Just A Couple of Exerpts....

 I am working on a novel.  I have written several children's books (which I cannot get published to save my life) so I thought, "Hey, why not waste some REAL time and write a novel?"  Below are 2 exerpts, and before I spend any more time on this, I'd like HONEST opinions of how it is.  These are 2 of my favorite passages -- one is inflection and one is dialouge.  It is not a funny book, it is a "Coming of Age" story if I had to attach a cliche to it.  No blowing sunshine up my ass, I only want the truth! 

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As I watched her say her vows, surrounded by all of her friends and family, it dawned on me what I was feeling. It wasn’t the fear of losing my best friend, it was the realization that I had lost her long ago without realizing it. I had been static in forming new friendships – opting instead for more casual relationships and reserving my “bestness” for her, while she had formed bonds with so many others. I did not know when it had happened, but sometime in the past 5 years, I had ceased being the person who sprang into her mind when she was in trouble, or needed help, or had good news to share. There were new faces surrounding her now that were unfamiliar to me. Hell, I had only met her husband once before the wedding weekend. She hadn’t even asked me to be her maid of honor. Now, as she stood at the alter of this church that I had never been in with this man I did not know with her “bests” all beside her, I felt very alone. I was an “old friend” without any of the warmth that the moniker was supposed to provide. I had no other “bests” to replace her with and so I was drifting between acquaintance and friendship with no tether, no one to draw me close. Why had I sequestered myself? How had I not seen my friend slipping away? Then it was over, the “I do’s” had been recited and I realized that I was crying. Those watching had probably thought it touching that the “old friend” was so moved by her happiness that she’d shed silent tears during the ceremony, but only I knew that I was in mourning for a friendship that had passed into the ether without notice until that moment. I smiled, shook hands, and hugged like a good bridesmaid. I cheered and threw birdseed as the new couple climbed into their limo. I stayed to help clean up the reception hall with the family that I had once regarded as my own. Then I left – I went back to my hotel, packed my car and began the long drive home, alone.

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The storm was moving in. The leaves on the trees flashed their lighter undersides as if paling in the face of the angry winds. Their branches waved to and fro as the wind struggled to find a direction. Lightning flashed behind the clouds and thunder rolled across the sky. Then came the rain. Big heavy drops at first and then sheets carried by the increasing wind. Our little porch provided little shelter as the rain went vertical and soaked the wall beside me. I stood there entranced. Unable to move. I loved the rain, but I was in love with the storm. It was majestic, powerful, enthralling.


My mother came to the screen door “Didn’t God give you the sense to get out of the rain?” she said playfully through the door.

“Nope. But He did give me the ability to admire it. Come here.”

She walked out in her bare feet wrapping her thread bare tan sweater around her.

“Oooh, that’s cold rain for June,” she said, “but I ‘spose the Miller’s will be happy. They were getting worried about their corn. Sarah was going on about it at church on Sunday.”

“Hmph. This week she’ll be fawning all over everyone, thanking them for their prayers when none of them probably remembered to pray for her,” I retorted.

“Hey now, be nice. I prayed for her. “

I raised one eyebrow the way I do when I think that my mother isn’t being completely honest with me and folded my arms and leaned back against the wet wall of the house.

“Well, I prayed for rain; it wasn’t necessarily for her, it was for everyone,” my mother replied sheepishly before flashing that devilish grin that my father had loved and that I had rarely seen these past few weeks.

“Granny always said ‘it rains on the just and the unjust.’ I wonder which group Sarah Miller falls in,” I said as I laughed with my mother. We used to laugh all of the time, but not so much since my father had died.

Seriously? Yep, Seriously.

