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Some people are making a big deal about Tyra feeling Katherine McPhee’s boobs on her talk show. Maybe a talk show isn’t the most appropriate place for it but what a great move for ratings. I hate to ruin this for you guys but believe it or not women can touch each other without it being sexual. It’s no secret that I recently got breast implants and I’ve let my friends see and touch them. I’m quite proud of them and how natural they look. C’mon people stop being so uptight about boobs. So Katherine why don’t you pose for Playboy so we can put these rumors to rest.

I’m at a loss for words today so here’s a meme I stole from Burg who stole it from someone else.

How tall are you barefoot? 5 ft 6 3/4 in. I used to be 5 ft 7 in. I must be shrinking or not standing up straight.

Have you ever flown first-class? Yes. We did it with the kids once. Pissed off everyone around us. The kids were very well behaved because I threatened their lives before we got on.

One of your favorite books when you were a child? All the Judy Blume books. C’mon Are you there God? It’s me Margaret is a rite of passage.

A good restaurant in your city? Way too many to choose one.

What is your favorite small appliance? B.O.B (battery operated boyfriend)

One person who never fails to make you laugh? My hubby.

What was the first music that you ever bought? Duran Duran

Do you do push-ups? Yes, in my aerobics class but I usually cheat.

What was one of your favorite games as a child? Hide and seek, monster in the graveyard, gin rummy with my great-grandma.

When you were twelve years old, what did you want to be when you grew up? I just wanted to be a grown up so I wouldn’t have to live with my parents anymore. I did fantasize about running away to New York to be a fashion designer.

Your favorite Soup of the Day? Bread Company’s baked potato soup.

Have you ever met someone famous? Jon Bon Jovi when he was first starting out. I even kissed him.

Date of Birth? September 27

From what news source do you receive the bulk of your news? The newspaper.

Current worry? How am I going to get everything done that needs to be done?

Current hate? Cold, dreary weather.

Favorite place to be? In front of my ‘puter. Isn’t that sad?

Least favorite place to be? My in-law’s parties and grocery shopping.

Do you consider yourself well organized? I have 4 kids, what do you think?

Do you believe in an afterlife? Absolutely.

Where do you think you will be in 10 years? Probably in this same house doing the same thing.

Do you burn or tan? Both.

Are you more optimistic or pessimistic about the future? I go both ways.

What did you fear was going to get you at night as a kid? The Boogey Man, something in my closet or under the bed.

What’s in your pockets right now? No pockets. I’m in jammies.

Last thing that made you laugh? Some stupid thing my hubby said.

Worst injury you’ve ever had? My bladder was cut during a hysterectomy.

How many TVs do you own? 5

Best compliment received? I can’t rate them. Any compliment I receive is great.

What leaves you speechless? People who say mean things to me.

What is your favorite book? Too many to list just one.

Last meal you cooked for the opposite sex? Chicken Terriaki last night.

What were you doing at 12 midnight last night? Just finished watching the Oscar’s, making school lunches and checking email one last time before bed.

Believe it or not I didn’t know anyone personally that has a blog. Many of my friends read my blog but none of them have one. I will admit that I have felt envious when I read about bloggers getting together. Although I have made great connections with many of my readers and have even talked on the phone with some there something about that in-the-flesh connection with someone that I really like. For me, more than anything I like knowing what the person looks like so I can have a mental image in my head while I read their blog. That’s why I love when bloggers post pictures of themselves. Jessica, from Oh The Joys and Kevin Charnas are awesome about doing that.

