August 2009

This is really long and really rambly. I am sort of incoherently tired at the moment.

I didn’t sleep very well last night. (This surprises exactly no one.) Over and over, I kept waking up to check the clock (despite having a battery-back-up on my alarm) and to try to get comfortable and to stare at Coffee as he slept peacefully.

At 7:12, we got up. My dear husband made coffee for us and we sat on the sofa chatting.

Okay, fine, that’s a lie. Really, I freaked out about the upcoming day and he repeatedly reassured me. Over.. and over.. and over..

At 8:00 the kids got up. At 8:15-ish, I got in my car and turned up the A/C (to help mitigate the “nervous sweating”) and turned the music up even louder so I’d be forced to sing along.

I made it to the college easily and found an awesome parking spot (because I already had my parking pass, because I’m a keener like that!) right next to the rec centre where orientation was starting. This was the first of many things I was glad I had done ahead of time – the lineups for things like textbook purchasing and OSAP pick-up were insane. Multiple-corridors of insanity!

I quickly texted Coffee (at work) that I had arrived and had neither barfed nor pooped myself, so all was okay, and then I had to take a few deep breaths and actually get out of the car. I followed two girls into the rec centre – they looked like they knew where they were going (and apparently they did).

The gym area of the rec centre, where the orientation started, is huge – particularly compared to my most-recent gym experience at the kids’ elementary school. Go figure. I had forgotten all about gyms with enormous hardwood floors and bleachers and high ceilings. Just inside the door was a listing of programs that were orientating today (orientation runs ’til September 3rd with about 10 programs per day) and a number that told each program which table to visit for registration.

I was table “4″.

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1. Orientation went well! I survived! I got stuff done! I came home early!
2. The kids all survived me being away.
3. I had (grocery store-bought) sushi for lunch!
4. No one from my program seems completely evil.
5. Coffee kept me calm this morning. I love that guy. :)

School, for everyone but Coffee, starts on September 8th. This means we have 9 more days of summer to endure.

And I do mean endure.

My biggest worry about school (my return to school, I mean) isn’t that I’ll get lost or that no one will like me or that I’ll flunk all of my classes and y’all will refer to me as “Captain Flunk-o” for the rest of my life. Oh, sure, I worry about those things, but they’re not my biggest fear.

I am most concerned with how things will go for the kids.

It’d be safe to say that I’ve hashed this out with Coffee a million times over the past few months – whether they’ll be okay and how we’ll handle problems and are they mature enough to spend an hour alone after school each day? What will we do if they go insane or start breaking rules all over the place and no one is home to beat them into submission again?

Here’s how Coffee has handled this ongoing freak out: he has reassured me that he’ll continue to help out around the house and that the kids will be able to do their part. He’s reminded me that he’s not remotely fussy about housework and is capable of doing it, that he knows how to do laundry, that everyone in the family (including me) can get used to lowered standards during the week.

On top of that, he’s offered up awesome suggestions for where I can do my homework, helped me find a noise-reduction method for the office downstairs, discussed (ad nauseum) how he can help me with anything I need. He has told me, over and over, that he’ll help me to make this work. He’s been encouraging on every single level.

He has also reminded me that my friend Michelle has offered to take care of the younger kids (after school) in the event that Oldest One is unable for any reason. Coffee has pointed out that we took out a larger loan for school “just in case” we had to do that and that we have it covered from a financial perspective. I trust Michelle very much – so that knocked out a lot of my fears.

All of this has helped me immensely with calming down and making everything seem doable.

To make it even better, Coffee also suggested that we do a few things this summer to ‘test’ the waters for September and to let the kids get used to some new routines. It’s worked out beautifully!

We’ve learned that Oldest One is more than capable of watching his brothers, at home, for several hours at a time. No bloodshed and nothing broken in the house. He’s rightfully proud of himself for it, too, and his brothers have had no complaints about him turning into an evil dictator in my absence.

We’ve learned that, for the most part, the kids will get their chores done and eat some lunch if I’m out running errands for a bit. No one starves and everyone gets some reading time or room cleaning done. They wipe the table after snacks and they don’t answer the door and the house hasn’t burned down.

On top of some trial runs, we’ve also gone over the rules – over and OVER the rules – to make sure everyone is clear on what to do if X happens and if Y happens.

