Let's Be Friends

Nine year olds are mean. This is not something I just realized, but something that I am reminded of again now that we finally moved into our own house in Michigan.

We got here about two months ago and for the first month were staying at our business partner's house. He had 14 acres of property so there weren't exactly kids right next door to play with. The kids amused themselves catching frogs in the pond and things were peaceful. With the kids anyway. My husband and our business partner bickered like a married couple. They are good friends, but being that close was straining the friendship. It didn't help that our business partner had a new girlfriend that was moving in around the same time and felt like we were infringing on her turf. We had to find our own place and get out. We'd been looking and looking at houses and a lot of what we looked at was smaller than we were used to. In Arizona nothing is older than 10 years. In Michigan there are 200 year old houses everywhere. I love old houses and the charm and character they possess, but 200 years ago people didn't have ginormous sectional couches or mansion sized California King bedroom sets. Apparently they didn't have enough clothes to warrant a closet in every bedroom either. If you can call an 8x8 space a bedroom. Most of what we looked at would require us to buy all new furniture. So when we found a place to rent that was newer construction, enough square feet for us, and in a neighborhood with excellent schools, we jumped on it. Even though the previous tenants had changed the locks so the property manager couldn't let us in to see the inside. Yup, that's right, we signed a one year lease on a house we hadn't even seen the inside of. Crazy, I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The gamble paid off though, because the house is really nice. All our furniture fits. There are a few quirky things I don't like, but they are minor, I can live with them. The timing was perfect. The day we signed our lease was the last day of AYSO soccer sign ups for the area. We were able to get Tiffany signed up for soccer, which made her very happy. Even though the registration deadline had passed for summer school, since it hadn't started yet, and they still had space in the class, I was able to get Aimee signed up to take the first half of the World History class they take here in 9th grade, but Arizona doesn't take until 10th. So she will only have to use one of her electives to make up the other half this year.

Once we started moving in we learned that there were a ton of kids in the neighborhood our kids ages. On one side of us, a girl Aimee's age with a couple of younger brothers Kimberly and Tiff's ages. On the other side, they have a boy Aimee's age, and a girl Tiffany's age. The next house down from them another girl Aimee's age, one a year older than Kimberly, and a boy or two around Tiff's age. There are a ton more, but I'm not sure exactly where they originate in the neighborhood.

The thing is, the nine year old next door, and her other friends from the neighborhood have all been friends since infancy. They've lived in this neighborhood their entire lives and their moms were all pregnant at the same time. That would be a hard group to break into at any age, but there's something about 9 year olds. They aren't "little" kids any more. This year in 4th grade, school will get harder for them as their teachers try to prepare them for middle school. This is the age that cliques start to form and you aren't automatically friends just because you are the same age. Nine year olds are starting to develop a sense of themselves as individuals, and their self esteem is largely based on how much "cooler" they think they are than their peers. They aren't afraid to cut down their friends to make themselves feel superior.

It breaks my heart when Tiff comes home crying because they were mean to her. They let her play and then they ditch her. Or she asks if she can join and they refuse her. I can't go complain to the other parents, because Tiff isn't going to gain any respect with these kids by having a mom that tattles on them. All I can do is try to teach Tiffany that she doesn't have to put up with their BS. She doesn't have to play with them, just because they live in the neighborhood. Two nights ago she came in crying. The kids had ditched her and she was heartbroken. My husband came unglued and told her she couldn't play with them any more. Yesterday, the whole incident and her father's edict were forgotten, and she wanted to go play with them again.

My Name is

I've been reading Mama Kat's blog for over a year now. I've had every good intention of using her writing prompts to become a more frequent inhabitant of bloggy land. Finally today I am using one of her prompts, a day late of course, shut up, I know I totally suck.

The prompt that inspired me to finally write is this:

What’s in YOUR name? What does it mean? Why was it given to you? etc..

