Families and Parenting

140 posts

Rompies with Ruby

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Hi cats and kitties!!  Here I am on our Christmas Eve rompies.  We escaped the family hahaha.   Anyway, it was really hot, but that’s cool.  It’s better than the rain we had for the last week.  My rompies were not at all excellent last week.  But!  Like I said, today was hot and sunny, and we rompied for three miles, which was not really enough but Codename:Stabby got lazy last week and it’s all she could manage.  Whatever.

Anyway, we met a nice man in a Jeep coming down the mountain when we we’re going up and he said I was “nice” which was nice of him.  Then I sat in the river which was really cold, which surprised me.  But I got a good drink, and then we left and came home and I took a little nap then we went to Burger King for dinner, which I love.  I had a Whopper Jr., which I love.

Ok, so have a great Christmas my fellow doggies!!  I hope you get chewies and tennis balls!  I’ll check in later.

Manic Elves

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Crossposted from bbqcornnuts.typepad.com

My four year old son is so wound up about Christmas that I’m somewhat concerned that he will spontaneously combust from his own excitement. It is extremely cute and Christmas morning is definitely one of the best times to be a parent. It’s particularly rewarding with my son, who is easily pleased and is thrilled when someone gives him a new pencil.

But how on earth are we going to get our children to sleep on Christmas Eve? We’ve got presents to put together and we’d like to set it up to look like Santa Claus made an effort. I’ve got to find some way to get the kids to bed and make them stay there.

I’m fortunate enough to have fairly mellow children for the most part. They’re small so they get into plenty of nonsense but they’re generally well-behaved. However, in the last few days, they have turned into manic little elves. My son is almost hysterical with Christmas spirit. We’ve had nonstop tantrums and I swear my son has regressed into a two year old. He’s also been puking a lot. My 2 year old daughter doesn’t remember last year but she knows something is up and is excited by default.

I’ve decided that my best bet is to completely exhaust them on Christmas Eve. Here’s a preliminary schedule I’ve worked up:

5 am: Let’s get up early!

7-10 am: Wind sprints in the park

10-noon: High impact hide and seek

1-3: Extreme Gymnastics

3-6 pm: As much running as possible

7-8 pm: Mainlining Sleepytime tea

8 pm: Straitjackets and locked bedroom doors

Rainy Rompies with Ruby

Well.  Here I am with my 8yo nephew.  We’re wet.  I don’t really like it all that much.

I did not have a decent rompie all weekend because of the rain.  But, we did errands today and then went to the upper football field at the high school and I got to run around in the pouring rain in the puddles and I had a blast.  I am soaked!  It’s not so bad now, because I am laying on the warm bed drying out.  And the Cabin will smell like me!  Which is how it should be.

Redemption at the Freaking Happiest Place on Earth

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So, if you trudged through my rant from earlier this week, you know I had a crap day at Disney World. Boo-de-freaking-hoo. I know. Get over it, Ms. A.

But if you hung in with me and indulged my complaining, I wanted to reward you with a little feel good update: Friday was great. Perfect weather, fun day, wishes and dreams fulfilled. Little A’s highlight? Seeing me drenched on Splash Mountain: “Look at her – she is totally wet!  She got soaked!” She giggled so hard –  while trying to get other riders and park attendants to join in the hilarity – that other people started laughing, too. I guess when you are five, seeing your mother looking nonplussed and dripping wet is the height of comedy.  Too bad I couldn’t have fallen into the water while trying to exit the log, too. She would have been in heaven. We had one of those really great days that don’t happen often enough, but are all the more special for their rarity.  We left that night under the lights of Main Street, manufactured snow falling from the Florida sky, feeling like it was the happiest place on Earth.

Fartin’ Around with Ruby

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Hi fans and Dawgz!!  Well, it’s raining today so no rompies 🙁  But here is a picture of me from a few days ago.

