Friday, we discovered the source of the horrifying smell in the car was from a gallon of milk we had missed bringing in with the rest of the groceries that were purchased on Monday. Oh my. It took all week for it to get to the point that it actually burst, but burst it did and thank goodness it was in a cloth bag, because who knows how well a paper bag would have done. As it was, we wound up deciding that preserving a $1 grocery bag was not worth the work it would take to salvage it and threw it away.
That afternoon, on the way to pick B up from work, Alec threw up in the car. I think it was a combination of too long in the car and the heat, because he was perfectly chipper, albeit in possession of an unspeakably gross shirt. And once I got him into the library, I discovered the poopy diaper.
What a shame I had forgotten to bring the diaper bag.
Thankfully, we did have wipes in the car, so I cleaned off his carseat as well I could, and since the fabric is a decidedly unnatural artificial fiber, it didn't really soak in. But as for spare clothes or even a clean diaper - out of luck. This is how Alec wound up running around the library wearing nothing but a diaper cover I had rinsed out in the bathroom sink, with his pants stuffed inside to substitute for a diaper.
Say what you will about the relatives advantages of cloth versus disposable diapers, but cloth will definitely serve you better in this sort of emergency. I freely admit this is not the first time I have diapered my children with a piece of their own clothing, and as long as you have a useable cover, it works just fine to get you home.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Well, that was fun
I took K to get her VCUG on Monday, to try and help figure out why she's getting so many infections. Instead, K FREAKED out. It hadn't been a good sign the night before when she had thrown a massive tantrum over something trivial and then cried herself to sleep over how scared she was. But I was hoping when she walked into the hospital and sat in the waiting room without a problem that it would be okay. Sigh. We got into the procedure room, we were handed a hospital gown and she absolutely lost it.
Thankfully, since we were at a children's hospital, they place an emphasis on not traumatizing small children, and the suggestion was quickly made to reschedule so we could perform it with sedation. I suspect this is pretty routine, since absolutely nobody who I talked to about rescheduling afterwards acted surprised. The scheduler in the urologist's office said sympathetically, "Yeah, you look like you put up a fight."
Of course, I still have to get her back in the hospital. Normally, I feel it better to be as honest with children as is developmentally appropriate, so I had told K about the test, emphasizing over and over again that they would use something so it wouldn't hurt. However, we all can see how that went. I find myself wondering if it would have been better not to tell her the details so she wouldn't have time to develop anxiety about it beforehand. Unfortunately, that's a bell we can't unring, so short of cold-cocking her before carrying her into the hospital, we're going to have to deal with more pre-test anxiety and freaking out until they give her the mellow juice.
Anyway, two days later I still feel emotionally wrung out from the ordeal, plus now I get to look forward to trying to do it again. I had really been hoping Monday would be our last day of warming the waiting room chairs at that hospital for hours at a time for a while.
Of course, the real question is - should I bring along the camera to record her as she recovers from the sedation, in hopes of getting a video to rival David After Dentist?*
*Note: before anyone decides to flame me, I wouldn't actually do this. Although I clearly don't have a problem sharing my childrens' lives over the internet, I feel like turning your child's vulnerable moment into a cottage industry is where my personal line for exploiting your child gets crossed.
Thankfully, since we were at a children's hospital, they place an emphasis on not traumatizing small children, and the suggestion was quickly made to reschedule so we could perform it with sedation. I suspect this is pretty routine, since absolutely nobody who I talked to about rescheduling afterwards acted surprised. The scheduler in the urologist's office said sympathetically, "Yeah, you look like you put up a fight."
Of course, I still have to get her back in the hospital. Normally, I feel it better to be as honest with children as is developmentally appropriate, so I had told K about the test, emphasizing over and over again that they would use something so it wouldn't hurt. However, we all can see how that went. I find myself wondering if it would have been better not to tell her the details so she wouldn't have time to develop anxiety about it beforehand. Unfortunately, that's a bell we can't unring, so short of cold-cocking her before carrying her into the hospital, we're going to have to deal with more pre-test anxiety and freaking out until they give her the mellow juice.
Anyway, two days later I still feel emotionally wrung out from the ordeal, plus now I get to look forward to trying to do it again. I had really been hoping Monday would be our last day of warming the waiting room chairs at that hospital for hours at a time for a while.
Of course, the real question is - should I bring along the camera to record her as she recovers from the sedation, in hopes of getting a video to rival David After Dentist?*
*Note: before anyone decides to flame me, I wouldn't actually do this. Although I clearly don't have a problem sharing my childrens' lives over the internet, I feel like turning your child's vulnerable moment into a cottage industry is where my personal line for exploiting your child gets crossed.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Books so far this year
I took a stab at keeping track of my reading this year, but here we are over a third of the way through the year and the list is getting too long to be able to get into every specific book in any detail. Fortunately, I haven't so much been reading new books as reading several new authors, which makes this much more efficient.
