Me: Good morning, everyone, time to get up!
Kids: Yes! Let’s jump on the bed!
Me: It’s almost time for school – please put your socks and shoes on.
Kids: But first, we will jump on the bed!
Me: It’s time to eat – please wash your hands and come to the table.
Kids: Quick! We must jump on the bed!
Me: It’s shower time – please get undressed, put your clothes in the laundry and get into the shower.
Kids: Of course, but after we’re undressed but before we get into the shower, we must jump on the bed!
Me: The shower is over. Here are your towels.
Kids: Whee! Jumping on the bed with wet towels is fun!
Me: It’s bed time. Go get in bed.
Kids: But I don’t want to go to bed!
…
And people wonder why I say I’m slowly going insane…
First, a little news – there is an interview with me on Scribbit today. Stop by and say hello! And to anyone who is here because they clicked over from there, welcome!
***
I’m sitting in my kitchen window seat and looking at my car parked outside. There is a line in my window, the big black line that divides the pane, and because of it, there is a line dividing my car in half. It’s like I’m looking at a car commercial, you know the kind where one half of the car looks like the car they want you to buy, with all the bells and whistles, and the other half is the car they are comparing it to, the car they are telling you is no good. It may even be suggested that it is the car you currently drive and need to ditch. Which side would they choose for which? Which side of the car is the better side to be on – the driver side or the passenger side?
Did you remember the movie Garden State when Zach Braff is looking at himself in the bathroom mirror and his face is divided? Looking at my car divided is that movie scene for my life. Sometimes I am the driver and sometimes the passenger.
When I am in driver’s seat, I am in charge. I’m going places, doing things, coming home. I may need directions sometimes, I may have to slow down and speed up because of things going on around me – an accident, someone cuts me off, a red light, a traffic cop hiding behind a billboard. In the driver’s seat, it’s all up to me. I have to pay attention to everything around me, and even if I’m driving down a scenic highway, I do not have the luxury to admire the snow-capped mountains or ocean sunset, because I am the one moving – moving fast or moving slow, I am still moving, and to take my eyes off the road or the action around me could result in an accident.
When I am the passenger, it’s much easier. I am coasting. I can be enthralled by the scenery and amused by bad billboards. I can criticize the driver and tell them turn here, turn there, go faster, slow down. I don’t need to worry about other drivers or factors of the road. I only need to be aware of the path. And we all know the path is easier to view than to walk. There are those times in the passenger seat where it’s a little scary, if the driver doesn’t know where they’re going or what they’re doing – we’ve all been there, right? Where we’re clutching the door handle and stomping on the imaginary brake? It’s at moments like those when it’s time to stop watching and start doing. But I can’t always say, “Let’s pull over. I’ll drive for a while.” Sometimes I just have to ride it out.
Of late, I think I’m unbalanced towards the driver’s side. I’m going to try to apply the brakes more often, to slow down, stop, and take a breather. To look out my window and enjoy the world passing me by instead of the other way around.
Thanks to Scott Gale, for doing this interview with me about his upcoming book, Your Family Constitution. Sign up on his website to read the first chapter and be notified when the book comes out.
1. What is your book about?
The book is a road map that parents can use to identify their core values and build effective family structure around them.
2. What prompted you to write this book?
I had a Mother’s Day meltdown with my son that culminated with me walking 14 miles homes. It gave me a lot of time to think and made me realize the need for change within my own family. After completing the Family Constitution for my family and living with it for a while, I decided to share it with other parents through this book.
3. Who do you hope will read this book?
Any parents with kids in the home or anyone thinking of becoming a parent.
4. What are the top 3 messages you hope to get across to your readers?
1) Clarity, consistency and commitment are the three keys to effective family management
2) Failure to step back and plan because you are too busy only fuels the fire of frustration and chaos
3) Parenting is what you make of it. You have to make it fun for you and your kids. All the other good stuff will follow.
5. Are your wife and children excited about this book?
My wife is nervous because she feels like I’m airing our dirty laundry to the world; nevertheless, she supports me on this journey. My kids don’t really care, as they don’t sense any impact of the book to their world.
6. What was your writing process for completing this project?
I wrote a complete draft, then submitted to a few close friends for review. After I received feedback, I basically re-wrote the entire thing to provide a more personal voice.
7. Do you have any other writing projects in mind?
Kind of. I want to write a comedy screenplay about competitive eating.
8. How did you decide come up with the title?
I just described the product.
