Secular Confessions

[demigraf]

Oh for the love of... a fake knife, Shelley? What, so he can re-enact the fight scene from West Side Story? ;) Ugh. Anyway, I'm sure it goes really well with the boy's plastic guillotine playset and stash of "hide-in-me" plastic dry cleaning bags.

L, I got the shivers reading that R is getting so much out of school. I'm sorry that his homework has become a big time-eater, but it sounds to me not like he's struggling, but he's really getting into it. Perhaps C is going to grow up to be the efficient administrator and R will turn out to be the artsy one. In any case, it seems like boys have a less complicated time with making friends, so the fact that C hasn't found it as easy to make friends doesn't surprise me. I'll be she's going to make some really deep friendships throughout her school years.

Bodhi has started to "make up" my parents' language when he hears them speak it and tries to join in their conversations. He knows it's not Spanish, but I guess to him it sounds like they've got marbles in their mouths because that's what his gobbledy gook language sounds like to me.

Bodhi is downstairs now in the playroom with his little best buddy, Santi, whom I'm watching until after dinner. His mommy and daddy are at a benefit for a friend of theirs running for Congress or something. I was really excited to have Santi over as our little charge - completely flattered that they trust us to look after him and stoked that Bodhi's friend is over for an extended play date. This is what I pictured being a mom was going to be like - Bodhi having friends over to play. I got all these snacks (Santi is a bigtime snacker) and DH has stuff to make his special pizza. I'm going to make spaghetti bolognese to go with it. I've been banished from the downstairs, so I am typing from the top of the stairs so I can keep one ear on them. I've already run down once to broker an agreement on who was going to get to pull Ferdinand's coal car (why, Santi, the boy holding Ferdinand, of course!). And I told Bodhi/Thomas that he had to pull Percy's mail truck because Percy was sick with a head cold.

I asked them who wanted something to drink. They both yell out, "Me!!" So I ask them what they want to drink. They both look at each other and somehow make up their minds to both yell, "Milk!" (Bodhi) and "Milk, please!" (Santi). So I answer, "OK, 2 milks coming right up!" And Bodhi corrects me, "No, down. You mean 2 milks are coming down." The wisenheimer. ;)

[missychrissy]

That's just fabulous Myles. I think you'll find as he gets older, they're always just as much fun. I love it when my girls have their friends around. Not only are there lots of laughs, but I generally learn a thing or two. Perhaps that won't be the case with a boy and his mama though. I doubt my girls & their friends tell Rich the stuff they confide in me.

Jesi blew up at her father tonight. She blew up at me the other day because I was trying to explain something about the National Guard (something she was interested in to begin with). I totally blame that depo shot. She better not get a 2nd one. She took off from her dad's and he's worried sick 'cause he doesn't know where she is.

[Bridget]

Myles that sounds so fun!
Chrissy, is that a common side effect of depo?
I feel like I always have kids at my house so I guess I have to miss out on the excitement of the kids having friends over although it may be different when they are choosing their own! Today when I picked them up a little girl ran up to me and asked me when Savana's sticker club was starting. I looked at Savana and she gave a little devilish grin with a shrug and said she started a sticker club. I let the little girl know I'd talk to Savana and then I'd talk to her mommy and we'd try to work out arrangements for a sticker meeting. Then I watched her run to her mom and tell her that and mom gave me a thumbs up sign and was laughing.

So, the hayride we went on was wheat grass. At least I know for sure without a doubt that Kai is allergic to wheat. His reaction is just getting a bit better today and that's the most severe one I've seen. Poor dude. He was breathing in all that dust from the wheat and it really wreaked havoc on him

Dbf calls me once or twice a day and goes on and on and on and on about everything going on with him on the job right now and then listens to me for about 30 seconds and says he has to go. I know he's busy but would be nice to divide up the time.

