Month: November 2004

New Laws

I just got mean and laid down a new law that I’m now going to have to enforce. This is a frequent problem with New Laws. And yet I continue to make them. And then in moments of weakness or tiredness I allow my kids to disregard them. Then in moments of stress I either reinstate the old New Law or make a new New Law. The “No Eating in the Family Room” rule cycles through this process about once a week.

My kids have been accustomed to eating dinner and then selecting a snack before bed. This often meant that they fought over every required bite at dinner and then filled up on toast right before bed. When I was microwaving frozen things for dinner I didn’t mind so much. Now I’m spending time on actual cooking. Seeing the carefully planned and prepared food go uneaten bothers me because there was actual work involved.

Tonight Kiki gobbled up two helpings. Patches plowed through the food on his plate. Gleek and Link battled over ever bite. They also battled over going to bed and once in bed declared “I’m hungry!” I was mad. I scolded. Then I allowed them to get out of bed, but declared the New Law: “Kids who do not eat dinner have to eat dinner at snack time.” Then to rub in the lesson I got Kiki out of bed and let her eat a cookie for a snack. There was wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth. I then informed Gleek and Link that they could also have a cookie if they cleaned their plates first. 30 minutes later they still had food on the plates, I sent them to bed anyway. I’ve saved the plates of food. If they finish them tomorrow then they can have a cookie.

I think that as long as I’m cooking meals this New Law will actually be applied. Hopefully it will quickly become accepted and prevent future evenings from being as emotionally wringing as this one was.

The Evening of Blah

This evening is feeling very Blah. I have projects I could be doing, scrapbooking, sorting christmas stuff, sewing, but I don’t want to. I have a book to read, but frankly it is boring me and I’m only finishing it so I know how it ends (Shame to see such a hash made out of russian folklore). I don’t want to read it right now unless I can read while luxuriating with a bowl of chocolate ice cream. Albertson’s sells a chocolate almond fudge which ranks as my current favorite ice cream. I can go through a half gallon of that stuff in two days or less. It is probably needless to say, but we don’t have any.

On an only marginally related subject, I’ve discovered a problem with my “Griping” icon. When I get ready to post a frustrated or whiney entry I slap that picture on it. Then I look at the picture and think how wonderful it was for Rowyn to make it for me. And I end up thinking happy thoughts about friends and I don’t feel so gripey anymore. This is usually a good thing unless I WANT to be gripey and whiney and then I feel grumpy about being made to feel better. I think my head is a strange place to live in sometimes.

Cooking

A few days ago I was listening to a group of women talking about cooking. They were all pretending to be embarrassed while actually boasting about what poor cooks they are and how they’ve never cooked anything from scratch. “I don’t cook, I shop!” said one. I’ve heard conversations like this one before, but my perspective is very different now. We are trying to squeeze the most out of every penny so that Howard can stay a cartoonist. This means I can’t use shopping to solve the problem of eating as I used to do. I would half-guiltily buy frozen corn dogs or chicken nuggets or even fast food rationalizing that I was simply too stressed and too busy to cook. That is a luxury I can no longer afford. To my surprise while buying raw ingredients and cooking food has used up more of my time it has reduced my level of stress. I am remembering that cooking can be a relaxing and rewarding experience. I am realizing that a working knowleged of How To Cook affords many opportunities for creativity and yumminess. And Yumminess does not have to be expensive.

This is something that I need to pass on to my children. I need to teach them to cook from scratch. That way they have a choice whether to join consumerist society or stay back-to-basics. My kids may choose to shop rather than cook, but it needs to not be because another option was never made available.

Hello Twos

There comes a moment after my child begins walking where I look at them and think: “That’s not my baby, that’s a little person.” Patches has inspired this thought many times in the past few weeks. He’s turned a developmental corner into two-year-old behaviors. This corner turn is early since he’s still 3 months shy of two. Mostly I like two-year-old behaviors. They can be occasionally frustrating, but they are predictable and not complex. I’ve dealt with them three times before so I know the territory. Unfortunately the behavior that he has picked up most firmly is possesiveness. He defends his possessions aggressively, especially from Gleek whom he views as live-in competition. Typically for his age he defines “possession” as:
Anything I have in my hands
anything I just put down
anything I intended to pick up
anything I like
Two things ALWAYS get defended even if he has to run in from another room to do it, His blanket and his mommy. Which brings me to the anectdote from this morning. Gleek and Patches had a conversation of sorts:

Patches: “My Banket!”
Gleek: “That’s your blanket. This is my blanket!”
Patches: “My Mommy!”
Gleek: “You have to share mommy! You have to SHARE!”
Patches: “My Share!”

Whatever this “Share” thing was, he wanted to make sure that it belonged to him and him alone.

opposition

Why is it that when I want to sit down and snuggle a kid, they can’t be bothered, but when I get really moving and ready to get things done, all they want is for me to sit still and snuggle?

Grrr.

Mixed Feelings

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.

Back home

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.

Road Trip!

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.

Long Meeting

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.

Nothing needed

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.