The Baby's Rash

Okay, it's going to be time to do some research.  I'm at that point where I just don't know what to do anymore, and the doctors have been giving us nothing to go on.  Doctors can be so infuriating sometimes!  It's time to start working on my own solutions for this problem we've had!

I know I've mentioned the baby's rash, and I believe that he had chicken pox, that the chicken pox rash got infected, and it was all kinds of craziness.  We were suggested that not using cloth diapers could help with the rash if it returned.  Well, here's the problem, we've gone over to disposables and the rash still returns, though often times not as bad.  We're planning on going over to cloth again as soon as we can get our washer and dryer up and running.

Well, today we found that the baby once again has a horrible rash, the same red, irritated, and kind of course skin.  It looks pretty rough for the little dude!  This time, I'm at a loss for how he got it, and what to do about it.  You see, before those rashes were all in the diaper area.  We could pretty easily blame the diapers or moisture for his rashy problem.  Now, however, it's not in the diaper region.  It's on his outer thigh.  It could be from just about anything!  We can pretty well rule out contact with the rug or floor as that would have caused a reaction sooner.  He wasn't wearing any leg coverings when it happened, so it wasn't his clothes.  There's got to be something though!  That makes it so much harder to treat too!

Medical advice says it's got to be moisture related, like a diaper rash, but we've eliminated that as a possibility.  Aside from that, they say it must be related to a diaper rash that he doesn't have.  It's been quite frustrating to get any kind of solid advice!

I went through this with my hands when I found out I had eczema.  The doctor had never seen it present quite like that before, so she was skeptical.  Finally they figured it out and were able to treat it.  I hate to think this is what we're going to have to go through with my poor little one.  In the mean time, if they don't find a solution, I'm going to try to find one of my own.

Reading to Her Brother?

We've been having a bit of a rough time here.  Our neighbors have been complaining about everything.  We don't live in an expensive neighborhood where the apartments are well sound proofed.  In truth, we hear a lot of noise from the neighbors downstairs, and they hear every step we make on our floor.  They've done nothing but complain about my children making noise and shaking the whole house, even when they're just walking, or happen to be sitting down looking at books, or doing school work.  As a result, I've taken to checking on my children several times each day if they aren't sitting down with me.

Just the other day I was doing this when I heard my daughter tell her brother, "Let's read Madeline together!"  They sat down on the bed and she started turning the pages and reading each.  Many of the sentences are fairly short, so it should be a pretty easy read for her.  When I finally walked in the room, she said, "Oh, I was just telling him what I remembered it saying in the movie."  As much as Madeline had many of the opening lines in the book in the movie, I know my daughter hasn't seen the movie recently enough or frequently enough to have it memorized.  However, she's been spending so much time trying to convince me that she can't read that I'm starting to catch on.  I'm not as clueless as she seems to think!

I played a little game with her.  I asked her to say it without the book in front of her.  She couldn't do it.  She said she needed the pictures to remind her.  I gave her the book back and paid very close attention to what her eyes did on the page.  Yes, they looked over the picture first, but then they dropped to the little black words at the bottom of the page and showed all the classic patterns of reading!

Silly girl, you can't fool me!  I don't know why it is she wants to pretend she can't read, and we'll go with it for a little bit longer, but I'm smarter than all of that.  I know she can read.  I think now it's just a matter of getting her to love it enough that she won't want to hide her ability to read!

Finally Busting out the Game!

As I believe I mentioned before, my daughter was given the Made for Trade game by her dad for Christmas this year.  I had given rave reviews of loving that game incredibly much!  I had such horrible visions of busting it out and hating the game because it was nothing like I remembered.

Well, let me tell you, we all loved it!  We used the simplest level of the game since my daughter really isn't ready for all the reading that comes with the second level.  They say the lowest level is good for ages eight and up.  The next is for ten and up where you start as an indentured servant and shop from your list.  The third is for ages twelve and up where you make your own lists.  I honestly don't think my sister and I ever made our own lists, but I do remember insisting that you had to buy everything on your list as part of the game so we could make the game last as long as possible.

So we played through the game.  With what many of the reviews said, I expected the game to be quite long and drawn out.  I was expecting to be circling the board for a couple of hours at least, but the game was quite short!  I was a little disappointed by how quickly it sped by.  I can imagine with event cards and shopping lists, it takes a good deal longer.  Still, it was a good introduction to the game and the board.  Because it's so quick and easy, this could easily become a game that's brought out any time we don't have time for a huge ordeal of a game, but want something to pass the time.

