Month: April 2006

My kids are acquiring real garage sale acumen. Patches and Gleek went along for this morning’s trip. They happily played with toys at every sale and only made minor protests at leaving things behind. One of the reasons that Gleek was so willing to leave things is that she acquired a 2 foot tall American Girls horse at the first sale for only $1. The horse’s hair was a mess, so she spent all the travel time brushing out snarls. Patches did not purchase anything today, but he got a yo-yo for free merely by being so cute while asking the price. He also acquired a used cell phone out of a “free” box. Now I need to figure out whether the phone is safe for him to play with, or whether I need to make it quietly disappear.

So the morning wasn’t really the complete bust it felt when I arrived home.

One of the sales was truly amazing. I’m guessing that this person treats summer garage sales as a business, because the amount of stuff he had was amazing. He had 500 or more videos, 10-12 glass topped tables, 4 lawn mowers, 3 jumping horses, 40 soccer balls, two baskets full of baseballs, an array of tools, and loads of other stuff. Unfortunately the prices weren’t low enough for me. He has a prime location and prices accordingly. $5 is a good price for a brand new soccer ball, but not good enough for me to buy one that we don’t really need.

I stopped at 7 garage sales this morning. At the first sale (given by a neighbor) I acquired two pairs of tap shoes for free and a good pair of boots for Patches for $.25. At the remaining 7 sales I got nothing. This is normal and wouldn’t have been frustrating except at the next to last sale there was a beautiful set of bunkbeds. They were $50 and they’d already sold. Having missed out on a set of $50 bunkbeds soured the whole expedition. But that particular sale did not advertise in the paper, I just happened to drive by it and stop. If I’d seen an advertisement for bunkbeds, I would have gone there first.

So now I’m hot, hungry, grumpy and have little to show for 90 minutes, 8 bucklings of children, and however many miles of driving. Grr.

Our spring break schedule has been… irregular. I’ve been having a great time sleeping until I’m ready to get up. I actually think that getting enough sleep has been a huge factor in the amount of stuff I’ve been able to accomplish this week. Unfortunately when I sleep in, breakfast becomes catch-as-can. That generally throws the rest of the meal schedules off as well. The lack of schedule is hardest on Patches. I haven’t put him to bed at all this week. I keep finding him asleep in front of a movie. One night I even discovered that he’d crawled into my bed an fallen asleep. He put himself to bed when he was tired. It makes me a little sad and guilty. The kids deserve a true bedtime with stories and talking.

I definitely need to have a plan for summer.

Garage sale season has begun. Actually it began several weeks ago, but I’ve been too busy to pay attention. Since I need to clothe my children for the next year I really needed to start going and today I ventured forth in search of a sale. I took Kiki, her friend, Gleek, and Patches along for the trip. That’s more children than I usually want to take, but since they all had their own money it was less painful than I expected. The first sale was a bust for everyone except Gleek who fell in love with an anklet and toe ring. The second sale had something for everyone. The last sale only had a puzzle for Patches and an educational moment for Kiki and her friend. The education came courtesy of a box full of “Urinal deoderant cakes.” As we got back into the car Kiki told me about the box and asked what they were for. I got to explain what a urinal is, what it is used for, and why someone might want to use deoderant cakes for it. The girls were both fascinated and grossed out.

We came back to the house where Kiki and her friend went for another round of “The Queen’s Necklace” and I proceeded to clean out the family van. The van had not been vacuumed since sometime late last fall. This meant that the layer of crumbs and wrappers was thick. I hauled three grocery bags of garbage, two loads of toys, and a vacuum cleaner full of crumbs out before I was done. Now the car is all clean and pleasant again. Yay.

The rest of the afternoon frittered away and now I’m headed into the evening hours. Since all the kids stayed up way too late last night I intend to put them to bed on time. Spring break is nice, but I need to start reasserting regular sleeping habits so that the return to school on Monday isn’t too much of a shock to the system.

I’ve spent some time this week pondering the upcoming summer schedule. I have to find ways to put structure into the days. If I don’t have structure, nothing gets done. Fortunately I’m much better at self-imposing structure than I used to be. I’ll probably write up a summer plan in here eventually, but right now all the possibilities are loose in my head bumping around and waiting to be made into a real plan.

