I am posting this in the wee hours of Charlotte's 5th birthday, from the beach, our annual trip with my dad. This is our second year on the road for her special day. Basically she's going to start expecting a trip every year for her birthday, and I will have very wide eyes (and say no) (but secretly want to say yes).
She was really excited to claim a top bunk when we got here today, something she quickly named as her birthday right (she didn't get a top bunk at GWL for Nathan's birthday, and has been talking about it ever since). But some hours after bedtime she got scared up high, appeared for several "bathroom breaks," one of which ended in tears and fears -- so we did a bed shuffle and now she is sound asleep beside me, my sweet baby girl who wants to be a big girl but clearly still isn't, in so many ways.
Oh, my heart.
So while I am busy having difficulty comprehending the passing of time, and also that my child is five, my youngest baby, and thinking about how much a youngest baby growing up just wreaks havok on the mom feels -- as I'm thinking about all that, I am also just now remembering I intended to make a cake tonight, and whoops! Got distracted by ice cream and the Olympics and totally forgot. It's nothing that I can't do in the morning, of course -- our "party" plans for the day are very vague, because, yknow, vacation -- but it just goes to show that while youngest kids can pull extra at your heartstrings, they also get a teensy bit forgotten. POOR THIRD CHILD, ETC.
But she is indeed five, and she will have cake, and the cake will be wearing sunglasses, I think? I hope? and she does squeeze my heart, this little Booler. She is growing up right before our eyes; most days it feels like the perfect balance of happy/sad.
Some of my favorites from the last year:
If you can't see the embeded video, click here to watch on YouTube.
(If you love memory lane like I do, here are her first, second, third, and fourth years too.)
Oh sweet little girl, I both ache for your diminishing babyness, and love the race into your big-kid-ness. I love you more than you can ever know. Keep dancing, every time you feel a dance in you. This year and always.
Happy birthday, dear Charlotte.
Showing posts with label mommying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mommying. Show all posts
Monday, August 8, 2016
Monday, October 5, 2015
Responsibility. How Do I Teach This? No Really.
Okay so, question:
How do you teach a kid to care about something they... don't care about? That's to say, how do you make a kid be responsible?
Because here's the thing: if we make them be responsible for a thing, then, by definition, they are not responsible for the thing. Because we made them. Which is the opposite of them being responsible for it.
Y'all, we are in a Season with Nathan. He is so bright, and so compliant, and also his head is in the clouds right now. He's just careless, on almost all fronts. His teachers have made a big deal about them taking personal responsibility for homework, no hand holding, no reminders, and are working on teaching them how to use a study agenda. All of these thing make my little planny heart just sing. Yesssss teach them to do it. Yes! YES!
But.
He isn't doing it. He forgets his homework packets, then forgets his agenda, then forgets to turn in his homework packets, then forgets to get new ones, which days to take carpool home instead of the bus, then forgets his glasses, then rushes through a math test and fails it, then loses his homework folder (and agenda).
And when we ask about it and follow up and say (ad nauseum) YOU are responsible for getting it done, it is no one's job to give it to you or ask to make sure you got it, it is YOUR job to find out what you need AND to get it. YOUR JOB he is just... full of excuses. He asked but no one answered. He asked but someone said look at the board, but the info wasn't on the board.
I just. WHAT IS GOING ON.
I am going to pull my hair out. The words we are saying (not our job! your job!) are not sinking in, or if they are, they aren't enough to make him care.
How do I raise a kid to know that there is not going to be a personal invitation for him to do what he is supposed to be doing?
So in the early weeks of this, when we told him he needed to do all his homework for the week (do it and turn it in and get his new packet) in order to earn screen time for the weekend, he sneaked behind our backs when we had a sitter and played a computer game anyway.
And then lied about it.
Oh my god, there were tears.
And yes, we have worked through various consequences and rewards and such, trying to balance the notion that he has to earn privileges, with also avoiding him digging himself into such a behavior/reward deficit he can never climb out, and so just gives up.
He just... doesn't care. I am tired of caring more than he does. He is perfectly responsible and totally on it when it comes to stuff he cares about, but apparently right now homework isn't one of those things. He only cares when he feels in trouble. (Or, if he's reminded, he's perfectly happy to do it.) But I don't know how to move from that "on fire" moment of him wanting to smooth our displeasure, to him caring about it when no one is managing it for him, besides just... letting him crash and burn.
Which we did. He still does not care. (Failed a math test. Barely noticed.)
I feel super powerless about it, which I am. And I should be. It's his thing. But it's so important to me to convince him, somehow, of why he should care and feel responsible for things that are assigned to him. It's hugely important in life. And isn't this our job as his parents? And so, I feel like I am failing him right now.
My dad's advice on these things is always: just wait it out. Almost everything is a phase. Almost everything passes.
So I am trying to tell myself he is barely out of the first month of school, it's an adjustment, he will figure it out and begin to shoulder this stuff on his own, if I keep backing away and let him. Even if it means watching him stumble a few more times before he gets it.
How do I balance assuring him that I will always be here when he falls, with also being clear I'm not going to swoop in and prevent the fall from happening?
I am going to read this book everyone recommends, (which sure sounds like it espouses everything I think I believe about the kind of parenting I want to do), and cry some frustrated tear at both Nathan and myself.
Parenting: I'm always a little bit in over my head, yknow? *sigh*
How do you teach a kid to care about something they... don't care about? That's to say, how do you make a kid be responsible?
Because here's the thing: if we make them be responsible for a thing, then, by definition, they are not responsible for the thing. Because we made them. Which is the opposite of them being responsible for it.
Y'all, we are in a Season with Nathan. He is so bright, and so compliant, and also his head is in the clouds right now. He's just careless, on almost all fronts. His teachers have made a big deal about them taking personal responsibility for homework, no hand holding, no reminders, and are working on teaching them how to use a study agenda. All of these thing make my little planny heart just sing. Yesssss teach them to do it. Yes! YES!
But.
He isn't doing it. He forgets his homework packets, then forgets his agenda, then forgets to turn in his homework packets, then forgets to get new ones, which days to take carpool home instead of the bus, then forgets his glasses, then rushes through a math test and fails it, then loses his homework folder (and agenda).
And when we ask about it and follow up and say (ad nauseum) YOU are responsible for getting it done, it is no one's job to give it to you or ask to make sure you got it, it is YOUR job to find out what you need AND to get it. YOUR JOB he is just... full of excuses. He asked but no one answered. He asked but someone said look at the board, but the info wasn't on the board.
I just. WHAT IS GOING ON.
I am going to pull my hair out. The words we are saying (not our job! your job!) are not sinking in, or if they are, they aren't enough to make him care.
How do I raise a kid to know that there is not going to be a personal invitation for him to do what he is supposed to be doing?
So in the early weeks of this, when we told him he needed to do all his homework for the week (do it and turn it in and get his new packet) in order to earn screen time for the weekend, he sneaked behind our backs when we had a sitter and played a computer game anyway.
And then lied about it.
Oh my god, there were tears.
And yes, we have worked through various consequences and rewards and such, trying to balance the notion that he has to earn privileges, with also avoiding him digging himself into such a behavior/reward deficit he can never climb out, and so just gives up.
He just... doesn't care. I am tired of caring more than he does. He is perfectly responsible and totally on it when it comes to stuff he cares about, but apparently right now homework isn't one of those things. He only cares when he feels in trouble. (Or, if he's reminded, he's perfectly happy to do it.) But I don't know how to move from that "on fire" moment of him wanting to smooth our displeasure, to him caring about it when no one is managing it for him, besides just... letting him crash and burn.
Which we did. He still does not care. (Failed a math test. Barely noticed.)
I feel super powerless about it, which I am. And I should be. It's his thing. But it's so important to me to convince him, somehow, of why he should care and feel responsible for things that are assigned to him. It's hugely important in life. And isn't this our job as his parents? And so, I feel like I am failing him right now.
My dad's advice on these things is always: just wait it out. Almost everything is a phase. Almost everything passes.
So I am trying to tell myself he is barely out of the first month of school, it's an adjustment, he will figure it out and begin to shoulder this stuff on his own, if I keep backing away and let him. Even if it means watching him stumble a few more times before he gets it.
How do I balance assuring him that I will always be here when he falls, with also being clear I'm not going to swoop in and prevent the fall from happening?
I am going to read this book everyone recommends, (which sure sounds like it espouses everything I think I believe about the kind of parenting I want to do), and cry some frustrated tear at both Nathan and myself.
Parenting: I'm always a little bit in over my head, yknow? *sigh*
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Churchy Firsts
Charlotte sang in choir for preschool chapel for the first time last week. After years of watching Nathan and Anneliese do it, it was finally her turn.
You would think by the third child, I would be hardened to the sweetness, and just smile and go along my way, because it's normal and we have done it a million times. But you would be wrong. I cried. I cry every time. It's just that sweet to me.
(She barely even sang, though, honestly. Classic.)
The weekend before that, she came and sat in the chancel with me on Sunday morning for the first time. On weeks when Mark works, it's sort of a delicate juggle of how I can sit in the choir and sing, and also make sure all the kids are okay in the service. We are trying a few things to figure out what will work best, but last week this is just a thing we tried.
She was super sweet and excited about it, and although I'm not sure will do it very often just yet, I was so glad to have her with me. Like an odd little milestone for our kids. It squeezed my heart a bit, I will admit it.
See? Sappy.
You would think by the third child, I would be hardened to the sweetness, and just smile and go along my way, because it's normal and we have done it a million times. But you would be wrong. I cried. I cry every time. It's just that sweet to me.
(She barely even sang, though, honestly. Classic.)
The weekend before that, she came and sat in the chancel with me on Sunday morning for the first time. On weeks when Mark works, it's sort of a delicate juggle of how I can sit in the choir and sing, and also make sure all the kids are okay in the service. We are trying a few things to figure out what will work best, but last week this is just a thing we tried.
She was super sweet and excited about it, and although I'm not sure will do it very often just yet, I was so glad to have her with me. Like an odd little milestone for our kids. It squeezed my heart a bit, I will admit it.
See? Sappy.
Monday, August 24, 2015
First Day of School!
Welp, the big kids are off to school. Nathan is in third grade, and Anneliese is in kindergarten, and I am... verklempt.
Look at them! They are such big kids! How did this happen?? I feel like I even had an "extra" year at home with Anneliese, because she's so much older for her school year than the others. And still, it wasn't enough. I miss her.
My heart is squeezed very tight, and my thoughts are across town in her little classroom, and my memories are full of this whole first era of her childhood that's... over. Yes, she is still a child, yes, I will see her all the time, etc etc etc I KNOW. But it really is the end of an era, and that always comes with feelings. Feeeeeeelings. Capital F. You know.
When she was born is when I officially stopped working and became a stay-at-home parent, and now we are entering a season where I will start work again, in some capacity, and there is still so much unknown and unplanned but it really just feels like an era is ending.
Anyway! Brisk clap! Look at this sweet picture of the two of them three years ago, on Nathan's first day of kindergarten and Anneliese's first day of preschool. They are the same! Yet so grown up! Yet still my babies!
OH MAH GAH Y'ALL. My heart.
Brb I need to hug my last baby at home and cry weepy mom tears and wait for the bus.
(The bus came. It was the best part of Anneliese's day, she said. After all those years of waving to Nathan, she finally got to ride with him.)
Anyway so yeah. School is back. All the other moms can throw a party but I'm not there yet. Someone send me a hug and a cookie please kthx.
Look at them! They are such big kids! How did this happen?? I feel like I even had an "extra" year at home with Anneliese, because she's so much older for her school year than the others. And still, it wasn't enough. I miss her.
