Family

Good Days, Bad Days

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Debora

‘Tis the season when mail-order catalogues start overflowing mailboxes; at our house they progress from a trickle to a deluge between mid-September and Christmas Day. Luke and I were talking the other day about how the universal message of every magazine ad, tv commercial and catalogue seems to be, “this is the toy/gadget/car/pair of jeans/piece of jewelry/whatever that will bring joy and meaning to your life!” Luke asked why that was, and I told him that it was because their target audience of modern-day consumers tend to lead such stressful, unfulfilled lives that they’ll grab at almost anything that promises to make them feel happy and successful. “That’s a big part of why there are so many maxed-out credit cards in America these days,” I said, “and why nearly everyone worries about not having enough money no matter high their income is.”

Luke shook his head. “I don’t get it. If people are so unhappy, why don’t they just start loving each other instead of buying a bunch of stupid stuff they can’t afford?”

If Luke had lived in fairytale days, he totally would have been the kid who pointed out that the Emperor was, in fact, not wearing any clothes. How I love my boy.

That conversation was on Monday. Yesterday was not so idyllic; Luke fussed and whined about not getting “enough” computer playtime between homework time and storytime. The argument escalated, Elizabeth joined in, and it all ended with me taking away their afterschool computer privileges completely for the next week and then sending them both to bed (at 7:30).

Part of me really misses the simplicity of not having a computer at all, and wonders if I made a mistake in getting it fixed. Another part of me worries that I’m being unfair and overly strict. I don’t want to treat them as if they were toddlers, but I don’t particularly enjoy being yelled at either. On the other hand, I don’t want them to feel like they aren’t allowed to express their feelings to me, negative or otherwise…

It’s a freaking tightrope, this parenting thing. Luke’s words come back to me: “If people are so unhappy, why don’t they just start loving each other?” Truly words to live by, but I don’t always know the best way to love my children. It’s a fine line between discipline and tyranny sometimes, and an even finer line between understanding and overindulgence. I get that my kids are still just kids and that it’s my job to be the responsible role model. Most of the time I’m very happy and comfortable in that position. Sometimes I really wish that at some point I could have had a healthy, responsible parental role model in my own life so I could know what it’s supposed to look like. I wish all of my old friends didn’t live in other towns and/or states; there are times when I feel like I’d give almost anything just to spend a few hours hanging out among my own kind.

Our family ratio of good days to bad days is very high in favor of the good days, thank goodness, and I really think that leaving the computer off while the kids are home and awake this week will restore balance. It’s a temporary solution though, and the decision of whether or not to make it permanent isn’t an easy one. I mean, children have thrived for thousands of years without any computer time at all, right? But now here we are in the 21st Century and times have, to put it mildly, changed, and maybe Luke really is entitled to play endless rounds of “Puke the Pirate” and “Castle Calamity.” And surely Elizabeth’s creativity and talent are being fostered when she’s Photoshopping pictures of Espio into our Disneyland pics to make it look like he was there with us, while playing the Leekspin song on an infinite loop in the background?

Btw, don’t click on that Leekspin link unless you’re prepared to have that tune in your head for the rest of your life. It’s Earwormzilla.

Where was I? Love Thursday, right. Love as the cure for unhappiness.

I believe it, I truly do. And about 85% of the time we are nothing but happy around here. It’s just when I come up against a parenting dilemma that I don’t know how to respond to, and all the logic and reasoning in the world doesn’t point to any particular right answer, and I think to myself, “this, this is why people are supposed to partner up and do this together,” that I start feeling a little sorry for myself. Last night I was positively wallowing in my parental insecurities.

This morning I woke up feeling much better, and so did the kids. Luke was his usual chatty, affectionate self; Elizabeth was her usual quiet-but-friendly self. They talked about the thunderstorm (rain today, hurray!) and told me about the dreams they’d had last night, and there was no trace of any lingering bad feelings over yesterday’s mutual blowup. It was just us again, a family that loves each other and appreciates the value of having each other in our lives.

Luke’s words of wisdom ring truer the longer I think about them. Just love each other; do that and the rest will work itself out.

Happy Love Thursday, everyone. Love someone extra well today.

Categories: Family, frugality, kids, Life, Love, Love Thursday | 2 Comments

Sampler Saturday: Childhood Is Temporary; Imaginary Friends Are Forever. Apparently. Also: Starships!