Rhys Bown, Her Royal Spyness series : This is a mystery series, starring Lady Georgianna, a young noblewoman living in London in the 1930s. Great-granddaughter to Queen Victoria and 34th in line to the throne. Unfortunately, her branch of the royal family is quite broke and her dreadful sister-in-law makes the family home in Scotland unbearable, so she is attempting to live independently while being too well-born to be able to earn a living. She scrapes by while periodically getting called upon by Queen Mary to do various favors, like attempt to distract the Prince of Wales from that dreadful Wallis Simpson. But really none of this gets across how hysterically funny these books are. Imagine the love child of P.G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Sayers (conveniently ignoring the fact that Dorothy was FAR too proper to do something so scandalous) with a generous dollop of Cold Comfort Farm (there's something very Flora Poste-ish about Georgie), and you begin to get the tone of these books.
Jennifer Crusie : I admit, I've been on a kick of light reading. She's a romance author, but her books are intelligent and well-written, and usually very funny. Her female protagonists tend to be intelligent women in their late 30s with real bodies who enjoy eating, as opposed to Barbie dolls in their early 20s. Her male protagonists aren't asssholes who make you wonder why anyone would ever want to get within 15 feet of them. There are very few moments of even slightly dubious consent. They're really about as good as a romance novel can get, particularly when you're in a mood for light and entertaining but don't want to have to turn your feminism off.
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games trilogy : And now for something completely different, a dystopian future where teenagers are chosen by lottery once a year to fight each other to the death for everybody's entertainment on tv. Hijinks ensue! Need I say that it isn't a good idea to get too attached to any of the characters? Truly, not so much the series I would recommend for someone who wants something light and easy. But much like Battlestar Galactica, despite the fact that I'm generally feeling too unsettled about the state of the world to be able to enjoy dystopia, this is just too damn good for me to put down.
Rhys Bown, Her Royal Spyness series : This is a mystery series, starring Lady Georgianna, a young noblewoman living in London in the 1930s. Great-granddaughter to Queen Victoria and 34th in line to the throne. Unfortunately, her branch of the royal family is quite broke and her dreadful sister-in-law makes the family home in Scotland unbearable, so she is attempting to live independently while being too well-born to be able to earn a living. She scrapes by while periodically getting called upon by Queen Mary to do various favors, like attempt to distract the Prince of Wales from that dreadful Wallis Simpson. But really none of this gets across how hysterically funny these books are. Imagine the love child of P.G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Sayers (conveniently ignoring the fact that Dorothy was FAR too proper to do something so scandalous) with a generous dollop of Cold Comfort Farm (there's something very Flora Poste-ish about Georgie), and you begin to get the tone of these books.
Jennifer Crusie : I admit, I've been on a kick of light reading. She's a romance author, but her books are intelligent and well-written, and usually very funny. Her female protagonists tend to be intelligent women in their late 30s with real bodies who enjoy eating, as opposed to Barbie dolls in their early 20s. Her male protagonists aren't asssholes who make you wonder why anyone would ever want to get within 15 feet of them. There are very few moments of even slightly dubious consent. They're really about as good as a romance novel can get, particularly when you're in a mood for light and entertaining but don't want to have to turn your feminism off.
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games trilogy : And now for something completely different, a dystopian future where teenagers are chosen by lottery once a year to fight each other to the death for everybody's entertainment on tv. Hijinks ensue! Need I say that it isn't a good idea to get too attached to any of the characters? Truly, not so much the series I would recommend for someone who wants something light and easy. But much like Battlestar Galactica, despite the fact that I'm generally feeling too unsettled about the state of the world to be able to enjoy dystopia, this is just too damn good for me to put down.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
100 years of waiting
I took K to the urologist last week, to see if we could find an answer to why she gets a new UTI every time she turns around. We got a maybe answer (this is the part where I hedge because I'm starting to feel like K's getting to the age where she deserves some privacy on these issues. So rather than get into the whole saga, Google "dysfunctional elimination" if you want to), and get to go back in a couple weeks for a delightful test called a VCUG, which involves a urinary catheter. I anticipate great fun getting K to sit still for that. Sigh. It will be at a children's hospital, so they should be used to dealing with uncooperative children.
Mostly, I'm hoping the office staff will be a little more on the ball this time around. We had a 9:45 appointment and didn't get home until 1:30, due to little things like the fact that it took over an HOUR just to check us in. Then we saw the actual doctor for about 30 seconds and a highly distracted nurse practitioner the rest of the time, if by "see" you mean "Spent five minutes someplace else for every two minutes she spent with us." And part of that approximately ten fragmented minutes was spent informing K that she needed to give up what the NP saw as a bad habit (completely unrelated to K's urinary tract) and outlined the behavior reward system we were apparently going to implement. All without every even directly speaking to me, the parent sitting right there in the room, let alone thinking that maybe things like this should be up to me, K'S MOTHER. Plus we already use a good bahavior chart, so her stupid star chart would be kind of redundant.
