Category Archives: Kids

Backpacks

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I was thinking about backpacks just the other day. My three kids all had to have them to start kindergarten. It’s required. I already knew that they were pretty much ubiquitous these days, but…

I was in school until 1979, and never once had a backpack. Not even in high school. Nor did other people, at least not enough for me to notice. Books and such were carried in your arms. It was awkward, inconvenient, even sometimes painful, but at least during school there were lockers, and generally not everything had to come home overnight. Yet I am no sure how we managed without them.

College was different. While I didn’t start college until 1982, they’d long been a given in that environment. I may not have known that until contemporaries started college in 1978 and 1979, but by the time it was my turn, I knew to head to the store and spend $30 (in 1982 dollars! For one far less good than my kids have for much less!) in anticipation of the backbreaking load of books I would have to cart around.

Funny how that works, seeing the same topic addressed right after I’ve pondered it myself.

Donuts Can Be Deadly

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I was thinking again about the whole part time schedule that precludes babysitting versus full time that requires it, and the costs associated with a modest amount of extra money. If I were to make 25k more, but need after school and full time summer care, that’s half-ish of the difference off the top. It would increase our tax burden, and that could be a quarter or more of the difference. The difference in school lunches comes to something like 2% of the difference. Health costs might be neutral, if benefits are supplied. There would be immediate need for a car purchase, and costs like as would increase. Depending on exact details, there would likely be more convenience purchases of food, if not necessitated by then at least lubricating the new arrangement. That’s just off the top of my head.

The more I think about it, the more appealing it sounds to give in and be a writer, and perhaps do other things that intrigue me, not staving off all added costs forever, but smoothing it out. The heart thing has me thinking more about living the time that remains, rather than sleepwalking it. Not in an abandon all obligations and pursue a mad dash through a bucket list sort of way, but in a care a lot less what people think and what I believe is expected or allowed.

Indoctrination*

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Eight year old daughter and libertarian-in-training: “Why do we have to say the pledge of allegiance at school every day?”

Me: “Because they’re communists.”

Daughter: “Commu-WHAT!?”

Me: *Laughs* “Communists.”

Daughter: “What’s a communist?”

Me: “It’d take too long to explain. Let’s just say the pledge is a form of indoctrination.”

* Or: Fun with hyperbole, just wish it were more hyperbole and less close to reality.

Monday

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For some reason, typing “Monday” lodged ELO’s The Diary of Horace Wimp in my head. It always felt applicable to me, and oddly still does. Seems to oversimplify things a bit. Even after I managed the key part in an odd sort of way, I failed totally on the ironic “life” part at the end. Anyway, not what the post was about, though it’d do, since the main point was to post something rather than nothing, given stuff I have to do the rest of today.

Monday is the day I put my pills for a week into my AM/PM pill holder. One in the PM, five in the AM to take with food, and there is one that doesn’t go with the rest, which I have to take half an hour before eating. Just to keep things even more exciting. If I were taking the vitamin D supplements I was supposed to and never got around to buying, that’d be one more.

At least Colcrys, for gout attacks like they one I am having and trying to get by without nuking, is three pills and done, within a 24 hour period. Funny for something that’s been known effective since about 550 AD to be $17 for three pills and not covered by the insurance that covers most of the cost of the other drugs.

If I get a chance later today, I’ll go back to reposting old stuff. I’m on a major set of them that all relate, several posts, and with dead links it has been interesting. When done, I’ll post a link collection and updated thoughts, which tie into Obamacare. Since we kind of cut off the old content by moving it, that gets some of the best of it where it’s easier to find anew and adds activity here, which is one of my jobs of the moment.

