Category: Home Life

Fiendish Friday: Television

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 9 Comments

Television is always a controversial subject when it comes to kids. I have had such a love hate relationship with the box on the wall. And none of my friends agree on a policy or method of function. If I poled every  parent at coop they would all give me a slightly different answer that runs the spectrum from “it’s evil, we don’t even have one in our house” to “the kids watch as they please.”

When the kiddo was very little the hubs was adamantly opposed to TV. He had read all these studies that showed how detrimental TV was before age three. I respected his beliefs. No Baby Einstein in our house. Bad TV.

Then one day when the kiddo was two maybe, he got off the couch where we were cuddling and I was reading a story to walk over to the TV and pat the screen. He kept looking at me and patting the TV. Since I had never let him watch any TV, I thought he was just curious about it. So I told him that was a TV, you could watch books on it, and went back to reading the story. Over the next week he would randomly go to the TV and pat the screen. Finally, it occurred to me that maybe he was watching TV at T’s house. She and I had a babysitting swap going. Her kiddo was the same age as mine and we had been swapping child care since they were three months old. I asked and T said yes, she left them watch PBS kids.

At this point kiddo had been through about 6 months of speech therapy because he didn’t talk. And he still didn’t talk. So I started watching one PBS show a day with the kiddo. He quickly developed an obvious preference for Curious George. And we made that our show. Over the next month he developed 20 new words he used fluently. Hrm, perhaps TV wasn’t the devil. Sure he was still going to speech….but that hadn’t been working, the only change was this daily dose of Curious George.  Good TV.

Flash forward a few years, the kiddo is in kinder and every day he comes home so destroyed, so wiped out, so drained of life, all he wants to do is have me read to him or watch TV all afternoon. He lays on the couch like someone with cancer. So I excise the cancer.

Now we have a whole day to fill. I quickly settle on what I feel is a rational process. We handle our responsibilities in the morning and then the rest of the day is ours to do with as we please. For the kiddo this becomes TV. As much as there is time for. Every day. I kept thinking he would tire of it, eventually he would move on to other cool things to do. But it never happened. After a year, kiddo was still watching as much as he possibly could. And then I remembered. I hadn’t reckoned with his compulsive traits. The ones that come with his ASD. sigh. Bad TV. (Bad Mom, too.)

So I banned all TV. But it quickly became apparent that because of those compulsive issues, the kiddo literally could not rest without a distraction. He mind would not let his body slow down. Damn, being a parent is hard.

All this came up for me today because of a book someone recommended to me, Radical Unschooling. It was an ok book, but the author frequently used TV watching as an example of letting kids figure out their own paths. And I knew from my experience that doesn’t work for every kid. Made it hard for me to accept her other tenets of unschooling. LOL. But she had some good points. Like meeting your children’s needs even if they fly in the face of common parenting conception.

So now the kiddo can have TV after 4, when he needs the rest. Sure, TV is a crutch. But we do yoga every morning to help him learn stillness through active meditation. And his reading is improving and I can see a day in the near future where he can read to rest, where he will want to read to rest, rather than watch the TV. TV is a tool for us, neither bad nor good.

What are the rules or lack of rules around TV in your house?

 

Fiendish Friday: the ideal

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 8 Comments

I tried to explain it to my husband, and he gets it just enough to nod and say wow. But I think this is probably true for anyone who home schools their kids. When I first decided to pull my son from public school and I this whole IDEA in my head about what home schooling would look like. It never happens that way. Ever. It’s the impossible ideal. Except every once in a while, usually when I am at my most frustrated, it happens. So here is my real life example of the ideal day of home school. The normal is in parenthesis.

Wake up, kiddo is playing mine craft. Big hug. Drink a cup of coffee.  (Kiddo complains he is bored and wants to be entertained, wants waffles, a play date and new legos before I even get a cup down from the cupboard.)

We do our work book work. It goes brilliantly. No arguing, no complaining, no tears. (Arguing, complaining, tears.)

We do yoga together. (He interrupts yoga 19 times despite me checking that he has everything he needs before I start.)

Kiddo does his vision therapy.

Kiddo takes a shower while I write grocery list and clean out pantry.

I shower.

