Paradigm Shift

You know how when your kids are little, all they really want is for you to play with them? And a lot of the time you really just want to sit down and read a book, or watch TV or have a glass of wine, or whatever else floats your boat.  And there are times when you talk about this with other people - the fact that sometimes you just don't want to play another round of Chutes and Ladders, or color any more pages in that coloring book, or brush another Barbie's hair that isn't even real hair anyway.

Then, people with kids older than yours get a faraway look in their eyes and give you the ever popular speech to 'Enjoy yours kids now, because it all goes by so fast and before you know it, they no longer think playing with you is the coolest thing on the planet.'  And you're all 'Whatever, I just want two minutes to go to the bathroom by myself without someone barging in and asking me to put their Barbie's shoes back on or build them a house out of the four legos in their hand, one of which is that weird flat rectangle thing that's useful for exactly nothing."  I'm telling you though, those people with the kids older than yours - they know what they're talking about.

To this day, I stand by my pronouncement that one of my greatest days as a parent was the day when the kids could get up and fix themselves a bowl of cereal without waking me up.  Violet was an early riser who woke up by 6 AM.  Every. Single. Day. So, sleeping in until the sun made an appearance seemed like quite the luxury at the time.  The thing is though, that after they get old enough to fix that bowl of cereal and are a little independent and self sufficient, they just keep on growing and changing, and becoming people who really prefer to do things that don't involve spending time with you.

We passed that point of no return with 14 year old Violet quite some time ago.  Ever since she was about 13, she would much rather video chat and text with her friends than spend any significant quality time as a family.  Any suggestions of family time are met with sighs and eye rolls and pronouncements of 'I don't feel like it' or 'I don't really want to do that.'  And, if you get on your parental high horse and declare that WE are GOING to spend time as a family and YOU are GOING to like it, that results in whatever activity you were planning to do for fun being met with a sullen attitude and looks of 'OMG, I would rather be ANYWHERE but here, these people are lame.' Which means that exactly no one has any actual fun on your fun family outing.  Good times, that.  I thought that I had a little longer before 11 year old Lily joined the 'family time is officially lame' bandwagon.  Alas, it appears I was mistaken.  

Last night, Lily was cleaning her room and I told her that when she was done I would play a game with her.  There was a time that family game night ranked high on Lily's list of Fun Things To Do and any invitations to play a game were met with much enthusiasm.  Apparently, it isn't as high on her fun list these days because my suggestion was met this time with a 'Thanks, but I'd rather watch this show that will be on TV soon.'  We won't even get in to the fact that it was a repeat of a show that she's seen more times than I can count.

Ouch, man.  This parenting gig can be brutal.

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Lesson Learned

A scene from my car, circa a few weeks ago:

"Why are you wearing those soccer shorts?!?!  Those aren't the right shorts!" I screeched at Lily, as I turned the car around to head home in search of the 'right' pair of soccer shorts.   I had discovered that she wasn't wearing the 'right' shorts for soccer practice just as we pulled in to the parking lot at the soccer field.  As we drove home, I lectured Lily for the umpteenth time about personal responsibility.  Don't you know the right shorts to wear to soccer practice?  Yes. Then why did you wear the ones you have on which clearly are NOT the right shorts?  I don't know. Awesome.

After we secured the right pair of shorts and started the trek back to the soccer field, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Lily pulling on her tie dye soccer socks.  "Why are you wearing those socks?!?!  Those aren't the right socks!"   Yes, she knew that she needed the other socks and no, she didn't know why she didn't bring them.  Again, awesome.  Back to the house for the second time to get the correct socks.  After two return trips home, Lily was finally wearing the 'right' outfit and I dropped her off at soccer practice.

Why didn't I just let her go to practicing wearing the wrong gear, you ask?  Well, that's because the very same day as all the parents from our team had received a strongly worded letter from the team mom stating that our girls were not wearing the 'right' practice outfit and from here on out, the league would be fining the teams for each new offense.  I was NOT going to be the mom that ignored the email and brought my kid with the wrong uniform the very day the email was sent...no way.  I suppose I could have plead ignorance and said I hadn't checked my email yet, but alas, I am a rule follower at heart and have known since the beginning of the season that they needed to wear a practice uniform, which Lily had dutifully worn EVERY practice so far.

