Allowance

So I need your opinion. We are considering starting allowance with Micah. I have heard two camps on this topic.

#1 Assign chores and give $$ for said chores

#2 Give a set allowance each week or month not tied to chores. Chores are part of living with the family and being in the household. We all work together. The allowance is away for the kids to learn about money managment.


I understand the logic of both camps. When someone is passionate about either style I nod my head in unison and agree with whatever it is they say. Then when someone of the opposite camp gives their opinion I do the same thing. My problem is when I start something like this I feel like it needs to work forever the same exact way. I'm learning to tell myself that things like this change, especially as our kids grow and mature. Just because we start off doing it one way doesn't mean when they are 15 we have to do it the same way.

Thoughts? Is there a 3rd camp that I'm unaware of?

thoughts

Yesterday was my mom's birthday. She would have been 61. I remember when my grandma turned 60 and my mom commented on that she couldn't believe her parents were 60. She didn't even make it to 60.

I'm prepared for sad feelings on anniversary dates like yesterday. Its the times that take you by surprise that are hard. Like a few weeks ago I pulled a bib out to put on Ethan. It was a bib that said "I love my Grandma" which my mom gave to Micah when he was a baby. It was bittersweet putting it on Ethan, knowing she couldn't see him. I know she would just adore him, he is such a happy baby.

Baseball Game

We had a very full, fun weekend. It started on Saturday. A local radio station was having a contest where you submit stories about your father. We won! Aaron's family has loads of good stories and we finally put one to good use! We won 2 tickets to the Mariners game on Saturday, gift certificates to a restarant, a car detail and 4 tickets to a museum.

As we were waiting to turn into parking at the ballpark, someone walked by and asked us if we needed parking. She gave us a voucher for free parking in the garage! Yay! She saved us $25!

We had a great time. Joel now is crazy about baseball. He pretends to swing a bat, then throws a ball, then runs down our wood floor and slides on his belly by the front door. "I a baysebawl pwayer" --Can you translate? Last night he decided his name was now JJ, which is one of the closing pitchers for the Mariners. He also refuses to use the tee to hit the ball. Because that's not what the baseball players do. That kid is sure head-strong! I'm sure it will serve him well later in life, but it makes our life hard right now!

This is for Julie

Julie posted a while back (sorry I didn't search for the link) about yellow ducks. How every kid's book has yellow ducks but she has yet to see a yellow duck.

Yesterday at the park we saw a yellow duckling. Maybe she meant and adult yellow duck, but nevertheless it was the first time I remember seeing any kind of yellow duck.

This is for Jodi

We were going through some old cd's and Micah saw one of my old cd's by The Monkees. You know what he said? "Mom! Its like Word World!"

This and That...

We have a strange happeneing here in Seattle today. Reports of a large orange glowing orb in the sky have surfaced. No here knows what it is. Maybe an alien mother ship?


Meanwhile back at the ranch:
While I was nursing yesterday, Joel went to the potty, got off, flushed the potty and washed his hands all by himself! Then he came out naked flying like an airplane saying "I shoot the bathroom, I shoot Ethies room. I'm a shooting plane". He WAS wearing a pilot shirt.

Is it October or June?

This is the headline I woke up to:
Colder than Siberia!

Grrrrreat. It is colder here than Siberia or Fairbanks.

Ben COULD move the island

There is an interesting article up at Popular Mechanics explaining exactly how this could happen.

To make physics sense of the movement of the island in Lost, I assume that the island is actually connected to the South Pacific by a wormhole-like warp in space-time. (It doesn't have to be a simple worm hole; it could be a warren of parallel and intersecting tubes.) Then, to move the island, all you have to do is move the wormhole connection, not the island itself. That's what I think Ben did. He changed the nature of the space-time connection between the island and the rest of the world. So the island didn't disappear. It didn't even move.

Imagine that you are visiting a small town that you used to visit when you were young. You drive for miles, and never come to it. But it turns out the town has not moved. Rather, the highway now goes around it. That's what Ben did—he changed the highway.

Hmmm.. let's pause while we figure this out.




Here is a link to all of Popular Mechanics articles pertaining to Lost this past season. Makes for some interesting summer reading!

In my other life...

Does it sound crazy that I've enjoyed working on trig indentity proofs, derivatives, integrals and marginal revenue problems? I feel like I've been clearing cobwebs out of my brain. You would probably be shocked to learn that I actually have an MA, what with all the potty talk of late. I know that I was shocked to remember the fact.