We went rompies yesterday and it was awesome!  First, we got there and Codename:Stabby realized that I got into the car naked and did not have on my collar or leash, so we almost had to go home, which was not awesome.  But a nice fit runner lady in the car next to us heard Codename:Stabby’s swears as she looked for the spare leash and gave us a rope which I used as a leash.  Rompie saved!!  On rompies we met a Forest Department guy in a truck and he told me that I am awesome, so that was pretty good.  Then we went back to the car and drove back to town and did some errands and went home.  Then I ate and went to sleep.

All in all it was a good day.  Toes crossed that we get some rompies this weekend!

Rompies with Ruby

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Today’s rompie was Grrrrrrreat!  We had the place to ourselves which meant I got to go off leash!  I ran around like a Blue Moon Lunatic.  We only did two miles, but I was off leash, like I said, so it was great.  Here’s a picture of me with my leash off.

People tell me that I’ve leaned out and slimmed down since getting to California.

Anyway, if you’re in my neck of the woods and you want to go rompies, email or twitter me and we’ll hook it up Dawg!

Crasstalk Parenting: Mildred will make you stop drinking

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I was kidding around on a past post about how I will punish my children when (I know it’s not an if, they’ll try it) I catch them drinking. Someone pointed out in the comments that not much will stop a teenager from drinking. That’s almost universally true. But there is one glaring exception and that exception is my mother.

My mother has been a teacher for something like 45 years and when I was in high school, she taught at a Catholic high school (she still teaches there at the age of 80 and any of her current students will tell you that she’s still as scary as ever). The nuns have nothing on my mom in terms of intimidation. Mildred has it down to a science. I didn’t actually attend my mother’s high school. She mercifully allowed me to attend the public high school. My brother got into trouble and had to go to my mom’s school and actually had her as a teacher. But I was allowed off the hook.

Like every other teenager on the planet, I tried drinking. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at it and made a huge strategic error early on in my drinking career. I and two of my friends got drunk at a high school dance. When I say “drunk”, I mean “annihilated”. With typical teenage savvy, we decided that we would split two full bottles of vodka between the three of us. Clearly this proves that we were not experienced drinkers because no one who has ever had a red wine headache would consider drinking that much alcohol. We got busted almost immediately, probably because none of us could walk and at least 2 of us were in the bathroom puking up pure alcohol.

They called our parents who had the privilege of picking up their shitfaced daughters at a high school on Friday night. My two friends were told that the raging hangovers were their punishments. However, things went a bit differently for me.

Here are some of the procedures Mildred put in place to dissuade me from doing any more underage drinking:

  • A 3 hour lecture at 6 am the following morning while I had what is still the worst hangover of my life (and that includes college)
  • Grounding for a full month and in Mildred’s house, that meant no tv, no phone, no leaving the house other than for school and church
  • Many, many Catholic masses
  • An AA meeting
  • A detailed report on alcoholism (researched at the library)
  • I was suspended and had to spend the time working for my grandfather. Sweatshop owners have nothing on my grandfather when it came to making people work.
  • During the week of Christmas break, I had to report to the janitor at the high school and help clean graffiti off the walls. I also got to clean toilets in the gym.
  • I had to attend counseling meetings with two dimwitted teachers at the high school. They’d each taken a psychology class in college and felt qualified to diagnose my family as dysfunctional based on the fact that I, a teenager, had drank alcohol.
  • Sniff tests every time I walked through the door for the next year.

Now, I’m not going to lie and say that I never again did any underage drinking, but I cut waaaaaaaay back after that incident. Especially in high school. College is another story entirely.

Rompies with Ruby

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Ruby is very excited to bring to the world her occasional column, “Rompies with Ruby.”  She will highlight stellar rompies, exciting rompies, remarkable rompies, or just regular rompies.

This picture is from yesterday’s rompies along the Merced River.  It was hot and gorgeous.  She met two dogs, barked at mountain bikers, lollygagged in the river for coolin’s and generally had a good time.

Remember folks, treats are for doggies!

PS – Shout out to the War Dog!!  Woof woof Dawg!