I am in trouble.  I have been warned by my mother that "You cannot use sarcasm on children, it will only confuse them."  Crap.  I am quite possibly the world's most sarcastic person.  My kids must be the most confused kids on the planet then.  I say "Seriously?" at least a half dozen times a day, and there is rarely a day that goes by that in response to some complaint about how unfair it is that they have to pick up their messes, that I don't respond by saying "I know, you guys are so mistreated." or "Yep, I am a mean mommy.  Now do what I said."  When my kids tell me some absurd reasoning that only makes sense in the world of those under 8, I recount it in the form of a question followed with "Yeah, that makes sense."  For example, when I ask them to pick up the playroom and literally 3 minutes later they come chasing each other laughing down the stairs, I say something like "Hey!  What are you supposed to be doing?!"  And they say "Oops.  We forgot."  My reply is "You forgot?  Seriously?  In the 3 minutes since I told you to pick up, you forgot?  Yeah, that makes sense.  Get up there and get back to it."  It is not entirely my fault, I am going to blame Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. See, I was raised on good, old fashioned, honest sarcasm, courtesy of Warner Brothers.
I learned to recognize sarcasm early on, to laugh at it and move on.  But one afternoon with kids' cartoons these days might explain the real problem.  Have you watched it lately?  Everyone is so happy.  And if they aren't happy, then the entire show is about how everyone is working to MAKE them happy.  I know that kids' programming is fiction, and that it is only entertainment, but it give a seriously deranged look at the world and I am not sure that all of the lessons it is teaching are good ones.  No lie, one of my kids favorite shows is called "Miss Spider's Sunny Patch" and it is all about this spider couple who have adopted all of these bug kids and they all live together in a tree.  Yeah, that's a good lesson to teach kids.  HELLOOOOOOO -- Spiders EAT bugs. They do not adopt them.   Ni-Hau, Ki-Lan:  Kai-Lan spends 30 minutes trying to discover why Tolly, Ho-Ho, and Rin Tu are mad and how to fix it -- in real life she would take her ball and go home.  Dora and Diego are great, but I question parents who would let their kids run around all over the world with a jaguar and a monkey.  Even their story lines are all about making everyone feel better -- I mean, OF COURSE all of the animals ran away from the cougar, they are what he eats.  And I do not think that a real cougar would get his feelings hurt at all.  Then there is "Yo Gabba Gabba" -- singing "I like bugs!  I. Like. Bugs!"  I am not an alarmist, but as a person who carries an Epi-pen in her purse, I DON'T like bugs, and I know that there are dangerous bugs (bees, wasps, scorpions, etc.) and there are annoying bugs (cockroaches, fleas, ticks, ants), and I don't like the idea of my kids being taught to be friends with bugs.  Not that cartoons should be all about "Hey, this bug can kill you!"  or that Miss Spider should eat her adopted kids, or Ni Hau, Kai-Lan should look at Tolly and Ho-Ho and tell them to get over it, or anything like that, but shouldn't there be more of a mix?   Our kids are growing up to be shiny happy people who are going to fall apart the first time things don't go their way.  Well, everyone else's kids anyway. 
I think I will have to disagree with my mother (*gasp*).  I do not believe my kids are at all confused by my sarcasm.  On the contrary, I believe that through sarcasm, my kids will be ready to face the real world with the ability to laugh at themselves, make their friends laugh, and shrug off alot of what might well cripple the fragile psyche of the rest of their generation.  If our kids believe that the world is full of creatures who will only work to make their lives better, then how will the handle it when their team loses, a mean kid singles them out to humiliate, or despite all of their best efforts, they fail?  My kids will be able to say "Well this sucks" and move on.  I do not mean to imply that I am raising 4 little cynics, I do praise them when they do well, and I reward their good behavior.  But I do NOT stop life and turn my world upside down to correct every wrong that is inflicted upon them.  When Bella says in her drama queen manner that William won't play with her, I tell her that I cannot force him to play with her and to play with Lorelei or Jackson instead.  When William says "Bella called me stupid" my canned response is "Well, are you stupid?" and when he says no, I say "Then don't worry about it."  Then I have a talk with Bella about how it isn't nice to call names.  When Lorelei comes crying to me that Jackson took her toy, I tell her to take it back before talking to Jackson about not taking toys away from others.  Kids need to know that they are loved, and mine do.  They need to know that we do our best to treat others fairly, and that there are often consequences when we don't, and mine know that as well.  But they also need to understand that the world will not cater to them,  and mine DEFINITELY know that.  Seriously.

Ummmm......yeah......I Want to Go Back to Work.....Eventually.....

I need advice. As much as I would like to believe that my books will eventually be published and I will become the next Judy Blume, I have to accept the fact that as AWESOME as that would be, it isn’t likely. So I am trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up (or more appropriately, when Jackson grows up). I really enjoyed Outside Sales for the time I was in Louisville, but it sucked in Atlanta. And to be honest, I do not think that I could effectively do Outside Sales and be a good mom and wife. So this will mean going back to school for a second degree in a more marketable field than “Motherhood.”  I DO NOT want to do clerical work (office manager, medical billing, receptionist, etc.)  I welcome any advice and suggestions that any of you may have to offer, and I will close by including a few facts about my background and working style:


1) My 1st degree was in English and Marketing.

