Sandra Tayler

My kids amuse me.

By / May 20, 2005 / 4 Comments

Gleek has been in the habit of coming and crawling into my bed in the early hours of the morning. This means she is usually there between 6:45 and 7:30 when I hit the snooze button 6-8 times. The other morning I came awake at 4 am because Gleek sat up in my bed and asked “Where is the wooot wooot?” In her head the noise and snooze button are part of the morning snuggles I guess. I need to train myself to get up the FIRST time the alarm goes off.

Every once in awhile I have to face the fact that none of my kids know as much about the world as I think they should. I also have to face the fact that they are motivated by completely different principles than I am. This week I was drawn upstairs by the heavy scent of Head & Shoulders. Kiki was taking a bath and wanted bubbles so she used half a bottle of Head & Shoulders to create a bubble bath. In the process she discovered that Head & Shoulders doesn’t just make bubbles, it makes foam. The entire tub area was coated with this foam. Kiki had to take a shower to get clean from her bath.

Howard and I are suckers for affection from our kids. We frequently coax and cajole to try to get them to give us hugs or kisses. Kiki and Link usually hand out affection upon polite request, but Gleek hoards her affection and makes us beg a little. Howard will ask Gleek for a hug and she’ll inform him that she ran out, but he can have one next time. He’ll then spend the rest of the day asking “Is it next time yet?” every time he sees her. And then she has the capability to wrap daddy around her finger simply by walking up to him and giving him a hug while announcing “It’s next time now!” Patches is pretty willing to supply hugs when asked. Lately a new game has developed. I’ll pick him up and say “Where are my hugs?” He’ll look at me, tip his head a little and say “Um… right there!” while pointing to my shoulder. Then he puts his head in the spot he pointed to and gives a hug. Just recently he added a little twist by pointing to my shoulder and informing me that that hug was Gleek’s hug. Then he gives a hug on the other shoulder.

Today while driving home from a garage sale Gleek and I had an amusing conversation:
Gleek: “Mom, I want to drive over that big bump again!”
Me: “We don’t have time for that. We need to go home.”
Gleek: “I will give you some time.” reaches into her pocket and pulls out something invisible.
Me: “But we need to go home and do laundry.”
Gleek: Hugging the invisible something close “This time is not for laundry.”
Me: amused “So you’ll give me time, but only to do fun things?”
Gleek: “I want you to swing me on the swings with this time.”

Whenever I stop to pay attention and appreciate I realize how much I love the way my kids think and how they view the world. The world they live in is a better place than the one I inhabit.

Saw Star Wars today

By / May 19, 2005 / 6 Comments

I really enjoyed it. I love the idea that a “Chosen One” might chose something else and derail a prophecy. I guess I’m a big fan of Free Agency even if it means people are free to choose evil.

As the opening title began to roll I realized that this would be the last ever Star Wars movie. That makes me very sad.

Tightrope

By / May 16, 2005 / 2 Comments

I had a conversation today with a friend who is in the midst of plans for her daughter’s wedding. Very shortly into the conversation it became obvious to me that this friend was being as diplomatic as possible about her future son-in-law, but she really needed to be able to air her concerns. She was extremely fair about it, she told me all the wonderful things about this young man, but she also shared some extremely concerning incidents. Apparently the young man is extremely possessive of his fiancee jealous of time spent with her family, he is inclined to hold grudges, and he has shoved her daughter around “in play”. All of those things are red flags for the development of an abusive relationship. It is possible that these “red flag” qualities will wither and his sterling qualities will grow and they will have a fantastic marriage, but I can see why this mother is concerned.

I admire the choice she has made to express her concerns to her daughter while at the same time expressing support for whatever decisions she makes regarding the relationship. I also admire the efforts this friend is making to build a relationship with this young man despite her concerns about some of his behaviors. In my mind she is perfectly walking the path that will contribute to the best possible outcome. I intend to continue watching this friend closely because someday when my children are grown and are making adult decisions I may be wearing similar shoes.

I’ve succeeded!

