About Being Afraid

Today a situation happened that really made me think on the concept of fear.  My older son is going through a phase right now where everything is scary.  He's got a lot of reasons for it.  I'm not saying that the whole world should walk on egg shells around him because he's so afraid, but it means he's got a lot to conquer in his little life.

What got me thinking on this whole thing was my room mate's mom telling me, "Don't say 'scared'.  Don't use the 'a' word either."  It took me about an hour to finally figure out what this mysterious "a" word was.  I think she said something about the situation being "disconcerting".  While I do find that to be a valuable word and teaching a small child to use it properly isn't necessarily a bad thing, I don't really think it mattered.  My son was feeling an emotion and reacted to it, no matter what name we may have used to label it.

With small children, emotions are a large part of how they interact with their world.  In learning to express themselves, one of the most challenging things to learn is expressing their emotions.  It's hard for a little kid to tell you that something is frustrating them when they just don't have a word for it.  Instead they just react, throw a tantrum, or whatever the case may be.  Anger tends to be reacted with the same way.  Sadness can lead to tears streaking down the face while clinging desperately to Mommy's leg and refusing to let go.  There's all sorts of ways these emotions manifest when a child can't communicate them.  You've really got to learn their signs and cues so you know how to handle them.

When a child has words to put on these emotions, whatever those words are, they can more easily explain the situation and deal with the emotions.  When my daughter comes up to me screaming, "I'm so angry because my brother won't let me play the way I want to play!" I have a pretty good handle on the situation.  She's angry.  She's got a problem.  She wants it solved.  When my son comes screaming down the stairs crying, "Mommy!  I'm scared of the monster!" I may not know what he means by a monster, but I can definitely understand that he's scared.  We can then take actions to conquer that fear.  Knowing what emotions my children are dealing with really helps me find a way to solve the problem.  It doesn't even matter what the label is at that point, as long as I know what the problem is and how the child feels so I can get to the root of the problem.  In the cases I've already mentioned, the emotion is pretty obvious over the words that are being said.  However, there's been cases with my son where I don't know if he's hurt, if he's sick, what's going on until he tells me.

Does the word used to describe the emotion really change anything?  I don't think so.  After all, I can say that I'm frustrated or aggravated.  If I'm using them for the same purpose, then it might as well be the same word.  I can say I'm angry, livid, or irate.  All of those words convey the same idea, that I'm really ticked off, and depending on the way I say it, you can figure whether I'm just highly agitated by the whole thing, or if I'm ready to blow my stack.  If that's the case, then why does saying "disconcerted", "nervous", or "wary" have any different weight than "scared"?  If my son is really scared, then won't that feeling he has just be associated with a new word?  It doesn't make him any less afraid, and it definitely doesn't change the fact that we have a fear to confront.  The emotion is still the same emotion.  The reaction is still the same reaction.  The result is still the same result, and the solution is still going to be the same solution.

I think with words, a lot of that is really for the parents.  After all, no matter what the word, the emotion and reaction to it is still the same.  Is my daughter going to change her tune when she and her brother are fighting again just because I get her to use the word irate?  Certainly not!  She's just going to be using a loftier word to throw over her same, furious attitude.  In some cases, it may just allow her to express more depth to the situation, but it doesn't change the emotion.  However, the parents will react differently if their child tells them they are furious than if they just use the basic word of angry.

I guess the same goes for fear, really.  For most parents, if their son were to say he was nervous about the monster in his closet, that seems like a much easier thing to tackle than a fear.  The parent can have a much easier time discerning the level of fear, from simply cautious to all out dread.  However, no matter what word you use, the fear still needs to be dealt with and conquered.  As I said, the description may be different, but the end result is still the same.

The truth of the matter is we adults can't help how kids feel, only what we do about it.  For example, the little baby taking it's first wobbly steps falls down and starts wailing when every adult in the room jumps up to see if he's okay.  In many cases, that same baby would just pick himself up and try again, or move on to something else if everyone just reacted like it was a normal, every day event.  In the first case, the baby received the clue that something was wrong, and was quite possibly startled by all the adults jumping everywhere.  It escalated the situation.  In the second case, the baby was allowed to assess the situation himself, and realizing he didn't get hurt and nothing caused a fear reaction, he had no reason to cry and went about his business.

In the case of difficult emotions, like fear, a parent needs to model and teach a child to handle those emotions.  Fear is especially difficult because, to that child, whatever they think is a threat or a danger is very real.  While we might find the idea of monsters in the closet to be silly or even dumb, to a child with an active imagination, those monsters will get him if someone doesn't do something about it!  Learning to deal with these emotions are essential life tools.