Anyway, the whole point of that story is to illustrate that situations like that are a common occurrence in our house, with both Lily and even Violet.  I am forever running around to drop off forgotten lunch boxes, money for lab fees, soccer cleats, soccer shorts, water bottles, book reports, school projects...it goes on and on and on.  Lectures on personal responsibility are a dime a dozen around here.  I am firmly of the belief that at the ripe old age of 14 and 11, Violet and Lily are old enough to take some responsibility for making sure they are prepared for school and sports.  

Don't get me wrong, I do my fair share of following them out the door asking if they have everything they need while they roll their eyes and say that yes, they do - only to call me in an hour and say they need me to drop something off in the school office.  That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to think they can get out the door on time with the required materials in hand, whether it's a lunch box, homework or sports gear, especially when I specifically check with both of them Every. Single. Night to make sure lunches are packed, homework is done, uniforms are clean, permissions slips are signed, etc.  Even still, I get a frantic call or text at least once or twice a week asking me to drop off forgotten items.

Today was one of those days.  My phone signaled an incoming text and it was Violet, asking me to drop off her culinary jacket in the school office.  Said jacket was currently crumpled up in a ball on her closet floor.  This was the same jacket I had spied earlier while gathering laundry from her hamper and thought to myself "Hmm, I wonder if she needs that?"  Turns out, she needed it and was asking me to bring it to the school posthaste.

After not very much a lot of deliberation, I decided that  TODAY was the day that I would teach her a lesson.  I texted her back that I was sorry, but I would not drop her jacket off in the school office and she would have to deal with the consequences of not having it and hopefully that would make her remember it next time.  After a moment or two of parental guilt about the fact that I was not coming to the rescue of my precious little snowflake, I actually took an odd sort of glee in the fact that there FINALLY would be some consequences to all the forgetfulness around here and she would learn her lesson.  She never responded back so I can only guess that was was none too pleased with my response.

When I picked Violet up from soccer practice after school, we were talking about her day and I asked her if she got in trouble for not having her jacket for culinary class.  I was anticipating that she might say she got points taken off her assignment that day, or she had to do extra credit to make it up, something to that effect.  She's in high school, they're tougher on high school kids in those situations, right?  What she actually said was "Nope, we just got a new teacher for that class this week so she let it slide."

Well, okay then.  Somebody learned a lesson today, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Violet.

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Happy Birthday to Me!

I mentioned previously that 2013 was going to be the Year of Fun (and also Faith but this post is about the Fun).  As much as I am a planner, I think that sometimes the most fun can be had by being spontaneous and not over-analyzing decisions.

My birthday is this Friday and while I'm not really one to make a big deal out of such events, I decided that there's no better way to kick of the Year of Fun than to do something good for your birthday.  With that in mind, I booked a last minute hotel deal on the beach for a little family getaway.  Two nights where I don't have to cook or clean, and two days of sitting on the beach, which is one of my favorite places to be.  Since it's supposed to be in the 80s here this weekend, there couldn't be a better weekend for it.

If I wanted to, I could think of a million reasons why NOT to stay at the beach this weekend.  But, I don't really want to think of those reasons, so I'm not.  So, this will be the weekend of Spontaneous Fun.  I would say the Year of Fun is off to a pretty decent start.

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I Need More Happy Little Trees

This quote just seems to say it all today.  I will do my best to remember this the next time I'm annoyed that someone is not doing something 'my' way.

“Maybe there lives a cloud right there, wherever you want him, wherever. Just drop him in. It's your sky, so you make the decision where your clouds live. There. Maybe, yes, there's a little friend that lives right there. Right there. Right there. Maybe another one right over in here. You can just get crazy and fill the whole sky up full of clouds, and that's all right.” –Bob Ross, 1989

May we all be happy finding where our clouds live and creating our 'happy little trees.'  Bob Ross, Zen Master...who knew?

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Ya Gotta Have Faith...At Least According to George Michael

Since I've last posted here almost 1.5 years ago, a lot has changed.  I'm the mother of a high school freshman and a 6th grade middle schooler.  I moved...again.  I changed jobs...again.  Things are different, but good.  And yet...I find myself more stressed out than ever about life in general.

That job change means that I'm now self employed.  As the larger income earner between my husband and I, the fact that I don't have a steady paycheck that a nice company deposits in my bank account on a regular basis is scary.  It's working out so far but every once in a while, when I let myself think about it, I get a pit in my stomach about the possibility that my income could dwindle and leave us in a bad place financially.  Another sticking point with my work situation is that I work from home, so there are days and days at a time where I don't leave my house except to shuttle someone to or from soccer or possibly go to the grocery store.  To some this might sound like heaven, but the more time I spend at home, the less I actually want to leave, then I feel even worse...it's a vicious cycle.