2) I enjoy thinking up things for friends who either a) own their own business or b) need to create something for church or school or whatever.

3) I do not mind being corrected as long as I am wrong (hee-hee) but I dislike the kind of manager or boss who constantly looks for something to be wrong, and/or “hovers” like a spy-copter.

4) I really would like a job that would allow me to telecommute and/or be flexible on the hours. (not all of the time, but with 4 kids I will need SOME flexibility)

5) I am a decent photographer and have worked with some of the best in the portrait business. I would love to do something that involved photography, but since we are more than likely going to move again (we don’t like Texas that much) starting my own business/studio would be unwise.

6) I would love to get into advertising, but I do not want to live in Chicago, New York, or LA -- ideally, there would be an advertising agency in Huntsville, AL that needed a copywriter or something.

7) I am not really a science person, so I think that the medical field is out.

EEEEWWWWWWWW!!!!

Before I go off on today's rant, I would like to make it perfectly clear that my house is not "nasty" -- cluttered, sure, but not grimy, nasty, gross.  Yes, there is often spilt apple juice or grape jelly that needs to be wiped off of the table or counter top, but it is not like that for days on end or anything.  And yes, I have found the occasional half eaten Pop Tart in the kids room or the playroom, but there are 4 of them and I only have 2 eyes.  I DO miss some things.  And in fact, last week while picking up laundry, I found half of a grilled cheese sandwich from that days lunch and I totally freaked and started vacuuming and wiping down things.  The reason is I. Hate. Bugs.

SO, having made all of that abundantly clear, it will make more sense to you all why I did not sleep AT ALL last night. 

I got all of the kids bathed, teeth brushed, and tucked into bed at a relatively decent hour.  I then cleared 2 whole shows off of the DVR, brushed my own teeth, washed my face, and prepared for bed.  I was drifting off...in that blissful twilight where you are thinking that you should have turned on the dishwasher and then you are suddenly in Willy Wonka's factory, when my eyes fluttered open.  Just for a second.  Just long enough to see a huge, nasty, winged, cock-roach crest the edge of my bed.  Right in my face.  Twitching his horrendous little antennae inches from my face.  I think that in order to have seen me move, you would have had to slow down the film.  I was LITERALLY out of the bed, lights on, SHOES on, within 3 seconds.  This was not a normal household cock-roach -- it is the kind that lives outside around woodpiles and flies around the street lights.  It took me 15 minutes to track the offensive creature under my bed, another 5 to chase it out with the use of bug spray (by this I mean "OFF" not Raid, because I could not find any bug spray since we never have roaches), and 0.06 seconds to squash it to oblivion.  My heart was pounding as if I had just fought off an attacker twice my size, there was sweat on my upper lip, I was breathing heavy, and my adrenaline was through the roof.  I went and unrolled no fewer than 6 feet of toilet paper to dispose of his remains before flushing him down the toilet.  I managed to find a 1/2 empty container of "Home Defense MAX" bug spray that Gary uses to treat the garage and outside of the house, and I sprayed all around the door to my bedroom.  The bathroom.  The hallway.  The doors and windows to the outside.  Basically everything I could until the damned thing was empty. 

I was so freaked out that as I lay there trying to calm down so that I could get a little sleep, I thought every little noise was another bug.  The AC kicking on was the flutter of wings, the tick-tick of the clock on the bathroom wall was hairy little roach legs walking, and then of course, there were all of the bugs that I "felt" that weren't there.  One of the problems with having long hair is that you have strays; little hairs that tickle the back of your arm or your face.  This, is NOT a good thing when you have just been molested in your bed by a roach.  So I stayed awake, rather unintentionally, just unable to settle down and relax.

Even now, more than 12 hours later, the slightest brush of hair against my arm sends me reeling.  The slightest shadow in the corner of my eye makes me think I am about to be attacked.  I had an exterminator in Georgia once tell me "Oh, those are wood roaches.  They cannot survive more than 3 or 4 days in a house."  As if this somehow made it okay that they got in in the first place.  We did have one in the house last year.  I was in the kitchen, barefoot, making lunches for the next day and the damned thing attempted to crawl up my leg on the INSIDE of my yoga pants.  I screamed like a mountain lion and danced around like a whirling dervish and the kids had to help me kill it because I was so shaken.  I do not care if they are only able to live inside for a few days, I do NOT want them in my house.  Ever.  Period.