We have Comcast coming this afternoon – very promptly – because the do it yourself kit to fire up their service so we can cancel Verizon FiOS was not effective given the lack of signal coming through the wire into the building that was last used somewhere over seven years ago. I will be trying to make the place less messy before then. They probably see it all, but it embarrasses me, hard as it is to keep up with three kids, given our reluctance as housekeepers and distraction by other things. I like cleaning best when nobody is home at all, which brings it down to 2-3 days a week and a few hours of a couple others, during some of which I generally need to make up for sleep I don’t get at night. This week should be interesting, because we have a twice per year increase in volume of as much as 100% that is from one company. That’ll mean some days probably starting at 2 AM instead of 3 AM (we’re winging it tomorrow morning because no idea what volume will be the first day), and working as late as 11 AM. Which is possible, now that the kids are all in school! They didn’t like it much when I had to leave by a certain time some days the last couple times this happened. Though it’s still predicated on the spare car continuing to work.

On that note, coffee gone, breakfast finished, pills taken, delays exhausted, time to get on with the day. Shower, laundry while I clean, and of course cleaning. Hoping the cable modem can be setup in the living room and doesn’t have to go in my room, which is hoarder-like and has the cable buried behind furniture in a corner. That also is logistically better, even though the cable modem would be safer in my room. I’ll miss FiOS, but not the $70 a month we will save, and Verizon’s refusal to let us save money by eliminating our phone service and going internet-only, and Verizon’s prices going inexplicably up and up. It’s a great way to thank your long-time customers for their loyalty. Thirteen years, most of it with DSL or FiOS.

Outdoor Classroom

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The elementary school attended by the older kids has a new “outdoor classroom” this year. While there’s probably some Gaia worship and being Environmentally Correct involved, it boils down to teaching kids about gardening. Sort of a miniature vo-ag program. They are learning about composting, for instance, which may be environmentalism, but it’s not extremism, and was something done when I was a kid and before, like, forever.

It occured to me that this is timely. If things crash to that degree, they could use the knowledge toward growing food. I like practical education. That is, if there’s time enough before it crashes, and of it doesn’t crash too hard even for that to matter. I’ve had a potentially lengthy post brewing in my mind about just what a crash might look like, and how socio-infrastructure inelasticity would have to affect it. (I love coining terms. Makes me feel like the Bernanke of phrasing, only not dangerous.)

Chances are that a crash won’t be so great as to mean mass death and destruction, unless there is a coup, which I started thinking about as a possibility a while back. Didn’t want to mention it aloud, since I remember how insane people sounded when they were frantic that Bush was going to cancel the election and stay in office. That would never have happened, since for all his faults, he is honorable and not that level of power hungry. Then I started seeing others mention it, including one detailed analysis of how it might go if Obama tried it. Right, Google exists! I think I read this one, which still sounded like it might be a bit over the top. Remembering that it said “Barack Obama is, unfortunately for America, a profoundly stupid man” made it easier to find with a search.

Anyway, I was a vo-ag student in high school, and I grew up about as close to farming as is possible without growing up on a farm. It makes me happy to have my kids learning something about one of my first strong interests/career aspirations. We had chickens. When I was very young we had ducks. I spread tons of manure from cows, horses and chickens. I helped plant, weed, and harvest vegetables. There was always a compost pile, if not any as intently managed and harvested as is possible. We did dig fresh soil from the the fully composted parts, but mostly it was a place to dispose of garbage and yard waste. It’s sad to live in a yard that, apart from being not ours, has no space for that. The closest I’ve come is pulling weeds from the flower bed in the front and leaving them to die and disintegrate as a sort of mulch on a bare area of my tiny adjacent herb garden.

I should take a cue from the school and my worries, and make even greater efforts to teach the kids the practical. Not just as a side note, like showing them how to build a fire when we were camping, and explaining the need for air flow. Or telling my son in passing yesterday how starting a fire by rubbing sticks together really works, since he picked that notion up somewhere. When my oldest was very young, as young as 3-4, I would give her pointers on what to do if she was trapped out in the cold, or lost. I sometimes have shown them what they can or cannot eat from “the wild.” They need more of that, alongside things like handling money, and the instilling of ideals. But I digress.

Teaching a Four Year Old Relativity

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This is funny.

