Lydia of House Croupe, The First of Her Name, The Semi-Burnt, Queen of Her House, Khaleesi of a Very Small Part of East Dallas, Maker of Beds and Mother of Boys

But it can burn the crap out of one's ankles.

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for their kind words and concern. I think part of helping me through all the feelings was sharing it on social media. Crazy right? What an odd world to live in. 

I decided this was a story worth telling. Let's go all the way back to yesterday at 2:00 PM* four hours before fire time.

The boys and I were running errands to Home Depot. Currently, we are remodeling the kitchen and needed to purchase a few things. One of these things was a new set of fire detectors. It turns out that right next to the detectors are fire extinguishers for the house. Truth time: I have never had a fire extinguisher in my house before. I am sure there is a law out there I was breaking, and I have a cousin who would be mortified to know this. However, I thought it was kinda overkill. I mean, c'mon! When is the last time I had a fire in my kitchen?! I have only ever lived in electrical homes. I thought fires only happened if your kitchen was gas. For some reason, I thought, "I am about to have a new kitchen. I don't want it to burn down!" The problem was that there are more options than I thought there would be for fire extinguishers. 

The solution was to message my AWESOME brother-in-law because he is a firefighter. He asked me a question or two. It turns out all of these pictured are fine. I decided to go with the red ones because fire extinguishers should be red right? Besides they came in a two pack.

4:50 PM, 1 hour and 10 minutes before fire time, I took the boys to Tae Kwon Do. On Tuesdays, they go for two classes 5-7 PM, and Chris picks them up on his way home.

5:00 PM, 1 hour before fire time, I took a nap.

Shortly before 6 PM, I wandered to the grill to turn it on and get it ready to start dinner. I have done this enough times before. I opened the tank, and then ignited the grill. This time it seemed to take a bit for the flames to get going. I thought that was odd, but then they slowly appeared starting from the left side of the grill. By the time the right one was supposed to come on, it made a moderate poof and slightly more moderate flame burst forth. This is what initially singed my hairline. I blamed myself and checked to make sure I didn't have any of the knobs up too high. That was clearly what the problem had to be.

Because I'm a vane creature, I thought I would pop into the bathroom and see how bad the hair damage was while the grill warmed up. That's when it happened.

1. It was no where near that cool! 
2. Being that close to an explosion, even the small one from a propane tank is TERRIFYING. 
3. All those ladies would not be that calm once they smelled the back of their hair frying to a crisp. That is something you don't forget, and they are definitely close enough to those huge flames for one of their heads to ignite.

Initially, I screamed and dropped my phone. I remember just saying "Oh my God! Oh my God!" over and over as I turned around and saw flames on top of the propane tank. I knew I had to turn the grill off but couldn't get close enough. At this point, I still was unaware of just how hard the blast had hit me. I DID remember the fire extinguishers purchased only hours before. I ran and grabbed one. 

I put the flames out and turned off the grill. Then I stepped back to take a breath. A little proud of myself that I had kept pretty cool during the whole thing (pun intended), I went back inside the house to call the hubs. I just wanted to let him know what happened and why dinner would not be ready when he got home.

I know you are probably wondering why calling my husband and not the fire department was the first thing on my mind. Well, I had put the fire out. I thought I was fine. I had yet to feel the biting sting from the burns on my ankles/heels or see my skirt burnt up. Unfortunately, once the adrenaline goes and the event actually hits you, it hits you pretty hard. The moment Chris answered the phone I completely lost it. I was crying so hard. You know the kind where you snot and heave and blubber. He couldn't understand me at all. The more I tried to talk to him, the more I realized I should have called 911. What if I didn't turn everything off properly? What if there was another explosion on the way? Panic started to set in pretty well at that point. 

