Halloween Leftovers

Halloween is done. Our routine is to usually let the kids stay up late, gorge themselves on their candy and then try to get rid of it the next day. I think one year we did a “Halloween Fairy” that exchanged a toy for the leftover Halloween candy. Surprisingly, Rachel totally forgot about it this year (so did I). I’m thinking since she figured out the tooth fairy didn’t exist, trying to pass a “Halloween Fairy” over her this year probably isn’t a good idea. I’m sure Santa’s clock is ticking in her mind as well… (But I’ll put money on her deciding not to ask about it until AFTER she gets her Hanukkah/Christmas presents… Yes, we do both in this house. Our kids are spoiled.) 😛

The Halloween Fairy would probably work for Zach, but I’m trying to go for a simpler approach and convince him the candy goes bad very quickly and has to be thrown out. I’ll give them one more day of too much sugar – and then it goes OUT! We had very few trick-or-treaters and have lots of leftovers. (I bought little single-serving bags of pretzels. And NO that’s NOT why we didn’t see many people. LOL! We had the same thing happen last year and I had 4 different brands of chocolate bars to hand out!) I think the pretzels will be perfect for after-school snacks so I’m not upset about the leftovers. (And despite their original protests, I think neither are the kids!)

Zach dressed up as Spiderman this year, and Rachel was originally going to be a butterfly, but after checking the weather, she decided to opt for a warmer, kind of ambigous “baby” costume. (The neighbors were confused. LOL! Almost everyone had to ask her what she was. Well, sorry, they just don’t make costumes keeping in mind the fact that it is the END OF OCTOBER and usually FREEZING.)

(Here is what her costume was SUPPOSED to be)

Very cute – but not so comfortable in 40 degree weather. (And with a coat over it – it would have been just as ambiguous as the baby costume!) 😉

Writing practice and connecting with your child (a two-fer)

I met up with a some women from my moms group last night, one of whom is a Kindergarten teacher. Some of us brought a few things to work on while we chatted, she was grading some papers from school. She was laughing at a note from one of her students and I asked her about it. Apparently, as an exercise in her class, to have the kids practice writing, they write notes back and forth to her. She said sometimes she’ll ask them a question, like “what is your favorite color” and they’ll answer and write her back and ask her a question – and the back and forth goes on like this. She said she also encourages the parents to do the same – to write what she calls “pillow notes” – little notes that ask a question and encourage the child to write something back.

I thought this was such a cute idea. And even though Rachel is now in 4th grade – her handwriting could use some work. I know she loves writing and drawing little things for Sam and me – so I had an idea on a way to expand on my friend’s pillow-note idea…

I’ve decided to get a notebook/diary – in which both Rachel and I will write to each other. That way not only does she get to practice writing, but we also get to keep a log of the “conversation.” I’ll write and ask her a question, and leave the notebook in her room – and then she can write me something in the notebook and leave it for me to find. I think this will be a great way to connect with her AND get her to practice writing!

Whirlwind week+

Sam’s been gone for over 10 days now on a business trip. The schedule we have now, though, demands that I need help. However, we have, once again, lost another babysitter. (long drama-ridden story! OY!) So, I had to go it completely alone while he was away. In some cases that meant literally needing to be in two places at once, with those two places being a good 40 minutes apart. That was not a good day, let me tell you!

I’ve said it before (on my old, archived blog) and I’ll say it again. You single moms – I don’t know how you guys do this without help. You must be super-woman or something, because I am counting down the minutes until I can catch a break!

But in the end, I survived. I managed to to be in those two places 40 minutes apart – nearly at the same time. Even when the universe kept throwing even more unexpected obstacles in my way. I did it. And even though the house is thoroughly trashed at this moment (and I have 0 interest in picking any of it up), I am much less stressed than I was at the start of this adventure. (Maybe it’s the knowledge that the worst is behind me!! LOL! Who knows!)

We’re in the middle of getting the closet worked on – so my week included having an electrician come and rewire the cable we found that was stapled to the wall of the closet (that was apparently the only source of DSL for the office), and then a painter coming in to strip all the existing hardware out of the closet, including the baseboards, then clean it up and paint it. Zach’s day care was closed on monday, so I couldn’t work that day, then on Tuesday my email died thanks to Postini. My clients contact me via email for projects they want me to work on, so nothing came in until late that evening – and then it came flooding in – so I was desperately trying to play catch up the rest of the week.

