Monthly Archives: August 2007

08.03.07
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Lifestyles of the Independently Wealthy

Apparently, my neighbor has gotten tired of her husband being home all the time and sent him off to play golf earlier this week. I haven’t seen him outside much during the day the last few days, so perhaps she’s had him doing other things as well.

We haven’t gotten to that point here, and I really doubt I ever would.

I kind of like this independently-wealthy lifestyle. We putter around…well, Bill putters around; I’m still slaving from sun-up to sun-down doing laundry, meals, prepping for school, working on setting up the school room, etc…so there’s puttering going on with perhaps one main job on the to-do list. On Wednesday, Bill mowed our small backyard. Having accomplished his one hour chore for the day, he was free to indulge in one of the very few types of foreign beer sold at the nearby Class VI confident that his paycheck would be directly deposited into his account twice each month as normal.

And even though I’m slaving, slaving I tell you, all day long, he’s there to fetch juice refills and supervise proper dietary rules regarding lunch time meals and give Petey high-fives for a successful trip to the potty…all so I can sit at the computer and blog work on school plans in peace and quiet.

Being an imperfect wife, there are still things about him that irritate me. But I think I have a daily time limit on how much this happens…maybe an hour a day after which my “annoyance meter” is maxed out and he just doesn’t bother me any more. So, six months ago that hour of irritation was concentrated in only two or three hours of contact, it is now diluted by sixteen or more hours of time, most of which are quite pleasant.

I especially appreciate his presence this week as we began swimming lessons for the kids. Three are in the first time slot and one is in the second time slot which would normally mean a half hour or so of waiting time for everybody and over an hour for Pete. As long as I bring snacks and some books, that really isn’t a big deal, but it’s been nice not having to deal with impatient children. I drive over with the three, Bill walks over a bit later with Pete and Fritz, I leave with four, and Bill walks Fritz home when he’s done. Very nice.

I can go to the grocery store at any old time. I can spend an hour in the basement doing laundry or sorting toys and school supplies while his attentive ear is on the main level of the house and he can check on the kids playing outside. I can take a shower with no interruptions. And if it weren’t oppressively hot, I could take a walk in the middle of the day when I opt to sleep in.

Yes, I could get used to this. In fact, I think I have. Thank goodness he starts next week off slowly – only three days of activities and two of them are half days. This will give me a chance to ease back into the real world: the one where money doesn’t just appear as if by magic in the bank account. The one where I haul five kids and a big belly shopping for groceries, or to the orthodontist, to to the pool for lessons.

I’m okay with this. I’d really like to win the lottery, but barring that improbability, I’ll happily embrace my former life as the Center of the Universe for five little children, even if that title comes with a host of other titles like Sole Juice Pourer, The Only One Capable of Cutting Pancakes, and Ultimate Solace for Injuries.

08.02.07
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New Month’s Resolution for August

I’m embarrassed to realize that it’s August SECOND and not only did I not post about a new month’s resolution, as I’ve done every first of the month for the last year, I completely forgot about it. I knew yesterday was the first, but nothing clicked in my brain that it was the FIRST of the month.

Sarah reminded me with her post on her resolutions. Thanks, dear.

Last year at this time I was prepping for school, but I focused on meal preparation as a key to a successful start to our academic year. It would be one less thing to worry about. That did work out really well.

This year, though, I’m going to focus on school prep to a deeper level. I’m working on having each kids’ weekly assignments printed out through at least Week 9, and any worksheets, supplementals, tests or other print-outs already done. For example, two of Billy’s workbooks came from reproducible sources. The material is already scanned (from when Fritz did it), I just have to print it out. Having that already done will save me last minute scrambles that generally result in me skipping that work that day and doing it the next.

Also, I’m taking a hint from Laura Berquist’s Teaching Tips & Techniques and beginning the school day with one-on-one time with each child starting with the preschooler and going up in age from there. Usually I start with the oldest and work my way down…and honestly hope that my preschooler is occupied with free play. But Jenny really wants to learn her letters, and so I must add her to my student roster. I suppose I could buy a preschool program, but there is enough free stuff on the internet…if I just take the time to print it out and make a plan.

