A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Happenings in a 5 child, 2 adult household.
At roughly 11am yesterday, Lucy peacefully drew her last breath. The family grieves her loss as she has been with the children most of their lives. We have never viewed our animals as simply pets; they are family members. Molly, the dog, and Two Paws, the cat, seem sullen. Lucy shared many great times with us. She will be remembered well.
I want to thank everyone for your supportive comments (and here) on the blogs and in person!
Our older dog, a golden mix, is wasting. I think she has decided she is at the end of her days. She has not eatten or drank for 3 days. She would not even take a hotdog or hamburger from me tonight.
She is a great dog! I do not want to lose her. I want to take responsibility and blame myself thinking that I could have done better for her somehow. She sits in the yard right now and is refusing to come in yet as I speak to her and pet her she holds her head high and wags her tail like a puppy. I will not force her in quite yet but will check back on her in a bit and give a more forceful encouragement. Perhaps outside is better right now as she is not holding her stomach, bowels or bladder well. All this developed rapidly.
How am I to prepare the children? Will this totally disrupt Tommy‘s final weeks at school? Do we spend money trying to buy Lucy some time or assume she is in pain and put her down? What does Lucy want? There should be more time.
Dad: "Evan, do you want to take a nap?"
Evan, 11 months: Shakes head no.
Could have been a coincidence, but it was funny!
Mom: Asks Tommy to decide between two things.
Tommy: Growls
Mom: Further prompts for a decision.
Tommy: Remains silent.
Dad, slightly melodically: "Tommy, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
Dad: Chuckles under his breath.
Parenting is fun, particularly when the children haven’t got a clue.
Tonight’s den meeting was a blast! I really enjoy watching the scouts have a good time. We made 2 liter bottle rockets! They worked great.
We used this design (may have to view it via Google Cache). Another good link and a variation (check out the launch mechanism on that one!). You can even add a parachute. I want to build the pvc launch pad.
So how do you react when your 9 year old child disappears for 2.5 hours? You know he went to a friend’s house but he didn’t come home on time and you are certain of his location because the friend’s house appears empty.
So he returns home and you try to remain calm but long ago the emotions built yup and you want to give him what for! But you hold it together while he describes that he went to another friend’s house; a friend you don’t know and who’s parents you’ve never met.
Simple rule at our house: Let us know where you are. That is, if you change houses, tell us; call, shout, come home first, send a smoke signal but let us know and make sure we got the message.
Here is where parenting becomes art. At the moment a child stands before you and like wet clay on a table, he begs to be molded. At this time, a child that was self-initiated to find himself something positive to do with his time waits to see if you teardown his self-confidence and instill the seeds of doubt with regard to making his own choices. So do you 1) yell and scold or 2) tell him "good job" and ask that he call home next time. Sometimes, with emotions churning, it is hard to do the latter and so wrong to do the former.
It really bothers me to see the children sleep in their clothes. The teenagers are particularly bad about this. Jeans bother me the most as they can be tight fitting; however, I feel a bit hypocritical in that statement because when I go camping I might sleep in jeans (rarely, since cotton holds moisture against the skin it’s a bad formula with the chill night air) and I can recall sleeping or cat napping at friend’s houses still clothed.
I have tried to fight this battle and I just don’t think it is worth it. I feel strongly they would be more comfortable and sleep better in appropriate sleepware. Maybe I need to purchase them some new sleepware or fine some other incentive to help them. But I think the best thing is to walk away from this battle.
Time to wake the doughnuts.
Dad: "How were your TCAPs?"
Sarah: "Boring!"
Dad: "I know they were boring. How did you do?"
Sarah: "I don’t know. They don’t tell us."
Dad: "How do you feel like you did? Good. Bad. Questions were hard. Made you think."
Sarah: "I don’t know"
Dad: WWASD
Mom: "Noah, can Granny and Granddaddy come to your graduation?"
Noah, confused: "Did they come to graduation?"
Mom: "Can they come to graduation?"
Noah, still confused: "We haven’t had graduation yet."
Mom: "CAN!"
Noah: *blink* *blink*
Dad: "Noah. _Can_ Granny and Granddaddy come to graduation?"
Noah: "I don’t know if they can."
Dad, shouting: "Do you want them to come?!"
Dad, regrouping: WWASD WWASD…
So, I read about the DS Download Station and thought it to be a good idea. It is "try before you buy" for DS games. I walk into Best Buy and the employees are confused. Finally we get one in the know and we stand in front of an endcap of games. There is a tiny sign with instructions. Apparently the wireless equipment is buried inside the endcap (they should make this a little more obvious). So, you turn on your DS and wirelessly connect to, um, the endcap and get a selection of games. You choose one and it begins downloading. As long as you don’t walk more than 15 feet from the endcap you get the game. Once it is 100% downloaded you can walk away and play the game until you power off the DS or twelve hours elapses.
The only downside is that right now they only offer 7 games for trial. I love the concept! Noah has been playing the game we downloaded last night all day long. No more spending $50 to find out that they don’t like the game.
Update:The XBox 360 also allows for downloading demos at the store.
This goes hand in hand with my earlier post.
Dad, asking nicely: "Why are you crying?"
Sarah: sits silently with chin on fist
Dad, asking nicely: "Why are you crying?"
Sarah: sits silently with chin on fist
Dad, becoming frustrated and gruff: "Why are you crying?"
Sarah: "Because you won’t let me tell you why I am crying!"
Dad: blink. blink.
Cathy and I bill ourselves as "approachable parents." We want our children to feel comfortable approaching us on any topic including sex, drugs, and so forth. Apparently there is something at a genetic level that keeps children from talking to parents.
Sarah is currently in honors math. I am proud that she excels. Sarah yesterday brought home a note explaining that she will not be invited into Algebra I because she has failed her last 6 tests and told the teacher she "doesn’t want to be in Algebra I." Throughout the past grading period I’ve constantly asked, "how are you doing?" only to be told "fine." My trust has been betrayed. I neglected to talk to the teachers and get regular reports on Sarah. I let her down but the onus is not completely upon me. I cannot help those that do not seek help. I all but begged her to ask for help and she hid her test results from us.
Repercussions? 1) Severely limited extracurricular activities in the 8th grade until she shows responsibility and caring about her studies. 2) Much more parent/teacher communication next year. 3) Calendar planning skills to be enforced.
Dad, I thought it was just going to be a poot.
So Amy, Evan and Cathy are heading to the zoo to visit with Aunt Carmen, Gabriel and Abby. This will be Evan’s first trip and Amy is bouncing off the walls. I am dying to go! This afternoon/evening we have Sarah needing to be picked up from afterschool activities, Noah needing to be dropped off then picked up from Karate, and Cathy has a meeting at the same time as the Juggling Club. If I attend the Juggling Club I can enlist another juggler to help me at this year’s CMHW Zoo event (Saturday, April 29 from 10am-2pm – I perform from 12-1).
These choices give me ulcers. Had I woken when I wanted I could have accomplished enough work to feel justified in taking some time at the zoo today but I didn’t. I don’t want to make Cathy skip her meeting but the juggling is good therapy and I’ve wanted a 2nd juggler to attend the CHMW event for years. I’m going to skip the zoo, work hard today, and juggle tonight.
