incorporated community to have at least one festival per year dedicated to a high-fat food. It is your duty as a Hoosier in fact to attend these festivals and buy at least one elephant ear.

The Weather. Speaking of Indiana weather is… wear layers or die. The thing to remember about Indiana seasons is that they can occur at anytime. We have spring-like days in January and wintry weekends in October. April is capable of providing a sampling of all four seasons in a single
24-hour period. For these reasons, Indiana is the Layering Capital of the World.

Don't take Indiana place names literally If a town has the same name as a foreign city --- Valparaiso and Versailles, for example --- you must not pronounce them the way the foreigners do lest you come under suspicion as a spy. Also, East Enterprise has no counterpart on the west side of the state. South Bend is in the north. North Putnam is in the south and French Lick isn't what you think either.

You gotta know sports In order to talk sports with obsessive fans in Indiana , you have to be knowledgeable on the three levels -- professional, college and high school.

Botany is easy There are only seven kinds of plants in Indiana: corn, wheat, soybeans, grass, trees, flowers, and weeds. Everything falls into one or another of these categories.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM INDIANA WHEN..

§ You think the state Bird is Larry.
§ You can say 'French Lick' without laughing out loud.
§ There's actually a college near you named ' Ball State.’
§ You know Batesville is the casket-making capital of the world and you're proud of it.
§ You could never figure out spring forward-fall back, so still think you should just ignore Daylight Savings Time!
§ You know several people who have hit a deer.
§ Down south to you means Kentucky.
§ You have no problem spelling or pronouncing Terre Haute ...
§ Your school classes were canceled because of cold.
§ Your school classes  were canceled because of heat.
§ You know what the phrase 'knee-high by the Fourth of July' means.
§ You've heard of Euchre, you know how to play Euchre, and you are a master of Euchre..
§ You've seen a running car, with nobody in it, in the parking lot of the grocery store, no matter what time of year it is.
§ Detasseling was your first job. Bailing hay, you’re second.
§ Or you could stack hay, swim in the pond to get clean and then have the strength to play a couple of games of hoops, all in the same barn lot on the same day.
§ You say things like catty corner and know what it means.
§ You install security lights on your house and garage, and then leave them both unlocked
§ You carry jumper cables in your car regularly.
§ You drink pop. You catch frogs at the crick. If you want someone to hear you, you holler at 'em.
§ You know that baling wire was the predecessor to duct tape.
§ You know that strangers are the only ones who come to your front door.
§ Kids and dogs ride in the passenger seats of cars and the backs of pickups.
§ You think nothing of driving on the roads and being stuck behind a farm implement in spring and fall. You just hope it's not a hog truck or a manure spreader.
§ High school basketball games draw bigger crowds on the weekend than movie theaters, IF you have a movie theater.
§ Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
§ The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page but requires six for local sports.
§ You can repeat the scores of the last eight NBA games, but unless the MVP is a Hoosier, you are not sure who he is.
§ You can see at least two basketball hoops from your yard.
§ You can name Bobby Knight's exploits over the last few years.
§ The biggest question of your youth was IU or Purdue.
§ Indianapolis is the BIG CITY.
§ Getting stuck by a train is a legitimate excuse for being late to school or work.
§ Everyone knows who the town cops are, where they live, and whether they're at home or on duty.
§ You've been to the Covered Bridge Festival. And you took back roads to get there.
§ To you, tenderloin is not an expensive cut of beef, but a big, salty, breaded, & fried piece of pork served on a bun with a pickle.
§ You end your sentences with prepositions, as in 'Where's it at?' or 'Where's he going to?'

Time Out!

I know that there are going to be far greater struggles in life than those we are facing currently, but some days, it seems like we are trying to climb mountains when it comes to controlling our very cute, yet stubborn, 18 month old!

I knew there were going to be times of struggle, limit pushing, nerve wracking, & stubbornness.  I guess I didn't know it was going to be this early.  Everyone talks about the "Terrible Twos" and even worse "Tumultuous Threes", no one ever said anything about messy months!

Recently, Reilly has really taken a liking to touching things on the TV screen.  It could be a dog he's trying to pet, another child he's trying to touch, food he's trying to eat, heck, sometimes, it doesn't even need to be on.  As some of you may remember, we've lost another TV recently (death by Wii remote) so we're pretty protective of the new one we have now.  Every time he was making a break for the entertainment center, we start telling him "No," to which he promptly looks at us, smiles and touches anyway.  No matter the diversion we presented, the harshness of a hand slap or the times we say no, he goes right back to doing it.  This could not continue. However, I was out of ideas.

I have a couple of friends who have children right at, or just older than my Rei-Guy.  I rely on them for help, strategies and sometimes just peace of mind.  One of them shared that her child goes to a Time-Out for behavior. This SHOCKED me.  An 18 month old in time out?  Seriously?  I had SERIOUS doubt that this would ever work.  But we had to try something.

So, the next time Reilly went for the TV and made contact, I picked him up, very calmly walked him to the hallway outside of his bedroom, (where he couldn't see into the living room or the kitchen), sat him down and repeated over and over in a soft voice, that he was in time out and needed to be still. I stayed in the hallway with him, since this was our first time out of the gate, and he just looked up at me with sad puppy dog eyes for the entire minute we were there. He didn't move, he just sat there.  When the minute was up (or as close as could be since I was counting in my head, trying not to cry that my baby was in his first time out), I hugged him tight, told him I loved him.  We also walked back to the TV so that he could be reminded that touching it was what got him in time out.

Sadly, the first time out wasn't our only time out.  That very same evening (at least he waited a couple of hours), he was right back at trying to get an ice cream cone right out of the TV screen.  (Really, these advertisements do set up kids to fail when it comes to this kind of thing!) So, right back to time out is where we headed.  This time, he knew what this was about and he wasn't happy.  Needless to say, this wasn't easy.  He fought, he flung, he cried, he hit, it was a struggle.  I stayed calm and held his legs down.  We stayed like that for one minute. Once again, when I had counted to 60, we got up, hugged, cuddled and went about the rest of our day.

Since then, there have been about a gazillion other time outs (all for the same thing!), but now, my poor 18 month old baby with big brown sad eyes is becoming a professional.  He just needs to be told to go to time out, where he promptly plops down and sits quietly (we don't even have to be in the hallway anymore!) for his entire 60 seconds, and waits patiently for the "You're released!" statement and hug at the end.  I think the whole process is still a lot harder on me than it is on him.

For example, last night, he was playing with the blinds on the living room window, when I asked, "Reilly, do you need to go to a time out?" and he replied, "O-tay." and then got up, walked on over and sat down.  At which point, I laughed, called him a little stinker and told him to get up.  Maybe I should have left him there, but he pretty much put himself in it, so I didn't really feel like it was "real."  Mommy mistake?  Maybe.  But he's just so darn cute...

Lesson learned...I'm proud to say Reilly hasn't had to go to a time out for touching the TV in over a week.  He's only been there one other time, for some unnecessary screaming and fit throwing--but we're making progress.  Who would have thunk it?  Time outs really do work for the "messy months!"

Being A Mom Is Comparable to NO Other Job...

Invisible Mother.....

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response,  the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?'

Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible.. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this??

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer,  'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

Some days I'm a crystal ball; 'Where's my other sock?, Where's my phone?, What's for dinner?'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history, music and literature -but now, they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!?

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England . She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe .

I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devoured - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: 1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. 2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. 3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. 4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does.

No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a
turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he'd say, 'You're gonna love it there...'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.