Most importantly, my daughter had a great time with it!  She loved the whole feel of the game.  Given the game uses two dice instead of one, it's also a good chance to work on her addition skills, even if it is only between two and twelve.  She was working those reading skills too!  It wouldn't have been so bad, but reading has been rough for her.  I'm thrilled that we were able to pull out those skills in a format other than traditional schooling!  She was pretty pleased with herself too!

This game has gone back up on the shelf for the night, but I don't think it's going to be one of those games that stays there for long.  I have a feeling this game will come down again and again as it's quickly becoming a household favorite already!  I didn't have much doubt on that one!

Our Little House Elf

When I was a little girl I remember someone telling me a story about a little elf.  This little elf lived in this house with a family.  I want to say a wizard or a witch lived in the house or something, but I really don't remember that part of the story.  What I do remember is that this little elf used to cook, clean, and mend for fun.

We have our own little elf in the house.  She loves to clean (as long as it's not her room).  She enjoys helping in the kitchen.  She wants to learn to mend some day.  We're a very lucky house to be blessed with our own little elf!  It's such a joy to have one!

Who is this little house elf?  It's my daughter!  While she throws a royal fit when it's time to clean her room, she can't wait to clear the table and set it for dinner.  She's excited to sweep the floor.  She's thrilled at the idea of any little act of housekeeping.  It's funny how something an adult can see as a chore ends up being great fun to a child!  She looks at it as being very helpful, which she likes because being helpful makes everyone happy.

Again, this is kind of a revisit on that whole chore thing.  This is yet one more reason I think it's important for children to take part in keeping after the home.  If she can learn to love keeping house for the joy of it, she'll never tire of it.  It will always be something she can do because it brings happiness to those she shares her home with.

Some day our little house elf will go on to keep her own home, blessing it each and every day with a bright smile as she sweeps the floor and washes the dishes.  Cleaning her home makes her happy, and she loves the effect it has on everyone.  That's a gift she'll carry with her for the rest of her life!

The Perils of Nap Time

Nap time around here has gotten interesting.  Now that the boys are sharing a room, it makes getting anyone to get to sleep and stay asleep for long kind of interesting.  The little one really needs naps every day, but the older one has kind of outgrown the want for them.  As a result, it means the room has to be off limits for a while out of each day.

Getting the little one to sleep in his own bed has proven to be a bit of a trick.  He's big enough now that having him sleep on my bed for a nap isn't all that practical.  He'll be into everything in the bedroom before I have a chance to know he's awake.  Therefore, we've started putting him in his playpen for naps, letting him sleep with us at night.  I miss the days where we could just put him in his travel swing for naps!  It was so much easier to know he would be safe and secure.  I also miss those days when he was small enough to sleep in our bed without having to worry about him crawling off when he wakes up.  Still, he's bigger now and we've got to find other solutions that leave him safe and with the ability to rest.

Today we ran into our first major issue.  The kids thought it was a brilliant idea to put all of their toys in the baby's playpen instead of cleaning up.  As a result, I went to put the baby down, but there was nowhere to put him down!  By the time they cleaned it out (as loudly as possible) the baby was awake again.  I finally got him back to sleep and put him down.  He's not feeling well today, so he really needs his sleep.  Then I wrangled the kids into the kitchen for lunch.

Nothing would keep them quiet today.  I don't know what's gotten into them.  From playing to fighting to everything in between, they have to do it all with high pitched noises.  First it was shrieks from them pushing and hitting each other constantly, something that's not terribly normal for them.  After that it was hitting over a cereal box and shrieking with laughter like it was the funnies thing in the world, something that never amused them before.  I finally took away the box and then they'd hit each other and shriek with laughter.  I separated them and they shrieked so loudly, laughing and giggling, that they woke the baby up from across the house.  It seems like they were really out for me today, though I know that's got nothing to do with it.

Even trying to get them to settle them down to do school work didn't help.  Instead they screamed and moaned, throwing a fit, so that didn't fly.  I couldn't even suggest reading quietly because reading ended up with screams as they fought over books, again, not a common trait for them.  No matter what we did, the two of them wanted nothing more than to scream, shriek, and wail.

The poor littlest one has been so miserable all day and so tired.  I finally put him down in his familiar swing, even though he's almost two big for it.  In five more pounds, that swing will need to be retired.  He cuddled up with his thumb and pulled his blanket up, giving me the most tired, pathetic look possible and was asleep before I was even able to leave the room.

