The Same But Different

I have twins who will be seven in a couple of months. They're technically identical, and some people have trouble telling them apart. To me, they couldn't be more different. C's favorite color is, and has always been pink. S used to love green; now she prefers purple. C is more helpful around the house and with the Cub. If I ask someone to fetch a diaper, it's usually C who jumps to action. S is much quieter and more agreeable most of the time. She listens and rarely argues, while C often challenges my assertions and wants to know why.

They've been this way for as long as I've been able to tell, and their differences affect everything. Homeschooling is no different. In fact, my desire to see that they are given individual attention based on their unique personalities was a huge factor in deciding to homeschool. Still, it can be quite a challenge to shepherd two children, at different paces, through the same lessons.

1. Allow time for the slower child to complete the task. She's capable, she's just not in a hurry. Sometimes she takes longer to complete a lesson because she wants to carefully consider her answers. She also writes slower and more carefully. If the goal of the assignment is to show that she understands something, time is not important.

2. Find tasks that are more suited to each child's speed. One of the twins loves to knock out math problems on Khan Academy, the other finds her pace with crafts. Of course, both must do some math, and both do crafts. The important thing is that they each have their moment to shine and feel talented.

3. Encourage them to keep trying. I'm currently trying to emphasize the importance of the word, "yet". My faster twin is intensely discouraged if she tries something new a few times and repeatedly fails. I tell her instead of, "I can't do it." she should try remind herself, "I haven't been able to do it yet." If she keeps trying she'll probably get better, just like when she learned to do a cartwheel.

4. Remind them to help each other. I actually try not to always be available when they're trying to learn to do something. I may be cooking in the kitchen while they're in the front room trying out back limbers. I can offer helpful words like, "remember, we don't always get it the first time or even a hundred times after that. That's why we keep trying." and "It was hard for you to learn a cartwheel and she helped you. Now you can help her with this. Everyone struggles sometimes. It's important that we help each other and keep trying."

5. Separate them sometimes. When I introduce a task that requires creativity, I often separate them so they don't use each other's ideas. I helped them write their own stories and took them, one at a time, into a separate room. Once,
I had them each write a list of reasons they like their sister (they were fighting a lot that day) and put them at separate tables in separate rooms. I sat with each of them for a few minutes at a time to offer spelling assistance.

My goal is to raise girls who are unique and independent people, but who understand that the occasional (sometimes repeated) failure is inevitable, we learn from our mistakes, everyone needs a little help sometimes, and asking for help is much better than quitting.

What's the Cloth Diaper Deal?

Cub in his first cloth diaper

A lot of people use cloth diapers these days. A lot of people don't. You don't have to justify yourself in either case. Disposables can cause allergic reactions, if your baby is allergic to latex. The thought of washing poopy diapers can be disgusting. Cloth diapers cost a lot, up-front, but they're cheaper in the long run, especially since you can reuse them if you have another baby.

I wanted to cloth diaper the twins, but I was definitely at a financial low point in my life at the time. Most of their clothes, their crib and sheets, and a lot of their toys were hand-me-downs from other moms. At the time, I was determined to do the environment a favor. I was bringing two new diaper-users into the world, and I wanted to make the right choice.

It turns out that the "green" question is a complicated one. I can't find a solid answer. A study sponsored by Pampers suggests that cloth diapers aren't really better because of all of the washing and the manufacturing process. Thanks, Pampers, but don't be surprised if I don't take your word for that.

Here's why I chose cloth diapers:

You can buy them once and you're done. M had G Diapers when she was a toddler. The G Diaper pieces come in a couple of different sizes because the design doesn't allow for the same diaper to fit a newborn and a potty trainer. The outer layer comes in four sizes, the inserts only have two. That wasn't a problem because she didn't start using cloth until she was in the larger sizes anyway. The Cub uses Bum Genius diapers. He started wearing them when he was about six weeks old, and he still wears them now, at 11 months old. He even has room to grow.

Cub - 11 months

I'd rather throw poopy diapers in the wash than have to figure out how to get to the store if I'm running out of disposables. This was especially true when the Cub was small. I had three other kids to look after and I hate taking newborns out in public anyway. Besides, baby poop is really no big deal until they start eating solids. Even then, most of it will just fall out of the diaper if you shake it gently over the toilet... and the rest can seriously just go in the laundry.

I hate diaper trash. It's heavy and gross and attracts flies if you move it to the dumpster too long before trash day. I don't want to put diapers in the regular trash because then I have to smell poop in the kitchen whenever I have kitchen garbage to throw away.

There is one important note: We aren't strict about our diapering.