So now I have another reason to want the UTIs to end, so I don't have to keep finding myself wasting my quickly waning youth in a waiting room while waiting to get passive aggressive unwanted parenting advice.
Mostly, I'm hoping the office staff will be a little more on the ball this time around. We had a 9:45 appointment and didn't get home until 1:30, due to little things like the fact that it took over an HOUR just to check us in. Then we saw the actual doctor for about 30 seconds and a highly distracted nurse practitioner the rest of the time, if by "see" you mean "Spent five minutes someplace else for every two minutes she spent with us." And part of that approximately ten fragmented minutes was spent informing K that she needed to give up what the NP saw as a bad habit (completely unrelated to K's urinary tract) and outlined the behavior reward system we were apparently going to implement. All without every even directly speaking to me, the parent sitting right there in the room, let alone thinking that maybe things like this should be up to me, K'S MOTHER. Plus we already use a good bahavior chart, so her stupid star chart would be kind of redundant.
So now I have another reason to want the UTIs to end, so I don't have to keep finding myself wasting my quickly waning youth in a waiting room while waiting to get passive aggressive unwanted parenting advice.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Settling in
We have been in the new house for two weeks now, and things are settling down. We're in that somewhat unfortunate state where the living areas are pretty much set up and we have all of the things we need for everyday life, so we can just ignore all of those unpacked boxes downstairs and on the back porch, right?
Well, not if we want to set up the basement bedroom as a schoolroom. Currently, it's piled high with tubs of outgrown clothes and a refrigerator and dryer. We meant to put the refrigerator (and portable dishwasher, currently living on the back porch) up on Craigslist before we moved, but didn't manage it, so they came with us. We had intended to sell our washer and dryer as well, but we discovered the ones in this house are currently lacking such amenities as knobs for changing the settings and don't work well, so we brought ours over here instead. Only neither the owner nor could get the old dryer unhooked from the gas line, so we have a dryer sitting in our spare bedroom instead.
Despite the rogue appliances, we are definitely chipping away at the piles. We still need to do a big toy organization and general purge (which I meant to do when packing, but I didn't wind up doing much of the packing). And one thing I love about this house? It's so big that even with piles of boxes and crap all over the place, I'm not going crazy from the clutter, feeling like I'm surrounded and everything is closing in on me.
We're slowly getting back into normal life as well. School has not been high on K's list of priorities in the past couple weeks. Everything was in chaos, grandparents were here B's parents, to whom we are unbelievably grateful for all of the help they gave us moving and cleaning), and she's developing another fucking UTI (she scored a referral to a urologist after the last one, but that's not for another three weeks), none of which make any of us inclined to concentrate too hard on school. Unfortunately, we still have to do it. I'm hoping getting the schoolroom set up will help everyone's focus.
I keep meaning to write more. Every night, I open a page to write a post and somehow the time to write never really materializes. It was somewhat gratifying when I was recently describing my schedule to someone and from their reaction it was clear that apparently working 35+ hours a week and homeschooling IS a lot of work, so it's not just me, since sometimes I feel like I'm just malingering and I really could find time to do more.
Anyway, I'm planning on posting on how homeschooing is going plus developmental updates for both children. As a teaser: Alec's latest phrase is "Oh no!" It makes me want to engineer minor calamities so I can hear him wander around saying "Ohhhh nooooo!" like a little toddler Cassandra.
Well, not if we want to set up the basement bedroom as a schoolroom. Currently, it's piled high with tubs of outgrown clothes and a refrigerator and dryer. We meant to put the refrigerator (and portable dishwasher, currently living on the back porch) up on Craigslist before we moved, but didn't manage it, so they came with us. We had intended to sell our washer and dryer as well, but we discovered the ones in this house are currently lacking such amenities as knobs for changing the settings and don't work well, so we brought ours over here instead. Only neither the owner nor
Despite the rogue appliances, we are definitely chipping away at the piles. We still need to do a big toy organization and general purge (which I meant to do when packing, but I didn't wind up doing much of the packing). And one thing I love about this house? It's so big that even with piles of boxes and crap all over the place, I'm not going crazy from the clutter, feeling like I'm surrounded and everything is closing in on me.
We're slowly getting back into normal life as well. School has not been high on K's list of priorities in the past couple weeks. Everything was in chaos, grandparents were here B's parents, to whom we are unbelievably grateful for all of the help they gave us moving and cleaning), and she's developing another fucking UTI (she scored a referral to a urologist after the last one, but that's not for another three weeks), none of which make any of us inclined to concentrate too hard on school. Unfortunately, we still have to do it. I'm hoping getting the schoolroom set up will help everyone's focus.
