In the next week between the two kids there are at least four activities, appointments, or school presentations that will take me away, or could take me, away from work before my usual business hours end of day. I work a for a some what flexible company that allows me the chance to occasionally, frequently lately; attend meetings, events and activities during my work hours. I of course make the hours up, but there is a point when too much is too much. I want to make sure I am not taking advantage of my work situation but still be there for my family, but how?
Sadly as of late I am making the must appointments and passing on the class presentations and optional 'fun' things and this is starting to tick me off. Time moves by and the kids may or may not even notice our presence at events, but I want to be there to cheer them on. Currently due to the high number of assessments, doctor appointments, and other innocuous meetings being able to show my support is not always going to be at the big presentation, which Bean has two of in the next two weeks. She will learn from all these events and know I love and support her, but I still will have the 'mom guilt', the knowledge I wasn't there to see her shine.
So how do you combat the mom guilt?
I have thrown pity parties for the mom guilt, it didn't go away. I listened to other moms mom guilt, it didn't go away. I have talked to it, cajoled in and finally I think accepted it. I have accepting that the mom guilt will not go away and that it is OK. I will still try to make everything and feel bad when I don't', but knowing I tried and I wanted to will have to be enough. Hopefully years from now when her sits on her therapists couch and talks about how I was never there for her I will have come to accept it, because at least she won't be talking about how I never loved her, just that I wasn't always there. Though in her heart she will know I always wanted to be, but that sometimes you just can't.
Do you have mom guilt? Did you kick her out for good and how?
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Work Travel
Once a year I get the chance to attend a conference with people that do what I do at work. I work in Change and Configuration Management with an IT Service Management focus. If you suddenly upon reading that sentence heard the adult wah wah from Charlie Brown, don't worry most people do. The gist is what I do isn't' done by a lot of people so once a year I get to go hang with a bunch of folks that do what I do. I love the chance to see what others are doing, but the traveling with nice clothes part always puts me in a panicked funk.
I am not what you would call a girly girl, adult tomboy geek girl is a little better comparison and this makes the idea of traveling with nice clothes that need ironing and to stay nice a bit of a challenge. This is the second year I am heading to this conference and again I am trying to go with just a carry on bag, that usually isn't a big deal since the conference is only four days, this year though Hubs and I area headed there early so we can play before the conference. This means in one carry on bag I now needs clothes for 7 days, and I will be switching hotels half way through this. I can do the pants thing, no issue there, as long as I don't sit in anything; always a chance with me. Shirts, workout clothes, kick around clothes and keeping it all neat and pressed, not so sure. This doesn't count the work computer, book I am currently reading and all the other junk I am sure will come with me on this trip.
Any ideas, tips and tricks? What do you do to pack light and not look wrinkled and dirty?
Sunday Homework
There are Sundays no one gets out of their jammies all day and there are days when jammie homework doesn't happen, but generally this is working well and is a more relaxed homework time. We try and take full advantage of Sunday's for homework because during the week there are activities going on and homework may not get the focus we would like. Homework for both kids isn't over whelming yet, but I am sure it is coming and we want to give the kids skills and attention to do the best work possible.
What are your homework tricks? Do you have a day a week when you always work on it? How do you manage activities and homework and everything else that needs to get done in a week?
Kids and Social Media
Dear my sweet innocent monkeys,
I write this not because I don't trust you, but because at some point in the near future your poor little frontal lobes are going to go berserk and social media will be there to capture it all. No matter how much we try and put distance between you and social media, eventually you will both be out there. Of course there are a few tips you can do to hopefully avoid all the pitfalls inherit in our current over share, TMI culture.
First, remember that everyone around you has a phone, video camera and voice recorder on them at all times. When you are mean, dorky, or just generally stupid remember that it isn't just the people right next to you that will hear/see it. Someone can post it in seconds and a mean word can become toxic soup to everyone who knows you. Mooning the principal is all fun and good, until someone puts it on Facebook and tags you. Make sure the people around you have your back and you have theirs, nothing is more powerful than knowing there is someone outside your family you could call in the craziest of circumstances and know no one will know about what happened.