My heart is squeezed very tight, and my thoughts are across town in her little classroom, and my memories are full of this whole first era of her childhood that's... over. Yes, she is still a child, yes, I will see her all the time, etc etc etc I KNOW. But it really is the end of an era, and that always comes with feelings. Feeeeeeelings. Capital F. You know.
When she was born is when I officially stopped working and became a stay-at-home parent, and now we are entering a season where I will start work again, in some capacity, and there is still so much unknown and unplanned but it really just feels like an era is ending.
Anyway! Brisk clap! Look at this sweet picture of the two of them three years ago, on Nathan's first day of kindergarten and Anneliese's first day of preschool. They are the same! Yet so grown up! Yet still my babies!
 |
| 2012 and 2015 |
OH MAH GAH Y'ALL. My heart.
Brb I need to hug my last baby at home and cry weepy mom tears and wait for the bus.
(The bus came. It was the best part of Anneliese's day, she said. After all those years of waving to Nathan, she finally got to ride with him.)
Anyway so yeah. School is back. All the other moms can throw a party but I'm not there yet. Someone send me a hug and a cookie please kthx.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Mean Mommy, Blah
I'm having one of those bad mom mornings where the kids are up too early and I haven't slept more than a few hours a night in five nights, and the bickering is too much, and when someone cries because they need me, it makes me feel angry instead of compassionate.
One of those mornings where parenting looks ugly on me.
I'm so tired.
And nothing about this season is particularly tiring (aside from bad sleep, everything (except the bickering) has been fine all summer, and fine this weekend in particular. AND YET. Mean mommy is out, in full force. I am so irritated and so done. I was done by 7:30 this morning, to be honest.
By the time I had chased each child to their room (where they stayed) (unheard of) and closed my own door to listen to a podcast for an hour, and then delivered Nathan to his day camp (the drive was in total silence, there and back, the kids didn't even ask for anything from the drive through when I stopped for a sweet tea) (!) I realized... I have fully scared them into submission today.
Y'all, that doesn't feel good. It sucks. I know it's okay to have mornings where we are hurt and frustrated at each other, but damn, compliance earned by fear of my anger just feels hard and gross. It's not the first time it's happened, but it's still a gut check every time.
There's no conclusion or happy ending takeaway here, other than maybe to name and own that it's not always sunshine and roses and making the best of the chaos. Some people are good at that, or at least good at telling people that, but I'm not always.
I'm crabby at them and mad at myself and BLAH. Some days are just hard.
Unrelated to anything, other than BLAH in general: Nathan banged his head really hard on a door frame last night and it was a pretty giant goose egg pretty quickly. He's fine this morning (the most fine of everyone here actually) but it sure looks painful, doesn't it?
Send us all some virtual forehead kisses today? We need them.
One of those mornings where parenting looks ugly on me.
I'm so tired.
And nothing about this season is particularly tiring (aside from bad sleep, everything (except the bickering) has been fine all summer, and fine this weekend in particular. AND YET. Mean mommy is out, in full force. I am so irritated and so done. I was done by 7:30 this morning, to be honest.
By the time I had chased each child to their room (where they stayed) (unheard of) and closed my own door to listen to a podcast for an hour, and then delivered Nathan to his day camp (the drive was in total silence, there and back, the kids didn't even ask for anything from the drive through when I stopped for a sweet tea) (!) I realized... I have fully scared them into submission today.
Charlotte dug something out of her hamper so she could wear my favorite color.
Nathan packed all the healthiest things into his lunch box for camp and didn't even ask for a brownie (I would have said yes, for the record).
Anneliese has been holding Hattie close and walking around quiet as a church mouse.
Y'all, that doesn't feel good. It sucks. I know it's okay to have mornings where we are hurt and frustrated at each other, but damn, compliance earned by fear of my anger just feels hard and gross. It's not the first time it's happened, but it's still a gut check every time.
There's no conclusion or happy ending takeaway here, other than maybe to name and own that it's not always sunshine and roses and making the best of the chaos. Some people are good at that, or at least good at telling people that, but I'm not always.
I'm crabby at them and mad at myself and BLAH. Some days are just hard.
Unrelated to anything, other than BLAH in general: Nathan banged his head really hard on a door frame last night and it was a pretty giant goose egg pretty quickly. He's fine this morning (the most fine of everyone here actually) but it sure looks painful, doesn't it?
Send us all some virtual forehead kisses today? We need them.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Nathan at Almost 8
Happy July 22nd! It's Nathan's due date! Again! (No, I have not let go of due dates yet. Hush.)
I am full of feelings today, like every year, remembering eight years ago in the final days of being pregnant, before I was officially a mom. This year for the first time, it feels far away, a long time ago, a previous lifetime. Even just last year I would have said it felt like just yesterday, and now in some ways it does, but mostly it feels now like... a memory.
Pregnancy and babies seem far from my life now, suddenly. It's good and bad. Post for another day. Anyway! *brisk clap*
Sweet Nathan will be eight years old this weekend, y'all. EIGHT.
At almost eight he is still into ships, and dinosaurs, and reading anything non-fiction unless I pull teeth to talk him into a novel. Actually, speaking of teeth, he still hasn't lost any since waaaay last May, over a year ago, and one the Christmas before that. I suspect this time next year he will have a mouth full of holes, or maybe even a mouth full of grownup teeth, so this might be the last of his birthday pictures where he looks like a... little kid. *sob*
He is indeed still little; he actually hasn't gotten any taller since last year, and only one pound heavier, which hopefully doesn't mean anything other than 1- he has Mark's tiny tween genes for being the class shrimp, and 2- he is due for a growth spurt any moment now. He is strong though, and can run fast for a long time, and swim for hours, so his skinny little ribs must have some muscle around them.
He is still a tiny pedant, holding people to their time estimates down to the minute, and correcting anything he perceives as a mistake (I sent him a weather channel video of the biggest ship in the world, and was informed that the biggest ship in the world is actually in a different class and company, and *sigh*) (we are working on politeness). We have no idea where he got that know-it-all gene I MEAN REALLY NO IDEA.
He takes himself and others very seriously, but he also has a playful side when he wants to be silly (and then suddenly acts much younger than his age). He is starting to ask to be into The Things of Older Kids - movies he hears about from friends, and video games, and such. We had one painfully awkward but necessary conversation about birds and bees and the ways life is made, after he learned some wrong things on the playground. (Already!) (I KNOW.) (Recording here for posterity's sake: his notion of all of this came thirdhand via friends about Jack and Rose in the engine room on the Titanic YES REALLY.)
Some days it feels like we are on the brink of a new world, one I am in no rush to get to, yet one I know we can't and shouldn't keep him from.
He is a hard worker and gladly does chores and homework and helps his sisters. He remains one of the most generally compliant kids I have ever known. He loves one on one attention and outings, and is crabby when he feels unseen, and would get lost in internet videos about minecraft, and ship histories, and drawing classes, for hours if we'd let him.
He the moodiest person in our house and also probably the kindest. He is cautious and needs to observe things before he tries them, but once he tries something he keeps pushing until he can do it well; he is driven. He tells funny jokes and horrible ones, is ever better at the cello and ever more tone deaf when he sings, and he writes beautifully.
He is a tiny hoarder of all things sentimental: scraps of paper and drawings and postcards and things other people would consider trash are worth keeping, for him. They get pinned to his bulletin board or stuck in boxes and notebooks, or folded and taped and made into new creations, meshed together with legos and stuffed animals for some world he has dreamed up and decided to build. He is an introvert in the truest sense of the definition: only talks about things important to him, not good at surface level conversation, wants and needs lots of time alone to play and re-charge, and will play happily in his room for long windows of time before emerging to show us what he's been building or working on.
He is a night owl like me, and to wind down in the evenings we usually lie in my bed to read by ourselves together. He is also somehow an early riser, motivated more by the promise of having the house to himself, quiet for breakfast and his favorite youtube channels, than by extra sleep. (He is nothing like me in that way.)
He likes yogurt and candy and hot chocolate and coffee and cheese and crackers and oatmeal and mashed potatoes with gravy. He loves snuggling. He adores his sisters. He texts people the most precious and lovely parts of his heart, things he could or would never say out loud.
He is a wonderful little human, and it's an honor to be his mom, the one who made me a mom, almost eight years ago. Amazing.
I am full of feelings today, like every year, remembering eight years ago in the final days of being pregnant, before I was officially a mom. This year for the first time, it feels far away, a long time ago, a previous lifetime. Even just last year I would have said it felt like just yesterday, and now in some ways it does, but mostly it feels now like... a memory.
Pregnancy and babies seem far from my life now, suddenly. It's good and bad. Post for another day. Anyway! *brisk clap*
Sweet Nathan will be eight years old this weekend, y'all. EIGHT.
At almost eight he is still into ships, and dinosaurs, and reading anything non-fiction unless I pull teeth to talk him into a novel. Actually, speaking of teeth, he still hasn't lost any since waaaay last May, over a year ago, and one the Christmas before that. I suspect this time next year he will have a mouth full of holes, or maybe even a mouth full of grownup teeth, so this might be the last of his birthday pictures where he looks like a... little kid. *sob*
He is indeed still little; he actually hasn't gotten any taller since last year, and only one pound heavier, which hopefully doesn't mean anything other than 1- he has Mark's tiny tween genes for being the class shrimp, and 2- he is due for a growth spurt any moment now. He is strong though, and can run fast for a long time, and swim for hours, so his skinny little ribs must have some muscle around them.
He is still a tiny pedant, holding people to their time estimates down to the minute, and correcting anything he perceives as a mistake (I sent him a weather channel video of the biggest ship in the world, and was informed that the biggest ship in the world is actually in a different class and company, and *sigh*) (we are working on politeness). We have no idea where he got that know-it-all gene I MEAN REALLY NO IDEA.
He takes himself and others very seriously, but he also has a playful side when he wants to be silly (and then suddenly acts much younger than his age). He is starting to ask to be into The Things of Older Kids - movies he hears about from friends, and video games, and such. We had one painfully awkward but necessary conversation about birds and bees and the ways life is made, after he learned some wrong things on the playground. (Already!) (I KNOW.) (Recording here for posterity's sake: his notion of all of this came thirdhand via friends about Jack and Rose in the engine room on the Titanic YES REALLY.)
Some days it feels like we are on the brink of a new world, one I am in no rush to get to, yet one I know we can't and shouldn't keep him from.
He is a hard worker and gladly does chores and homework and helps his sisters. He remains one of the most generally compliant kids I have ever known. He loves one on one attention and outings, and is crabby when he feels unseen, and would get lost in internet videos about minecraft, and ship histories, and drawing classes, for hours if we'd let him.
He the moodiest person in our house and also probably the kindest. He is cautious and needs to observe things before he tries them, but once he tries something he keeps pushing until he can do it well; he is driven. He tells funny jokes and horrible ones, is ever better at the cello and ever more tone deaf when he sings, and he writes beautifully.
He is a tiny hoarder of all things sentimental: scraps of paper and drawings and postcards and things other people would consider trash are worth keeping, for him. They get pinned to his bulletin board or stuck in boxes and notebooks, or folded and taped and made into new creations, meshed together with legos and stuffed animals for some world he has dreamed up and decided to build. He is an introvert in the truest sense of the definition: only talks about things important to him, not good at surface level conversation, wants and needs lots of time alone to play and re-charge, and will play happily in his room for long windows of time before emerging to show us what he's been building or working on.
He is a night owl like me, and to wind down in the evenings we usually lie in my bed to read by ourselves together. He is also somehow an early riser, motivated more by the promise of having the house to himself, quiet for breakfast and his favorite youtube channels, than by extra sleep. (He is nothing like me in that way.)