I keep meaning to write more. Every night, I open a page to write a post and somehow the time to write never really materializes. It was somewhat gratifying when I was recently describing my schedule to someone and from their reaction it was clear that apparently working 35+ hours a week and homeschooling IS a lot of work, so it's not just me, since sometimes I feel like I'm just malingering and I really could find time to do more.
Anyway, I'm planning on posting on how homeschooing is going plus developmental updates for both children. As a teaser: Alec's latest phrase is "Oh no!" It makes me want to engineer minor calamities so I can hear him wander around saying "Ohhhh nooooo!" like a little toddler Cassandra.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Distracted
Our moving date is currently this Saturday the 19th. So far, B has been the hero of the move, progressively packing and taking a couple loads of stuff over the new house every night for the past couple weeks. Of course, this is because he has time to do this, whereas between homeschooling every day and working every night, I have approximately 15 minutes of spare time every day. And I will probably to the lion's share of the unpacking. But he's still heroic.
Equally heroic are his parents, who are paying for movers to come this Saturday to move all of the furniture and really heavy stuff. Yippee! Although the price we were quoted was reasonable enough that if we do another in-town move in the future, I think we will do the same thing even if we have to spend our own money, because it would be worth it.
I am going to be so thrilled when we reach the point in our lives where we feel confident that we can just buy a house and stay there for the next 50 years. We're not there yet because we don't really want to stay in Philadelphia, and even if we stayed in the area, we want out of the city. But someday on that glorious day, we will move our stuff in and gleefully start accumulating stacks in the basement that our children will be forced to excavate someday when the time comes to move us assisted living.
If we did decide that it looks like we're not going anywhere for quite a while, I think we would strongly consider putting an offer in on the new house. I could burble on for quite a while on all of the things I like about it, and not just the ways it improves on our old house that you would never think to look for, like kitchen counters that haven't been painted (I'm all agog at the thought of what the counters must have looked like for them to decide that house paint would be an improvement. No, not even some sort of enamel paint, just flat white). It's more things like the walk-in closet in our (huge) bedroom. I think 3/4 of the reason I started wanting to move is the lack of closet space here - we have a tiny closet in our bedroom taken up entirely by's work clothes, and my clothes are in the similarly tiny closet in Alec's room. Or the ample number of grounded outlets, which is something you don't truly appreciate until you've lived in a few old houses and worried that the electrical system would rise up and kill you someday in revenge for the abuse you have to put it through to power our modern lifestyle.
*****
Oh. My. God. I don't think I ever could have dreamed how badly Daylight Savings Time would affect us this year. One of the things I love about homeschooling is that we don't have to haul K out of bed in the morning for school. The fact that she is both very slow to wake up and is not at all a morning person is how I know she's certainly our child. But the downside of this is that if she stays up too late, like, just to pull an example out at random, her body thinks it's an hour earlier than it really is, she doesn't have to get up in the morning and doesn't have anything forcing her onto the new schedule. Thus began the pattern this week of her staying up too late, then sleeping in, falling asleep for a brief time in the evening and using that to have the stamina to stay up half the night. Last night, she was up past 3 AM after a half hour nap earlier that evening. Then we both slept until noon today. Insane. Not that I mind being able to sleep in, since I was also up that late working, but we can't keep that schedule.
Thankfully, she fell asleep at a relatively sane 10 tonight, and will have to get up to go to the babysitter's tomorrow morning and then the movers are arriving at 9 Saturday, so that will give us a couple days of forced rising to get her back onto a better schedule. Because even though she's such a big kids that she lost her first tooth last night and got her first pair of shoes in kid sizes instead of toddler sizes today (what can I say? For such a tall kid, she has teeny tiny feet), she's not ready to keep teenage hours yet.
*****
And finally, we didn't get to have corned beef and cabbage today, because getting up at noon precluded getting it into the crockpot on time, but we'll do that tomorrow. Astonishingly, I managed to get both myself and K dressed in green today despite completely forgetting about St. Patrick's Day, even though K has very few green clothes. But even if we're too distracted to do a proper celebration, here's a little something to honor St. Patrick's Day:
Equally heroic are his parents, who are paying for movers to come this Saturday to move all of the furniture and really heavy stuff. Yippee! Although the price we were quoted was reasonable enough that if we do another in-town move in the future, I think we will do the same thing even if we have to spend our own money, because it would be worth it.
I am going to be so thrilled when we reach the point in our lives where we feel confident that we can just buy a house and stay there for the next 50 years. We're not there yet because we don't really want to stay in Philadelphia, and even if we stayed in the area, we want out of the city. But someday on that glorious day, we will move our stuff in and gleefully start accumulating stacks in the basement that our children will be forced to excavate someday when the time comes to move us assisted living.
