Riddikulus!

If you instinctively assumed I must be battling a wicked Boggart, we are meant to be friends. I wish it was a Boggart that had me casting such a spell.

One of the biggest bummers in my life is that I was born a Muggle (which I don't find too terrible if that's my biggest bummer). If only Rowling's world of witchcraft and wizardry was real and I had been born in the lovely British Isles, I believe I would have had a good chance of the magic quill jotting my name in the big book of baby wizards when I was born. (Random fact: Harry Potter was born in 1980, so we're the same age.) All of this is simply to convey my adoration for the entire book series. I read the entire set of books at least once a year and always discover something new or that I had forgotten.

Even though I find the books 100 times greater than the films, the movies also captivate my attention. They are a great way to keep the story fresh in my mind between readings. Besides, I really enjoy casting characters and creating scenes that aren't in the film versions that I believe should be.

Another reason I enjoy the films is for all the extra stuff like deleted scenes. Actually, that's one of my quirks. I get a kick out of bonus material. Seriously. I like hearing the director's thoughts and learning about costuming and set design, etc. So after the final installment of the Harry Potter films showed in theaters, I vowed to own all eight films on Blu-Ray with as much bonus footage as possible. I knew it would be costly but didn't care. The real problem was waiting for such a thing to exist.

Two weeks ago it happened.

While looking through my inbox I spotted one of the usual promotional e-mails from Warner Brothers. They were going to pre-sale the Harry Potter Wizard's Collection (what I will call a Wizard's Box)! It would contain all eight films in Blu-Ray, DVD, and digital formats! Not to mention 40+ hours of BONUS MATERIAL including the series Creating the World of Harry Potter which I have been trying to purchase for about a year. There was also mentioned something about HP memorabilia, but I didn't pay too much attention because I was finally going to get the movies with all the extras I had so long anticipated. Even better was the fact that they were offering this $500 treasure for a measly $350 because I am special.

It was ordered.

Oddly enough once it shipped, the UPS information said the package weighed 26.50 pounds. I figured this had to be a mistake. Eight discs and a couple of HP trinkets probably weighed 2-3 pounds and UPS had screwed up. See, I had envisioned this Wizard's Box being relative small. It would nicely and neatly hold the 8 or so discs in one small block like my Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Star Wars. I even removed my DVD copies of each individual movie to leave a block of space for this average sized box. It was going to slide in comfortably next to my John Hughes boxed set.

Three days ago the package arrived. I came downstairs to find a rather large box in the living room. My response was simply, "I didn't order an actual wizard!" Well, I opened the first box to find a slightly smaller (but not much) box. I opened that box to find the Harry Potter Wizard's Collection packaging not much smaller than the previous two boxes. It was at this point I realized I probably should have paid closer attention to the description on the Warner Brother's site.

When all was said and done, this is what I had purchased:

Not only is the box actually about a foot and a half cubed, but the "trinkets" I expected are certified maps, sketches, photos, and even jewelry inspired by the films. These things are even hidden in various compartments of the box. Obviously, this Wizard's Box was more an Engorgio spell gone horribly wrong. There's no way it will fit on my movie shelves, and although it comes with a Certificate of Authenticity, I now feel like that person. The one who names her kids after the characters or refers to Rowling as Jo. (I'm NOT that person. I just feel like it.)

I suppose as "riddikulus" as my Wizard's Box is, I should take solace in the fact that I'm still a far cry from this guy:

Takin' Care of Business

Tomorrow morning will be the first day of teacher in-service that I have not attended in eight years. Without fail, the end of August heralds in another academic year for me, and I readily anticipate it with my own new school supplies and ideas for my students. However, I have a newborn who is not yet a month old. Therefore, I will be sitting out the entire first six weeks of the school year. And as I think about all that I'd like to do in my classroom and with my lessons, my emotions are getting the better of me. 