Again, looking at that whole subject of fear, I feel that fear should be validated, contrary to a lot of parents I know.  My son was afraid of the monster in his window for a long time.  Isn't that a great time for a lesson in bravery and courage?  After all, bravery and courage aren't anything without fear.  I mean, anyone can do something when they're not afraid of it, but it's a true victory when you've got a fear to face.  What about the fear of the dark?  I know my son's afraid of the dark, and my daughter used to be too.  I don't know if it's going to work with my son, but for my daughter, she had to learn to put her mind at rest and stop thinking so much.  We thought up a good strategy for making her feel safe and protected.  She would talk to her great-great-grandmother who had recently died at the time.  All she needed to do was call "Great-great-grandma Ghost!" and there she would be to protect her.  She particularly liked that one because she'd overheard me talking about my great-grandmother dying and talking about some of what I remembered of her with a friend.  Whatever works, right?  It got her mind to settle so she'd stop imagining such wild things and actually get to sleep when it was dark.  This isn't just about teaching my kids not to be afraid, but teaching my kids ways to conquer their fears and show how brave they really are.

Fears can also be subjects of science and learning.  When my son was afraid of the moon because of something about aliens, it would have been a great time for a lesson on what the moon is really about!  I wish I'd thought about it at the time!  When my daughter was afraid of thunder storms and tornadoes, her aunt was kind enough to send all kinds of books on storms!  While the loud noises did sometimes scare her when she woke up in the middle of the night, she was usually even more calm in a storm than most adults!  I'm sure that would be a wonderfully useful tool for kids who are afraid of bugs, snakes, and other critters of the wild too!

Then there's fears that really are kind of rational.  In the case of my son, he was set down on the edge of the sink.  He's got a huge fear of water right now, so I think that's where it all stemmed from, though I wasn't really given much of a chance to explain that.  His fear of water is kind of rational.  A little over two years ago we had a problem with lice that plagued us forever.  We'd get rid of it just to get it back from one of our neighbors.  We'd get rid of it again, and next thing I know, our kids had once again been exposed by someone else.  The whole neighborhood seemed to be passing it around again and again.  It's one of those situations where everyone treating at the exact same time might have done some good, but I wasn't going to keep my kids in quarantine from the neighborhood kids when they wanted to go out and play, and didn't exactly understand.  We found out somewhere in the midst of passing it around and getting it back that the chemicals just stopped working, but by then my older son was already sporting a really stylish shaved head.  He was happier that way.  It meant no more washing of the hair and definitely no bugs!  He was my best kid ever for hair washing until we had all those bug problems.  We tried every treatment in the book, and the kids were miserable.  It's not surprising that now he associates washing his hair with the misery of lice treatments and an eternity of yanking a lice comb through his hair.  A fear like that is there for a reason, and the only way to help him overcome it is to give him positive experiences, something that could take a month, or it could take years.  I wouldn't doubt if that was his fear as he's seen both babies and my hair washed out in a sink before.  I wouldn't be surprised if that's why he thought he was sitting there.

Kids have fears for all kinds of logical reasons.  A nasty fall can produce a fear of heights.  Being attacked creates a fear of dogs.  Seeing a house burned down can easily cause a fear of fire.  I can't entirely blame my son for having a rational fear like that.  I have a fear of pain.  I have a fear of heights.  Everyone's got fears.  Still, I've faced my fear of pain to get piercings and to have three children.  I've faced my fear of heights by going to the top of the Prudential Center in Boston, climbing trees, getting up on ladders and chairs to fix lights, and even getting up onto a friend's roof at one point so we could get some stuff that had been tossed up there.  I have to admit, every moment I was certain I was going to fall off and die, but I didn't.  Fear has it's place too.  Without fear, I may have taken a lot more risks up on that roof.  Why?  Because I wasn't worried about getting hurt.  Instead, I was cautious to be sure I had good footing.  I took things one step at a time.  My fear kept me in check and prevented me from doing something that wasn't well thought out and could have gotten me seriously hurt.  There truly is a value to some rational fears.

That being said, let my kids be scared sometimes.  Let them admit they're afraid.  Let them show the world just what kind of stuff they're made of because they're capable of conquering those fears!  Let them learn the valuable lesson of doing something they were once afraid of!  I'm not going to dress it up in fancy words that downplay the emotion, though I have no problems giving them those tools to explain a full range of emotion.