If we did decide that it looks like we're not going anywhere for quite a while, I think we would strongly consider putting an offer in on the new house. I could burble on for quite a while on all of the things I like about it, and not just the ways it improves on our old house that you would never think to look for, like kitchen counters that haven't been painted (I'm all agog at the thought of what the counters must have looked like for them to decide that house paint would be an improvement. No, not even some sort of enamel paint, just flat white). It's more things like the walk-in closet in our (huge) bedroom. I think 3/4 of the reason I started wanting to move is the lack of closet space here - we have a tiny closet in our bedroom taken up entirely by
*****
Oh. My. God. I don't think I ever could have dreamed how badly Daylight Savings Time would affect us this year. One of the things I love about homeschooling is that we don't have to haul K out of bed in the morning for school. The fact that she is both very slow to wake up and is not at all a morning person is how I know she's certainly our child. But the downside of this is that if she stays up too late, like, just to pull an example out at random, her body thinks it's an hour earlier than it really is, she doesn't have to get up in the morning and doesn't have anything forcing her onto the new schedule. Thus began the pattern this week of her staying up too late, then sleeping in, falling asleep for a brief time in the evening and using that to have the stamina to stay up half the night. Last night, she was up past 3 AM after a half hour nap earlier that evening. Then we both slept until noon today. Insane. Not that I mind being able to sleep in, since I was also up that late working, but we can't keep that schedule.
Thankfully, she fell asleep at a relatively sane 10 tonight, and will have to get up to go to the babysitter's tomorrow morning and then the movers are arriving at 9 Saturday, so that will give us a couple days of forced rising to get her back onto a better schedule. Because even though she's such a big kids that she lost her first tooth last night and got her first pair of shoes in kid sizes instead of toddler sizes today (what can I say? For such a tall kid, she has teeny tiny feet), she's not ready to keep teenage hours yet.
*****
And finally, we didn't get to have corned beef and cabbage today, because getting up at noon precluded getting it into the crockpot on time, but we'll do that tomorrow. Astonishingly, I managed to get both myself and K dressed in green today despite completely forgetting about St. Patrick's Day, even though K has very few green clothes. But even if we're too distracted to do a proper celebration, here's a little something to honor St. Patrick's Day:
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Last Monday's schoolwork delaying tactics:
Sharpening her pencil to the Platonic ideal of a sharpened point.
Writing secret notes.
"I need a break!" After a whole five minutes of work.
Wearing her coat as pants.
"You know who's my friend Mom? You!"
Aw, that's sweet honey. Now get back to work.
******
A week ago Friday, I worked at the library, and worked another four hours that night. Saturday, I was alone with the children while B worked. Then I worked at the library Sunday before starting the weekly grind over again on Monday.
It used to be I felt quite put upon by weekends like this, because of how tiring they were and how long I had to go to look forward to any time off again. Now, however, Saturday was positively relaxing because instead of K going to the babysitter with her brother friday, she stayed home with B and they did schoolwork. So we don't have to do any schoolwork Saturday.
I suppose it just goes to show, if you're feeling tired and overworked, take on another huge obligation and you'll feel so much better when you just don't have to do that.
*****
K found a pair of Elmo slippers in a closet last week, a pair my mother gave her when she was two that are now long outgrown. They fit her brother just fine though. We put them on him this afternoon and he walked around with them, utterly pleased and intrigued by the sudden appearance of fuzzy red monsters on his feet. He would take a couple steps and then pause to look at them with a pleased little smile on his face. Step, step, lift foot carefully for inspection, grin.
Before we put them on him, he was carrying them around lovingly in a big armful along with his stuffed Big Bird. I'm very pleased about the Big Bird. For the longest time, his only interest in stuffed animals was in how far he could fling them. But once he hit 18 months, he made a huge leap forward in imaginative play and began playing with them along with dolls in fairly typical baby care-type play. So when he started lavishing a lot of attention on the stuffed Big Bird at daycare, I went out and bought him one and it's definitely been a big hit.
I've been hoping to get him attached to a lovey, in hopes that it will help in the process of getting him to be able to get himself back to sleep. And a stuffed Big Bird is ideal, because they're all over the place and easy to replace (particularly when you live ten miles away from Sesame Place). K decided to imprint on a stuffed rabbit that had been mine as a child, so it was basically irreplaceable. As an added bonus, it's a mother and baby bunny, so in addition to the danger of losing the mother rabbit, there's a much greater danger of losing the baby, which happened for six months at one point. Part of the joy I get when I see Alec asleep with Big Bird clutched in his arms is how frigging cute it is. But another part of it is knowing that there are a thousand replacements available if anything happens to it.
Sharpening her pencil to the Platonic ideal of a sharpened point.
Writing secret notes.
"I need a break!" After a whole five minutes of work.
Wearing her coat as pants.
"You know who's my friend Mom? You!"
Aw, that's sweet honey. Now get back to work.