It's tough because I wouldn't want people to think I don't love my own children. I have two beautiful boys:

Being able to hang out with my 3-year-old this summer before the baby was born made for great memories. Since the baby arrived, I have equally enjoyed the cuddling and loving that a baby requires to be happy. There is no doubt that I love being a mom especially since my children totally rock.

It's just very few people are blessed with jobs that they love. I AM TEACHING. Everything about it fits my personality. It is also a great feeling that in a small way I am changing the future. There are so many minds to open and enlighten. Not to mention how much I learn from the students who walk into my class. In the past eight years I have influenced and been influenced by roughly 1200 students. That's only counting the ones I have directly taught.

So tomorrow morning when my alarm doesn't go off but I wake up at 6 o'clock anyway to feed my baby, I will probably fight back tears because I know that the academic world will continue to spin without me.

Mad About Hatters

Oddly enough I am not a fan of the actual stories Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I have tried to enjoy it every time I force myself to read them. I just can't do it. The writing feels flat and gets incredibly boring incredibly quickly. What I do LOVE are all the interpretations of Alice's adventures. In actuality, most people are interpreting the animated Disney version which is far more entertaining than reading the stories. A couple of my favorites are Tim Burton's version from 2010 and the Frank Beddor Looking Glass Wars book series.

In all honesty, there was a 100% chance I was going to like Burton's Alice because Tim Burton is pure genius especially when he teams up with Johnny Depp and Danny Elfman. I was right. The idea that Burton brings Alice back to Wonderland to fulfill a prophesy based off of Carroll's poem "Jaberwocky" is a unique way to pay homage to both the stories and Disney's animated version of them.

With Beddor's book series he explores the possibility that not only are Alice's adventures real, but she is our salvation from her evil aunt who goes between Wonderland and our world meddling with dark and dangerous things. It it young adult fiction, so it didn't take me long to read the books which I greatly appreciate since I'm a working mom with a newborn.

The other day I was channel surfing and caught the last 30 minutes of a show on the Syfy channel, and within that half hour I realized it was another version of the Alice story. I immediately looked into it, and thanks to instant streaming on Netflix was able to watch the two part mini-series Alice. (Actually, I've watched it multiple times because I like it so much. I'm sure my husband is sick of seeing it on the television.) The version Syfy created was actually quite clever. It also had some big names like Kathy Bates, Tim Curry, and Colm Meaney. But the best part was that I met him...

Okay, that's a goofy wallpaper that I will probably put on my laptop. Here is a better shot of the British actor Andrew-Lee Potts...

What can I say? His version of Hatter is great and I had to know what else he had starred in. So I did what anyone with too much time on her hands during summer break would do: I searched for info on him instead of working on lesson plans for next year.

Do I now follow him on Twitter? Why yes I do. Did I watch interviews of him on YouTube? Why yes I did. Did I then begin watching the show Primeval on Netflix because he is a main character? Of course. And that has caused a whole other problem/blog post.

For now I will continue to follow Mr. Potts' career like a good little fanatic.

Humility Should Remain in My Bag of Tricks

My son is three and beginning to really push his boundaries. There are moments when I'm not sure his actions are that of a learning child and need to be corrected in a patient way or if he's just being a little pain and choosing to misbehave in which case discipline is necessary. So when days roll around where things are consistently going well, I tend to get too comfortable in my abilities to parent flawlessly.
Today's scheduled started off at a birthday party. I already had the swimming gear packed since the invite said there would be a pool available for the kids. Ten points to me. We were the first family to arrive, so my son was able to hang with the birthday girl for a little bit before being bombarded by six or seven other children. Another ten points since my son tends to act shy if too many kids are around causing a ruckus. No fights with other children. No incidents requiring medical attention. No accidents in the swim trunks. Let's just hand over another 50 points because it was an incredibly successful party experience:

After a rather successful nap (there's another set of points), we headed to the opening of a new, local library. The goal: getting my son his first library card. Again, objective achieved:

And since I'm promoting literacy with my kid, I was feeling like the best mom on the face of the planet. I actually even believed I was being rewarded for all the awesome parenting I was doing when my husband and son were interviewed for the local news station regarding the library. (I'd like to put the link in to the video if I ever find it.) That's right. I was all sorts of patting myself on the back. I had even intended taking pics of my son using his card to check out his books.

