Instagram: Making Me Doubt Myself on a Regular Basis

Posted in Life, Mommyhood by

Sometimes I think joining instagram was one if the worst things I could have done. Not because of the drama, I haven’t had that issue with it. But because of all the parents I have on my account. I’m not saying they are bad people or parents, quite the opposite actually. Many of them have a kid or two around Allys age and it seems like every time I login and see what some of my favorite people are up to, they are doing all sorts of creative things and their kid looks like a freaking genius. Which only makes me feel like a terrible mother because either we don’t do those things or Ally isn’t to that point yet, which would, again, be my fault.

I know everyone has different parenting styles and you are not supposed to compare you or your kid to others, but that is easier said than done. I see plenty of parents who do all organic and never let their kid eat junk food and here I am getting Ally a happy meal because she said she wanted fries and nuggets. I see their kids have a wide variety of things they will eat and I’m rotating around 5 meals every time we eat. Ally is picky, which she probably gets from me, so there we see again that I am at fault for her nutrition.

I see many parents try to limit their kids TV time and here me and Ally sit for a good chunk of the day watching movies and bouncing from Nick Jr to Disney Jr. I just feel like Ally is learning from things like Team Umizoomi and Dora. And she is, Ally knows a lot of shapes and even counted to eight in Spanish a couple weeks ago. But I feel like maybe I am also hindering her development somehow. I was an only child so kids confuse me sometimes. And I watched TV all the time as a kid, I still ended up on honor roll more times than not. I could have been in advanced classes had I not let boys get in the way. I just worry I’m not helping her learn to her fullest abilities.

I also see many of them have either already potty trained their kid or are currently working on it. We have not and I know we should have by now. The idea of potty training seems like a 3D jigsaw puzzle, entirely too hard. I see people making charts to help and can’t help but think “Ally won’t understand that chart, she will just want to play with the stickers.” Maybe I’m not giving her enough credit but like I said, I just feel like I’m not showing her the things she needs to know and when I see all these other parents showing their perfect children and their perfect lives, it makes me feel like crap.

I have considered the fact that they only show the good stuff going on in their lives to put on a facade of perfect health and learning, but it still doesn’t help me feel any better. I try not to spend too much time on instagram so that I don’t have to feel inferior, and sometimes I want to delete it entirely, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Too many memories and pictures I want to keep. I guess all I can do is keep trying to be the best mom I can be and not let others be the deciding factor in my mothering abilities.

The Fears of Having a Second Kid

Posted in Family, Life, Mommyhood by

So its been a while since I’ve last blogged and a few things have had me pretty busy. We moved from a rent house to an apartment to save money and then bam, I get pregnant. I’m not surprised though considering we were kind of trying. But anyways Ally is about to turn two this month and I’m four months along in my pregnancy.

I’m excited that we will be adding to our family, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. I’m terrified right now. Just so many worries. I am an only child from a divorced home, I’ve never know what it was like to have siblings or watch as my parents loved more than just me. I have this horrible fear that I won’t be able to love two children equally. When Ally came into my life I was shown a whole new kind of love and attachment, how can that happen more than once? Will I be biased and favor one child over the other? I don’t want that to be the case, at all. I’m worried Ally will feel left out or pushed aside with a new baby.

How can I do this? How do I know I will be able to be a good mom to two kids? How can I lead two children and raise them to be productive members of society? I’m just lucky that I have my husband to help me. He has siblings and is great with kids, we are total opposites that way. Without him, I would be lost. But even knowing he will be there, I am still scared. I need to be strong and I need to remember that I will fail from time to time and as long as I learn from my mistakes I should be fine. Its just hard. I know Mykal can handle the bills and will take care of us. I know he would be a better stay at home parent than I will be, I’m not afraid to admit that, ashamed? Yes. But I will admit it none the less. The things I do know isn’t an issue though. Its the things I don’t. Its the unknown, those are the things that keep me up at night.