We meet up with friends at a local library to see the Washington State Old Time Fiddlers group perform. We sing carols. Kiddo cheerfully eats one of the snacks I have in my bag. (It’s never the right snack.)

We get books. He lets me pick several for him. (If it’s not Lego then no way.)

We go grocery shopping. Kiddo is helpful. Pushes cart. (runs into my ankle 3 times before I take the cart away, complains the whole time.)

He helps put the groceries away. (demands he needs food now before he perishes.)

We eat a nice meal and he eats the vegetables. (Do I even need to tell you how this normally goes?)

We lay down together and read a book I picked out, Frindle. This leads to an amazing talk about changing the world and how you can change the world you live in to make it a better place even if you can’t start a scholarship fund. (!!!!!!)

We put together a puzzle, happily. (Kiddo gets frustrated and spews but he wanted to do that part. this is stupid, he’s done.)

We clean two bathrooms, he actually cleans. (??!!??)

We fold laundry, he actually folds and puts it away. (ok this happens normally but usually with a lot of stomping and complaining which was absent today.)

We sit down to watch Worst Cooks and he cuddles nicely. (wiggle, wiggle, head butt mom, complain the dog is squishing him.)

I make dinner and he eats it and says it was yummy mom, thanks. (this is gross, I don’t like this, can I have a quesadilla?)

Tomorrow will be twice as bad to make up for it. LOL. But at least I have this day to remember.

Fiendish Friday: Personal Battles

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 4 Comments

I have this friend. Good friend. If I were being cheesy I might even say she is one of my people. Not my person, because hello, that’s my hubs. But one of my people, part of the tribe. We often end up in conversations where she says “I just don’t know what to do with him anymore.” Meaning her child. And I am always hesitant to say anything. Not because I don’t think I have suggestions but because I am aware of the one thing every human on the planet should consider before giving advice = I don’t know where she has been with him.

Let me dive into this a bit. As a mother (generally – I know dad’s stay at home too) you are with your child, day in, day out. You know them better than anyone on the planet. And if you live where I do and have a tech hubs, you’re doing it alone, 90% of the time, maybe even 95 or 100% when the hubs is trying to ship. So while I might think, she should try x. Maybe she’s already tried that. Maybe it made things worse. I don’t know. I wasn’t there for all that with her. She was alone, struggling through it on her own. Fighting with doctors and therapists to get them to give her a diagnosis so she could get help for her kid.

Yes, her child is not neuro-typical. Mine is not neuro-typical. Guess what, they are not neuro-typical in different ways. It would be like me giving all the knowledge I learned about surviving in the jungle to someone living on a tundra and expecting them to follow it. Two totally different worlds and little applies to both, except the most bland. Find a shelter. Oh really, you think I don’t know that? Seriously? A shelter? Bleep you and the horse you rode in on. Who probably broke a leg  because of the ice, since this is a tundra.

Raising a child is your own individual experience. People with multiple children will tell hittingyou each is different. Different things work on different kids. Raising a non neuro-typical child is your own private battle. The parent of a non neuro- typical child is constantly trying to improve the situation. Weighing whether coming down hard about how loud your child is singing in Costco is the right move or likely to set off a battle of epic proportions leading you to have to abandon your cart of desperately needed groceries as your child hits you, kicks you, and the people around you make comments that you really should be a better parent and teach your child some discipline. Really? Would you tell the parent of a child in a wheel chair, that they should be a better parent and teach their child to walk?
So again I say, you don’t know where that parent has been with their child. Hell, let’s just broaden that. You don’t know where that person you are judging has been. And giving advice is essentially judgment, the belief that you know better how to handle someone else’s life, than they do. We are all the sum of our experiences, positive and negative. You are judging through the filter of your experiences.

Which may be as far fromjungle-free-wallpapers-720x450 the tundra as the jungle is.

tundra_screen

 

Fiendish Friday: Posturing

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 4 Comments

When I am walking the dog I get into this meditative state where my mind just free flows and the strangest thoughts come to me. It’s not like in yoga where I actively focus on emptying and quieting the mind. This is a state where it just races and I let it, not judging or directing just observing.