It was at this moment of smug satisfaction that I totally nailed down this parenting thing that my son walked up to me with the front of his shorts drenched in pee. Yep, the gods don't like hubris my friends. My child was so excited and distracted with all the festivity at the library that his bladder rebelled and we had our first public accident. That ended our library visit, we were about to leave anyway, and caused a new problem: how NOT to get urine all over my husband's new car's seats in order to get home.

Many people might ask why I didn't keep a change of clothes with me, and up until VERY recently I always had. This time I was convinced I had this parenting thing down, and my instinct told me extra clothes were not necessary for our quick trip to the new library.

Even though I still consider today a large success and tons of fun, lesson learned.

Ever the Optimist

I often respond to "Sounding Off" in our local newspaper regarding the topic of education. This was the most current prompt:

Tell us about something new your school did this year that worked. Where can your school build on some momentum and success from this year? What did your children learn this year that surprised you? What did you see on campus that gives you hope?

At first I wasn't going to respond, but ended up sending this in. It far exceeds the maximum word limit and will probably not be printed. So I decided to post it here, and if it ends up being printed then great!

Many people ask if I enjoy teaching, and my response is always, “I cannot imagine doing anything else and wouldn’t want to.” However, this year truly tested my mettle because I had 10 and 11 graders preparing for TAKS (as usual), 9 graders gearing up for STAAR, and advanced 11 graders taking AP Language at the end of the year. That tripled the normal stress load of standardized testing I normally endure in a school year. Therefore, when asked what my students learned that surprised me or gave me hope I almost cried because it was so difficult to see the silver lining through a rather difficult year. Then I remembered that my own philosophy is not to teach kids how to pass a test but how to become functioning members of society by building critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. That led me to my end of the year exams.

Instead of a cumulative, multiple choice test of 100 questions requiring the students to conjure up names of characters throughout the school year, I simply ask them to choose one thing we read, discussed, thought about or experienced during the year and tell me how it shaped them as an individual. The kids think they’re getting off with an easy exam but fail to realize how much thinking is actually going into their essays especially since I only allow them one sheet of notebook paper to write it. Here are some of my favorite responses:

An on-level student who learned the hard way I do enforce my no late work policy: “One of the things I learned this year was how to respect my grade in this class. Mrs. X didn’t beg us to turn something in, if we didn’t turn it in we got a zero. Knowing this it helped me think about my responsibility as a student to know a deadline and meet it.”

A gifted and talented student regarding Fahrenheit 451 in comparison to The Things They Carried and the many controversies over the Vietnam War: “…I felt an overwhelming and conflicting argument spring up in my head over censorship. I couldn’t fathom the thought of our free nation tainted with absolutism philosophy…”

A monitored English Language Learner discussing To Kill a Mockingbird particularly looking at the courtroom chapters: “…what I learn here was that we should speak with the truth. Because the truth is going to come out in any moment and time.”

A special education student: “My favorite was Machiavelli. I love how it shows you rules about being a leader and who you should trust and shouldn’t.” (We compared “Morals of a Prince” to Julius Caesar in terms of what kind of leader Caesar might have been and whether or not that merited his assassination. This particular student was also one of the few who was able to fly through Shakespeare without difficulty.)

Just like most public school teachers, I simply had to grab a few essays to see this wide range of topics and learning levels. Overall, I see tremendous hope just within these responses. These are the lessons that go with my students when they leave my room, and I much prefer this to be my legacy than having that allusive 100% pass rate on any standardized test.

Did somebody say BANANAS?

As a parent of a young child, I figured I would be subjected to many a ridiculous kids' show that involved overacting and quaint story lines teaching perfunctory moral lessons. However, when my son fell in love with The Fresh Beat Band I had hoped their focus on music would make the show bearable. (I do have to give them credit for encouraging the love of music that my husband and I try to instill in our son.) Attempting to enjoy the show turned out to be more of an obstacle than I thought. The production was a little less than okay, and the characters were borderline caricature and down right irritating.

