Month: November 2006

Today Howard and I loaded Itunes onto my computer and copied our joint music library there. The point of this is for me to be able to create a library of music that I like and can use without messing up Howard’s ratings and settings. So I’ve just killed an hour poking around to see what music is in there. I threw out things that I don’t like and discovered some old favorites. The point of all this is that eventually Howard will replace his current ipod with a newer version and I can have the old one. Then I can have music around the house even when Howard is elsewhere. I don’t know when the new ipod for Howard will happen. I wish it could be this Christmas, but we’ve already been too spendy and all the things that we’ve been “making do” are beginning to break and need replacing. Just today I had to replace the toy cupboard because the drawers on it completely broke. In fact I should be assembling those shelves rather than poking around our music library. Sigh. But music has so much less work involved.

Today Gleek had a tantrum over departing for school. Partly the problem was miscommunication between Howard and I over whether she is allowed to take toys in the car for the to-school trip. Howard ended up taking Kiki to school and swinging back by to pick up Gleek. After he left with Kiki, Gleek curled up on my bed into a little ball. “I don’t like school.” she told me in a small sad voice. “People call me crybaby.” I wanted so much to snuggle her into my lap and make it all better, but when I reached for her she fled from me. She didn’t flee far, she didn’t want to be held, but she didn’t want to be alone either. I asked her if there was anything else that she didn’t like about school. Apparently one day she was teased that the clothes she was wearing weren’t clothes at all, but pajamas. Also she doesn’t much like circle time. She says it is boring. I then asked what she likes about school. She brightened up for this part. She told about a girl who makes her laugh.

Trying to encourage this positive train of thought, I mentioned a project her class is working on. That was a huge error. It turns out that the project is supposed to be a surprise for me and for Howard. I’d seen the surprise and that seemed the end of everything for Gleek. She cried inconsolably while I racked my brain trying to think of a way to make things better. Inspiration hit, I grabbed Kiki and Link’s versions of this same project and showed them to Gleek. I told her how I was really looking forward to her project being done because then I could hang it on the wall with the one Kiki had done and the one that Link had done. We compared the two finished projects with hers which is in process. Then we quickly put the projects away so that it can still be a surprise for Howard.

Leaving for school was still hard for Gleek. I know that school is a hard place for her to be. She has to work very hard to control herself and follow rules while she is there. I also know that there are things about it that she really enjoys and loves. I know how she feels, because parenting is the same way every single day.

Today Patches was sick. This meant I got to snuggle him to sleep in my lap twice today. He snuggles so small when he’s in my lap. When he’s awake I keep marvelling at how big he is getting, but when he’s asleep he still seems so small.

Kiki’s school class has been mummifying chickens. That’s right, they buy a chicken from a store, bury it in salt for two weeks, the wrap it up in approved mummy manner. These mummified chickens are then stored for a year so next year’s class can have the joy of opening a mummified chicken. Kiki got to open one from last year. She says it smelled really gross. And yes the kids always wear gloves for this, I checked. Today Kiki was telling me that they’re doing an extra special chicken that will get stored for 5 years. Along with the mummified chicken this year’s class is including notes and “curses” for students 5 years ahead. It’s kind of like a time capsule, only new and improved with a dead chicken. In case you hadn’t guessed, they’re studying ancient Egypt. I don’t know if mummified chickens are proven to improve absorption of knowledge of all things Egyptian, but I do know that it has Kiki fascinated. She has babbled about mummifying chickens many times over the past few weeks. I never got to mummify a chicken when I was in school. Now I feel left out.

In unrelated news, we now have light. A while ago I wrote about household quirks and I mentioned the light in the girl’s bedroom which won’t turn on at all. With the shorter days of winter the lack of light became increasingly annoying. This particular light has been a problem for years. It flickered a lot and burned out bulbs frequently. We figured it was a bad fixture and replaced it. The new florescent light was wonderful until the day it refused to turn on. We put up with it that way for months until I finally purchased new florescent bulbs. I put in the new bulbs, it still refused to turn on. It sat that way for nearly a year until last week when we replaced the switch. Still no light.

Captain Electric came to our rescue. They sent a nice man who found a shorted wire and informed us that the florescent light fixture was permanently broken. The only alternate available was the basic utility room bare bulb fixture. So now that is what the girls have in their room. BUT they have a switch that makes their room light! We can replace the ugly fixture later now that the bad wire is fixed. He also replaced the motor on one of our bathroom fans, changed a lightbulb on a 12′ ceiling, and put a cover plate on the box that used to hold controls for a swamp cooler. As an added bonus Captain Electric has a policy that if their technician is late, the customer gets free movie tickets and a dinner coupon. It’s a psychological trick that works very well, I was almost glad when they called me and told me he would be late. So lights, a fan, dinner, and a movie. If only it didn’t come with that $400 bill.

