oh. my. word.

I fumed.  I cried.  I laughed.  I learned.  All today...being a Mommy is funny like that. 

Some weird coincidences have been happening.

My daughter's best friend happens to be my best friend's daughter.  My best friend mentioned the other day that her daughter hasn't had a chance to email my daughter back.  Bella participates on an online community with stuffed animals called Webkinz and she emails her friends (she/we knows all of them in real life) back and forth.  We monitor her time on the kid's computer that's in her room and it has a filter and is password protected.

I have a facebook account and randomly get invites from people I don't know. Being the people pleaser I am and wanting to insure I don't avoid a long lost friend if I am unsure of who it is I'll send them a quick email to inquire on their identity.

Two things happened.  First a picture less facebook user showed up in my friends suggestion list with my daughter's name on it.  I investigated.  I find several people with that name and the picture less user has no identifying info, so I forget it.  Then another facebook user, again picture less asks to be my friend who conveniently has my first name and my sister's last name.  Hmmm, email sent...who are you?  They reply saying they went to my high school.  Annoyed that it was probably a joke from someone I know, I ignore it and decline the request.

This morning when I logged into Blogger I noticed a new follower. (I did not get all excited, because that doesn't matter to me...no, not me.)  Only to find the new follower is someone who happens to have the same name as my daughter.  I am of course so annoyed that someone is messing with me.  I click on the user to see who they are following.  Umm, just so happens said person is following my sister-in-law and another local home schooler's blog.  Really, this is not happening.

Long story short, after a bit of lying...yes LYING she, as in MY daughter admitted to having an email account and that she used it to open a FACEBOOK ACCOUNT and a BLOGGER account.

Ya'll SHE was the person emailing me saying that she went to my high school!

She created a pretty cute blog and had ALREADY posted a blog post!

Say what?

So, then I start looking at her email account and she has emailed several accounts with her name as the email address'.  This child...when it was all said and done...had created SEVEN email accounts, THREE Facebook accounts and ONE blogger account.

Let's just say she is grounded from all things media and digital for the rest of her life an undetermined amount of time.

Before I get reamed, I have already played the blame game.  We have gone to the trouble of securing her computer, that I never imagined she would sneak and use mine!  I also want to explain on behalf of my friend, that we had discussed opening the kiddos an account to work on their typing skills, spelling, letter writing, etc. so she just assumed I was aware.

Sadly, while it was a very frustrating situation I found myself wondering if I should be angry or impressed.  I was floored that she knew that much about the computer to do all that!  In the end it was a sobering moment as a Mommy to remember that I can't protect them from everything.  I am so THANKFUL that she didn't share any personal information.  Please let this serve as a lesson that we all need to be oh so careful with our kiddos, especially when dealing with the internet.

Now, if you'll excuse me Calgon is calling my name.  Tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day!