Well this past Monday I met a real live blogger, Lisa from Midwestern Mommy. We found each other’s blogs a few months ago and when we realized that we lived less than 10 minutes from each other we knew we had to get together. I invited her to my house because I knew in that setting we could talk while the kids played. What’s funny is she didn’t look anything like I had imagined. I’m not sure if I saw a photo of her on her blog or that I formulated an image in my mind all on my own. I pictured her having short strawberry blonde hair and looking much older than the cute girl that showed up at my door. Her beauty is what struck me first. One of the first things I said to her was to tell her how pretty she is. No joke people. I’m not saying this because she was overly generous with the compliments about me in her post. She truly is a beautiful girl and I don’t think she had a stitch of make-up on! She has a great smile and perfect white teeth. Her hair is blonde and I love her haircut. In fact I hope she doesn’t find it stalkerish that I want to go to her hairdresser and get the same cut. She was much younger than I imagined. I’m guessing twenty-five. She was describing someone to me and referenced to them being the same age as us. I wanted to ask her how old she was at that point but I refrained since I had already asked her if she’s a true blonde. My honesty and bluntness can be shocking to some when they first meet me so I felt it best to not ask anymore personal questions. Ooh, except I think I may have asked her if she’s going to have anymore kids. Oops! She’s tall with a great figure. Oh no, I think I may have told her she has nice boobs! Damn, I really need to think before I speak. We just hit it off so well. The conversation flowed easily and there was a comfortableness between us. It was like we had known each other for years.

Our boys hit it off too. Her son is adorable and very well behaved. I think she was a little embarrassed that her son was commando and every time he bent over we got a view of his crack. Didn’t phase me at all. With four kids I’ve seen it all. At least he couldn’t help it unlike my son who once mooned a friend’s son on our first meeting.

The day was fabulous and I look forward to getting together again. Lisa is very kind, polite, and a lot of fun to be around. I’m so glad it went well. It really would have sucked if the conversation was awkward, we had nothing in common, and our son’s didn’t get along. We are going to get together with other St. Louis bloggers and I’m really looking forward to it.

If you have been following this and this post then you know that I’ve had another blog in the works. It’s finally up and running! If you are interested in visiting it then drop me an email and I’ll send you the link. Please, only contact me if you have a personal experience with toxic relationships. My email address is listed on my profile.

I’m humbled by all the support, email, and comments I’ve received for this post. When I wrote that post I knew that I opened myself up to trolls and those who don’t agree with my decision to divorce my parents. I didn’t expect so many of you to not only support my decision but to also be in a similar situation. A few months ago I started a blog called The Padded Room; A Safe Place For Children of Toxic Parents but I got busy with the holidays and dropped the ball. I’m willing to resume the project if there is interest. You can leave me a comment or drop me an email. Thanks again for all the support and also thanks for feeding my ego by keeping me a Top Momma. Don’t forget to click on the Top Momma banner in my sidebar and then on the photo of me in the shark before you leave.

What is Clipgator and why does it have 4-5 links to most of my posts? Seems a little fishy to me. Anyone else have links from them. Click on my “links to this post” to see mine.

I’m on the front page at Top Momma! I won’t stay long if I don’t get enough clicks so get clicking! Click on the award button above and then click on the photo of Marigrace and I being eaten by a shark.

Yesterday my sis and I received a letter and a book from an author on her high horse. I’m sure the woman meant well and went to sleep last night feeling like her letter may bring a fractured family back together. I’m also sure that soon she will be another one of my mother’s victims. If you have read my blog long enough you know that my mom is a mental illness cocktail, a mixture of Bipolar, Borderline Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a dash of psychosis. It has been 14 months since I cut ties with my parents and it was the best decision I could make for me and my family. You can read more about my family dysfunction here, here, and here.

It really pisses me off when people pass judgement on me about my decision to divorce my parents especially when they do not have all the facts. This woman that wrote to us has made assumptions based on the words of a crazy person. Actually I feel sorry for her because she is one of many of our mother’s victims. If you know anyone with BPD you know that they can be very charming and likable people. That is until you piss them off or challenge them. My mom is very good at what she does and obviously has given this woman her sad story how her daughters turned their back on her for no good reason. Here is the letter and my rebuttal:

Dear Kristie,

I connected with your mother over an Ebay item and after chatting on the phone we became fast friends.
Do you not find it odd that my mom puts her phone number in her ebay listings? Are you not disturbed by my mom’s negative feedback and the childish fights she has via feedback. Ebay is how my mom connects with people because she can’t sustain “normal” friendships. Online she can be whoever she wants to be. It’s very sad.

I find her a supportive, thoughtful, and enthusiastic person, traits that are often hard to find in our world.
First off, I don’t find these traits at all hard to find in people. In fact people with these traits can still be crazy, manipulative, and do bad things.

