About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Read More
September 23, 2022
1. “Because we’re a nation of sociopaths, we’ve never seen a law we didn’t try to break.” Favorite quote this week from The Cosmic Avenger.
2. The T-Mobile Tuesdays app doesn’t usually yield much for us but last Tuesday they had a promo code for 10 free prints at Walgreens and I’ve been needing just a few prints. Savings: $3.84.
3. I preemptively ordered three dinners for Bentocart delivery because we had so much going on this weekend before an extra heavy week. Normally I wouldn’t have scheduled anything before a week like this but we had a dear friend in town so we had to embrace this rare occurrence and not punish myself by forcing myself to socialize AND put in extra hours cooking to prep for the week.
(more…)
September 20, 2022
Money Lessons
We finally started up JB’s allowance after an inadvertent kick in the pants from their uncle and auntie (but that kick presented perfect motivation for JB).
We had initially put together a basic framework: this isn’t for the chores themselves which they are expected to do regardless. This base rate ($1.50 per week) is for doing all chores and responsibilities without complaint and without endless reminders. When they volunteer for new chores without being prompted, they get a bonus quarter. They’re required to put half in their long term savings bank and half in their saving to spend bank.
They (and PiC) both thought $1.50 was too low. He tried to negotiate for $5 a week but I held firm. It’s way too easy for them to spend. They need to learn what it feels like to save up for things and that’s not going to happen if they have enough to immediately buy whatever they want every couple of weeks. Plus, the opportunity to earn bonus money weekly is incentivizing their eye for spotting chores that need doing, and that’s something I really want them to develop.
We’ll see how it plays out long term but here’s where their uncle and auntie come in: they each offered to match JB’s savings for spending at the end of a year. They’re going to triple their spending money in one fell swoop. They’re absolutely jazzed about this and on the first day we started up, before they had even established the bonus money, they had volunteered to take over washing some spectacularly grubby slippers that I was scrubbing. The next day, they leapt to sweep up a mess that Smol made. My kid is immensely bribeable.
Week two went well too: they only had a couple reminders to do chores which isn’t excessive or in violation of the rules. They didn’t gripe at all, they just figured out when to do them and did them. Then they hit a jackpot coming up with a yardwork task on their own. I offered them a rate of 25¢ per half bucket, because they were handpicking the stuff all over the yard, and then PiC blew up the whole thing by taking out the big rake and making the task ridiculously easy for them. Way to go, dude. Though, it was incredibly painful doing the payout at the end, not only because I needed to find an additional $7 in quarters but because JB’s grasp of money math is terrible. We’re going to have to keep working on this obviously.
Week three: We hit a snag on the weekend with some dire warnings, and then got back on track.
*****
We know that it’s best to teach JB how to handle disappointment when it comes because they’re going to have disappointments in life and we don’t want them hobbled by emotions they can’t handle or to become super entitled if we try to insulate them from all disappointment.
It’s sometimes hard to stop the “rescue” kneejerk reaction, though. Especially when they’re hurt by someone else. I think that’s a me thing anyway, before you add the parenting aspect.
*****
Mom superpowers I wish I had: the ability to cut onions without tearing up.
*****
Great reading at this age: Castle Hangnail and the Hamster Princess series, both by Ursula Vernon
Life with Smol Acrobat
Some of my favorite things about Smol this month: how they respond to lots of things I say with “oh!” and it sounds so much like “that makes sense!” or “oh ok I get it now” or “ahh I didn’t know that.” Mostly it’s none of those things but I love how it sounds that way.
Like when I say, “can I finish reading this page?” because they’re trying to turn it before I’m ready. “Oh!” and they stop turning the page.
Or “you left your water over there!” “Oh!” as they go in the absolutely wrong direction.
“Put your socks and shoes away.” “Oh!”
*****
They’re displaying a surprising amount of sentience the second half of this month. They’re talking to me with purpose: pointing out when something has fallen, passing by the office and telling me “ja ja ja ja!” (I’m going that way!) and then “jia jia jia jia” on the way back (arms in the air: I won!).
