Conserving Water

So, when we got this front-loading washer way back when in the old house, we found out that it used much less water per load than the old top-loader we had, even though it had a much larger capacity. This is a very good thing.

In part, of course, because it conserves water, leaving more water for the fishies in the ocean and for all of us to drink and blah blah blah.

In part because as our family grew, and the number of loads of laundry done in a month increased, those gallons saved each load added up to a difference in our water bill, I'm sure, though I've never done the math to figure out just how much more we'd be spending if we still had the top loader. (If i knew exactly how many loads of laundry I did in a month, I would either immediately feel exhausted at the thought, despair that even with that many trips up and down the stairs with laundry baskets I'm still in awful shape, lord it over anyone I know who thinks about laundry in a weekly instead of daily sense, or realize that I'm more justified than ever in getting one of the even larger washers currently on the market and would immediately spend our Christmas budget on one. At least the kids would be crying in clothes washed in fewer separate loads, right?)

But most of all, it's a good thing because when one tries to figure out why the laundry coming out of the washer feels just a bit more sodden than it usually does and eliminates the lint trap as the culprit by putting on a new one, and then checks the drainy-thingy by taking the front panel off and unscrewing the cap at the bottom of the washer to check the drain for baby socks and Legos and then replaces it but forgets to twist it one last time to *completely* seal it and then starts the washer because a set of queen size sheets is needed before the cleaning ladies come, then the number of gallons of water that drain onto the basement floor because of the not-quite-totally-screwed-on-cap-thing is not more than can be absorbed by a pile made up of two-plus loads of clothes generated yesterday just because all ten of us managed to walk around dressed plus nine beds' worth of sheets plus four week's worth of "Gee, I haven't looked under here since the last time the cleaning ladies came!" found laundry. (Yeah, they only come once a month now--that, plus cutting down on pizza plus cutting down on tuition by homeschooling two of the urchins is how we're swinging Liam's high school right now. Did you know that one can find over $200 a month just by not ordering pizza for ten every week? And that when you can no longer call for pizza at least once a week the copay for therapy still leaves a decent monthly savings, though when you order pizza just twice a month and forego therapy in lieu of just a few more maternal tantrums it pretty much comes out the same and you still get to indulge in garlic knots?) A few more gallons and even Mount Laundry might not have soaked it all up....

At least having all the laundry sopping wet now will motivate me to get it all washed as quickly as possible. Which I could do much more efficiently if I had an even larger washer and dryer....

Alex is Soooo Learning

Alex does, I admit, often seem pretty darn clueless. He's bright enough, but if his mind is elsewhere getting it HERE can be exasperating. So today we were supposed to go over verb tenses, concentrating only on the three most graspable for first graders: past, present and future. So I explained what each was, and then used the verb "play" as indicated in the helpful little notes to show the tenses. "So I would say, 'Yesterday I PLAYED.' Right?"

He stopped looking off into space and said, "Oh, yesterday is in the PAST, right?"

"Yes, I just said that. So I would say 'Yesterday I....' I what?"

Alex just stared up slightly to my left. "I don't know." *sigh*

"OK, past tense, I would say, 'Yesterday I PLAYED.' Present tense is right now: 'Today we play.' Then future is :'Tomorrow we will play.' See? Past, present, future. See, right now is present, so I'd say, 'Duncan is sitting on the couch because he took the cushions off the playroom sofa which made my very mad.' Later, we can say, 'Duncan sat on the couch this morning because he took all the cushions off the playroom sofa,' because this will be in the past by then. Or we could say, 'Tomorrow Duncan will sit on the couch when he takes the cushions off the playroom sofa again.' See?"

At least I had him smiling now (though Duncan was glaring at me from his time-out on the couch), but I had no idea if he was actually absorbing any of this.

"So, your assignment is to take what you copied yesterday for handwriting and make it past tense. What does this say?"

He read the passage. " 'I will give you wisdom,' God said. 'I will also give you riches and honor.' "

"So, what tense is that?"