9. What was your favorite part about writing this book?
Even though I basically discarded the first draft, the initial writing process really allowed me to think. It was very therapeutic.
10. Least favorite?
Editing. It is like pulling teeth after you have read through something 100+ times.
11. What advice do you have for other first-time writers out there?
Start with a framework. Define your voice and your audience. Then start writing.
12. Where can readers buy/pre-order your book?
They can go on my website and download the first chapter for free. They can provide their email and I will let them know as soon as it is available for sale.
13. Anything else you’d like to say?
I want to reinforce how much effort it takes to make change in your life. It will always be inconvenient, as the life of a parent is by definition crazy. But, it is so worth the effort.
Go check out his website for more details. Thanks, Scott!
The clavicle is a little bone in the shoulder area. It’s also called the collar bone.
The clavicle is the easiest bone in your whole body to break.
The clavicle comes from the Latin clavicula for “little key.”
The clavicle in the Boy’s body is fractured.
***
“Mommy!”
No one likes to hear this cry in the middle of the night. I stumbled into his bedroom and discovered that somewhere between sweet dreams and good morning, The Boy had rolled off his bed. He was crying rather fiercely, but I attributed the cries more to the confused arousal from sleep than actual physical pain. I swept him off the floor, gave him a kiss, and told him to go back to sleep. He did.
The next morning, he complained of pain in his neck/shoulder area. I figured stiff neck or some type of muscle spasm and gave him a hot wrap until he left for school. I sent an email to the teacher and asked that she not let him participate in PE. She told me after school that he was so uncomfortable, she wound up telling him to lie down and rest for the latter half of the school day.
He spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in mild discomfort. I patiently administered kisses and hugs and all the frozen blueberries his heart desired instead of accomplishing anything on my To Do list (but hey, I usually ignore it for lesser reasons than this) and hoped he would be fine by morning.
Morning arrived, and pain was clearly still in-house. He cried to move, he cried to change, he cried in the bath. Husband, the man who never wants to go to the doctor, suggested we take The Boy in for a visit.
***
I take The Boy into the examination room where we have been so many times for eczema outbreaks he knows immediately that I will be reading Curious George to him. That George, calling the fire department, escaping from prison, and flying away with balloons. He so crazy.
Good Doc comes in, I brief her on the situation, and she says, “I bet he fractured his clavicle.” She touches him here and there until her prodding produces the six-year-old exclamation she’s looking for: “Ouch!”
She nods again. “Yeah, the clavicle.”
She puts him in a sling and sends me to the imaging center, where I excite The Boy with the idea of “cameras that take pictures of bones!”
The X-rays are taken and the doctors concur: yes, a clavicle fracture. The Boy is so awed by the X-rays they make photocopies for him as a parting gift.
I hold the black and white paper in my hands, these pictures of his bones. I have another stack of black and white copied pictures of him. His sonograms. Over six years ago, I spent hours gazing at blurred images of a head, a heart, a footprint. Whenever I looked at them, I felt incredibly aware of his life inside me, his movements, his kicks. I look at his x-rays now, and six years later, I’m still aware of that kick in my side, that extra flutter in my heart. He’s grown so much, but he’s still so fragile. Just like me.
We show up to school late, and I walk him to class. Just before we reach it, he lets go of my hand and says he doesn’t need to hold it. “You don’t need to come in,” he says, but he does give me a big hug. I watch from the doorway and he enters his classroom, arm in a sling, brandishing the x-ray copies, saying “these are my bones.” There are oohs and aahs.
He goes to class with a fractured clavicle and gets himself some street cred.
I go home with a fractured heart and get myself some mom cred.
The other day, the kids were folding the laundry in the bedroom and ran to me in the kitchen, laughing hysterically, holding my underwear. They asked me, “Who’s big underwear is this?”
In other news, I’m adding squats to my exercise regimen.
Oh. And I’m also creating an exercise regimen.
***
Little No Limit and I were cooking scrambled eggs this morning. She enjoys most of the egg-cooking responsibilties, “Me crack the eggs!” “Me stir the eggs!” “Me pour the eggs!”
I stand around and supervise, and when the eggs are poured into the pan, I hover about anxiously saying “Watch the fire!” and “Don’t touch the pan!”
Today, she was demanding more responsiblity, saying she wanted to scoop the cooked eggs off the pan and onto the plate, but the problem with her doing this is that she is more likely to miss the plate and scoop the eggs onto the range top, which is, by most people’s standards, not clean. When I did not allow her to scoop off the cooked eggs, and instead performed the action myself, she declared, “Mommy, I said ME do that — and you’re NOT me!”