So this morning I am walking the dog on the back loop and this enormous Bernese Mountain Dog comes loping up it’s driveway barking like mad at us. I pause to see if this is going to be a problem, ie does the dog have an invisible fence or do I need to get out my taser to protect us. Don’t judge, it’s a jungle out there. (See my previous posts about bears, cougars, and coyotes, oh my.)  But the dog stops at the end of his driveway and my dog happily runs over to make his acquaintance. I watch my dog wag his tail and sniff noses as the BMD shrinks. His head drops, his tail drops, his shoulders sink and he bends his elbows preparing to drop in submission. This huge dog is afraid of my 50 pound mutt, that is maybe a third his size. My mutt which looks like someone bred a basset, a beagle, and a fox hound and then through in some more breeds for fun. He’s so funny looking, he’s cute. And the BMD is afraid. I shake my head, call my dog, and we walk on.

My minds travels to this monstrously huge dog in my neighborhood as a kid. The day I met Butch, my friend and I were going door to door getting orders for Girl Scout Cookies. He was sitting on his front porch so still, we actually laughed about it – thinking he was a statue. Then as we were about to step on the porch there was this tiny low growl, so quiet we almost didn’t hear it. We started to back slowly down the walk way. He leapt and we ran. Butch chased the slower runner and took a big bite out to ensure she knew who was boss. (Rubbing my scars fondly.) Anyway, Butch didn’t need to bark and jump. He had it where it counted and he knew it.

This thought leads me to my husband. My calm, gentle giant. Who never needs to posture. He will hold my purse, he will buy me tampons at the store. He holds me when I cry. He listens to me ramble repeatedly when I am too upset to make sense. He will say he is sorry. But if he has to… If it has become necessary….he will calmly explain his logical point of view and if you cannot be persuaded to do what needs to be done, he will rip your head off, stick it on a pike, and take care of business himself. smiles. He makes me feel safe – he has it where it counts and we both know it.

Wednesday Writers Goals: 2017

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

Happy Wednesday to you. I made no resolutions this year. Instead I choose to set goals. I think enough people have talked about the difference between the two that I don’t need to drone on about it.

Writers Goals:

1. Publish my Spy Novel in March.

Encourage beta readers to get their feedback in. Finish editing. Pick a name. Work with artist on cover design. Arrange blog tour. Pre market. Publish.

2. Marketing – something new each month

Sort through notes of other people’s research to identify the marketing opportunities that will work best for my book. Try a new one each month.

3. Take a break from writing until when I dream I’m writing I don’t wake up in a cold sweat.

I will still blog 3-4 times a week. Never fear.

Non Writing Goals:

1. Up Yoga to 6 times per week.

Roll back my wake up time, 15 minutes per day, until up at 630. Impose one cup of coffee limit before getting on the mat.

2. Make more time for my friends.

Get a new sitter. Do not fill sitter hours with work related items for the last board I am serving.

 

Hrm. I am not doing much this year. And after 2016, that’s a good thing. Space and time is the goal. I need to bring the fun back, not just in my writing, but in my life on a daily basis. 2016 ground me down. I rebuild in 2017. Best wishes to you all.

 

 

 

Fiendish Friday: Ordinary Life

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 16 Comments

I keep seeing all these articles: How not to live an ordinary life, How to make a real impact on the world, How leave a lasting impact.

They just irritate me. What the hell is wrong with an ordinary life? I don’t see any problem with simply living a good life. Working hard, raising a family, educating your children well, and being content. There is so much you can do in an ordinary life. There is nothing extraordinary about buying a sandwich in the store and handing it to the homeless man begging. It’s simple and easy and fits in your ordinary life. It teaches your child something and it makes a difference to the hungry man. It’s ordinary. Or it should be.

When I worked tech the topic would always come up at eval time. Shooting stars. Who were the shooting stars, the employees who should get raises and promotions. Myself and another manager would always argue that the shooting stars were great but someone had to keep the fucking lights on and maybe, just maybe, we should consider rewarding the guy who made it possible for the shooting star to be extraordinary. Because if the ordinary guy, who came in every day and did all the work assigned to him without attitude, never once said “That’s beneath me,” left, who the heck was gonna do all the work the extraordinary people refused to do because it was too ordinary.