He gave a bored look and half-yawned, "Pres--" then he suddenly went alert and said, "Ah, future! It's future!"

I was actually surprised. "Yes! And so what would it say if it was past?"

"It would be, 'I GAVE you wisdom!' " he stated confidently.

"Great! And the second part?"

" 'I also GAVE you riches and honor.' "

"That's right! So your assignment is just to write that." I was kind of feeling guilty that I had doubted he could get it that easily, when he twisted the knife even more.

The little imp gave a hint of a grin as he looked sideways at me and asked, "OK, but can that be FUTURE?"

"Future?"

Slowly his smile grew because he knew he was being an imp, so he tried to keep turned away as he shot quick sideways glances at me. "Like future tense, so I WILL write it LAY-ter?"

OK, if the kid had whined, complained, begged, or flat-out asked if he could do it later, I would not have entertained it for a second. But for that little hesitant bit of wit, with that self-conscious, sly little smile? Well, I'm a bit starved for wit, you know, being married to Jake, so here it is, 11pm and I still haven't decided that the future is now present.

Cory's Learning

Cory was offered her first mother's helper job for tomorrow--all we need to do is figure out how much to tell the mom to pay her. Having it brought to my attention that Cory is more than capable of handling children (something I know but was not thinking about specifically until we got the email), while I was bobbling K at the kitchen table and doing homework with G and having Cory making baby talk at K, I asked her if she felt up to putting K down to bed.

"All you do is lay her down, and she'll probably smile at you and stick up her feet."

Kay gave a grin and a chuckle to demonstrate.

"Then you give her her sheep, and she'll grab it and shove her face into it and stick up her feet and roll over on her side, all happy, and so--"

Cory then went into a high-pitched Russian accent for no real reason I could see, as she grinned down at K and said, "And zen you valk avay and try to ignore her pitiful cries of desperation! Right?"

I agreed that yes, she pretty much had the basic idea, I just didn't see while such melodramatic descriptions called for Russian accents. And I handed the baby right over.

Concerns about Cory's Confidence

So, I took Cory to her 11-yr-old well-child. Yes, she's 11.5 and her birthday is in April, but since the old pediatrician's office was convinced that all insurance companies would only cover well-child visits if it was at least 12 months after the last one (which may have been true for our insurance, who knows) and since the same pediatrician's office was always booked into the next month or beyond, and also in part because maybe the mom in question (that would be me) wouldn't always be thinking eight weeks in advance for well-child visits and would be calling just before or after the anniversary of her last check-up, over a decade or so the physical got pushed later and later in the year. Then it got pushed back two extra weeks because after I arranged for Grandpa to come down on a Tuesday to watch the other kids so I could go and pick her up from school at 2:40 to make a 3:00 appointment which would get done in time to pick up Liam from jazz ensemble practice (his school is conveniently located close to the doctor's office) and have us home by 4ish, all very efficient, Cory called me while I stood in the parking lot waiting for her to come out of school to tell me she had forgotten I was picking her up and was on her bus heading home, oops. So, after a $50 no-show fee and a quick reschedule, we got Cory in on a Monday at 3pm--which is a kind of stinky day since my dad babysits my niece on Monday and everyone else in the world has to pick up their own kids from schools at that time, BUT at least G has an after school program so I would not have to worry about him getting off the bus while I took everyone else along to the doctor.

Then I did my once-monthly glance at Facebook and saw a friend list her status as "Trying to find childcare for a not-very-sick toddler so I can make a meeting tomorrow morning. He doesn't have a fever, but these germophobic days I might bother other moms taking a coughing kid in to preschool..." I figured that this could be either a plea for assurances that a coughing kid could go to preschool or a subtle fish for someone who might take her toddler during this meeting, and so I called to offer to watch the little one the next morning if Bot, Alex and Dunc could hang at their house while I took Cory to the doc's. It was a deal, especially since her husband was working from home that day and--he could go grab her kids from school while she let our boys hang out and play Legos. (Someone ELSE'S Legos are even BETTER than the regular kind!)