He likes yogurt and candy and hot chocolate and coffee and cheese and crackers and oatmeal and mashed potatoes with gravy. He loves snuggling. He adores his sisters. He texts people the most precious and lovely parts of his heart, things he could or would never say out loud.
He is a wonderful little human, and it's an honor to be his mom, the one who made me a mom, almost eight years ago. Amazing.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Allowance (And a Shopping Day!)
I feel like there is an ongoing discussion about allowance and kids - how old, how much, how to connect it (or not) to chores and/or behavior. We are about a year into our allowance system in our house, so -- here's what we do.
Both big kids (not Charlotte yet, since she can't count) get an allowance. They get $5 a week, of which they are expected to:
-- give 10% (church offering plate or the like)
-- save 10% (in a piggy bank, for bigger purchases which will involve a Together Decision with parents -- although neither of them has crossed this bridge yet)
-- and the rest is theirs to do with as they please
Based on the twitter chatter, this is more than lots of kids their age get, but part of the reason (the hugest part actually) that we wanted to give them an allowance was so that they could stop asking us for things, and learn that a finite amount of money means they make the choices about what they want to buy. And $5 is enough that they can actually get something they want. Which means they don't have to whine at me. So, this amount works for us.
(I will say, for both of them, in the first weeks of getting an allowance, they were both drunk on their riches and would wander around looking for something to buy -- just to buy something, anything -- which drove Mark and me nuts. But they grew out of that within a month or two, and it's better now. I know some grownups would do the same with a sudden influx of cash so I tried not to scowl too much, assuming it's a normal part of some money learning process.)
Okay so they each have a wallet and a piggy bank, and they divvy up their $5 every week into the proper pouches/pockets/places for each designation (we give part of it to them in coins to make this divvying easier) and when we are out and about, they buy their own things.
Exceptions: when we (adults) suggest an outing, we pay. We also pay for presents for friends' birthdays, and give them an extra budget at the holidays to choose gifts. And of course, we buy all of what we consider "needs" (clothes, school supplies, activities/equipment). Anything else they want, they can pay for. This system has all but evaporated the whining in Target.
Also, their allowance isn't tied at all to their chores or their behavior. We didn't want to send the message that, A: they "get paid" for doing chores, or B: that doing chores or behaving properly is somehow optional, with a consequence of less/no allowance. No, they behave because they need to behave. And they do chores because they're part of this family. And (I guess) (I hope) they will always need to be part of a household that will require work/upkeep/contribution, and they will never get paid for that, so no we aren't starting that mindset now. I don't know that there is a right or wrong answer about this, plenty of kids get paid for chores or rewards or grades or whatever, and it seems to work fine. This way just made more sense for Mark and me and our family.
Anyway, that's how we do allowance.
I should also say that with the upside kids making their own purchase decisions also comes the downside of... kids making their own purchase decisions. It means ugly things will come live in your house.
Exhibit A: meet Flower. She is a sequined rainbow cat purse, and she was the longing of Anneliese's little rainbow sequined heart. So she saved her money up and now we own this monstrocity and she loves it and I hate it and I have had to make peace with it.
(No, she does not keep money in there. She keeps a mint tin with the Seattle space needle on it, now empty of mints but housing one pressed penny, also with the space needle on it. She should do a "what's in your purse" blog post, yes?)
Another of Anneliese's dreams was to take a trip to a mall with just mommy, where we could go into Claire's (the magical land she had heard about from her friends) and also look in any store she wanted, for as long as she wanted, and hey! that's a dream I can relate to!
So she saved her allowance for many weeks and we went with a full wallet and she spent every dollar and walked away happy. She got a stash of accessories at Claire's, including this ridiculous headband that she proceeded to wear all through one mall, and a lunch date, and then a second mall, without feeling silly or self-conscious in the least (I love her).
She also got a little bundle of wooden carved roses sprayed with piña colada scent, which is a kiosk I would have never in a million years walked up to, but she loves them and letting her wander where her heart calls is sort of fun.
She also got that buttefly necklace which came with a matching ring, and in the process of showing it to me to take a picture, she full on flipped me the bird while grinning, and I will not post that picture here, but will happily email or text it to anyone who would be delighted by that kind of thing.
I mean, she certainly delights me. Rainbows and fake flowers and bird flipping and all.
Both big kids (not Charlotte yet, since she can't count) get an allowance. They get $5 a week, of which they are expected to:
-- give 10% (church offering plate or the like)
-- save 10% (in a piggy bank, for bigger purchases which will involve a Together Decision with parents -- although neither of them has crossed this bridge yet)
-- and the rest is theirs to do with as they please
Based on the twitter chatter, this is more than lots of kids their age get, but part of the reason (the hugest part actually) that we wanted to give them an allowance was so that they could stop asking us for things, and learn that a finite amount of money means they make the choices about what they want to buy. And $5 is enough that they can actually get something they want. Which means they don't have to whine at me. So, this amount works for us.
(I will say, for both of them, in the first weeks of getting an allowance, they were both drunk on their riches and would wander around looking for something to buy -- just to buy something, anything -- which drove Mark and me nuts. But they grew out of that within a month or two, and it's better now. I know some grownups would do the same with a sudden influx of cash so I tried not to scowl too much, assuming it's a normal part of some money learning process.)
Okay so they each have a wallet and a piggy bank, and they divvy up their $5 every week into the proper pouches/pockets/places for each designation (we give part of it to them in coins to make this divvying easier) and when we are out and about, they buy their own things.
Exceptions: when we (adults) suggest an outing, we pay. We also pay for presents for friends' birthdays, and give them an extra budget at the holidays to choose gifts. And of course, we buy all of what we consider "needs" (clothes, school supplies, activities/equipment). Anything else they want, they can pay for. This system has all but evaporated the whining in Target.
Also, their allowance isn't tied at all to their chores or their behavior. We didn't want to send the message that, A: they "get paid" for doing chores, or B: that doing chores or behaving properly is somehow optional, with a consequence of less/no allowance. No, they behave because they need to behave. And they do chores because they're part of this family. And (I guess) (I hope) they will always need to be part of a household that will require work/upkeep/contribution, and they will never get paid for that, so no we aren't starting that mindset now. I don't know that there is a right or wrong answer about this, plenty of kids get paid for chores or rewards or grades or whatever, and it seems to work fine. This way just made more sense for Mark and me and our family.
Anyway, that's how we do allowance.
I should also say that with the upside kids making their own purchase decisions also comes the downside of... kids making their own purchase decisions. It means ugly things will come live in your house.
Exhibit A: meet Flower. She is a sequined rainbow cat purse, and she was the longing of Anneliese's little rainbow sequined heart. So she saved her money up and now we own this monstrocity and she loves it and I hate it and I have had to make peace with it.
(No, she does not keep money in there. She keeps a mint tin with the Seattle space needle on it, now empty of mints but housing one pressed penny, also with the space needle on it. She should do a "what's in your purse" blog post, yes?)
 |
| Mark spent a lot of time hand-lettering that cat nametag, can you tell? |
Another of Anneliese's dreams was to take a trip to a mall with just mommy, where we could go into Claire's (the magical land she had heard about from her friends) and also look in any store she wanted, for as long as she wanted, and hey! that's a dream I can relate to!
So she saved her allowance for many weeks and we went with a full wallet and she spent every dollar and walked away happy. She got a stash of accessories at Claire's, including this ridiculous headband that she proceeded to wear all through one mall, and a lunch date, and then a second mall, without feeling silly or self-conscious in the least (I love her).
She also got a little bundle of wooden carved roses sprayed with piña colada scent, which is a kiosk I would have never in a million years walked up to, but she loves them and letting her wander where her heart calls is sort of fun.
She also got that buttefly necklace which came with a matching ring, and in the process of showing it to me to take a picture, she full on flipped me the bird while grinning, and I will not post that picture here, but will happily email or text it to anyone who would be delighted by that kind of thing.
I mean, she certainly delights me. Rainbows and fake flowers and bird flipping and all.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
A Day in the Life
Remember a year ago when everyone was posting a day in their lives, and it was fun and interesting to read and see how we all spend our days, but I was too full of Feelings and Exhaustion that I didn't have the bandwidth to take pics all day, much less write about it?
Okay, so, I am doing it now. Because the Ali thing is ending in a few weeks, and I have gotten through a whole year of juggling four kids, and for no other reason than my own memories, I want to remember what it was like. (On an average day.) (Not a terrible day.) (The terrible days I would like to forget.)
This is a Tuesday a couple weeks ago:
6:49am - My alarm goes off. I am still sleeping (about half of the days, I'm not, the kids are up or whatever) so I hit snooze four times before actually putting my feet on the floor. Mark is already at work, which is mind-boggling. (Normally we all sleep right through his wakeup and shower and exit, but some mornings Charlotte hears him leave and pitches a fit if he doesn't wave to her in her window. A FIT. Today is not one of those days. *hallelujah hands*)
7:00am - The kids are eating breakfast; they have yogurt on the bottom shelf of the fridge, and waffles on the bottom shelf of the freezer, and instant oatmeal in their pantry shelf. They mostly fend for themselves, although Nathan helps some with Charlotte. I can hear them and they are fine, so I keep hitting snooze.
7:20am - I finally roll out of bed, let Bowden out, and get dressed and washed and brushed. I always brush my teeth first thing (I have a complex where if I am going to run out of time to fully get ready before Nick or Barbara walks in with Ali, I think it's worse to have morning breath than not have on proper pants or a bra), which I know is ridiculous because I will have coffee in mere minutes and who brushes their teeth right before coffee? Me, stupidly, but whatever.
7:35am - I make my (first) coffee and sort through my list for the day. I made today's list last night, scheduling from my "to do this week" list that I made Sunday night (which is gleaned from my "this month" or "next month" lists that are rolled over and re-sorted every week). My list has everything I will do all day, including drinking this very coffee, and my next. Plus additional things that will crop up and I will do, and then write down and cross off.
Listen, because this is important: I am not sorry for even one bit of this list-begets-list process. I get sh!t done, and this is how.
7:50am - Ali gets dropped off. My kids are finishing breakfast and I herd them into the bonus room and put the gate up so all four can play.
7:51am - Every day said playing begins with dumping all the foam blocks from their bag onto Ali's head and yelling "soft block shower!" Every. Day. The blocks will then remain scattered all over the floor for the whole rest of the day, barely played with, until the painful cleanup hour before bedtime. I scowl at the soft block shower. It is no longer cute to me.
7:55am - I sort all of the laundry in our room into piles. Tuesday is laundry day for our stuff (Monday is for the kids, Wednesday is for the towels and sheets and kitchen cloths/napkins).
7:57am - At some point Nathan wanders into my room and checks his school meal menu and the weather, so he knows what to wear. (It's NC in May. Wear shorts. You don't need to look it up, buddy.) He also tells me what today's weather will be like in Holden Beach, Montreat, and Northfield MN. Like every day, I don't have the heart to tell him I give none craps. I smile and say mmm hmm.
8:00am - I start the first load of laundry and then go pack lunches. Today it's just for Anneliese and Nathan (who has determined that whatever was on his school menu didn't sound great). Nathan makes the sandwiches and fills the water bottles and I do the rest. He sneaks pieces of candy into both lunch boxes and I pretend not to notice. I write notes to both kids and sneak them into both lunch boxes and he pretends not to notice.
8:10am - All three girls have been bickering in the bonus room. Someone has pulled someone else's hair, someone colored on someone else's page, Ali has a crayon in her mouth. Normal stuff. I ignore it til lunches are done, and then break it up and send my girls upstairs to get dressed, which for some reason they aren't yet.
8:20am - I do some really excellent lazy parenting from my desk chair, nagging the bigs to brush their teeth, asking Anneliese to find her brush, telling Charlotte that no, "brushing" her hair with her hand doesn't count, and reminding people that no, I don't know where your shoes are, because you are in charge of your own crap. I text a little bit with Mark to say good morning and stuff, and he asks how I slept, which is always a Question, since I fail at sleep, frequently.