The adage 'do unto others and you would have done unto you', it is something to live by, both in person and on the net. Currently we, your parents post funny statuses' and pictures and laugh at your fumbles, and you find it funny and like it. At some point you won't find these posts and pictures funny and as soon as you tell us or show us you aren't ok. they will stop. We will not hesitate to keep your life as private as you want it. Remember to be a friend like that and not expose your friends faults and make fun of them, in person it is hard to use harsh words, on the internet it seems so easy. If you have an issue with someone, don't passive aggressively post something on the internet, talk to the person and tell them they are being an ass. Words hurt and if you use hurtful words they will come back to you. When your friend gets trashed and pukes on a girl at a party, be the friend that blocks the phones taking pictures with your body and get him out of there he will return the favor, and if he doesn't he isn't your friend.
Keep your profiles and relationship status as private as possible. Playing in social media is great and it is amazing to be able to contact friends far and wide, but you don't want a frenemy getting access to your status and pictures. You don't want anyone to know you are going out with that boy so that all the cheerleaders call you a bitch, on your profile page. Sometimes the best part about being in a relationship or experiencing some of the great things you do in youth is the privacy of it, the fact that only a few select friends really know what really happened. There are only a few pictures floating around, a few hidden jokes here and there; hidden jokes aren't hidden if everyone knows what happened.
Post as if your grandma, boss, or mom is looking and reading everything, because eventually they will. Once upon a time social media was the home of the young, but no more. Today your employer goes out and reads your blog, looks at your twitter feed and sees what is posted on instagram. Suddenly that spring break in Cabo looks a little less fun when you think about grandma looking at wet tshirt photos.
Remember once something is online it is there for life and you will not be able to delete every picture on every site.
I write this not because I don't trust you, but because at some point in the near future your poor little frontal lobes are going to go berserk and social media will be there to capture it all. No matter how much we try and put distance between you and social media, eventually you will both be out there. Of course there are a few tips you can do to hopefully avoid all the pitfalls inherit in our current over share, TMI culture.
First, remember that everyone around you has a phone, video camera and voice recorder on them at all times. When you are mean, dorky, or just generally stupid remember that it isn't just the people right next to you that will hear/see it. Someone can post it in seconds and a mean word can become toxic soup to everyone who knows you. Mooning the principal is all fun and good, until someone puts it on Facebook and tags you. Make sure the people around you have your back and you have theirs, nothing is more powerful than knowing there is someone outside your family you could call in the craziest of circumstances and know no one will know about what happened.
The adage 'do unto others and you would have done unto you', it is something to live by, both in person and on the net. Currently we, your parents post funny statuses' and pictures and laugh at your fumbles, and you find it funny and like it. At some point you won't find these posts and pictures funny and as soon as you tell us or show us you aren't ok. they will stop. We will not hesitate to keep your life as private as you want it. Remember to be a friend like that and not expose your friends faults and make fun of them, in person it is hard to use harsh words, on the internet it seems so easy. If you have an issue with someone, don't passive aggressively post something on the internet, talk to the person and tell them they are being an ass. Words hurt and if you use hurtful words they will come back to you. When your friend gets trashed and pukes on a girl at a party, be the friend that blocks the phones taking pictures with your body and get him out of there he will return the favor, and if he doesn't he isn't your friend.
Keep your profiles and relationship status as private as possible. Playing in social media is great and it is amazing to be able to contact friends far and wide, but you don't want a frenemy getting access to your status and pictures. You don't want anyone to know you are going out with that boy so that all the cheerleaders call you a bitch, on your profile page. Sometimes the best part about being in a relationship or experiencing some of the great things you do in youth is the privacy of it, the fact that only a few select friends really know what really happened. There are only a few pictures floating around, a few hidden jokes here and there; hidden jokes aren't hidden if everyone knows what happened.