So, this is a long way of getting to the part about how I ended up in the pediatrician's office with just Cory, Timmy, and Kayleigh (on a Monday--which, stinky day as it is logistically it worked out pretty well and is totally irrelevant to the story.) All the doctors in this practice ask the same standard questions at well-child visits to check on the social/emotional well-being of the kids--since my kids only go to a physical once a year (or so) and we've only been with this practice for two years, they aren't so familiar with these questions (though one mom times six verbal-well-child's a year means *I* am very familiar with these questions) and so are either taken aback or take way too much time to answer accurately and thoroughly when the purpose could be served with a simpler, shorter answer. For example, when they ask, "How are you doing in school?" a simple, "Fine, my grades are good" would suffice, but Liam might answer, "Well, let's see, in Biology I'm doing fine, really fine! But I'm not doing so well in World History--I mean, I'm not failing, but I did miss a homework and so that pulled my grade below a 90 and so my mom won't let me watch TV or use my computer for games and stuff-- they have to let me use it at least somewhat because my school is laptop-based and I need to either email in my assignments or use the internet for research or use Edline to look up my assignments and grades--but they won't let me play games on my computer or watch TV until I get the grade back up to a 90 for the quarter, which will be easy since it's early in the quarter, y'know, so there aren't many grades yet so the 97 I just got on today's test will pull that way up easily, I just need my teacher to post it online so my parents can confirm it...So, that's Bio and World History, what's left? Um, Latin--"

"Well, that's OK, it sounds like you're doing fine as long as you remember your homework. What's your favorite subject?"

"Oh, my favorite? Hmm, well, that's kind of a toss up between geometry, religion, and biology. I'd have to really think about that, because actually I like World History a lot, too--"

"That's fine, you like more than one subject--great! Do you take part in activities at school, too?"

"Yeah, I do the jazz ensemble--only not many people are showing up for that and it would be really great if we could get a drummer to come consistently--and Ultimate, though that's not through school because we don't HAVE an Ultimate Frisbee team at my school, but I'm hoping to start one in the spring. I play with the team in South Orange, you know, Columbia High School? Then I have Boy Scouts, though that's ALSO not through school, that's in my town, and I still do origami--I was probably doing that last year when I had my last physical, too--"

"Good, you seem to be very well-rounded! And you have a good group of friends?" At this point I could see that she's shifted to a more yes-no slant to her questions in the hopes that Liam would give a short answer, so when he takes a deep breath and starts to explain about his school friends, his West Orange friends, his friends who are not from West Orange OR school, etc I finally have pity on the woman and simply say, "Liam, she just wants to know if you have friends, not who they all are."

"OH! Yeah, uh, I have friends." And so on.

#

Cory was a bit more astute at getting the purpose of the questions, but she had me in stitches anyway--only unlike Liam, she set out to entertain. She was all ham that day. It started innocently enough.

"What school do you go to?"

"Aquinas Academy--see?" as she points to the name on her gym sweats.

"Oh, that's in Livingston, right? Do you like it there?"

"Oh yeah, I love it there! It's great." Little shrug, merely a statement of fact.

"Good! And do you have a favorite subject?"

An almost airy, "Eh. I like them all, I guess."

"And how are your grades? You're doing OK?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, they're all OK." Little wave of her hand to brush off such silly concerns.

"And are you in any activities?"

At this one Cory glanced over at me as I wiggled Timmy on to one leg while holding K on the other because I'd given a little snort. "She certainly IS!" I groaned. Cory grinned, and then looked at the politely perplexed doctor and said, "She has to drive me everywhere. I'm in basketball, and band, and I take piano, and I'm in the principal's council, and Student Council, and Girl Scouts, and Builder's Club--"

"What's that?"

"Oh, Builders Club? That's like a service organization in our school."

"Wow, so you're in a lot of things, and you're doing well in school, I'm guessing you have plenty of friends...?"

