Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The Deceiver
Remember a while back when my innocent little Mary became a thief, and then taught her little brother the trick? Well, she took a brief hiatus from her life of crime--and is now back on the rampage.
She must be bored this summer--and very hungry. Just since we got back from our vacation she has eaten WITHOUT permission: ONE whole ziplock bag full of the chocolate candy left over from Halloween (she found the stash in the freezer and just went to town), ONE piece of gum--while being grounded from candy due to the freezer candy incident from five days prior, ONE peppermint patty just the DAY after the gum incident and barely a week after the original crime(seriously...she is just NOT a smart candy thief--you expect me NOT to notice the minty freshness?), FOUR--maybe FIVE--soft chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen cabinet (ignorantly leaving the empty bag behind apparently thinking that her parents would just NOT see it), AND THEN BARELY 24 HOURS LATER, she ate a Slimfast bar and threw the wrapper on the floor of her bedroom where GOSH, no mother would just EVER find it!
Her ineptitude and clumsiness astonish me. I'm sure I was MUCH better at hiding things when I was her age.
I actually knew she had taken candy out of the freezer. I wasn't going to say anything about it. After all, it's basically partly HER candy, and a piece here and there isn't going to hurt. I was being all Zen about it and just "letting it go." BUT to open the freezer and see a bag COMPLETELY empty (and in just a week's time) was just too much. The point, my darling child, is that you are SUPPOSED to ask. AND I don't want you to become a glutton just for the SAKE of becoming a GLUTTON!
And in actuality, I wouldn't have cared about a piece of gum or a mint here or there either. This was ALSO her candy which she got from kids' birthday parties (and THIS is one of the reasons I put MAYBE one piece of candy in the goodie bags I hand out--WHY mothers? Why put SO MUCH candy there? Are you emptying your house of all your excess Halloween/Easter CRAP? Why the compulsion? Seriously?). Um, anyway, the POINT was that due to her gluttony of the week prior, we grounded her from treats for a week. So no lesson learned from the punishment--not even better ways to sneak it so that her mother wouldn't find it.
Chocolate chip cookies are the devil's food and so that incident may have been more readily forgiven--if not attached to the three previous, and if she hadn't eaten the REST of the package leaving NONE for Dad (who had BOUGHT the cookies and ended up with NONE). Once again, no lesson learned yet. She also did the unforgivable act of ALMOST letting an innocent victim take the blame for it. See, I'm not as naive about all this as I used to. Keith knew where the cookies were and had just as much access as she did. We asked SOMEONE to step forward and admit their mistake, but the innocent faces abounded. I finally pulled aside the person I was 90% sure was guilty of the offence and got her to fess up. How DARE you throw your poor brother under the bus like that?
The Slimfast bar is an enigma. She maintains that she actually did this offence "sometime last week" (YES, while STILL being grounded from treats, folks). But as her mother, I'm quite intimate with the state of her room, and I'm sure I would have noticed the half-hazardly thrown wrapper that wasn't even CLOSE to the trash before now. Maybe some of her dirty clothes were on it.
I have obviously failed as a parent. My eldest is not learning to ASK. She is not learning to CONTROL her chocolate (or sugury) urges. She is also not learning to OWN UP to mistakes she has made. And grounding her is laughably ineffective. I finally told her that she could not have a play date this week. THAT brought on the waterworks. WILL it bring on the other lessons needed to be learned? I sure hope so. Otherwise the rest of her summer is going to be Awfully Dull.
God. Now I think I know why she had so many cavaties all of a sudden.
She must be bored this summer--and very hungry. Just since we got back from our vacation she has eaten WITHOUT permission: ONE whole ziplock bag full of the chocolate candy left over from Halloween (she found the stash in the freezer and just went to town), ONE piece of gum--while being grounded from candy due to the freezer candy incident from five days prior, ONE peppermint patty just the DAY after the gum incident and barely a week after the original crime(seriously...she is just NOT a smart candy thief--you expect me NOT to notice the minty freshness?), FOUR--maybe FIVE--soft chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen cabinet (ignorantly leaving the empty bag behind apparently thinking that her parents would just NOT see it), AND THEN BARELY 24 HOURS LATER, she ate a Slimfast bar and threw the wrapper on the floor of her bedroom where GOSH, no mother would just EVER find it!
