Blog Archives
Slacker Parents
So I’ve been intermittently working on a few post-drafts lately but the majority of my bloggy time allotment has gone toward slowly working on the site revamp. It’s sad but true that if I treated this venue more seriously and really put some effort into it, the overall web design would be much snappier. But as I treat this as something akin to self-therapy / entertainment, I’m afraid that if it becomes too much like work, it’ll kill my desire to even bother. This is, incidentally, one of the reasons why I never proof, and rarely edit/correct actual posts either. I really want to focus on that stream of consciousness for the most part, and let it exist in its natural state. This often results in less than perfect style and form. But hell, I’m good with that.
WELL, that was a really long explanation (excuse?) for my anemic writing efforts lately. I REALLY do have to get cracking on that kindergarten post, or before we know it, she’ll be off to college! Oh well. On to the good stuff!
So over the last few months, the little genius has naturally undergone a bit of a circadian rhythm shift…fortunately for us this has been fairly concordant with the onslaught of a very demanding school schedule. It has, however, altered our family weekend rhythm a bit, because she has been getting up earlier than her poor tired parents typically do. I needsssss my weekend R&R, people!
Fortunately, we gradually devised a natural solution to the issue by embracing our slacker parenting skillz, and empowering the little genius to self-serve her early morning needs while we continue peacefully snoozing. She was already good on getting herself dressed (check), and recently learned how to master the DVR system to load up her fave recordings if desired (check), often prefers to play with her downstairs toys in the morning anyway (check), and she loves to periodically graze rather than eat specifically scheduled meals (double-check!). So all that was really necessary to put these components together was to gently urge her to go free-range in the mornings and ensure that she could access appropriate (and at least semi-healthy) snacks and beverages. Voila!!!
So far, this has worked out pretty damn well, if I do say so myself. Often she will let us sleep an extra 60-90 minutes, and I have completely refused to allow even a smidge of guilt to disturb my conscience, because I have been hard selling myself on the idea that we are “encouraging a healthy level of independence”. Muahahahaha, who’s the evil genius NOW?!
However, we have run into a few small pitfalls that required adjustment. Such as the morning when she felt it appropriate to snack on about half a jar of peanut butter, spoonful by spoonful. Apparently generalizing portion size for most types of foods did not click in her brain when it came to jar and spoon. Go figure. And then one morning she was breakfasting on grapes, and felt compelled to come in our bedroom and give me a play-by-play on every grape (look Mom, a TEENY TINY one!)
So, all of that background to give context for today’s experience: K got up as normal and went off to do her thing. About an hour and a half later, she came in to talk to me just as I was getting up, and so I gave her a hug and asked her if she had already eaten anything for breakfast. She responded “oh yes Mom, I had a slice of cold pizza.”
It took a few seconds for my barely awake brain to let THAT sink in…my first thought being something like, “oh god, she’s already turning into a college student!”. All I could think to reply at that moment was a shocked, “you ate cold pizza for breakfast?”
To which she elaborated, “well, yes, I got the pizza slice out of the fridge and I ate MOST of it, but not the crust part. I went back to the fridge to put it back in the box but it was too hard to get in there so I decided to throw the crust away in the trash. Is that OK?”
If I hadn’t still been mentally asleep at that point, I might have laughed hysterically at her explanation, but as it was, I was still more dumbfounded than anything else.
Well, ultimately I guess this is proof that she really IS taking that independence thing to heart, because this is the kid who wouldn’t even skip wearing socks to bed without asking for ‘permission’ first! And lest anyone wonder, I solemnly swear we are not uptight control freaks….the kid has always been extraordinarily attuned to routines, norms, rules and very precisely observes such behavior systems. She has an incredibly analytical mind for such things and any deviation will prompt countless questions until her need to understand is satisfied.
But apparently, eating cold pizza for breakfast was just the thing to inspire her burgeoning independence!
I’m not sure if this should make me proud, or horrified. 