Crass Parenting: Babies by the Book

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When we were expecting our first child, my husband read several books about parenting. He was worried that he didn’t know much about babies. He did, however, know a lot about research so he put those skills to work.

After many hours of reading, he concluded that parenting books are of no help whatsoever. Here is the problem, as he described it to me:

If you want to engage in an exercise in futility, take a book by Doctor Sears, famous for his attachment parenting theories, and compare it to a book by Doctor Buckman and Gary Ezzo, famous for their Babywise method. Read a chapter on a specific topic in one book, and then read the corresponding chapter in the other. The differences in their advice will drive you insane.

I would like to hear a debate between these two self-proclaimed experts. I think it would go something like this:

Moderator: Let’s start with feeding:

Buckman: Put him on a schedule so he’ll sleep through the night

Sears: Feed him on demand because babies know when they’re hungry.

Buckham: Babies who are fed on demand become fussy and will never sleep well.

Sears: Babies who are not fed on demand become dehydrated and malnourished.

Buckman: You’re spoiling the baby

Sears: You’re trying to starve the baby

Buckman: Now you’re being melodramatic

Sears: That’s because you’re being a baby nazi

Moderator: Alright, that deteriorated fast. Let’s try a more neutral topic, like co-sleeping

Sears: I recommend a family bed. Denying the child attention will make him anxious which will screw him up for life.

Buckman: You shouldn’t let the baby into the adults’ bed. Learn to recognize the baby’s cries and let him cry we should learn to recognize his cries and let him cry himself to sleep if he doesn’t sound agitated. To give him too much attention will make him needy, which will screw him up for life.

Sears: That baby will have an anxiety disorder and feel unloved.

Buckman: Oh yeah? Well, the baby in the family bed will grow up to be a huge p….

Moderator: Alright, let’s move on. How about a parental date night?

Buckman: Parents creating a “date night,” a time to leave the kid with someone else and reconnect as a couple.

Sears:  I strongly disagree. Parents should  wear the child in a sling and take him everywhere they go for the first two years of the child’s life.

Buckman: That’s insane. Parents to spend at least 15 minutes each night talking solely to each other, ignoring the child so that they can connect as a couple. It’s important to show the child that the parents have a strong marriage so the child understands his role in the family.

Sears:  In some primitive cultures, the child doesn’t even touch the ground until he’s two-years-old, at which time they have a historic “ground breaking ceremony,” declaring the child ready to touch the ground. Systems like this make our children feel loved and safe, which will stop us from screwing them up for life.

Buckman: That’s the craziest piece of hippie nonsense I’ve ever heard. Children should not be running the family life. Parents need time alone or they’ll go insane.

Sears: Children are equal members of the family. You want to run the family like a military camp. Do you even like children?

Moderator: Okay, let’s talking about sleeping. Lots of parents worry about getting the child to sleep.

Sears: If your child has trouble sleeping, try putting him in a car seat on top of a running clothes dryer or rocking him to sleep.

Buckman: No, don’t do that. Ever. It’s dangerous to put a baby on a clothes dryer. If you rock the baby to sleep, it will become dependent on rocking to get to sleep.

Sears: So it’s wrong to rock a baby to sleep? Is that what you’re saying?

Buckman: I’m saying that babies need to learn to fall asleep on their own. You can’t rock to them to sleep every time.

Sears: Oh, I see. Just let them scream until they pass out. That’s the loving way to handle it. Why don’t you just let them stay in the crib all day and just throw them a ham bone every once in a while?

Buckman: I suppose you want to run around naked in a field with the baby in a sling singing songs about nature? That’s how you’d like to raise a baby, you crazy hippie.

Moderator: Guys, we’re just trying to help out the parents.

Buckman: I can’t talk to him. He called me a baby nazi.

Sears: You called me a hippie.

Moderator:  That’s IT! I have had enough of this! If you two doctors don’t stop fighting, I’m going send both of you to time out.

I think this is an overly optimistic view of how said debate would go.