I know that the more prepared and better organized I am now, the smoother things will go, especially once the baby comes. I can hold everything together on a day-to-day basis most of the time right now, but I know that things will fall apart with a newborn in the house if I don’t have all the supplies ready, the lists made and a routine established. Nine weeks of lesson plans will get me at least to the baby’s birth. After I’ve done all the kids’ plans for that time, I’ll move on to prepping another 9 weeks to get me through Christmas break.

Alrighty then, anybody else have a new month’s resolution?

08.01.07
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Sick…

…and demented.

Self-Proclaimed Pedophile Admits He’d Have Sex With Little Girls If It Were Legal

Appearing earlier on “The Morning Show With Mike & Juliet,” McClellan made this startling admission:

“I got to be honest with you — if it was legal and if it was a completely consensual thing, I could see myself taking it all the way to a sexual [level].”

He’s talking about girls between the ages of THREE and ELEVEN. Consensual? Excuse me, I have to go vomit now.

08.01.07
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Hoping for Regression

I’ve got a lot of experience with regression in children. Moving, traveling…any disruption to a boring daily routine generally results in my under 5 crowd having a mental breakdown. We are almost through the latest installment, and I’ll get a few weeks of respite before the new baby, the new disruption, and more regression.

{sigh}

Back when Fritz was little, I read all the warnings about toilet training a toddler when another baby was on the way. Don’t do it, they all so wisely and confidently said. The child will just regress and make your life even more difficult. So, even though he had been starting to use the potty here and there from 18 months, I gave up, figuring there was no point. Billy was born when he was 21 months old, and I had 2 in diapers.

Then I starting hearing about this concept of “waiting until the child is ready” to do potty training. Today, I can tell you that I’m not really sure why parents buy into this theory of child rearing. I don’t wait until my child says “teach me” before encouraging the use of tableware. I don’t wait until my child has a cooperative attitude before working on the virtue of obedience. And if my kindergartener doesn’t know her alphabet, I don’t wait until she says “I want to learn to read” before I begin working on basic letter recognition and phonics.

But back then, I ignored my common sense that nagged me that my own generation was toilet trained before the age of three and that it was really possible to do it even with newborn babies around, and I waited for signs of “readiness.” Looking back, I can tell you who wasn’t ready: me. It’s not that I wanted 2 kids in diapers. It’s that potty training is messy work. It was so much easier to change a diaper at my own convenience than to mop up a puddle before somebody started playing in it. Or before it soaked into the wall-to-wall carpeting in our rented apartment.

And then, the next thing I knew, he was three, and I had another baby due in a few months, and I worried about wasting my time because he would just regress anyway. Katie was born when he was 3 years and 3 months old, and I had 3 in diapers.

Fritz never did show signs of readiness. Three months later, I decided enough was enough and I knuckled down and trained him. But this experience didn’t make me any wiser. I waited for Billy to be “ready” until he was past his third birthday…nothing. In fact, he was rapidly approaching 3 1/2 when Katie, only 18 months younger, started using the toilet all by herself (my one and only “ready” child). Jenny was due, Bill was deployed, my life was crazy (I lived a whole year full of regression), and it looked like I was going to have 2 in diapers – but it wouldn’t be the youngest two.

Again, I knuckled down, and I ended up with just one in diapers, except for Katie at night. There were accidents (there still are accidents), and I just got used to keeping a change of clothes for everybody in the car, but we got through it.

With Jenny, I expected that she’d be like Katie – only because she’s a girl and a younger sibling and not for any really good reason. I expected her to train herself around age 2. Nope. But I moved my personal timeline up, and managed to have her out of diapers by the time she was 3. I also developed a greater sense of humor in training her.

And now, my fifth child, has an entirely different mother than my first child did. Waiting until a child is ready just might be good advice, but this mom has different criteria for what “ready” means. If my child’s preferred mode of dress is au naturale, it just might be a good time to begin potty training. If my child is capable of attaining that goal of bare nakedness by undressing himself, it just might be a good time to begin potty training. And if my child indicates that he understands the connection between the bathroom and the liquid coming from his body, then it really just might be a good time to begin potty training.

As for the regression monster, that fear that I would work so hard only to have to begin anew? Eh, I figure they have to regress somehow when the new baby comes, it might as well be toilet training as anything else. Besides, regression means that there was initial success. And if I could have one single month in nine years of parenting with zero children in diapers, that would be an amazing thing indeed.