On the home front, keeping up with my girls and their ever expanding extracurricular and social calendar is a full time job in and of itself.  This Fall, they both played on two soccer teams each - one competitive and one school team, which meant that someone had practice or a game almost Every. Single. Day.  Some days, they had a practice and a game, some days two practices, some days there were two games in two different places, or a game here and a practice there...you get the idea.  We're coming up on tournament season and I'm conveniently not thinking about the fact that there are multiple weekends in the near future where each kid is playing in a tournament in a different city.  Plus, Lily is starting school play rehearsals when school starts back on Monday, so we'll be adding that in to the mix.  It's always something, you know?

All of this leaves me feeling tired and overwhelmed much of the time. Yes, things could be worse - but they could also be better.  With that in mind, I had already decided that I was not going to do New Year's resolutions or goals, because I feel like that's just setting myself up to fail.  That said, I decided to have a couple of words to represent how I want to live this year.

The first word is:  FAITH.  I'm not a particularly religious or spiritual person and faith is something that I've struggled with mightily in the last couple of years.  I've only recently realized that I can have faith without it having to do with religion.  I can have faith in myself.  This year, I'm going to have faith that things are going to work out with my job and income because I work really hard and am good at my job.  I'm going to have faith that things will work out how they are supposed to, even if I don't understand it at the time.  I'm going to have faith that everything is going to be okay.

The second word is:  FUN.  I often find that I let my own issues get in the way of having fun.  Things that are supposed to be fun sometimes stress me out, maybe because they don't go exactly how I expect them to or how I think they should.  I can easily talk myself out of doing something I might enjoy because it's either outside my comfort zone or seems like too much work.  I've already started working on this with some successes and some failures, but the important thing is, I'm trying.

So, 2013 is the year of faith and also fun.  I wonder if George Michael would approve?

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I Still Kind of Hate Money and Budgets

In a previous post I discussed my hatred for all things money and budget related. Even though I hate it, I still did it. I made a budget. All of a sudden I have multiple spreadsheets with names like "Cash Flow Analysis" and "Savings Balance" etc.

I now have our bills and expenses calculated out for the rest of 2011 and put myself on a strict budget of $25 per week spending money. That might not seem like a lot. That's because it's NOT. Luckily, I work from home so it's not convenient for me to pop out to get lunch, or drop by Starbucks for a Frappucino. That helps. But still, if I want to indulge in my mani/pedis, I have to like, save my spending money for more than a week to have enough to cover it. So weird. (Mr. Chick's spending money is a whole other topic for another day - trust me, it's complicated.)

Interestingly enough, I started talking about this topic because of a Twitter comment made my Miss Britt and the system I've adopted is really similar to the spreadsheet budgeting method she talked about at one point on her blog. I've actually tried for years to come up with a budgeting system that would work for us and I think I've finally done it. I couldn't figure out exactly what I found so difficult about the other budgets I tried, but I had a huge 'Aha' moment not too long ago.

I realized that a lot of the pre-existing budget spreadsheets and programs are built based on a monthly schedule, but for me, it's easier to budget based on pay period. Mr. Chick and I are both paid bi-weekly on similar schedules, so it's much simpler to budget our money for bills during a pay period, than to look at a month from the first to the last day, when that doesn't usually fit in with our pay cycle. Because of that, I never really had a clear picture of how much money we had, or didn't have.

I now know at any given time, exactly how much money is in our checking and savings accounts. I can tell you how much we'll be able to put in savings by the end of December. I can tell you what the balance on my checking account will be in November. Again, so weird. But, liberating at the same time.

I still haven't made any progress with establishing what our ultimate financial goals are, but hey, the fact that I have a spreadsheet that I look at on a regular basis called 'Cash Flow Analysis' is good enough for me. At least for now.

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Lucky Number 13

Violet turned 13 last weekend. I am now the mother of a teenager. How is that even possible?

We celebrated on Saturday with a 40 person cookout with family and friends and I made this cake, which was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Alas, the only pictures we got of said cake are below and they don't fully convey the awesomeness that is the Super Special Rainbow Cake:

On Sunday, which was Violet's actual birthday, we marked her 13th year with a round of mini golf and ice cream and Violet's favorite dinner, lasagna. Oh, and more cake. A fun time was had by all.

Did I mention that I'm the mother of a teenager? Crazy.

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