But maybe getting some of those things out of my head will give me a little peace and allow me to get the sleep I need. I’m going to try and sleep right now. Wish me luck.

Good night.

Violence and Video Games: Scapegoatism

Posted in Uncategorized by

Reblogged from Krysti Pryde: X-Ray Vision:

  • Click to visit the original post

I usually stray away from blogging about sensitive content that may offend people. I would never want to offend any of you, and always try to keep my blogs fun, light, personal and informative. I decided tonight to make a slight change and blog about a relatively unpopular opinion. Now please, before I begin, let it be known I value and appreciate other people's opinions.

Read more… 853 more words

I don't think I could have said it any better myself. It's like she is echoing my thoughts exactly.

The Start of “Dear Alanna”

Posted in Dear Alanna by

Ever since I can remember, I’ve always had this tough outer shell, a barrier or wall, if you will, that I felt I needed to put up in order to protect myself. I’ve had a view on the type of person I thought I wanted to be. Strong and silent. No emotions or weaknesses. Unbreakable. But the truth is, I’m only human. I’m still just as fragile as anyone else. I bleed if I’m cut and I cry when I can’t handle my emotions anymore. It’s in our nature.

I’ve always thought that I needed to be some awesome vision of toughness. That when people would talk about me they’d say “wow, can you believe how strong Sam is? She never let’s anything phase her! She’s such a hardass, I wouldn’t want to mess with her.” Yup. That was who I wanted to be. And for a time, maybe that’s who I was. Since I can’t read minds, I guess I’ll never know.

But over the last year or so, things have changed. I got married and gave birth to a beautiful daughter, my little Alanna. My priorities shifted. I’ve come to realize that I don’t care what people think of me. The only people’s opinions that make a real difference in my life is that of my husband, Mykal and, when she can talk, Alanna.

Everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time, just like me, so why should I care what they would think? Some make more money than me, or maybe have a bigger house, maybe they have a big time degree and are quite possibly smarter than me as well. That’s the beauty of the world, we are all different. Someone will always be better off than you, then again, someone will always have it worse. You just have to put things in perspective.

I’ve been playing with this idea for a while now and I think I’ve to finally decided to start it. I’m going to be making a section (category, whatever) and call it Dear Alanna. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, a lot of things I wish I could redo, or simply do better, and I’m hoping that maybe by writing about these things, it might one day help Ally realize that although I am her mother, I’ve been through what she has. I never listened to my mom when she said she’d been there and done that. Most teens don’t, we all think we know the world better than our parents. It’s not until we become a parent with tons of responsibilities do we realize how wrong we really were and how much we had to learn. I was worried about putting my real and more personal thoughts down I a blog associated directly with me, but if I can’t own up to my own thoughts, feelings and mistakes, then what am I really teaching Ally?

I hope that when Alanna is old enough to read my thoughts, and truly understand them, that blogging will still be around, if not I’ll print off all the posts and turn it into a book. But who knows how fast the Internet can change, when I first started using it it was all about chat rooms and pixel avatars. Haha. Oh the good old days. Yes, I know I’m only 23, doesn’t mean I can’t use that phrase. ;)

I plan to post my first real Dear Alanna post this week, but with the holidays, I don’t know that I’ll get the chance.
Until next time!

Am I A Writer Now? No, Not Yet.

Posted in Gaming, Geekery by

So it seems that I haven’t posted in like two months. Holy crap! Sorry about that, I guess I’ve been busier than I thought. I’ve just started writing for The Married Gamers and it seems to be going well. I recently just reviewed Assassin’s Cree III: Liberation and I am pretty pleased with it. I hope that the more I continue to write, the better I will become. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a writer and I feel like this could be my chance, so any support from those who read my blog, would be much appreciated. <3 But I don’t want to call myself a writer just yet, writing a couple posts and saying “I’m a writer now” just feels wrong. That’s like taking a couple of cooking classes and then calling yourself a chef. It’ll take some time, but I truly hope to become a real writer someday.

My Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation Review

And here is just a link to all of my posts I’ve done on their site.

I’ll make a real blog post again very soon, but you can always find me on Twitter (@Pwncess074) to see me ramble about things. Thanks for reading.

Why, Batman? Why Do You Hate Me So?

Posted in Gaming, Geekery by

Why do you seem to hate me, Batman? Or is it you, Rocksteady, that dislikes me so? *cues tragedy music and rain whilst doing dramatic hand on forehead gesture* Ok, ok, so I can be a bit dramatic. But when you think you’re almost going to finish something that you’ve invested many many hours in, and then discover that it’s impossible and you’ll have to start again, you would be too.

Batman Arkham City Promo Scene

I’m a huge fan of Batman Arkham Asylum, and thought Rocksteady did an amazing job with it. And when they announced Batman Arkham City, I swooned and my heart raced with excitement. I wondered how they could top such an awesome game. And when it released, I was thrilled that they somehow managed to do so. I spent many hours on my first run through just enjoying it all, soaking in the scenery and the delivering some satisfying brutal justice to criminals. I had stopped playing back in May, all I had left to do was to find the Riddler and beat him (which was very anti-climactic by the way). Or so I thought. Continue reading →

I Found My Way Back to the Interwebz!

Posted in Family, Gaming, Geekery, Life, Mommyhood by

It’s been about a month since I last blogged. A lot has been going on that I just haven’t found the time to sit and blog, not to mention that when Ally sees the laptop out she runs right over and starts pushing as many buttons as possible haha. So basically if she is awake, then no laptop. I started a part-time job around the time I posted my last post, and since then I’ve been trying to put in some extra hours. Those credit cards aren’t going to pay themselves, though that would be great if they did. A good friend that I’ve known since elementary school got me in at his job, which goes to prove, once again, that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Lucky for me I know a lot of people. Because I know you are dying to know where I work, I’ll just say that I work in a senior living home in dining services. Which has its ups and downs, but that’s a post for another day, today I’m just playing catch up.

Continue reading →

Opinions, Not For The Easily Offended *Updated

Posted in Geekery, Gaming by

I swear it seems like the interwebz has been in an uproar a bit too often as of late. I think it must be the lack of new games coming out right now (FIX IT YOU GAME DEVS). Anyway, todays drama is about an article posted on CNN by Joe Peacock called Booth Babes Need Not Apply. His post is basically about fake geek girls who attend conventions for attention and how it is hurting the community as a whole. I personally really liked his article and except for one or two sentences, found it to match my feelings perfectly. I highly recommend reading it so that you’ll understand the rest of this post. Now I will try to be as elaborate as possible about my feelings toward this topic, cause I’ve seen what it can do to you if you aren’t.

When I saw Joe’s article come up in my Twitter feed, I decided to give it look-see, and I was pleasantly surprised when I did. His post reminded me of the one I posted a few months back about fake gamer girls. Sure mine was about gamer girls and his is about geeky girls, but the basic idea is the same, we hate fakers. Well it seems a bunch of people got super offended by his post,

Continue reading →

Photoshop Is Fun

Posted in Geekery, Life by

Today I have spent all day playing on Photoshop. I had a friend who wanted me to change up a logo for him, and even though I’m not very good at Photoshop, I told him I’d give it a try anyway. I could use the practice. So I sent him a final draft of it, and then I found a few more tips and tricks to make it look even better, to me anyway haha. He may not like it as much, but either way I am very proud of my work. So I figured I might try to update my blog logo as well, I wasn’t feeling all that great about the one I made last week. The layout was what I wanted, but the final product felt like it was missing something. So this is my new logo, and I am pretty fond of it right now. Let me know what you think.

I have a few things on my mind that I am really needing to write, hopefully I will get a chance tomorrow. Have a great Friday and enjoy The Dark Knight Rises if you plan on seeing it. I know I plan to. :)