My name is Lorna. That's LoRna by the way. I have to watch out for the Arial font because it makes my name look like Lorna. Yeah, notice how the r and the n run together to look like an m. My name is NOT Loma. Thanks. At work I have to wear a name tag. They get them engraved and they use the Arial font. I can't tell you how many name tags I have thrown out the window lost so I could get a new one of the temporary name tags with the labels made on the p-touch machine that are in ALL CAPS. I have explained to the management that I don't like being called Loma, and won't wear one of the engraved name tags until they make me one in all caps, or a different font or something because I don't like being called Loma all the time. Every time a new order of name tags comes in, there is a new one for me, Lorna.I give up.

Have you figured out that I'm not terribly fond of my name yet? Oh, but I'm just getting started. Let me count the ways.

Let's start with the fact that it means NOTHING. It is a made up name for a character in a book, Lorna Doone, published in 1869. Some baby name books will tell you that it is a form of Lorne, Lauren, or Laura and means laurel plant, but it's not. It's a made up name for a character in a book. In 1951 this book was made into a movie, but more about that later.

According to the Grade Your Parents app on facebook, my parents, or really just my mom, because my dad had nothing to do with it, got an A- for originality. Nineteen percent of children born that year had a rarer name than me, and my name peaked in popularity in 1942. My mother was 2 when this name was most popular.

So how did she come up with such an odd name you ask? I think the doctor slipped her something special in her epidural. Up until the point she was in labor my name was going to be Jennifer. Now, had she named me Jennifer she would have gotten an F for originality, Jennifer was one of the most popular names the year I was born. I always had several Jennifer's in each of my classes at school, and still know more Jennifer's than I can count. I'm kinda grateful that she didn't name me Jennifer. Want to see something funny, yell out "Hey Jennifer!" in a crowd of 30 something year olds and see how many turn around. Yell out Lorna in a crowd, and unless it's a bunch of 70 year olds you will probably strike out. I can count on one hand how many other Lorna's I have ever met (4), and all of them were significantly older than me.

Since my name is so unusual, most people I've met have never heard it (unless they are in their 70's). Seriously if they qualify for a senior discount, all I need to say is "like Lorna Doone" when I get that inevitable quizzical look upon introduction and they are all "OH, Ok". Everyone else, still confused. People call me Loren or Lorena a lot. I've pretty much given up and learned to answer to anything starting with L. I always have to spell my name out so it doesn't get butchered, and to make this even more fun, I married a man with a last name that requires spelling out also. Hello my name is L-O-R-N-A _-_-_-_-_. Yeah, tons of fun.

When I named my kids I took particular care to give them common enough names that people would understand them but also not so popular that they would end up being the Jennifer's of their generation. Of course this was helped by the fact that at the point I had kids, most people were going out of their way to name their kids the most unusual things they could, adding extra letters and phonetic spelling to already unusual names. Of course I hadn't given proper thought to the whole spelling out thing with my oldest when I named her Aimee, not Amy, but realized this blunder after making calls for doctor's appointments and what not. Aimee, A-I-M-E-E _-_-_-_-_. Yup, doomed my kid to a lifetime of spelling out her first and last name. At least until she gets married. At least she doesn't get called Annie or something else because they've never heard of her name. Even if they spell it Amy, at least she will be called the right thing.

I would have thought that my mom would have given this kind of thought into naming me considering the fact that she changed her own name when she moved away from home. Left her old name and identity behind and started fresh in a new city with a new name. Of course this was easier to do when you weren't required to have a birth certificate to prove you were who you said you were and when children were born at home on the farm and their birth certificate doesn't even have the right date on it because nobody got around to making the trek into town to report their arrival for days after their birth. But for whatever reason, my mom remembered a movie from when she was 12 and decided that Lorna would be the perfect name for her one and only child, I blame the drugs.

I've often tried to think of what I would change my name to if I had the opportunity to reinvent myself. If I ever went into witness protection or something, what would I want to be called, and surprisingly, as much as I HATE my name, I can't think of anything that seems to fit me better. So I guess I'm Lorna, like it or not, forever.

