Living it: The bad mom trend

So apparently the latest thing right now is women one upping each other on how bad of mothers they are. "Oh today my kid got the cookies but he was being quiet so I let him eat the whole box."

This is great for me since I'm a pretty bad mom. Don't get me wrong, my kids are well loved, cared for, and want for nothing. Then again, I'm disorganized, my house is a mess, and there are a lot of skills we need to work on. My four year old has major behavioral issues, and instead of takin extra time to address them I started working more.

Tomorrow morning my sitter is unavailable, but I still need to work. That means the kids will have unrestricted tv, video games, and food all morning. I will ignore them.

I have made it my goal to do better.. My first step is to relieve personal stress, which extra money will cure. Ti have 4/7 days in a week with my babies, and I will make it count.

As for the house work, well, that can wait until they move out.

Deliciously Frugal: Chicken Noodle Soup

This cost about $6 for the entire pot. Which works out to less then $1 per adult serving.

Ingredients:
- 5 cans of cheap chicken noodle soup (My Alymer brand was 40cents a can)
- 7 or 8 cans of water
- potatoes
- carrots
- celery
- peas
- onion
- rice
- spices (bay leaves, parsley, garlic, rosemary, thyme, whatever you like)

1. Chop up as many veggies as you want.
2. Pour soup and water in large pot or croc pot.
3. Add veggies, rice, and spices.
4. Simmer until veggies are done or until you get home if it's in the croc pot.

That's it! Just wing it. What a quick and easy way to dress up cheap soup, plus it's so healthy and cheap!

Working??

Things don't seem to be getting easier for my family financially so I'm considering doing something I have never wanted to do - work. Working from home can be extremely challenging with kids - I simply can't get everything done, and I certainly don't care for them efficiently while I'm trying to work.

So now I'm considering putting the kids in dreaded daycare (or in this case a private day home close to my house) in order to work a condensed work week. I'm going to ask my boss for a 33 hour work week over three days - Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. That would mean dropping off the kids at daycare around 7am, having my husband pick them up at 4:30 when the finishes work, while I finish up working until 6.

Although 11 hour days can be long, it would still be from home and I would still have four days a week with my kids. I have very stressed lately and having that time apart may do all of us some good.

It will take some careful planning and mildly suck, but it is the best thing for my family. This is quite a leap.

Insomnia

I have a little problem with insomnia. I'm constantly operating in an exhausted state, and just when I start to catch up on sleep - bam! Can't do it anymore. Now it's almost 1am and I'm sitting here. Today part of the reason is my son woke me up, I have back pain a cold/sore throat, and it's 2.5C hotter in this house then it should be (something I'm very unimpressed by).

What is the solution to insomnia? Apparently getting up and doing something is supposed to help. Sometimes it does - I relax and can go back to sleep. Other times I can wake up at 1 and fall back somewhere around 4:30. It makes for long nights and even longer days.

People with insomnia understand. People who haven't suffered sleeplessness like this can comprehend why. It's hard to complain about being tired because I "couldn't sleep." "Oh no, the children slept fine."

I wouldn't wish chronic fatigue on my enemies.

Asking for Help

Four and half years ago when my daughter was born I felt as if I had something to prove. I constantly felt as though people were holding me incompetent due to my age and regardless of reality I had something to prove, if only to myself. Well that baby girl who had to be born via emergency C-Section was only a bit of trouble at the start. Sure, she refused to breastfeed. Sure, she would cry when I went to work in the evenings the entire time I was absent. Sure, she never slept through the night or had a regular schedule. It was nothing I couldn't handle.

There is no moment where it went wrong - things changed to gradually I barely noticed. Everything that would have been a warning sign for future behaviour I dismissed as her being a spirited toddler. The running away from dance class, the boundless energy, the tantrums and arguments. Once she started preschool I noticed she was a bit.. More... Than the other kids. More intense. More energetic. More difficult. The teacher said it was a phase, she'd grow out of it.

She'll be four in October and things are getting worse. I am at a loss at how to discipline - how to make her listen to me. I have a two and a half year old son who is more capable of listening, being clean, and sitting still. I have tried everything - from talking, to time outs, to spanking - and nothing has helped. The only thing that seem s to work is counting followed by time out. It's great, except when I say "Wait here!" and she cannot resist the impulse to run into the street. "Don't get hit by a car, that's 1..." Not going to help.

Although it doesn't feel like it sometimes, I'm not a total failure. I am raising a loving and well meaning kid. It just seems she can't do what's expected of her. I have some concerns that her difficulties may be neurological. If they're simply a result of poor parenting, it's clear that I need a great deal of help.

I have arranged to meet with a psychologist next week for both assessment and assistance. It is humbling to ask for help but uplifting to be so close to understanding why things have been so challenging. We are hoping for positive change.

Organization

Today's post was supposed to be about making cute little bunnies out of children's socks. Unfortunately my rubber bands went missing and after a great deal of searching we were unable to find them. The brand new bag we just bought today. Not that  you could find anything in my house.

I threw my back out the other day and it's been very challenging to do any housework. I was away all weekend when I normally do the bulk of my cleaning so right now we are very behind. I cancelled this afternoon's playdate (read: incentive to clean) so I could go the chiropractor, which didn't help at all.

Then there's the kids - they haven't been able to stop making messes today. There is something hard-wired in their little minds that as soon as I'm incapacitated in some way or another it's the time to go crazy. Maybe I shouldn't be trying for a third child and 6+ months of throwing up.

The fact of the matter is this: if I don't get a handle on this soon it's not going to be good. The next couple of months will be crazy for me and we all need the sanity of an organized home that I can keep clean.

In the mean time I'll keep looking for those elastics.

Home Schooling

It's April, that means that it's about that time where all the kindergartens are having their open houses. This is great, because my daughter will turn 5 in October and be starting kindergarten this year. I've had a really hard time making the decision about which school to send her - not because the three main choices are fantastic schools, each with pros and cons, but because I have always wanted to home school.

A little background: I am not religious at all. I am not a hippie who wants to unschool. I am not on a power trip or overprotective, if anything I'm a bit too laid back in that department. My children a bright - but not incredibly advanced and I wouldn't suspect they could hit anything higher then the "mildly gifted" section I fall into (the one not all schools agree 'counts').

So why homeschool? It feels right. There is something appealing about being able to help my children be the best they can be. If they're struggling in a topic, we can enhance and focus on that area. If they excel we can move on quickly. We can spend more time leaning about all those cool things not covered in the Canadian curriculum while still teaching them everything they need to know.

My daughter has a few issues - I haven't gone for a diagnosis yet, out of both lack of confidence in the psychological field in my area, and the fact that I am against medication/this is none for what she may have. The challenges she faces, which is an inability to focus and explosive behaviours, will either improve or get much worse in a school setting.

Money will be tight - but the Alberta government offers funding for home school students. We would be following a curriculum created by a distance education school. My kids, if they were to homes school, would get high school diplomas the same as anyone else, only they would graduate with a lot more skills.

"Oh but they won't socialize!" that's what people keep telling me. There is a homeschooling support system. There are activities. There are playdates. There are plenty of antisocial kids in regular schools.

My husband has disagreed - he thinks school is the way to go, and I have agreed to try it. I can't home school without support. If it is the best thing for my daughter we'll see her excelling there, and that is my true end-goal. If it's not right, I work from home, so the home school option will always be there. Until then we'll keep learning at home. Things could change in the next 5 months.