Thanks for the clarification.
***
The Boy’s 100th day of school is tomorrow and his teacher sent home a note saying he needed to bring in a collection of 100 things. I asked him what he would like to bring a hundred of to school, and he said, “Can I have one hundred dollars?”
You and me both, Buddy. Now take your box of 100 paper clips and be happy.
It is the early evening and I’m sitting in a lit kitchen while the rest of the house is dark. Everyone is napping. There is little noise except the occasional dog scratch (they’re suffering from a frustrating round of flea bites). This sound of the quiet house unnerves me. I feel restless and unreal, like the part in Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” when he says “And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?”
I’ve taken to walking the dogs at night (because I run into fewer small dogs who bark thereby causing my dogs to yank on the leash – one of these days, I swear they’re going to dislocate my shoulder or something). I always bring along my trusty little SanDisk clip and listen to music while I walk because without music, every little sound startles me on dark corners. This particular Talking Heads song came on the other night and I found myself grooving to it, which is probably why it is popping into my head right now.
I’m thinking of the lines “And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house / And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife” and I feel like calling up David Byrne and saying, “Yeah.”
Did you ever find yourself thinking you live too blessed a life? Some people might look at my life and say, girl, you SO don’t have it too good, because, yeah, we’ve got our share of financial woes going on right now. But there’s also some really exciting things going on (I still can’t bring myself to talk about it), and then there’s the fact that Husband and I have each other, we have amazing, thriving children, we have wonderful [albeit crazy and food-thieving] dogs, and we have friends and family out the wazoo. And to me, that’s having things good. Today being Valentine’s Day and all, I think I’ll just bask in this moment of a quiet empty, house and appreciate everything there is to love about my life.
I hear roller skates in the hallway. The Boy is up. He is in the kitchen now asking for water. Little No Limit just followed him into the kitchen rubbing her eyes. Little No Limit just reached down and bear hugged Her Name is Rio causing a scurrying of paws on the tile. I guess I’d better stop typing. Life in the house of Riley is noisy again, full of life… same as it ever was… same as it ever was…
My friends, the parents of triplets, put their dog on a diet.
Some time later…
“Your dog’s weight looks great,” the vet said.
My friends, the parents of triplets, celebrated.
Some time later…
“Hmm, you need to bring him to a specialist,” the vet said, when friends, the parents of triplets, brought in their still-losing-weight, now-not-eating-and-throwing-up-a-lot dog.
Immediately thereafter…
“We need to operate on your dog – there’s a blockage and the X-ray doesn’t indicate what it is.”
My friends, the parents of triplets, awaited the results.
And do you even want to guess what the doctors discovered to be the blockage?
Guess.
Seriously, guess.
***
***
Twenty-seven pacifiers. TWENTY-SEVEN PACIFIERS.
Snap!
Wow. Fully intact, no less. Which means, if they wanted, they could just wash them off and start using them again, no?
(P.S. I know I still have to announce the winner of my previous post’s contest - I’m behind on things — big things afoot in the house of Riley -more later)
(P.P.S. I’m not really a Steelers fan, but I give credit where credit is due — awesome game!)
(EDITED TO ADD: The dog has recovered and is doing fine; he may possibly be snacking on some feeding spoons now…)
Hi, I’m Junior the Fearless Robot. I’m a 5.9oz hand-carved (by Husband) boxcar that was painted and decorated by The Boy (see other handcrafted works by children at Magic Marker Monday). Over the weekend, I raced down this track in THE PINEWOOD DERBY:
Allow me to tell you about the magic that is THE PINEWOOD DERBY as we meander through the many categories of this week’s carnival.
Education
The Pinewood Derby is a boxcar race wherein men and their sons put together what they hope is the fastest car. Knowledge of physics, aerodynamics, and gravitational pull help, while the ability to answer the question ‘how do you get the wheels on just so in order to make the car roll in a straight line?’ is imperative.
At the Pinewood Derby, you might be able to snack upon burgers and french fries from the In-n-Out van parked outside. It’s a swell way to comfort sad little boys (and sometimes sadder fathers) when their cars don’t win.
Other cooking posts:
Cyndi Lavin presents Vegetable vindaloo posted at Busy Family Meal Planning. “Vindaloo sauce can be used to flavor meats,” Cyndi writes, “but we like it best as a vegetarian delight!”