Why did I continue to watch? It's almost like rubber necking on the highway. I know I shouldn't do it, but enough ambulances and cop cars and I just can't help myself. Since my son was going to watch the show regardless, I forced myself to sit patiently and endure. Then something happened.

It started simply as an ad for the new season when my husband noticed the change from Shayna Rose to Tara Perry, "Hey, that's not the same Marina!" (Was it a little disturbing that my husband realized and my son didn't? Yes.)  After that we watched as the production for the show seemed more professional and the story lines more entertaining. It was like someone decided that good parents would be watching what their kids watched and needed something more than a bunch of drumming monkeys (seriously, little toy monkeys that were a staple for a lot of the first couple of seasons). I actually started looking forward to the new episodes.

One of my favorite musical numbers from the new season:

THEN The Fresh Beats did something absolutely crazy: they went on a live concert tour. We decided that The Fresh Beats would be a great first concert for our son. I figured the idea that the 3 to 7-year-old target audience would make it easier to wrangle my son during the show. Tickets were purchased and we started the countdown. Yesterday was the big day.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. The good news was that with hundreds of children in attendance, I didn't have to be self-conscious about my son wanting to run around in the lobby or making noise during the show or having to get up to go to the bathroom multiple times because EVERYONE'S kids were doing the same thing.

It's when The Fresh Beats took the stage that I realized why parents will trudge through silly kids' shows for their children. When the REAL Fresh Beats (I applaud them for touring themselves and not having "actors" portray them on tour.) came out and started to play, my son stomped his feet, shook his hands, giggled, screamed, and had a smile on his face that was priceless. If he had been on the floor instead of standing up, someone might have mistaken his spazzing out for a seizure. All I could think at that moment was, "Yeah, this is TOTALLY worth it."

There were plenty of over zealous parents dragging their children around dressed as members of the band trying to get them to dance in the aisles. I was content to watch my son's attention focus only on what was happening on stage. There were some tears shed when he realized that our seats were too far away from the stage and he couldn't dance closer to the band, but overall he seemed to enjoy his first concert experience. My husband even got him an official multi-color Fresh Beat glow stick! (20 years from now I'm going to enjoy taking that out and telling this story.)

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted in a very content way. And yet, I couldn't get this blasted song out of my head for the rest of the evening (no, that's not my husband talking in the background-I found this particular recording on YouTube):

May the 4th Be With You!

And with that I welcome Star Wars Day 2012! I'm not exactly sure when my love affair with Star Wars began. What I do remember is being 12-years-old and watching A New Hope on television one weekend (we didn't own the VHS tape). My mother noticed my rapt attention and said, "You have always loved that movie, even when you were little. You know there's two more movies that go with it?" At that moment my world shifted and within the half hour we had been to Blockbuster and returned with Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Life after that was never the same.

Unfortunately, I wasn't born early enough to appreciate the original releases in theaters when they were cutting edge and cool. Therefore, I felt alone in my geek love for the Republic and, at first, Luke Skywalker (naturally as I got older Han Solo became the only man worth admiring in a galaxy far, far away). None of my friends seemed interested in these films if they had heard of them at all. I know very few of my crowd were as eager to see the re-releases as I during my high school years. And it seemed like no one I knew felt or understood the crushing disappointment of The Phantom Menace.

Now, I have found my niche! It seems as if all the nerds and geeks who spent years immersed in Star Wars lore are the popular guys. Some of my favorite actors/comedians proudly voice their admiration for the original trilogy (and their dismay at the newer episodes). It's like an alternate world of cool has sprung from all the folks who love Obi Wan and Yoda and Chewy and Leia, etc. It doesn't bother me that the few people left on the planet who refuse to acknowledge the greatness of Star Wars still tease me because I KNOW I am not alone.