Posted on September 25, 2010 by Debora

Once a year I go through the kids’ bedrooms and we sort out the toys that have been outgrown and can be packed away or donated to the thrift store. We used to do this in late fall or early winter, to make room for the big piles of shiny new Christmas toys, but alas, those days of big piles of new Christmas toys are bygone and yore, verily. Avast! Where was I? Right, the annual bedroom purges. Since it doesn’t matter so much anymore when we do them, I tackled Elizabeth’s room a few weeks ago. Turns out she’s outgrown a LOT of toys since the last time; her shelves were looking rather bare in the wake of our cleaning spree. I was tossing stuff into a cardboard box, confirming each item with her as I went. “Footprints too?” I asked, grabbing the toy in question and holding it over the box.

“Are you KIDDING?” she gasped, rescuing Footprints and restoring him lovingly to his familiar place on the shelf. “I’m never going to outgrow FOOTPRINTS!”

This is Footprints:

Elizabeth got him when she was four or five. Or maybe three. Anyway, she was a wee thing and she loved him like crazy. When he was brand new he had flashing lights and cool sound effects, but a few too many trips through mud puddles and sprinklers (and possibly the bathtub) put an end to that. Elizabeth loved him just the same.

The only reason I still have Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out” on any of my iTunes playlists is because to this day, whenever it plays, Elizabeth says, “Oh! It’s Footprints’ favorite song!” I never get tired of that.

So apparently Footprints’ near-storage-experience got Elizabeth to thinking about which of her imaginary (“reality challenged?”) friends will still feel real to her when she’s all grown up and adult-like, and then she and Luke got into a conversation about it and he contributed his own list of BFFs, and then she was inspired to sit down and draw…not a comic, exactly. A Vision Of The Future, where she and Luke have grown up and become…captains of their own starships.

Hey, it’s good to aim high.

She started with Luke:

You can tell it’s Grownup Luke because of the pipe and the mustache. Love that spirally mic cord! Luke’s passion for steampunk will apparently integrate itself into the design of his future starship. And it looks like he will still be in the habit of wearing a coat almost year-round, with the sound-dampening hood always up to discourage his peers from attempting to engage him in conversation. It’s like his personal Cone of Silence.

The Hymie he’s speaking to is the boy from The Polar Express, the main character. The boy doesn’t have a name in either the book or the movie, but Luke dug the character enough to include him in his imaginative play, so he needed to be called something. I think Luke got the name Hymie from the robot dude in Get Smart. Moving on…

Looks like Hymie’s all grown up too. Still has bed-head, though.

Otto Matic, from one of Luke’s favorite video games. He’s a robot, so he ages well.

Alrighty then. Let’s take a look at Captain Elizabeth:

I…don’t even know where to begin with this pic. The vintage ’50’s shades, the slinky little dress, the inch-long talons, the hair…well, okay, the hair’s fairly realistic. Elizabeth has some serious hair.

(Btw, those are iPods and earbuds in the “In Case Of Emergency” case. Snerk.)

When I first saw this drawing, I commented to Elizabeth that it was hard for me to imagine her ever looking like that. She replied, “Well, that’s when I’m an adult.” Ah. Okay then. I fear that my own adult card is in danger of being revoked, though, if it involves dressing like that.

Captain Elizabeth might consider turning down the lighting levels on her bridge, since everyone seems to be so blinded by the glare that they have to wear sunglasses.

Espio doesn’t look a day over sixteen. I guess. It’s hard to tell with those Mobian Chameleons.

Classic.

Categories: Family, Friends, Humor, kids, Life, Love, Sampler Saturday | 2 Comments

Luke’s Belated Birthday Post

Posted on September 23, 2010 by Debora

Luke hit the Big One-Oh in August. He’d told me way back last winter that for his tenth birthday he wanted to do what we’d done when Elizabeth turned eleven: a two-day trip to Disneyland and California Adventure. I told him that sounded like a grand idea, and when I was working at the Census job I set aside a chunk of cash to cover the expenses, basing my estimate on what we’d spent for Elizabeth’s trip.

A few weeks before his birthday, I started looking into the details and realized that the only SoCal discount the resort is offering this year is a 3-day pass. It was a great deal, but even so, the money I’d set aside wasn’t even going to cover the cost of the passes to get in. Never mind the two-night hotel stay, the food, the gas…yarg.

Now, this was a complication, not a catastrophe — except for the fact that my hard drive had just crashed, it was going to cost upwards of $300 for a new one, and if I went ahead with the Disneyland plans there was no telling when I might be able to afford the repairs. Part of me felt like the only reasonable thing to do was to cancel Luke’s birthday trip, or shorten it to a single day at Disneyland. And in fact that probably would have been the “reasonable” course of action.