Thank you for all the wonderful responses to my last post about where to shop. I now have a plan for how to proceed and I’m dreading the process much less than before.

Last night I sat down with the kids to make bead candy canes. You make these by stringing beads onto pipe cleaners and then bending the thing into a cane shape. They make great Christmas ornaments and gifts. We also used jingle bells and pipe cleaners to make door hangers. I had mentally figured that both of these projects would take about 30 minutes to complete. I seriously underestimated the creative potential of pipe cleaners, beads, and jingle bells combined. The kids were making constructions for two hours and having worlds of fun while doing it.

For some reason Link felt that this sort of Christmas project required music. Since none was readily available, he favored us with a rendition of Jingle Bells. Gleek and Kiki joined him. It is a little known fact that any group of children who begins singing this particular Christmas tune will gradually increase the volume of the song with each iteration. In no time at all I had kids shouting Jingle Bells at full volume while bending pipe cleaners to their whims. Ah Christmas.

There are some kinds of shopping I like. I like to shop Howard’s amazon wishlist, or mine, or the kids. I like knowing exactly what I want and getting it quickly. I like leisurely browsing with money to spend how I please. Sometimes I like grocery shopping, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I like clothes shopping, sometimes I don’t. But there is one kind of shopping that I have always hated without exception. (WARNING: What follows is a discussion of the practicalities of shopping for women’s underwear. If you are male, you may want to skip the rest of this post.) I hate shopping for bras. I hate it so much that I will wear them until I can see through bits that weren’t designed to be see-through. The added see-throughness does not make them more attractive and makes them much less useful. I have finally accepted the fact that I must again go bra shopping. Grr.

I mentioned all of the above to Howard along with the fact that I’d need several hours to go try on underwear at Walmart and the fact that I would almost certainly come home from this grumpy but not necessarily having made the purchases. I confess I did rant a little about current bra fashions being more like padded breastplates. (I’m not at all convinced that bra utility is at all improved by being made out of padded foam, I think it’s just a fashion thing.) Howard listened to my rant patiently then asked: “Why do you shop for bras at Walmart?” Well, because they’re cheap. I hate buying bras even more if I’m spending piles of money. If I spend money and don’t love it, then I wear it every day and mentally groan at how much I had to spend to find something that is only adequate. I mentioned this to Howard and he countered with “If you shop someplace nicer, it might be more enjoyable.” He further pointed out that $150 for a set of bras is not too much to spend on something I have to wear every day. He further ordered me to blog about all of this and ask for advice on good places to shop where the experience will be less likely to engrumpify me.

So here I am, following orders like a good girl. I don’t need lingerie, just plain old underwear that I can use everyday. It needs to be so comfortable that I don’t even notice it is there. Attractiveness is a bonus. So, where should I shop?

This evening I was sitting with Patches while he was eating a bedtime snack. I like to sit with him and have little conversations. It never ceases to amaze me what these conversations reveal about his understanding (or misunderstanding) of how the world works. Sometimes they aren’t so much conversations as monologues. Patches will sit there talking to himself, expressing each thought out loud as it is caused by the previous one. Tonight was a monologue night. He sat with his ice cream. He’d say something, then use the time when he was eating a spoonful to ponder on what he’d said and it’s implications on the world as a whole.

All this is very adorable and sweet, except for the fact that tonight’s topic for thought was exactly how it might be possible to put poop on a stick.

Today has been a day of trying to get back to normal around here. It was more or less successful. But because Mondays are early out days and also contain two gymnastics lessons, I always end Mondays feeling a little frazzled and tired of driving places in the car. Tuesdays are a little better, but it is usually Wednesday before I really feel settled into the week. I’m hoping to slow things down some in January by putting Gleek and Link into the same Art club rather than separate Gymnastics lessons. Conveniently this art club will sandwich right between Link’s pick up from School and Kiki’s pick up from School. So potentially Mondays will be much nicer in January. BUT even though Monday’s are always tiring, at least this Monday was tiring in the familiar way rather than in a new and different stressful way.

It has now been two weeks since Link’s first dose of ADD medication. The first couple of days were a little frightening with how focused he was. He has settled down quite a bit since then. He was off the medicine for a couple of days during our Thanksgiving holiday. He slept 12 hours straight both days that he was off. He also complained that I forgot to give him his medicine. He was complaining because he couldn’t think or talk the way he wanted to be able to do. So far the only real drawback I’ve seen to the medication is increased difficulty getting him to settle down to sleep. Last night I went to check on him about an hour after tucking him in and he was sitting up in bed carefully organizing his shelf. On one hand, he’s never been very good at organizing and there he was doing a marvelous job. On the other hand, he was supposed to be sleeping.

