I get it right once in a while

Our MWF morning routine is starting to come together now.  I get up at 5:30 to get myself ready, then I help Tanner to get moving at 6:10, then I get Lindsey up at 6:40.  Tanner leaves the house for the bus at 6:55, and Lindsey and I leave right after that.  She loves her morning child care, so it's easy to get her up early.

Until a few weeks ago, Stace and I were having a real problem with Tanner moving fast enough, getting out of the shower soon enough, and making it to to the bus.  The process had degenerated into us doing a lot of harassing every few minutes to make sure Tanner got out the door.  Tanner resented it, and our mornings weren't pleasant.  In that process, he'd leave the bathroom a mess without hanging up his towel or putting away his clothes.

I came up with a new approach a few weeks ago to put the responsibility on him.  I now charge him a $15 transportation fee if he misses the bus and I have to take him to school, and I charge him a $5 bathroom cleaning fee if he doesn't straighten up the bathroom.  There's no threatening or harassing.  It's up to him to get it right or face the consequences.

Much to my surprise, it's worked brilliantly.  I don't ever bother him, tell him how much time he has left, or tell him to hurry.  Mornings are much more calm and pleasant.  He knows it's up to him to get it right.  In the ten weeks or so that the system has been in place, I've never had to charge him the transportation fee, and I've only had to charge him the bathroom cleaning fee twice.  And I'll gladly take $5 to hang up a towel and put some underwear in the laundry.  That's a bargain!

Well, this is weird

I suddenly find myself with 65 minutes alone at home.  Tanner is at swimming practice and Lindsey is at Girl Scouts.  I can't remember the last time that happened.  What should I do?  I'm at a bit of a loss.

I guess I'll default to making an inane blog entry and then reading the newspaper.

Today's single-parent missteps

1.  When we got to church, I realized with horror that I had forgotten to tell Lindsey to brush her hair.  It looked awful.  I told her to head to the restroom to do the best she could with her fingers.  In the end, it wasn't too terrible.

2.  Lindsey complained this afternoon that she had ripped a nail.  I started looking at her nails and realized that I should probably have clipped them a couple of weeks ago.  They were out of control.  It's hard to keep track of all this stuff!

3.  I have several dishes sitting on the counter because I have no idea where to put them in the kitchen.  Maybe I'll just start storing the dishes in my three-car garage since I seem to have plenty of space out there.

Tomorrow's itinerary:  get Tanner on the bus, take Lindsey to morning child care, go to work, get home from work, feed kids dinner, help Lindsey with homework, take Lindsey to Girl Scouts at 6:30, take Tanner to swim practice at 7:00, pick Lindsey up from Girl Scouts at 8:00, pick Tanner up from swimming practice at 8:30, get kids to bed right away.  Collapse into bed at some point thereafter.  Whew!

Another absurdity

I mentioned the fact that I have two sinks as one of the absurd aspects of my new existence.  Here's another:  my Hyundai Elantra is the sole occupant of my three-car garage.

 

Looks sort of sad and lonely, doesn't it?

Sometimes, God mocks Minnesotans

My morning went like this:  shovel snow, get one kid off to school, shovel more snow, get the other kid off to school, shovel more snow, go to work.  It's April 11, and we had several inches of snow.

To add insult to injury, while I was out shoveling this morning, there were cracks of thunder.  That's an odd phenomenon that I don't remember from Utah, but it happens sometimes in Minnesota.  You can get thunder during a snowstorm.  Is that even fair?

Final word about MS

I mentioned earlier that I wasn't going to turn this into a blog about multiple sclerosis.  It just sort of seems to keep coming up.  I have two final comments about it, and then I'll be done for now.

First, some of you may have heard that Annette Funicello died yesterday.  (Some of you younger readers are asking yourselves, "Who's that, and what's with the funny name?"  I'll leave it up to you to Google her.)  She had MS for many years and had been somewhat of an activist in promoting research and awareness.

A couple of reports said that she died of "complications from multiple sclerosis."  I find that somewhat puzzling because MS isn't generally fatal.  If you told me that a 70-year-old with MS had died, I'd be fairly certain that the cause of death was something other than MS.  I wonder if she broke her hip due to a fall or something like that.  A fracture like that can cause all kinds of complications in elderly people or people with limited mobility.  Anyway, I just wanted to clear up that it's probably not as simple as saying that she died of MS.

Second, I briefly mentioned the other day that Lindsey is pretty excited that I have MS.  I was at a conference a few months ago and picked up a children's book that explains what it means for Mommy or Daddy to have MS.  Most cases of MS are more extreme than mine, and much of the book didn't apply to my situation, but I brought it home for Lindsey anyway.  It helped her to understand a little better why I stumble once in a while.

She's now taken it upon herself to help me walk even when I don't need the help.  She likes feeling useful.  That's why she says she's so happy that I have MS.  I guess it's one positive thing to come out of having MS.  Actually, there are plenty:  I'm finally free of the relentless pressure to run a marathon, no one expects me to be of much use around the house (Stace was overly concerned about me climbing on a stool to change a light bulb last night), and I finally have a convenient excuse for why I'm such a lousy basketball player.

Awwwwww, cute . . . .

After being up a couple of times during the night, Lindsey threw up again this morning, so I'm home today taking care of her.  Other than the throwing up part, she hasn't really seemed that sick.  She rested on the couch for a while but seemed to perk up, so I told her to go upstairs, get dressed, and straighten up her room a bit.  She did that, but after a while, I noticed that it was very quiet up there.

When Lindsey's quiet and alone, that usually means she's pouring bleach on the carpet or mixing an accelerant to burn the house down faster or something like that.  I went to explore.  It turns out that she fell asleep in the middle of her bedroom floor.  She's been there for more than two hours now.  I guess she really is sick.  I covered her with a blanket and left her there.  It's probably the best thing for her.

Update:  she slept up there for three hours.  Even Lindsey couldn't fake that.  I actually believe her this time.  She seems to feel much better now, so I assume we'll be back at school tomorrow.