Man, I HATE bugs.

"Purse-onal Inventory"

Tonight at the soccer fields I was tuning out the kiddos in the backseat and "Finding Nemo" on the DVD and I decided to clean out my purse.  So what exactly is in the purse of a mother of 4 young children??  Many, many things.  Here is the inventory:
1 Wallet (mine)
1 Datebook (mine)
2 lip glosses (1 mine, 1 Bella's)
4 Antibacterial wipes (mostly for wiping down the kids)
1 Fingernail File (mine)
1 Purse-sized Bottle of Advil (mine)
18 Ballpoint Pens (even though I can never find ONE when I need it)
1 Bottle of Hand Sanitizer (mine)
5 Band-Aids (for the kids...and other people's kids...)
1 Packet of Anti-Bacterial Creme (ditto to the above)
1 Business Card Case Full of Mommy Cards (for the mommies' of the other kids)
2 Small Bottles of Baby Lotion (kids)
1/2 Pack of Gum (supposed to be mine, but mostly for the kids)
2 Sudafed (mine)
4 Lollipops (kids)
1 Ponytail Holder (supposed to be mine, but I think Bella used it last)
1 Juice Box (kids)
1 Packet of Graham Crackers (kids)
1 Packet of Goldfish (kids)
6 Packets of "Fruities" (Welches' Fruit Juice Snacks)
No fewer than 26 stickers
14 various coupons, 10 of which were expired, 4 of which expired last year.
And too many receipts to count.  Although, I did find $1,873 in medical receipts.  Only $86 of which was mine.
No one, at least no sane person, who looked into my purse could ever mistake that I was a mother.  If I didn't have kids, I could carry a MUCH smaller purse, but I would gladly lug around half of the medicine chest and half the pantry for my kids.  And really, all of those snacks, Band-aids, etc. are as much for me as they are for them.  Nothing will calm a kid with a skinned knee better than a Band-aid, nothing will make a child who will not stop talking hush faster than a packet of fruities, and nothing will buy you 15 minutes in the store like a lollipop.

It's Okay

As I sit here contemplating what I should write, and trying to come up with something sweet and sentimental to say in honor of Mother's Day, I have yelled at each of my 4 kids at least once, and I have made NO dinner plans. Hmmmm....

So, in honor of all mothers everywhere, I would like to tell you that it is okay. It is okay if you have just as many clothes in your CLEAN clothes hamper as you do in your DIRTY clothes hamper. It is okay if you have to pick up half eaten food off of your floor. It is okay if you don't get the beds made, the dishes done, or the bathroom cleaned. It is okay if you do not wear make-up everyday, or even SHOWER every day. It is okay if you never go and get a "mani-pedi" or a facial or wear the latest fashions. It is okay if you have not scanned all of your kids' artwork into the computer and made a digital scrapbook for them, or even filled out all of the pages in their baby books. It is okay that your kids' clothes do not come from a high-priced boutique or if they even match! It is absolutely fine if there are fingerprints on your mirrors, crayon on your walls from three-feet up to the floor, and and smears of God-knows-what on various hard surfaces in your home. YOU are normal. You are not Martha Stewart and you do not live in this month's edition of Better Homes & Gardens. If your kids are loved and happy, none of the other stuff matters.

We all know "that" mom -- the one who has it all together. Her house is clean, her kids are all dressed alike, she is perfectly coiffed, clipped, and painted and you stare at her in full-on green-eyed monster mode in your faded yoga pants, ponytail, and t-shirt with the bleach stain near the hem and the spit-up on the shoulder and wish you could get it all together like her. Her kids had homemade pancakes for breakfast and your kids had Pop-Tarts. Her kids take French, Ballet, violin, and voice lessons and your kids play soccer. She goes to yoga every other day and only drinks soy milk and your idea of a work-out is to clean out from under your kids' beds and you had 4 cups of coffee and a slice of cheese for breakfast. Her min-van is the pristine model from last year and yours is from the last millennium with precisely 76 stickers on the 2 back windows, and a slightly offensive odor when temperatures climb to over 100 degrees. Yes -- you are jealous of her perfection, but if you look closely.... there are chinks in her armor. Remember, you see what she WANTS you to see. No one is THAT perfect.