Well, the fairy houses came out quite well. The greenery will look wilted and dry in short order, but the structures are sound enough that new greenery can be supplied whenever the kids are in the mood. I may need to make one for Patches too. Although I suspect any “fairy house” I make for him will be more likely to be populated by cars and vehicles than by winged people. Kiki’s fairy house sports a peaked roof, a clothes line, and a “for sale” sign. Apparently her fairies are moving soon. Gleeks fairy house has a flat roof, a single stick for a “door”, and a nest bed inside made of grass clippings. Gleek clipped the grass herself with a pair of scissors. Cutting grass was facinating for both Gleek and Patches. They sat there snipping away for 30 minutes or more. I had visions of them snipping the whole lawn short. But somehow I don’t think “even” is something they could manage and they simply don’t have the persistence to do it all. More is the pity.

When the evening grew too dark and cold for fairy houses, Kiki and her friend started hanging around in the kitchen at loose ends. I took the opportunity to grab my brand new game called “The queen’s necklace” by Days Of Wonder. This game arrived just this morning in a package from the wonderful Hawklady. The three of us sat down and became gem merchants trying to out sell each other. I’d never played the game before and so we were all learning together. Unfortunately at 33 I absorbed the rules and strategies a lot more quickly than the girls did. I walloped them. I hadn’t played the game enough to know how not to win. Yes I throw games in favor of my kids sometimes. It is more important to me that gaming be a fun experience than that it be challenging. The next time I play, I’ll be in teaching mode where I’ll discuss strategies with the girls. I’ll help them quickly come up to speed on how to play the game. Once I’ve done that, no holds are barred and I can play full out. We’ve reached that stage with other games like Star Munchkin and half the time the kids beat me.

Right now the girls are watching Phantom of the Opera. Niether girl had seen it before. At first I sat down with them, but I discovered that with an expert sitting right there, they were constantly asking questions about motivations and other more random things. Most of what they asked would get answered later and was supposed to be a mystery. I decided to find something else to do and let them muddle through by themselves. Judging from the reactions I’m hearing, they’re doing fine and enjoying the movie.

Next I get to make them go to bed. Whee.

Eleven years old is still young enough to hear the siren call of pretend play, but it is also old enough that kids question whether they should heed that call. Eleven is an in between age. In Bedknobs and Broomsticks it is called “the age of not believing” and a whole song is devoted to the topic. For me at age Eleven all pretend play came abruptly to an end when I tried to involve a friend in an imagined game and she told me it was stupid. Never after that was I able to pretend unselfconsciously. I lamented the lost ability to pretend so well that I could truly see and believe what I imagined. After age 11, I fed my desire to pretend by writing stories, which was a socially acceptable way to live in imaginary worlds. As an adult I’ve come to learn of SCA and Larping and conventions which all provide formats for adults to play in worlds of their own creation. (This phenomenon is wonderfully chronicled in the song Rich Fantasy Lives on an album sung by Rob Balder, writer of the webcomic Partially Clips.)

Kiki turns Eleven this year. I’ve noticed her reluctance to play pretend games. With her siblings and younger friends she can seamlessly fall into imaginary play. With her peers it is much harder. The girls will look at each other and be interested in playing, but they fear being ridiculed. To pretend is risky in a world where today’s friends become tomorrow’s enemies. I’ve made a fortunate discovery though. Given the right structure, 11 year olds can still play pretend. I give them a box of scraps and sewing supplies and they can create a game about being seamstresses. I give them a cooking project and they can be bakers. The key seems to be providing an activity where they can just slide into pretending while neither of them are paying attention.

Today Kiki’s friend from school came over for a sleep over. This friend is very important to Kiki, but she isn’t sure how to relate without pretending. Formerly all her games have had a strong element of pretend. I decided to provide an activity that would open a door for pretend. So a couple of hours before the friend arrived I gathered Gleek, Patches, and Kiki. We went outside to build fairy houses in one of my flowerbeds. Fortunately my yard yeilds a plentiful supply of sticks and dead weeds from last year. We also had a plentiful supply of honeysuckle vine from yesterday’s project. I built a house for Gleek and then helped Kiki with the structure of her house. Just as the roof was built, Kiki’s friend arrived. Now they are out there happily furnishing and building rock paths. I don’t know if they’ll pretend, but it’s kind of hard to not use your imagination when you’re building a house for a fairy out of yard trash.

The weather finally provided me with a day warm enough to get oustide and do yardwork. This was good. Only now I am sore because all my weed pulling muscles atrophied over the winter. The highlight of the day was finding a hornet’s nest the size of a bowling ball. Fortunately it was abandoned. The nest itself was beautiful. Howard posted pictures of it: http://howardtayler.livejournal.com/159863.html It is hard to see in the picture the the entire thing is a swirl of differing shades of brown and gray. It is amazing to look at and unnerving to touch.

More yardwork tomorrow. I’ve got to get things under control before the busy hits.