Most importantly, my children will learn best from my own actions and words.  I won't lie, I told my daughter I was absolutely terrified of airplanes when we were on our way to Boston to visit my family our first year down here.  I wasn't lying!  With every little patch of turbulence it was everything I could do to keep calm!  My daughter, of course, was patting my hand and telling me that it was okay the whole time.  I admitted to my kids that I was afraid of heights while standing on a chair to reach a light bulb that needed replacing.  The kids helped that one along by constantly bumping into the chair and making me feel like I would fall.  However, knowing I'm terrified of heights doesn't stop my daughter from climbing a giant tower at the playground, or my son from getting on top of every piece of furniture he can get on.

In the end, I'm not worried about my kids having fears.  They'll tackle them when they're ready.  In the case of my son, he's no longer afraid of the moon.  He no longer thinks monsters live outside his window.  He's even come to tackle a few scary Halloween masks (and probably would have done a better job of it on Halloween were he not so tired from skipping his nap).  He even walked up to the scariest booth at the local safe trick-or-treat, done by a local bike group that was about as close to a haunted house as you could get for an open booth like that, all because he saw his sister and his friend go get some candy there, and he wasn't going to be shown up by a couple of girls!  So yes, my little boy is quite the scaredy-cat, just like his mama, but he's also learning to be like his mother by facing his fears, one little step at a time.

Working with Words

Once again, I had a brilliant idea, but it all got lost somewhere along the way.  I had a wonderful idea that would involve story telling, some new vocabulary words for my daughter, and a little bit of art time.  We would write out our story, then she'd draw all the art.  I would help my older son write out his story and he would draw all of his pictures.  Then we would bind them all together for a pretty little book.  It sounds like a wonderful idea, doesn't it?

Yesterday I was introducing the new words.  Aside from being cut in on by a million and one distractions, we were actually doing pretty well.  I'd gotten through about half the new words I had planned for the day with both of the children sitting by me.  They were both really excited.  It was like story time, learning, and fun all rolled into one, and we got to talk about one of my daughter's favorite things, holidays.

For the most part during the month we've been talking about Thanksgiving and all of that, but it really didn't seem to click.  It was like every day we were starting over new.  She really didn't care and spent most of our time together staring out the window, which quickly frustrated me, and I gave up.  I have to admit, for the early part of the month, homeschooling has been a complete failure.  I'd been about ready to give up on any talk about history and just go on to something more plainly structured to try again after the holidays.  After all, why should I bother putting all this time into researching age-appropriate ideas for Thanksgiving and colonial history if neither of the kids really had any interest?

That's when I decided we'd work on this one last ditch effort.  I was going to introduce the words and hopefully drag the two kids into working on a story, even if it killed me.  I knew they'd both love the coloring and drawing part, so if I could just hold their attention until then, I'd be okay.  I might just be able to make this work.  With a handful of hope and constant self-reminding that I can't just give up, I wrote out the cards while the kids were having breakfast.

"What are you doing, Mommy?" my daughter asked with that look she gets on her face whenever she thinks I'm doing something strange, you know the one, the child looks at you with one raised brow in a strangely adult looking expression for just being a kid.

Without looking up, I answered, "I'm writing out words on these cards that have to do with Thanksgiving."  I didn't look up, so I only caught the look out of the corner of my eye.  I knew if I looked up, I'd lose her.  As long as I seemed to think what I was doing was more interesting than she was at the moment, her curiosity would get the better of her.

I was right.  With a quizzical look on her face she walked over to the counter where I was writing away.  She picked up the card with "Thanksgiving" written across it, giving it a look like it was somehow poison.  She opened her mouth, then hesitated, like she had to think for just a moment, then asked, "What does this say?"

"Well, if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you," I told her very plainly.  "If you want to know so badly, you're just going to have to read it, now aren't you."

She shot me this glare that could have killed.  My daughter's good at that.  She then protested loudly, "I don't know how to read, Mom!"

Still having not looked away from the cards I was writing, I flatly said, "I guess that's your problem, now isn't it?"  I know it probably wasn't the nicest way to lure her in further, but I know my daughter.  If I'd told her something simple, like telling her I'd help her learn to read it, or the plain truth that I know she can read, it would have met with an argument.  Better to appear that I simply didn't care.  She would be so much more ready to work if she thought whatever this was held all my attention and was so positively the best thing in the world.  At seven, she's getting a bit old for that tactic, so I'd better take the fullest advantage of it I can before it no longer works!