I'm off on an all day field trip with the kids again tomorrow. Going to have to see if I can split time between S and K's classes.
Sawyer is obsessed with saying the word apple. And our cat is named Apple. So all animals and all round fruits are apples as far as Sawyer is concerned. When we went to the farm with the kids' class he kept pointed at the cows and screaming, "MAMA APPLE" and I would say, "Cow" and he scream even louder, "MAMA APPLE" The more i said cow the louder he screamed apple. I feel almost sure he knows that cow is a cow and not an apple and he's getting a really big kick out of the repetitive game.

Yesterday at the store I gave Sawyer a loaf of bread to carry because giving him a job encourages him to stay close to me. He kindly took the bread, set it on the floor and sat on it. He got so many laughs for that from all the old ladies working that he tried it again when we got home. Oy.

[missychrissy]

I don't know if it's an official side effect, but if you google "mood swings on depo" there are pages upon pages of women asking if that is normal and claiming it made them crazy.

I'm sorry dbf can't think of the kids for a few minutes and ask (as well as listen while genuinely interested) in what's going on in their lives.

Have fun on the field trip Bridget!

[Gwenn]

You've got a comedian on your hands, Bridget!

[Bridget]

Gosh, is there anything she can do to balance it out?

[demigraf]

Bodhi was in a "sticker" club, and it was more like a chain mail/pyramid scheme thing where kids "sent" letters to other kids soliciting stickers who'd send the letter onto their friends with the sender's name on them. and stickers would start showing up in the mail. I played along, but I think Bodhi wasn't all that into it. I kind of regret buying the sheets and sheets of stickers from the dollar store for him last year, since they hold no fascination for him anymore. I should have kept them and used them sparingly as rewards.

Poor Kai in the wheat grass!

Chrissy, has Rich found Jesi yet? I'm sorry she took off again. I hope it's all better now.

[missychrissy]

Yeah, it blew over. She was at my mom's. They're short lived, but very intense. It's beyond frustrating to deal with sometimes.

Bobbie's BFF since elem. school surprised me with some clothes. Minis and jeans. I gotta say, I rock 'em. I can't wait for an excuse to wear one of them out.

[daylilies]

I'm sorry Jesi took off, Chrissy. Glad she's back.

That's cute about the sticker club Bridget!

Josh looked sad this morning so I asked him what was wrong and he said he doesn't like school. They do too much learning and not enough playing, he says. He's been eyeing the Legos in the classroom and he hasn't been able to play with them yet! So I said he should tell the teacher how he feels, and I put a note in his folder saying Josh wanted to talk to her. She called at 9:30 this morning-she thought the note said *I* wanted to talk to her! I gave her the short story and asked if she could talk to Josh and then call me back later. She explained that they do a lot of structured learning for the first 6 weeks or so, so she can get an idea of where everyone is, and so she can show them what everything in the room is, and then they can do more individualized stuff.

[missychrissy]

Awww...Poor Josh. I'm sure he'll have plenty of opportunities to play with the legos.

Conner again opted to go home to daddy last night It's ok because he's going to have to stay with me tonight because Rich is working Saturday morning, but it's making me wonder what's going on that he all of a sudden doesn't want to stay over at my house again.

[Suja]

One of the things that's different in Mira's classroom (from the toddler room) is that they are not allowed to "work" with whatever they want, whenever they want. Some things need lessons, and they have to learn to wait until they have one before some things can be used. Then, they can use it when they want to. It sounds like Josh's room might be similarly setup.

Chrissy, I'm sure this has to do with the fact that he's a 6 year old. He'll probably go back and forth a gazillion times, and drive you nuts. That IS part of the job description, right? I know this must be so hard for you.

[daylilies]

Suja, it does sound similar.
Chrissy,

[missychrissy]

I just scheduled a bday party for Conner at Chuck E Cheese. I'm excited for him. He's actually never been

[Suja]

He's actually never been

Why, you child abusing thug, you!

[missychrissy]

It is indeed quite neglectful.

I can't really stand the place (the noise) so I've thus far avoided going.

[Cosmosmom]

We don't have a chuck e cheese here. nearest one would be in the Twin Cities and I have no plans on driving 1.5-2 hours for it.

