Advice for raising kids

Parenting is tough. Some parents always seem tired, frazzled, and crabby.

I try to stay positive around here because it just seems to make everything feel easier when I stay in a positive mood and focus on successes and happy moments which almost always happen more often the failures and sad moments.

Over two years ago, I wrote a post about raising twins. I focused on the positives. And I’m still getting grief from people seeing the glass half empty.

Talk about a cheap shot.

My question is whether Randi was striking out at me because of difficulties that she has in her own life or if she is just playing the normal stereoptype card of dad’s escaping parenting responsibilities by hiding at the office.

Either way, it’s a cheap shot.

I know my personal shortcomings as a father and husband and work to minimize those. Randi can’t possibly know those but still after reading one or so posts, assumes that I have it easier than BeAGoodMom.

I would even be willing to say that I think BeAGoodMom has it rougher than I do a lot of the time. She has what I consider that worst parenting option. Part time worker from home. The constant bouncing back and forth between home life and work life and the complete removal of the barrier between the two.

But Randi doesn’t know any of that, either. She also doesn’t know that I work at home on Tuesdays so that BAGM can go into the office one day a week. During those days, I have to work 8 hours while managing the bus schedules, the baby’s nap schedule, the food schedule for all of the kids, entertaining them after my work is done and putting them to bed.

Does that mean BAGM has it easier than I do on Tuesdays?

No, she is busy doing her thing and has to deal with commute, office politics, being away from the kids, eating outside of the house and all the crappy things that come with working for a living.

But I really try not to think about the down side of it when I work from home or work at the office. They both have their challenges with regards to getting work done and being a parent.

Instead I try to enjoy the positives. I enjoy giving the kids baths and putting them to bed. I enjoy taking the kids to Kyuki-Do class twice a week. I enjoy trying to find opportunities to get some or all of the kids away from BAGM on some weekend days. I enjoy being able to pay the bills and buy fun stuff now and then.

It’s not always easy to remember all of that. For example, we are just recovering from a couple weeks of everybody being tired and sick. That’s been rough. But during that time, we’ve had a blast at Christmas parties, a trip to the museum, reading books in goofy voices, having tickle fights, etc. When people ask how things are, that’s what I’m most likely to talk about.

The twins are already almost 6 and the baby is already 1 year old. I don’t want to look back in 12-20 years when they all get around to moving away and only be able to remember being tired, frazzled and crabby.

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I just switched templates over here at BAGD. If you normally visit through a feedreader or email and have a couple minutes, please stop by and kick things around a little bit to see if anything looks horribly broken.

So far the template is pretty basic and ugly. I’ll change all of that someday but not for a little while because I actually have a few web projects that I need to do now that the holidays are over that I’ll actually get paid for and I still need to customize my wife’s site some more before I can make non-urgent changes over here.

Anyway, the blogcleaning comes at a time when the year on the calendar is getting ready to increment on us. Time for fresh starts all around if you believe in that sort of thing.

One of the biggest changes is that I’m removing the BlogHer ads from this site. I have nothing against BlogHer, I just don’t think running their ads on my site are going to be a good fit with some of the other things I’m thinking about doing this year. For example, one of the restrictions of the program is that you cannot run any paid graphical ads above the fold if you are displaying BlogHer ads. I also don’t really some of the things that happen when they run out of the big paid advertisers. None of it is really that big of a deal but I decided it was time for me to try playing with other things.

I’m also considering changing a few things about how I write, how often I write, and what I write about. I haven’t really come up with a plan and probably won’t for a little bit but I’ll let you know when I do. A couple very loose thoughts are to either make it much more of a personal, humorous type of blog or a much more parenting advice articles type of site…or maybe a mix with certain types of articles showing up on certain types of days. I might even start proofreading what I write!

If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know. If you notice anything broken, please let me know.

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Christmas was a blast this year.

Geetle did a great job of being excited with every present and every cookie and every song and every decoration and every…well, just everything. That girl sure loves Christmas.

Giggles LOVES opening presents and refuses to stop until the entire present has been opened.

Pookie, for the first time ever, really seemed to get into Christmas. He has been spontaneously singing Christmas songs. He willingly opened almost all of his presents. He loved decorating the trees. And he really loves all of his “stuff.”