P.S. spell check hates my name too

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...

This past weekend the hubby went out of town and my mom took my younger two giving me the rare opportunity to spend some quality time and talk with my teenager. It's not often that I can really talk to her. Whether it's my hubby chiming in finishing my sentences with what he thinks I'm trying to say, or her little sisters being nosey, it's hard to finish a thought, let alone a whole conversation.

We spent all day Sunday together. We had lunch, saw a movie, and went out to dinner. At lunch, we talked and I learned some amazing things. I started off by telling her that I was completely clueless about how to relate to her new teenager self. That I couldn't decide between punishing her for failing two classes or rewarding her for being so responsible around the house. I told her that I felt I was out of touch with what she liked and disliked, but that I realized that the punishments we were using such as taking her phone away, really didn't seem to bother her and therefore weren't motivation to do better. I asked her what kinds of privileges or possessions she wanted and would be upset if they were taken away as punishment. She shrugged and said I don't know.

We continued to talk and little by little the picture became clearer. What I figured out is she really doesn't like her sisters. I mean she loves them, they are her sisters after all, but they annoy the crap out of her. Even though my middle one is only 2 1/2 years younger than her, there is a huge gap between what she wants to do and what they want to do. Everything she said seemed to center on the same theme, "All they want to watch on TV is baby shows" "They're so annoying" "They always come in my room and get into my stuff". When I asked her if she would be motivated to do better in school if I offered her $100 for a straight A report card, she shrugged and said "Not really", but after a pause she followed it up with "If you gave me $100 for each report card with straight A's, I'd save it so I could go to Hawaii and visit grandma (hubby's mom) for a week without my sisters."

So now I'm able to formulate a plan.

First, I need to give her more opportunities to do stuff without her sisters, like offering to drop her and her friends off at the movie or at the mall for a few hours. This is going to be a struggle for me. Up until this point, if they haven't been in my sight, they were always in the care of some other adult I trusted or at school. Yeah I'm a little a lot overprotective. I just think I would DIE if something ever happened to my kids that I could have prevented if I was watching them. So just the thought of letting her go off on her own and not knowing her exact location for a couple of hours makes me literally nauseous. Do they make lojack for teenagers?

Second, we need to give her more control over her room and her ability to keep her sisters out of it. Now this one is going to be harder for my husband. I have no problem with her shutting her door or even locking it. He on the other hand hates it when the kids shut their doors, and comes unglued if one of them locks it. He sees no need for it, but then again, he grew up in a house with no doorknobs (I won't even begin to get into that). I told him he's going to have to let up on the door locking thing, because I think THAT would be a privilege she would work hard to keep.

Third, we are considering getting her a TV and DVR for her room so she can watch the shows that she wants to watch without her sisters interrupting her or bugging her to put on a "baby" show. Screw up at school and it's back to preschool TV with your sisters.

Finally... that trip to Hawaii... I think if she brings home straight A report cards, we can put $100 in a savings account each time towards her ticket. Maybe by next summer I'll be over my fear of letting her out of my sight enough to deal with the thought of letting her navigate the airport and get on a plane by herself.

How to parent a teenager

If you are looking for an answer you are not going to find it here. Look me up in 10 years and maybe I'll have a clue. Right now what I have is a girl who just turned 13 and not a freaking clue of what to do with her. I'm swimming in self doubt and totally scared that I'm screwing up royally.

She is still screwing up in school. Despite my best efforts, grounding, taking away all her cool stuff, lectures on why she doesn't want to end up a drop out, etc., she still managed to fail two of her classes last quarter.

I really don't get it. She's really smart so it's not a matter of the subject matter being too hard. Plus she's really super responsible about other stuff. She cleans her room, does her chores, helps with her sisters. Why can't she do her homework too? I have a really hard time punishing her because 98% of the time she is an angel. She's just doesn't give a crap about her grades. I don't get it.