Maybe we could all just be a little more ordinary. Do the work in front of us. Solve the problems presented to us on a daily basis. Not everyone can bring world peace. Not everyone can solve world hunger. Those who can, already know they are extraordinary. Let them do it. Let them have the big shooting star problems.

I embrace my ordinariness. I teach my child well, because he might just be extraordinary. I donate my time to worthwhile local charities. I donate my son’s time to worthwhile local charities. I put less presents under the tree for my kid, but let him pick out things to donate for people in need. I buy sandwiches and fruit for the hungry guy. I pick up garbage on the street. I clean up my dog’s poop when I walk him. I sit on boards and do what needs to be done.

I make the small sphere I live in, a little better each day. I don’t need to be extraordinary. I just make small, little steps part of my ordinary every day life. Someday, some shooting star will solve all the big problems. In the mean time, I’ll keep the lights on, thanks.

The best of 2016

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 5 Comments

I know year end round ups are the thing to do. Feel free to skip reading mine. I almost skipped writing it. LOL

I tripled my views this year, tripled my visitors, average views per visitor remained the same, I doubled my likes (hrm, that’s disconcerting, more of you come but you like less), and double my comments. All in all I doubled my followers. Thanks for coming to check it out, thanks for staying to see what I do next.

I read 80 books this year. Reviewed all of them here except for the ones I beta’d. Those I will review when the authors are ready.

I failed to publish my sophomore novel.

You all were most amused by my post complaining about my child lying to me.

But that was closely followed by my post explaining what a bitch I am when forced to fill a power vacuum.

Of course T is for Twitter, Happy Birthday Me, and O is for Oops were all a solid third place showing.

My Goals, which I flung out there at the start of the year and then tattled on myself all year long about:

– Participate in one flash fiction challenge per month.

√ ROFLMAO – Not so much. Maybe half the year. Shrug. things got crazy this year and my writing took the brunt of it. More on that later.

– Prepare and teach “Nano to Publish”.

√ I did it. And two people in my seminar published this year. I am continuing the series next year.

– Any time I am not actively working on my 2015 Nano Novel…

I dumped my 2015 novel. I plan to revamp it as a pseudo sequel to my Scripting the Truth, set in post WWII London in a film noir style detective work. The main character in the new novel will be the detective from my 2015 nano novel who happens to be war buddies with Molly’s brother. See the tangential bit. wink wink nudge nudge.

– write 2500 words per week on my spy novel until it is done. (After four years, it’s time to put this mess to bed.)

Done. Went through critique round one, fixed it. Out to beta right now. Planning for early March publication.

Non writing goals

– Prepare and teach two classes at the coop for the 2016-2017 school year.

√ Yes and oh mi god are these kids awesome. 3 of my five Nano students wrote more than 50K in November. And I finally managed to motivate my geography kids into doing their homework. Candy, candy is the answer.

– Take better care of my body, ie. stop compulsively painting, crocheting, and writing until my back or shoulder is so tore I can barely use either.

√ I finally got the hang of this by rotating my compulsions. LOL

– yoga daily.

√ Closest I have ever come in my life. I can say with out a doubt, five days a week on average all year.

Things I did not plan on but survived:

The pool board from hell. (Not to be confused with the condo board of the apocalypse. That is an awesome book.) The pool board from hell was, well, hellish. And not just the members are never grateful and snotty bad. But like fist fights, embezzlement, audits by the state, losing friends bad.

A relapse of Epstein Barr. Considering the above entry I will just say better EB that a stay in the pysche ward.

Health crisis for the hubs.

Inability to read for my seven year old. Which led to testing, therapy, testing and finally an actual diagnosis and solution which is WORKING!

And finally my FIL rerouting Christmas from my house to my SILs. The SIL who doesn’t speak to my hubs or me for that matter. Yeah.

2016 can end now please. I am ready for a new year. I hope your holidays are bright, your family warm, your heart full of love, and your mind ready for the adventure that comes next. Cheers!

 

Fiendish Friday : Unhappiness

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 9 Comments

Not too long ago a friend of mine texted me because she was reading some book about happiness and felt that she was not as happy as she should be. I don’t remember which book because it wasn’t important to me. But our text conversation about the causes of unhappiness did stick with me.