******
A week ago Friday, I worked at the library, and worked another four hours that night. Saturday, I was alone with the children while B worked. Then I worked at the library Sunday before starting the weekly grind over again on Monday.
It used to be I felt quite put upon by weekends like this, because of how tiring they were and how long I had to go to look forward to any time off again. Now, however, Saturday was positively relaxing because instead of K going to the babysitter with her brother friday, she stayed home with B and they did schoolwork. So we don't have to do any schoolwork Saturday.
I suppose it just goes to show, if you're feeling tired and overworked, take on another huge obligation and you'll feel so much better when you just don't have to do that.
*****
K found a pair of Elmo slippers in a closet last week, a pair my mother gave her when she was two that are now long outgrown. They fit her brother just fine though. We put them on him this afternoon and he walked around with them, utterly pleased and intrigued by the sudden appearance of fuzzy red monsters on his feet. He would take a couple steps and then pause to look at them with a pleased little smile on his face. Step, step, lift foot carefully for inspection, grin.
Before we put them on him, he was carrying them around lovingly in a big armful along with his stuffed Big Bird. I'm very pleased about the Big Bird. For the longest time, his only interest in stuffed animals was in how far he could fling them. But once he hit 18 months, he made a huge leap forward in imaginative play and began playing with them along with dolls in fairly typical baby care-type play. So when he started lavishing a lot of attention on the stuffed Big Bird at daycare, I went out and bought him one and it's definitely been a big hit.
I've been hoping to get him attached to a lovey, in hopes that it will help in the process of getting him to be able to get himself back to sleep. And a stuffed Big Bird is ideal, because they're all over the place and easy to replace (particularly when you live ten miles away from Sesame Place). K decided to imprint on a stuffed rabbit that had been mine as a child, so it was basically irreplaceable. As an added bonus, it's a mother and baby bunny, so in addition to the danger of losing the mother rabbit, there's a much greater danger of losing the baby, which happened for six months at one point. Part of the joy I get when I see Alec asleep with Big Bird clutched in his arms is how frigging cute it is. But another part of it is knowing that there are a thousand replacements available if anything happens to it.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Miscellanea
On entertainment:
We just started rewatching Babylon 5, and I have absolutely no problem seeing why it took me a while to warm up to it. I can see the seeds of the characters I grew to love, but holy stilted dialogue, Batman.
In other brain-rotting, we enjoyed Downton Abbey on PBS immensely. I think there's something about a highly regulated society that makes for the best soap operas, probably because there are so many more ways to transgress, and the stakes are so much higher. People sleeping together in these dissolute days means very little, but 100 years ago, just the hint of impropriety could exile someone forever. That makes for the really good drama.
I'm very glad to find out that there's a second season coming, because the number of dangling plotlines. I hope we don't have to wait an entire year or more for it to come over. I may have to find out when it's showing in the UK so we can acquire it early.
On children:
K's latest entertainment is cleaning things. She's really not too bad at it, going at things with a spray bottle of cleaning solution so diluted that it's practically water and a cleaning cloth. Although we're still dealing with the aftermath of last week when she decided to clean the bathroom with Goo Gone, on the whole this is a hobby I encourage. I was rather bemused to find myself having to say yesterday, "You may not clean the bathroom until your schoolwork is done!"
On Wisconsin:
Being a household that is largely supported by a unionized public worker, we've been following the events in Wisconsin pretty closely and feeling a great deal of solidarity with the demonstrators there.
I... don't even know how to respond to the things I hear about this. I can say that while I'm sure there are ways that unions can create abuse, most of the frothing I hear about lazy union workers who get fat salaries and benefit packages for no work are rather heated fantasies. Certainly every union worker I know works quite hard for the same number of hours as everyone else. B's good benefits package more or less makes up for the fact that he's making less money than he would in the private sector. The number of times B has had to fear for his job in the four years we've been here certainly shows that it's possible to get fired from a union job.
And then there are the people who feel it's preferable that other people lose there entire pension or even livelihood to their having to pay another $30 a year in taxes. I'm not sure my response to this is printable, except to say to the people insisting that we all have to make sacrifices that, well, we all have to make sacrifices, so why are you insisting that other people's sacrifices be so much bigger than yours?
And the attitude I understand least of all is the people who seem to resent the fact that we've found a way to make our working lives better. The chain of logic seems to go: your workplace treats you well and mine treats me like crap. Therefore I want to take away any protection you have so you can be treated like crap too. Er, I can think of better solutions to this problem. I mean, while B's benefits package is good, I don't consider it unreasonably generous, I consider it reasonable because it's the sort of benefits everyone should get. The only area that it's really better than many benefit plans it that we get very good health insurance and don't have to pay a lot for it. This is something everyone deserves. Wouldn't you rather work to get what we have instead of trying to take it away?