Today was supposed to be a gardening day. Unfortunately the weather was uncooperative. I was forced to find an indoor project upon which to spend my energies. I tackled the closet in my sons’ room. Link and Patches have a very limited comprehension of organization. They tend to clean up their room by throwing everything cluttering the floor onto the shelves in the closet. This quickly results in lost toys and a closet that is rendered unusable. Today I shovelled everything out of the closet and onto the floor where I could sort it. I ended up with a hamper full of dirty clothes, a garbage bag full of laundry, some tidy containers full of toys, and lots of empty shelf space.

Link is eight. Eight is the age of collections. All of his collections were jumbled together on the shelves. I helped him sort them and put them into containers. I also instructed him that small things are not to be thrown onto the shelf. Small things have to go into containers and then containers can go on the shelf. If he keeps the rule we will undoubtedly end up with containers full of jumbled collections, toys, and garbage, but that is worlds more managable than an entire closet full. I actually think that Link will keep this rule, he does like to keep things organized as long as he can clearly see how to do it. He is my one child who comes home from church and carefully folds and puts away his church clothes. All the other kids throw their church clothes on the floor with the same abandon as any other type of clothing.

One of the items I found in the closet was a fish tank lamp that was given to Link by his grandparents. Link loved that lamp. He loved watching the little plastic fish float around in the bubbles. Unfortunately after a year of near constant use, the bubble holes clogged and the motor broke, so it has been sitting unused in the closet. Today Link consented to my getting rid of it. I mentioned to him that he is old enough now that if he wanted to get a real fish tank for his room, he could do that. It has been years since we’ve had a fish tank. In fact I don’t think any of the kids remember us having fish. For awhile we had three fish tanks, but when we moved we decided to give them away rather than move them. Link’s eyes lit up athe that possibility. So for the rest of the day my thoughts have been musing on ways to acquire a fish tank for him. I need to not rush. His interest may wane and the next month is going to be very busy around here. Perhaps for his birthday in the fall.

Patches approved of his newly clean room and closet. He informed me “I wike cwean!” I like clean too, I just wish it didn’t always require so much work from me.

Today Kiki was proudly showing off her Daddy’s press match copy of the Schlock Mercenary book to a friend. She was pointing to characters on the cover and telling who they were. She identified Tagon and then informed her friend that he was dead. Apparently she’d missed the whole storyline with time travel and the undoing of Tagon’s death. In fact none of the kids have really read Schlock Mercenary. This is mostly because we don’t allow them to randomly surf the internet. Also they’re mostly too young to get the jokes. This will change and is in fact already changing. Kiki took the press match for bedtime reading. She is now determined to catch up on the whole story. I suspect that each of the kids will do the same as they reach the appropriate reading level.

Even though they don’t read the strip, all of the kids are tremendously proud of the fact that Howard writes it. Kiki asks how many books we’ve sold on a daily basis. Today they were fighting over who got to help stamp “media mail” on the bubble pack mailers I have awaiting books. Schlock is definitely a family endeavor.

This past couple of weeks I’ve been putting myself through a course of study on ADHD. I did this by raiding my local library and skimming through half a dozen books with different viewpoints. I read lots of things I agree with and lots of things that I don’t. Why was I interested? Because both Howard and I have close relatives with ADHD and my children have friends who are medicated. Some of the management techniques for ADHD are actually just good techniques for managing life. Writing helps me sort my thoughts so I’m going to write about the books I read. I should note that I did not read any of these books cover to cover, I skimmed through them to gain a general feel for the tactics that the particular author was espousing.

ADD and Creativity: Tapping Your Inner Muse by Lynn Weiss
This book took the arguement that ADD is not a disorder at all, it is merely a different way of processing information. It has been labelled a disorder because of our structured/task oriented society. I actually agree with that and like the theory, however Weiss is herself ADD and continually gave the impression that ADD thinking was better than other ways of thinking. It wasn’t blatant, but the bias was there and bothered me some. She had some excellent points about the ways that people are creative. She pointed out that giving a child lessons is not always the best way to nurture an interest because it can make a creative exploration into a chore. I agree with that. Childhood is a time to explore many different things sometimes with lessons, sometimes without. There is plenty of time to focus and develop true proficiency at an interest after age 11 or 12 when children stop pretending, but still need a creative outlet.

Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications by Peter R Breggin and David Cohen
This book was not focused entirel on ADD, but rather on all psychoactive medications. Or in other words any substance you take into your body which affects brain function. According to their criteria sugar and alcohol are both psychoactive substances. Of course the major thrust of the book was not alcohol or sugar, but rather prescription stimulants, anti depressants, sleep aids, and anti psychotic medications. They were very clear that no one should stop any prescription medication without the co-operation of a medical professional. Some of the drugs they were discussing are truly nasty if you stop cold turkey. According to the authors all of these drugs are prescribed to correct imbalances in brain chemistry, but what they really do is attempt to correct the supposed imbalance by imbalancing the brain in the other direction. The authors do not believe in chemical imbalances. Instead they believe that most people medicate because it seems to be an easier fix to their problems than sorting things out. They supplied lots of cases to support their points. I happen to believe that some people do have imbalances. I also believe that there are far fewer imbalances than there are people taking pills. This book definitely convinced me to be very very careful about taking any drug that might permanently rewire my brain. I would have to have incredibly compelling evidence before I would allow any child of mine to be given a psychoactive medication.

Ritalin Free Kids: Save and Effective Homeopathic Medecine for ADD and Other Behavioral and Learning Problems byJudyth Reichenberg-Ullman and Robert Ullman
To my understanding Homeopathy is the practice of giving micro doses of toxins. The toxins are carefully selected to imitate the symptoms of the condition to be solved. In other words if I want to solve my allergy that makes my eye itchy and my nose run a micro dose of a nerve gas that makes eyes sting and noses run should cure my allergies. I do not believe in homeopathy. There may be some of you readers who do. I do not want to disparage your belief because I probably believe in forms of healing which you do not. Call it Placebo Effect, call it Laying On Of Hands, call it Faith Healing, call it Homeopathy, the human brain and body has great powers to heal itself. I do not believe in Homeopathy, therefore it would not work for me. Homeopathic theory is not the main reason I did not like this book. I did not find this book helpful because in 300 pages 150 of them were testimonals. It very quickly stopped feeling like a useful text and started feeling like an infomercial for Homeopathy. Give me a scholarly book on Homeopathy and I’ll probably be fascinated.

Nature’s Ritalin for the Marathon Mind: Nurturing your ADHD Child with Exercise: by Stephen C Putnam
Of all the books I read, this one was my favorite. All the other authors wrote their books to expound the One True Solution to ADHD. This book said right up front that it wasn’t offering a solution, but that however a parent decides to treat their child’s condition, exercise should at least be considered as a part of the treatment. The book told about scientific studies that discussed the chemical similarities in a brain just after exercise and a brain on ritalin. I know that I think and feel better when I’m exercising regularly. The one odd thing was the emphasis on rowing as an exercise choice. The author must live on the east coast somewhere, because out here in the great western desert rowing is not common.

The ADD Nutrition Solution by Marcia Zimmerman
This book advocated the introduction of an extremely strict diet which eliminated all possible food irritants and allergens. The theory being that ADD behavior is caused by the body having an improper balance of nutrients. If a family is in crisis, this crash plan may be worth the effort. I found some of the suggestions simple, easy to impliment, and I intend to put them to work in our family. Cut simple sugars and carbohydrates as much as possible. The closer a food is to it’s original state, the better it is for you. Processed foods and convenience foods have lots of chemicals and preservatives that our bodies did not evolve to metabolize. As much as possible eat foods in the seaons when they are ripe. This insures a variety over the course of a year. Conveniently it’s also cheaper. Take multi vitamins and pills containing omega 3 fatty acids. These micronutrients are useful for brain function. Oils that are liquid at room temperature are better for you than those which are solid at room temperature. The thing that really bugged me about this book was the ficticious family that Zimmerman created to illustrate her points. She explained how Bobby’s mom was nutrient starved during pregnancy and so Bobby’s brain developed with a deficiency of nutrients that caused him to have ADHD. Later she explains that parents shouldn’t blame themselves for the ADHD of their child. Then she immediately explains why mom’s continuing malnutrition caused Bobby’s little sister to have ADHD too. Zimmerman needs to make up her mind, either ADHD is caused by the poor choices of the parents or it isn’t.

ADD/ADHD Behavior-Change Resource Kit by Grad L. Flick
This is a textbook on behavioral modification with an emphasis on ADHD behavior. It is potentially very useful for a parent with an ADHD child who is dealing with very specific problems and is seeking very specific solutions. It is the one book I read that was pro-medication. The information on behavioral modification theory might be fascinating to someone who doesn’t know it already, for me it was a very dry review.

So what have I learned about ADHD? People with ADHD should pay attention to what they eat, get lots of exercise, and find behavioral or medicational mechanisms that fit their lives. Hmm. Sounds a lot like everyone else.