I think the problem is as follows: My generation was told we could do anything we wanted if only we worked hard enough at it. Which somehow as we age has become if I just work harder I can do everything. And of course everything is not actually possible. So we feel like failures and we strive harder. And keeping our nose to the grind stone, all we see is that grindstone. We miss the beauty.

So where did I come by this idea? When I moved here, I knew no one. I had no where I had to go, no obligations I had to fill, no friends I needed to see/help/spend time with. It was just the fam and me. Life got SLOW. Very, very SLOW. So SLOW in fact that dropping everything and going to the lake for the morning was totally possible because I could always do everything later. There was always more time later. I joined the local zoo and we went every week on the way to the grocery store for a couple of hours because it filled our time with beauty. There was always more time.

Of course, eventually I made friends. And the kiddo made friends. And plans started to creep in. And then obligations started to creep in. And then this summer I found myself drowning in chaotic disaster of someone else’s making.  I had to chose what sort of person I wanted to be. Did I want to drop it all and be “happy.” Or did I want to be the sort of person who honors their commitments?

I chose to honor my commitment. Which in the short run was very painful however I got two things out of it in the long run. A) I get to be happy with the person I am. I stuck to my moral guidelines. B) I got a fab reminder why I shouldn’t say yes to everything. Just to some things. And that means I need to say “Let me think about this” first. And then I need to flipping think about it. If it costs me an opportunity, or a friendship, then so be it. Because my soul, my contentment, my ability to smile and say yeah I am happy and mean  it, is worth more than anything else.

Are you happy? Why or why not? How did you figure out how to be happy despite the ups and downs?

Fiendish Friday: Stress

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

I suppose you’ve noticed a lot of my posts talk about how busy I have been. How much I have going on.  One legged man in an ass kicking contest. Long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs. All of this means stress.

My body has a few ways to process stress. I am a stress eater, first and foremost. But after seeing how fat I looked in the legoland pictures, I am doing no sugar, no grains. You just can’t stress eat a steak. It doesn’t work.

I also try to moderate my stress with daily yoga. It helps a lot. Except I stopped yoga because I was spending every spare minute on all the stuff piling up. My spy novel edits, beta read for my nephew, prepping curic for class, painting the trim, cleaning paint from the floors, moving furniture – before the party on the 4th. While handling all the usual: home school the kiddo, keep the house running type stuff.

So my body decided to put a stop to this insanity. First my massage therapist asked about my swollen lymph nodes in my neck. I blew it off, I thought it was left over from the mild head cold I had had the week before. Then I got really tired all the time and needed to nap daily. I had a headache for days at a time. And then I noticed my left hand smelled like garlic. well fuck. It’s back…..

In my 20’s I got Epstein Barr, you might know it as Mono. But some lucky people get CFS from it, which can come back again and again, whenever you get overly stressed. I haven’t had a relapse in years.

sigh…

Fiendish Friday: Bastion of Fear

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

I had to make yet another visit to the bastion of fear today. The place of humiliation and sheer terror. Where you are guaranteed to get lost and nothing makes sense. I speak of hell on earth….Home Depot.

Yes, that’s right I entered the lion’s den. I’ve going there a lot lately as we are working on the house. And somehow my husband always talks me into going and getting all the parts we need. I usually manage to avoid conversing with the employees. I just spend the 6 hours necessary to find the random item I need. But today I was sick and just wanted to buy the 6 things I needed and go home to bed. And there was my mistake. I tried to talk to one of the employees.

So I wander into the third electrical section looking for a new dimmer electrical workings. I ask the woman in the aisle for help as I am totally confused by all the crap. She of course doesn’t work in that section but comes back with a guy who does. In between his distracted conversation with another employee and his ringing phone I attempt to explain my dimmer switch has burned out and I need to replace the guts. He says, “I can’t sell you the guts of a dimmer switch.”

“Ok, then what would you do to fix a burned out dimmer switch?” I smile in what I hope is a bewitching manner.

“You can’t fix it.”

deep breathe. “What can you do?”

“You have to replace it.”

I grind my teeth and smile wider. “With what?”

And then he hands me the electrical guts to a dimmer switch.

And I thank him kindly, omitting all the swear words that came to mind.