Post as if your grandma, boss, or mom is looking and reading everything, because eventually they will. Once upon a time social media was the home of the young, but no more. Today your employer goes out and reads your blog, looks at your twitter feed and sees what is posted on instagram. Suddenly that spring break in Cabo looks a little less fun when you think about grandma looking at wet tshirt photos.
Remember once something is online it is there for life and you will not be able to delete every picture on every site.
Eyeball Issues..Seriously and how real is this
Bean has been complaining for awhile that the board at school looks fuzzy off and on. After a few requests from her I finally scheduled an appointment with a optometrist. We went this last week and though she has a slight astigmatism and slight farsightedness, glasses would only be of minor help her real issue is her eyes don't work together. WHAT??
At what point do you look at a doctor and ask them what they are smoking, her eyes don't work together? I have heard of begin cross eyed, lazy eye, but her eyes not working together is a new one for me.
We are following up with more testing and I am going to seek another opinion most likely, but the current recommendation is vision therapy. Seeing that I had never heard of this before I went to the internet.
As a parent with a child who seems to always have the one off diagnosis I go looking for answers a lot and what will work best to help is a constant search. Why can't she just be blind as a bat and need glasses was my first thought, but next was what is this and what can I do to help her. Really as a parent though I think a lot of websites can take advantage of us parents, we will do anything to make it better and fix it and sometimes take the risk on something pretty out there in the hopes it will help. When I go out looking to research something, particularly as it pertains to the kids I hope to find the answers or a clear route to take, that is rarely what is there. The reality of learning issues and being an individual is that we all have things that are hard and easy, we all have challenges. For some kids those challenges are life effecting things and there are no miracles or clear paths, just being an advocate and making sure the people around your child know where they are at is sometimes all you can do. Ultimately as parents we are responsible for the choices we make in treatment for the one off situations and I want to make sure I am making the most logical educated decisions, so I head to the internet to learn and get frustrated.
Looking for information on the internet can be a mixed blessing and I learned with something like vision therapy there are a lot of mixed reports. When I start looking into something on the internet I use a search engine like Google, but I also looked into a few skeptic sites like skepchic or skeptic and medical sites like the mayo clinic. I try to focus on factual data that is evidence based, anecdotal data is great and I get what works for one person may not work for another, but I don't want to sink my money into something that really won't likely be useful. What I learned in my vision therapy search is that there are some people claiming it is the cure to a host of learning disabilities and some people saying it will help with vision issues, but is quack like in all other respects. Researching something like vision therapy has to be done skeptically, I make sure the site I read aren't associated with treatment. The reason I do this is if you are trying to get my money you are going to only put the positives up and not the questions or inaccuracies. Additionally I tend in my initial research to stay away from forums, anyone can say anything and though this might be a place to get the words to search Google with I don't have the knowledge initially to know what is and isn't crap that people are saying. The internet usually gets me just as many questions as answers and can be full of garbage that needs to be sorted through, but can also educate and give you a great jumping off point to find those other people and professionals that can help figure out the best next paths.
So what has it done for me in the search for vision therapy. The first thing is, I know if this doctor starts talking at all about this fixing Bean's learning issues we are done, most likely he isn't the doctor for us. Additionally I want to see in any further discussion about vision therapy conversations around tracked progress, hearing she will be fine in a few months will be another reason to move on. If I hear this won't fix her learning issues, but may help her with growing her eye strength or something of that nature I will listen a lot harder. I will also use this blog, email, my phone and anything else to reach out to all those people who may be able to give me a little more insight into what this all means and the best routes moving forward, which may explain why I am a total over sharer.
How do you research the net, what do you look for when trying to find answers? Do you know anything about vision therapy, hook a girl up.