There’s an “Emergency” folder in the house now, and some of you are in it! It has phone numbers for neighbours, friends and people who can help in the event that the kids can’t get in touch with Coffee at work or me at school (a very unlikely event). It has very specific instructions for various emergencies, right down to a reminder to give any emergency personnel the entire folder (and a reassurance that we have other copies) so no one has to worry about that. There’s health card information and details about our vet, doctor and dentist.

It’s a work of art, really, all packaged-up in a red duotang. (There are three copies of it, too, just in case one goes missing.)

In short, I was feeling prepared. I was starting to feel pretty confident that the kids would be okay – and had reminded myself a trillion times that I’ll be home before them most days of the week. I was breathing evenly and I was calm. We had prepared for everything!

I can only assume that the children noticed my calmness around this subject and decided they didn’t approve. That’s really the only explanation I have for the past week’s worth of behaviours.

Chores ignored! Rules broken! Selective hearing engaged! Safety-issues galore! Flagrant ignoring of directions from parents!

It’s.. a conspiracy, right? They’re trying to dismantle my mental health, aren’t they?

Tomorrow is my orientation day and I may just decided to camp out in the parking lot, in my car, ’til the first day of school. That way the kids can try to kill each other, break everything, forget to eat, ignore the (2 year old!) rules of the house.. and I won’t know about it. I can just chant “SERENITY NOW” and “HOOCHIE MAMA” and everything will be fine.

No?

(I know, I know, some of this may be due to school starting for THEM, too. Oldest One starts at his new school and Middle One will be in a new class and Maymo is making the switch from half-day to full-days. But can we just have a little pity party for me, anyway? ;)

We bought a webcam (don’t ask) and since I haven’t posted any self-portraits in a while, I figured I’d take a quick picture of my purple hair and share it with y’all. Granted, it’s wet purple hair – fresh from the shower! – but it’ll give you a pretty good idea of what colour it is these days.

And no, I cannot explain the expression on my face. :)

1. Getting grocery shopping done in about an hour – it’s a huge time savings and we can then do OTHER things with our day. YAY!
2. Tomorrow is my “mandatory orientation” and I still haven’t freaked out enough to drop out and hide under my desk.
3. On Tuesday I’ll have BENEFITS! And since those benefits will include physiotherapy and massage therapy, I will be taking full advantage of them soon. (Just need to get some doctor’s notes..) YAY!
4. The weather is cold enough that I can wear my hoodie! I LOVE HOODIE WEATHER!
5. My husband is infinitely patient with me.. this is good because, a) I am not a patient person (ha!) and, b) I am rather annoying at times and require people to be patient with me. ;)

1. Weeeeeekend! Weekend!
2. That I am doing this several days late and no one will notice. Heh.
3. Cool weather predicted for the entire weekend.
4. I am ready for school inasmuch as I can be!
5. My husband loooooooves me!

Since we’re talking about The Big Bad Internet (tee hee), I figured I’d talk a bit about how we currently keep Oldest One safe online. Or, at least, as safe as possible.

You already know that Coffee and I are rather internet savvy. We’ve both been online for a million years. I’ve been online in some capacity since 1993 for the internet and earlier (from 1989 onward) for BBSs and FidoNet. Coffee has been online for nearly that long too. Hell, we MET on the internet!

As a result, we definitely embrace the online world. We know, firsthand, some of the shitty stuff that goes on. I’ve also observed, with great dismay, some of the activities of younger people when they venture online; I’ve shuddered at the idea of their future selves frantically trying to erase what they’ve put out there for the world to see.

When Oldest One moved in he had a hotmail address that his biological mother had set up for him at some point in the past. He had been unable to use it here – we had the kids’ computer completely blocked from going online. He wasn’t positive of his password because it had been so long since he’d used the account. Said account was chock full of messages from his biological mom. We needed to start fresh.

We sat down with him for a long talk about the internet, our beliefs about the internet and, more importantly, the legal issues that surround him right now as they pertain to the online world and his biological family members. We explained to him what our concerns were, in full, and reminded him that Coffee is a very, very talented geek.

We made him aware that we monitor computer usage very firmly around here. He has no expectation of privacy on the internet and shouldn’t assume we’re not seeing/watching everything he does.

Everything in our house starts with tight rules and restrictions. If you follow the rules, you get more freedoms. The only way we know you’re following the rules is if we check up on you, randomly. The internet is no different.