[missychrissy]

There was one 'here' (15 miles away) when I was growing up. We only went once or twice a year, but I love it. Then it closed. The one we're taking Conner too is probably 20 miles away but it didn't open until after my girls were too old for it. It'll be a first time experience for them as well.

[demigraf]

I used to love Chuck E. Cheese as a kid. There was one near my piano teacher's house. I'd play skeeball and crawl around the human plastic tubes for hours. In hindsight, my mom must have been incredibly bored. The place had no natural light and was filled with smoke at the time, so I imagine it felt like being in a casino without the booze or gambling.

I worry about Bodhi too when the time comes to transition from play-based learning to more classroom style teaching. He's still only 3, though, so I'm not going to let it bother me too much that he can't sit still and pay attention today. He has almost 2 more years to mature before I have to worry about it. For the record, I was always painfully bored in school, so I feel really sorry for Bodhi if he's going to have the same experience as me throughout his classroom years.

Can I just gripe for a minute? I have a team of developers offshore that are working on one of my projects and they have a set of deadlines they themselves committed to. The problem is that they don't read any of the specifications we give them, and seemingly just make things up as they go along as far as how the software is supposed to work. Because of that, I and my team in the US are constantly having to provide them with long lists of things they need to fix. And lately they've had the nerve to complain that they can't hit their deadlines because we're too busy asking them to correct all the things they did wrong. It has been driving me batty! Am I going to have to start calling meetings where I quiz them on their understanding of the specs, just to make sure they are actually reading them? I'd talk to their manager, but he's one of the guys complaining that we're sending them too many corrections. Ugh!

[missychrissy]

Myles...why do you do what you do again? That sounds like a real nightmare. I know how aggravated I get when people complain that something doesn't work, yet won't take the time to review my awesome tutorial. And they are awesome. I screenshot everything.

[Suja]

Never been to Chuck E Cheese. I've heard what it's like, and that's plenty enough for me to drive on by. My poor deprived child will just have to make do.

Myles, in your shoes, I totally would. Have a meeting to discuss the specs, and have them tell you their understanding of what it is that is expected of them. Do you suppose this is a language issue or willful disobedience?

[demigraf]

Honestly, I'm not sure where the disconnect is, Suja. When I said I'd have to start calling meetings to discuss the specs themselves, I was kind of kidding because the each of the specs have literally hundreds of lines of instruction. Maybe over 1000 apiece. I can't possibly walk through every bit of minutiae with them, and it's actually not even my role. There is a guy in the US on that team who speaks their language (not that translation is needed because they're all English speaking anyway) and whose job it is to digest all the instruction and make sure it's accurately conveyed to them. The problem with him is that he tends to cut and paste exactly what I and others write without really digesting it himself.

I wouldn't mind calling a meeting to discuss the process again, to highlight the fact that they're expected to code to the specs. But what's frustrating is that my company is a process-heavy company. This offshore team knows that going in. Their manager actually has to put his signature on our specs to show he agrees with them. They are given an overview of all the ways they are going to be audited and quality controlled up front. Plus, this team is a "CMM 5" certified team, meaning they're supposedly at the highest level of the Capability Maturity Model. So they are supposedly well aware of best practices of contracted software development, and you'd think that would include actually "following the recipe" before baking. It seems so obvious to me that to call a meeting on it would feel like I'm talking down to children (who, again, are supposed to be the industry superstars of what they do). Following written specifications is just plain industry-standard. Heck, it's common-sense standard.

My husband thinks they might just believe they're too good at what they do to actually have to read anything. Which would be sad if true. You could be fantastic at solving math problems, but if you don't know what values to plug into your problem, you're not going to have the right solution. In a sense, they're making up numbers to plug in as they go along. Anyway, if I don't help them fix things now, QA is going fail their work, so luckily I'm not the last line of defense.

I have other frustrations with this team. They say Yes to everything, when they don't have to. If they were to tell us no, we'd have enough time to plan for a workaround. But instead, they say Yes and we find out too late they won't deliver. Then we're left to scramble for a quick fix when a more timely No would have given us enough warning to come up with a more "elegant" solution.