I am determined that my own children will proudly fly their Star Wars colors. My 3-year-old already owns toy light sabres and can declare himself Master Yoda. And if I don't talk to my kid about Star Wars, what will he learn on the street?



Since tomorrow is the official Star Wars day; my husband, son, and I have shirts ready to go. But like many Star Wars fans I know, I never take my fanaticism too seriously. So, I will end with a video that makes me laugh every time, and I will never forget: "There's only one return my friend, and it's not of the king, it's of the Jedi." Randall Clerks II

3 is the Magic Number

My son will be 3 years old tomorrow. Considering the circumstances of his birth, that is a true miracle. However, what is marking this particular birthday in a unique way is that it will be last one where he is an only child. I'm due in August; therefore, every birthday my boy has from here on out will include his little brother. Becoming an older sibling will change my son (I hope in all the right ways) and our parenting tactics. In honor of my last year as the mother of an only child, I'd like to reflect on what parenting has taught me.

Babies cry. There's no way to avoid it. The idea that I would have to run and pick up my son every single time he made a peep is ridiculous. When would I ever get a break? And what am I teaching my child? In the end, he would simply train me to cater to his whim instead of me training him to be a little judicious when he chooses to cry. Not that my husband and I were cruel. 10-20 minutes is what we would wait to see if our son quit crying. I know that can seem like an eternity with the noise level some kids reach, but 9 times out of 10 our boy was silent after 5 minutes. He learned that there are times he had to go to sleep and there are times mommy and daddy are busy around the house, so he had to entertain himself. The benefit to this was that when he did continue to cry, we knew something was genuinely wrong and were able to help him. In a small way, I also think this helped make him a bit more sociable because he didn't expect us to coddle him in new surroundings or with new people.

Cribs are where babies sleep and the master bed is where I sleep. My son has slept in bed with my husband and me TWICE in his three years on this planet. And both those times he was very sick. As a baby, I always made sure my son slept in his crib. I wanted him to understand that we each have our own space to relax and get rest, and it has worked. To this day my son prefers to sleep in his "big boy bed" rather than in our bed. He might hop in bed with us to watch television, but as soon as it's time to sleep he says his good nights and heads to his room. When he does ask to sleep with us we remind him that he has to start in his bed and if he is still awake when we check on him, he can come to bed with us. Every time he is either asleep when we check on him OR he tells us he wants to stay in his bed. Transitioning from crib to bed was a breeze, and we don't have to "trap" him in his room to make him sleep in his own bed.

There's a full serving of vegetables in a can of Manwich. I did choose to breast feed my son. It had nothing to do with any type of moral high ground. I just thought it was cool that I could provide for my kid in a way no one else could (of course the BEST part was seeing a dear friend's face when she opened the freezer looking for something). Never do I judge the mother who chooses not to breast feed. I read somewhere once that "breast is best but formula isn't poison." Absolutely true. Besides, some women discover that breast feeding isn't an option for them due to physical limitations or sickness, and what message would that send if I sneered at them and said something caddy like, "But wouldn't you want the best for your child?" (Yes someone actually said that to me once.) This just launches into my son's current diet. Should his meals properly represent the entire food pyramid? Probably. Do they always? Nope. Do I feel guilty about his? Puh-leeze. I promise my son gets what he needs even if it isn't organic. He's pretty good about eating anything we put in front of him (except pork-he always asks for "real" meat when we try to feed him pork), so I don't worry about much else.

Kids get dirty. One of the first mottos I adopted after the birth of my son was "everything's washable...even me." To expect a kid to stay clean is like expecting a baby not to cry. It will only lead to insanity. I once watched a mother clean her kid's hands after every bite the little girl took while eating. Wow. Is that child ever going to be allowed outside to play? If I'm not scrubbing dirt off my kid at the end of the day, then I'm doing something wrong. Kids need to explore the world around them. Including the messy stuff. As for germ regulation, I never really was too concerned mostly because I figured a tougher immune system wouldn't hurt. I was right. My kid only gets sick once a year.