I don't know what more to do to motivate her. Last summer I started paying her for babysitting her sisters. She gets paid per hour whatever her GPA is. I explained that if she got straight A's that would be worth a bonus dollar for a total of $5. Right now she's earning a whopping $2.33. I tried explaining to her that this is just like life, the better you do in school, the more money you can make. One quarter this year she had a 3.o, but now we are back down to 2 and change.

I asked her to write an essay on the importance of education citing at least 6 statistics. What I got back was an essay on why she "thinks" the high school she wants to go to is superior to the one she is going to attend. She totally didn't read the explanation of the rankings she was citing and got it completely ass backwards.

I get that this last quarter has been an emotional roller coaster for her. First we have to move, and end up in a different high school boundary than where we started, then we try to keep her in that high school by applying for two different programs that would allow her to stay (she doesn't get accepted to either), followed by not making the cheerleading squad at the one she is going to attend. I totally understand how craptastic that is for a 13 year old.

HOWEVER. We now live in a nicer neighborhood. The high school she is being "forced" to attend turns out more college bound kids than the other one. It's students consistently score higher on the state standardized tests. I'm totally not brokenhearted about her having to go there. She doesn't care at all about any of that though, she just cares that all her friends are going to the other school. And in true 13 year old drama queen form, she is POSITIVE she will NOT be able to make ANY new friends at the new school.

I am left confused with how to proceed. On one hand I want to spoil her with fun stuff this summer to cheer her up since I know in her 13 year old mind she thinks her world is ending, on the other hand I want to ground her for the whole summer for getting two F's, and bottom line, I have no idea if EITHER strategy will improve anything.

The cure for what ails you is candy.

I have this thing about taking the kids to the doctor. I pretty much try to avoid doing it as much as possible. Not that I don't believe in modern medicine, but I also believe in my mother's intuition and the knowledge I have gained by the umpteen thousand trips to the doctor I have already made with my children. Sometimes it's better to just wait it out.

My husband however thinks that they need to go every time they sniffle. "That's why we have insurance" he says. He's gone a lot though, so usually I let things ride. If they have a cold, they get tylenol, fluids, and rest. Why should I go pay a $20 co-pay to have the doctor tell me that. And why would I want to risk exposing them to something even yuckier while we are there. Like the time Kimberly thought she had scurvy, and I thought it might be strep. I took her to the doctor to find out it was just a plain old ordinary sore throat and you know what happened? She picked up pink eye from some other kid in the waiting room.

Last week Tiff had a little bump on the underside of her tongue. She showed it to me and I pretty much ignored it. It looked like she had just irritated it, and besides, things in your mouth usually heal pretty quickly. I figured it would go away on it's own in a few days. Then a couple of days later she showed it to her dad. He flipped out. "We need to get her into the doctor today." "what do you mean she showed it to you days ago and you ignored it?" So the next morning I'm sitting with her in the doctor's office. The diagnosis - blocked salivary gland. The prescription - sour candy. Yup. Candy. So like she would have been cured come Sunday anyway, without the trip to the doctor? So we go to CVS buy every kind of sour candy they sell and I take her to school. I write a note to her teacher saying "yes the doctor really did say she needed to eat this candy" and go about the rest of my day.

Then Saturday right after the carnival, my mom notices that the topside of Tiff's tongue is looking odd. Starts saying stuff like Scarlet Fever and my hubby is eating it up. That night he went out to run some errands and while he was gone she starts complaining that her mouth hurts and shows me that she has several canker sore looking things inside her lip. Crap. Urgent care here we come. He comes home, we eat dinner, I tell him about the latest developments in her mouth and he says call the quack doctor back. Because of course this has to be some case of the doctor misdiagnosing her the first time, even though the candy totally made the bump go away. It couldn't possibly be that she caught some other thing while we were there. So after dinner it's off to urgent care.