8:35am - I check the baby gate and lock the doors and leave Ali and Charlotte playing in the bonus room while Nathan and Anneliese get their lunch boxes/backpacks/cello and we walk to the bus stop at the end of our block. They make bets on whose ride will come first - Nathan's bus, or our friend who gives Anneliese a ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays since she is driving by anyway.
8:45 - 9:15am - I walk back to the house, switch the laundry, and do the louder things on my list (dishwasher, dishes) before I change Ali and make her a bottle and put her down for a nap. Some days this is my gym time, but today Ali's mood can't make it another hour, and I know I will need a block of time to get groceries later anyway, so the gym isn't happening (it's really hard to to both gym and groceries in one morning, with her nap).
9:30am - Ali is napping, and I go in between supervising Charlotte doing dot art painting on the porch, and working through my list. Today that means replying to a few emails, scheduling a playdate, rescheduling a dentist appointment, making a grocery list, hunting down a high-ish resolution image to download and mirror image and print onto iron transfer paper for a t-shirt for a costume for Anneliese next week, firming lunch plans with a friend with a new baby tomorrow, tying ribbons around chocolate bars for teacher appreciation, lots of glamorous trophy wife things, you know.
10:30am - Another Nathan calls with his daily good morning on the way to work, and we chat for what I always think is five minutes but is actually ten.
10:45am - I have my second coffee of the day, this time with toast. Also with twitter and instagram and whatever fun sales might be in my inbox.
11:00am - Ali is awake and chatting in the crib, so I switch the laundry again and make her a snack-to-go, and then get her up and throw both girls in the car.
11:15am - Grocery shopping. Easy enough, with just Ali and Charlotte. (Which is why I do it on Tuesdays.)
12:15pm - I come home and buckle Ali into the high chair and she eats lunch (today Nick and Barbara sent black beans, sweet potatoes, a sandwich, and some cheese; this is more food than Charlotte will eat in the whole day but Ali gobbles it all), safely contained while I unload the groceries. Charlotte is also sitting at the table but instead of eating, she is crying, because obviously. (?? No idea.)
12:45pm - All the groceries are put away and the inside of my fridge looks like the dairy section at the store (we buy about thirty yogurts a week, and five or six gallons of milk), and I check all the packaging for box tops for Nathan's school (when they bring in enough, they can get extra library books!) and then Charlotte takes the rest to the recycling bin. She does it without complaining or whining HA HA HA NO sorry y'all I can't. Nope. She is a pill about it.
12:50pm* - Back in the car to go to church and get Anneliese. I fight for parking, send a few cussy texts about it, and then find a spot finally. I parallel park LIKE A BOSS.
(If I were a superhero, my power would be parallel parking. No, making good lists. No, parallel parking. I would save people from villains and crime in tight parking situations like preschool pickup, where no other hero dares attempt.)
*1:00pm - that 12:50 up there is a lie, it's always 1:00. Anneliese's class is always one that runs on the late side, and I just can't ever get out the door any sooner. It's 1, every time.
1:01pm - I leave the car and a/c running with the girls in it (ALERT THE AUTHORITIES) (no, don't, it's mere feet from the door, not even a parking lot to contend with since we park on the street, and it's legit safer to leave them there than unbuckle into traffic, so shut it), and grab Anneliese. She asks for skittles from the preschool office, which is an option every day, but I am mean and we only do it on Wednesdays. Which means I always have to answer a question about what day it is. Even though she knows full well what day it is. Answering questions that don't need to be answered! Many times on repeat! Parenting!
1:15pm - I bring a bag of books to the public library to return, and pick up a few new holds. It's slightly embarrassing how often we go do this. Like, several times a week. I also drive through for a fountain drink diet coke to have later with my lunch. Sometimes you just need a fountain drink diet coke and nothing else will do.
1:30pm - We are back home, I switch the laundry (it never ends), Anneliese unloads her lunch box pieces into the dishwasher (new parents: IT GETS BETTER), and the girls play outside. Ali is juuuust on the verge of walking, so she toddles a bit holding onto my fingers and watching the big girls swing and sing. (Swinging and singing go together at our house. It's hard to do the former without the latter.)
2:00pm - I give Ali another bottle, change another diaper, and the girls all go down for naps. Only Ali sleeps. Some days they all need naps, and some days I need both big kids to stay awake, and some days it's just too nice to chase them inside, but today they are all going upstairs. Charlotte and Anneliese can play in each other's rooms (they are joined by a jack & jill closet) as long as they stay upstairs and don't wake the baby.
2:05 - Charlotte wanders downstairs to poop, because she went pee before alone time but forgot to poop. This happens every day. I always remind her before she goes upstairs. It never works. I sigh.
2:15pm - I eat my favorite lunch on the back porch, this salad of perfection from trader joes (I am not even a kale person! kale is dumb! but this salad is everything -- sweet and spicy and crunchy and perfect. I love it more every time I have it. It almost tastes like candy to me, and yes you can smack me for saying that about kale, because I hate myself for it too, but it's true. BUY THIS SALAD), and my diet coke that has been waiting in the fridge. I listen to a podcast while I eat, and I say hi to Another Nathan on his way back to work after his own lunch break. He is in the middle of a day of annoying meetings, and he needs to cuss about them, and I am always glad to listen to some lunchtime cussing. I mean who isn't?
3:00pm - I have a quiet break sitting outside, trying not to be "productive" but just doing a few minutes of what I want to do. Which is important! Important enough that "read/rest" gets written on my to-do list every day. First, so I don't have to be feel bad for doing it. And second, as a reminder that time for me to zone out is as important as all the other things I do, for everyone else's well-being.
3:15pm - (I also write the first half of this blog post, and sew sprinkles and buttons onto a few cupcake tops for a felt food swap I am doing.)
3:45pm - Ali is awake so I bring all the girls to the bonus room and supervise some playtime while spending some time doing some Calendar Magic. Every Tuesday night this month we have three overlapping activities -- my choir rehearsal, Nathan's baseball games, and Mark's softball games. The time vary slightly each week, and I am trying to juggle which nights we can work around Mark's shift (he is done about 7) and which days he is off and how we can coordinate pickup/dropoff/bringing various children to our various events, and hopefully no one has to miss more than one event each. (I cuss as I do it, knowing full well that at least some of these arrangements will have to be RE-arranged as life actually unfolds. One game rained out means the next one shouldn't be missed even if that was the plan. A rained out game means choir is easy this week and therefore can be skipped next week. Etc etc. It's always something, and I hate planning it knowing stuff will change, but also, we have to plan something. SO.) Calendar magic = invisible work = parenting!
4:15pm - Nathan gets off the bus and crashes into the house in a way that shows me a glimpse of his teenager years. Door flung open, backpack falling off his shoulder, trudging over to where he can set his cello down and empty his lunch box. Everyone starts clamoring for a snack. YES! Have a snack! The answer is the same every day!
4:20pm - I put the last load of laundry into the dryer and silently congratulate myself with a mental party hat emoji. What gives you a better (albeit fleeting) illusion of control than a stack of finished laundry?
4:25pm - We have a busy evening ahead with very little downtime for the kids, so I concede to some playtime in the pool now while we can. The kids all change into their swimsuits and leave a trail of shorts and underwear and clothes all over the porch (EVERY. DAY.) and they jump in, while Ali sits in my lap and we watch from the side.
4:45pm - Nick arrives to pick up Ali. I give him the report on how she did, which today isn't much. She pooped x1000 (normal) and her bum is red (less normal) and apparently these are the things we talk about now. I want to go back in time and tell 12yo Nick to stop throwing snowballs at me just for kissing his brother, because I'm sticking around, and oh by the way I will care for your child one day and we will happily talk about her poops, so BE NICE, PUNK TWEEN NICK.
5:15pm - I reluctantly chase everyone out of the pool and into the house for dinner. We eat leftover pork tenderloin from a few nights ago, and easy mac, and believe me when I say the only reason it's even that fancy is because I am writing this post. Otherwise, we eat oatmeal and cheese slices on hectic nights. Or cereal. Just keeping it real.
5:50pm - I am ready for cleanup and bedtime but am I still writing this? Is our day still going?
6:00pm - Nathan changes into his baseball uniform and sits down to practice his cello, which becomes the backup music to my nagging frustrated voice trying to get the girls to clean up the bonus room and their rooms. "Are you cleaning?" "That doesn't sound like cleaning!" "I am going to do the dishes and when I come back, this room better be clean!" "Mommy is mad!" "How is this room not clean?"
6:30pm - The dishes are done, everything is clean, and I am trying to herd people to the car. Charlotte takes four tries to find her shoes, ends up in tears and needing help from literally everyone else to find them (they are in the middle of her bedroom floor), and then insists she doesn't need to pee because she went last year. Um. (She pees anyway BECAUSE I SAID SO.) Anneliese deliberates over just the right chapter book to bring along (she can't read) (she is trying to impress some older girls who are little league siblings too) (the whole thing is moot because she is not staying for the game) and Nathan is pissy because his baseball bag isn't where he left it, or it was left open, or some other trivial thing I don't care about AT ALL. Whoever has messed with his stuff is a much smaller transgression in my book than listening to him complain about it.
6:31pm - I hate 6:30pm. I don't even like it when it's the start of bedtime, and I really hate it when we are all walking out the door.
6:45pm - We drop Nathan off for his baseball game, leave him under the eye of a friend of ours, another dad on the team. When Mark gets off work he will go straight to the field and watch the game, and should only miss the first bit. He had considered taking Nathan with him to his own softball game after that, but it doesn't even start til 8:30, so he isn't going. Thank goodness. It's too much for one evening.
7:00pm - The girls and I go to choir. They bring Hattie and Sheepie and a box of crayons, and they sprawl on the floor of the choir room and color. Halfway through rehearsal they opt for a liturgical dance in the back of the room. A few minutes after that they get out a music stand and pretend to conduct. I tell myself everyone is charmed but I'm not really sure.
8:00pm - Choir isn't over, but the girls are done. Anneliese is slumped on me in my row, and Charlotte is curled up in a ball on the chair next to me, where she had to spin in many circles like a puppy before she got comfy. We bail on the end of rehearsal.
8:10pm - Mark and Nathan get home at the same time as we do. Mark does bedtime with the girls while Nathan does homework and then leans on me and reads. He likes us to read by ourselves together. I sit and stare at the wall. Somehow an hour passes. I have no idea. Twitter? iMessage? Instagram? Seriously no idea. We send Nathan up to bed before he falls asleep downstairs and we have to carry him. (This happens at least half the nights, because... couch parenting.)
9:00pm - Mark and I chat and catch up on our days while he makes us some dinner. I have a taste for shrimp and grits which he doesn't really want but makes me anyway, because -- wait for it, this is important -- he is a gem. Eating after 9pm is super normal for us. We watch two episodes of a show on Netflix and then I can't take any more noise or talking. My tv limit is very low these days.
10:00pm - I do the dishes and then escape to the guest house for some silence. I read a few chapters of Goblet of Fire (I am re-reading all the HP books this year, which is fun because although I love them, I've only read each of them once. It's been a decade. It's time.) I start my list for tomorrow, and I write the second half of this post.
10:45pm - Another Nathan calls after his gym time. Tuesdays are one of our nights for longer catchups; I tell him about our choir people he misses, and talk through my angst about employment ideas for the fall, and he's trying to wrap his brain around the final push with his choir for the program year, and tells me about some fun plans with his parents this weekend and stories of what he's up to with his new people up there. It's nice to make time to hear each other.