At what point do you look at a doctor and ask them what they are smoking, her eyes don't work together? I have heard of begin cross eyed, lazy eye, but her eyes not working together is a new one for me.
We are following up with more testing and I am going to seek another opinion most likely, but the current recommendation is vision therapy. Seeing that I had never heard of this before I went to the internet.
As a parent with a child who seems to always have the one off diagnosis I go looking for answers a lot and what will work best to help is a constant search. Why can't she just be blind as a bat and need glasses was my first thought, but next was what is this and what can I do to help her. Really as a parent though I think a lot of websites can take advantage of us parents, we will do anything to make it better and fix it and sometimes take the risk on something pretty out there in the hopes it will help. When I go out looking to research something, particularly as it pertains to the kids I hope to find the answers or a clear route to take, that is rarely what is there. The reality of learning issues and being an individual is that we all have things that are hard and easy, we all have challenges. For some kids those challenges are life effecting things and there are no miracles or clear paths, just being an advocate and making sure the people around your child know where they are at is sometimes all you can do. Ultimately as parents we are responsible for the choices we make in treatment for the one off situations and I want to make sure I am making the most logical educated decisions, so I head to the internet to learn and get frustrated.
Looking for information on the internet can be a mixed blessing and I learned with something like vision therapy there are a lot of mixed reports. When I start looking into something on the internet I use a search engine like Google, but I also looked into a few skeptic sites like skepchic or skeptic and medical sites like the mayo clinic. I try to focus on factual data that is evidence based, anecdotal data is great and I get what works for one person may not work for another, but I don't want to sink my money into something that really won't likely be useful. What I learned in my vision therapy search is that there are some people claiming it is the cure to a host of learning disabilities and some people saying it will help with vision issues, but is quack like in all other respects. Researching something like vision therapy has to be done skeptically, I make sure the site I read aren't associated with treatment. The reason I do this is if you are trying to get my money you are going to only put the positives up and not the questions or inaccuracies. Additionally I tend in my initial research to stay away from forums, anyone can say anything and though this might be a place to get the words to search Google with I don't have the knowledge initially to know what is and isn't crap that people are saying. The internet usually gets me just as many questions as answers and can be full of garbage that needs to be sorted through, but can also educate and give you a great jumping off point to find those other people and professionals that can help figure out the best next paths.
So what has it done for me in the search for vision therapy. The first thing is, I know if this doctor starts talking at all about this fixing Bean's learning issues we are done, most likely he isn't the doctor for us. Additionally I want to see in any further discussion about vision therapy conversations around tracked progress, hearing she will be fine in a few months will be another reason to move on. If I hear this won't fix her learning issues, but may help her with growing her eye strength or something of that nature I will listen a lot harder. I will also use this blog, email, my phone and anything else to reach out to all those people who may be able to give me a little more insight into what this all means and the best routes moving forward, which may explain why I am a total over sharer.
How do you research the net, what do you look for when trying to find answers? Do you know anything about vision therapy, hook a girl up.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Portion Control
Trying to figure out if you had good portion control, especially with homemade meals can be difficult, and was a total mess for us. I could never figure out if had the correct portions when we had spaghetti and measuring things with cups, when people are talking ounces is madness. The other issue we faced a lot was when a casserole said it was x serving somehow we struggled to get even sized servings. We did try the whole your palm is this big roughly and for this food, your fist is this; but it is really subjective and we just got frustrated.