When the Cub needed diaper cream, we used disposables because store-bought diaper cream doesn't wash out of cloth diapers very well. You can make your own, cloth-friendly diaper cream. I just didn't want to order a lot of weird ingredients I would probably never use again. Apparently, if you're not shopping at Target, there are cloth-friendly creams you can buy. Check this chart.

We also had to abandon cloth diapers all together recently because the Cub was soaking through them, without warning, every night and sometimes during the day. We tried stripping the detergent from his diapers with bleach. We tried using multiple absorbent inserts in one diaper shell. Disposable diapers didn't even last through the night sometimes, but they were more likely to survive than his cloth ones.

In conjunction with the soaking troubles, Cub's diapers acquired a nasty smell. We stopped using them over-night and in public when the soaking started. As a result, we weren't going through our inventory as quickly, and I wasn't washing them as often. That was my mistake. They got moldy and I had a heck of a time getting the smell out.

If that happens to you:

Try sunning them. It gets stains out and it can help kill bacteria. I sun my diapers every couple of weeks just to get them looking new again. When it's nice out, I dry them on the clothes line.

Try turning up your water heater and washing them as hot as you can. This also helps kill the bacteria and clean out any build up. This is what wound up working for me. Remember to give your water heater time to heat up after you've changed the settings and before you start your diaper load.

If you have to, try bleaching. Again, it kills bacteria and works the build-up out. I did this before resorting to turning the water heater up, because I didn't want to risk scalding the other kids. It did help, but didn't get the smell out entirely.

The Cub is back in cloth-diaper-mode and doesn't seem to know the difference. He's too busy flushing the toilet, exploring the dog crate, and trying to climb in the dishwasher when my back is turned. I've started calling him Curiosity Rover.

to-do lists

Last week, I finally started a to-do list. Before anyone sends a well-deserved "I told you so"... I know. A huge number of people have suggested I use a to-do list over the years, and for good reason. I just never wanted to bother. It seemed like a hassle.

Unfortunately, I'd lay in bed every night and suddenly remember something I forgot to do, or start running through a list of things I needed to remember to do tomorrow. That actually kept me awake at night.

The day I decided to try it, my list looked like this:

Guitar Practice (twins)
Spanish (me)
Three workouts
Vacuum entire house
Clean off dog crate
Workbooks (girls)
Unload dishwasher
Clean craft closet
Make flu shot appointment (girls)
Pay student loans
Clean dining table
Swiffer kitchen 

And this list doesn't include the things I do every day. I had to work all of this in around my regularly scheduled household programming. Without the list, I'm not sure I would have accomplished even half of it, because I would have wasted a lot of time trying to remember what needed to be done, and figuring out when it would fit in.

With the list, I completed all but one of my chores. I didn't clean the craft closet. That place is a mess and is going to require a bit more motivation and time.

Once I made the list, I no longer had to waste time thinking about what needed to be done. And, when something got done, I got the satisfaction of crossing an item off of the list. The main drawback was knowing I'd have to make a new list every morning. So, it wasn't going to keep me from going to bed thinking about chores. Plus, sitting at the kitchen table and coming up with a list is a bit of a waste of time and a great crutch for procrastinating.

So I did a little research and found a free-to-use to-do list app called todoist.

Todoist in my browser

Todoist is on my iPad and I can access my list through their website. It allows me to create categories for my chores like "clean", "exercise", and "guitar". In those categories, I can create tasks. In my "clean" category, my tasks include, "vacuum", "unload dishwasher", and "clean dining table".

One very important feature of Todoist is the ability to repeat tasks as often as needed. "clean dining table" and "unload dishwasher" repeat every day. "Vacuum" repeats ever three days. I do laundry, and clean each bathroom and the kitchen once per week on different days. I could even schedule tasks to repeat once per month, once every few months, or once per year.

Every day, a new list is generated for me based on what needs to be done. If I missed a task today, I can postpone it and it will show up again tomorrow. If I finish all of my tasks for the day, I can look at what is on tomorrow's list and start working ahead. And I never have to waste time making a list for myself. I only have to add tasks when something new or unique comes up, like "make flue shot appointment".

I can do all of this with a free account. There are additional features you get with a paid account, like making notes for yourself and mobile and email reminders.

I've been using it for about a week. So far, I love it.

Discipline in Public

One of my friends (I used to hang out with her in high school) brought this topic up on facebook. What do you do when your kid is out of line in public? And, furthermore, what reactions do you get?

My friend has two boys and a girl, all in the wild and crazy, "hide in the clothes racks and throw fits over almost anything" age group. I assume those are things her kids do at the store. Those are things I did, and things my kids do now.