What about the older two?  They're still shrieking, screaming, and wailing over everything.  Thankfully the littlest one sleeps like a stone in his happy little swing.  He's not as secure in the playpen as it's not his old, familiar spot.  He's not as comfortable with the bed either anymore with all the moving.  He can't find his comfortable cuddle spot anymore.

It's going to be an adjustment.  Hopefully the screaming kids don't drive me too terribly nuts.  In truth, I want nothing more than a peaceful, relaxing day.  I'm still feeling under the weather.  Their shrieking, screaming, and general noise is certainly not helping...

Happy Sunday Everyone!

Okay, I think I'm going to start doing something I find a little bit of fun every Sunday!  In celebration of my kids not having to go to bed early so they can get up for school the next morning, I'm going to share a homeschool video every week for the next few weeks at least (possibly indefinitely because there are just so many good ones out there!) because I think it will just be fun!  For all you fellow homeschoolers out there, enjoy!  For those of you who don't homeschool, I think you'll get a kick out of them anyway.

So, here's our first video, I Will Survive (the homeschool edition!)

Children and Allowance

I wrote not too long ago on the concept of children and chores.  I got some wonderful comments back!  However, it did bring up some more food for thought on my part.  As Bailey had mentioned over at Craft Attic Resource and Sorting Through Life's Lessons, chores provide valuable life lessons for a child that they carry into their adult years.  They're not being flung helplessly into the world with no understanding of what they need to do in order to have their needs met as adults.  Chores shouldn't be thought of as a punishment.  They should be thought of as life skills.

TheArtsyEclectic at Literary Magick and Otherwise Quite Good, as always, had some insight of her own as well.  If you didn't catch the comment, she had always thought that children should do chores as able-bodied human beings, but they should get allowance "just because".  She hadn't thought about the idea that in the real world people don't get paid, "just because".  That very thought brought up a good deal of other thoughts to my mind regarding children, paying for chores and work done, and teaching good values.

It's all too easy for chores to become all about pay when you're using a reward-based method.  This is one of the problems I've had with the idea of Chore Wars.  It does inspire a pay-per-chore mentality.  Each job is assigned gold and by completing the chores, you get a certain amount of gold.  However, in chore wars, no matter who does the chore, the rewards are still the same, either a set value, or a variable amount of gold and "treasure" at the end of each "adventure".  The idea is that you never know at the onset of an adventure how much gold there will be waiting at the end, only an idea of how much there could be.  That's how real adventuring is, so this is how the game works.  As a  result, the set amount means you can do as little or as much as you want, but it's pretty well set.

The problem with kids and pay-per-chore routines is the ability to negotiate.  Telling your child you'll pay them a quarter to keep their room clean, a dollar to take out the trash every day for a week, and everything is all good, but then they can easily get into the mentality of chores equating to payments.  You ask them to unload the dishwasher to get the response "How much will you pay me to do it?"  Everything becomes an opportunity to exploit for money, and that's not a good situation.  On top of that, it teaches a child that everything comes with rewards, and the only ones worth doing are the ones you can reap benefits from.

I think my personal favorite way to look at allowance is from the stance of a job.  Everyone in the family has a job, whether it's going out and earning the income, cooking and cleaning, or in the case of my kids, homeschooling and chores.  Allowance is earned by doing your job.  In other words, for my kids, as long as they're continuing with homeschooling (no matter how it's done) and they're doing their chores, they should be paid for doing their "job".  They're not getting money "just because".  Because they're being an active and helpful part of the family, the family is helping them out with a little bit of money to do something they want.  It's the same sort of balance I have with my partner.  More often than not, he's earning the income.  I get child support for my older two, but that goes to taking care of their needs.  I also get my dance income, but that goes back into my business.  I haven't really turned a profit yet.  However, because I clean, take care of the kids, do the grocery shopping, and cook, I should be able to get an allowance for doing my "job".  I also find this assignment of "jobs" within the household to be useful.  It shows that homemaking and raising the children is just as important and necessary of a job as the person who leaves the house for work to earn an honest wage.  This helps create balance in a household, and also helps to demonstrate that every member of the family is vital to it's survival.  The family succeeds at finding their own happiness through working together and doing their jobs to be sure everything gets done.