OK. Sorry. End of my rant because that's exactly what it is. I'll take care of it. And, really, I should know not to get frustrated anymore. Miscommunication is a classic problem whenever it comes to building software. I think about higher-stake, larger technical projects, like building bridges and satellites, and I hope and pray they're not plagued by the same kind of communication problems that we are.

[Gwenn]

Unfortunately, Myles, they most likely are, at least based off my father's experiences in physics/engineering. Every little thing needs to be dealt with and unfortunately it's everywhere. I hate it.

Count me among those who plan to deprive their children of the whole Chuck E. Cheese experience. I know kids love it, but ick, ick, ick.

Among things that continually baffle us at work, a lady told me recently that her child never babbled. To clarify, because that is a big indicator of certain speech problems, I asked again, "So he didn't babble at all?" she looked uncomfortable, then asked me to explain what babbling was. I said, "goo goo ga ga." "Oh, yeah, he did that."

Seriously? It's not like "babble" is a fancy technical term like joint attention or object permanence.

[demigraf]

Among things that continually baffle us at work, a lady told me recently that her child never babbled. To clarify, because that is a big indicator of certain speech problems, I asked again, "So he didn't babble at all?" she looked uncomfortable, then asked me to explain what babbling was. I said, "goo goo ga ga." "Oh, yeah, he did that."

Seriously? It's not like "babble" is a fancy technical term like joint attention or object permanence.

LOL. I wonder what she initially thought you meant by "babble".

Unfortunately, Myles, they most likely are, at least based off my father's experiences in physics/engineering. Every little thing needs to be dealt with and unfortunately it's everywhere. I hate it.

*shudder*. If airplanes and cars were built the way I see 99% of the software I see being built, I would WALK everywhere. "Oh, sorry the jetliner fell out of the sky. That was a known bug and we knew we were going to fix it once there was money in the budget for it."

Suja/Erin, do you lift weights at home? I am going to start doing it here, but obviously don't have enough of the heavy stuff. Heaviest I have is a set of 20lb dumbbells. I have a mental block about lifting at the gym. There are so many guys who make loud "Unh!" noises. It gives me the willies.

[daylilies]

Our Chuck E Cheese is literally across the street! I take him once every few months and he had his birthday there last year. They did a good job. The party hosts were helpful and fun. I know it's probably not the most sanitary place, but eh. Build up that immune system, right? LOL

My husband actually worked at a CEC when he was much younger. He was one of the cooks. They tried to get him to be Chuck E. but he was too tall for the costume

[Suja]

Myles, I haven't, yet. I troll Craigslist for a good weight set, but because of my health issues, have put it on the back burner. You'd need a squat rack too, especially if you don't have a spotter. Don't be intimidated by the grunters, though. Go to the gym and show them that real women can lift some real weights.

[3andMe]

I have never been to a Chuck E Cheese and my kids have never been to a Chuck E Cheese. My DH was born and raised in California and has had a way more traditional childhood than I did and has never been to a CEC (I was thinking this was just due to my weird parents).

I have been suddenly overwhelmingly busy house-hunting in the past few days. My dad surprised me a few days ago by saying that my house was very small (it is--the twins share a bedroom and S. shares our bedroom) and that he was selling a ranch he owned and for tax purposes it would be beneficial for him to buy a new property within a certain amount of time. He thought that he might buy a house in our area that might fit our family better than our current house, have us move into it, and then I could sell our house at our leisure and buy that house from him later on. But I have to be prepared to put an offer on a house on October 15th and the whole thing will not work unless we close on a house within a specified time frame. We have not had much time to discuss much of anything apart from that, but I have been getting and sending lots of emails and I spent yesterday and today looking at houses. Some are amazingly outrageous and some are just amazing. Some are really far away and would entail more of a commute than I am comfortable with--I already have a commute. My dad only specified that he wanted a big back yard and enough space in the house, and yesterday we looked at a property with an orchard, a chicken coop, and a creek, but it was a long ways away and needed some improvements. DH was dreaming of selling our own organic apple cider and eggs to supplement our income.