Obviously, Cub doesn't get time outs

Most of the time, I go to Target by myself or with just one of my kids. I wait to go until Papa is home, so I can get some time away from the house and the kids, or opt for some one-on-one time. That's what I prefer to do, but it doesn't always work out. Let's assume that, like me, you're not super privileged. You don't have a nanny, and you can't always leave your kids with your spouse or partner whenever you run out of milk. What would you be willing to do to keep your kid(s) under control while you're at the store?

Seriously, think about this one. A lot of us say we'd just do whatever we do at home... but we don't. Why? I have some theories.

We're embarrassed of how we discipline at home. We think other parents are going to judge us for whatever reaction we have. There are some people out there who will give you an evil look (or even report you to the store manager, apparently) for issuing a spanking. But there's nothing they can do about it. It's your right to choose to discipline your children as you see fit, as long as you're not using excessive force. Spanking is not considered abuse. If that's what works for your kids, do it. Besides, there are plenty of parents who look at me weird for giving my kids a time out in public. I'm sure it's because they don't think it's enough and they think I should have the guts to just smack them.

We're in a hurry to get out of the store. I give my kids time outs. They know that if a time out doesn't solve the problem, a swat is next. Rarely do we get that far. It can be extremely frustrating to sit one of my kids down for a six-minute time out in the middle of what should have been a quick errand. Maybe you're in a hurry to get home in time to make dinner. Maybe stopping to give one of your three or four kids a time out is daunting because it means you have to separate the pack and keep track of a time out and a couple of other wild things. Maybe you just figure the quicker you get of there, the less trouble they're able to get in. I get that. I'm guilty of this one sometimes.

We're too busy to really notice what our kids are doing. That might sound bad, but I don't mean that you aren't paying attention to your kids. What I'm suggesting is that when you call your child back to the cart after they've pulled something off of the shelf, they don't necessarily get the punishment they would have gotten for disobeying at home because you're also tracking how much you're about to spend and where to go to find the next item on the list. There's a lot going on. You saw what your kid did... you know what just happened... it just doesn't occur to you to be as offended as you would have been at home. I'm sure I'm guilty of this one, too.

Here's the one thing I think is almost never the culprit: poor discipline at home. This is not to say that there aren't kids who run wild and have no rules at home. I just don't think they are the rule and we are the exception. Kids who are well behaved at home can be crazy in new and exciting places. I've heard that fluorescent lighting was thought to exacerbate ADHD, but recent research has ruled this out. Considering how kids behave in the grocery store, is anyone surprised that this theory was taken seriously?

Some tips from my experience:

1. If you know you're going to be in a hurry, tell your kids what you expect of them before you enter the store. Give them specific rules and even more specific consequences for breaking them. This really does smooth out the flow.
2. If your child breaks those rules relentlessly just because he knows you're too busy to discipline him, take it one step further next time. Carve out time to take him to the store when you're not in a hurry. You don't even have to buy anything. Just set out the rules and consequences again and wander around the store, strictly enforcing each rule as he breaks them. If you need to, do this multiple times before your next real shopping trip. 
3. Let them feel the heat. Time outs in public work wonders for my girls because it's embarrassing. I've talked to them about it. One of my twins says she knows that everyone can tell she did something wrong when she's on time out and she doesn't like that people she doesn't even know can see that she's in trouble. Time outs in Target are actually even more useful than at home. 

Potty Problems 2 - Hospital Problems

Yesterday, C had an appointment with the Children's Hospital of Aurora Urology department to check her progress. You can read more about the history of her situation on this previous post. A few people have asked how her check up went, but it seemed to complicated to explain to everyone, so I thought I'd write it here.

C's appointment was at 3:00. We showed up just a little bit early, and were called out of the waiting area pretty close to on time. C had her blood pressure and weight measured, she was given a bottle of water, and we were escorted to our room.

The specialist we saw three months ago, Marguerite, is now on maternity leave, so we saw Erin. One of the first things Erin said was something like, "... she'll go use the special toilet, hopefully soon because I'm supposed to go home at 3:30." She smiled. I smiled. What I was thinking was, "I didn't come here to have you push us out the door so you can go home on time."

As a side note: I'm sick. Today, I'm starting to feel better, but yesterday was pretty rough for me. The Cub is also sick, with the same symptoms, and Papa usually doesn't get home until 4:30. So, I was pretty sure I was going to have to drag all of the kids, including a snot-nosed baby, to the hospital. Yes, I made that appointment, and I chose to have four kids. I'm not complaining about having to take four kids to the doctor. I take four kids to the grocery store sometimes. It's not a big deal. But I made this appointment three months in advance. I didn't know two of us were going to be miserably sick. And I am opposed to taking feverish kids out of the house, if it can be avoided.

The day before yesterday, I called the hospital and attempted to reschedule our appointment because it was obvious that the Cub and I were not getting better quickly enough. Unfortunately, I was informed that the next available appointment was in January, so I kept the slot I already had.