Government workers are struggling and sacrificing in the bad economy like everyone else - B hasn't had a raise in two years, there have been multiple waves of layoffs and it's entirely likely his next contract will include the city having the ability to impose furlough days. But being part of a union means that even though we work for what is quite frankly a fairly corrupt city government that is scrambling to deal with a lack of money, we can feel like we have a measure of protection. I can think of several instances where B's union prevented the city from doing something abusive, and goodness knows how many things they haven't tried to do because of the union being there. I can't imagine how bad it would get if that protection were taken away.
We just started rewatching Babylon 5, and I have absolutely no problem seeing why it took me a while to warm up to it. I can see the seeds of the characters I grew to love, but holy stilted dialogue, Batman.
In other brain-rotting, we enjoyed Downton Abbey on PBS immensely. I think there's something about a highly regulated society that makes for the best soap operas, probably because there are so many more ways to transgress, and the stakes are so much higher. People sleeping together in these dissolute days means very little, but 100 years ago, just the hint of impropriety could exile someone forever. That makes for the really good drama.
I'm very glad to find out that there's a second season coming, because the number of dangling plotlines. I hope we don't have to wait an entire year or more for it to come over. I may have to find out when it's showing in the UK so we can acquire it early.
On children:
K's latest entertainment is cleaning things. She's really not too bad at it, going at things with a spray bottle of cleaning solution so diluted that it's practically water and a cleaning cloth. Although we're still dealing with the aftermath of last week when she decided to clean the bathroom with Goo Gone, on the whole this is a hobby I encourage. I was rather bemused to find myself having to say yesterday, "You may not clean the bathroom until your schoolwork is done!"
On Wisconsin:
Being a household that is largely supported by a unionized public worker, we've been following the events in Wisconsin pretty closely and feeling a great deal of solidarity with the demonstrators there.
I... don't even know how to respond to the things I hear about this. I can say that while I'm sure there are ways that unions can create abuse, most of the frothing I hear about lazy union workers who get fat salaries and benefit packages for no work are rather heated fantasies. Certainly every union worker I know works quite hard for the same number of hours as everyone else. B's good benefits package more or less makes up for the fact that he's making less money than he would in the private sector. The number of times B has had to fear for his job in the four years we've been here certainly shows that it's possible to get fired from a union job.
And then there are the people who feel it's preferable that other people lose there entire pension or even livelihood to their having to pay another $30 a year in taxes. I'm not sure my response to this is printable, except to say to the people insisting that we all have to make sacrifices that, well, we all have to make sacrifices, so why are you insisting that other people's sacrifices be so much bigger than yours?
And the attitude I understand least of all is the people who seem to resent the fact that we've found a way to make our working lives better. The chain of logic seems to go: your workplace treats you well and mine treats me like crap. Therefore I want to take away any protection you have so you can be treated like crap too. Er, I can think of better solutions to this problem. I mean, while B's benefits package is good, I don't consider it unreasonably generous, I consider it reasonable because it's the sort of benefits everyone should get. The only area that it's really better than many benefit plans it that we get very good health insurance and don't have to pay a lot for it. This is something everyone deserves. Wouldn't you rather work to get what we have instead of trying to take it away?
Government workers are struggling and sacrificing in the bad economy like everyone else - B hasn't had a raise in two years, there have been multiple waves of layoffs and it's entirely likely his next contract will include the city having the ability to impose furlough days. But being part of a union means that even though we work for what is quite frankly a fairly corrupt city government that is scrambling to deal with a lack of money, we can feel like we have a measure of protection. I can think of several instances where B's union prevented the city from doing something abusive, and goodness knows how many things they haven't tried to do because of the union being there. I can't imagine how bad it would get if that protection were taken away.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
And in other news
We have found a new house. A really really nice house.
One of the nice things about the current real estate market is that it's not just good for buyers. It's also very good for renters because the people who can't sell their houses are often renting them out instead. And since they're just trying to cover the mortgage, not make a profit, you can get quite a nice price indeed for a house that's been fixed up to sell.
So it's not just that we're getting:
- Much more space
- A lovely setup in the basement with a family room with a wood-burning stove and an in-law suite that will serve as a great space for having a schoolroom connected to a playroom for optimal older-kid-teaching and toddler-entertaining
- A fenced backyard with a storage shed, across the street from some nice woods
The fact that they were trying to sell the house means that we also get:
- Nice, up-to-date appliances that aren't the cheapest models available
- Clean walls and carpets that aren't Rental Beige (and thankfully also not orange shag)
- New, energy efficient windows and doors
All for not much more than we're paying now. Groovy.
Really, the only real drawbacks I can think of are that it's not that convenient to a grocery store and all of the banisters are metal which will make it hard to set up baby gates, a necessity in a three-story house. In particular, we need them on the stairs going up to the third floor, which are fairly steep and lead down to a brick wall at the bottom. Ai-yi-yi. We like our toddler's brains on the inside, thank you. Right now, he's terrified of going down stairs on his own, but he'll outgrow that eventually and I think my hair will go entirely grey at that point, the hair that's remaining after I've torn large portions out, that is.