Just as always she got really frustrated and whined, "Mommy!" with that death glare all kids know how to give so well.  However, it didn't last long as in dropping the card, she noticed that I had written on the lined side and the other side was blank.  Of course, I had done this for a reason.  I wanted to use the lines to mimic the lined paper she was used to working with.  When copying the words to her own paper, she would have an easier time.  That's not what she thought when she saw it, though.  "Hey!  I know why the other side is blank!  I bet we're going to draw pictures of the words on the other side!"

This did prompt a look from me, "Actually, that's a good idea, but not what I was thinking.  Maybe we'll do that, but we aren't going to do that now.  These words are all about the holiday at the end of this month.  We're going to learn these words a little at a time, along with some others to help us along, and then we're going to write a story about the holiday.  On each page we're going to draw a picture that matches, and then you can show your friends and everyone you know just how much you've learned."

Her eyes lit up in the way they always do when she's excited, complete with that goofy shocked expression.  She started to fall over backwards in her fake dead from the shock way.  Then she ran around in three little circles shouting, "Yippee!"  After all that craziness she took off up the stairs to her room to play spouting off about what she was going to do for school.

About twenty minutes later I was done with an entire package of index cards.  I only had 98 words instead of the full 100 because I got mixed up on a couple of them.  While trying to write out slow and methodically, it's easy to get confused.  I mean, I know how to spell "religion" for example, but I have no idea why the "g" came out so crazy and unreadable, nor why I kept trying to add an "e" into it.  The other was simply a copy of "turkey", and I only really need each word once.  I'd included all kinds of words, from foods like "squash" and "pie" to actions like "chop", "saw", and "build", to useful things like "tool", and "axe".  I'd included necessary things when discussing the first Thanksgiving such as the name of the holiday itself and words such as "Mayflower", "Puritan", "Pilgrim", "Indian", and "Native American".  I was pretty proud of myself, though I did add a whole bunch of words later.

With cards in hand, I marched up the stairs and sat down on the bedroom floor.  I sorted them out, laying cards all over the floor, mixing them up, and selecting the highlights for the day.  I picked a pretty good assortment of words.  I'd chosen "Thanksgiving" and "feast" to describe the holiday in a quick little way.  Then I'd chosen words to describe the people who celebrated the first Thanksgiving, who they were, how they got here, and how this first holiday came to be.

I asked my daughter if she knew what the holiday at the end of November was.  As I did this, I handed her the card with "Thanksgiving" written across the front.  When she whined that she didn't know I told her that she was holding it in her hand.  She gave me that death glare again, but I got up and left the room calling back, "Remember, 't' and 'h' together sound like 'th', so work from there."  I didn't really have a reason to walk away other than "checking on the baby" who I knew was sleeping peacefully, but I knew she would work at it with far more dedication if I wasn't sitting over her.  By the time I got back she had already figured out "thanks" and was working on the second half of the word.  It hadn't even taken her that long.  Before long she declared what it had said with confidence.

That's when I laid down the next word, asking her what we do on Thanksgiving.  She immediately tore into the word, trying to dissect it's every sound to figure it out.  It didn't take her long to spit out the word asking what a feast was, then answering herself in saying she thought it was the big dinner party everyone has for Thanksgiving each year.

I went on to ask her why we celebrate Thanksgiving, which, true to the theme of the month, she told me she had no clue, so I popped down the next card, "Pilgrims" and asked her, "Who are these people?"

That word rolled off of her tongue pretty quickly, and then she confessed that she didn't know who pilgrims were at all.  I told her the meaning of pilgrims undertaking some kind of religious journey, but she couldn't figure out why anyone would have to move as a part of a religion.  That's when I started to tell her why the Pilgrims left.  I used our own spiritual path as an example, asking how she would feel if we weren't allowed to light candles and sing our chants anymore.  She said she'd be angry and would want to go somewhere that would let her do those kinds of things, and she guessed that's why the Pilgrims left.  I told her that wasn't entirely the same thing, but they left because they wanted freedom of religion, complete with cards and everything!  She was reading through those words like they were nothing!

As we added each new word, we went back and covered how all the worlds related.  Now, I have to check my facts again on one portion of it.  I always thought the Pilgrims left England, but my research shows that they sailed from Amsterdam, so I have to wonder if that's somehow where they were from.  My daughter would tell me with great delight, "We celebrate Thanksgiving every year with a huge feast. We do this because the Pilgrims came to this country from England on the Mayflower because they wanted freedom of religion."  You get the idea.

