Welcoming the life November 7, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Current Affairs , add a commentTonight, the snake of adulthood takes another giant bite. We’ve gone through the marriage, buying a house, trying to get pregnant, having a child, going to school. Tonight? We have our first parent-teacher conference.
So many things to stress about with it. So many good things to learn.
Sigh….
More later!
What’s your style? November 6, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Parenting 101 , 4 commentsChicagoMama had a great post about her parenting style. I liked this post and I promised to appropriate it. It is funny how CM and I differ! 
- I push politeness. I do my best, but I forget sometimes. I use Please and Thank you with my husband and children. I do my best to explain that we need manners. As far as I can tell, we have done pretty well on this front. I still have the "climbing on the furniture" issue… Sigh
- we encourage television. I know, we are horrible modern parents, right? But…but…both Jay and I learned a great deal from TV. We both watched shows that are now on discovery channel. We both retained factoids from shows like this. We would watch these and go to the library and learn more. The girls will watch a show and then play act it. I like to see this kind of imagination. Take an idea and expand on it. We discuss what we watch on TV. My most often repeated phrase during TV is "nope, we aren’t buying that". Sure, they get exposure to toys that they would otherwise not see, but I can’t prevent them from seeing the world forever. So let them see it now, with the explanations of what manipulation is.
- We sadly encourage free thought. I say sadly because it means that we get into minor power struggles. Teaching respect while teaching independence and standing for what you mean is a tough line to toe. But we are doing it. I want my girls to have the balls to stand up and say "This is wrong. I will not allow this to happen" while doing it with respect. This is so hard. Some days I just want them to listen and do what I ask….
- Lack of cleaning gene. I failed to get the cleaning gene. I failed to pass this on to my children. Last night, Soleil lost it when I pulled back her sheets… Why? Because she had made her bed! And she didn’t want to have to make it again (as in EVER) sigh… Luna’s room is just as bad
- toys? Ha! I try to eliminate some, but I don’t go as crazy as I could. We have 2 leap pad books and will have 2 leapsters in the house. The girls love these toys, as much as they love books. We don’t go crazy with educational toys, but we also don’t discourage them. I originally thought I would do without plastic toys, but I found that you can have a healthy mix.
- I was surprised to discover we don’t punish much. The two biggest things that we use are removal of TV privileges and quiet time. We will ask the offender to go to their room and calm down so we can talk. Not letting TV be watched is a huge issue for the girls. We don’t use time outs (we limit what we do use), we encourage discussion, we don’t hit.
- In the same vein, I encourage the girls to work it out. A common phrase in my house is "So? Why are you telling me what she did? Go tell her how you feel!" I make them discuss their feelings with each other. I refuse to be a referee. If I wanted to be a ref, I would sharpen my skates and apply to the local league.
- I believe strongly in the "try out and find the answer" parenting. As long as it isn’t going to hurt anyone, I allow for experimentation. So far, so good. We have the most interesting dinner discussions. And we have a great deal of "..and if this breaks, who’s fault is it?"
- Everything is fair game for discussion. Imagine the day that Jay went to Elie Wiesel’s talk. They now know that Wiesel spent time in a "camp" for Jews that was created by a man who was not nice. A man who wanted to run the world his way. A man who hated Jews just because they were Jewish. I am not going to explain Auschwitz with them today. But they have a right to learn about the evils of the world.
I think that sums up the space parenting…
Conversations… November 6, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , 2 commentsSpacemom and Luna:
Mommy?
Yes?
Can I grow a baby?
Um, when you’re older.
Soleil said I couldn’t grow a baby.
Oh, honey, that’s because you guys were playing a game.
Mommy? When I am older and a get a little piece from a boy I can grow a baby inside me?
Uh, yeah, sure, when you are ready and married….
Spacemom and the guy at the Apple Genius Bar:
Okay, so I installed Leopard, and X11 didn’t work and I backed out X11 and now I am hosed.
Well, as long as you didn’t mess in the UNIX you’re fine
You mean like deleting the X11 directories? Because I did that once I couldn’t get the X11 authentication to behave.
Wow, you know a lot more about this than I do. But yeah, if you deleted directories, you’re hosed. Let’s do a reinstall.
Spacemom and Soleil:
Mommy! I can spell OK.. ready? O K!
(Luna)- How do you spell O?
Spacemom and Jay:
In 20 years, when I complain that the house is too quiet, remind me of today, OK?
Sure, not a problem. But it won’t be quiet. We’ll finally get to have sex again!
Scaredy Cat November 2, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : She Blinded me with Science , add a commentI was trying to work from home today. And then I f*ucked up BIG time. In trying to fix my Leopard (new OS for MAC) I somehow managed to allow my machine to have X11 on it and I can’t execute it.
This basically means I will be running to the Apply Genius Bar at 1:10 to see if they can fix it.
Oh just bite me… Why did I try to fix this?
Storm Front November 2, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Depression , 1 comment so farOut of nowhere, I heard the rumblings yesterday. Around 2 in the afternoon, I looked up from my work to notice the edge of the front coming. It was surprising. I had no warning. No forecasts of the heavy cloud coming my way.
I was working in a meeting at 3. A windowless room, a table full of Halloween candy. The pressure drop was getting to me.
By the time I got home, I knew the storm was here.
By 8:30 the depression had settled back in after staying away for so long.
A little bit of nasty Spacemom November 1, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Current Affairs, Depression , 1 comment so farPlease forgive the randomness of today… I forgot to take my medicines yesterday and I am still suffering today!
So work has this "web protector" which has decided that all websites from blogspot.com are dangerous. Of course, it has to do with a backdoor that you can slip code onto your blog that can attack your Windows machine.
Oh wait, I WORK ON A SOLARIS MACHINE. Most of the people I work with are on Solaris, Mac or Linux machines. We don’t do Microsoft. Thanks to government efficiency, we can’t read blogs (including the astronomy blogs that I read) because of someone being stupid enough to not protect their windows machine back in DC.
BITE ME!
I have the world’s greatest T-shirt…
It is black, with white and red lettering: "I understand…I just don’t care!"
Which is how I feel today!
Anyway, life moves forward, Candy has been collected.
Oh and a note to the jerk at the end of the next street… When a 5 year old is telling you she isn’t scared of you and the 3 year old in the wagon is crying, I think it MIGHT be the time to just tell the kids that you are joking and "happy Halloween" instead of telling the 5 year old that you are going to eat her. Hello? You think your kids were ever small once? If you ever do such a stupid thing again, I will call you every time I have to get out of bed because the 5 year old has nightmares because of YOU.
Note to Soleil: Proud of you for telling the jerk "You’re not a ghost. You’re just a man trying to scare me" And for standing your ground even though it was pretty clear you were scared… Go girl. That is how we deal!
Big Girl Scout thingy tomorrow. I need to start working on the dress for Cleveland. Sigh. I need a week off and a warm bed…. SIgh… BITE ME WORLD. For that is how I feel today
