Snarf, snarf, pitooey...Yo! Miss Manners...what's up?
What you'll find in The Romantic Mom.com
Well, as the Romantic Mom, you must've suspected this subject HAD to be lurking around somewhere, didn't ya? Here it is!
How to have fun with the kiddos without wreaking havoc on all those who don't happen to think my precious, little, sweet darlings are as sweet and darling as I do!
This can be pulled off, believe me. It takes a little perseverance, repetition, and practice--more for some than others--but it CAN be accomplished. I see your skeptical glances and smirks.
Okay, I can see this ain't workin'. Let's just get the professional out here, where's Miss Manners? We need Miss Manners front and center, please.
(See how polite that was? They don't call me Romantic Mom for nothin'!)
Understanding manners-Politeness-Good habits
Does anyone EVER get this stuff right? If you have never heard or read of “Miss Manners,” you're in for a treat for you have greatly missed out on some very profitable and, I might add, highly amusing information and ubiquitous advice. She does a far superior job of approaching this area of civility than I could ever hope to and does so with such wit and finesse. She has this enviable way of slapping your wrist without you ever knowing that you've been slapped. A very admirable trait, I should say!
I have her book (at least three inches thick) entitled Miss Manner’s Guide to Excrutiatingly Correct Behavior and if you don’t have it, I strongly suggest you lay your hands on a copy as soon as you’re able. If nothing else, she's really hysterical. You still don't believe me. Alright, so I'm easily amused and am a sucker for dripping sarcasm--I admit it! I should've been English. I adore their witty witticisms. By the way, Miss Manners is NOT from England, she hails from the states. You can breathe a bit easier now--but not too much. She still cracks a mean whip, I'm tellin' ya! She puts up with NO nonsense. Although I certainly couldn't adhere to all her advice if I practiced for the rest of my life 16 hours a day, but I do think she hits the proverbial nail on the head in many of the arcane areas of societal civility.
The rubber meets the road--or--the tea cup meets the saucer!
Miss Manners has just arrived, poised, polished, tea cup in hand, and hanky "somewhere on her person"--prepared to take on the most daunting causes of social civil disobedience. So let's just cut to the chase. Since our culture has currently digressed to the point of "Gross and Garish Rules," I just want to know how in the world I'm supposed to deal with all this....display....and onslaught to my children's quick and ready response to it.
Good manners, politeness, graciousness, consideration toward others, and the establishment of overall good habits in truthfulness, obedience, attentiveness, diligence, self-discipline, and self-control will go a long way in establishing a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere in the home and for pleasurable and enjoyable experiences outside of it.
So, look out, we're rollin' up the sleeves and gettin' tough on rude, crude, and socially unacceptable here. We're pullin' out all the tea bags and goin' loose leaf--with a strainer--with a vengeance--so just BE PREPARED!
Table Manners
Since it's going into summer now (at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere), the time for picnics with super-oowey--gooey barbeque chicken and corn-on-the-cob slathered with butter and ice cream cones dripping down our arms, let's just see what Miss Manners deems as proper picnic-y etiquette.
Picnic Table Manners
One reason that picnics are popular is that many people believe that the rules of table behavior do not apply to tables made out of moss or worse. So here comes Miss Manners, like a queen bee on a rare royal tour, anxious to spoil your pleasant little outing by telling you that they do, too.It is true that some rules for eating outdoors are different from those that apply indoors. For example, it is permissible to execute extraneous wildlife found crawling across the picnic table, while any such creature making an appearance at a private, indoor dinner table must be ignored by the guests. At picnics, one may kill ants, but not complain of their presence. Accepting discomfort cheerfully is the basic rule of picnic behavior. If one is unalterably opposed to being bitten, sunburnt, and having sand mixed with one's food, one should not go picnicking [which romantic moms with romantic children and romantic hubbies would never CONSIDER doing]. The exception is that a small child drowning in a creek may call out to the adults at the picnic table, even if it means interrupting their conversation.
Nevertheless, it is important not to introduce the discomforts of civilization into a picnic to compete with nature's own discomforts. Radios, plastic forks and knives, paper plates and napkins, and tin cans are among the abominations that one has no right to bring to the countryside [uh-oh--where's she goin' with this?] The well-supplied picnic basket must include implements with which food may be served and eaten in dignity, and no one can eat decently from a paper plate with a plastic fork, since when the side of the latter is applied to the center of the former, they both buckle, with disastrous results. [And I thought I was verbose! Oh! and she's SO logical, too!]
To Be Continued
My kiddo's version of a Breakfast Picnic
Basic Civilization
Notice that the base word in 'civilization' is 'civil' so we'll just begin with the basics. This will represent a growing collection of down-in-the-trenches advice on how we can put the civil back into civilization and I'm greatly counting on you to help me out in this ignoble endeavor! Any and all reports from the trenches will hereby be notarized and framed on museum-quality paper--ready for exhibition and entomb-ment (which is very serious--just don't ask what it means--'cause I'm not exactly sure myself).