She’s told me wonderful things about you; Kristie, and also that you’re taking a break from each other. I did this with my mother long ago when I left home at 17 and distanced myself from her during my college years and another four years when I lived in Florida. When I returned back to Minnesota, it took years to connect again with her, but slowly I matured and lost my stubborn attitude, and we reconnected. When my marriage dissolved, my mother was there for me.
Well, lucky you. Obviously your distance was due to your stubbornness and immaturity. Good for you, you grew up. In my situation my mother is the stubborn and immature one and has proven incapable of changing or growing up.

Thank God we mended the bond. She had become my best friend.
I already have a best friend. She’s the one who helped pick me up after my parents knocked me down. She’s the one who gave me emotional support after my miscarriage because I had to give my mother emotional support to help her cope with MY miscarriage.
Over the next twenty years our relationship became even stronger. We became reacquainted and best friends-until she passed away. I found that no one quite loves us like our mothers do, as I’m sure you are experiencing with the love you feel for your little ones.
You are exactly right. That’s why I don’t understand how my mother could neglect us, starve us, call us names, and put us in harms way. Do you need more examples?

This summer will be 7 years since my mother passed away. Every single day, I miss her. That mother-child bond is not a replaceable relationship; we are only blessed with The One.
I never had that. My mother is incapable of sustaining that kind of bond. You are right; it is not a replaceable relationship. I’ve spent my adulthood trying to replace the bond that never happened with my mother. I finally gave up. I’m sorry about your mother’s passing. I understand your grief. I’m mourning the mother I never had.
And when I look back on my life, I realize how much I hurt my mother during the years I pulled away.

If I could redo a part of my life, Kristie, it would be that. I wished I could have been mature enough to discuss the true issues between us, find a solution, and set our boundaries, but that I did not lose sight for so long of who I was and where I come from.
You know what I would redo? I would redo that 5 years ago I gave my parents another chance. I allowed my children to bond with their only grandparents and not only did I set myself up for disappointment but also my children. I have tried to discuss the true issues, I’ve done therapy, and I have set up boundaries. My mother is incapable of maintaining boundaries in relationships. Do you know how many times I have asked her to not share my address and phone number without my permission? She did not ask my permission to give you my address. Just a small example of many boundaries she oversteps.

I also believe in the laws of karma and the better the relationship is for you with your mother so it may be with with your children. Will they have the heart to stay and love during difficult times, or will your children pull away from your love? What are you modeling to them?
I also believe in the laws of karma. Do my parents honestly believe that they can abuse their children and then continue to abuse their adult children and expect to have a loving relationship with them? I hope that by doing my best to love my children unconditionally they will have the heart to stay during difficult times. What am I modeling? That it’s okay to put toxic people out of your life after all means to make a relationship work have been exhausted. By continuing a relationship with my mother I feared that I was teaching my kids to also be her therapist and to walk on eggshells around her to avoid upsetting her. I want to protect my children from a person who will think they are all good one day and all bad the next. I don’t want them to feel responsible for her happiness or her suicide attempts. Protecting my children is much more important to me than preserving a relationship with my mentally ill mother. You did not mention if you have children? Would you put your mother before your own children?

I hope this book hits you on Valentine’s day.
Oh yeah, well I hope it hits you in the ass when I return it.
Often a time of lovers, it is a day for the heart. Your mother does not know that I wrote you, nor what I have said. The message comes with a wish to your family from my heart.
I appreciate your concern but you really should get both sides to a story before you decide to meddle in someones complicated family dynamics. I’m guessing you have never had any personal experience with someone who is mentally ill.

That I hope you will stay open and reconnect with your mother and father. I don’t know what the distance is about. It’s not my business.
Exactly my point. Why are you bothering to get involved then? You have no idea what abuse my parents have inflicted upon my sister and I. Does guilting someone back into an abusive situation make you feel better? There was a time that guilt worked on me but your guilt trip is not welcome here.
I only know there is some reason for distance from each other and only know your mother enough to know that she and your father are crushed from your separation-and may be too proud to let you know that.
Let me remind you of:

I Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

If my children cut ties with me because they felt that I treated them bad then I would do everything in my power to right my wrongs. Our parents don’t see it that way. They feel we should be more accepting of their bad behavior. My mother has tried. I’ll give her that. Unfortunately she can’t keep it together for long. My father has tried. very. little.

