One Cobble at a Time

This entry is an exercise in thinking out loud and also fishing to see if other people have thoughts on the topic:

Today Howard aired an Open Letter which included a picture of him wearing our newest t-shirt. Gleek is also in the picture and that is what I have mixed feelings over. The back of my brain has a worrysome voice which whispers to me that putting my children’s real names and pictures on the internet for public perusal somehow lessens their safety. Logically I just don’t think this is so, but I have a hard time shutting up that voice.

Suppose some child predator sees my child’s picture and name on the internet somewhere. That person has to then connect the child with a location, not too hard I suppose. Then that person has to stake out the locations where my child will go, and find an opportunity where no one is watching to harm my child. I could try to hide the fact of my child’s existence, but this would be fairly impossible to do. Birth records, census records, school records, and numerous other records are all available to ingenious people. I feel like I do much better to control physical access to my child. None of my children are yet old enough to keep themselves safe without adult help, so I have to make sure that they aren’t left without reliable adults nearby. This does more to keep my kids safe than keeping their names secret or refusing to publish pictures.

And yet pictures and names are powerful. Despite all of the above, I still intend to use nicknames when speaking of my kids online. It may do nothing to protect, but it causes no harm. I have mixed feelings about the picture. I feel strange about using my child’s picture as part of a sales pitch. Part of me wants everyone to see how wonderful my little girl is. Part of me worries about who is seeing how wonderful my little girl is. Howard’s increasing fame is a factor as well. The more people who see the picture, the greater the odds that one of them is psychotic in a way that could threaten my children.

On the other hand children are overwhelmingly harmed and abused, not by strangers, but by friends and family. That says to me that the risk in posting pictures is very low. But isn’t any avoidable risk worth avoiding?

I have no conclusions, only thoughts. I’d be happy to know your thoughts too.

The trip was really good. I’m glad to be back home though. Today is my day to sit down with reciepts and see how much the trip actually cost us. I’ve also got laundry to catch up on and a few last bits of yardwork to do before the ground freezes.

My new Schlock shirt showed up today. I now have one of Howard’s new Rule #35 shirts. Howard will be taking pictures and posting them in his open letter. So if anyone has been wondering what I look like, you’ll have your chance to see. But picture taking will not happen until after I’ve had a chance to shower and fix my hair which will not be until I find a time when I can take a shower by myself without two small people to participate.

Back to work with me.

In two hours we get to hop in the car and drive for 5 hours to my sister’s house. This is happy. Especially the part about “we”. The last 3 times I’ve gone to my sister’s house either I’ve gone “alone” (taking 4 children hardly qualifies as “alone”, but oh well.) or we’ve driven separate cars. I love road tripping with Howard. Somewhere during the long drive we run out of commonplace stuff to talk about and start talking about dreams. It feels to me like the long road trips we have taken together have been watershed times where we really hammered out how we wanted our long-term future to go. With the long-view figured out it is much easier to steer day-to-day and end up in a happy place.

It is our first post-Novell family trip. I think this is going to be fun.

I just finished a near 3 hour meeting with people from the National Association for the Self Employed. The meeting was incredibly useful informationally. I know a lot more about how the health insurance industry works I’m also pretty convinced that joining NASE is exactly what will fill our family’s needs as we go forward with self employment. We signed up and submited an application to their healthcare program. According to the salesman our odds of being accepted are actually pretty good, because, while our health history has had some really expensive moments, nothing is chronic or likely to happen again.

It is all starting to fit together in my head. Health insurance. Life insurance. Retirement accounts. I’m starting to see how all of it will work in our post-Novell world.

I need to find a good source for fabric. I’ve got lots of sewing projects brewing in my brain, but lack the resources to bring them to fruition. Obviously fabric stores will be quite happy to sell me anything I might need, but they aren’t interesting in providing things cheap or free. See its all part of this new game that I play: “How can I make beautiful and useful things for as little money as possible?”

I suspect that when I truly NEED fabric for things, I’ll find it. Right now though we don’t really need much. Just today I considered taking a child free hour to go to some second hand stores when realized that there wasn’t anything that I really needed. I’d only be using up gas and putting myself into temptation’s path. Instead I used the time to read a good book.

So I guess I’ll take the patient approach and wait to see what opportunities to make beautiful things come to me.