They’ve started hiding from us as play: tucking themselves under chairs and tables to peep out with a mischievous grin.
*****
Unfortunately we have hit the Terrible 2-4s ahead of schedule. They aren’t 2 yet! This is going to be a long decade. So much irrational hysteria. So much kicking and screaming and tears on the tough days.
Consecutive reasons they were sobbing for ten minutes one morning:
- They asked for yogurt with granola
- So I served them a cup of yogurt with granola. That started the waterworks.
- I offered to help them eat. 😭
- They wanted a hug. 😭
- They did not want a hug. 😭
- They wanted their yogurt and I gave it to them. 😭
- They wouldn’t eat the yogurt so I moved it. 😭
- I took advantage of their wide open crying mouth and stuffed a bit of yogurt in there.
- That stopped the crying until they swallowed and the yogurt disappeared. 😭
*****
Books they come back to five times a day:
Down at the Beach
Noodles for Baby
Hush now, Banshee
My Kite is Stuck and other stories
Pupdate
Smol has been learning to help me with feeding Sera. The problem with this is they get Very Attached to Routine. In the mornings, I add some joint powder and a cranberry extract tablet to her bowl, to go with the kibble and chewed fruit that Smol Acrobat previously tasted and refused.
In the afternoons, she just gets kibble.
Smol’s job is to bring me the powder and the tablets. But they don’t have a job if I only give her kibble! So they insist on the whole shebang and then (bizarrely) scolds her when she starts to eat. Not sure what that’s about.
That done, they put away the kibble and the jars and then waits (very) impatiently for Sera to finish eating to give her a dental treat.
Precious Moments
JB: You know an easy way to have flower girls at your wedding?
Me: How?
JB: You just give birth to girls. Then you can get married and have your flower girls!
Me: …… There’s nothing easy about that….
JB: Yeah but then you’d have flower girls!
*****
Washing a bottle out for Smol Acrobat’s milk, they sounded oddly… content? Behind me? That’s not usually a good sign. I turned to find they’d been happily stuffing their face with something they found on the counter. Usually we have nuts and crackers there, all things they’re allowed to have, but we don’t usually let them serve themselves.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered they had found a secret stash of Sugar Babies and was in the process of gluing their mouth shut with them! I confiscated the few left in the container, and then peeled the lower jaw mold of Sugar Baby stickiness off their bottom teeth. Eewww.
*****
Smol has some weird priorities.
Wood block? Stick it up the nose.
Pencil? Stick it up the nose.
Pork chop? Stick it up the nose.
COVID test? Absolutely not, get away from me!
*****
Smol Acrobat signs “open” at the vacuum.
No, it needs to sleep now just like Mommy.
Smol: oh.
*****
Smol Acrobat signs *milk*.
I offer a cup of milk.
They throw their hands in the air: no no no!
Me: Did you want milk?
Smol: Yah.
Me: This is milk.
Smol: Yah. *takes it like they knew that all along*
*****
Smol: mum mum!
Me: that’s dad.
Smol looking straight at me, still patting PiC’s arm: MAAAAAAAMMMMM.
September 19, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 178: My subconscious has been working overtime, throwing up increasingly worse scenarios in my nightmares. Is this a response to the global and the personal stresses all piling up?
Today’s nightmare was becoming paralyzed and having to cope with extreme loss of physical functioning while thinking about how keeping me alive and cared for would financially devastate my family. At no point in my nightmare did the thought that they might still want me around occur. I was wholly focused on the terrible consequences (mental, emotional, financial) of survival. Ugh. An extreme version of my life now, maybe this was my subconscious trying to pull the ripcord on all the therapy and restart my usual hypervigilance? I’ve been doing better at derailing that spiral consciously but the subconscious is powerful. Dear friend helped me short circuit the spiral by pointing out I could just as easily get hit by a bus and die suddenly as this happening. Weirdly, that worked.
Related fun: My eye started twitching on Friday and it hasn’t stopped. 🧐 Stress? Fatigue? Something else new?