Her ineptitude and clumsiness astonish me. I'm sure I was MUCH better at hiding things when I was her age.
I actually knew she had taken candy out of the freezer. I wasn't going to say anything about it. After all, it's basically partly HER candy, and a piece here and there isn't going to hurt. I was being all Zen about it and just "letting it go." BUT to open the freezer and see a bag COMPLETELY empty (and in just a week's time) was just too much. The point, my darling child, is that you are SUPPOSED to ask. AND I don't want you to become a glutton just for the SAKE of becoming a GLUTTON!
And in actuality, I wouldn't have cared about a piece of gum or a mint here or there either. This was ALSO her candy which she got from kids' birthday parties (and THIS is one of the reasons I put MAYBE one piece of candy in the goodie bags I hand out--WHY mothers? Why put SO MUCH candy there? Are you emptying your house of all your excess Halloween/Easter CRAP? Why the compulsion? Seriously?). Um, anyway, the POINT was that due to her gluttony of the week prior, we grounded her from treats for a week. So no lesson learned from the punishment--not even better ways to sneak it so that her mother wouldn't find it.
Chocolate chip cookies are the devil's food and so that incident may have been more readily forgiven--if not attached to the three previous, and if she hadn't eaten the REST of the package leaving NONE for Dad (who had BOUGHT the cookies and ended up with NONE). Once again, no lesson learned yet. She also did the unforgivable act of ALMOST letting an innocent victim take the blame for it. See, I'm not as naive about all this as I used to. Keith knew where the cookies were and had just as much access as she did. We asked SOMEONE to step forward and admit their mistake, but the innocent faces abounded. I finally pulled aside the person I was 90% sure was guilty of the offence and got her to fess up. How DARE you throw your poor brother under the bus like that?
The Slimfast bar is an enigma. She maintains that she actually did this offence "sometime last week" (YES, while STILL being grounded from treats, folks). But as her mother, I'm quite intimate with the state of her room, and I'm sure I would have noticed the half-hazardly thrown wrapper that wasn't even CLOSE to the trash before now. Maybe some of her dirty clothes were on it.
I have obviously failed as a parent. My eldest is not learning to ASK. She is not learning to CONTROL her chocolate (or sugury) urges. She is also not learning to OWN UP to mistakes she has made. And grounding her is laughably ineffective. I finally told her that she could not have a play date this week. THAT brought on the waterworks. WILL it bring on the other lessons needed to be learned? I sure hope so. Otherwise the rest of her summer is going to be Awfully Dull.
God. Now I think I know why she had so many cavaties all of a sudden.
Monday, July 14, 2008
The End is NEAR!!
Well, my year off is almost over. The checks will run out soon. It's time to get off my butt, brush off the resume, and get a job.
Oh, God.
My year off has been a good one. I really enjoyed being home with the kids. I didn't accomplish hardly ANYTHING I wanted to, and I should have spent more of this "free" year starting a business from the home. But I didn't. I still can't think of anything to do out of the home that I would like. And I'm in deep envy of my lucky friends who have the free daycare arrangements so that they can work part-time jobs and not have the whole point/check be wiped out with their daycare costs.
Ideas: home daycare (too many issues), tutoring (have to have a LOT of clients to make it feasible), medical transcription (schooling too expensive right now), editing from home (takes a LONG time to build up a client base which could come close to helping with all the bills).
Um.....
The good thing is that if I'm forced to go back to work full-time (which seems likely at this juncture) than I will only have to pay for childcare for one child full-time in the fall. And the year after that....Look out! Izzy will be in kindergarten (still can't believe it).
Time just goes by too darn fast....
Think I'll go cry into my cup of tea now. And maybe start looking at the want ads. Or maybe I'll just put that off for another day....
Oh, God.
My year off has been a good one. I really enjoyed being home with the kids. I didn't accomplish hardly ANYTHING I wanted to, and I should have spent more of this "free" year starting a business from the home. But I didn't. I still can't think of anything to do out of the home that I would like. And I'm in deep envy of my lucky friends who have the free daycare arrangements so that they can work part-time jobs and not have the whole point/check be wiped out with their daycare costs.