Be grateful for a healthy, happy child. There are some moms who seem to WANT something to be wrong with their child. They actually look for symptoms and get angry when no one else finds anything there. Why can't we just be content with our children? In actuality there should probably be a delay of some sort in my son because he was so premature; however, I fight very hard to keep people from knowing about his early entrance into the world because I don't want it to become a crutch. I've taught kids with legitimate needs, and my son does not have any special circumstances. It would embarrass me greatly if he tried to blame irresponsibility or a poor choice on the 11 week "developmental delay" he supposedly had the first year and a half of his life.

There isn't one right way to parent a child. I don't believe in reading books on parenting because they just make me mad. All I've seen them do is turn perfectly normal people into complete parenting lunatics. These expert books just create paranoia about meeting milestones and second guessing decisions regarding the kid's best interest. Who needs that? I keep one book. It is the American Academy of Pediatrics resource guide for kids birth to five years. I like it because if I have a question, I just look up the age range of my son and what should be going on with him. It usually goes something like this: "Your kid should be doing blah-dee-blah, but he's probably doing this-that-the other. He's fine." Since it is put together by the AAP, I know I can trust these experts and I never feel like a parenting fail after I read it.

I'm sure there is a ton more I could say especially since I am a working mom (another great sin according to some). It all comes down to the fact my son is loving, friendly, happy, and entertaining. As long as this is true, I know I'm going in the right direction with this parenting thing. I've thoroughly enjoyed these first three years and await the adventures two bright boys will bring.

The Not-So-Hunger Games

First-The Hunger Games is a fine movie. It isn't the disaster that Twilight is, and it wasn't horribly made. It is nice knowing that Suzanne Collins helped with the screenplay. This post isn't going to totally blast it out of the water, so if you are insisting that it was the best movie you've ever seen, just hear me out before you shoot an arrow through this post.

Being a high school English teacher means I've read the books multiple times and love them. However, I like to think I have realistic expectations when books are transferred to film. Therefore, I approached the movie theater with cautious excitement. I also had the benefit of seeing this film with my husband who has yet to (and probably won't) read the books. That brought an interesting perspective that actually reinforced my own.

The main issue with the film is that the movie makers assumed that everyone seeing it has read the books. I get that a majority of people have, but that doesn't mean it is a good idea to leave out significant character development or symbols.

Looking at character development first, I realize that there are quite a few characters throughout the book and eliminating some of them is necessary if the movie is to stay under five hours long. I can live with no Madge and barely glimpsing at the prep team. What I cannot live with is the lack of relationship development between Katniss and Rue and the underdevelopment of Haymitch. Like my husband said, "Why do I care that Rue dies?" I know why he should care because it broke my heart when I read it in the book. As a first time watcher though, it just seems like Katniss and Rue ate a quick meal together and then there's a riot in District 11? Hmmm...there's a gap there.

What did they do to Haymitch, glorious Haymitch? Although well played by Woody Harrelson, the depth of that character is revealed so much through his relationship with Katniss in the book but not in the movie. He may be her greatest antagonist, but they understand each other on a whole other level. I can't even put into words my disappointment in the non-relationship between Cinna and Katniss. I adore Cinna, but it's hard to feel that way about a character who shows up for three minutes in the film.

Then there's Peeta's stalker response of how he watched Katniss walk home every day. Uh, okay creeper. I LOVE PEETA! I fell for that boy the very first time I read the book (Gale is a child killing jerk). Peeta's innocent love that builds in the cave that Katniss has to pretend to reciprocate makes my heart ache when he realizes at the end that it is all a show for her. Not to mention that not having Katniss narrate this story leaves out all the conflict she truly feels about killing Peeta and then the betrayal when she sees him with the Career Tributes. These are the kind of details that make the story worth telling but are left out of the film.

Need I mention they completely neglect to explain the significance of the Mockingyjay?! How do you let that go Suzanne? 