Now one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my entire life is a Pediatric urgent care that is open every night and all weekend long, because you know your kid never gets sick during regular business hours. It's always at 5 pm on Friday, or 9 pm Saturday like this was. Even all the regular urgent cares were already closed. It was a bit of a drive but way better than the emergency room which would have been the only other option. There wasn't even anyone else in the waiting room when we got there.

We see the doctor and he says it's a virus. Very common in kids but usually seen in ones a little smaller than my 7 year old. Of course she sucks her thumb so I totally get how she's getting things that little kids that can't keep their hands out of their mouths get. Being that it's a virus there is nothing to do but wait it out.

My husband totally doesn't get that antibiotics don't work on viruses. If they have a cold, he thinks they should get a prescription. No matter what is wrong, if you don't have to go to the pharmacy when you are done at the doctor's office, the doctor is a quack. In the car on the way home after trying to explain to him why this doctor did not give her any medicine I thought that I should just start asking the doctors to give me a prescription for something harmless that I could go to the pharmacy and fill because as long as I came home with that amber bottle, my husband would be satisfied and wouldn't even notice if it was filled with vitamins.

This morning he tells me he wants me to her back to the pediatrician. "Why?" I ask. "To get a second opinion" is his reply. Really, how about to waste a third $20co-pay and maybe get yet another nasty germ. No.Thank.You. He wasn't too pleased with my answer and we pretty much didn't talk all morning, but I didn't take her to the doctor either, so I guess I won that one.

Room Clean Up Game

When you have ADD sometimes you have to trick yourself into doing things you don't want to do. We have an overdeveloped sense of procrastination, so by the time we HAVE to do something, like clean our rooms, it's one step away from being condemned.

When I was a kid my mom would send me to my room and tell me that I couldn't come out until it was clean. Wow, thanks for the life sentence there mom.

Here is a little game I made up as a child to help trick myself into cleaning my room.

Write the numbers 1-10 in descending order on the left side of a sheet of paper.
10
9
8
You get the point right?

Then you play.
Start by picking up 10 things. It helps if you make this the 10 BIGGEST things also. Picking up 10 pieces of lint isn't going to make a big dent in it. When you are done put a big check mark next to the number.
Then pick up 9 things. You just got through picking up 10, so 9 is less work. You've done the worst of it. When you are done, put a big check mark next to the number.
Pick up 8 things....

By the time you get down to the bottom of the list, you have actually picked up 55 things. 55 is a big number. 10 is a little number.

If you have a child that struggles with cleaning their room (or if you struggle with cleaning/organizing) try this game to make it a little more fun.

When I grow up Part 2

Ok, wow. What a spirited comment from my good friend Beth in regards to my last post. Out of everything she knows about me (and she knows EVERYTHING) this post shocked her. SHOCKED with capital letters even. And trust me when I tell you, there are a few other things that she knows about me that I would have thought she would find slightly more shocking.

So in light of that, yes, let me clarify. In Junior High, when asked, I wanted to be a stay at home mom. In High School I hated all those personality test things that were supposed to tell us our perfect career, because I wanted to be a mom. When I went to College, I took child development courses because they would help me to be a better mom. In freshman English I got a D on an essay I wrote on gender issues because the feminist teacher didn't like my stance on stay at home parents.

Basically I wrote a paper stating that I felt the decline of our society was caused by the lack of parental supervision at home. That I felt that in most cases most families could get by on just one income so that one parent (I didn't specify which one, because I don't think it has to be the mom) could stay home, but it would mean not having matching Beemers in the driveway of their McMansion. Seriously, how many hours a week do you think parents are working a week to afford that kind of shit? And meanwhile their neglected kids were building bombs in the garage or wreak other havoc in their neighborhoods. So I feel that if you are willing to forgo the Beemer and the big house to stay home with your kids, our world will be a better place. I sure as shit know that if my kids built so much as a pup tent in my garage I would know about it. And if they were having trouble making friends and acting odd, I'd take them to a freaking therapist, every day if necessary, until they were well adjusted.