I must say, I did a bit better teaching a bit of cosmology to a rapt seven year old, when she asked about the edge of space. Better still with the entire history of the causes and results of the Civil War, slavery and the civil rights movement in about ten minutes or so of lecture mode, prompted by a question on it by the six year old, who then left while I discussed it with the seven year old. Also did a pretty good job of explaining what money and value are, though that’s an ongoing lesson.

Party Time

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Took the five year old to a classmate’s birthday party at a skating rink/fun center today. He’d certainly never been skating, and I’d not gone since I was a kid. My father skated all the time, and we’d go with him sometimes. For him it even went as far as roller skating dance competitions. There were rinks everywhere, then. Along the line, most of them disappeared. Was it because of the advent of rollerblades? Anyway…

We walked in and he went all shy, and was taken aback by the blaring music. Which was, in my opinion, a fair bit too loud, and nothing I’d have chosen to listen to myself. He refused to try skating, which would have been easy because they had nifty 3-wheeled supports for kids to use while learning. Plus almost everyone skating was around his age. He turned 5 in August, young for his kindergarten class, while the girl whose birthday it was turned 6 this week, old for her class. Not many were older kids.

He hid behind me when the classmate’s dad introduced himself. We spent most of the time there sitting in one spot at a table, where he ate fries, since he still can’t (as far as we know, and at any rate won’t) eat pizza (dairy allergy in the process of fading), which was what was being served. Everyone else went back to skating or the arcade. He kept eating fries and refusing to try skating. He refused to sit at the table with the other kids for the food. He then refused to sit at the table with the other kids to sing happy birthday and have cake. He refused to try the cake, except a tiny taste of frosting from my piece.

Eventually, not that long before the end, when few people were in the arcade, he was willing to go try games. Turned out a lot of them were broken or had issues. Air hockey lacked pucks. Ms. Pac Man had a screen too dim to see. The claw crane for stuffed animals game didn’t work right, in the form of running for a matter of a couple seconds and only moving side to side, not back to front. He had the most fun riding a little 4-horse carousel.

They were announcing the end of the party, having people turn in their free skates, and after that, when it was time to leave, he points at the rink, wanting to try that. Doh! I told him it was time to leave, that we weren’t going to pay to rent skates now, and he should have gotten comfortable sooner. I suspect it helped that there were just two people skating at that point.

I’m not sure even his shy and overly emotional older sister, the middle child and 6 year old, has exhibited that much shyness. She’d have sat with the other kids and maybe even been forward with them. Or at least she’d have gotten past it sooner. Oh well. And he’s so charming! Other kids seem crazy about him. Much like me at the same age, when I was possibly just as shy, unless I was in the right element. I lost the charming more than the shyness. Though I managed to charm the nurses in the hospital a couple weeks ago, which made me think that if I’d had that in me when I was younger and it mattered, I’d be talking about the antics of adult children and even grandchildren now, not children in kindergarten, first and second grades.

I Love My Kids

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And I am not “a mom,” but I can totally understand this (up to the point I’ve read, but I know I’m gonna link it when I’m done, and I don’t have time to read the rest now, so why not bookmark it here for myself now… and for our many readers… oh wait). My oldest was not unwanted, but sure wasn’t wanted YET. She’s still impatient. Having kids is a huge opportunity cost, even more than a cash cost. It doesn’t help when we have a society that encourages helicopterism, and wants kids bundled in proverbial bubble wrap lest there be risk or the taking of chances. The environmentalists want nobody to drive an SUV or large car. The for-the-childrenists force us to swaddle them in child seats ad nauseum, requiring an SUV or large car if you dare be fertile. It’s crazy.