Preparation for the boxcar derby includes wood-carving, painting, drawing, then realizing the paint wasn’t dry enough, then fretting over smeared graphite, then repainting and waiting several days for the new paint to dry, then accepting that, in the end, dry paint is overrated. Then attending the event where everyone else’s car had no problem getting their paint to dry?
The Pinewood Derby is a realtively inexpensive way to have a good time with your children. To put it in a MasterCard ad:
$20 - supplies to make boxcar
$10 - In-n-Out food at Pinewood Derby
$1 — band-aids applied to children’s bodies after a little too much exertion in the bounce houses
$3 — vending machine waters
Free - comforting hugs to the fathers and sons whose cars didn’t advance on to the finals
David presents Citi PremierPass Elite Review posted at Credit Card Offers IQ. “My family and I recently took a trip to Guatemala and saved thousands using a travel rewards credit card,” David explains. :The Citi PremierPass Elite is one of the best travel cards available for family travel.”
A healthy family is a happy family and it’s good for the family to do things together, like check out the competition together and analyze how to sabotage them:
I’m definitely worried about that one on the left.
Other posts about family health and wellness–
Matthew presents Home Safety Information for Alzheimer’s Disease posted at Fast Medical Information. “If you are caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease, you face many challenges everyday life,” Matthew observes. “These tips will help keep your loved one safe and free you from worry.”
I suspect that if the dogs had been allowed to participate in the Pinewood Derby, they would have carved a boxcar of the animal services truck and made sure it went extra s-l-o-w, so that they could laughingly outrun it.
Y Guides is a great way for Husband and The Boy to spend one-on-one time together sans ladies. They camp, they carve, they sing, they howl (or so I’ve heard). I hope The Boy always has fond memories of spending this time with his Dad.
Isaac Yassar presents How To Realize Happiness posted at Isaac Yassar’s Overture. “People study and work to achieve success. Is happiness achieved by amassing money and massive personal consciousness?”
And since this is Y-Guides and all, the Pinewood Derby began with a man wearing a headdress reading an invocation to the Great Spirit. All the kids go by special Y-Guides names, like Howling and Growling Wolf Who Carved The Winning Boxcar.
Jason Isbell presents Interview with D. Barkley Briggs posted at Tired Garden. In this interview, Dean Barkley Briggs talks about his life as a pastor, husband, father and widower and how he has forged a career as a writer.
Family Travel
The Pinewood Derby didn’t take place too far away from my house, but attending it and seeing how happy it made The Boy was otherwordly.
In the event should you ever attend your own Pinewood Derby, make sure you are *very* clear that the fact that your car won a heat DOES NOT mean you’re taking home a trophy. Much sadness upon this realization… I cheered The Boy up by reminding him that he would receive a patch to put on his vest.
Hope you enjoyed learning about my little Pinewood Derby excursion over the weekend! Thank you for participating in and supporting this edition of the Carnival!
Next week, the Carnival will be making a stopover at The Expanding Life! Susan will be hosting for the first time, so click here to submit the link to and relevant information about your post. Should you have questions, be sure to review the Carnival guidelines before submitting your post.
Would you like the Carnival to pay a visit to your site? Check out the hosting schedule, select a date, and then drop a line advising what week you would like to host.
Little No Limit sits at the table. She is cutting paper, a popular activity for her. She moves to brush a strip of paper off the table and inadvertently knocks her pen down to the floor.
“Uh!” She exclaims. Then she looks at her dad with her lips protruded and anxiety inked all over her big brown eyes and says, “Daddy – pick that up.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “That is not how you talk to Daddy.”
She turns her eyes to Husband, lips protruding even more, maybe even a little tremble, and Husband laughs. “Oh, she just wants a little help.”
He walks over, picks up the pen, and hands it to her. I feel like he might have called her Princess too. She snatches the pen back, and without so much as a thank you, continues cutting paper.
I am about to say something, but Husband chuckled at that moment. Chuckled at this… this… behavior, and then looked at me and said, “Who knew when I married one, I’d get two?”
“That was, uh, so not cool.” At which point, I knocked something on the floor, looked at him, and added, “Pick that up.”
I’m calling this week’s Carnival of Family Life the “Did You Know…” edition because I’m treating you to a barrage of holiday trivia, courtesy of Wikipedia and Google?
Education
Did you know…
Perth College has a program called Courses for Christmas, wherein one can buy education courses for their loved ones?
Brigid presents Brain Fitness posted at New York Public Library. “After attending a recent staff training session offered by the library’s Office of Staff Development, I decided to return to a habit of my childhood — eating sardines,” Brigid announces.