Anyway today was a Mommy and Smol day. PiC had to work on site, JB had school, Smol doesn’t have daycare until tomorrow. Their rare late wake up was much appreciated as I was on Smol duty from 8:30 until they napped at 1. We did all the things: ran the vacuum, cleaned Sera’s ears, played outside, weeded, gardened, threw a ball for Sera, took her for a short walk, ate snacks and read some books.
Immediately after they settled in for a nap, I dashed through as much work as I could.
Our vacationing friend delivered surprise fresh caught, ready to cook, fish, neatly answering my question of “what other small thing should I add to this dinner of leftovers?” Breaded and air fried fish! Excellent. It hit the spot and by 650, my entire me was done done done. Such a high energy day.
(more…)
September 16, 2022
1. I’ve made a little more progress in setting up our household computer in case my work computer bites the dust. I was fighting with our password keeper, though, that’s still not working quite the way it should. Once that’s settled, I will do a work day on that computer to make sure it’s an adequate substitute.
2. I made JB’s Christmas present!!! It needs just a little more work to secure the fraying fabric but I finally powered through my hesitation and self doubt and made them a pair of packing cubes. It would have been cheaper (time wise) to just buy them a pair of $10 packing cubes but these are made with that Hello Kitty fabric I couldn’t resist so I believe this is called making the most of what you have 😬😁
This settles two things for my holiday anxiety brain: they will now have packing cubes to use for annual travel and I’ll be done with their present once all the bits are tidied up. Now I have to get going on the last remaining gifts. I’m also tempted to make myself a new cube too.
3. We’ve come up negative on our weekly COVID tests.
4. Even only three days a week, and even with how hard the transition has been, daycare has been such a huge help. We can get more work done, reducing that frantic hamster in a wheel feeling we get every single day, and I can even cook dinners some nights of the week instead of just hoping we can throw something together from the pantry. Five days a week would probably feel like a miracle but I’m not yet prepared to pay $2600 a month for that. 😓
(more…)
September 13, 2022
This link from Nicole and Maggie resonated: Rob Beckett: It’s weird to be a working-class man breeding middle-class children.
It IS weird raising kids in a higher social class than we grew up in. I grew up with no money, working the family business whenever needed and whatever it was, starting at the same age JB is now.
The summer I turned seven, I spent late nights packing crabs for/with my parents. It was so long ago I don’t even know what we were packing them for but I learned to pay attention to grabby claws pretty quickly. When I was nine, I was cashiering after school and weekends at their business. I loved the actual act of cashiering but was more ambivalent about the business that took every ounce of my parents’ time and attention. My accomplishments, such as they were in middle school, were just expected, not celebrated. They didn’t have the time or energy for me or them.
I met kids in middle and high school, whose parents were successful entrepreneurs, doctors, pharmacists, or stay at home parents. Their parents were either too busy for them (but wealthy) or they were always around and comfortable financially. I never fit in with anyone on that basis. I worked for my spending money in high school, and then had to work to pay our bills after high school graduation. None of them had to work a day if they didn’t want the spending money. Their expenses were always paid. It was awkward being the only one who always worked every weekend, every holiday, every chance we had to hang out.
I am still mildly mortified at misunderstanding references to “white coats”, not making the connection that it was a doctor thing, in my mid-20s. It’s funny though, I don’t think I understood why I felt like a fish out of water for so long.
Now as we’re raising our kids, we’re conscious of all the luxuries we have that are just normal for them and discuss this openly with JB. We want them to know that this wasn’t easy to come by and that we have to be good stewards of our money. That latter bit is the poverty background talking, I bet. I always worry it’ll all go away with one severe illness. My family of origin lost everything just before mom got seriously sick. I wasn’t privy to all the details so I just assume it was a combination of bad luck and Dad’s bad money management. I know it wasn’t because of her illness, but she was in despair that she could never get back on her feet financially because she was too sick to work much at all. Ugh that brought back a lot of feelings.
We discussed the fact that we don’t know what other people have and are comfortable spending, but when we do see them making choices, we should respect their decisions just as we expect people to respect our decisions.