However, you do not need to know what her faults are. It. Does. Not. Matter. You were not feeling inadequate before you ran into her in the car-pool line, so why does she make you feel that way now? Remember that your kids are loved. They are happy. They do not want to take French, or violin. They did not ask you for pancakes this morning. They do not have to worry about wrinkling your clothes, smudging your make-up, or messing up your hair when they throw their arms around your neck and say "I love you, Mom." Ahhhhhhh, there it is. That is YOUR perfection. (And mine!)
So Happy Mother's Day. Ignore your laundry, dishes, and general housework and sit on the couch and cuddle with your kids. You are the perfect one for them.

Happy Holidays.....

Feliz Cinco De Mayo!!!
Today is the 5th of May and it is some kind of Mexican holiday that requires everyone in the US to go out and drink Coronas with lime, sip Doe Equis, or slam Jose Quervo shots while eating obscene amounts of chips and salsa.  I do not know what the holiday actually commemerates, it was some kind of independence thing like our 4th of July.  I don't judge -- I mean, we celebrate our independence by setting our backyards on fire either with illegal fireworks or out of control bar-be-que grills.  Ironically, some of us also slam Jose, and sip Coronas on our own independence day, although I think Bud and Miller may be a little more common.  :)  I am more likely to celebrate by drinking an entire pot of coffee this morning, eating way to many Special K Tomato and Basil crackers with lunch, being lazy and feeding my kids a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup for dinner instead of actually cooking dinner, and giving into temptation and drinking a real Coke tonight.  Because, honestly, what better way to celebrate ANY holiday than to be lazy and to give into our harmless yet totally worth it temptations?

More Nudity Issues

So what is the topic for discussion today?  My kids haven't flashed any of the neighbors in a couple of days, so no new subject matter there....however....
Jackson has become a nudist.  It was a gradual transformation.  He used to love to take off his shirt.  It could be 20 degrees outside and he would take off his shirt and run around in just his diaper and pants.  Then he switched and he would keep on his shirt and diaper and just remove his pants.  But lately he has been taking off his pants, then his diaper (because keeping his shirt on disguises the fact that he has no diaper) and then finally he will take off the shirt and be stark naked.  Of course, he always does this right before the doorbell rings, or while I am making dinner, or at some other equally inconvenient time.  Last night, I was standing at the stove cooking dinner and I turned around to find his naked little butt sitting in the middle of the dining room table.  Obviously, we had to clean the table before eating on it.   This morning, I went to wake him up and found him lying in his crib "reading" a book in the buff.  And even though he is too big for it, he still loves his bouncer.  He was in his bouncer, I was doing laundry when I heard "Maaaaaaaa-maaaa!  Weeeeeeeet!"  I went to see what was wrong, thinking he must have spilt his juice, but no.  He had somehow figured out how to get completely nude while in his bouncer.  Shirt off.  Shorts off.  Diaper off and all thrown to the side.  He then proceeded to pee on the floor without peeing on the bouncer.  He can get his diaper or Pull-Up off even if he is wearing a onesie.  Nope, nothing can deter the little guy from taking off his clothes. 
So what do you do when your child won't keep his clothes on?  You stay home until he gets over it and you continue to put his clothes back on him over and over and over again. 

Who Knew?

Well, today I got a wild productive hair up my butt and decided to REALLY clean my bathroom.  Not Clorox Wipes, but actual cleanser and a sponge and elbow grease.  Now, please understand, I am not a "nasty" kind of person.  My house is almost always cluttered, but I do not let it get grimy and nasty.  Or at least I didn't THINK I did.  I started with the double sinks and vanity.  I removed everything off of the counter top, sprayed cleaner and wiped away the spilt toothpaste and make-up residue, etc.  Then I cleaned the mirror, followed by the toilet and the tub -- no surprises, just gave them all a good, deep cleaning so that I could go on using the Clorox Wipes weekly for the next month or so to maintain it.  Then I thought, "Hmmmm...when is the last time I cleaned that shower?"  I couldn't remember.  I am not sure I have ever really deep cleaned it in the more than 2 years that we have been here.  I mean, I have sprayed it with Tilex and wiped it down, but never really gotten in there with a sponge and cleanser and scrubbed it.  So I thought, in for a penny, in for a pound and dove into the task.  We get in this shower every day to get clean.  I never thought it was all that dirty.  It is a small, glass shower seperate from the tub.  Well imagine my shock (and general disgust) when I discovered that our shower is NOT (as I have always assumed) made of "frosted glass."  The "frosted glass" was instead layers and layers of soap scum and hard water stains!!  I am happy to report that our shower is now sparkly clean -- no "frosted glass" left!