I was in the depths focused bookeeping when Howard called out “Clean up on Child Four!” I looked up and as soon as my brain detangled from numbers enough to decipher what Howard had actually said I busted out laughing. Patches was indeed in need of a clean up. He’d obviously been rolling in our pile of lawn clippings because he had grass everywhere. Since he’d had a post-halloween sucker this morning and a runny nose, much of the grass was stuck. Patches seemed rather bewildered with all the grass and parental attention. But he thought getting to run around in just diapers while mommy found clean clothes was pretty cool. Time to do laundry again.

I’ve been reading a book which is basically a Sleeping Beauty variant. Generally I really enjoy a well done rewrite of a fairy tale, but this time something keeps bugging me and I figure if I write about it in here I’ll purge it from my brain and be able to enjoy the rest of the book.

Why did the parents send away their daughter?

Supposedly sending the baby girl away keeps her safer from the evil which cast a spell on her. But it also deprives both parents and daughter of all meaninful contact during all of her childhood years. Suppose the daughter is kept completely safe and is returned to her parents at age 16. Yay, the spell has been defeated, but daughter and parents are left with no real relationship and no way to make up for lost time. Now suppose that the spell comes into full force when the daughter is 10 and she dies. The parents have been deprived of what might have been 10 years of enjoying the company of their daughter.

Maybe it is because I’m a controlling parent, but I would have a really hard time handing over my daughter. I wouldn’t believe that anyone else could do as good a job as I would raising her and keeping her safe. I would find a solution which allowed me to keep her as safe as possible while still being the one who raises her.

And as soon as I finished writing the above I started thinking about the courage of birth parents who give up their babies to adoptive parents. In essence the dilemma of Sleeping Beauty’s parents happens every day. Every day there is a young mother who looks down at her beloved child and knows she must give the child up to strangers so that the child will have a better future. And these young birth mothers have no promise that the child will every come back, not at 16 or 18 or ever. Such courage puts me into awe. I don’t know that I could be so noble. Especially not if it required me to hand over one of my children.

I had a really wierd moment the other day where Patches did something really cute which made me think of Baby Schlock. Very strange.

The Chaos of Candy which is called Halloween officially began today. Because of the teachers’ convention which begins tomorrow, today was the last day of school in October and therefore costume & party day. I helped out for the party in Kiki’s classroom. Gleek and Patches came along too because in a room full of sugar-high fourthgraders the amount of chaos they added was negligible. This should tell you something about the experience.

All of the kids were in costume. Lots of cute. Some cute trying to be scary. Some grubby trying to be cute. But the most frightening costumes of all were the young girls dressed up as Paris Hilton. Creepy.

Tonight was also our church Halloween Carnival. The teens put on Carnival games for the younger kids. Prizes and candy are handed out like . . . well . . candy. My kids love this annual event. Even Patches loved it. He kept coming to me yelling “Canny!” with his fist around some treasure and then demanding “Op-en!”

We brought them home wired & tired with buckets full of candy. We then sorted through it. They each got to keep 10 pieces of candy and I bought the rest from them. This way I don’t have to make extra trips to the store. The kids get enough candy to be happy and money with which they can buy something else. And no one gets sick. (we hope) This ritual has become an accepted part of the holiday and will be repeated after trick-or-treating.

For tonight they’re all abed. Tomorrow I don’t have to make them get up early. I don’t have to make them get ready for school. I don’t have to make lunches. I think I like days off as much as the kids do. By Tuesday I’ll be ready to have them go back, but a few days break will be nice.

I’ve been pondering lately whether the quality of my Live Journal has suffered lately. Quantity has measurably fallen off, that is obvious, but has the shift in my lifestyle affected my ability to write?

To answer my own question, no I don’t believe the ability is affected at all, but my motivations are different and that has to come through in my writing or lack thereof. On the other hand the principles around which I base my life haven’t changed at all and so any changes in me are surface changes therefore not affecting my writing.

Gah. I can’t be my own observer. Sometimes I wish I could. Mostly I think what a bad idea it would be if I could observe myself objectively. I’d spend all my time observing and studying. I’d never get anything actually done.

Those are just idle, tired thoughts anyway.

The Day of Vomit failed to materialize. Apparently it was upset tummy rather than stomach flu. This qualifies as really good news. I already have more stomach flu stories than anyone could want to hear.

Much of today was frittered away at popcap.com where they have addictive little games to get hooked on. Insaniaquarium caught me in it’s clutches and now when I close my eyes I see fish and coins and stars. I need to go to bed. Tomorrow is the Day of the Halloween Parties because the kids have the rest of the week off and the church party is scheduled for the same day. Sugar highs and crankies incoming. Possibly more vomit too. Whee?