Once More into the Fray
Nothing really world-shattering over here, so please don’t be looking for bloggy brilliance today. Just a super quick update / mea culpa [while I wait for pizza delivery - haha] before the insanity of My Last Semester of Grad School overtakes me and sucks out my brains. This is somewhat of a follow-up to the “survival” post, but yes, I am still feeling pretty anxious, overwhelmed, and hella burnt-out. Unfortunately I was not struck by any major academic epiphanies during the break, despite many sleepless nights laying in bed staring at the ceiling, trying to plan things out and avoid full-blown panic attacks. However, I did mentally work out a rough set of project plans (sexy they are NOT); for our purposes let’s call them “A” and “B”. I was banking on plan A because it was the least painful to execute but I just realized (now 4 days into the semester) that it was only a pipe dream…I won’t risk putting anyone to sleep with the details but suffice it to say the timing just wouldn’t work out. So back to plan “B”, which is (I am doing some serious sacrificial praying) hopefully going to be feasible with a minimum of pain. So. Now I just have to work out a million details, file my grad papers, line up a bunch of research, write a literature review, and start figuring out the details of execution. Joy.
So all of this has kind of put me into full-blown freak-out mode the last couple weeks. Uncle Bubba has been acting as my ad hoc unofficial therapist/sounding-board on the go (mostly because he is the one that is always available via phone/text/yahoo lately — sorry UB!). Aside from the academic challenges, I am seriously worried about the reality of student loans pressing in upon me; my ability to find better-paying work one way or another; and getting our general current finances in some kind of order because quite frankly, 2009 and 10 kinda kicked our asses and the ducks are coming home to roost. It’s all a mess right now, but operating under certain constraints makes it hard to plan for improvement. I think this will all become a little clearer once I have escaped from grad school and can get my head screwed back on properly for other important life-details.
We did succumb to one little pre-semester fun hurrah; since we minimized Christmas expenses and whatnot this year…we took a little MLK weekend trip to Vegas, just the three of us. It was actually quite a fun trip, althought very different from recent Vegas adventures because Gmom wasn’t there this time to offload some of the kid-duties. So a lot less drinking/gambling/related shenanigans, but more family-based adventures. K had a great time.
Have to put a shout-out to my awesome hubby for all his recent support, patience, and general steadiness in my life at a time when it feels like everything else is wobbling on its axis. Over the last couple days he has been painstakingly working on our @#$)(#!& master shower, so that I can finally be reunited with blisteringly hot morning showers which have more water pressure than a dog peeing on a bush. He also took on the Dad-ariffic task of taking the little genius out to buy her Long-Awaited-Tap-Shoes. She is THRILLED and tomorrow’s dance class ought to be a TOTAL hoot. Oh and he has lately been playing frequent victim customer to K’s “barber shop” ministrations. All this during a week when his dear daughter jokingly suggested replacing him with 1) a puppet or 2) a robot. (!)
On the other family WIN front, we finally got the little genius in to see the dentist this week, which had been somewhat delayed for a variety of reasons. As first dental visits go, it was pretty positive and she seemed to enjoy it overall. For my peace of mind, I am so relieved to find out that the nightly teeth-grinding isn’t going to ruin her life, and her overall dental health is A-OK perfect right now. Hooray!
OK as exciting as all that is — on to the mea culpa. I had great intentions (and we ALL know where those are used for paving…) to get around to fixing the blog design layout and whatnot, and get some serious type-time in over the break, but somehow the allure of DVR and Wii frisbee golf and staying up all night doing nothing meaningful got the better of me. So. Maybe not so much on the redesign and playing catch-up, given that my next three weeks of academic/work life are probably going to be sheer hell, BUT I am planning to try to commit to one post a week this semester, because I feel a lot more sane and happy when I get some of the junk in my head OUT. Fortunately (?) you all are along for the ride!
So, onward and upward; on the road again; ready-steady-GO; once more into the fray….yada, yada, yada.
Pizza’s here!
Just like a cat
These days, the humor train just keeps riding right through my day. Or else I just have to laugh in order to keep from crying, take your pick.
