What would Judi do?

I learned an important lesson from one of my daughters today. "Sometimes my problems are MY problems." The setting: we were walking with a group of about 140 students for about a mile for a field trip.  The group consisted of 6th, 7th and 8th grade students.  My kids are in 6th grade and are slightly small in comparison to some of these kids. A and I were walking together when she pointed out a girl who had told her she would "beat you up and smash your head into a computer."  Nice.  I leaned over to my daughter and asked if this girl needed to be tripped.   "No, mom.  Sometimes my problems are MY problems." I guess she told me. It takes everything I have not to smack these kids who are mean to my kids and their friends simply because they're smaller, nerdier or because they like their teachers and like school.  I don't really want to hurt them.  But I do want the bullying to stop.  I want the nastiness to go away. But I can't make

Be quiet. That's not the first thing that came to my mind.  "Shut the fuck up" came to mind but "be quiet" sounds nicer.  This is going to be the new Judi mantra. One of my facebook friends posted the quote from the Buddhist Boot Camp site.  It struck me because I hear myself telling my kids "listen to your tone", "say something nice", "words hurt" often.  It doesn't stop.  I hear the nastiness all too often. I hear (and cause) too much nastiness in my life.  I yell at the dumbass drivers who feel the need to drive 40 mph on the beltway and the douchebags who seem to have forgotten how to use a turn signal.  I hear my kids yell at each other and talk snarkily about the mean girls at school. Enough is enough. So I will try to stop calling drivers dumbasses and douchebags (DAs and DBs in the code world of speaking in front of kids - which, for the record, doesn't work.  They figure out what you're saying.).  I wi

I've been to two large events recently.  Both affected me significantly, though in different ways.  The power of a large number of people is impressive. The first event was the Avon Walk for Cancer.  I walked last year and volunteered to crew this year.  They were very different experiences and I'm glad I did both (and might even do them both again).  I was struck during closing ceremonies that nearly 25000 people were gathered by the Washington Monument because of one shared sad common event that happened to them all.  Either they themselves or a family member or a friend had experienced the devastation that breast cancer brings.  For some it wasn't all bad.  Others were still obviously coping with it all.  But overall it was a very positive  event.  While I was cheering the walkers - several of whom were obviously still in treatment, others were survivors and others had different reasons for walking - the sadness was there but there were so many smiles, so many storie