When you look at chores from the perspective of performing a job, you can look at allowance raises and increased responsibility as "promotions", in a way.  "You're older now and we feel you're capable of having more responsibilities.  Because you're taking on these additional chores (even if you're giving up a couple easier ones to the younger kids who are growing into them), we're going to give you a raise in your allowance."  This also handles allowance increases for older kids.  After all, my daughter, at seven, would only end up buying more toys to clutter her room or candy.  We'd hopefully be able to convince her to put some away in savings too, but in reality, a seven year old doesn't need that much money.  A teen, however, would want to be able to go to the movies with their friends, might want to buy their own clothes or music.  They have a lot more ability and desire to spend than a younger kid would.  A higher allowance reflects that, but pairing it with a "promotion" or increase of responsibility, or more adult responsibilities allows that to become something more than "just because".  It also is an incredible mark of growth for a child, though they may not recognize it right away.  It's recognition for the fact that they are becoming older and more mature, more capable of handling bigger or more complex tasks.

For my family, I think we're still going to use the Chore Wars approach.  There's no ability to negotiate because every chore goes on the list as soon as it's seen as a need in the household.  There are chores of such a variety that almost every member of the family can do, aside from the baby, of course!  It's up to the family member how much or how little they want to take part in helping the family.  It means with the spring birthdays coming up, my daughter can choose to do extra chores (because she's very insistent on buying presents for everyone in the family whenever a gift-giving opportunity arises).  It allows her to think about things she wants, and make the choice to work towards them.  My sister and I used this system with my mom for a while.  We had the brilliant idea that we were going to save up to buy a horse some day, however, I was proud of myself when I could walk into the tack shop and buy my own riding boots (a pair I'd clipped an ad for and kept in the box where I kept all my savings) on sale even!  I had enough left over to buy myself a set of brushes I could use at my lessons too!  I learned to place a lot more value on each job that was needed in order to keep the household functioning, even though I often saw that those things didn't get done and couldn't get motivated to do them myself.

There are probably as many approaches to chores relating to allowance as there are families who use the system!  However, I do feel that chores and allowance combined do teach a good deal to children.  In this world very few people get paid to sit on their bottom and do nothing all day.  Even welfare families who are living in state funded housing have a requirement to keep their homes clean as random inspections are often used, at least in Texas they frequently are.  Even when it comes to non-monetary exchanges, it's rare that you get something for nothing.  Yes, friends do often give gifts and donations to friends when they are in need, but often they come at the exchange of hours of good conversation and fun times together, and the expectation that it would be the same were the roles reversed.  There are some wonderful people who give gifts freely to even strangers with no expectation of return, which is a beautiful and wonderful thing.  However, even I know that as homemaker who homeschools and runs her own business, if I did nothing all day but sit around on my butt and work on my business, yes, I'd probably have a much more successfully marketed business and be turning a profit already, but the money my partner allows me to spend from his salary would be spent on paying someone else to do all the cleaning and to raise our kids.

It's also worth mentioning that money earned is valued far more than money that is just freely handed over.  I remember as a child I would blow all the money I got for Christmas presents and the like almost immediately.  It would go on frivolous things.  When it came to my own hard-earned money, I valued it very differently.  I had to seriously think about how much work it took to earn that $8 movie ticket, or that $20 dinner out at a nicer restaurant for my friend's birthday.  As I said, I had carefully planned out how long it would take to earn my set of paddock boots (which I only ended up getting rid of a few years back because they were worn out!  That was a good investment!  They lasted ten years!) and because of it, saved carefully.  This is also a huge financial lesson for the future about wise spending and hard-earned money.  Even if you use Dave Ramsey's suggestions for big purchases, such as a car, and offer to match their savings however big or small, and that's what they have to make their purchase.  In other words, if they only save $1000 by the time they need to buy a car, they're getting a beater, but if they somehow manage to save up $10,000, they're looking at a pretty nice car!  Of course, you need to have the finances to match their savings to do that, but you get the idea.  Even with offering to help your kids with purchases you see as valuable, you're still encouraging your children to spend their allowance (and any income from a job they might get) wisely, which is also a vital skill for their future adult life.

No matter how you look at it, throughout time everyone has had a job to do in their community, and everyone gets some kind of return on that job.  In return for staying home and taking care of their children, preparing food, and clothing the family, many tribal mothers were rewarded with the meats and skins returned from a hunt, the harvest of whatever was grown in the fields, and whatever could be brought in from wild harvesting.  Today is really no different.  Everyone has a job to fill in society.  In order to get some return on that job, be it money, housing, food, or whatever, they need to fill some role in society.  I see the connection between allowance and chores being similar with kids.  Chores are simply one part of their role in society, their society being primarily made up by the family.  Allowance is one of the many returns they get for doing their job and doing it well.