The One That Got Away?

So recently I was chatting with an old friend on Facebook and she was talking about the one guy that she had liked or dated way back when that she had always wondered about. She said she'd love to see him but that she wasn't sure what would happen if she saw him because he was "that special" to her. She then asked if I had a guy in my past like that. "You know," she said, "The one you think of as 'the one who got away.'" I quickly typed "Not really" and changed the subject.
This person is married, she has been for more than 8 years and she has 2 cute kids and I THOUGHT that she and her hubby were very happy together. Don't get me wrong, I wonder where people from my past are, what they are doing, did they ever get married or have kids, blah, blah, blah. But I have never thought of them as having gotten away from me. I love my husband. If he and anyone from my past standing were standing side by side and I could choose, I would always choose him. There would be no internal debate, and it would not be out of obligation that I would choose him, it would be out of love -- love for him and love for our 4 kids. The people that have come into my life have shaped who I am. They helped, in whatever way, to prepare me to be the wife and mother that I am today. And I am thankful (regardless of how or why those relationships ended) that they were part of my past. Because this guy broke my heart, I not only learned to be a little more cautious, but I can help my daughters through their broken hearts with empathy and understanding. Since I was a total ass to this guy, then I can try to prevent my kids ever acting that way, and I can help my sons through a similar experience should it ever happen to them. I can relate to my husband because of little things I gleaned from these relationships. I interacted with their friends and families and that taught me alot about how I want my own family to be viewed by others and how to make our home life a reflection of who we are. No matter how small, I learned SOMETHING from every dating relationship that I ever had.
So no, I do not have "one that got away." My dating life was more of a "catch and release" experience. Those guys (most of them anyway) were mine while I had them, and I was theirs. Until, at some point, one of us let go of the other. So to all the guys that came before my husband, thanks. I am the perfect wife for my husband and the perfect fit for my family because of something I learned from you.

Parenting = Epic Fail

So this evening, we had a total fail as parents.
We had a friend of Bella's over to play. The kids were all upstairs -- being loud and obnoxious, playing like normal while I made dinner. Now, you have to understand something about my kids; it has almost always been just us in our house -- we either didn't know alot of people, or the kids were too young to have alot of regular company. Most of the kids that they have played with over the years were their cousins, so we are all related. (Not that this fact makes up for what happened at our house tonight).
So this friend of Bellas is obviously a little girl and she is the same age (6), but all of the kids were playing together -- William the 8 year old, Bella and her friend the 6 year olds, and Lorelei the 3 year old. (Jackson was not present as far as we can tell). After dinner, they all went back upstairs and played for another hour or so until the friend's mom came and got her. About 30 minutes to an hour after she left, the little girl's mom called me and said that she was very concerned by something her daughter had told her. Apparently in the course of playing Vampires, Bella got hit in "the privates" and felt it neccessary to pull down her pants to check herself out right there in front of everyone. Well this got attention (obviously) so Lorelei felt the need to check herself out, so she dropped trou as well. I guess William thought that he was just playing along when he decided to do the same which got an "Ewwww!" from the little girl who later went home to tell her mother about it. Greeeeat. So the mom calls to tell me that she is concerned by this, and obviously, I am too. We go to try to talk to the kids about it and they confirm the story. We try to express our disappointment in this type of behavior and they honestly do not get why this is so bad. Sooooooo....short of having the dreaded sex talk with our 8 and 6 year old, how do we handle this?? I mean, up until 18 months ago, our kids were still bathing together. They come and talk to me and Gary (and to each other) while we are in the shower or while we are using the bathroom. We feel horrible that it happened, but it did. Our fear now, is that that this incident will prevent the parents from allowing their daghter over to play. I mean, I am not sure I would want to my kids to go play at a friend's house where this had happened. Arrrrgh! So frustrated!! I mean, I am happy that the mom called me -- I would hate for this to have happened and her NOT call me. But what do I do now? I feel embarrassed, no, check that, I am MORTIFIED that this happened. But it is an isolated incident -- kids being young and stupid. So is anyone reading who has advice for me???