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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

How Do You Clean Your Ears?

It always seems that when I am tired, stressed or just plain overwhelmed, I long for a hug from my mom. These past few days have been like that. I still can’t really wrap my brain around her absence. It just doesn’t seem possible. 

But I don’t want to write about that. My goal for the time being is to turn my thoughts around and eliminate negativity. Not that missing my mom is negative, it just isn’t a good place for me to sit. I am trying to be positive. I am trying to have faith. I read the other day that faith takes practice. I am practicing, I am making progress.

I think I will write about my kids, they make me happy and they are always good for a perky story.
In our house, we don’t watch a lot of what we call regular television. We watch channels that show kid shows. For the most part if there isn’t something that they can learn, then we don’t watch. No Sponge Bob, no teenage love story shows and nothing with shooting. Mostly Nickjr and Disney Junior. I have noticed recently that one of these channels has started to show commercials. I like a good ad, but I really like not having them on in between Team Umizoomi and Bubble Guppies. I can’t say that I watch these shows, but they are on and I hear them. So, when a commercial comes on it stops me. Most of them are for kid related things, you know shoes that light up, games, movies and gimmicky kind of things.

Indulge me for a moment while I tell a side story. I promise it is related.

My daughter seems to have itchy ears. There isn’t anything wrong with them, they just seem to get a little dry and itch. Most people would scratch their ear and go on. Not my little girl. 

Let me pause here to add a disclaimer. I do not promote the insertion of cotton swabs into any orifice of any kind on any living thing. However, I am one of those who uses them to clean ears and occasionally to retrieve a stubborn booger from my child’s nose. Always with the statement that these are only to be touched by grownups, not kids. We do endorse the “nothing smaller than your elbow should be put into an ear” belief. At least as far as my kids go.

Back to my daughter’s itchy ears. Usually once a day she exclaims that her ears itch and she can’t scratch it. It frustrates her because as she says, “I can’t get my elbow to my ear to itch it.” If you will, just visualize a beautiful little four-year-old trying to make her elbow go into her ear. Yes, it is that cute. She has decided that when they do itch, they are dirty and I must get a swab and clean them out. I usually do and she is on her way.

Back to my original story, commercials. 

It was a normal morning, I can’t say what the kids were watching on tv, but I do know commercials were being run. This time, they weren’t kid commercials. 

My daughter is comical, but when she is serious, it is definitely time to listen. She has a way of explaining things that make you stop, watch and listen. She uses her hands to make her points and if you aren’t listening, she will let you know.

On this particular morning she came running into the room where I was and she had her serious look on her face. This is the gist of our conversation:

“Mom, we need to get that thing that was on tv.”

“What thing.”

“The WaxVac.”

“The what?!”

“The WaxVac. You put it in your ear and it cleans all of the dirt out so they won’t itch. It’s on the tv. Can we get it?”

Keep in mind that she was using hand gestures as she spoke. It was really too funny to comment on. We just stood there and laughed. 

It wasn’t long before we saw the commercial again. Sure enough, the Wax Vac sucks out the ear wax so you don’t have to jam a swab so far in that you puncture your eardrum. Look it up, that’s their bit. The commercial is really funny, but I am wondering why it is being played in between kid shows. Their right I guess. It does create some interesting conversations in our house. For example, my son now knows that Lysol will kill 99% of all germs, or something like that. They also believe slippers that move when you walk are genius and Barbie DVDs are cutting edge. I’m not complaining, I loved the commercials when I was a kid. For me it was K-tel, anything with a catchy ditty and the Budweiser commercials (the horses were so pretty). It’s a new generation and a new set of commercials. Oh change is hard.

I keep writing about my progress. I am proud of my progress. Today, I showed it to you. I started out kind of slow and on the verge of a tear or two and then I suddenly turned it around. 

I am making positive progress.

I miss my mom each and every second of every day. I don’t believe that will ever go away. I am learning what methods work for me so that I don’t let it take me over. 

I would like to thank my kids for keeping me in the real world. Amazing how they do it. I would also like to thank WaxVac. I won’t buy your product, too creepy, but it is things like this that remind me to not take life so seriously and to always find humor. 

On Monday I am asking everyone to ask one person for a dollar. Finding a million people is turning out to be a bigger challenge than I thought. So I am asking you to ask one person, two if you are adventurous, to give you a dollar to help fight pancreatic cancer. When you get that dollar, click on the link below and donate it. Just one dollar.


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