11:30pm - I take my bedtime shower by candlelight, which sounds way sexier than it is. Mostly it's just that it smells delightful (coffee!) and it adheres to my doctor-organized Sleep Plan of having dim lights after certain times, amongst a million other things that are supposed to ensure me good sleep but only get me there maybe half the time.
I read a few chapters, and then toss ans turn, and then think all the thoughts, and sometime after 1am (or 2 or 3, depending on how unlucky I am), I sleep until sometime before but not after 6:49am again.
A day in the life.
Okay, so, I am doing it now. Because the Ali thing is ending in a few weeks, and I have gotten through a whole year of juggling four kids, and for no other reason than my own memories, I want to remember what it was like. (On an average day.) (Not a terrible day.) (The terrible days I would like to forget.)
This is a Tuesday a couple weeks ago:
6:49am - My alarm goes off. I am still sleeping (about half of the days, I'm not, the kids are up or whatever) so I hit snooze four times before actually putting my feet on the floor. Mark is already at work, which is mind-boggling. (Normally we all sleep right through his wakeup and shower and exit, but some mornings Charlotte hears him leave and pitches a fit if he doesn't wave to her in her window. A FIT. Today is not one of those days. *hallelujah hands*)
7:00am - The kids are eating breakfast; they have yogurt on the bottom shelf of the fridge, and waffles on the bottom shelf of the freezer, and instant oatmeal in their pantry shelf. They mostly fend for themselves, although Nathan helps some with Charlotte. I can hear them and they are fine, so I keep hitting snooze.
7:35am - I make my (first) coffee and sort through my list for the day. I made today's list last night, scheduling from my "to do this week" list that I made Sunday night (which is gleaned from my "this month" or "next month" lists that are rolled over and re-sorted every week). My list has everything I will do all day, including drinking this very coffee, and my next. Plus additional things that will crop up and I will do, and then write down and cross off.
Listen, because this is important: I am not sorry for even one bit of this list-begets-list process. I get sh!t done, and this is how.
7:50am - Ali gets dropped off. My kids are finishing breakfast and I herd them into the bonus room and put the gate up so all four can play.
7:51am - Every day said playing begins with dumping all the foam blocks from their bag onto Ali's head and yelling "soft block shower!" Every. Day. The blocks will then remain scattered all over the floor for the whole rest of the day, barely played with, until the painful cleanup hour before bedtime. I scowl at the soft block shower. It is no longer cute to me.
7:55am - I sort all of the laundry in our room into piles. Tuesday is laundry day for our stuff (Monday is for the kids, Wednesday is for the towels and sheets and kitchen cloths/napkins).
7:57am - At some point Nathan wanders into my room and checks his school meal menu and the weather, so he knows what to wear. (It's NC in May. Wear shorts. You don't need to look it up, buddy.) He also tells me what today's weather will be like in Holden Beach, Montreat, and Northfield MN. Like every day, I don't have the heart to tell him I give none craps. I smile and say mmm hmm.
8:00am - I start the first load of laundry and then go pack lunches. Today it's just for Anneliese and Nathan (who has determined that whatever was on his school menu didn't sound great). Nathan makes the sandwiches and fills the water bottles and I do the rest. He sneaks pieces of candy into both lunch boxes and I pretend not to notice. I write notes to both kids and sneak them into both lunch boxes and he pretends not to notice.
8:10am - All three girls have been bickering in the bonus room. Someone has pulled someone else's hair, someone colored on someone else's page, Ali has a crayon in her mouth. Normal stuff. I ignore it til lunches are done, and then break it up and send my girls upstairs to get dressed, which for some reason they aren't yet.
8:20am - I do some really excellent lazy parenting from my desk chair, nagging the bigs to brush their teeth, asking Anneliese to find her brush, telling Charlotte that no, "brushing" her hair with her hand doesn't count, and reminding people that no, I don't know where your shoes are, because you are in charge of your own crap. I text a little bit with Mark to say good morning and stuff, and he asks how I slept, which is always a Question, since I fail at sleep, frequently.
8:35am - I check the baby gate and lock the doors and leave Ali and Charlotte playing in the bonus room while Nathan and Anneliese get their lunch boxes/backpacks/cello and we walk to the bus stop at the end of our block. They make bets on whose ride will come first - Nathan's bus, or our friend who gives Anneliese a ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays since she is driving by anyway.
8:45 - 9:15am - I walk back to the house, switch the laundry, and do the louder things on my list (dishwasher, dishes) before I change Ali and make her a bottle and put her down for a nap. Some days this is my gym time, but today Ali's mood can't make it another hour, and I know I will need a block of time to get groceries later anyway, so the gym isn't happening (it's really hard to to both gym and groceries in one morning, with her nap).
9:30am - Ali is napping, and I go in between supervising Charlotte doing dot art painting on the porch, and working through my list. Today that means replying to a few emails, scheduling a playdate, rescheduling a dentist appointment, making a grocery list, hunting down a high-ish resolution image to download and mirror image and print onto iron transfer paper for a t-shirt for a costume for Anneliese next week, firming lunch plans with a friend with a new baby tomorrow, tying ribbons around chocolate bars for teacher appreciation, lots of glamorous trophy wife things, you know.
10:30am - Another Nathan calls with his daily good morning on the way to work, and we chat for what I always think is five minutes but is actually ten.
10:45am - I have my second coffee of the day, this time with toast. Also with twitter and instagram and whatever fun sales might be in my inbox.
11:00am - Ali is awake and chatting in the crib, so I switch the laundry again and make her a snack-to-go, and then get her up and throw both girls in the car.
11:15am - Grocery shopping. Easy enough, with just Ali and Charlotte. (Which is why I do it on Tuesdays.)
12:15pm - I come home and buckle Ali into the high chair and she eats lunch (today Nick and Barbara sent black beans, sweet potatoes, a sandwich, and some cheese; this is more food than Charlotte will eat in the whole day but Ali gobbles it all), safely contained while I unload the groceries. Charlotte is also sitting at the table but instead of eating, she is crying, because obviously. (?? No idea.)
12:45pm - All the groceries are put away and the inside of my fridge looks like the dairy section at the store (we buy about thirty yogurts a week, and five or six gallons of milk), and I check all the packaging for box tops for Nathan's school (when they bring in enough, they can get extra library books!) and then Charlotte takes the rest to the recycling bin. She does it without complaining or whining HA HA HA NO sorry y'all I can't. Nope. She is a pill about it.
12:50pm* - Back in the car to go to church and get Anneliese. I fight for parking, send a few cussy texts about it, and then find a spot finally. I parallel park LIKE A BOSS.
(If I were a superhero, my power would be parallel parking. No, making good lists. No, parallel parking. I would save people from villains and crime in tight parking situations like preschool pickup, where no other hero dares attempt.)
*1:00pm - that 12:50 up there is a lie, it's always 1:00. Anneliese's class is always one that runs on the late side, and I just can't ever get out the door any sooner. It's 1, every time.
1:01pm - I leave the car and a/c running with the girls in it (ALERT THE AUTHORITIES) (no, don't, it's mere feet from the door, not even a parking lot to contend with since we park on the street, and it's legit safer to leave them there than unbuckle into traffic, so shut it), and grab Anneliese. She asks for skittles from the preschool office, which is an option every day, but I am mean and we only do it on Wednesdays. Which means I always have to answer a question about what day it is. Even though she knows full well what day it is. Answering questions that don't need to be answered! Many times on repeat! Parenting!
1:15pm - I bring a bag of books to the public library to return, and pick up a few new holds. It's slightly embarrassing how often we go do this. Like, several times a week. I also drive through for a fountain drink diet coke to have later with my lunch. Sometimes you just need a fountain drink diet coke and nothing else will do.
1:30pm - We are back home, I switch the laundry (it never ends), Anneliese unloads her lunch box pieces into the dishwasher (new parents: IT GETS BETTER), and the girls play outside. Ali is juuuust on the verge of walking, so she toddles a bit holding onto my fingers and watching the big girls swing and sing. (Swinging and singing go together at our house. It's hard to do the former without the latter.)
2:00pm - I give Ali another bottle, change another diaper, and the girls all go down for naps. Only Ali sleeps. Some days they all need naps, and some days I need both big kids to stay awake, and some days it's just too nice to chase them inside, but today they are all going upstairs. Charlotte and Anneliese can play in each other's rooms (they are joined by a jack & jill closet) as long as they stay upstairs and don't wake the baby.
2:05 - Charlotte wanders downstairs to poop, because she went pee before alone time but forgot to poop. This happens every day. I always remind her before she goes upstairs. It never works. I sigh.
2:15pm - I eat my favorite lunch on the back porch, this salad of perfection from trader joes (I am not even a kale person! kale is dumb! but this salad is everything -- sweet and spicy and crunchy and perfect. I love it more every time I have it. It almost tastes like candy to me, and yes you can smack me for saying that about kale, because I hate myself for it too, but it's true. BUY THIS SALAD), and my diet coke that has been waiting in the fridge. I listen to a podcast while I eat, and I say hi to Another Nathan on his way back to work after his own lunch break. He is in the middle of a day of annoying meetings, and he needs to cuss about them, and I am always glad to listen to some lunchtime cussing. I mean who isn't?
3:00pm - I have a quiet break sitting outside, trying not to be "productive" but just doing a few minutes of what I want to do. Which is important! Important enough that "read/rest" gets written on my to-do list every day. First, so I don't have to be feel bad for doing it. And second, as a reminder that time for me to zone out is as important as all the other things I do, for everyone else's well-being.
3:15pm - (I also write the first half of this blog post, and sew sprinkles and buttons onto a few cupcake tops for a felt food swap I am doing.)
3:45pm - Ali is awake so I bring all the girls to the bonus room and supervise some playtime while spending some time doing some Calendar Magic. Every Tuesday night this month we have three overlapping activities -- my choir rehearsal, Nathan's baseball games, and Mark's softball games. The time vary slightly each week, and I am trying to juggle which nights we can work around Mark's shift (he is done about 7) and which days he is off and how we can coordinate pickup/dropoff/bringing various children to our various events, and hopefully no one has to miss more than one event each. (I cuss as I do it, knowing full well that at least some of these arrangements will have to be RE-arranged as life actually unfolds. One game rained out means the next one shouldn't be missed even if that was the plan. A rained out game means choir is easy this week and therefore can be skipped next week. Etc etc. It's always something, and I hate planning it knowing stuff will change, but also, we have to plan something. SO.) Calendar magic = invisible work = parenting!
4:15pm - Nathan gets off the bus and crashes into the house in a way that shows me a glimpse of his teenager years. Door flung open, backpack falling off his shoulder, trudging over to where he can set his cello down and empty his lunch box. Everyone starts clamoring for a snack. YES! Have a snack! The answer is the same every day!
4:20pm - I put the last load of laundry into the dryer and silently congratulate myself with a mental party hat emoji. What gives you a better (albeit fleeting) illusion of control than a stack of finished laundry?
4:25pm - We have a busy evening ahead with very little downtime for the kids, so I concede to some playtime in the pool now while we can. The kids all change into their swimsuits and leave a trail of shorts and underwear and clothes all over the porch (EVERY. DAY.) and they jump in, while Ali sits in my lap and we watch from the side.
4:45pm - Nick arrives to pick up Ali. I give him the report on how she did, which today isn't much. She pooped x1000 (normal) and her bum is red (less normal) and apparently these are the things we talk about now. I want to go back in time and tell 12yo Nick to stop throwing snowballs at me just for kissing his brother, because I'm sticking around, and oh by the way I will care for your child one day and we will happily talk about her poops, so BE NICE, PUNK TWEEN NICK.