And, of course, the REAL disadvantage of the new house: now we have to move. Sigh. Can't I just hope for helpful moving fairies to arrive and magically transport all of our stuff to the new house, conveniently organizing and purging in the process? Sounds like a plan to me!
One of the nice things about the current real estate market is that it's not just good for buyers. It's also very good for renters because the people who can't sell their houses are often renting them out instead. And since they're just trying to cover the mortgage, not make a profit, you can get quite a nice price indeed for a house that's been fixed up to sell.
So it's not just that we're getting:
- Much more space
- A lovely setup in the basement with a family room with a wood-burning stove and an in-law suite that will serve as a great space for having a schoolroom connected to a playroom for optimal older-kid-teaching and toddler-entertaining
- A fenced backyard with a storage shed, across the street from some nice woods
The fact that they were trying to sell the house means that we also get:
- Nice, up-to-date appliances that aren't the cheapest models available
- Clean walls and carpets that aren't Rental Beige (and thankfully also not orange shag)
- New, energy efficient windows and doors
All for not much more than we're paying now. Groovy.
Really, the only real drawbacks I can think of are that it's not that convenient to a grocery store and all of the banisters are metal which will make it hard to set up baby gates, a necessity in a three-story house. In particular, we need them on the stairs going up to the third floor, which are fairly steep and lead down to a brick wall at the bottom. Ai-yi-yi. We like our toddler's brains on the inside, thank you. Right now, he's terrified of going down stairs on his own, but he'll outgrow that eventually and I think my hair will go entirely grey at that point, the hair that's remaining after I've torn large portions out, that is.
And, of course, the REAL disadvantage of the new house: now we have to move. Sigh. Can't I just hope for helpful moving fairies to arrive and magically transport all of our stuff to the new house, conveniently organizing and purging in the process? Sounds like a plan to me!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Homeschooling, week 2
Last week, K read, with heavy prompting, a little phonics book today of the "Pat and Nan sat" variety. I think the unwillingness to read out loud is something that will probably improve as she gains confidence with reading. I suspect the unwillingness to give answers unless she's really sure of them is something that will go on for years.
I am quite sure that the problem is that she doesn't want to take risks, not that she doesn't understand. Last week, in the middle of a lesson where we were adding letters to -an and I was struggling to get her to read "fan" and "pan," she said "If we add 'K' we'll have the beginning of 'kangaroo.'"
...okay then. You can't get "man" but you can extrapolate "kangaroo"?
Her last school was working on more of a whole word approach to reading while this school is using phonics, and I think phonics definitely suits K better. It gives the student tools to figure things out on their own, instead of expecting them to simply memorize things and be able to repeat them back on demand. This suits K's learning style and personality vastly better. After only two weeks, she's really getting the idea of sounding things out. Today, we were about to close the tray on the dvd player and she looked at a label and said "C-c-c-close" and then hit the right button. Not too shabby.
We're getting a better rhythm to our days. We start out with a recorded message from her teacher and a round of educational computer games assigned by the school, then work on the parent-taught lessons. If we're on the ball, we can have the vast majority done by lunch. The majority of the work isn't hard at all for her, but my goal has never been to stretch her to her limits academically but just to prevent her from having to sit there all day doing stuff that's too easy for her over and over again. Right now, she's engaged, she's learning, and she has plenty of free play time, which is what a kindergartener needs.
I am quite sure that the problem is that she doesn't want to take risks, not that she doesn't understand. Last week, in the middle of a lesson where we were adding letters to -an and I was struggling to get her to read "fan" and "pan," she said "If we add 'K' we'll have the beginning of 'kangaroo.'"
...okay then. You can't get "man" but you can extrapolate "kangaroo"?
Her last school was working on more of a whole word approach to reading while this school is using phonics, and I think phonics definitely suits K better. It gives the student tools to figure things out on their own, instead of expecting them to simply memorize things and be able to repeat them back on demand. This suits K's learning style and personality vastly better. After only two weeks, she's really getting the idea of sounding things out. Today, we were about to close the tray on the dvd player and she looked at a label and said "C-c-c-close" and then hit the right button. Not too shabby.
We're getting a better rhythm to our days. We start out with a recorded message from her teacher and a round of educational computer games assigned by the school, then work on the parent-taught lessons. If we're on the ball, we can have the vast majority done by lunch. The majority of the work isn't hard at all for her, but my goal has never been to stretch her to her limits academically but just to prevent her from having to sit there all day doing stuff that's too easy for her over and over again. Right now, she's engaged, she's learning, and she has plenty of free play time, which is what a kindergartener needs.
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