By / May 15, 2005 / 5 Comments

Today Kiki was sitting nearby when Howard and I were discussing how our life has changed the last 8 months with some neighbors.
I said:
“We’re a lot happier. Much poorer, but lots happier.”
Kiki perked up and said:
“I haven’t even noticed that we’re poorer.”

Yay. I’ve done my job in providing for the kids well enough that they can’t even tell the difference.

Thoughts on Mothering

By / May 15, 2005 / 2 Comments

I sometimes worry a little at how differently I treat Gleek and Patches than I treated Kiki and Link at the same ages. I know that they are different people and require different interactions from me, so I guess what really concerns me is that I might be reacting to thier behaviors rather than considering and carefully choosing to act in the ways that will best help them to grow and learn. I remember spending lots of time thinking and planning how to teach and nurture Link and Kiki. Now I seem to function mostly on instinct. Some of those instincts are good ones that I spent lots of effort to train into myself when Kiki and Link were young. Others are instincts that I took lots of effort to supress, but somehow failed to suppress into non-existence.

These days instead of spending lots of time nurturing and interacting, I spend significant amounts of time trying to occupy Gleek and Patches so that I can go and do my own things. There should be space in my life for both. I should be glad to spend time with my children. I should be involving them in my projects so they can learn how projects work. The my projects would become our projects. It would be so wonderful if I could always greet my children with a face which says “I’m glad of you!” rather than “You’re annoying me again!” I haven’t been doing that and I need to figure out how.

The family car

By / May 14, 2005 / 1 Comment

It began when Gleek wanted to go ride her bike. Gleek is not quite old enough for me to feel comfortable with her being out front alone and all her older siblings had run off to friends’ houses, so I had to accompany her outside. As she happily rode around our driveway I wandered around looking for something to do to keep occupied so she could play longer. I decided to clean out our van. It started with just picking up garbage and toys, but it was quickly apparent that what the interior really needed was to be stripped down completely, fumigated, and reupholstered. All crevices were packed full of wrappers, crumbs, and wads of unidentifiable things in layers. In one spot this “layer cake” had water spilled on it, thus creating a primordial soup from which new life forms would have undoubtedly emerged. I ended up removing all the seats and vacuuming thoroughly. I even went so far as to remove the floor mats. This was a mistake because I now know exactly how dirty the carpets have become. I’ll be borrowing a carpet cleaning device and taking the van apart again sometime in the near future. Hopefully before my road trips next month. It’d be nice to have the car smell like soap instead of primordial soup.

They Live!

By / May 13, 2005 / 3 Comments

I wandered around in the sunshine and took a close look at all those grapes that I thought were dead. Most of them have little buds on them. Yay!

Also the lawn is mowed. I feel much better about the yard when it is mowed.

Planning ahead.

By / May 11, 2005 / 4 Comments

Kiki has a birthday coming up. I’ve been planning for it since Christmas. With money as tight as it is, I’m constantly watching for things which would make good gifts for my kids. I’ve already stashed away a fair amount of things for Christmas 2006. (I want to provide a really good Christmas for $200 or less.) Link’s birthday is in the fall and I’ve got most of what I need for that as well. One of the keys to making do on very little money is to plan WAY ahead. And because this might be useful for someone else out there, let me outline Kiki’s birthday. She is getting:

One stuffed dragon made by me from materials and a pattern I already had. Cost $0
One fantasy themed jigsaw puzzle which I acquired for free from someone who didn’t want it. Cost $0
Small bag of Polly Pocket dolls and accessories bought used from a neighbor child $5
Polly Pocket folding castle bought from a thrift store $1
Three pairs of earrings from a thrift store $1
A cake made from a box and decorated by me and herself $2
Balloons left over from some other celebration $0

Then in June we’ll have a birthday celebration with her cousins with all the screaming and laughing that usually attends children’s parties.

Total monetary cost is going to be less than $10. The cost in time is much higher, especially when you count that stuffed dragon, but the time sewing and combing thrift stores is well spent. I say that because I am confident that Kiki is going to absolutely love her birthday and her presents. Every thing on that list is something that she has been wanting for awhile. Naturally there are other much more expensive things that she would also love to have. I can’t provide those right now, but I’ve managed to provide enough. And as Mary Poppins says “Enough is as good as a feast.”