Kwanzaa was created by Maulana Karenga in 1966, and got the name from the Swahili phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means “first fruits,” and at a Kwanzaa feast, you might find yourself eating jollof rice, yams, and coconut pie?
That the results of the 16th Annual National Gingerbread House Competition are on display at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville , NC?
(Try here or here for details and cool photos).
Annette Berlin presents Easy-To-Make Lollipop Kids posted at Craft Stew. “Lollipop Kids are a great craft to enjoy with your kids before the holidays . . . or any time of the year,” according to Annette.
That the PNC Christmas Price Index Report annually determines the cost of purchasing all the gifts in the 12 Days of Christmas, and it’s soooo not cheap?
Loraine Lawson presents Family Gift Idea posted at Time for Family, asking, “If you’re looking for a way to cut down on the holiday hassle and possibly save money, why not consider giving family gifts this year?”
Lauren Rose presents Credit Card Skimmers - Keep Your Eye on Your ATM card posted at No Debt Anymore.org. “With the holiday season in full swing, credit card and ATM theft is increasing at an alarming rate,” according to Lauren, so she explains “three common ways thieves may try to gain access to your personal information using a skimmer device, as well as ten tips to protect yourself.”
Tom Tessin presents Top 10 Most Affordable Vans for 2008 posted at FGC Auto Blog, saying, “Looking to tow your family around in the family van? See what we recommend as the top 10 affordable family vans in 2008.”
Family Health and Wellness
Did you know…
That although Charles Dickens never specified what ailment Tiny Tim suffered from in A Christmas Carol, some suspect it was renal tubular acidosis or rickets? Or that there is an organization in Longmont, CO called The Tiny Tim Center that was founded to help parents of children with disabilities and later expanded to help educate all children?
Aparna presents Teeth Whitening Remedies posted at Beauty and Personality Grooming. Teeth can be naturally dark or discolored by repeated exposure to tea, coffee, red wine, smoking, medications, decay or
trauma. Aparna offers treatments and remedies that will adorn you “captivating smile with a row of glistening pearly white teeth” just in time for all those holiday season photos.
Carole Fogarty presents Upgrade Your Level Of Self Care posted at The Healthy Living Lounge, inviting you to “give yourself permission to upgrade your level of self care on a regular basis. 2009 is going to be the year I
honor the importance of relaxation, deep rest and self care even more.”
Matthew presents Allergies posted at Fast Medical Information. “An allergy is a reaction which is exaggerated in our immune system in response to a foreign substance that is harmless to and does not trigger a response in a non-allergic person,” Matthew explains. Allergens include dust mites, mold, danders, foods, and pollen.
Santa Claus also goes by these names: Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas or St. Nikolaus, Sinterklaas, Kris Kringle, Père Noël, Joulupukki, Babbo Natale, Weihnachtsmann, Saint Basil and Father Frost? And that David Sedaris wrote an essay about the Santa Claus story as told in Holland, which you can read here?
That many pets under two years of age brought into shelters or euthanized because the owners couldn’t take care of them were originally Christmas gifts? Think before you buy a pet! And adopt instead of buy!
Back in the late 1100s, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine led a revolt against her husband, King Henry II, and as a result, was locked away in a prison for a number of years, during which she was only let out on special occasions like Christmas?
muse presents Wheels posted at me-ander about her eldest son’s favorite mode of transportation.
Ian Peatey presents Meeting Tom posted at Quantum Learning - nonviolent living. “There are some moments that are reserved for the father. Meeting Tom (my daughter’s first boyfriend) is one of them,” Ian explains.
luvmy4sons presents Repeat Performances posted at Do You Weary Like I Do? The mother who authors this blog is finding out that teens and toddlers are “remarkably similar!”
According to a The Baby Website survey, the most common white lie told by parents (at 84 percent) is that Father Christmas only brings presents to good boys and girls. The second most common white lie is that Father Christmas only visits homes on Christmas Eve where the children went to bed nicely.
Kathryn presents Kids and Christmas posted at Living the Proverbs 31 Life, opining that “there really is something about giving that makes the Christmas season all that more special.”
…that next week’s Carnival will be hosted at Destroy Debt?
…that if you would like to participate in next week’s edition of the
Carnival, click here to submit?
…that if you you have questions, you can review the Carnival guidelines before submitting your posts?
Would you like the Carnival to pay a visit to your site? Check out the hosting schedule, select a date, and then drop a line advising what week you would like to host.
