Riley and Avery

Here's a note that Riley wrote me when she was upstairs for hitting Avery:

"I love you, but Avery hurted me first and I still love you too, but sometimes both act (mean) towards each other. We have to start being nice to each other. Love, Riley"

How cute is that? And yes, I could read it!

First, some throw-back pictures from over a year ago. Thought that would be fun:





So, we've decided to move to Denver next summer (2010). Riley will finish up school at Golden Mountain, and since she'll be in transition between schools anyway, we'll skip on up to Denver and start again there. I think that Rudi and I are more urban than we like to think. Not that Denver is a big city or anything, but so much more to do there! There are a couple of public Montessori schools up there that I'm interested in for the girls. I hear they're in demand, so I have to check into a waiting list soon.

I think we've found the perfect neighborhood for us. We're going up there in the beginning of May to check it out. We'd be within walking distance of the Denver Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, two big parks (including a huge one, City Park), walking distance from the Nature and Science Center, and from Rudi's favorite bookstore. WALKING distance, people! And several coffee shops within a 1/2 mile. Seriously, we're getting excited. Oh, it's Congress Park. We'd look at Cheesman Park too, but Congress is our first choice so far. Oh, and highly ranked public schools if the Montessori ones don't pan out.

Apartments are a tad smaller there, but I think we can deal. I figure that I will compare the functional space of our house now (not the useless square footage) and compare to a new apartment's square footage. Such as, we have 2 1/2 bathrooms, so 1 1/2 of those are wasted space. We also have steps and a hallway, which are both wasted space. So if we consider livable space, the places in Denver are not much smaller. Hardwood floors are a deal-maker for me. No more carpet. I'm done with it. A lot of the apartments in Congress Park are a tad more expensive than here, but many include utilities (even internet and cable) so it's pretty much a wash.

Additionally, Rudi will officially retire that summer and get SSI, so we'll have a bit of extra income. I'll see if I can take online courses Spring 2010 at the Univ. Colorado Denver. That way I won't fall behind in school. There will be a lot more jobs available in Denver, and the pay will be better. Not too shabby.

The girls' swim lessons started again. Both girls are really jazzed. I couldn't go to their first lesson because I had homework and cooking to do. Lessons are at a really inconvenient time, 4 o'clock on Mondays and Wednesdays, getting home again after 5. Which means dinner has to be instantaneous when we get home so we can all eat before I leave for school at 6. But the girls love it, so I'll make it work. I suppose I'll make left-over friendly dinners on Sundays and Tuesdays so I don't have to cook from scratch on Mondays and Wednesdays. I hate planning ahead like that. Oh, I just thought! I have several "fish in a packet" recipes that involve a fair amount of prep work, but once they're in the foil packets they can be refrigerated and put in the oven later! Score!

Our adventures in budgeting are starting to go south. Rudi stated that he was almost out of spending money. To which I replied "so?" That was his MONTHLY spending money and here he thinks it will be replenished mid-month because he spent it all. Um, no. He also spent $75 on vitamins yesterday, and a $75 expense needs to be in the budget. It's too much for our budget to just absorb. And I forgot to figure in my car registration renewal, which is thankfully only $26 (which was due last month, but Colorado has a 30-day grace period), but still. I guess it's going better than it could have gone, but still not perfect. Live and learn. I'll tweak next month's budget and hopefully it'll work better for us.

Oh, and I've spent $250 on groceries so far this month. Which is good, but Rudi has spent about $140 additional on his own groceries, which we don't need. The gym is right next to the grocery store and he hops over there after working out and buys a second dinner, comprised mainly of horrifically unhealthy prepared food. So, our grocery budget is going out the window too. I'll have to have a tough-love conversation with him. Maybe I'll buy only dinners and then split the rest of the money with him and he can buy whatever breakfasts, lunches, and snacks he wants with his own grocery money, and I'll buy stuff for me and the girls. And that way I won't have to be left with no grocery money because he keeps buying expensive things like smoked salmon that he doesn't share, and then he can't make a man's favorite complaint (there's nothing to eat in this house!) We'll figure this out somehow. It doesn't help that Rudi comes at it from the "budgets don't work so why try" angle. It WON'T work if you sabotage it! Right now we have managed to save $400, which we will probably have to dip into this month, but hopefully we won't have to next month once we get the budget wrinkles ironed out. It's high time we grown up and start saving money. I mean, what grown-ups have NO money in savings? Um, that's us! But I think he's REALLY motivated to save now that we're moving to Denver.