I don’t know you, Kristie, and may never meet you (though I hope we do, one day), please forgive me if you feel this out of line. But sometimes a stranger with nothing vested may say something that we choose to honor or act on. As someone who spends her life trying to select the right words on each page, I pray that I have found them for you.
Save it for your books lady because you have joined a list of people who try to make my sister and I feel bad about a very difficult life decision. If you are looking for a pat on your back then pat yourself for pouring salt on our wounds.

Enclosed is my book (title removed). I hope you enjoy the read.
Thank you for the book. My gift to you is some advice. If you are going to have a relationship with my mom then you need to know a few things.
1. Always agree with her.
2. Never challenge her.
3. She needs endless compliments.
4. Make sure you are available to talk everyday. Be prepared for her to get angry with you if you are unavailable.
5. Make sure you are well rested and in excellent emotional shape because she will emotionally suck you dry.
6. Be prepared for her to get angry with you for something you didn’t even know you said or did.
7. Try not to blame yourself if she threatens to kill herself over something you said or she thinks you said or meant.
8. Know that when she is in her “black days” you may not hear from her for days or weeks.
9. Be prepared to listen about how everyone treats her so bad.
10. Don’t be surprised that some days she is very lucid, sweet, and kind. On the days she is abusing medication she will slur her words and may be argumentative. She may even be psychotic and not make much sense.
11. If you fail to follow these rules and you will without even realizing you did be prepared for her wrath. She will call you names and say the most hateful things. She may threaten to call the police or sue you. Most likely she will threaten to kill herself. I hope you are strong enough to handle it.
12. Be aware that she may one day end the friendship without telling you why. She may send you a hateful and threatening letter. All the things you told her in confidence, all your weaknesses will be thrown back in your face. You may not know what you did and you may never know.

When your friendship falls apart and I’m willing to bet money it will, I would like you to take out this letter, reread it and decide if you would have sent it knowing what you know now. Best of luck to you.

So how does a slacker mom find time to write long posts? She puts her 14 month old in the high chair with a large piece of red velvet cake and a bottle of milk.

Happy Valentine’s Day and a big thank you to everyone who sent me a Valentiner. That was fun although it took forever to open them. Their server must of been bogged down from all us desperate fools opening our love notes. I felt like a little kid. So much fun! The funniest one I got was from my older girls. Madeline is grounded from the computer and is not happy about it. Here’s what she wrote:

happy valentine day mom who will not let me on the
comperter
love,
isabelle,
madeline

My hubby got me a box of Lindt dark chocolates. My family knows I’m a chocoholic and that I don’t like to share my chocolate. Do you remember the donuts in the dryer? Madeline was afraid I would eat the piece of chocolate that she wanted so she “reservated” it with a note. Cracked me up when I took the lid off.

It’s a little hard to see. It reads “reservated for Madeline”

My oldest three are back at school today. They got a snow day yesterday which worked in my favor because Madeline had an appointment with her neurologist. I hate when she misses school because that means I have to do her school work with her at home and here lately teaching her has nearly driven me homicidal. Her doctor gave us a script for Strattera which I will start Madeline on tonight. It can cause stomach upset so we are starting with the night time dosing. We are giving this one a try because it won’t worsen her tics or anxiety. There is a chance it may not work because it isn’t a stimulant like the other ADHD drugs but it’s a starting place. I liked how her doctor explained to her what the medication is for. He told her that her mind sees things as if everything in a room is lit up which makes her eyes want to look at everything. The medication is like a flashlight to help her focus by lighting up whatever she’s looking at so everything else in the room isn’t so bright. She seemed satisfied with that explanation.

Lastly I want to share this photo of Isabelle’s “school”. She loves to pretend she’s a teacher and her stuffed animals and barbies are usually her students. Even though their messes can drive me crazy I know I’m going to miss this when they no longer play like this.

Have you seen this David Hasselhoff video? It’s a joke, right? Please tell me this is a joke.

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