The funny thing is, I never gave any serious thought to going that route. The kids wanted three days at the parks, I wanted three days at the parks, it wasn’t going to kill us to be computerless for a while, and a kid only goes from single-digits to double-digits once in his life. I bought the 3-day passes.

It was TOTALLY the right choice. Three days is exactly the right amount of time to spend at the Happy Place. We went to Disneyland the first day…

…California Adventure the second day…

…and back to Disneyland on the third day:

It was definitely the highlight of the kids’ year. (I had a blast too, but the highlight of my year was getting new wall siding to replace the tinfoil stuff that used to let in the wind and cold and bugs and stuff. But that’s another post.) I know that from a strictly logical point of view it doesn’t really make sense, on our budget, to spend all the money we spend on these birthday outings. But someday when Luke and Elizabeth have grown up and moved on and they look back at their childhood years, it’s not the home improvements or the size of the savings account that they’re going to remember with a warm glow of nostalgia. It’s these times we spend enjoying each another’s company, sharing our laughter and ourselves with one another. And maybe someday when they have kids of their own, they’ll instinctively know how create a life of true joy and love and laughter for their own families, instead of buying into the world’s relentless message that More Stuff is the key to happiness.

Happy Love Thursday, everyone. May your Happy Place always be shared with the ones you love!

Categories: Birthdays, Family, kids, Life, Love, Love Thursday, Travel, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Elizabeth Discovers Model Magic

Posted on September 22, 2010 by Debora

(Click on the dragons for a larger image; the detail is wonderful.)

Categories: Artwork, Dragons, Family, Humor, kids, Life, Love, Wordless Wednesday | 3 Comments

I’m Back! Sorta!

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Debora

I got my first computer in 1991 or ’92, a gift from a dear friend who wanted to help me stay in touch with my old buds after I moved to The Land That Time Forgot (as another old friend likes to call Anza). The Internet wasn’t really a thing yet; we communicated through Bulletin Board Systems via 2400-baud modems. It was great.

Until this summer, I hadn’t been without a computer and global connection for more than a few days in over 18 years. Sure, there was that time in ’06 when my modem died and and it almost two weeks before I could get back online with a shiny new wireless connection, but I was heavily into PBeM gaming at the time and every unconnected day was agony, so I spent a fair amount of time at the library or on other people’s PC’s.

Computers have been a fairly significant part of my adult life, is what I’m saying.

When my hard drive crashed ten weeks ago I was surprised by my own lack of panic. Granted, it’s been an unusually busy summer for me and I wasn’t getting online as much anyway, but it was still my primary source of recreation and socialization. Or so I thought.

Apparently that’s not the case anymore.

Somewhere along the way, without me quite noticing, Luke and Elizabeth have become my primary source of recreation and socialization. This was not only revealed but also enhanced by the absence of an Internet connection. As a family we became more interactive, more creative, more conversational, more attuned to one another and to our own lives. Luke, who had never been much of a recreational reader, inhaled a huge pile of books over the past couple of months. Elizabeth took up sculpting with Model Magic and delighted herself and the rest of us with the results. We conversed and shared and laughed together more than we’d ever done before. Without the everpresent siren call of the Glowing Rectangle, life was just…nicer. I was tempted to not get my Mac fixed at all.

So why did I? Well, it turns out that life can also be freaking inconvenient without an Internet connection. I don’t have tv reception or a newspaper subscription, so my Mac handles a multitude of everyday tasks for me. I couldn’t check the weather forecast, make hotel reservations, update my Netflix queue, update my iPod, look up recipes, get driving directions, check my bank balance, check the news, find answers to the neverending stream of questions that my children ask…you get the idea. I had to actually drive 40 miles to the Temecula Library to check out actual books on subjects Luke or Elizabeth wanted to learn about, instead of just consulting the Googles in the comfort of my own home. For me, my Mac is a tool that I have become unwilling to do without.

I learned something during the past ten weeks, though. My computer adds some good important stuff to our lives, but if we’re not careful it also takes some even more important stuff away from us. I want to spend less time online and more time just being with my family. I want my kids to spend less time online and more time tapping into their own creativity. That’s a priority for me now; I plan to work toward making it happen every day.

Ironically, just when I’ve resolved to spend less time blogging and such, I have a ton of fun stuff to blog about from my time offline. The kids are back in school now though, and I’ve almost finished all my projects, so I should eventually be able to get it all posted.

I gotta admit, it’s good to be back. The Internet is a lovely place to visit…I just don’t want to live there.

Categories: books, Family, Friends, Gaming, kids, Life, Love, Role-Playing Games | 9 Comments