Yesterday, Riley walked past the monkey bars at school, in a wide enough berth that she should have been safe. But the girl on the monkey bars turned sideways and kicked Riley full in the mouth. Riley of course screams and cries and her lip was busted. Not a really big problem, in truth, since accidents happen, and it wasn't intentional or malicious. But the girl didn't say sorry. This upset Riley a great deal. She was heartbroken that a girl she has gone to school with for three years didn't care enough about her to say sorry. I know this is a big debate in the parenting community, and I'm not sure where I stand on it, but here goes...

It seems that a lot of parenting decisions are quite ego-centric. We think about what is best for our child alone and not what's good for the community as a whole. I find it strange that these philosophies are most predominant in "hippie" natural parenting "communities." How hypocritical that we teach non-violence, diversity, and tolerance in the same community that we allow our children to be grossly inconsiderate and self-centered. It is rare that your particular child is the only one impacted in a situation. If you don't want to teach your son not to play with his penis in public, fine, but for the love of god, don't let him touch the apples in the grocery store. I don't want to wonder if I got the penis apple when I get home. But it's not about ME, is it? It's about your precious little son alone, and no one else. It's always about YOUR CHILD, isn't it? Who cares that someone eats his penis apple? It's all about his fragile little ego and avoidance of body shame. Wah wah wah.

In truth, I've had a child commit a mild infraction upon one of my children quite often in public, and it always makes me uncomfortable when a parent forces their child to say "sorry." It's like "say sorry, Johnny. Say sorry to the little girl. Johnny, say sorry! SAY SORRY NOW!!!" If I'm really lucky I'll get to see the parent spank the child for not saying sorry. What's up with that? It is obvious that the child is not sorry and that the opportunity to say sorry has clearly passed. Usually it's not even something that warrants an apology. How weird. Oddly enough, sometimes the child is altogether too young to even form the word "sorry." Wackos.

Which leads me to wonder, how sorry does a person have to be to SAY sorry? I guess people have different thresholds of "sorryness." I say say sorry, please, and thank you way too much. I've been asked on multiple occasions if I went to Catholic school, since I obviously have a "Catholic sense of guilt." Whatever that means. I mean, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being that you just realized that your slow-moving children are blocking other people on the sidewalk, and 10 being you just ran over someone's dog in front of all five of their children, where on the scale are you sorry enough to SAY sorry? For me, it's 1. But because I actually AM sorry. No, I won't go to confession over it, and I won't lose sleep over it, or make a blood sacrifice, but I am still sorry. So I say it. Perhaps some people only say sorry between 5 and 10 on the scale. I don't know.

There are also many times in life when we have to do things to make other people happy, or make them feel better. Those who say they don't are liars. We all do it. We say "sorry" in order to avoid a fight, or because we're sorry that someone was hurt by what we said or did although we don't regret doing or saying it. You know? Sometimes Rudi is a jackass, so I tell him he's being a jackass. Turns out, he really doesn't like being called a jackass. I say sorry that he was hurt, although I still feel like he was being a jackass. I see no benefit to sheltering my children from the intricacies of human interaction.

Now, I don't force or coach my kids into saying sorry. That just seems obscene to me. See, I'm conflicted...

But it's not really about the sorry. It's about why was this child NOT sorry. The word is secondary, and not really important in and of itself. She could have shown "sorryness" in another way. Making sure that Riley was okay, etc. But she did NOTHING. In the end, the the child may or may not have been sorry, I really don't give a flying turd, but to Riley that simple "sorry" would have meant a lot, heartfelt or not. Had I posted this story on MDC, some sappy mother would have posted that maybe the child WAS sorry, just didn't show it and who am I to say that she wasn't really sorry blah blah blah. Because that doesn't count. If someone told me that they were a doctor inside their own head and may they please operate on my child...you get the idea. I don't care how the girl FELT, honestly, if she was internally tormented. I care about my child with blood coming out of her mouth. Maybe I'M the one being ego-centric. I mean, how dare I not show compassion for the physically whole uninjured child who may or may not be emotionally conflicted? I guess I'm just SO wrong to show compassion for the child who is bleeding from the mouth and, more than that, is most injured by the fact that her "friend" doesn't care enough to say sorry. I guess I flunk MDC. Oh well...

So, we went to public swim at the pool Saturday. The weather was horrible and we really needed to get out and it was our best option. We had never been to a weekend swim before. Well, there were several 7-8 year old boys there who were being rather wild. Of course, their fully-clothed parents were "watching" from the benches. I mean, you'd think that no one ever heard of direct supervision. Well, there is a little whirlpool area that the kids really like where the water goes round and round really fast. We were all in there and Riley was just going round and round and a boy just climbs right over her to get to the wall, totally dunking her. Luckily she had her life jacket on and she bobbed right back up, gasping. Rudi yelled, as only he can, "HEY, WATCH IT!" The kid was like, I didn't see her and Rudi bellowed "THEN PAY ATTENTION!" The kid probably peed in the pool. Seriously, just because you paid to get into the pool and the kids are supposed to have fun and burn off some energy doesn't mean that common courtesy goes out the window and they can do whatever they want. Geez. Man, it's like going to Pump It Up and having older kids push past yours on the stairs to the slide. Dude, it's a fun zone, not a rude zone!