Yeah… it’s been fun.

In any case, life returns to normal come monday. Whatever “normal” is…

Puppies and babies

I‘ve gotten into a new TV show recently: Dog Whisperer. It’s sort of like Super Nanny, but for dogs. Cesar Millan probably understands dog language better than my own dog does. He walks into a room and the dogs just seem to know he is not someone you mess with. The last episode I saw was on Friday night. This one was about how to raise a puppy the right way. Probably more than really understanding what that right way is, I realized that there are a million wrong ways. My dog is an “old man” now. Lazy and not even vaguely interested in being active (at least not more than for short bursts). When he was a puppy, he was a handful. I think it was at least 4 years of puppy insanity before things finally started to settle down with him. And right around that time, we came home with Rachel. I’m not sure if he just grew up, or having a baby in the house sobered him. Either way, it’s been a long time since we had to deal with the crazy puppiness.

Ironically, you’d think after watching a show about puppies, it would make you want to run out and get one. “To see a puppy is to buy a puppy.” But something about highlighting everything involved in training a dog, especially when it’s a puppy, made me glad to have my older, mellow, old-man of a dog.

There’s a lot of truth in that with kids too. I’m not the kind of parent that cries because my kids are no longer babies. Each age leaves behind one set of challenges and exchanges them for another. I loved when my kids were babies, but I don’t miss all that went along with it. The spitting up, the nights without a good sleep, the diapers, the not-knowing if they were eating enough, etc. etc. They were cute, and I have the pictures, and I love looking at them, but I’m actually pretty happy to not be living in that moment anymore.

Zach especially. He was a somewhat easy baby in the beginning, but things quickly turned around, and he has really become one hell of a challenge. It’s not just because he’s a boy either. Even though most 4 year olds have very little impulse control, I still see other boys his age that seem to be able to control themselves better than Zach can. This is not a phase I’m loving right now. I’m taking pictures, and I’ll look back on how cute he was, but when we get past this crazy phase he’s in, I will not be sorry to be on the other side.

The best place to solve my problems…

... is in the shower. Seriously. I don’t know what it is, but if I walk into the shower with a problem circulating in my head, I usually have an answer, or at least a direction on how to solve it by the time I’m done washing my hair. I’m not sure whether this is because by virtue of my being in the shower and having removed myself from the source of the problem I make myself open to new ideas instead of just coming back around to the same solutions (that didn’t work) – or the fact that it takes me a really long time to wash my hair and you could probably figure out how to solve world hunger in the time it takes me to get shampoo out of my curls.

In either case, this morning, for what must be the millionth time, Sam and I argued about discussed the lack of storage space in our house. We argued about discussed the fact that my only method of storing clothes is my dresser and that it doesn’t have enough space. We argued about discussed the fact that while our closet would probably be a better place, it is poorly designed and therefore does not fit the bill. We argued about discussed the fact that our closet is also being used as a medicine cabinet as well as a linen closet because our bathroom doesn’t actually have one. (See original discussion about house lacking storage space). We argued about discussed the fact that getting a different dresser wouldn’t necessarily fix the current problem – because unless we got something MASSIVE (and that would also look really out of place in the bedroom), I still wouldn’t have enough space.

Really this house amazes me. Somehow they managed to squeeze in 5 bedrooms in this little tiny house… but the storage space is lacking so severely – that if you really had enough people to FILL all 5 bedrooms… I honestly don’t know what you’d do.

In any case, the dilemma has existed for over 4 years. We have lived in this house longer than we have lived in any other single residence. Yet, we have never solved this problem. I still dig my clothes out of the plastic bins that we used to move here from Massachusetts, and these ugly plastic bins decorate our bedroom because I have no idea what else to do.

The problem went around and around in my head when I stepped into the shower today. And I came out with plan!!!! The closet is the answer. It needs to be completely gutted and redesigned – but that is how to fix the problem. We set up the closet a certain way, and certain things got stuck in my head, thinking that’s where they had to stay – but really there wasn’t any requirement to keep them that way.

So basically I need a wall unit with tons of drawers and shelves for my closet. I have everything spec’d out. I even went to IKEA thinking I’d be able to get what I’d need, but unfortunately, what they have is 3 inches too long and will bump into the closet door and not allow it to open or shut. So on Monday, I’ll need to call some other places and see what they can do. I hope that since I already have it designed, and measured and I know exactly what I want that it won’t be too expensive, but I guess we’ll find out.