Link’s teacher is amazed at the difference she sees. He’s right on task and happy most of the days. This is a vivid contrast to how he used to be. I concur. I am continually amazed at the ways I don’t have to slow down or simplfy so that Link can process what is happening. So mostly medication has been a positive experience thus far. Obviously I intend to monitor things closely because he is still growing and changing. What works perfectly now may not work so well in a few months.

Now I’m eyeing Gleek and wondering if she has ADHD. It might explain why she is so frequently a handful. I’ve been mentally listing symptoms and I’ll bet she has 8 or 9 out of the hypothetical list of12. I’m not ready to begin pursuing diagnosis on her yet because I don’t know that a child as young as she is can be adequately diagnosed for ADD due to developmental immaturities. Also I’m concerned that I may just being seeing this because medication made life with Link so much easier and I’d like Gleek to be easier to deal with. The gripping hand is that I’m just not ready to introduce another large change into our lives before Christmas. When things settle after the holidays I’ll see where we’re at.

Note: The concept of relationships as accounts was given me by someone else. What I am doing here is just putting the metaphor into my own words in ways that help me analyze interactions that I have seen.

Relationships are like joint bank accounts. Both people can make deposits to the account causing it to grow and both cam make withdrawals from the account causing it to shrink. Anything that strengthens a relationship, like a remembered birthday, counts as a deposit. Anything that weakens a relationship, like hurtful words, counts as a withdrawal. New accounts aren’t very big and so they can’t stand very many withdrawals before they bankrupt. Long standing accounts can stand up to many more withdrawals. However even a long standing account can be overdrawn and bankrupted.

When one person makes a big withdrawal from the joint account, it can be very frightening/upsetting for the other person. Suddenly she is reminded that she does not have complete control of how this account grows or is spent. Sometimes that fear leads her to also make a withdrawal. After all he did it, why can’t she? Unfortunately this pattern quickly leads to an account that is overdrawn and bankrupt. This pattern is particularly evident in divorces as both people struggle to withdraw as much as they can from an account that is already overdrawn.

Another response to a large withdrawal is when the injured person demands a deposit to make up for the withdrawal. You see this when a woman demands flowers in recompense for a forgotten anniversary. Unfortunately, deposits that are produced in response to a demand, only carry half the value they would otherwise have. On the other hand, an unexpected deposit, like surprise flowers, can triple or quadruple in value.

Some relationships are structured so that one person makes far more withdrawals than deposits. Parent/child relationships are this way. Sometimes the child makes a deposit to the account, but it is usually the responsibility of the parent to keep the account solvent. The parent has to pull funds from somewhere else to keep the account going. Of course it also falls to the parent to teach their children how and when to make deposits to relationship accounts. Sometimes this means demanding deposits, such as an apology.

If a person is physically or mentally ill, then they make far more withdrawals than they do deposits. This is not by choice. It falls to the caretaker to value the deposits that the ill person manages to make according to the difficulty of making deposits at all. This is not easy.

Gifts can be significant deposits. Gifts make a large deposit at the moment of gifting, but they continue to make small deposits every time the recipient sees or touches the gift. Gifts can also be withdrawals if the gift serves as a reminder of misunderstanding or if the gift comes with strings attached. Gifts are more likely to be accepted as large deposits if they demonstrate significant sacrifice or effort. Jewelry is a favored gift because it is expensive, thus it represents a large sacrifice of money and the effort required to earn that money. A handmade gift represents a large sacrifice of time.

Sometimes one person believes she is making a deposit when the other person perceives it as a withdrawal. This is like the mother who expresses her love by making sure that the laundry and dishes are always done. But the child ends up feeling like housework is more important than he is. In order for a deposit to really build the account, it can’t be made in a currency that is foreign to the recipient.

The light hanging turned out to be much less painful than I’d anticipated. Much of it actually happened yesterday when Kiki came to me and asked when we were going to hang Christmas lights. I answered that I didn’t want to deal with it yet. Then she said “I’ll do it. You have a willing worker right here.” In that moment I realized that if lights outside are important to the kids, then the kids can be involved in making it happen. I handed Kiki the box of lights and she happily tested them and then strung them into our front shrubbery. By the time she was done she was saying how she didn’t think that the house needed lights at all. Instead we could just have pretty plants. I’m pretty sure that was the cold and tired talking, but I decided not to argue.

Today the Christmas tree came out of storage and was put up in the front room. I have not touched it at all. Kiki marshalled all the kids, they assembled the tree, put lights on, strung beads, and now the tree stands half decorated because they’re all tired of doing tree. I’m sure the rest of the ornaments will go on either tonight or tomorrow.

It is nice to realize that some of our Christmas traditions now have a momentum of their own. It is not up to me to make it all go. That is good, because I don’t think I had the motivation to pull it off today.