I've been clearing out our files and found lots and lots and lots of useless papers. Apartment lease documents, school district health insurance info, etc. Seeing these papers reminded me of many events I had forgotten about. They seem like two lifetimes ago. Looking at materials from my masters degree made me remember that I used to have intelligent things to say and write.

So I've appreciated the opportunity to tutor 2 students this week and next. They are very nice girls (sisters) who just let the material get away from them. Now finals are looming and they are desperate.

Chicken Squawker

Have you ever heard of a chicken squawker? I hadn't but Micah came home with this today from farm school. And I thought I had seen all the cutesy preschool crafts. Go here to see what I'm talking about.

Frustration

Last night I went to a community meeting about a new park the city is developing near our house. The 27 acres is mainly wooded with a pond and walking trail through it. There is a 14 acre "meadow" that used to be a landfill. There are different plans being considered and the city held the meeting to get the community's input.

We broke into small groups and answered questions such as "In 10 years this park will be a success because..." It seemed to me that most people wanted to leave the land how it is and mainly wanted the city to just maintain the trails, oh and be able to let their dogs run amok. Ok, not really. They want the area to be an "off-leash dog park". I said the park would be successful if there were NO off-leash dog area. Two people in my group said it would be successful if the whole place was off-leash. Now I don't mind my kids being around dogs where I know the owner. But when we are at a park and a dog comes running up to them.... it terrifies them and me. Proportionally, it would be like an elephant bounding up to you and jumping on you. That would scare me! I also have no idea if some strange dog bites or not when he's at a park.

So this guy's solution? He suggested putting a fence around the playground so the children would be "safe". What? Yes, my 2 and 5 year old will only stay in the playground and not walk the trails. Ha!

Usually I am a pretty laid back person. But these comments drove me batty! So you're telling me that my child's safety is less important that providing a place for your dog to run around?

Holy Cow, what a list!

Looking for kid's websites? Go here.

Our favorites are starfall and iknowthat.

I have no title

This post is for my friend Karen, so she can remember what its like to potty-train a little boy. =) They are adopting an adorable little boy from Ethiopia and are waiting for travel news. Here is a diversion for you!



If you remember during our trip to Oklahoma, Joel developed a Urinary Track Infection (UTI). This is pretty uncommon for a toddler boy so the doctor wanted to run some tests just to make sure there is nothing anatomically wrong. Monday afternoon he came down with a high fever with no other cold symptoms. He also complained that his stomach hurt. So I made an appointment to see the doctor in the morning to do a urinary test to make sure the infection hadn't come back. Thankfully, my babysitter is home from college and could come over to watch the other 2 kids.

Tuesday morning I'm trying to get them ready so that I can take Joel to the doctor. I take Joel into the bathroom and set him up on the potty, sitting down. I leave and them come back to see that, yes, he had indeed gone potty but it was all over the floor. Little boys and their aim! Mess #1 cleaned up.



Then, while I was feeding the baby, Joel pooped in his underwear. Of course it was right when we had to leave to go to the doctor. I tried taking it off of him gingerly, but at the last minute he flung it with his foot to get it off. Smack, it landed on the cabinet, sticking to it. Loverly. A big gigantic blob of poop stuck to the cabinet. I almost threw up as I was putting it into the toilet. I flung him into the bathtub. Unfortunately he still had globs of poop stuck to his bottom. Now they were floating in the bathtub. He starts to finger paint with them. Nice. Meanwhile the clock is ticking for our doctor’s appointment. I’m so glad Stephanie was there otherwise I would have had a screaming baby and a laughing 5 year old hopping around.

I change, get him changed and we head out. In the garage Joel realizes he doesn’t have tiger. I put him in his seat and half way buckle him. He starts screaming for him. I take a once-over the house but I can’t find him, so I drive out. This sends Joel into hysterics. “GO BACK!!!! NOOOOOOO! GOOOOO BAAACKKK AAAAAAHHHHHH” over and over and over with screaming in between. Get on the freeway and traffic is backed up with Joel screaming. Finally I realize that he’s not going to stop and this is not going to help with the urine test. So I bribe him that he can get a special surprise if he pees in the special bowl and he stops crying. This works like a charm and he starts talking about where he wants to go for his surprise. Of course then the mommy guilt sets in and I wonder if this is indeed a good device to use. Then I remember that Susan does it, so it must be okay.