Ideas: home daycare (too many issues), tutoring (have to have a LOT of clients to make it feasible), medical transcription (schooling too expensive right now), editing from home (takes a LONG time to build up a client base which could come close to helping with all the bills).
Um.....
The good thing is that if I'm forced to go back to work full-time (which seems likely at this juncture) than I will only have to pay for childcare for one child full-time in the fall. And the year after that....Look out! Izzy will be in kindergarten (still can't believe it).
Time just goes by too darn fast....
Think I'll go cry into my cup of tea now. And maybe start looking at the want ads. Or maybe I'll just put that off for another day....
Monday, July 07, 2008
The Heartland Trip
It took longer than normal to get to The Crossroads as John, the techie, decided to make a few stops along the way in the process of converting his laptop into a DVD player for the kids (SaLy we spent quite a bit of time there in Buffalo!). The kids were excited when he finally got it running right and watched several episodes of the Avatar. We also stopped to eat at a favorite restaurant in Erie that we don't have here in upstate New York. ("Bean Crock")
Finally, we got to Indy, where we had a nice cookout with family and friends we hadn't seen in years. And got to meet a hs friend's fiance (the whole point of this trip). Sorry I can't come to the wedding, folks!
We made it to FTW in good time--after a slight detour to the old Alma mater. The kids just did not get the same awe-inspiring vibes that John and I did. Not even, "You know, if it weren't for this place, the three of you would never have existed" got much of a response. Can't please everybody. John and I did get a kick out of visiting one of our favorite stores--they had different merchandise (no more previously owned CDs!) BUT the store SMELLED EXACTLY THE SAME (incense). I bought a new BSU sweatshirt and enjoyed the stinkyness on me for the rest of the day.
On to FTW, where we drove around, took over the H's house, drove around some more, saw family and a softball game, drove around, went to the zoo, and then had a party where we saw more friends and cute babies who are just getting too, too big too soon. Also, Izzy did a face plant off the swing and cut her lip and proceeded to bleed all over one of my favorite t-shirts (and I can't get it out).
We decided to cut the rest of our vacation shorter than we originally planned so that the kids would not have to miss two swimming lessons (and for Keith--karate). Sadly, we didn't see everyone we intended/wanted to see. Perhaps our next trip will focus on those we missed THIS trip. We're not sure if we'll be back at Thanksgiving time as we usually try to come--we'll let you all know!
Anyway, it was a nice visit with our family and friends that we DID get to see. The kids were exhausted from all the driving and late nights. Ah well. Summer has officially started, and we're going to try to make the most of what's left of it!
I am really, really sad that I missed out on all those PIF contests. Maybe I can try to get in on the second or third rounds???
Finally, we got to Indy, where we had a nice cookout with family and friends we hadn't seen in years. And got to meet a hs friend's fiance (the whole point of this trip). Sorry I can't come to the wedding, folks!
We made it to FTW in good time--after a slight detour to the old Alma mater. The kids just did not get the same awe-inspiring vibes that John and I did. Not even, "You know, if it weren't for this place, the three of you would never have existed" got much of a response. Can't please everybody. John and I did get a kick out of visiting one of our favorite stores--they had different merchandise (no more previously owned CDs!) BUT the store SMELLED EXACTLY THE SAME (incense). I bought a new BSU sweatshirt and enjoyed the stinkyness on me for the rest of the day.
On to FTW, where we drove around, took over the H's house, drove around some more, saw family and a softball game, drove around, went to the zoo, and then had a party where we saw more friends and cute babies who are just getting too, too big too soon. Also, Izzy did a face plant off the swing and cut her lip and proceeded to bleed all over one of my favorite t-shirts (and I can't get it out).
We decided to cut the rest of our vacation shorter than we originally planned so that the kids would not have to miss two swimming lessons (and for Keith--karate). Sadly, we didn't see everyone we intended/wanted to see. Perhaps our next trip will focus on those we missed THIS trip. We're not sure if we'll be back at Thanksgiving time as we usually try to come--we'll let you all know!
Anyway, it was a nice visit with our family and friends that we DID get to see. The kids were exhausted from all the driving and late nights. Ah well. Summer has officially started, and we're going to try to make the most of what's left of it!
I am really, really sad that I missed out on all those PIF contests. Maybe I can try to get in on the second or third rounds???
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