On our kids’ computer, in the living room, (the only one the kids are allowed to use) you have to enter a password to access the internet. There are two options – one is the “kids” version, which all 3 kids know and can use, and the other is the “adults” version which we also use for guests, friends, etc. The adult’s version is 100% unblocked – and things aren’t logged.

For the kids, Coffee set up a “whitelist” on our network – and all internet access is filtered through that whitelist. If a web site isn’t listed on the list, the kids aren’t able to get to it. We started off with almost-nothing on that list and the kids have to tell us if they want a site unblocked and why. Coffee and/or I check the site out, look around a bit, and then decide if it’s appropriate. Any attempts to get to other sites is recorded automatically so we can review them – and sometimes add them to the list.

As well, if Coffee and I see a neat site that the kids might like (say, LOLcats) we unblock it and tell them about it. We maintain a list of bookmarks that the kids can browse.

Once we had everything set up neatly, we helped Oldest One sign up for a Gmail account. We let him pick the user name, of course, with the understanding that it could not be any version of his name. We let him pick the password – but he isn’t allowed to change it without permission. He knows that we will check that account randomly. He knows he’ll lose access to that account if he’s caught breaking the rules.

Shortly thereafter, we set him up with an MSN/G-Talk account. Same rules – we have the password, we monitor it.

To be blunt: you cannot do anything on the kids’ computer, in our house, without Coffee and/or me knowing it.

This morning I played around on Facebook with a highly-restricted account. It worked beautifully and I feel a thousand times better about Oldest One having access to FB as a result. We’ve begun the discussion about his name, about his access, about us keeping his password, etc. He’s going to give it some thought, too, to decide if he’s okay with that.

1. Friday! Friday! Friday! FRIDAY!!!
2. The wild kingdom was out in full force this morning – squirrels, pigeons, small tiny birds, chipmunks and my very loud friends, the bluejays. Feeding them all and chatting with them is a rather nice way to start the day, I think.
3. I’ve now officially lost 20 pounds. (And I’ll focus on THAT instead of how much MORE I need to lose!)
4. The feel of soft flannel..
5. A fresh batch of hummus. Mmmmmmm..

Yesterday I took Maymo to the office supply store to buy some lined paper. He carried a stack of 4 packages and when he plunked them down by the cashier he began counting – by 200s – the number of sheets of paper, in total, in his pile. (“200… 400…. 600..“)

After he informed me that he had “800 SHEETS, MOM! THAT’S A LOT!” he smiled up at me and I nodded that he was correct, while simultaneously reaching for my debit card. The cashier was shocked that he had counted by 200s, and raised an eyebrow.

Cashier: Wow, you counted by 200s! That’s really good! How old are you?

Maymo: FIVE!

Cashier: You’re a very smart five year old!

Maymo: I AM!

Me: And handsome too, right?

Maymo: Yup!

Cashier: You must have to beat the girls off with a stick, huh?

Maymo: [huge grin] YEAH! I CAN BEAT THEM WITH A STICK! I CAN HIT THEM IN THE HEAD!!

Me: Ummm… No, I think she meant..

Maymo: [Louder and more enthusiastically] I will crush their heads! I CAN! WITH A STICK!

Cashier: [wordlessly staring at him, then me]

Me: I’ll just put the receipt in the bag, thanks.

Five is.. literal. Very literal.

Oldest One has started making noise – lightly, so far – about wanting a Facebook account. I’ve been able to hold him off with the fact that the TOS for FB insist you must be at least 13 years old. He’ll be 12 until May.

His friends are on there. And it’s only a matter of time ’til he turns 13 and I can’t use the whole “have to be 13″ rule to prevent him from going on there.

But his biological mother is on Facebook. Ditto his older brother. There are legal issues. He cannot be in contact with either of them.

I want him to take advantage of the online world – and, for now at least, Facebook is a big part of that for many teens. Some of his other relatives are on Facebook and I’d like him to stay in touch with them – but the majority of those relatives are also ‘friends’ with his biological mother and brother.

Oldest One’s first name (and even, to a large extent, his first initial) is unique enough that there’s no way his biological mom and brother wouldn’t notice him ‘friending’ the others. His name is not John or Dave.

I’ve been wracking my brains trying to think of some way to do this – to give him both the freedom he wants and the legal protection required.

If anyone has a suggestion, I’m all ears.