We get to the doctor’s office and now he’s at least sane again. We try to pee in the bowl with no luck. He tries really hard but nothing comes out. So we have to wait, drink, wait, drink then try again. Then wait for results. Once again I’m thankful that Stephanie had the baby and Micah. Thankfully the results were negative.

Get home and feed everyone, which was uneventful. Put Joel down for a nap. He gets up once or twice and I put him back down. Then he starts yelling for me. I go in and unmistakably smell it. He had pooped right on the floor of his room, with poop foot marks around the carpet. His wet underwear was flung onto his bed and his sheets were wet. So, I learn my lesson now and he goes back in the diaper.

Meanwhile Ethan is spitting up on me. Am I a Mommy or a toilet?

Amazon Fresh

Have you heard of Amazon Fresh? Amazon has jumped into the grocery business. As far as I know they are still limited to the Seattle area. It is BY FAR the easiest grocery site that I have ever used. Hands down, beats Albertsons and Safeway.

They stock an extensive array of vegan products that I buy for Micah. They are also very responsive to email requests. I emailed asking if they could stock lime soy yogurt as it's the only flavor Micah will eat. The next time I looked it was on there!

A unique aspect of Amazon fresh is their delivery system. If you order by midnight, you can have your groceries on your front doorstep by 6 am packed in coolers. Wow. You simply leave the coolers on your front doorstep and they will come by and pick them up. There is also only a $25 minimum delivery order to avoid paying for delivery. This was my main area of complaint with Safeway/Albertsons. I would go through and order all my groceries, only to find that the soonest I could have them delivered would be 3-4 days from now! I don't know about you, but I'm not that organized to order groceries 3 days ahead of time. On top of that, Safeway doesn't charge you until they deliver the groceries, which makes sense. However, if the sale price expires before you can get the groceries delivered then you get charged the higher price. Even if the product was on sale when you ordered.

All that to say is that Amazon is much more user friendly. I just hope they can make enough to stay in business and not go the way of Home Grocer and WebVan.

Christian-- and Devout Greenie

This article was in our local section of the newspaper today. It really resonated with me. It highlights a man who is a Christian who started a carbon offset business. From his website:

"We believe in God, no Gaia. The Earth should be protected because it is not owned by our human race, but belongs to God who placed us here as stewards."

Shouldn't we as Christians be the most "green" of them all? Regardless of whether or not global warming is happening, shouldn't we be good stewards of the earth that we have been entrusted with?

The article goes on to say how younger Republicans are disillusioned with the party because of this issue. I've heard of this movement other places as well. I think this group is also called "crunchy cons". Conservatives who are "granola". They don't have a home in either party.

Good food for thought. However, we haven't given up our Sequoia... yet.

When it Rains it Pours

We just returned last night from a visit to Oklahoma to see family. It was a very restful time and a great vacation away from cooking and cleaning and laundry. My MIL always spoils me and gives me breaks from all of my usual chores with the kids. We had a great time seeing family and visiting. The only problem is that Joel was very sick for the first part of our trip. We planned to stay 9 days but the kids and I stayed an extra week so that Joel could have more time to get well. He had strep, a urinary track infection AND a bad cold all at the same time. He was on 2 different antibiotics. Its only been the past few days that he is finally feeling and acting better. It was a scare for us because he was acting so sick and not getting better with the antibiotics. Why do things like this happen when you're out of town? We have an urgent care we visit in OKC and they had a chart history for him when we were in. Yikes, we've been there a lot!

Aaron had to fly home on our original departure date so he could return to work. Did I mention that my MIL spoils me AND is a saint? She flew back with me to help wrangle the kids. I am SO glad that she did too. We were suppose to arrive home at 1:45 pm and our flight didn't get in until 9 pm due to weather and missed connections. It was a VERY long day to say the least.

Expelled

Have you heard of Expelled the Movie? Its a docudrama with Ben Stein that explores the world of Intelligent Design research. It looks pretty interesting. Apparently the Jesus Mural has a part in the movie, for all you Biolans. It comes out tomorrow and you can check the website to see what theaters it's playing at.