We have done two things to help with portion control and both are giving us a lot better idea of how much we are eating and what a serving of some food really is. The first thing we did was buy a good scale, it is a pretty basic one and was about thirty dollars. What I like about the food scale is that I can put on a plate and then turn the scale on and it will start at 0, this means I don't have to weigh the plate or Tupperware and then the food. I like having a solid number of x ounces and usually I am surprised at how much or little a particular food weighs. The other thing we have done is use muffin tins for cooking casseroles. This picture above has a family favorite, Hot Diggity Gog, it's from the 'No Whine with your Dinner' cookbook, I do sneak in extra vegetables and don't use corn. Hot Diggity serves 10, so I filled 20 cupcake tins and two a piece is a serving. By using the tins there is more consistency in size than just scooping it out and the muffin tin shape makes it easy to store for later. The other advantage to the tins, things tend to cook quicker. These are our beginning steps into portion control and so far no one is starving and the kids are getting pretty independent with grabbing a Hot Diggety muffin for a snack.
Valentine crafting: Mailboxes
For some kooky reason Valentine comes along and I want to decorate with all sorts of things. I especially enjoy making mailboxes for the kids to put their valentines into. This year Chicken's teacher asked that the students bring in their mailboxes completed. WHEEEE....I actually get to help make a mailbox!!!!!!!!!!!!
After much discussion, amounting too Chicken stating he didn't want anything to girly we got started. Instead of a shoe box we I grabbed the box that has our protein shakes from Costco. I cut the box in half, I used a sharp knife. The edges ended up rough, but we fixed it with our next steps. We Duct taped the bottom of the box and the edges, this smoothed out the top and closed the hole in the bottom. Next came Chicken's hunt through the craft supplies. I like to keep a lot of loose things around and encouraged the kids to think outside the box. Chicken found the left over fabric scraps from his super hero bulletin board and insisted it was plenty Valentine themed to work. Between the two of us we wrapped the box inside and out with the fabric. I used hot glue and glued the fabric to the bottom of the box, then hot glue gunned the inside edge wall, wrapped the fabric around the outside and glued it on the bottom. I did the same with another piece of fabric going the opposite direction, this means there was double fabric on the bottom, but with a duct tape hole on the bottom I thought the extra fabric would help. As I wrapped the second piece of fabric around the box, both in and out I hot glued both pieces of fabric together at their loose ends. We now had a box wrapped in fabric, but it was still totally open on top, not very mailbox like. Chicken came up with taking the last bit of fabric cutting a hole in it and putting it over the open top of the box. The top fabric piece is being kept in place with a rubber band. The great thing about this idea is at the end of the day, Chicken takes the rubber band off and he has easy access to all his valentines. The last thing that Chicken needed to do was put his name on the box and make it a little more Valentine like. He opted for cutting out construction paper hearts with sayings and his name on them and putting one of his Valentines on the front of the box. I was pretty proud, Chicken loves it and he did most of it himself (didn't let him near the glue gun) and thought up a lot of great ideas to make it all his.
This time of year is really busy and none of us really remember to let each other know how much we appreciate each other, so I invented another reason to make a mailbox. I told both kids that they needed to make a some type of mailbox to hang outside their bedroom doors in case cupid came by to drop off treats and letters and such. We again used a box from Costco, this was an over sized Cheerios box. I cut off the tabs at both ends, I didn't need to cut the ends and it would have been useful to have them later on, but it worked out fine this way too. After cutting the ends, I cut between the front cover and side of the box, and the back and opposite side. This made a folder, the top part is longer than the bottom, see the pictures below. After making the cuts, I turned them over to the kids and told them they needed a way to hang it at the top and close it at the sides. We pulled out all the craft supplies and both kids went to town. Bean defiantly went more Valentine like, she opted to tie two pieces of yard through some hole punches to close the side and used ribbon and tape on the top. I am not sure if it was because Bean had a specific idea or what, but she was very organized with how she put her box together and she hardly asked me for any help. Chicken of course used me all he could for manual labor and I hole punched so much I think I have a hand cramp from it. Chicken opted to weave the sides of his envelope shut and then just used a long string to bring it up through the punched holes at the top and tied it off. Chicken of course choose something much less Valentine like, he went for black paper, with international flag and agile tape. It was great to see both kids get creative and make something they were proud of, I wonder if cupid will bring them something fun?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)