5:15pm - I reluctantly chase everyone out of the pool and into the house for dinner. We eat leftover pork tenderloin from a few nights ago, and easy mac, and believe me when I say the only reason it's even that fancy is because I am writing this post. Otherwise, we eat oatmeal and cheese slices on hectic nights. Or cereal. Just keeping it real.
5:50pm - I am ready for cleanup and bedtime but am I still writing this? Is our day still going?
6:00pm - Nathan changes into his baseball uniform and sits down to practice his cello, which becomes the backup music to my nagging frustrated voice trying to get the girls to clean up the bonus room and their rooms. "Are you cleaning?" "That doesn't sound like cleaning!" "I am going to do the dishes and when I come back, this room better be clean!" "Mommy is mad!" "How is this room not clean?"
6:30pm - The dishes are done, everything is clean, and I am trying to herd people to the car. Charlotte takes four tries to find her shoes, ends up in tears and needing help from literally everyone else to find them (they are in the middle of her bedroom floor), and then insists she doesn't need to pee because she went last year. Um. (She pees anyway BECAUSE I SAID SO.) Anneliese deliberates over just the right chapter book to bring along (she can't read) (she is trying to impress some older girls who are little league siblings too) (the whole thing is moot because she is not staying for the game) and Nathan is pissy because his baseball bag isn't where he left it, or it was left open, or some other trivial thing I don't care about AT ALL. Whoever has messed with his stuff is a much smaller transgression in my book than listening to him complain about it.
6:31pm - I hate 6:30pm. I don't even like it when it's the start of bedtime, and I really hate it when we are all walking out the door.
6:45pm - We drop Nathan off for his baseball game, leave him under the eye of a friend of ours, another dad on the team. When Mark gets off work he will go straight to the field and watch the game, and should only miss the first bit. He had considered taking Nathan with him to his own softball game after that, but it doesn't even start til 8:30, so he isn't going. Thank goodness. It's too much for one evening.
7:00pm - The girls and I go to choir. They bring Hattie and Sheepie and a box of crayons, and they sprawl on the floor of the choir room and color. Halfway through rehearsal they opt for a liturgical dance in the back of the room. A few minutes after that they get out a music stand and pretend to conduct. I tell myself everyone is charmed but I'm not really sure.
8:00pm - Choir isn't over, but the girls are done. Anneliese is slumped on me in my row, and Charlotte is curled up in a ball on the chair next to me, where she had to spin in many circles like a puppy before she got comfy. We bail on the end of rehearsal.
8:10pm - Mark and Nathan get home at the same time as we do. Mark does bedtime with the girls while Nathan does homework and then leans on me and reads. He likes us to read by ourselves together. I sit and stare at the wall. Somehow an hour passes. I have no idea. Twitter? iMessage? Instagram? Seriously no idea. We send Nathan up to bed before he falls asleep downstairs and we have to carry him. (This happens at least half the nights, because... couch parenting.)
9:00pm - Mark and I chat and catch up on our days while he makes us some dinner. I have a taste for shrimp and grits which he doesn't really want but makes me anyway, because -- wait for it, this is important -- he is a gem. Eating after 9pm is super normal for us. We watch two episodes of a show on Netflix and then I can't take any more noise or talking. My tv limit is very low these days.
10:00pm - I do the dishes and then escape to the guest house for some silence. I read a few chapters of Goblet of Fire (I am re-reading all the HP books this year, which is fun because although I love them, I've only read each of them once. It's been a decade. It's time.) I start my list for tomorrow, and I write the second half of this post.
10:45pm - Another Nathan calls after his gym time. Tuesdays are one of our nights for longer catchups; I tell him about our choir people he misses, and talk through my angst about employment ideas for the fall, and he's trying to wrap his brain around the final push with his choir for the program year, and tells me about some fun plans with his parents this weekend and stories of what he's up to with his new people up there. It's nice to make time to hear each other.
11:30pm - I take my bedtime shower by candlelight, which sounds way sexier than it is. Mostly it's just that it smells delightful (coffee!) and it adheres to my doctor-organized Sleep Plan of having dim lights after certain times, amongst a million other things that are supposed to ensure me good sleep but only get me there maybe half the time.
I read a few chapters, and then toss ans turn, and then think all the thoughts, and sometime after 1am (or 2 or 3, depending on how unlucky I am), I sleep until sometime before but not after 6:49am again.
A day in the life.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
To Feel Like a Real Mom
It's funny how pushing out a baby, and handling three children all day every day, and knowing in the ins and outs of car seats and diapers and the odd truth of how your kid throwing up or pooping on you somehow isn't as gross as anyone else's vom or poop -- none of those make me feel quite as much like a Real Mom as homemade jewelry that looks super homemade yet I actually don't mind wearing in public.
Or being subjected to the public reading of a survey of your kid's impressions of you.
Or a coffee date with a sweet boy who produces a card with a poem inside, and it's actually the best poem ever written, which is just a pure objective fact.
Or a fancy* mother's day tea party brunch while sitting in a chair approximately an eighth the size of mah ass.
*very loose definition
I roll my eyes at it all, but somehow it does make me feel like a Real Mom.
Also here is a picture with Charlotte because my lands, I'm not That Mom who would leave one kid out. Simmer down with the pearl clutching.
Happy Mother's Day!
Or being subjected to the public reading of a survey of your kid's impressions of you.
Or a coffee date with a sweet boy who produces a card with a poem inside, and it's actually the best poem ever written, which is just a pure objective fact.
Or a fancy* mother's day tea party brunch while sitting in a chair approximately an eighth the size of mah ass.
*very loose definition
I roll my eyes at it all, but somehow it does make me feel like a Real Mom.
Also here is a picture with Charlotte because my lands, I'm not That Mom who would leave one kid out. Simmer down with the pearl clutching.
Happy Mother's Day!
Monday, March 30, 2015
And Then March Happened, Apparently
That thing where you are months behind so you just post a lot of random thoughts, because people like that better than carefully crafted themed posts anyway right? Hi, welcome to the March (waaaaaay later than March) edition of I Don't Even Know What This Post is About.
Okay so the most important thing is that my sister had a baby! After a pregnancy lasting forty weeks plus four months (she is a dolphin, you didn't know?) (ask me how I know about gestation length of dolphins anyway *side eye*Nathan*) she delivered her third son (yes THIRD) (yes, her oldest is Charlotte's age) (yes, she would accept any of your prayers for sanity) and anyway, meet my newest nephew Everett! He is perfect.
Also! Ali turned one! ONE! I can't believe it's been a year. I love her so much.
The weather got warm and the girls had been asking Mark to plant something, so he took them to pick out flowers and some veggie seeds, and he pulled some dying shrubs out of an area near the pool, and they turned that space into a little garden.
The girls are totally taken with it. (Nathan too, although mostly he is too cool to act like it.)
Oh! Speaking of cool ("cool") Nathan also did a weather project where he needed to write a report including a media/visual component about some weather phenomenon. He chose monsoons. He did a good job researching and writing the paper, and then he made a little video to show why monsoons can damage houses even if you put plastic on your roof, like some people in monsoon-prone areas have to do.
I'm not sure this video actually proves anything, other than he likes to build with legos (and make videos), but it still tickles me. You know you want to see it. Right?
Another random Nathan thing, from the grocery store one night: "Hey this is the same kind of bread Jesus ate! You can tell by the shape!"
(Pretty good endorsement for Kroger, yes? JESUS HIMSELF ETC ETC.)
Hmmmm I... have no idea what else happened in March. Let's look at some pictures.
Anneliese, wearing a lot of colors, and not one but two headbands, including one with a donut on it, because obviously:
Me with all the kids, taking a walk on the greenway, proving once again that it is difficult to get very many people to look at the camera at once:
Charlotte, looking half teenager and half baby:
Perfectly reasonable outfits for a Target run:
And! Marky made me a brownie in a skillet one night when I had a random hankering, and he sort of made it up from a boxed mix, and then he throw ice cream on top, and it was delicious. You know how some things are just exactly what you had a taste for, except even a little bit better? He wins everything.
We ate it on the couch in front of Netflix, because we are good at being grownups.
Okay so the most important thing is that my sister had a baby! After a pregnancy lasting forty weeks plus four months (she is a dolphin, you didn't know?) (ask me how I know about gestation length of dolphins anyway *side eye*Nathan*) she delivered her third son (yes THIRD) (yes, her oldest is Charlotte's age) (yes, she would accept any of your prayers for sanity) and anyway, meet my newest nephew Everett! He is perfect.
Also! Ali turned one! ONE! I can't believe it's been a year. I love her so much.
The weather got warm and the girls had been asking Mark to plant something, so he took them to pick out flowers and some veggie seeds, and he pulled some dying shrubs out of an area near the pool, and they turned that space into a little garden.
Oh! Speaking of cool ("cool") Nathan also did a weather project where he needed to write a report including a media/visual component about some weather phenomenon. He chose monsoons. He did a good job researching and writing the paper, and then he made a little video to show why monsoons can damage houses even if you put plastic on your roof, like some people in monsoon-prone areas have to do.
I'm not sure this video actually proves anything, other than he likes to build with legos (and make videos), but it still tickles me. You know you want to see it. Right?
Another random Nathan thing, from the grocery store one night: "Hey this is the same kind of bread Jesus ate! You can tell by the shape!"
Hmmmm I... have no idea what else happened in March. Let's look at some pictures.
Anneliese, wearing a lot of colors, and not one but two headbands, including one with a donut on it, because obviously:
Me with all the kids, taking a walk on the greenway, proving once again that it is difficult to get very many people to look at the camera at once:
Charlotte, looking half teenager and half baby:
Perfectly reasonable outfits for a Target run:
And! Marky made me a brownie in a skillet one night when I had a random hankering, and he sort of made it up from a boxed mix, and then he throw ice cream on top, and it was delicious. You know how some things are just exactly what you had a taste for, except even a little bit better? He wins everything.
We ate it on the couch in front of Netflix, because we are good at being grownups.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Chaos Theory of Parenthood
Okay so my friend Arwen has this theory (well, her husband does) about chaos in parenting. The theory posits that Chaos Mode - that thing with young kids where you feel like you're just trying to keep your head above water, putting out fires one at a time, but not necessarily kicking ass at any of it (or even particularly wanting to), because Chaos - happens in the season when the number of kids you have is greater than the average of their ages.
Simple, right? Yet kind of genius.
Okay so if we don't account for Ali, we have 3 kids averaging age 5.4, which is well out of Chaos Mode (and perhaps entering into Delightful Mode).
When we do account for Ali, that's 4 kids averaging age 4.3, which means we have juuuuust recently eeked out of Chaos Mode. Which explains why the last few months have felt fairly settled and relaxed.
This theory also accounts for the fact that a first child, even just one, feels hard and exhausting and chaotic for the whole first year (1 kid, "average" age is less than 1) while being alone with just, say, your third kid? Even as a newborn? Feels like SWEET SWEET FREEDOM.
You can be more specific with this if you do the ages by month, go read Arwen's blog post. Don't read it if you have a newborn. Don't read it if you have twin toddlers. Don't read it if you have 3+ kids, none of whom are school aged yet (looking at you, dear sister). If you're in those camps, your energy is better spent on Chaos than math, because I promise - you are still in Chaos Mode. And will be for years.
But I'm here on the other side, to tell you - the chaos settles! It does! Babies are cute and full of wonder and all that, and yes, enjoy it, of course. But know that the chaos settles. And in the meantime, you're doing just fine. Don't expect more of yourself than Chaos Mode allows.
XOXO, parents of the internet. Hashtag: it gets even better.
Simple, right? Yet kind of genius.
 |
| baking with three kids: a comedy of errors |
Okay so if we don't account for Ali, we have 3 kids averaging age 5.4, which is well out of Chaos Mode (and perhaps entering into Delightful Mode).