Update on Ethan

Ethan is now 4 months old and weighs 14 pounds 10 ounces. He is all smiles, even when he's crying, you can usually talk him out of it and get him to smile. We've finally been given a good (early) sleeper . Only problems we've had: he has pretty bad acid reflux. All newborns have this to a degree; but his is particularly bad. His weight gain has not been great, partly due to this (remember, he started at 10 pounds). So, I'm off dairy and we've upped his Zantac dosage all of which is helping.

His newest trick is rolling from tummy to back. He's still not sure he's doing it because when he does he has this stunned look on his face; "How did I get here?"

Ethan also had his first taste of cereal yesterday. He liked it, opened his mouth wide each time. I remember Joel kept his mouth tightly shut. Then when I did get some in joel's mouth he would spit it out at me. Ethan gobbled it right down! Incidentally, I was going to wait another month to introduce solids. However, a new study by the APA came out saying that delaying solids until 6 months doesn't do anything in preventing food allergies. So I decided, why not? Maybe it would help with his acid reflux.

This picture is hilarious. Right when I snapped the picture a clash of thunder echoed outside. Ethan was unphased, but big brother was a tad bit worried.

I'm baaackk!

In more ways then one I'm Back.

First, I hope to have a handle on life so as to resume blogging somewhat regularly. The problem is that I am so tired at the end of the day all I can do is flop down and read or watch tv or go to bed. I stopped reading blogs of moms with 2 kids and newborn. Seriously, don't know how they can do it AND make their house cute. All I want is to not have spit up on my floor and shirt!

Second, is I'm back, as in really back from the sickly masses. Wednesday morning I awoke with a case of Knives in the Throat, aka strep throat. But alas, the Knives did not send me to the doctor. As all moms would do, I took 2 Tylenol and changed a diaper, thinking the aches, chills, fever and Knives would somehow go away by themselves. Meanwhile I did alot of sleeping while Aaron held the fort down. By Friday morning when I could no long swallow and having trouble breathing, I realized that the Knives had set up house. I called my babysitter, who thankfully was on spring break, and she came over so I could go to the doctor. I picked up meds anxiously and headed home. I'm thinking my babysitter is a saint because when I got home she offered to stay so I could take a nap! Um, yes?

So after taking vicodin, I could once again swallow with minimal pain. Yes, narcotics still didn't make me pain free. It did make Ethan pretty sleepy, however. Aaron took the 2 big boys to the zoo on Saturday while I stayed home with the baby. That was awesome. I had the whole day to myself at home. Granted I had Ethan, but like I said, we were both on vicodin.

Thanks to the Z-Pac (which is an AMAZING thing) I am now on the mend. I can swallow today without drugs. My house, however needs to be on the mend. Fortunate/unfortunately the kidlets were unaffected and continued with merrymaking while I laid in bed.

Moral of the story: If you wake up with a sudden sore throat and a fever/chills, do yourself a favor and go to the doctor right away.

Lost?

Spoiler*** Susan Don't Read!



So. Any guesses as to the remaining two Oceanic 6 members? My guesses are Jin and Sun (is that his wife's name?) What do you think about Sayid working for Ben in the future as an assasin? Crazy stuff.

I didn't start watching Lost until half way through last season, and I have to admit now I'm hooked. I caught up by watching the rest of last season on ABC.com and reading Lostpedia. Its funny because I never started watching it becasue I thought it was some action adventure version of Gilligan's Island--you never know how they get off the island. Aaron stopped watching because he thought it focused to much on the charcters and their back story. If I would have known that it is more about the characters I would have been watching it from the beginning! Aaron started watching it again too, so their must be a balance of both parts now.

The scenery of Lost is pretty distracting. All I can think is... "Why are they on Oahu?" if they would just keep walking they hit the main road, hang a left and they'd soon be at Waimea Bay. Oh, and the houses where The Others barracks is? I went to 6th grade camp there! Camp Erdman. Just down the road from Hale'iwa and Matusmoto's shave ice. Some of the inside scenes were filmed in the rec hall where my friends and I were playing indoor kickball (i know, genius) and we smashed the light out. Anyway, if you're interested (Jodi?) check out this site.

Three cheers for the writer's strike being resolved! Now I won't have to resort to watching "Carrie and Bruno Dance Wars" , "Celebrity Apprentice", or "House Hunters" while nursing the baby. He is such a SLOW eater that I have to do something. I tried reading but I just can't balance the book quite right. Anyway, new episodes of The Office are coming up April 10th!