School Lunch Madness

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On another school-related note, I am not surprised that there is a parody video regarding the worst first lady ever‘s pet school lunch policy. We’ve watched the school lunches go downhill since our second grader started kindergarten, becoming less likely to be eaten. If your kid won’t buy what they’re serving and takes lunch, well, I suppose that’s a form of freedom from nutritional oppression. Not to mention that if you’re paying full price the meals are overpriced. There have been complaints, albeit not universal, that this school year the meals are smaller and kids are coming home hungrier. Our kids get home about 3:45 PM. Some families are eating supper at 4:00 – 4:30 as a defense against the kids being snack locusts (more than normal) when they get home. Ours almost always wanted to snack on arriving home, but it seems a bit more extreme. Not a lot, but I haven’t correlated that to whether they have bought or brought, what and when their snack was, or whether they (allowed in the elementary school but not kindergarten) bought a snack or ice cream (available 2 days a week) in addition to lunch.

When I saw the policy requiring kids to take a fruit or veggie, I had images of trash cans filled with wasted food. Those poor starving kids in China! Er… or wherever, these days.

Speaking of the Bus Stop

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The three kids are in consecutive grades, with the youngest now in kindergarten For the prior two years, the only people designated for the bus stop on this street were in this building, so we were able to get the bus immediately across the street. That was handy for being able to wait on the porch in weather, and for not having to walk any distance or be out sooner rather than later. It was a bit surprising to hit this year and discover that there were 5-6 other kindergarten kids on our street and around the corner.

Anyway,on top of what she said, there is also the matter of smoking. These parents who are so apparently helicoptery to their precious little kindergarteners (and older siblings), walking them right to the bus door for a long good-bye (and panicking because the older ones have to walk the half mile to the elementary school… can’t have free range kid practice in this dreadfully dangerous semi-rural town donchaknow), most of them smoke. Around their kids and around other people. At the bus stop. I found myself trying not to cough from it yesterday and thinking that I’d be an asshole to complain, because I hate to be That Person. It’s outdoors, after all. At the same time, my heart sank, imagining this Alll Year Long.

At least it’s transient, not like having someone on the first floor smoking all winter when the first and second floor apartments irreparably share air space. Still… Ugh.

Another adventure in modern parenting:

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There was a big windstorm last night, followed by heavy rain. I believe there were supposed to be some actual thunderstorms somewhere along the line, but I seem to have missed them in my sleep.

So when H and I got to the bus stop this morning, there were, under one of the trees, a bunch of little branches. These were the perfect size: a yard or so long, with side branches and a thin tip that could be snapped off for a good sword fight. I picked one of them up, and then realized that I was off to the side of a crowd of other parents and their children. And I stopped.

I didn’t know if I would become *that* parent and make my kid into *that* child if I went down that route.

Now, I don’t know the other parents out there. To be honest, I’m not much of a talker first thing in the morning, and I have the feeling watching them that the only thing we have in common are kids in the same school. H seems entirely uninterested in playing with the other kids, and seeing as I’ve never seen one of them do anything other than stand by a parent and wait, I can see why. The little boy that my daughters rode the bus with ran and played with them before school, and we frequently had to herd all of them back to the stop when we saw the bus.

I had the feeling that with this group of parents, who still walk their kids all the way up to the door of the bus every day and stand and wave as it pulls away, using soaking wet sticks as swords might seem more than a little inappropriate. And yes, I wondered what the hell has become of the world that I had to stop and actually think about this.

The bus came before I had made up my mind completely, and it’s probably a good thing that it did. After all, while I was thinking I was also snapping twigs off of my sword-to-be.

Hopey Changey Stuff at the Local VFW

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On Saturday, Deb took the kids to a craft fair at the local VFW. One of the vendors was (or had buttons made by) Sutton Button. For the kids, they had make/color your own buttons, which was very cool.

Cooler still was this one, lifted right from Instapundit, which she just had to buy to show me (click the picture for a larger version):

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I might make much of this being Massachusetts, but the vendor did have both sides (all sides? wonder if there were any for Gary Johnson) represented. Still, someone obviously reads Glenn Reynolds, and this is an especially red/purple part of the state.

Indeed, last week my second grader came home from school and did a cheer, like a cheerleader might do, for Mitt Romney, then told me that was telling me who I should vote for. That did surprise me, despite it being this part of the state.