But I guess I'm drifting a little off topic. By now you get Beth's point. You understand why her world got turned on it's head when I said that I feel that something is missing.

Here's the thing. Being a stay at home mom is still looked down upon. Even though there are websites like this momsalarywizard that tells me that the work I do for my family is worth $124, 628 a year (that's more than my husband makes, hehe). Like I said in the last post, my husband gets it. He didn't always. When I was pregnant with our first and said I wanted to stay home with her he said "Until she goes to preschool right?" Of course by the time she went to preschool I had another baby at home and the same with my third. Over the years I have had a chance to impress upon him the fact that it isn't just when they are small that they need parental supervision and guidance. I think all it really took was asking him if he really wanted our kids to be doing the things he was doing as a teenager while his parents were at work. So when our youngest went off to Kindergarten, he was in no big hurry for me to re-join the workforce. Although he humors me when I talk about a career, he's just as happy if I stay home. He really thinks that the part time arrangement I have right now is perfect. I work only while the kids are in school, and even though I don't make a lot of money, it gives me a little spending cash and lets me get out of the house and talk to some grown ups. He realizes now the importance of me being home when the kids get home from school. The fact that he has a pathological fear of school busses helps too.

I think it boils down to how you define success. I look at some of the people I went to high school with and they have become doctors and lawyers. No doubt people would say that they are successful. People look up to them for the fortitude they had to endure all those years of schooling to earn those degrees. I feel that my status as a stay at home mom isn't as prestigious. For some reason I'm embarrassed to say that I'm JUST a mom, and I feel the need to find some kind of career that will earn me the respect that the doctors and lawyers are getting, but at the same time I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice the time I have with my kids to have a career like that. Not for all the money in the world. Certainly not for a Beemer and a McMansion. So maybe what I should be looking for is not which career I should choose, but how to be proud of the career I CHOSE. Maybe I should stop worrying about what everyone else thinks, and listen to my good friends who know how successful I am. Thanks Beth.

When I grow up...

I am now qualified to serve people food. Today I passed the test that the restaurant gives to make sure you can sling food according to their standards. I'm still not graceful with the trays, but I didn't drop anything this week while I was training. We will see how it goes. I'm still not sure that this is the career path I really want to be on. I mean sure, if I keep doing it eventually I could become the manager, but is that really what I want to do?

I just turned 35 this week and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.

When I get on this kick, my husband tells me one of two things,

One, he tells me I don't have to work, and that being a mom to his kids and making sure they grow up to be productive members of society is a hard enough job. I know, he really is a prince, right? And for those of you who know him, and know that he can be an ASS sometimes, THIS is why I love him. Because when it comes to the really important stuff, he's good, he's really good.

Or two, he tells me to just pick something already, because you see in the 16 years that I have known him I have wanted to be :
A. The owner of my very own pool hall
B. High school math teacher
C. Bartender
D. Nail technician
E. Hairstylist
F. Graphic Designer
G. Coffee shop owner
H. Scapbooking store owner
I. Preschool teacher
J. Pharmacist
K. Interior designer
L. Artist

And in those years the jobs I have held are:
A. Daycare worker
B. Parking lot attendant
C. Car Salesperson
D. Car Service Cashier
E. Customer Service Rep
F. Accounts payable clerk
G. Human resources administrator
H. Tupperware lady
I. Automotive billing clerk
J. Starbucks Barista
K. Major chain bookstore department lead
L. Restaurant hostess

You would think that maybe, just maybe, out of all these things I would find the one that I was really good at, the one that I could see myself getting up to go do every day for the rest of my life, but no. It's not like I didn't like any of them, I just got bored. I think it's because of my ADD, but I've rarely spent more than a year at any job I've ever had. I just wake up one day and feel like the job is sucking the life out of me and if I stay there any longer I will curl up and die, and then I formulate and exit strategy.