Anyway, I can see I'm going to be pretty busy in the next few months, and I still feel very conflicted about this whole process, especially since the details have not been ironed out. I have been neglecting my chores spending time on home listing sites.

[Suja]

Good luck, L! I hope you find the perfect house for your family quickly.

[missychrissy]

Oh wow L! That's AWESOME of your dad to make such a generous offer! Good luck with your home search. I really hope you find the perfect home for you and your family.

---

I had to come in and vent a bit. Bobbie & I got into it BIG TIME tonight. AGAIN she was sleeping on the couch with 2 sinks full of dishes. She's been giving Missy her medicine, so she's been the one to feed her for the last couple weeks and she acted like I was the worst dog owner in the world because I didn't know Missy was all out of food. The really bad part was that she refuses to buy parts that she needs for her car. She's the only one that uses it and she still isn't paying the car insurance on it. She didn't pay a dime for it other than the gas and 1 oil change. She really blew up when we insisted she MUST buy a wheel bearing with her next check. She screamed that if she had to buy parts for it, then she wanted it in her name. Then she ran it down and called it a piece of sh!t and said she always thought she deserved a better car. Mind you, this same 'piece of sh1t' was her father's car for nearly a year prior to her getting it. It was good enough for him...?

I'm providing her with a place to live, food, car, transportation, cell phone, unlimited internet/cable, and a laptop and she doesn't think she needs to pay for her own car parts? AND I get to hear how the car we gave her isn't good enough? I went to get in her face, pointing my finger and yes I was yelling. I was livid. I called her ungrateful and told her she was acting like a spoiled brat. When I told her that we gave her the best that we could afford, she said that I'd gotten my boobs done, insinuating that perhaps I should have spent that $ on a car for her instead. I went without in order to give my kids everything I possibly could and to have it be said that my very best isn't good enough was more than I could stand to hear. I kicked her out. When I went to get in her face and tell her what I thought, she came at me scratching and screaming and she even bit me and wouldn't let go. I wrestled her to the floor and pinned her down. And I really, really lost it. I told her I never regretted sacrificing anything for my kids until she said my best wasn't good enough. And I told her that if I'd had known she was going to grow up to be nothing more than a spoiled brat I wouldn't have had her.

I was so **** angry. I never, ever thought that. Ever. Of course the neighbors heard all this yelling, screaming and banging around and they knew Rich was here so they assumed it was us and called the police. Neither Bobbie or I were arrested, so I guess that's the silver lining. It's been a few hours and I'm just now getting over the fury of everything she'd said and really starting to feel bad about the things I was screaming at her.

She's staying with a friend. I had taken her car (verbally) but when she was waiting for her friend I told Rich she should have it because I still don't want her to lose her job. She refused to take it and I'm worried she's going to quit.

[Gwenn]

Oh, wow, Chrissy. I know you do so much for her. That must have really hurt you.

L, that is such exciting news about a house! Good luck with it all.

[demigraf]

Chrissy, *hugs*. Wow. That was so intense. I hate it when I get that angry. Don't beat yourself up over losing it. When things blow over, I know you and Bobbie will smooth things out. In the meantime, I hope she thinks a little bit about all the things you've done for her.

L, how cool! I love kicking the tires on houses. The last time we went to the Oakland Zoo, I took a drive up Golf Links just to explore. Then I went on Zillow to see the properties in that area. It seemed pretty affordable and yet spacious. I'm sorry you feel rushed to find a new home (the housing market is more like a river than a lake of possibilities; sometimes you have to wait for the right one to flow by), but there are probably a lot of good options out there for you in this market, and it's almost better that you won't have the luxury of time to unmake your mind up for you once you take a plunge. Can't wait to hear what you decide and in what area! The LaMorinda area is great for space and chickens. And friends of ours in Clayton are overrun with fresh eggs. Are you also looking up in Marin? I really love it up there too. Of course, Pacifica's not bad either ;) but it's hard to find properties with land here. And the fog.