Too Exhausted...

For those of you who follow my other blog, the next week I'll be sharing some interesting information I've recently found out.  As it turns out, there's a reason I'm so tired all the time.  I've been wearing myself into the ground with my allergies.

My whole family is going to have to go on a diet overhaul.  As much as my partner has had issues with it every time I've done it before, our roommate and the kids will be dragged along, kicking and screaming if necessary.  I need to do this, not just for me, but for my family.  If I've got these food allergies, my kids are that much more likely to develop them.  I don't want to do that to them.

The thing with these allergens is they're in everything in our modern diet.  Have you ever really looked at the ingredients on any food you like?  Have you thought about the hidden ingredients?  Dairy, wheat, soy, and MSG can all be disguised as "natural flavor".  Even things listed as non-dairy can contain dairy ingredients.  Things that are supposedly friendly, like soy cheese, still contain milk protein.  That means avoiding some of these things is all but impossible unless you make everything yourself.

It's thought that the increase of use of these allergens is part of what contributes to the large problem with them in our society.  Milk, eggs, wheat, and soy are in just about everything.  MSG, an incredibly common allergen, is in a good deal of things too.  Many people don't even realize they have a sensitivity to any of these things because they're so accustomed to eating them in their daily life.  It's not until you go without them that you start to see the changes in your own well-being.  If you cut them out of your system and suddenly start feeling a lot better in a couple weeks, it's probably a sign you've got a problem.

I want better for my kids than what I had.  Who doesn't?  Because of this, I'm going to look for ways to teach them a better diet, even if that means a drastic change in things we can and can't eat.  Yes, we may splurge now and again and have something out to eat, even though I know it's bad for me, but that's going to be a special occasion.  I can't have my kids live in a box where they never eat anything we don't make ourselves.  That's the quickest way to ensure they do it all the time when they grow up.

I think this is the biggest part of raising our children today.  Yes, it's great to raise them to be good people.  It's great to do the best you can with them.  It's great to have all these ideas and ideals.  However, when it comes to our kids, they really are the next step.  They're the next generation.  We need to teach them a better way so they can change the face of our future.  It's about making the world a better place for them so that they might do the same for their children.  Through our children, we can change the world.

Unfortunately, right now I'm too exhausted to do much of anything.  For the past several weeks I've been sick and only getting worse.  I didn't realize how much allergies can compound over time, how much drastically worse they can get if you ignore them, figuring you're not getting any worse, so why worry.  Instead it's been sneaking up on me, and now I'm so exhausted that, for the past couple of days, I don't even want to get out of bed.  Yes, it's time for a change.  It's time to get healthy again.

Changing Schedules

Over the summer most school kids go through the change.  Lack of school means later nights and sleeping in.  They go from a regular routine of school every day to a chaotic time of freedom.  Some kids go to summer camp, but for most, it's just lazy days of summer where they can play, rest, and do whatever they want.

For homeschool kids it's a little different.  There isn't necessarily a rigid school schedule, so summer creates less of a break.  Some parents even continue homeschooling straight through the summer, something I'd thought about time and time again.  In Texas summer is too hot to enjoy, so we might as well just take our break during cooler weather.  It would only make sense.  However, the spring, summer, and fall season transitions in and out of the school year don't have much impact on our family most years.

This year things are different.  We've got someone new living in our house.  His work schedule and my partner's work schedule conflict just a little, and since he doesn't drive, that leaves me to play taxi.  It's only going to get more complicated when the kids start the homeschool co-op in the fall.  I feel like my lie is falling into a predictable schedule, something I'm not used to with my chaotic, free life.  I'm used to coming and going as I please and not holding to any real routine.  This is a huge change for us, especially as it means changing nap times and bed times.

First thing in the morning my partner gets up with our friend and drives him to work.  When he comes home he falls back into bed and sleeps for a while longer.  I sneak out of bed, get up with the kids and somewhat supervise breakfast while checking my e-mail for any work-related information.  I generally hop on Facebook, the evil that it is, chat with a friend for a while, post some kind of update about what's going on that morning, and get to work on something or another.  Lately I've been trying to read as much as I can about homeschooling, pick books I want to read once I get a steady income coming in, and things of that nature.  It's summer time, so I can get away with that.  Otherwise it will be sitting, knitting in lap, while I go over lessons with the kids, have arts and crafts time, whatever is on the schedule for the day.  Lunch time hits and we eat, if I can wrangle the kids to the table to sit down that long, and my partner plays video games for a while before getting ready for work.  Halo Reach is a particular favorite of his right now.  After lunch we try and relax for a bit before it's time to get on the move.  This is when the baby gets his nap in for the day.  About 2pm we start the process of getting everyone on the move.  There's a baby to change, kids to get dressed, and my older son needs to hit the potty before we hit the road.  Normally my kids don't bother to get dressed before noon.  I try to encourage it, but they enjoy being able to go through the morning in their pajamas.  I see no reason to force them into something different. Then we hit the road around 3pm so I can take my partner to work and pick up my dear friend from his job.  The rest of the afternoon is play time for the kids while I try to get something done.  Over the summer, this is the ideal time for me to sit, relax and knit, or work on my novel for Camp NaNoWriMo.  Once we start up with homeschooling again, this is probably going to be the only time of day I have to write my articles for work, blog, and do whatever else comes to mind.  I've got an idea percolating for NaNoWriMo in November, and that will probably take up most of my afternoon relaxation time for the month.  Of course, I'll only have a couple hours since dinner needs to be on the table by 7pm, kids in bed by 9, which is about the time my darling friend watches the kids for me so I can pick up my partner from work at 10.  This schedule, of course, changes.  I have dance classes on Mondays and Wednesdays.  Rehearsals and events on weekends mix things up too.  However, we're falling into a routine, which is unusual for me.

I know time will be even more at a premium when fall comes around.  All three of my children are taking part in the homeschool co-op this year.  There's a wonderful local group called Open Minds.  I've been looking into them for nearly a year now, and finally I've gotten off my tail to make the enrollment deadline.  They'll be in classes from 9am to noon every Tuesday and Thursday.  It will be a wonderful way for the kids to connect with children their own age and learn while they're at it.  I have a feeling this will make our lives a whole lot happier.  It's hard being a homeschooling kid when all your friends go to school!

With our new routine we've learned a few things.  First, my kids need to get to bed earlier.  They spend too much of their time looking like zombies with an unpleasant attitude to match.  The older too need to stop taking regular naps during the day, no matter how much they need it, because they don't sleep at night, and, honestly, once the homeschool co-op starts up, they won't have time for a nap between getting home and driving everyone to and from work.  At least the baby will get his nap, but he cheats.  He sleeps in the car.  I need to start planning good hearty breakfasts, and lunches that can be made on the fly.  I'm going to need to come up with good options for dinner too.  We're going to have to work on getting an easy to work with routine going, that also includes plenty of time to keep after my house, something we're all slacking off on.

Of course, in order to do that we're really going to have to look into our options for storage.  We don't have much storage space.  No matter how much we take to Goodwill, we're still going to have stuff that needs to be stored.  I'm going to have to save up for dressers for the adults.  I need to pick up some toy storage units for the kids.  We need to make this house look more like, well, a home and not just a storage place that people live in.  Eventually I'd even like to get some of my own posters for the wall!

The Unschool Bus

As much as I have a love/hate thing with Facebook, my friend over at Otherwise Quite Good led me to something I'm glad we found.  It's called The Unschool Bus.  This project is absolutely inspiring.

This is very similar to something my family and I joked about doing for some time now.  I used to talk about buying some horses and wagons so we could travel around like the Gypsies of old.  In truth, the nomadic lifestyle kind of suits me.  I'd love to be able to pack everyone up and just relocate whenever we felt like it.  We want to go on a road trip for some school project or another?  That's great, we'll just pick up and go.  It would be so much easier knowing that our home could be with us all the time.  I think I might be more inspired to take a road trip back to visit with family that way!

Of course, this would be a lot harder to do if we had to rely on a steady, stable income.  We really wouldn't have any ability to work from a stable place.  We would constantly be on the go and that would make our lives far more difficult.  We would have to have some source of income that would be steady, aside from child support.  I suppose if I worked at it, I could in theory live by my writing, but I don't even know how possible that is.  It would be a lot of work, and I think it might be challenging with children so young.  I don't think I'd be comfortable until my youngest was at least four and even then it would still be challenging.

Still, it's something to think about.  It's a wonderful idea, even if it wouldn't necessarily be practical for my family.  It would be fantastic to do something like this.  Perhaps it's just a dream lifestyle, being free to go wherever we need to go.

Potty Learning Blues

I'm really hitting that point of being at wit's end.  My son just doesn't want to use the toilet.  We've done everything for him.  We've bought him special underwear.  We got him a seat for the toilet with a special step stool and everything.  We've even tried to bribe him to use the toilet instead of a diaper!  He was making so much progress, then all of the sudden he doesn't want to do it anymore.  It's too much work.  He'd rather be lazy, or that's what it seems.

This whole thing with having accidents, I know some people would say he's deliberately soiling or peeing in his underwear to rebel against us.  I've been told he's being willful.  I've been told he's doing it deliberately to stand against me, his own little act of rebellion.  I don't think that's so much the case at all.  He looks shocked when he has an accident and gets all upset.  I honestly think he doesn't mean to do it, he's just not paying enough attention to when he needs to use the toilet.

I've been told more times than I can count that I should shame him into using the toilet.  I should make him feel so bad about himself that he won't want to do anything else.  I'm really tired of this shame based world that we live in.  Yes, shame works, but shame could also lead him to hiding his dirty underwear or his blankets because he had an accident and is too afraid to admit it.  There is always the possibility that there's some deeper reason why he doesn't want to use the toilet.  With how much we have to fight him to change his diaper, I wouldn't be surprised.  That would explain why he goes through phases of doing incredibly well and then phases of not wanting to try at all.

Of course, it's also going to be harder for him right now.  We've got a lot going on right now.  Summer is a chaotic, crazy time.  We had someone move in with us in May, which always changes the routine.  Then both our new room mate and my partner got jobs about the same time, so we really had a lot of change go on.  Sleep schedules were disturbed.  Chaos ensued.  In truth, we're really not back to normal yet.  We'll probably be settling in somewhere around September, not for a lack of trying, but because things keep changing.  Things always move so rapidly in the summer.

I'm not really looking for advice.  I'm not looking to have anyone help me out on getting it done.  I'm really just kind of frustrated and venting.  My older son is four and still doesn't want to use the toilet.  My daughter was the same way, refused to use anything but her diaper until she was four and a half.  I just don't know if I can do that again for my littlest.  I don't think we can afford to have another one in diapers until after age four. I really hope my youngest doesn't follow the trend.

Maybe some of this is just coming out of my own exhaustion.  I'm trying to juggle a lot of things right now, from settling into a new routine to writing jobs to an attempt at my first novel for Camp NaNoWriMo to managing finances and catching up on bills to organizing and trying to get back into greener trends.  I think I just need to take a break, step back, and realize that it's all going to work out in time.

Texas Heat and Steam to Burn...

Texas weather is horrible.  By June it feels like it's 110 degrees out.  August only gets worse.  The humidity isn't much better.  I thought Massachusetts summers could be bad, but these are pretty brutal, but they have nothing on Texas.  I'd heard a lot about how Texas has a dry heat, but the people who always preached that must have been from West Texas because it's certainly not that way in Central Texas!

Summers in this area just aren't for kids.  The peak burning hours are brutal.  You can almost feel the sun burning your skin.  Unfortunately, shade isn't easy to come by.  Rainy days rarely happen, but it's so hot that no one wants to play when they're outside.  You can easily burn yourself on the pavement or any of the playscapes at the playground.  It's just not a fun time.  Yes, you can wear sunscreen and bring lots of water, but it's still pretty miserable.  This leads to kids being trapped in the house all day long, bored, and unable to blow off any steam.  Let me tell you, this leads to LOTS of running and craziness in the house.  I feel a little bad for our downstairs neighbors.

I would love to take the kids for evening walks, but this neighborhood isn't really the place for it.  Let's just say we don't live in the best of neighborhoods, and it seems like things are just steadily getting worse.  It's not easy to manage three kids on a walk at the best of times, never mind when you're wondering about the strange cars that have been driving by.  Yes, it's about time we upgrade our neighborhood.

The kids really need more freedom to get out, you know?  They need more space to run and play like kids.  It's days like these that I miss Massachusetts the most.  Yes, it's freezing in the winter, and driving in the snow isn't exactly the most fun when you're worried about your kids in the car, but I'd rather take that to these brutal Texas summers.  I'm not a fan of hot and cooped up kids.  It's much easier to bundle them up and toss them out in the snow than it is to explain to them why they can't go out and why playing in the water won't help terribly much.

For the next couple months we may focus on doing a lot of interesting homeschooling stuff, just to give the kids something to do.  I know it's not going to help their need to run around and enjoy the summer weather, but it's about all we can do.  Maybe if I can find enough things to keep them interested they'll be okay with not being out and doing nearly as much until it's a little more tolerable.

NaNoWriMo...Camp...?

I've known about NaNoWriMo for a couple years now.  I've been meaning to jump on board with it.  This year was the year.  I'm going to do it.  It would be good for me, but it also means something to my kids.  If they seem me working on this, well, maybe it will inspire them.

Then I heard about Camp NaNoWriMo.  It's two months of NaNoWriMo in the summer.  The site has a cute summer camp feel, and it looks like this is the first year they're doing it.  I've been feeling inspired lately.  I've been meaning to write a story.  It's in my brain, but I just have to write it.  In theory I could write both segments as one story and end up with a story about 350 pages.  That's a pretty average size novel in my experience, but that might be on the long side.  I don't know how it all pans out.  What I do know is anything I write is definitely not going to be something I try and sell.  I'm not that good of an author, and I know first attempts at novels rarely sell, so I don't think I'll even try.  Hell, I might not even be able to do it, but I've got to try, you know?

So, what is this whole NaNoWriMo?  Most of the people I know will be reading this already know.  It's National Novel Writing Month.  The idea is to write one 50,000 word novel in the month of November.  That's an average of about 1667 words a day.  To someone like me that can easily throw that into one blog post, that's not really a lot, but in putting it into story format it just might be.  I've got a lot of work to do if I'm going to make this work.  I guess it's a good thing it's summer.  I'm not focused on homeschooling so I can really take the time to write.  I might even be able to carve out some time at Starbucks to escape and get some work done.  I'm excited and inspired.

This is going to be a huge step for me as a writer.  It's not even about my abilities, or how good of a story I'll write.  It's really about accomplishing something, about saying I've actually done something with my life.  It's a goal with a very definite deadline.  If I can pull off a 50,000 word story in a month, what else am I capable of?  There's no time like the present, right?  So we'll see what I can come up with.  My focus is going to be July (even though I've missed the boat on the start date) and see what I can come up with.  After that, maybe I'll take on August?  Maybe I'll start a new story?  Maybe I'll just shoot for November?  Most importantly, if I can do this, I'm more than ready to take on a new challenge.  If I can do this, there's no question on whether or not I can take on the challenge of school!  If I've got that kind of dedication, school should be that much more realistic of a goal, right?  What a way to inspire myself as well as my children.

It's Summer Time!

So, we've been away for a while!  It's summer, and that happens.  We're doing all kinds of crazy things and life is being kind of chaotic.  We've had a lot happen!

So, I don't know where I was at when I last wrote (and I'm feeling a bit too lazy to look!) but a lot has happened.  It's been quite the adventure for the whole family.  There's been some good, some bad, and some just plain crazy.  We're making the best of it all, and it's made for some interesting times.

On May 1st we had a fire at the house.  We're still not aware of how it started, but the porch lit up and though we tried to put it out, it ended up getting out of control and the fire department had to be called.  The kids got to watch the front porch get hacked up with axes and a chain saw as they tried to get under the cement to get at the flames.  Thankfully the damage wasn't so bad, so we're still able to live in our apartment.

This is when we found out we had the landlords from...well...somewhere not nice.  Our front doorknob started falling off every time we tried to use the front door.  They tried to look for a way to put the fire damages on our renter's insurance, which was illegal.  When we caught on they tried to tell us the fire was our fault and we had to pay out of pocket for the damages.  They refused to let us see the fire marshal's report, which told us something shady was going on.  It took them over a month to fix our door knob.  The damages from the fire still aren't fixed.  In all of this, they decided they were going to sell the building.

Just after all of this went on our air conditioner went out.  Now, in other areas of the world, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but in a house that was in the high nineties all day long, that's kind of a big deal.  The baby had a horrible heat rash that was starting to consume his whole body, so we had to seek refuge at friends' houses so we wouldn't all be sick from the heat.  The most they could offer us was to move into the apartment next door, but for all that work we were going to get no compensation and needed to waste a lot of time and effort that we really couldn't expend at the time.  It would mean transferring our utilities and everything as well.   It would just be a lot of hassle and we opted to wait until they could fix it.

So, after all of that, the building was sold.  Wouldn't you know it?  The door knob was fixed the day it was sold.  The air conditioner was fixed in the next couple of days.  It's been nearly a month and the fire damage is getting fixed now too.  It's all going to look even better because we're getting a new coat of paint too.  I'm actually pleased with this new landlord.

That's kind of been our early summer, and part of the reason we've been so busy.  Hopefully we'll be back on track before summer is out!