So here I am at 35, still wondering what to do with my life. Maybe I am just meant to be a mom. Not that I don't agree that being a mom is a job in and of itself. Not that I don't think that raising productive members of the next generation isn't just about the most important job out there. But I still feel like something is missing, that I cannot spend the rest of my life being defined as someone's mom.

My latest kick has been the pharmacist thing. The years of schooling are something that I just can't get my head around though. Not to mention the money. One of my friends suggested that I look into becoming a Pharmacy Technician. The school isn't as long or as expensive, and it would give me a chance to work in a Pharmacy and see if I even really liked it enough to want to go spend years learning how to do. And if I got lucky, the pharmacy might help pay for some of the tuition to actually become a Pharmacist. So I looked into Pharmacy Technician programs and gave up because they still cost a lot of money and the schools were not exactly close to my house. Last week I found out that the local community college has a program and it only costs $915. The catch, the next class doesn't start until May. So come May, if my ADD hasn't sent me off in a completely different direction by then, I'll go. I actually did put a reminder on my calendar for April to remind myself to sign up, just in case.

Chores

I was just reading this post at Because I Said So about chores. I left a comment, but when it started to feel like I was leaving a small novel on her comment form, I decided that I should come back here to write out all my thoughts in their entirety.

The question she asked was "those of you with more than one child, how do you distribute chores among your children? Do your older children have more responsibilities or not? Do you make the older kids help out with younger ones? Do you feel that with age, come more responsibilities and more privileges or do you strive to treat all children exactly the same?"

My answer is a little of both. Whatever the chore, whether it's laundry, setting the table for dinner, doing dishes, or caring for the pets, each child has an age appropriate job to do.

At laundry time, my littlest one helps sort the clothes. As soon as your child knows their colors, they can help make piles of the colors. My oldest helps me with actually putting the soap in the washer and folding the clothes. My middle child helps put them away into the right closets.

At dinner time, the oldest pours milk for everyone. The middle one is responsible for laying napkins at everyone's place and helping take the plates to the table, the little one gets the silverware. When they were younger the little one did napkins, but now she's a little older and wanted to do a bigger job. We gave napkins back to the middle one and added the plates.

After dinner everyone is responsible for rinsing their dishes and loading them into the dishwasher, I put away the leftovers, the oldest washes up anything that doesn't go into the dishwasher, the little one wipes down the table, and the middle on unloads the dishwasher after it has been run.

When it comes to the pets, the oldest is in charge of making sure they all have food and water. Even though these are jobs the little ones could do, I can't count on them to do it on a regular enough basis to ensure the pets don't starve, so the oldest gets it. The younger two are responsible for picking up the dog poop in the back yard. I give them some latex gloves and a grocery bag. Lucky for them we have little dogs with little poops. We also have cats and I change the litter box.

You notice that on most of these lists, I include myself. I try to teach them that it is a team effort to make the house run smoothly and that includes me. It also cuts down on the amount of complaining they do about their chores. It's hard to complain about how hard you are being made to work when every time you are asked to do something everyone else is working too. I also don't pay the kids for doing these chores. I explain to them that nobody pays me to pick up my room, do the laundry, cook dinner... some things are just a part of life and you have to do them.

Now there are times that the younger ones are dragging butt about getting their rooms done and I don't have time to pick them up because I'm busy mopping, cleaning toilets, etc. and yet I really need them picked up so I can get in there with the vaccum. At those time I will ask my oldest to pick them up and I pay her $5 for each room for the favor. This keeps me from asking her too often.

The Importance of Mommy Time

It can be hectic being a parent. Besides the normal stuff of working, keeping the house clean, laundry, etc., you add homework, school projects, and after school activities. Being the parent of a child with any kind of learning disability or special needs adds another layer of stuff, meetings with the school, therapists, doctor appointments, and more time to complete homework. Sometimes it can be difficult to take time for yourself. You get so busy taking care of everything and everyone else that you forget to take care of yourself. It’s so easy to get caught up in this trap, but it’s important to stop and remember that you can’t take care of anyone when you yourself are sick, run down, or burnt out.