That’s the new concept around the house. Pookie has stuff. He is constantly telling us that he wants to go home and play with his stuff or wants to take his stuff with him. I’m not sure where it came from, but it is cool to see him understanding collections of things and also possession of things. Certain things belong to Pookie and only Pookie and he is willing to tell people that. I’m sure that’s a big development.

The couple days since Christmas he has been bouncing around the house playing with this new toy and then that new toy for 5-30 minutes at a time. His stuff, Geetle’s stuff, Giggles’ stuff. But mostly the new stuff which is also a new thing. Pookie normally takes a week or so to open up to new toys but this year he has instantly taken to the new stuff. Again, I’m sure that’s a big development.

A quick note to parents of kids with autism. Exposing your kids to things is amazingly important. The first few times it might not mean anything but keep doing it, keep trying to make it fun, and don’t give up. Pookie has gone from almost disliking Christmas to really being a part of the scene. He has gone from barely wanting to visit the Museum of Science and Industry, to practically leading us around the place. He has gone from barely wanting Giggles to be in the house to smiling when she walks up and starts to mess with him. He has gone from barely able to stand in one place at Kyuki-Do class to breaking boards. It just takes a little more practice sometimes and they won’t get that practice if you give up after just one or two tries.

Giggles is a full time walker now complete with being able to pick up stuff off the floor without falling over. She’s also getting very cranky when she doesn’t get the things that she wants RIGHT NOW. And just the other day, she tried taking her pants off in the middle of a walk from the dining room to the library. That seems to be her new big thing. I’m hoping she out grows it before she is capable of doing it.

Geetle is reading. Like real books. Like Superfudge
. I think she is probably getting about 60-70% of the words but was able to tell us things like they moved to New Jersey and at the end the baby says they are going to move back “Nu Yuck.” She read almost the entire book over a two day period.

So there you have it. Another Christmas under our belts.

How were your festivities?

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I love news about the world going mad. Especially when I can get offended by the people who are offended.

For example, ladies, can you imagine walking into the store to buy a new cell phone and getting told, “Sorry, toots, we don’t sell phones to broads that stay home watching the brats. Have your sugar daddy come in and maybe he’ll pick you out something nice.”

That might ruffle some tail feathers. You’d probably light up your Virginia Slim and tell that shop owner that you’ve come a long way, baby, and you don’t have to put up with this nonsense anymore.

Or you might say something like:

For anyone to suggest that being a mum isn’t a real job is just ridiculous. I thought we’d gone past this sort of outdated way of thinking. Obviously the message hasn’t got through at Vodafone.

Cool. I can dig the annoyance. After all this is a crazy world.

Vodafone is a bit embarrassed by all of this

Vodafone spokesman Greg Spears yesterday confirmed the no-housewives rule and said getting a man to buy the phone instead was the quickest fix.

confirming that it really is still a man’s world.

Unless of course you are a man who is a stay at home dad. In that case you can’t buy the phone but nobody cares. Eva Cox, of the Women’s Electoral Lobby thinks this is a gender issue saying, “the company should be ashamed” and calling “on women to boycott Vodafone until it changed the policy.” Hope she didn’t try to reach those women on their cell phones.

But wait a second. She called on women to boycott. Not men. Does Ms. Cox assume that men won’t have time because they are all plugging away at the office?

This is a database problem. The company is trying to verify that the purchaser of the phone is capable of paying for the phone. Part of that seems to be making the work phone number mandatory. Which makes me wonder what happens for those people who happen to work from home. Whoever set up the database and order entry system failed to notice what would happen in the case of single income families.

This is not a gender problem. The intent of the policy was not to prevent women from buying phones. It is an unfortunate side effect that it prevents stay-at-home-parents from purchasing a phone without the support of the work-away-from-home-spouse.

I do not mind people boycotting or protesting for equality but I think an important part of making that work is to really figure out who the policy is being unfair to and fighting for those rights. In this case, the issue is not really a women’s rights issue but rather a stay-at-home-parent with a work-away-from-home-spouse but that might be a little much to fit on a protest sign.

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