After hanging up with my hubs, I did call 911. Of course, I didn't want to waste resources or anyone's time, so I prefaced it with "I'm not sure this is an emergency but..." That poor operator. She was so patient trying to understand me. She said she thought it was a good idea to send someone out even though the fire was no more. I'm glad she did. The firefighters made sure the tank was completely off and said it looked like my lines had a leak which caused the explosion. They took a quick look at my ankles/heels and decided I was right. It was just like a really bad sunburn. I would be fine. I got a reassuring hug and thanked them.

I get just how blessed I was. I prayed so many thanks to God because it could have been a lot worse. My kids could have been outside playing when it happened if they'd been home. The first poof could have burned my face. The main explosion could have knocked me out, and it would have been a while before anyone found me. My burns could have been deeper and scarier. The outside patio could have caught fire. So many things! 

Once I had collected myself and thanked God, I needed to find a way to tell this story. Many of you saw the pic and sent your well wishes. It does make me feel better😊.  

Things I am taking away from this:

• Always check your tank and lines if you have a gas grill.
• Keep more than one fire extinguisher handy around your house.
• If you have a mini-explosion (poof), shut it all off!
• Call 911 first even if you think you got it under control. 

I'm sure I will muster up the courage to grill again someday. For now, I will stick to the microwave until our kitchen is finished. 

*I thought it was the morning, but after checking my phone messages it turns out it was the afternoon.

'Cause We Are Living in a Digital World and I am a Digital Girl

Parenting doesn't come with a manual. Sure, there are a TON of books trying to tell you what is the "right" way to parent. Many of them full on contradict each other.

No matter what method a person chooses, parenting is hard. Like really, really, really hard. What is even harder than hard is having to figure out how to parent a child who has never known a world without a smartphone.

Before anyone raises their luddite pitchforks and lights their analog torches, this will not be a post about the evils of technology. If you know what I do for a living, you know that I actually support digital learning and how to help kids understand exactly what they are being handed when it comes to devices.

This post is to share some ways that I have decided to help my sons exist in a connected world. These ideas may not be what your family needs, and I completely respect that. Just keep in mind that technology isn't going anywhere, and if you are not teaching your children about these devices, someone else will. 

Let's start with the access being handed to my kids every time they pick up their iPad or grab my phone. I could be handing them the whole wide world. All of it. Good and Bad. If I left it at that, it would be similar to me handing car keys to them and saying, "Good luck!" We train kids on functioning in life, why aren't we also training them to function digitally?

No parent is alone in this. Even better, we are almost TWO DECADES into the 21st century. Society has had a while to start figuring it out. A great place to start is simply monitoring and filtering devices as necessary. My 7-year-old does have an iPad that I have connected through Family Sharing with Apple. The only apps on there are the ones I allow. I can even set time limits for him to be in certain apps. On top of that, I only let him spend so much time on the iPad before making him do something else.

We got my 10-year-old a smartphone this year. Trust me when I say it can do two things: call me or message me. I have that thing so locked down. (If he didn't have to ride a bus to school, he wouldn't even have it. Ha ha ha.) I have Sprint Safe & Found installed, so the moment he turns it on I get an alert. Like when he snuck it to Perot Camp last week.

Sometimes I see parents afraid to be this involved in monitoring their children's devices. I'm not sure why. I am pretty positive the parents are paying the bill. I'm not advocating a 24/7 scroll through a kid's business, but I also believe sometimes for their own safety I need to get a scrollin'. You know? 

Anyway, back to the phone at camp. The moment my son turned it on, my watch pinged as I was walking back to my car. It took everything in me not to turn around and march back into the museum to rip him a new one for the deceit. Then I stopped. As angry as I was, I knew embarrassing him was not the way to go. Don't get me wrong. That boy is still grounded from his Switch, but I realized there was more to this. I asked him why he felt he had to take it. He told me that all the other kids were watching Harry Potter related videos on YouTube (Wizarding World was the theme of the camp), and he wanted to watch them on his phone. 

