Kids & Technology 101

I'm just gonna be honest.  This post is sure to ruffle some feathers.  Some of you will give me high 5's.  Some will give me the evil eye in the carpool line.  And, I'm okay with that.  It's my blog and I get to say what I want.  I would like to say, that regardless of my feelings on technology, it doesn't mean I want to tar & feather fellow parents for their choices on their kids and the technology they allow them to use.

Let's get this started.

A key point to state is that my kid is 10.  My feelings are based on this.  Well, mostly.

I can't tell you how many kids 13 and under that I see with Facebook accounts.  I cringe when C looks over my shoulder and tries to keep up with my news feed.  It's the internet people, there is always going to be inappropriate content that pops up.  So why in a world where everything is in your face would you let your kid have a Facebook account?  No matter what, they will see things you won't like.  Personally I'd like C to hold on to her innocence a little while longer since she's oh, only 10.  And yes, I'm very familiar with privacy settings, but that doesn't stop everything.

I'm not some crazy freak mom who wants to shelter my sweet baby.  I am however, a very technology savvy mom who wants to equip my daughter with things at the appropriate time.  I'm pretty dang open with my kid, but that doesn't mean I want everyone else to be open with my kid.

Some of the most common things lately have been the iPod touch, iPhone, or any smart phone really.  I'm not opposed to these things, but I'm not thrilled about them being in the hands of kids either.  Caroline has had a phone since she was 8.  A plain old phone that calls and texts.  I felt that since we cancelled our home phone and I was having problems with her dad answering his phone when she was there for his weekends, that I needed to be able to get ahold of her when I darn well wanted to.  She knew the rules from day one.  You can call any of your 4 parents. You can text those 4 parents.  And in 2 years, she has handled it better than I ever dreamed.  She is now allowed to call or text her close friends on occasion.  She earned that for being responsible with it and not abusing the fact that she had a phone.

She wants an iPhone.  Bahahaha.  We've discussed it, we've enthusiastically debated it.  And I said yes...for about 1 day.

I decided I needed to research my options for privacy and security a little more.  I kid you not, the next day I saw roughly 10 instances that ruined all hope for her getting one.  Or for the pretty new iTouch to replace her 1st generation one.

Twitter, FB, Instagram, just to name a few...oye!  I use them all, but after seeing some similar aged kids that we know using these and the stuff I witnessed made me realize that yes, Caroline is still a baby in this world.  And I want to protect her from it.

I saw kids posting pics of other kids on school buses, with hateful commentary.  I saw kids who were following half naked people, or half naked people were following them.  I saw duck faces, booty pics, and pajama pics.  I saw little girls trying to be sexy and boys trying to be buff.  I saw them posting friends pictures and tagging them so they would get more followers...which is how I'm sure the half naked people ended up on their friends lists.  Is this what we're really teaching our kids?  No wonder they struggle in their teens, we aren't guiding them at the right time.

We are doing our jobs by wanting to give them the best possessions we can, which in turn helps them socially.  But at what cost?  Let's face it.  We don't want our kids to be picked on, we want them to be accepted.  And when the norm for being accepted revolves around all this in your face technology, we have to be careful what choices we make for our kids.  I'm well aware that we can 'police' the social media outlets we let our kids use, but good grief, who has time to check every app, go through the friends or followers list and make sure all is happy?  Not anyone I know.  Well maybe me.  But only because I'm already on these sites everyday and I'm pretty quick at giving things the once over.  And I work for myself, so I make the rules.

I make decisions about Caroline's friends based on what I know of them and when I see things that aren't okay for her age, posted by her little friends, I pause and think twice.  I.hate.that.

I always knew that as she got older I would be faced with tough choices, but I didn't think it would be this fast and over a phone.  I wish more parents didn't give in to the craze of having an                   {insert form of technology here}.  It makes it hard on all of us.  But, if you know me, I don't follow suit because it's cool, so for now, even if all her friends have an iPhone, she won't.

Before any nasty people start in about how I must have had a sheltered life, or I didn't have all the cool things, your wrong.  I did have strict parents.  But, I also had a mom who wasn't a fool and bought hot pink condoms to match my prom dress.  Nice.  I also was the only 16 year old I knew in 1994 that had a cell phone.  All my friends had pagers, and no, I wasn't a dork.

The moral of the story is that although I love technology and I want my kid to be socially up to speed, I don't know that I really want to put the burden of all that responsibility on my 10 year old.  Let's start with getting her to clean her room.

Falling Off the Wagon

I missed my 3rd Fun{ky} Filled Friday post.  I already fell off the wagon.  But, I've got my feet under me {I think}.  I had a lot of great things I wanted to post, but just couldn't get all my thoughts to be cohesive and make any dang sense.  Mom brain?

Part of the problem...mom overload.

I'm a social media/technology junkie, but I'm not so sure I'm ready for my 10 year old to be.  So when her teacher asked for permission to allow her to email me projects I was "iffie".  My feelings on this topic are saved for another post, but in the meantime, it did make me smile and cry when I saw my 1st email from my daughter in my inbox.

We love our kids right?  We even love them when they make us crazy...yes, yes we do.  But when it's 7pm on a Thursday night and they tell you they need a 50's Poodle Skirt for school the next morning...not so much.  Off to Hobby Lobby I went to find the necessary supplies, because lets face it, I wasn't going to be able to walk into a store that late and just pick out the perfect poodle skirt.  I pulled an all nighter.  Hello, I'm 34, and although I'm a slight insomniac, 24 hours of being awake is not what my body likes.  Oh, and a side-note, my munchkin wasn't even home, it was her night at her dad's, I'd like to see him make a poodle skirt at 10pm, so I had to take it to her the next morning.

When I showed up the next morning, barely walking with the biggest bags of my life under my eyes, it was all worth it.  She was beaming!  Her dad couldn't believe how good it was.  Seriously, he doubted my skills?  Moron.  Just kidding {sort of}. 

Work has also kept me on my toes, which is a total blessing.  Great things are in store!  I had an offer to do some shots for a local CrossFit, and dare I say it's the beginning of a great opportunity on all fronts!  CrossFit Waco is an amazing community of people and I am now one of them!  If your local, you need to get signed up, like yesterday.  Be on the lookout for my work on their website, the new Success Stories will be up soon :)

And since I'm now training there, we've been eating a little differently.  We already eat pretty much on the healthy side, now I'm just tweaking things a little more.

Thankfully, Caroline has a great coach at school who really encourages living a healthy lifestyle.  She teaches them the importance of what you eat and how you get exercise.  Every year she helps to encourage our kids to participate in a local marathon, Miracle Match Marathon.  The kids run a marathon over a period of time at school.  The last mile of the marathon is run at the Miracle Match Marathon during the kids run.  It's a great cause, a great event and it's awesome how fired up she gets our kids, if only she could get us parents in gear.

We had a great time!  Our tiny little school of just over 200 kids had 84 participate!  I rode with one of my besties and we really enjoyed watching how excited all the kids were.

It's time for me to get away from the computer and go to CFW and get my butt kicked for the day...oh joy.  One day I'll be happy about it, when I'm not so sore that it hurts to drive.

Fun{ky} Filled Fridays

****Well leave it to me to get a system going and then realize my scheduled post didn't actually post...possibly user error...but I'm not copping to it.****

It's been a busy week in my world, and a slightly stressful one.  But having fun things to look at and plan sure helps a girl have a mental health break.  Did that make sense?  It did to me.

I found a new clothing store, too bad it's in Georgia.  Facebook can be a beautiful thing when you stumble on a gem like this.  You can find them here or on The Blue Door Boutique.  I'm completely smitten with this coat.

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One thing keeping me busy is stocking my Etsy shop, Carolina Sunshine Designs.  I had tons of ideas for Valentine's and had to put them into action.  I get a huge kick out of the whole mustache trend and thought these would be super cute!

Feel free to stop by and take a look ;)

And take a peek around at all the Valentine's goodies while your on Etsy...seriously adorbs.  I mightpossibly be able to still get Caroline to wear this, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

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And if I had a little boy, he would be totally rockin' this!

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I'm really working on trying to be healthier...searching and hunting for information daily.  I'm really struggling with my skin and hair and it's making me crazy.  I've been looking for better ways to handle skincare and haircare.  I've read lots of articles about coconut oil.  Do you have any experience with using it for skin/hair care?

My favorite article you can read here.  And you can purchase it here.  Of course, it comes in all different sizes, so you don't have to buy the jumbo one to try it out.  Let me know if you've had any luck with coconut oil.  Or what works for you in the hair/skincare realm.

I hope to get back into the daily swing of this ole blog again soon!  I love looking back at our lives and how we've grown and changed over the years.  I'd love to have some feedback on things you like to see here ;)

Have a great weekend!

Thought Filled Thursdays

Years ago, I took a day out of the week to post what I was thinking about, what I liked, make recommendations on things, etc...

I think to help me get back into the swing of things, I'm bringing back Thought Filled Thursdays...well, I'm changing it to Fridays and spicing up the name a bit.  I think a fun post to kick off the weekend is just what I'm looking for, so thus, the change.  So without further adieu...

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Let me just say, if you've never picked up a Janet Evanovich book, stop what you're doing and go get this series, or at least the first book.  It's funny, witty, and there's a little bit of mystery to it.  I'm reading the latest addition:

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If you follow me on Instagram, then you know I'm a nail polish addict.  I'm really enjoying getting my (Julep) Maven Box each month and loving all the offerings they have.  I ordered the New Year's Box and one of the polishes I got was Eloise.  I love it. If you aren't a Maven and would like to join in the fun you can use this link and enter this referral code: 764456

Last year I jumped on the Tom's bandwagon.  Honestly, at first I wasn't in love with the look of them.  But they grew on me.  I took Caroline to get a pair and decided to try some on. I bought them on the spot and left with them on my feet.  Nordstrom ran this pic in a Facebook ad and I knew I wanted them.

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The hubby and I have been on the hunt for a vintage camper for about a year.  We originally made up our minds about 2 years ago that we wanted to get one and refurbish it, but finally got serious about what we wanted.  Here are a few that we love.

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We found one and the hubby's parents bought it!  We're helping them redo it while we're still looking for the perfect one for us.

Happy Hunting this weekend!  Hope you all see some fun{ky} finds!