So not only was she reading, but she was also getting into the whole idea of the history!  I can't wait to hit the cards again and start working on this some more!  Who knew all I'd need to actually capture her attention was flash cards!

A New Take on Reading

This week we're going to try something new with reading.  You know those refrigerator magnets that are just a big set of words?  We're going to do something similar.  We're going to use them to make sentences, stories, and whatever else.  I may even have my daughter lay out sentences to copy onto her paper and we'll use them to write a story.  I've got some ideas on how we're going to work it.

It all started out with some index cards I have sitting on my desk.  I bought them with the great idea of drawing pictures of colonial things and putting the words on them.  We were going to keep it very Thanksgiving related so she could know all the words by Thanksgiving.  Somewhere between having my brilliant idea and actually making it a reality, I came to the conclusion that I don't know how to draw well enough to feel comfortable with it, nor do I really have the resources to print out pictures to put on the cards.  That presents just a bit of a challenge, so I thought I would just do it later at some point.  I would get to it, I was certain.  This is a usual thing for me, and in truth, I'll never get to it.

Today I was thinking about teaching my daughter to read.  We had been talking for some time of putting all the words she knew onto cards so she could see exactly how much she knew how to read and write.  We'd add a new word each time she finished one for the rest of the year, and it would show her exactly how much progress she was making.  We both thought it would be kind of fun, but we never got to it.  Instead, it gave me a new idea.  I would use them as a story telling and reading tool!

On each card I'm going to write words she knows, words she doesn't know, but can figure out, and words she's pretty familiar with.  I'm going to divide them up into categories, people, places, things, verbs, adjectives, possibly even some adverbs.  Then we're going to go through, pick out a subject, put it together with an action, and so on to make a sentence.  After my daughter writes the sentence on the wonderful lined story paper my aunt introduced me to, she's going to draw a picture to match.  After that, we're going to talk about what happens next and pick a new set of words to make a sentence for the next part of the story.  For November, our story is going to be something about the first Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, coming to the new world, Native Americans, or something that relates to the rest of the work we're doing.  If it's a hit, we're going to revive it for Christmas next month.

I know this is probably nothing new, and tons of moms have probably thought of this before.  I'm sure that's how whoever came up with those word magnet sets thought of the idea.  Even if it's not original, I think it will be a good step to get my daughter back into reading.

Because That's When Brownies Work?

Today I made a realization about myself.  I get the most work done when no one is around to bother me.  I'd never really thought about it that way before, and I suppose I should have.  Maybe that's why I haven't been as productive as I wish I had been.

In a way, I really kind of get it.  It makes complete sense.  When I was younger if I tried to clean my room, my sister would be lounging on her bed, the bottom bunk, reading more often than anything.  I would be sorting out the things on the floor, and that room was always a disaster.  It got to the point where I wanted a clean place so I could find things, but I wasn't willing to do all the work myself, so I would just clear a path to my bed and make sure all of my favorite clothes were where I could find them.  All of my important stuff, books, clothes, music, it all ended up in my bed.  I'm surprised there was room for me to sleep with it all!

Now, I can't entirely blame my sister on this one.  When we were young, we were both slobs.  I guess I just grew out of it, and from what I hear as of late, so did she.  I think the whole family just got to the point where they just gave up, and I'll be honest, when I got frustrated and tried to clean, the rest of the family was lounging around, watching television, reading, or playing computer games.  I wouldn't be surprised if I were guilty of the same when one of them decided they were in the mood to clean.  To this day we've just never talked about it.  I suppose we never will.

As an adult I lived with room mates that were the same way.  I'd decide the house was a disaster and I couldn't take it anymore, so I'd finally get upset and clean the house, while they relaxed.  It frustrated me to the point where, more often than not, I just stopped caring.  My ex is very much the same way.  Before I moved in, he and his room mate had a pretty disastrous home.  I got it organized, but after that day it became a constant effort to clean the house while they didn't help.  They were doing something far more interesting, and I honestly think they didn't care about the state of the house.

After all of that, I kind of harbor resentment when I'm cleaning the house and room mates or my partner aren't helping.  It's one thing if they're working at home or cleaning something else, but just relaxing, it drives me insane.  I just can't tolerate it anymore, so I just don't do it.

When there aren't any other adults home to care.  It's not really a problem with my kids at home.  I don't mind, after all, they're just kids, but other adults, especially if they helped make the mess, or it's their mess in the first place, I can't tolerate having them sit idly by.  When it's just me, I don't have to worry about that.  I don't have this inner resentment because I'm doing all the work while they sit around and do nothing all day.

It's even starting to spill over to other aspects of my life.  I don't do as many crafts as I once did.  I don't get as much work done, at least not most days.  I'm just finding that when other adults are home and slacking, I tend to get lazy.  It's like I somehow feel that I don't have to get up and do anything if they aren't.

This is a definite problem for me.  While it's great that once everyone's gone, I spring to life, it's not productive.  Where there are two stay-at-home partners in this house, I'm not often alone in the house.  It means I don't get a lot of, well, anything done.  It's not that I'm using my room mate as an excuse.  Actually, quite the opposite.  I'm kind of using her to give me more perspective on myself in this situation.  This is a problem, and as long as I live in a situation where I need to clean and there's another adult home and relaxing, I'm going to have this problem!

Actually, to be fair, it wasn't so much the case when it was just my partner and I.  Yes, we had a lot of clutter, but I was slowly beating that into submission.  A process like that takes time.  When you've got a lot of stuff, it takes time to get rid of or organize that stuff.  What areas we had pretty well taken care of, he and I would take our turns at getting it done and moving on.  We kind of had our own system.  He would do the dishes and take out the trash, and I would do just about everything else.

I really need to find a way not to let other people sharing my home be a limiting factor on what I get done.  I need to start changing my own habits, and I need to let go of that bitterness that some other adult in the house is just lazing about while I'm doing all the work.  In some situations, I know I'm not the one doing all the work, but it feels that way.  However, there have also been situations, like living with my ex, especially when he was out of work and I was the one with the job, where I felt almost justified.  Even so, I need to get beyond that or I'm not going to ever get anything done in this house.  It's slowly going to lead me to hibernate in my area of the house and hide from getting anything done until I'm here alone, in which case it will all be so massively overwhelming.  That's only going to make things worse.

This has been a good realization for me.  I have something else to work on now.  I've got to stand up and start getting stuff done, no matter how bitter I am if someone else is not.  I need to recognize when that bitterness is just because of the moment, or when I really am the only one doing all the work.  When it's just the moment, I need to remind myself of all the things that person does around the house while I'm the one relaxing.  When it's not, I have to recognize that it's not going to change, and think about the sense of accomplishment I'll feel when it's all done.  One way or another, I have to deal with these feelings, or I need to realize that I just can't live with other people, at least outside my current immediate family.  I know my room mates aren't just going to start being out all day so I can get stuff done, and I shouldn't allow myself to make excuses, so I need to find a way to make this change.  I'll feel so much happier if I do.

Putting One Foot in Front of the Other

It feels like I've kind of lost track of where this blog has been going.  I started out with the intention of writing about being a homeschooling family that believed in a more sustainable means of living.  I would cover homeschooling, sustainable habits, green living, and all of that.  It seems this blog has more taken a turn towards home life as a family that wants to be green and sustainable, but somehow has missed.  Yes, homeschooling is still about as much of a part of it as it was before, but I somehow have lost track, or feel like I may have.

Looking back, I see the quest for a more sustainable lifestyle is a slow progression.  With each little step I take, I really am making a difference.  Homeschooling is still a very slow trudge forward as I can't seem to find a good balance between all work and no play and all play-centered learning and no work, but thus far my children seem to like this swing of the pendulum.  Just when they get bored because playing, nice conversations, and craft time just aren't engaging enough (though I must admit, I've kind of been failing on the craft time), they gravitate back towards book work.  Once book work starts to become an annoyance, we swing back to more fun styled learning and a lack of so much structure.  It seems like we're finding our balance, even if that balance is by swinging back and forth.  I guess as long as we're still getting work done, it doesn't really matter how it's done, right?

I've noticed that much of my chosen lifestyle is being hindered by other aspects of my life.  For example, it's hard to have a lot of homeschooling crafts when you don't have a good table or desk to work on, nor enough chairs around the table to sit there.  There are alternatives to our clearly lacking kitchen table, but right now they're a little bit cluttered.  It's hard to want to make a home cooked meal that saves on packaging, leaves plenty of waste for compost that other companies just toss out in the manufacturing process, and is better for my family when there isn't much of a prep surface for it.  Just little things like that and so much more can really get in the way of green living.

Now, I know I joke all the time that my clutter is there for a reason.  Without it the house wouldn't be so well insulated!  Even so, it's just another example of what I stand against in this world, this ideal of consumerism and having a little bit of everything.  While I can't do anything about the amount of stuff my room mates have, I can certainly downsize a lot of what I have.  I know I got the comment that we have a lot of stuff!  Well, in reality, we used to have a lot of stuff, but for a family of five, we don't have much at all, and as time goes on, we're only going to have less.  The only exchange is less stuff, trinkets, and clutter for more furniture and items to actually decorate our home, like curtains.

I've decided that from here until the beginning of next year, much like I did last year, my goal is to take control of the space I live in.  If I want to have clean areas for homeschooling crafts, I'm going to get off my butt and take care of it!  I'm going to take the time and energy to deep clean as much of this house as I can.  I'm going to make the kitchen comfortable enough that I can start making home cooked meals.  I'm going to make the living room comfortable enough that I can enjoy family time without feeling lost in it all.  I know it's going to take time, but it's definitely worth it.  After all, it's easier to focus on goals like sustainability, making green choices, and taking good care of my family if I'm not bogged down by clutter every day.

What's the part that makes me feel best about all of it?  My room mate (the home owner) thanked me for cleaning the kitchen and the refrigerator.  When our other house mate got home and saw it, I could see him standing behind her, beaming!  He even has his own drawer in the door for the things he's particular about having for himself!  It makes this whole process so much easier when I know it's appreciated, especially by someone I was so afraid of upsetting with all the change.  I know everyone warned me that he's a very particular sort, doesn't like change, likes his clutter, and wants everything to be his way.  I was honestly afraid that my efforts to take care of problems that I see would somehow cause conflict or tension.  I wouldn't even mind reorganizing if he didn't like the way it was organized (though, I've found most men to be fine with just about any means of organization, as long as they can find what they need), but I didn't want to upset anyone.  From the looks of it, as long as I don't mess with any recognizable system that's already in place before talking to him, I should be good!  Better still, he'll probably appreciate it in the end!  So not only am I doing something that's good for my own family, but it's good for the whole house!

Getting It All Done

It's not easy living with a family of five.  There's a lot to be done around the house.  It seems like there is a never ending stream of laundry.  Food goes somewhat quickly, and everything else.  Then there's all the dishes and everything else...  The work of a mother is never ending!

Today I decided something needed to be done.  While there is so much that I can't touch because my room mates don't want it messed with, there's plenty of other stuff that can be done.  I know some of it will have to wait.  I simply don't have the time or anything to do it properly right now.  Well, it's not so much the time to do that one task, but the time to do every layer that goes with that task to do it the right way.  In my opinion, there's no point in doing a task unless you're going to do it the proper way.  After all, if you leave something with "good enough", it's all to easy to settle for "good enough" all the time, and then it never actually gets done to it's fullest completion.  I'm tired of settling for "good enough".

I'm thinking in all of this, I need to stop considering things "not my responsibility".  I am reminded on a near daily basis that my family is not my room mate's responsibility and they will not clean up after us.  I guess I can't complain.  I haven't really been cleaning up after them either, though, that's probably in part because they spend all their time in their room.  I wash their dishes without too much of a complaint, and when I complain, it's just to my partner.  Still, there are other things that need to be taken care of that simply aren't getting done.  The cat box needs to be cleaned.  The rat doesn't get the attention she really needs.  Making the rest of the house safe for children simply isn't happening.  I'm not complaining, not really, but in some ways, these things are getting in the way of getting the house clean the way I feel it should be.

What can I say?  I'm finding that I'm getting picky about my home in my old age.  I like things to be a particular way.  Actually, I should be fair.   It's not that I like things to be a certain way.  I just like them to be neat, organized, and practical.  I can work around someone else's organization system, just as long as I understand it enough to find what I need and put things back when I'm done.  I like to look around my home and see clear surfaces!  I blame the FlyLady on this one, but I do.  I like to know that a coffee table can be used as a coffee table, with no more than a currently used glass and maybe a couple decorative books or a centerpiece.  Anything else is really just clutter.

Another thing I learned from FlyLady as this whole "not my responsibility" stuff.  I'm sick of hearing "I shouldn't have to" and "it's not my responsibility."  I know I've done it too.  Casting things off with "it's not my responsibility" and "I shouldn't have to" lays the blame on someone else.  In reality, is that getting the problem solved?  Is that getting the task done?  It really isn't.  All it's doing is passing the buck to someone else while complaining that it's not done to your satisfaction.  I mean, I can complain that the dishes aren't done all I want, but that's not getting them done.  Declaring loudly and to anyone who will listen that "they're not my dishes" and the person who dirtied them needs to go wash them isn't getting them done.  It's bothering me.  It's causing a problem.  Obviously complaining isn't making the situation any better, so I should just do it, right?  It's like that whole thing from Pixar's Robots, "If you see a need, fill a need."  In other words, if there's a task that needs to be done, find a way to get it done, whether it's doing it yourself or, in the case of the movie, inventing something to do it for you.

So from now on, if I see something that needs to be done, it's going to get done.  Why?  Because it needs to.  Because if I don't do it, no one else will, or it would have been taken care of already.  Because I want to get into good habits for when I no longer have room mates.  Most importantly, I'm going to do it because it's not fair for my family or anyone else who didn't cause the problem to be the one to suffer for it.  For sanity's sake, I'm only going to do do much on any given day, but progress must be made.  After all, if I wait for everyone to do their part, nothing will get done.  If I get into the mindset of not doing my part because no one else does theirs, nothing will get done.  The time has come to put away the blame and take action!

Akasha

Well, so much for not getting anymore pets...  That idea has just gone out the window!  Now not only are we still caring for a Northeastern Cottontail that's resisted any attempt at being free (unless you count "being wild" inside the house), and a beautiful ball python.  I've realized just how much I miss having snakes in the house.  I've forgotten how much I miss having pets!

Our newest family member is our pretty ball python, Akasha.  She was given to us by my very dear friend because she could no longer care for her.  Her house holds four kids, two adults, two cats, two dogs, two snakes, and two bearded dragons, not to mention the guests and visitors.  Nope, she's not planning to build her own arc here to save us all from the flood.  She's just got a big and well loved family.  Though most of the animals are the responsibility of the whole family, she feels a personal responsibility for each and every one, just like she does her children.  Unfortunately, Akasha is a very needy snake.  She needs handling as regularly as possible the more frequent, the better, and as my friend has so many animals and kids to be responsible on top of a busy work schedule, she just couldn't keep up with it anymore.

Now, I have to admit, I now have even more respect for this friend as a pet owner.  It's sadly rare that pet-parents realize when they're no longer able to do the best job possible for their pets and make the difficult decision to re-home them.  It's not an easy thing to do, filled with guilty feelings over not being able to love your dear pet enough, but in the end, it's better.  If you can't care for your pet, it should be with someone who can.  That's the mistake I made with Sneaky a year ago.  I gave her to the care of a friend until I could care for her again, and instead of returning her, I got was informed that Sneaky was getting ready to lay eggs, and that she had been relocated...half way across the country.

Unlike that friend, I've told Akasha's owner that she's free to take Akasha back at any time.  She's a beautiful snake, though quite small for a ball python, and I do love her, but she's got to go where she belongs.  I understand my friend can't care for her right now, but some day she may be able to again.  It will be sad to let her go when that day comes, but there will be other snakes.  There's always other animals looking for good care and a good home.

Akasha really is a beautiful snake.  She's quite small for a ball python, and apparently hasn't grown since my friend has own her.  She's one of the most skittish ball pythons I've ever seen, as ball pythons tend to have a reputation of being rather mellow and placid.  She warms up to me quickly when I handle her, and seems to like just about everyone in the house well enough, though she's still a little skittish with the kids.  Who can blame her?  They move really fast and she's not always expecting them to be so close!  Thankfully, her instinct is to hide rather than bite, and she really is good natured.

I have to wonder, though, if she will get any bigger.  I know ball pythons typically grow to somewhere between three and five feet long, however, I think she couldn't be much more than two feet.  I could be wrong.  Females, as Akasha is, tend to be longer than males, and if that's the case, why hasn't she grown?  She's hungry.  She eats well.  So why isn't she growing.  I have to wonder what kind of treatment she had before my friend was given her.  I don't even know how old she is.  I have to wonder if she's already full adulthood and simply hasn't grown due to starvation or mistreatment under a different owner.

Still, Akasha has come to our home, from another very good home.  Whatever she'd been through before my friend had her, she was treated very well with my friend.  A snake couldn't ask for a more wonderful family!  I know she'll be treated well and cared for here.  I look forward to our happy times together.  Welcome, Akasha, to our wonderful home.  You will be loved here very much!