How innocent right? My kid is still 10. He doesn't know what kind of horrors could be lying in wait out there? I mean, all he usually does is watch Minecraft videos. He is in a world where a room full of 5th and 6th graders means a room full of smartphones. Even though the legal age for kids to be on social media is 13*,  I don't want to just throw him at Snapchat on his 13th birthday just like I don't plan to throw him in a car at 16 and hope for the best. Instead we made a deal. For the past week and a half, I have done mini-lessons and watched videos with him. The lessons focus on his online presence, and the videos are about using Instagram positively. Once he completed the lessons, I promised to open a MONITORED Instagram account for him. When he turns 13, it will become 100% his. I have three years to guide him when it comes to being online.  

How did I do it?

MAGIC OF COURSE!

Just kidding. There are so many tools out there. Common Sense Media has an entire section for families including ways to teach your kids how to be online. Their curriculum is so strong that many school districts actually use it.

I went with Google's Be Internet Awesome. I actually have the educator's edition, but they do have one made for families. There are scenarios/lessons that they have gamified to help kids navigate the internet. I decided to pair it with a favorite book of mine, a fantastic read that actually impacted my own social media presence, Light, Bright, and Polite by Josh Ochs. His website (SmartSocial) is also full of resources for families growing internet savvy kids. 

My son was so proud of the certificate he received for completion of Be Internet Awesome. As promised, I opened him an Instagram account. We walked through settings and some basic ways to post. As a matter of fact, you are welcome to follow him. I cannot promise the most engaging content, he is still learning after all. You will need to be approved, and he and I discussed what to do if we cannot recognize a user requesting permission to follow him. 

@will.croupe

Now the day will come when he makes a mistake. He is human. He is about to enter pre-teendom. I cannot shield him from it. I will say that I would rather be here to guide him through the learning experience.

I cannot promise anyone this is the best way to do any of this. It could epically fail. In the end, I will take this risk in hopes that my son comes out better for it.

*Yes, that is true. If your kid is younger than that and on those apps without your permission they are breaking the law.

Death of a Kitchen

After 14 years in our house, we are finally getting a new kitchen! It couldn't have come at a better time either. It is like our kitchen knew it was time to go. To be fair, it probably should have gone shortly after we moved in. If you knew us when we bought the house and saw the kitchen, you know exactly what I mean. I really blame the improperly cut, mustard yellow laminate counter tops. What could possibly match that? Nothing. That's what. However, that didn't stop the previous home owner from painting the walls mint green and all the cabinets white with doo doo brown paint to make it look like wood. Yeah, it was bad y'all. That's okay. I was watching A LOT of Trading Spaces (remember that one) at the time and knew I could make our kitchen look amazing in only two days!

I was wrong.

It took longer than two days. We ended up hiring some guys. Really, I just kinda made a bad situation less bad. (My most excellent grandma made me some valances to help.) It was livable, so we lived with it for 14 years.

Then last year I just couldn't take it any more. It was either a new kitchen or a new house. Guess which one is cheaper?

Like I said, the kitchen knew.

I'd like to say it understood, but I think a small part of it was hurt that it wasn't good enough any more. It quite literally fell apart. It started with the cabinet doors.
Then the oven stopped heating all the way as it separated itself from the wall.

The final revolt was when the refrigerator quit on us three days before the remodel began. That's right. That fridge wasn't going to hold out a few more weeks. No sir. It heard it was getting replaced and gave us the big, middle finger.

Currently, we are two weeks in. I only had one anxiety attack while shopping for appliances. Our interior designer only had to redo everything once to keep her sister from needing a padded room. Cabinets have been the hardest to nail down (pun intended). We received five bids. The lowest was $6000, and the highest bid came in at $35, 000. Huh?! Yeah, we have learned a lot already. 

By the end of the July, I will either have a fabulous summer bash to show off the kitchen or be heavily medicated to deal with the fact we are still without a kitchen. Either way I promise to check back in with progress.

For reference, here is was it started as: