Building Character...One embarrassing moment at a time

I'm a firm believer in teaching my children how to laugh at themselves.  Although Beelay would totally disagree, I don't go out of  my way to embarrass them.  Even though they often make it sooooo easy, I do sometimes let the opportunity pass without bringing attention to their sporadic lack of common sense.  However, when a Kodak Moment happens...I just can't help myself.  Obviously, one is more cooperative than the other when it comes to snapping a picture of their dumb dumb moments.  She's also the one that has mastered laughing at herself...or maybe she just happens to find herself in tighter situations and can't run away from the camera.  Slou LOVES to be silly and make other people laugh, but only if it's on purpose.  Otherwise, she's much happier laughing at her sister than at herself...but we're not giving up on her yet.

It's also my opinion that sports/athletics and other extracurricular activities build character.  Actually I think my exact words this weekend were "Losing builds character...".  I try to keep both of my kids active.  Even though it gets EXPENSIVE and it runs me ragged...in the end I hope I'm right in thinking that it's all gonna pay off.  Winning builds confidence and losing builds character.  That saying about idle hands being the Devil's play things or an idle mind is the Devil's playground...or however it goes is TRUE!!!  I found plenty of trouble when I was growing up...because I wasn't all that active.  My goal is to keep them active and out of trouble.  Wish me luck and maybe say a little prayer every now and then that we all survive the emotional and hormonal HELL that we're headed towards.

I'm always trying to think of  new ways to build character in my children.  Some of my other theories include making them earn things, saying no sometimes (just to remind them that I can).  Compliment a job well-done, encourage them to do the same (to each other and others).  Admit when they're wrong.  Stick up for themselves and others.  Recognize their own mistakes and others...and learn from them.  The list could go on and on...but in general, I just try to set a good example.

UPDATE:
I left out the part where I'm an embarrassing stalker mom too.  The #1 rule when I agreed to let Beelay have a Facebook, was she had to be "friends" with me and I had to have her password.  I of course had the best intentions of logging on and checking her FB daily, but in all honesty I forgot her password a long time ago.  I do still FB stalk her and her friends on the regular though.  I also follow them on Instagram.  I want them to know that I can see everything they post, so maybe they'll think twice about posting things they shouldn't.  I want to know what is going on with my kids.  Up until very recently there have never really been any secrets between us...until I realized Facebook is no longer the place to be if you're a cool kid (my 13 year old).  I noticed that she was rarely posting things on Facebook anymore and it dawned on me...like the whole light bulb thing going off and bells ringing in my ears!!  She's on TWITTER!!!  Apparently the rule about asking permission about social networking sites flew out the window shortly after giving her mom kisses became "uncool".  So me being the HORRIBLY EMBARRASSING mom that I am, I joined Twitter.  I always swore that I'd never tweet...seriously, I have a hard enough time coming up with original material for my Facebook and my blog.  I don't need the Twitter pressure too!!  But a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.

I read through her tweets.  Surprisingly there weren't that many.  But there were some that didn't exactly make me proud to call her my daughter.  They were just silly middle school drama tweets, but they had that "mean girl" air to them.  The next day we were all spending our quality family time in the den...me on the love seat playing on my phone, Slou laying on the couch watching an episode of "Shake it up" and Beelay laying in the floor playing on her iTouch.  I can't even describe the emotion in her voice when she said "When did you join Twitter?".  It was somewhere between "maybe she's dumb and hasn't actually figured out how to read my tweets" and "OH SHIT!!!"  I just answered her calmly with "last night".  

She then sweetly told me she just blocked me.  You can use your imagination on my reaction to that one...but to put it nicely, she unblocked me in order to keep her Twitter account.  But  her main argument was that Twitter was where she vented and said what she wanted and sometimes cussed.  HA!!!  My response: "My point EXACTLY!!  You're 13 and don't need to be sometimes cussing on ANY form of social networking site.  Anybody can see the things you post and they will often come back to bite you in the butt."

Her first tweet after realizing I was following her: That awkward moment when you find out your mom has twitter and has been stalking you. #leavemealone #annoying

I don't understand how this is surprise to her.  I've always been very consistent in my stalking.  It's what I do.  It's what every mom should do.  The more involved and aware you are of your kids and their friends, the more likely they'll make good decisions when it comes to who they're friends with and what they're broadcasting for the world to see.


And the downside to her having to be "friends" with me on Facebook, she saw this post.  Her comment was "Mom, really those pictures???"  Guess blogging can go down as yet another thing I do to embarrass my children.  She told me this morning on the way to school that she really doesn't appreciate me writing about her and I told her that she needed to get over it because writing about her was how I kept from killing her :)