…last night, after a veritable 7-hour homework ORGY, I had to decompress before bed. That typically means watching one of my favorite shows on DVR and totally zoning out from reality. So FF and I were companionably watching a CSI episode from a couple weeks ago, and then finishing an episode of “Reaper” (which we were checking out to see if it was any good), and somewhere in the midst, I saw something hopping across the living room floor. Now, we’ve had some wild kingdom issues in this house including but not limited to geckos, crickets, devil birds, and rats. So I get pretty freaked out when my critter radar goes off. The funny part comes in with watching FF try to manfully defend me from what we finally determined was a small gray cricket, with him stomping, and it jumping, and him chasing and stomping, and finally getting technical reinforcement (the flashlight). The cricket won round 1, and disappeared under the entertainment center for a bit, but made the foolish mistake of thinking he could defeat my radar and come out for a second round. Big mistake. Stomp-chase-stomp-chase-flashlight-stomp technique finally prevailed and the hopper ultimately bit the big one.
__________
This morning, while talking to bro on the phone about getting the girls ready for preschool, we brilliantly decided to put the kids on the phone to talk to each other. On my end, the overheard conversation went like this:
K: hi K2!
pause
K: oh. no, my coughs are all gone. I am all better now.
pause
K: I’m all better. Yes, Dr. N is very nice. She helped me feel all better. I’m fixed now.
pause
K: yes Dr. N is nice, you should come meet her, she will make your coughs all better and fix you. She has balls in her office. And a table. And stuff. And she is nice.
Bro told me on his end, that of all the potential topics of conversation first thing in the morning, K2 decided to regale K with information about being sick, coughing, and taking medicine. Now, the girls both had a cold around the same time a few weeks ago but both recovered quickly and without much fuss. K’s conversation was especially amusing because….Dr N is our chiropractor. (nor did K’s recent cold even require a trip to the pediatrician, for the record.)
________
The flashlight from the cricket hunt was still in the living room today and at one point, we were all in there and FF idly turned on the flashlight. K saw the orb of light on the floor and giggled and pounced on it. So he started flashing the light around and she was chasing and pouncing on it just like a cat with one of those laser pointer toys. Is that weird, or funny? Both? I can’t decide.
__________
K loves doing the pretend play cooking/tea party/etc thing. This variously expresses itself in terms of chicken soup fests (very entertaining because she puts a whole plastic chicken leg inside her mini soup pot and gives you the whole pot with a ladle), or baking marathons where she carefully makes pretend cakes, cookies, and pies. Her pretend play is extremely detailed.
Anyway, tonight she decided to have a ‘birthday party’. She got out her tea party tray and filled it with play plates and silverware, and a mini tupperware cake container, and carefully went through the motions of slicing and serving a cake. She told me it was strawberry cake with chocolate and strawberry frosting (yum), and served up slices to all three of us. Naturally we had to of course sing the birthday song before eating our cake and drinking our chocolate milk. Once we got to the point of actually eating the pretend cake, it just happened that FF was having a late (real) dinner of homebaked pizza. When K turned away for a moment, he leaned over slightly and said to me quietly, very deadpan,
“this cake tastes like pizza.”
ahahahahaahahahaha
This is why K doesn’t have a sibling
…well, not the only reason, but hey.
K spent some time at K2′s house today (remember, all those fascinating FUN toys, unlike at our house) while FF and I did a little Easter shopping. When we collected our child, dear brother related one of the afternoon’s incidents:
Apparently, he left the girls in the living room eating their pizza while he went into the kitchen to get a drink. A couple minutes later, K wandered into the kitchen holding her pizza and said to Uncle J “he took a bite”. He was understandably alarmed and confused because the only “he”s around were himself and one of the dogs. The pizza didn’t look mauled, so he concluded it must not have been the dogs, and he asked K to show him who took a bite. So my helpful daughter took him in the living room and pointed to….
SQUISHY! My daughter was trying to feed a poor captive 7-month-old infant a nice fat slice of Dominos pizza (and who is definitely not a HE but a very cute SHE). Poor Squishy had pizza sauce down the side of her cheek and some cheese shrapnel on her bouncy play chair.
Well, at least K is really good about sharing….right???