I’m trying to shift my mindset so we can model developing our own sense of balance and choices. To do that, we need to learn to understand ourselves: what feels right or good or wrong or bad and understand how that impacts our relationship with money.
We let them learn what felt good and what didn’t about spending at Comic Con, and talked to them about how that should inform their decisions about how to approach spending situations.
They had a gift budget from their aunties and uncles and they discovered that they really liked spending ALL of it. That’s the polar opposite of me: whatever my budget is, I always want to reserve half of it. So for JB, that means they should pick their dollar amount to spend before going into a spending situation that makes sense with their bigger picture, and then they can spend that set budget without worrying or guilt. Don’t be that guy, we said, who was fighting with his wife at the Convention saying “A $1000 Skeletor bust is what savings is FOR!”
Related: college plans for the kids
I don’t know what they’ll want to do or where they’ll want to go for college but we’ll have to start having those conversations soon to lay groundwork too. We have been saving for JB since they were born, and now that Smol Acrobat is here, my plan is to split that one account down the middle. I’m also planning to split their gift money that’s cash in half too. I sort of wonder how fair or unfair that is.
JB’s had 6 years more of gifts than Smol Acrobat. We don’t know how long the cash gifts will continue, and we certainly don’t expect them to continue for predictable periods of time. Given that, I am collecting all of it into a single pot and split that down the middle when the time comes to disburse as well. It has the benefit of being mostly simple and it gives both kids an equal amount no matter who the gifts came from and when. My premise is that they shouldn’t get vastly different amounts solely because JB came first and accumulated more. Some people who loved and cared for JB aren’t around for Smol. I wouldn’t want Smol to only get 10% of the total gift money for their future, due simple to timing, just like I wouldn’t want it to be lopsided the other way around if people happened to be more present and generous during Smol’s time instead of JB’s.
However, I will set up a savings account for each kid to save for themselves. JB is earning an allowance and has to put away half for long term savings. It doesn’t make sense to commingle THOSE savings.
How would you handle savings, big and small, for your dependents?
September 12, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 171: Monday holidays are weird. Nice, but weird. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not Sunday again, tomorrow will be Tuesday.
The weekend wasn’t meant to be a busy one but it turned out to be.
Flying high from my meal planning brain turning on, we invited our local food friends over for dinner on Saturday. That was fun and wiped me out just about completely. Sunday, PiC took JB out for an afternoon playdate that I missed because Smol Acrobat was sleeping so deeply. Just as well. I was still drained and I needed to work so that time was well spent at home huddled in my office.
Today, PiC had his morning run with his friends and then we went to see our long time friends in the afternoon which turned into a dinner with them. Almost like old times again. Also, I didn’t actually believe we’d be touched by the heat wave but it did come for us today, so thankfully, the friends we visited are the only ones we know with air conditioning. It wasn’t strategic! We didn’t know they had a/c until we were nearly there! But it was a lovely surprise.
We had to set up fans for everyone at bedtime, we were still feeling like we’d gone to bed in a convection oven. (more…)
September 9, 2022
1. My attempt at meal planning while grocery shopping:
- Romaine hearts and lemon to make a salad with pork roast and rice
- Russet and sweet potatoes to bake and serve with chicken of some kind
- Broccolini to saute and serve with rice and steak
2. I started a spreadsheet of recently successful meals so that I can stop reinventing the wheel and pick from the various columns when I’m not sure what kind of meal to construct. Let’s see if this actually helps.
3. I actually made all three meals! I swapped the components around a bit, rice goes better with the chicken I made than potatoes, and the broccolini got replaced by salad on a hot day but THREE balanced dinners in a row?? Unprecedented!
4. The FDA authorized updated Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine boosters. I’m checking Kaiser regularly to find out when we can get boosted.
Challenges this week: knowing that the country has given up on fighting COVID, tests won’t be funded, vaccines won’t be funded. School stopped pooled testing. Thinking about when we need to start holding on to our test kits instead of sharing freely makes me want to kick something.
(more…)