You need to find something that you enjoy and make time for it. As much as I understand this, I have trouble implementing it. Back before I had kids I used to do a lot of art. Whether it was painting, or making crafts, I always had some kind of creative project in the works. After kids, I got busy and stopped doing them. For awhile I was scrapbooking, and I really enjoyed the creative aspect of that, but that too got pushed aside when life got hectic. I realize that when I don’t make time for myself, I get cranky and I don’t like being the frazzled cranky mom. So I’m making the effort to make time to do some of the things that I love and make me happy so I can be a better parent to my kids and a better wife to my husband.

Blogging is giving me an interesting outlet for expressing my creativity. It’s different to write and create something visually appealing in a digital media. My inability to do exactly what I want to the layout of my page is frustrating me though, and has inspired me to look into what kind of classes I could take to learn how to fully customize it myself. I’m also thinking about starting to paint again. It will be interesting to see how 2008 plays out, and what fun new things I will learn to do this year.

The Only Way to Eat an Elephant....

It seems completely nonsensical, on one hand my daughter needs everything structured. She needs to follow the same predictable pattern, day in, day out. She experiences a great deal of anxiety if plans are changed or if she isn’t given ample warning about a transition to a different activity. On the other hand, her room and her desk at school look like a tornado just ripped through. She has trouble finding the things she needs or wants. This causes her a great deal of frustration, and you would think that it would motivate her to keep things organized, but it doesn’t. (Or maybe it does, but she lacks the ability to act on that motivation). These two traits, the absolute need for order and the inability to create that order for oneself are both classic traits of ADD.

“So” you are asking “Am I destined to spend the rest of my life cleaning up after my ADD child?” The short answer is No, but (and you knew there was a but, right?) it’s not going to be easy. Here are my hints, and what I have found helps my daughter.

First, it helps if you can lower your expectations. Your ADD child is probably never going to be super organized or tidy. I can tell you this with certainty because I am an adult with ADD and I still struggle with these tasks. Your child is already dealing with self esteem issues because he/she can’t live up to the expectations of the school system. Don’t set him/her up to fail at home by not being able to live up to your cleanliness expectations too.

Second, get in and help. If it looks like a tornado just hit, there is no way your ADD child is going to be able to tackle it alone. There are two factors here, one it is overwhelming. If it’s too messy the ADD child doesn’t know where to start. Should he pick up the blocks first, or put the airplanes away? If there are too many choices, the ADD child will choose nothing. The other factor is what I call “Look something shiny”, in other words, ADD kids are easily distracted. Your child may pick up a couple airplanes, but by the third one he forgets he was cleaning and starts playing. Both of these things can be helped by having someone else in the room. You don’t have to do it for him, just help keep him encouraged and on track. Help your child get it clean, and then work towards maintaining that clean.

Third, make it easy. Break down the job into simple tasks. I have a chart on my daughter’s wall to help her remember the steps to cleaning her room. There are only 4 steps. First, she is supposed to pick up her dirty clothes. Second, pick up any trash. Third, put books on the bookshelf. Fourth, put toys in the toy box. Pretty much anything that is messing up her room falls into one of these four categories. By starting with the dirty clothes and the trash, we make the most visible improvement first. She can see her progress after just a few minutes. This makes it seem less overwhelming.

Fourth, make it routine. The last part is to make a habit out of picking up so the room doesn’t get back to tornado status. If it is picked up daily, there isn’t as much as if it is neglected for a week. My daughter has another chart on her wall with routines for the morning and before bed. She has 5 minutes in the evening to pick up her room before bed. This is plenty of time for her to pick up a day’s worth of clothes, trash, books, and toys.

It doesn’t always go according to plan. There are times when her room still looks like a tornado hit. About once every three months I have to go back in and help her get it all organized again, but little by little she is learning that she can clean her own room. It’s just like eating an elephant, one bite at a time.