Monthly Archives: January 2007

frustration, Monkey, parenting

Timeliness…

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Why can’t I leave the house on time in the morning?

Maybe it’s because I have a bad habit of failing to set my alarm some mornings, though this can’t be entirely at fault as my Kitten Alarm climbs on my head and begins to purr anywhere from an hour to twenty minutes before I would hear my actual alarm anyway.

Okay, it could be that once I am awake, it takes an act of god to get the small person motivated enough to dress and eat. Even today, when she was very self sufficient and got herself dressed in the first five minutes of the morning, there were a series of child delays that struck the timeliness off our morning.
For example:

After clothes have been donned but before the application of shoes and socks:

Monkey : Mommy, it’s Easter!!
Me: No sweetie, easter is in March.
Monkey: But Mommy, Papa said on the phone it was easter.
Me: Well honey, Papa was wrong, easter is in March.
Monkey: Oh, that’s in three days, right?
Me: No honey, it’s in three months. Could you please finish getting dressed and ready for school?
Monkey: Okay mommy!!

Five Minutes Later…

Monkey: Mommy, when I was asleep last night, I felt a dark shadow over me!
(At this moment I was struck with the images of a thousand horror movies watched while a young adult…. in retrospect, not such a good influence on my imagination after all.)
Me: refocused on child Are your teeth brushed?
Monkey: It was the easter bunny I think!!
Me: Honey, easter isn’t for another three months, you probably felt the cat. Have you brushed your teeth?
Monkey: It wasn’t the cat Mommy!! It was a dark shadow and I think it was the easter bunny.
Me: Monkey. You need to brush your teeth, once you are completely ready for school and eating your breakfast, then you can tell me all about the dark shadow.
Monkey: Okay mommy!!

Is it me, or is there an inherent ability in children to have flights of fancy any time you are already running late? Where the heck did all this easter stuff come from anyway? Argh!!

Of course, once she was at the table fully ready for school she was too busy kicking the table leg, banging the tabletop, and talking about the dark shadow of the impending easter bunny to actually consume enough food to last her until lunch. Which means I will hear from her teacher that she complained of a tummy ache for the hour before lunch.

Do you think the teacher will believe her tummy ache was caused by easter bunny anxiety?

Activism, making a difference, Political

The good, the bad, and the ugly…

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I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about the nature of wo(&)man kind. Are people generally good? Bad? What makes a person’s life good? What makes it bad? Are we able to have an overall positive effect on the world, or are the unconcious daily decisions we make damaging enough to outweigh any concious good we do?

For example: I donate time and money to a variety of social interests I view important. I vote with my wallet, in that I research companies I purchase from (when I can) and decide whether or not to buy from them based on my research. However, I can’t research every company I intend to purchase a good or service from all the time, so am I actually living my life such that I have a net positive effect on the world, or a negative one.

Walmart is an excellent example of this. They are the first company to require a pharmacist on staff who will dispense the morning after pill at all times. They also responded really well to Katrina and are partnering with GE to place floresent lights on their shelves as they are the lowest energy lights and will save energy, money, and time. However, they still employ bad business practices that are designed to drive their mom and pop competitors out of business, they still pay men more than women on average, promote them more, etc, and they still pay their people so little they can’t shop at their own store.

So at the end of the day, is Walmart still evil? Is it still the place you never want to support? Does it’s negative outweigh it’s positives or vise versa.

If you are a foster family, and you shop at Walmart, are you in a net positive or negative? You are supporting the evils of Walmart, along with the goods, but you are also saving the lives of children by opening your homes to them.

Granted, whatever the outcome of your life is, or the aggregate total of evil or good you do, you should not use a net negative argument to stop doing good things, but it is an interesting perspective. When evaluating the human race as a whole, should we look to all the evil they do and all the good they do? Should we instead examine people as they act in groups, individually, etc?

In answering the question, Are people generally good or generally evil?, what traits and actions should be examined?

environment, frustration, Monkey, parenting, Political

Little red riding hood…

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Little red riding hood and the big bad wolf…

One of the odder things about living in New Jersey is the existence of blooming roses in December and January. They simply will not die!! I am pleased to see new buds every few weeks. Monkey is on permanent rose watch, checking them each morning on the way to school. She has definately mastered the stopping to smell the roses aspect of life.

I am with Hatchet in the argumentative child department, but I fear I only have myself to blame. She attended law school classes with me for 3 out of 5 of her formative years, one can only imagine that rubbed off on her.

This morning was a lovely example of the daily arguing:

She woke up 30 minutes early and came into my room.
Monkey: Mommy, the sun is out!
Me: Morning honey, what time is it?
Daddy: mumble mumble…. 7…. grunt
Me: Please go get dressed and I will be up in a minute
Monkey: no
Me: Monkey, you need to get ready for school, please go get dressed
Monkey: I don’t want to
Me: Your dad is trying to sleep a little longer, please go get dressed, I will be right out!
Monkey: Mom! I don’t want to!
Me: If I have to ask again, I will not be happy.
Monkey: I don’t WANT TO!!
Me: 1…2…3….
Monkey: **fierce growls of frustration, stomping out of our room.** FINE!!

Sigh, it is always a bad sign when the first conversation of the day is an argument. It followed with breakfast (didn’t want what I made), teeth (didn’t want to brush), shoes (was too busy playing leapfrog to put them on), and coat (didn’t need it).
By the time I got her in the car we were already late, and I was developing a headache.

I think I am going to have to begin sending her to school in bare feet without her teeth and hair brushed on an empty stomach. How long do you think I will be able to keep that up before I get approached with a child neglect concern?

Yesterday, after arguing with me over everything all day, I asked her if she had to argue with me over every single thing! Her answer: No. She argued about arguing!! Argh!!

However, she is getting better at cleaning her room, doing her homework, and eating her dinner, so I am counting my blessings. Also, I have learned from reliable sources that this argumentation is the cost of intelligent children. So, my choices are frustration, or fewer smarts. hmmm….

Another political message:

Save the big bad wolf!!


(image from http://www.tvdance.com)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to release a proposal to strip wolves of their Endangered species act protections across most of Wyoming and de-list wolves in Idaho, where the state is poised to kill up to 75% of the wolves living in the Lolo district of the Clearwater National Forest. Changing the status of the wolves will likely allow the use of aerial gunning and other lethal control methods to kill as many as two-thirds of the wolves in Wyoming and as many as 54 of Idaho’s 65 wolf packs. The states are interested in lowering the wolf population because they cause losses to livestock on some farms and ranches. However, this natural wolf-like behavior is the exact reason they were listed endangered to begin with. Wolves were eradicated from their historic ranges when humans began using those habitats for ranching and farming, and the wolves began hunting livestock as their natural prey disappeared.

If the US Fish and Wildlife service is allowed to delist wolves, there is no expectation that they will remain a recovered species. In fact, with two states already poised to destroy more than half the current population, there is no reason to expect wolves will survive long at all.

Please visit the petition site and lend your voice to the outcry against destorying wolves once again. We worked so hard to get this species to recover, do not allow FWS to strip them of thier protections now!!