I answered, "Yes, she's fine there, too."

And Cory kind of waved her hand and shook her head as she declared matter-of-factly, "Oh, yeah, everyone likes me, I'm awesome."

Totally straight face--the doctor turned and looked at me, uncertain whether Cory was serious or joking or what.

"As you can see, self-esteem is not a problem with her." I gave a wry grin, and the doc grinned back, and then Cory decided to wrap up her act.

"Oh, YEAH, my self-esteem is GRRRREAT! NO problems there." She was able to hold the straight face for about five more seconds, and then finally broke into a smile that revealed that she knew just how much of a cocky little ham she was being.

Today's Quotes

I was putting Dunc on Lego.com for his ten minutes of privilege, and as the page was loading I told him, "OK, here we go."

Dunc gave me a big smile, stuck one foot up in the air behind him as only he can, and gave me a hammy, "THANK yoooouuu, my lady!"

Alex grumpily answered from where he was reading his assignment, "Duncan, you can't say that. She's not yours."

Duncan gave the effective "Yes, she is!" argument.

"No, she is NOT. She belongs to dad." I was busily "making the window big" for Dunc to buy more time to listen.

"What?" was Dunc's witty reply.

"She's with dad, like they're MARRIED, so she's with him. NOT you."

"Waaaaahh?"

"She's his, not yours, that's what I'm saying."

#

You know what else Alex has been saying? "I'm going to kick your butt." I know this not because he's said it to me, but because when I had Tim outside, eating his yogurt out in Nature while he swung in the toddler swing, and his foot bonked into me, he began to giggle and say, "I kick your BUSS! Mom, I KICK you BUSS!" and in the depths of my maternal subconscious audio files I was pretty sure it was Alex saying that in the background recently.

#

And Bot, who has discovered that Mom will pay pretty well for vacuuming and who is, unlike Liam and Cory, a kid who will proactively go after sources of extra income, agreed to vacuum the ground floor today. I made it clear that I wanted this done over the lunch hour(s), so while i was nursing K he came in lugging the vacuum and looked down. "Dang! The kitchen really DOES need to be vacuumed! Look at this floor" I love how having to clean something makes them suddenly un-blind to messiness....Though speaking of vacuuming, my effective get-them-to-pick-up ploy of telling Alex that if they don't pick up, the cleaning ladies (who only come once a month now, but they don't know that) or I will end up vacuuming up Lego pieces is causing Dunc trauma. One morning I told him I would need his help picking up so I could vacuum in the playroom, and he began to pick up while i started to vacuum the dining room and living room. Then I called him in to eat his oatmeal five minutes later when it was done cooking, but once I settled him with his oatmeal and turned the vacuum back on, I saw him go by the other side of the dining room table and head for the playroom.

Stop vacuum. "Dunc, go eat your breakfast before it gets cold."

"OK." Back toward the kitchen.

Start vacuum. Dunc comes by and goes back to the playroom.

Stop vacuum. "Dunc, is your oatmeal done?"

"No."

"Go eat it, then!"

"OK." Heads back to the kitchen. Start vacuum....

I won't tell you how many times I repeated this pattern before deciding to get to the bottom of this. Let's just say that it was more Dunc's increasing distress than my intelligently stopping the pattern that eventually led to a tearful, "But MOM! I didn't finish picking UP the playroom!"

"You can do that after you eat."

"But you're VACUUMING! The pieces will get all sucked up!' That last sentence ended in a practically inaudible little squeak of a cry. Dunc is a master of ending sentences in a pitifully heartbreaking squawk, complete with pathetic frown and big sad eyes and not a trace of phoniness or deliberation.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh...." So I explained that I understood his concern, but that I would NOT go vacuum in the playroom until he told me everything was all picked up, so he really could go have his breakfast because I promised I would not go in the playroom and suck up any Lego pieces.

He went back into the kitchen. I went back to vacuuming the living room. Dunc went back to the playroom. You can see how much I'm trusted when it comes to Legos.