 The cinematography is definitely something to note. The costuming and set design is phenomenal. Yet, I really wanted someone to invest in a damn tripod. I get the rough, hand-held camera bit at the cornucopia so that the violence feels more chaotic and you can't really see it happening. But to keep using that method while running through the woods or just standing still mostly gave me a headache.

In the end I decided the book is a quicker read than the first half of the film. And even though the movie started to pick up and get really good towards the end, the absence of a lot of detail and character development leaves The Hunger Games lacking. Will I own it? Probably. Will I see Catching Fire? Of course. No matter where the movie makers failed, one thing's for certain: Jennifer Lawrence is one hell of an actress!

Big Brother Isn't Interested, I Promise

My absence in posting is credited to a number of things. For starters, November through January had me in the first trimester of my second pregnancy. The exhaustion alone was a beat down not to mention the nausea and hormone insanity. Then there was my deep contemplation of the purpose in bothering to post on social media sites because my life isn't that fascinating and I know how irritating the "over-share" has become with regards to Facebook, Twitter, and some blogs. Finally, I had to determine if I actually had anything worth posting. There are far more entertaining bloggers out there (KHam and Grouchy Muffin being two of my favorites). Then a friend of mine on Facebook declared his desire to leave the site because of the useless postings made by thousands daily.

As it is many people, including my mother, refuse to embrace Facebook because they believe if I was truly interested in my "friends'" lives, I would pick up the phone and call. The reality is that life happens and most of the time I simply cannot spare the 10-15 minutes for the a phone call that could have the potential to become an hour long. I'd rather check in on my close friends' pages, and when we finally find time to meet up, we can take all the time we want to chat in person about the goings-on we've either posted about or have happened since the last time we met. 

All the things I love about Facebook are quickly being outweighed by the things I find the most annoying. For starters, I am determined to keep my friends under 300 which I still find to be a number too large to call them all "friends." Therefore, knowing some people have 1, 000+ friends is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard. There is no way one person has an interest in that many people. It is a shallow statement of how friendship is now regarded. (And an accelerated path to digital voyeurism that's been affectionately labeled "Facebook stalking.") Next is the information being shared by my friends that is beginning to become inappropriate.

Facebook isn't the place to unleash an uneducated/unresearched political opinion. Just because a video exists on YouTube doesn't mean it needs to also go viral on Facebook (think recent Kony2012 nonsense). Also, the annoyingly long posts proclaiming that if I love my husband/brother/son/mother/soldier/Christ I will repost are out of control. Really? Not reposting means I have no care or concern for these people? How absurd.

Then there is the disturbingly candid looks into the more intimate parts of peoples' lives. I was one of them. When I finally became pregnant with my son, William, I did it all. I posted the news to Facebook with a picture of my first sonogram containing my son's eerily alien-like profile. I am sure I even updated my condition during the pregnancy more than many of my "friends" deemed necessary. Even now, I see so many posts that expose those parts of life that really have no business being permanently (nothing EVER leaves cyberspace) shared like the amount or color of bodily fluids exiting someone's child while ill or a quick poll about the best type of birth control for a relationship or a person's own personal battle with unidentified body oddities (I itch just thinking about it). To me, there are just some things that I don't need to learn about while simply scrolling through daily posts. How is it these people are so comfortable about sharing such personal problems?

All of this is what led me to keeping my posts shut about my newest pregnancy. I am overjoyed that I am even able to get pregnant a second time, but this time I wanted to keep this to me. This is MY pregnancy. It doesn't belong to people who check in on me once a month. I also wanted to give Baby Ben some of his own privacy rather than upload his first "picture" like I had his brother. I actually did call/text/e-mail my family about the news and allowed that grapevine to circulate before really talking about it openly. I wanted this to be truly joyous news and not more noise in the Facebook over-share chaos.

I am hoping this is more the direction people choose to take with Facebook. I love seeing pictures of families (especially kids) growing and changing. I do enjoy witty posts from some of my more entertaining friends. I have also invested so much time into maintaining a Facebook that people CAN and WANT to check that I shudder at the thought of deleting it all. (Maybe I should give that Google+ thing a try?)