When we do account for Ali, that's 4 kids averaging age 4.3, which means we have juuuuust recently eeked out of Chaos Mode. Which explains why the last few months have felt fairly settled and relaxed.
This theory also accounts for the fact that a first child, even just one, feels hard and exhausting and chaotic for the whole first year (1 kid, "average" age is less than 1) while being alone with just, say, your third kid? Even as a newborn? Feels like SWEET SWEET FREEDOM.
You can be more specific with this if you do the ages by month, go read Arwen's blog post. Don't read it if you have a newborn. Don't read it if you have twin toddlers. Don't read it if you have 3+ kids, none of whom are school aged yet (looking at you, dear sister). If you're in those camps, your energy is better spent on Chaos than math, because I promise - you are still in Chaos Mode. And will be for years.
But I'm here on the other side, to tell you - the chaos settles! It does! Babies are cute and full of wonder and all that, and yes, enjoy it, of course. But know that the chaos settles. And in the meantime, you're doing just fine. Don't expect more of yourself than Chaos Mode allows.
XOXO, parents of the internet. Hashtag: it gets even better.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Stuttering, and a Poop Joke
So, this is a thing I haven't said much about on the internet, but Charlotte is having a rough time talking this fall. She went from being a perfectly appropriately-fluent three-year-old this August, to... barely being able to get a thought out in September. Over just a matter of weeks, truly.
Like, complete breakdown in communication. I know this sounds weird, with her being right here - but I missed her. I didn't know what she was thinking, and she was so easily frustrated that she basically broke down into tears any time she needed to communicate a thought beyond a few words.
It sucked, y'all.
And it only took a tiny bit of googling (and a few gently concerned questions from her teachers at school) to realize her stuttering falls into the "severe" category, which sounds, well... severe.
Anyway, we took her for a speech assessment through the early intervention people (well, not them, exactly, but the county people who do that for preschool-aged kids) and it turns out yep! she stutters! badly! and she qualifies for full speech therapy through the county! So, bad and good.
They sent me away with a stack of books and DVDs about stuttering and speech disorders and how to be a parent advocate, and paperwork to start up her IEP with the school system, and suddenly WHOA this is a whole new world for us.
Okay so here's the deal. She will be fine. Speech therapy is very effective for stuttering, and Charlotte is pretty textbook in how she struggles. There are 44 phonemes in the English language, and she gets stuck on about 20 of them (yikes). She does most of the classic severe-stutterer things, like: repeating sounds at the beginnings of words and syllables (not the words themselves, which is stammering, which is something different - a more normal disfluency that isn't actually a speech problem), explosions of sound at a high volume to force some of her sounds out, and dragging out some sounds (like mmmmmmommy).
Anyway, it's a really Known Thing, this problem and its treatment. Almost all stutterers can be therapied out of it, and we should have no worries about long-term fluency. So that's not the main concern, surprisingly enough.
The main concern, apparently, is the psychological stuff that comes with difficulty in communicating. This is especially true for young kids. Learning that it takes too much effort to talk, or you will be interrupted or your words inserted for you, or that people don't have the time to hear you, or might tease you, etc etc etc - that'll eff a kid right up, and can have effects into adulthood. (Not that surprising, right?)
So while the professional therapists will do the work with her of making sounds and teaching tricks and workarounds, our job is to make sure she is heard. Like, endless patience in letting her get her words out. No interrupting her, ever. No supplying words for her. In general, convincing her that whatever she has to say is something we want to listen to, and that it's always worth the effort for her to tell us what she's thinking. We have to be very aware of our body language and facial expressions and we all (even Nathan and Anneliese) do lots of turning and facing her and kneeling down to be close when she wants to tell us something.
And y'all. It has been sort of... well, humongously relationship-changing, this pattern of really intentional listening. I know, that shouldn't be shocking. But it makes such a difference.
Anything she wants to tell me these days, no matter how silly or inane, I care about it in a way I didn't used to. She will sometimes take a full ninety seconds to tell me something like how she put Sheepie under her blanket (still bank-o-link) because it's naptime, or how someday she would like to wear a hat (?) - but if those are the things she wants to tell me, then make no mistake: I WANT TO HEAR IT. It's no small thing, the effort and energy it takes her to talk! And she is using it on me! It's an honor to listen to it. It really is. And that's never how I've thought about preschool chattiness before. Um, to say the least. Ha.
Okay anyway that's not what I meant for this post to be about.
So, she's actually doing way better now. Ranking every day on a scale of 1 to 5 helps overall progress, and overall progress is good. And that's just with what we are doing at home which has seemed to improve her confidence, which often means she talks more - which all counts as practice. When we get into the meat of the speech therapy over the next couple of months, I imagine it will get even better than the improvement she's already made.
There are some days that are still turrible, but there are some that are good -- so good that she talks like most any three-year-old would, like what we remember from this summer, and we get a little giddy at her sweet voice and happy easy chattiness.
All that to say, she was doing some great talking one night, and these days that means we bust out the phone to get it on video... and then she told a poop joke. Sigh.
(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)
(Still worth it for her tiny voice, telling me something! Anything! Worth it.)
(And, secretly bursting with pride anyway. Such! Good! Talking!)
Like, complete breakdown in communication. I know this sounds weird, with her being right here - but I missed her. I didn't know what she was thinking, and she was so easily frustrated that she basically broke down into tears any time she needed to communicate a thought beyond a few words.
It sucked, y'all.
And it only took a tiny bit of googling (and a few gently concerned questions from her teachers at school) to realize her stuttering falls into the "severe" category, which sounds, well... severe.
Anyway, we took her for a speech assessment through the early intervention people (well, not them, exactly, but the county people who do that for preschool-aged kids) and it turns out yep! she stutters! badly! and she qualifies for full speech therapy through the county! So, bad and good.
They sent me away with a stack of books and DVDs about stuttering and speech disorders and how to be a parent advocate, and paperwork to start up her IEP with the school system, and suddenly WHOA this is a whole new world for us.
Okay so here's the deal. She will be fine. Speech therapy is very effective for stuttering, and Charlotte is pretty textbook in how she struggles. There are 44 phonemes in the English language, and she gets stuck on about 20 of them (yikes). She does most of the classic severe-stutterer things, like: repeating sounds at the beginnings of words and syllables (not the words themselves, which is stammering, which is something different - a more normal disfluency that isn't actually a speech problem), explosions of sound at a high volume to force some of her sounds out, and dragging out some sounds (like mmmmmmommy).
Anyway, it's a really Known Thing, this problem and its treatment. Almost all stutterers can be therapied out of it, and we should have no worries about long-term fluency. So that's not the main concern, surprisingly enough.
The main concern, apparently, is the psychological stuff that comes with difficulty in communicating. This is especially true for young kids. Learning that it takes too much effort to talk, or you will be interrupted or your words inserted for you, or that people don't have the time to hear you, or might tease you, etc etc etc - that'll eff a kid right up, and can have effects into adulthood. (Not that surprising, right?)
So while the professional therapists will do the work with her of making sounds and teaching tricks and workarounds, our job is to make sure she is heard. Like, endless patience in letting her get her words out. No interrupting her, ever. No supplying words for her. In general, convincing her that whatever she has to say is something we want to listen to, and that it's always worth the effort for her to tell us what she's thinking. We have to be very aware of our body language and facial expressions and we all (even Nathan and Anneliese) do lots of turning and facing her and kneeling down to be close when she wants to tell us something.
And y'all. It has been sort of... well, humongously relationship-changing, this pattern of really intentional listening. I know, that shouldn't be shocking. But it makes such a difference.
Anything she wants to tell me these days, no matter how silly or inane, I care about it in a way I didn't used to. She will sometimes take a full ninety seconds to tell me something like how she put Sheepie under her blanket (still bank-o-link) because it's naptime, or how someday she would like to wear a hat (?) - but if those are the things she wants to tell me, then make no mistake: I WANT TO HEAR IT. It's no small thing, the effort and energy it takes her to talk! And she is using it on me! It's an honor to listen to it. It really is. And that's never how I've thought about preschool chattiness before. Um, to say the least. Ha.
Okay anyway that's not what I meant for this post to be about.
So, she's actually doing way better now. Ranking every day on a scale of 1 to 5 helps overall progress, and overall progress is good. And that's just with what we are doing at home which has seemed to improve her confidence, which often means she talks more - which all counts as practice. When we get into the meat of the speech therapy over the next couple of months, I imagine it will get even better than the improvement she's already made.
There are some days that are still turrible, but there are some that are good -- so good that she talks like most any three-year-old would, like what we remember from this summer, and we get a little giddy at her sweet voice and happy easy chattiness.
All that to say, she was doing some great talking one night, and these days that means we bust out the phone to get it on video... and then she told a poop joke. Sigh.
(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)
(Still worth it for her tiny voice, telling me something! Anything! Worth it.)
(And, secretly bursting with pride anyway. Such! Good! Talking!)
Monday, November 17, 2014
I am Over the Cell Phone Shaming
Okay apparently I have more crabbies to get out. This one has been brewing for a while.
So suddenly (well, gradually) everywhere in my life, there are signs prohibiting cell phone use in x or y or z situations. My OB's office has them in the waiting room. So does our pediatrician's office. Actually almost every medical provider I can think of. Also, waiting in line to vote. Restaurants where one might procure takeout, or feel like eating a quiet lunch alone.
And the new director of the girls' preschool requested in her back-to-school letter (yes, months ago, yes I am still annoyed) that parents refrain from cell phone use while we drop off and pick up our kids. Her reason? Not because it slows down pickup/lines (which I could allllmost understand), but because our little ones are excited about their days! And want us to listen to them!
Ummmm y'all, did I just get parenting shamed about my phone? Not cool.
Of course it's nothing new, the whole "dear mom on her iphone at the playground" open letter trope is done and re-done and done again. Phone shaming isn't news. I think I'm just officially... over it.
Look, I get to determine which ways and times are good for ME and MY kid to communicate. MOST people are not ignoring their kids at school pickup to text or tweet (any more than if they are having a real human conversation with a fellow parent or a teacher or flirting it up with the cute dad in the hallway), but if they were, and their kids learn that sometimes mommy is talking to someone else and it'll be their turn in a sec (because OTHER PEOPLE ALSO EXIST), then... that is okay.
Also, if you're the kind of parent who is legitimately ignoring your kid at a time that is legitimately harmful or hurtful to said kid, then that is not a PHONE issue, that is a HUMAN issue, and people blaming the phone is a cop-out.
ALSO. If I am waiting on YOU, I get to use my waiting time how I want. This goes for waiting in preschool pickup times and medical offices alike. I'm sure it would be more CONVENIENT for the doctor if, when he came into the room, I was standing with bated breath, questions at the tip of my tongue, children patiently silently nearby. But, dear physicians of America, YOUR convenience and time is not more important than mine* (it isn't! I promise! it really isn't!) and if I have to wait twenty minutes for my appointment, I will treat that time as MINE. If, after my loooong wait for you, you have to hold on four seconds for me to put my phone away when you come in, YOU WILL SURVIVE.
(Again: having patients who cannot or will not disengage from their phones for a whole appointment, or who miss their name being called when they are distracted, or whatever - those are HUMAN problems, not PHONE problems.)
My friend A'Dell wrote last year that her take is: anywhere it's socially appropriate to read a book or magazine, it should be socially appropriate to use a phone. Lines, waiting rooms, airport lounges, traffic jams, etc.
Actually you should just go read that whole post because I basically agree with every word, and she is such a good ranter. Get on board, folks. The future is now, etc etc.
*No really. It isn't.