Ladybugs!

By / May 10, 2005 / 7 Comments

Yesterday afternoon in an attempt to ward off my sadness over the death of my grape plants, I went wandering through the yard looking at my trees. This makes me feel better because the trees are all getting big and I’m able to enjoy the fruits of my labor instead of looking at seedlings and knowing I’ll have to tend them for months before they bear fruit. All the trees were beautiful, except one. It is a varigated maple tree and it was obviously suffering. It’s neighbor had big shiny leaves, but this tree’s leaves were all small, limp, and curled. A closer inspection revealed aphids. Lots of aphids. I would never have guessed that something so small as an aphid could have the potential to kill a tree, but when each leaf has a crowd of 30-50 aphids and the trunk has turned into an aphid highway I’m guessing the aphids are going to win.

One solution to this kind of infestation is to spray the tree with insecitcide. Only the tree is 25 feet tall. I’m not at all confident in my capability to adequately coat the entire tree. Also the weather is rainy, so the spray would wash off leaving aphid eggs to hatch into a new infestation. In addition I’d get spray all over myself. Insecticide is death to bugs, but it isn’t good for people either. Insecticide is also expensive. Add all of that up and I knew I needed another solution.

The good news is that nature has provided the perfect one. Ladybugs. Ladybugs love to eat aphids. In fact I was able to spot multiple ladybugs which had found the aphid bonanza on my tree. I was also able to spot no fewer than 6 clutches of ladybug eggs on the low branches of the tree. Nature is pushing to get the system back in balance. Unfortunately I looked at the tree and was not sure that the ladybugs would destroy aphids fast enough to save the tree.

Did you know you can buy ladybugs? I learned this several years back when Link’s preschool teacher brought a box of them to school so that the kids could hold ladybugs and release them. Since then I’ve frequently purchased ladybugs to control aphids on my roses. The kids always love the chance to have ladybugs crawl all over them. Except Patches who is terrified by anything insectoid. So I sent Howard to the garden center to buy two bags of ladybugs. They come 1500 to a bag and you keep them in the fridge so that they stay dormant. In the evening after the sun goes down you take them out and empty the bag over your plants. The ladybugs respond to the dark by hunkering down for the night, then in the morning they eat aphids, mate, lay eggs, and generally make the yard a nicer place to be.

Last night was windy and I was worried that most of the ladybugs would blow away, but I was also worried that if I didn’t attack the aphid surplus soon the tree would not be able to recover. So I compromised and released only one of the bags of ladybugs. The other bag is in my fridge awaiting the first calm dry evening so that they can join their friends in my yard. The kids all think keeping bugs in the fridge is kind of cool. Patches in particular keeps asking for me to open the fridge so he can look at the bugs. This amuses me greatly. One bug on the floor is cause for terrified screaming. 1500 bugs in a bag are for saying hello to.

This morning I wandered out to see if the ladybugs had all disappeared. They hadn’t. Contrary to my expectation the cool wind followed by rain actually caused the ladybugs to hunker down in hibernate mode. I now have ladybugs all over the tree and they’ll probably all stay there snacking on aphids until the sun comes out. This is good news for me and for the tree. Bad for the aphids I guess, but I didn’t ask their opinions.

garden frustration

By / May 9, 2005 / 2 Comments

Today is supposed to be the only rain-free day this week. So today I spent all morning doing yard work that has been waiting for the rain to stop. It was frustrating. I’ve discovered that I don’t have nearly as much vegetable growing space as I thought I did. The grapes I planted all seem to be dead. Weeds have begun to spring up abundantly as a result of late-last-summer neglect. The flowers are beautiful, but this year I wanted to be able to grow some things I can feed to my family. Right now I’m tired and none of the baby green things have food on them yet.

I could ramble on. Dozens of thoughts fill my head, but I can’t seem to muster the energy to make them into something worth reading.