So, yesterday we were eating the Chesapeake potatoes and tilapia and Avery said "If I eat my dinner, will I grow fast?" This is usually a loaded question, since she sometimes wants to grow and sometimes not. So I asked her and she said "I want to grow" so I said that if she ate healthy food she'd grow big and strong. She jumps up and down in excitement and shouts "YAY, THEN I CAN HAVE BABIES!!!!" Ugh. It is so foreign to me to have such a girly-girl that wants only to be a Mommy. Just so strange. But cute, nonetheless!

Poo....Avery JUST decided that she DOES want to take swimming lessons. Grrr. I just registered Riley for a time that Avery's level is not offered, and removed Avery's swim lesson fee from the budget. Girls are so fickle. I guess I'll have to change the dates and time and squeeze out the money from the budget. Poo again.

Riley helping with dinner. One thing I love about Montessori is that I can count on her using knives that most children can't use safely!

So I had the conference with the director of Riley's school yesterday. She said that Riley is doing Kindergarten level work now, and is doing so well in school. She said that Riley's brain is always working and she has so much stuff in her head that she wants to get out. She was really impressed by Riley's artwork. She also advised that we be very careful if we ever sign her up for art classes. She said that the teacher would really need to foster creativity, or Riley will lose the fabulous creativity that she has. This is the beef I have with Rudi. He has such arbitrary rules about art and art supplies, and wants her to take a class to "learn" some things. I think it would kill her creativity. Anyway...she said that Riley is such an important member of the school and really wants her back again next year. She also said that they would love to have Avery there as well. I had kind of resigned myself to the fact that Avery wouldn't go to preschool, and I'm still not sold on the idea. The director has done some work with Avery when we are there to pick Riley up and really delights in her. I'm not sure how she will behave in "school." She appears to be a "school minded" child, if that makes sense. I can see how Riley is, like, "other" smart, or "big picture smart" whereas Avery is "school smart." I know that both a really intelligent, but in such different ways. But I'll take one step at a time, and I don't really see any harm in 3 half-days a week. I also think that Riley and Avery in the same school would cement their relationship, which hasn't been that great lately. Oh, and the best part, I will work in exchange for tuition again, for both girls! Three mornings for Avery and three full-days and 2 mornings for Riley. So really, only one day of the week will suck, the one day a week that Riley has a full day and Avery has a half-day.

On a different note, the weather here has totally sucked. It snowed HARD yesterday evening, really picking up right before I left for class. About half-way there, I had serious doubts about driving in that weather, but didn't turn around. Turns out, only four people showed up for class and we got out early. It took me 45 minutes to get to class. Rudi took the girls to storytime at the library, only to be told as soon as they got there that they would be closing in 3 minutes :(

If I am unhappy with the weather, the spring Robins are definitely more miserable. They sit in the road puffed up and pouting. When I approach with the car, they are hesitant to move. Either they are too cold to get out of the way, or they are contemplating ending it all, asking for deliverance from their suffering under my car tires.

I made falafel last night with cucumber sauce. Rudi turned up his nose at it from the start, but turned out to really really really like them. Thank goodness, because I doubled the recipe and we have a ton left. The jury is still out on whether the children liked them or not. I'll try feeding them to Avery again today, but give her ketchup with it and see if that goes over better.

Now that we've been cooking more vegetarian meals, we are going through olive oil like it's water. Which is not making me happy because of how expensive it is. Nothing's worse than spending $8 of your $100 weekly food budget on one item. But yesterday as I was digging through the cupboard for dried bread crumbs, I find a HUGE bottle of high-quality olive oil, unopened. Score. I felt like I won the lottery. Crisis averted.

Well, today is the 2nd, and I've successfully kept Rudi from spending any money. This sounds silly to most, but it's a triumph for us. He usually goes on a spending spree on the 1st and lives like a king until we're broke on the 5th and he blames me for not handling the money well enough. Tides are a-changing!

Riley went to bed last night all by herself and didn't wake up once during the night! Yippee! Avery also went to sleep by herself, but she didn't go easily (I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, etc.) she did wake up once and I ended up falling asleep in her bed with her. Gotta stop doing that. The beds are comfy for children, not adults.