So suddenly (well, gradually) everywhere in my life, there are signs prohibiting cell phone use in x or y or z situations. My OB's office has them in the waiting room. So does our pediatrician's office. Actually almost every medical provider I can think of. Also, waiting in line to vote. Restaurants where one might procure takeout, or feel like eating a quiet lunch alone.
And the new director of the girls' preschool requested in her back-to-school letter (yes, months ago, yes I am still annoyed) that parents refrain from cell phone use while we drop off and pick up our kids. Her reason? Not because it slows down pickup/lines (which I could allllmost understand), but because our little ones are excited about their days! And want us to listen to them!
Ummmm y'all, did I just get parenting shamed about my phone? Not cool.
Of course it's nothing new, the whole "dear mom on her iphone at the playground" open letter trope is done and re-done and done again. Phone shaming isn't news. I think I'm just officially... over it.
Look, I get to determine which ways and times are good for ME and MY kid to communicate. MOST people are not ignoring their kids at school pickup to text or tweet (any more than if they are having a real human conversation with a fellow parent or a teacher or flirting it up with the cute dad in the hallway), but if they were, and their kids learn that sometimes mommy is talking to someone else and it'll be their turn in a sec (because OTHER PEOPLE ALSO EXIST), then... that is okay.
Also, if you're the kind of parent who is legitimately ignoring your kid at a time that is legitimately harmful or hurtful to said kid, then that is not a PHONE issue, that is a HUMAN issue, and people blaming the phone is a cop-out.
ALSO. If I am waiting on YOU, I get to use my waiting time how I want. This goes for waiting in preschool pickup times and medical offices alike. I'm sure it would be more CONVENIENT for the doctor if, when he came into the room, I was standing with bated breath, questions at the tip of my tongue, children patiently silently nearby. But, dear physicians of America, YOUR convenience and time is not more important than mine* (it isn't! I promise! it really isn't!) and if I have to wait twenty minutes for my appointment, I will treat that time as MINE. If, after my loooong wait for you, you have to hold on four seconds for me to put my phone away when you come in, YOU WILL SURVIVE.
(Again: having patients who cannot or will not disengage from their phones for a whole appointment, or who miss their name being called when they are distracted, or whatever - those are HUMAN problems, not PHONE problems.)
My friend A'Dell wrote last year that her take is: anywhere it's socially appropriate to read a book or magazine, it should be socially appropriate to use a phone. Lines, waiting rooms, airport lounges, traffic jams, etc.
Actually you should just go read that whole post because I basically agree with every word, and she is such a good ranter. Get on board, folks. The future is now, etc etc.
*No really. It isn't.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Seven, No Ten Quick Takes
1.) Anneliese picked out a new winter hat with some Amazon birthday money. Raise your hand if you never could have guessed she'd pick one like this:
2.) I took Nathan on a date to the symphony last weekend. It was a super crappy day and a really lovely break from the super crappy day. He was cellodorable, admiring all the instruments.
3.) I read the Astronaut Wives Club this weekend and it's far from brilliant writing -- mostly a series of vignettes about the first astronaut families in the sixties -- but I didn't need it to be a great novel, I was totally captivated anyway. I am now craving anything about the space race, I kinda want to watch Apollo 13 tonight, and I can't stop wikipedia-ing all the folks for a dose of Where Are They Now. Also I want to go back to the space center at Cape Canaveral (Mark and I visited in 2010 and it was great, but I think it would be even more great for me this week).
So yeah, I'm hoping they make this into a tv show as has been promised (then delayed, but we'll see). The stories might actually tell better as a series instead of a book.
4.) Anneliese and Ali and I went for a fall walk a few days ago, just as the leaves were starting to change. You would not believe all the things a five-year-old has to tell her infant cousin about leaves changing, but it's a lot.
Yes, she is wearing a sundress and some shorts and a tutu. Why, what do YOU wear to go swinging?
2.) I took Nathan on a date to the symphony last weekend. It was a super crappy day and a really lovely break from the super crappy day. He was cellodorable, admiring all the instruments.
3.) I read the Astronaut Wives Club this weekend and it's far from brilliant writing -- mostly a series of vignettes about the first astronaut families in the sixties -- but I didn't need it to be a great novel, I was totally captivated anyway. I am now craving anything about the space race, I kinda want to watch Apollo 13 tonight, and I can't stop wikipedia-ing all the folks for a dose of Where Are They Now. Also I want to go back to the space center at Cape Canaveral (Mark and I visited in 2010 and it was great, but I think it would be even more great for me this week).
So yeah, I'm hoping they make this into a tv show as has been promised (then delayed, but we'll see). The stories might actually tell better as a series instead of a book.
4.) Anneliese and Ali and I went for a fall walk a few days ago, just as the leaves were starting to change. You would not believe all the things a five-year-old has to tell her infant cousin about leaves changing, but it's a lot.
5.) We closed the pool last week and I miss it already.
6.) Nathan just read the "junior novel" version of the Lego movie and he seems to have internalized its message differently in print than on the screen. He now considers himself a Master Builder and keeps building things and telling us how he VISUALIZED them and that's how he designed them and oh man it cracks us up. (In a good way! He is sweet and smart. I'd hire him for all my aeronautical engineering needs, and no I'm not kidding.)
PS I got a haircut and highlights, as per my pre-birthday usual.
PS I got a haircut and highlights, as per my pre-birthday usual.
7.) After the slowest loudest construction project in the history of history, and many early-morning and late-night trips in my PJs to fuss at workers causing a ruckus outside of approved times ("I know you're just doing your job, but WE LIVE HERE" = me, sick of hearing myself talk), the house across the street is finally done! It was featured in a Parade of Homes thing, so we went to check it out, and it was nice in the way that fancy houses are always nice, but not our taste at all: some odd mashup of clean/modern and also totally dowdy. It's hard to explain. But anyway, if you want to live directly across the street, the house has a million dollar view!
Yes really.
Yes really.
8.) A few weekends ago when I was in Charlotte, I stopped at Ikea for some new cubes/shelving, which are lovely. (I got a teal cube system! TEAL! For my bathroom! Which I am now 99% sure won't fit but whatever, it's TEAL.) While I was there I also got Anneliese a new duvet, which I have been wanting for her since we rearranged all the bedroom furniture in our house A YEAR AGO, but the one I coveted for years before that has been discontinued, and anyway I never could find one that I liked AND she liked, and then this happened at Ikea, and now she has a very Anneliese bed.
Here is a thing I absolutely did not need but absolutely wanted, and I didn't buy it, but I'm pretty sure I might. It's a neon yellow stool! I mean, I need that, right? Someone talk me into it. Where should I put it?
Here is a thing I absolutely did not need but absolutely wanted, and I didn't buy it, but I'm pretty sure I might. It's a neon yellow stool! I mean, I need that, right? Someone talk me into it. Where should I put it?
9.) I have a new-ish phone case, and I love it. This is called a Loopy Case. It is just a case, with a loop in the back, which you can adjust to fit whatever finger you want. It is so simple and SO GENIUS.
It helps me hold my phone much steadier (I was a two-hand typer on my bigger android, and the smaller iphone is still an adjustment - slightly too small for two hands, but slightly too big for one -- and this makes it totally doable). It also means I never drop my phone on my face in bed anymore YES THAT IS A REAL THING. It also means I can knuckle it on the back of my hand and also carry a kid/purse/car seat, which keeps me from sticking my phone in my pocket instead, and that's always a good thing.
PS with the loop on the back you can stand it up for such purposes as alarm clocking. Or facetime dates. Or everyone trying to watch a video at the same time.
Anyway I love it, and I get asked about it all the time, so I am blogging about it. (My first one cracked, and I emailed them and they sent a new one -- with the loop holes now slightly offset, in their updated version, which I think will prevent that stress fracture from happening again -- and anyway with the recplacement they sent me an EXTRA. It's black, and I have a pink and a purple and a gray loop for it, so if you have a 5c and you want it, tell me and it's yours.)
10.) This post barely mentions Charlotte, but she's still the best Booler ever, so here, enjoy a delightful picture Mark took of her swinging out back.
PS with the loop on the back you can stand it up for such purposes as alarm clocking. Or facetime dates. Or everyone trying to watch a video at the same time.
Anyway I love it, and I get asked about it all the time, so I am blogging about it. (My first one cracked, and I emailed them and they sent a new one -- with the loop holes now slightly offset, in their updated version, which I think will prevent that stress fracture from happening again -- and anyway with the recplacement they sent me an EXTRA. It's black, and I have a pink and a purple and a gray loop for it, so if you have a 5c and you want it, tell me and it's yours.)
10.) This post barely mentions Charlotte, but she's still the best Booler ever, so here, enjoy a delightful picture Mark took of her swinging out back.
Yes, she is wearing a sundress and some shorts and a tutu. Why, what do YOU wear to go swinging?
Monday, October 27, 2014
Inefficient. And Overwhelmed.
I'm fighting a bad spell of sleep and general overwhelm about life this week, and I don't have a ton to say about that, but I do have this to say, about one part of the overwhelm:
Raising humans is terribly inefficient work.
I don't mind hard work, I really don't. My bosses have generally loved me as a worker, in every job I've had. I was a good student. I am a focused task-doer. But when I work hard I want it to result in... something.
Being a housewife/SAHM/homemaker/whatever term you like for it: I have never worked harder in my life, nor felt less successful at achieving the end I'm working towards.
Behavior/teaching things with the kids get reminded and then forgotten and then reminded again. Meals get prepared and then complained about. Messes get cleaned then re-messed. I live in chaos, far more than I ever would have guessed I can tolerate.
It is all just so... inefficient. There is hardly a thing I can do one day, one morning, one hour, that I won't have to immediately repeat within a coming window of time. The same work! Again! And I don't just mean the household stuff but also just the general rearing of what I hope will be future good citizens. It's like trying to frantically build something while someone else, or a team of someone elses (often the very tiny humans you are trying to raise, themselves), take it apart, working against me. And I just have to keep doing it over and over again, be faster than them and smarter than them to find productivity and progress despite them, even though it's for them, and hope that one day it will be the day that it doesn't come apart.
And keep telling myself that in the meantime, it still matters, and I have to keep trying, even when I feel like I'm getting nowhere. Some days I believe myself. Some days I don't.
Someone told me years ago that being effective is more important than being efficient, but, oh man, I don't know, MY KINGDOM FOR A HAPPY MEDIUM.
Raising humans is terribly inefficient work.
 |
| "I don't need to do alone time, I'm not even tired!" Mmmmkay. |
I don't mind hard work, I really don't. My bosses have generally loved me as a worker, in every job I've had. I was a good student. I am a focused task-doer. But when I work hard I want it to result in... something.
Being a housewife/SAHM/homemaker/whatever term you like for it: I have never worked harder in my life, nor felt less successful at achieving the end I'm working towards.
Behavior/teaching things with the kids get reminded and then forgotten and then reminded again. Meals get prepared and then complained about. Messes get cleaned then re-messed. I live in chaos, far more than I ever would have guessed I can tolerate.
It is all just so... inefficient. There is hardly a thing I can do one day, one morning, one hour, that I won't have to immediately repeat within a coming window of time. The same work! Again! And I don't just mean the household stuff but also just the general rearing of what I hope will be future good citizens. It's like trying to frantically build something while someone else, or a team of someone elses (often the very tiny humans you are trying to raise, themselves), take it apart, working against me. And I just have to keep doing it over and over again, be faster than them and smarter than them to find productivity and progress despite them, even though it's for them, and hope that one day it will be the day that it doesn't come apart.
And keep telling myself that in the meantime, it still matters, and I have to keep trying, even when I feel like I'm getting nowhere. Some days I believe myself. Some days I don't.
Someone told me years ago that being effective is more important than being efficient, but, oh man, I don't know, MY KINGDOM FOR A HAPPY MEDIUM.
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