Papa took a couple of hours of sick time so he could be home in time for me to take C to her appointment without having to take the three other kiddos.

Needless to say, I was not happy to feel like we were being brushed off.

Moving on...

They use this ultrasound-like wand to measure the amount of urine in her bladder. It doesn't show her bladder like the prenatal ultrasounds do, it just gives a read-out of the approximate number of milliliters of urine. Before her trip to the special toilet, she was measuring in the low 30's.

The "special toilet" is just a toilet. It has a machine hanging in it that collects and measures her urine. She had a hard time relaxing enough to go... probably because this toilet is a normal, adult toilet and she has to brace herself with her hands to keep from falling in. When she finally did, the machine measured about 5ml. But then the wand said she was empty.

Minutes later, Erin came in to quickly inform me that, in her opinion, the "special toilet" should be trusted, and not the wand. "Considering how much water she drank, she really should have peed more." She said that C should continue her potty routine and come back in a few more months.

So, ultimately, I'm not sure I have any useful, new information as a result of that visit. I feel like we were being pushed around because Erin was impatient and wanted to go home. The equipment was obviously in error somewhere along the line, and no one wanted to take the time to figure it out.

Now, we have to wait 3 more months to see Marguerite again.

Sew Elastic to Sleeping Bags

All this time, I thought sleeping bags all had two elastic loops attached to the foot for securing them in that cinnamon roll shape when you store them. Some months ago, I ordered some beautiful sleeping bags for all of the girls. When I pulled them out, I was surprised to find that they came with the elastic loops I was used to, but they weren't attached.

I learned that my mom sewed those loops to the foot of my sleeping bag so I wouldn't lose them on Girl Scout trips. So, I planned to do the same.

I kept procrastinating. It was a small project, and it didn't seem that important. It could wait. I was kind of burned out on sewing after making blankets for M and the Cub. I had crochet projects to do. Trust me, I could go on listing excuses I made for myself. Of course, it didn't help that no one else cared if it was done. There's nothing like a total lack of accountability to help you procrastinate like a pro.

Recently, the girls were pretending to be winter fairies (thanks, Tinkerbell) and couldn't be in the sun. I found them all cowering under an arrangement of child-sized umbrellas, just outside of the shadow cast by the patio roof. These are the adorable eccentricities of childhood play.


That seemed a good enough excuse to pitch the tent in the back yard for a day or two. I guess you can't have a tent without sleeping bags. Without much thought, I put all of the elastic loops in a hanging pouch attached to the tent and told the girls to leave them there. Still, despite my instructions, the elastic loops became princess tiaras and who knows what else just before they became... scattered across our property.

It was definitely time to permanently attach them.

Once I located all six loops, I set up the sewing machine and, soon, wondered why I hadn't done it before.

Mark where you will attach your loops. I used a Crayola marker. I have Crayola markers in abundance and they wash out extremely easily. To determine where your loops should be, roll your sleeping bag the way you typically would, including strapping the elastic loops on, then mark where the loops overlap the outer-most segment of zipper. Mark at the seam between the zipper and the sleeping bag fabric.

Open the sleeping bag and pin the loops to the zipper edging on one side. You are going to sew as far away from the zipper (and as close to the seam) as you can manage. I deliberately pulled a bit of the inner sleeping bag material into my pinning. I wanted to add an extra bit of security to the stitch. I'm not sure if that made any difference, though.

Sew it all together. Take your time. Sleeping bags are puffy and unwieldy. It is very easy to end up sewing layers you didn't mean to. Also, be thorough. I did four passes. Remember that these are going to be pulled on a lot.

Of course, you could seam rip where you intend to attach the loops. I considered doing that myself. It seemed a bit excessive and I wasn't sure I'd be able to put it back together satisfactorily.

Now, when you roll up your sleeping bag, make sure to roll from head to foot, so the elastics are on the finishing end. When you get to the finishing end, your loops will be easy to wrap around the whole roll.


It took about 15 minutes for me to do this to all three sleeping bags. I honestly can't believe I didn't just do this the day I got them. Now, I don't have to worry about anyone (anyone) losing the elastics.

This Blog Is Long

In a previous post, I related my Tricare frustrations to you. Since then, I've been taking my girls to that clinic I described, with three practicing pediatricians that accept Tricare. Unsurprisingly, though, I'm increasingly dissatisfied with them.

This blog is long.

My first experience with them was great. I took one of my six-year-olds in and, after a talk with a pediatrician, got a referral to a specialist, which was exactly what I knew she needed. There was no long wait to get an appointment or to be seen, and the doctor asked relevant questions without making me feel like and idiot. She believed me, understood my concerns, and passed me on to someone better qualified to help me.

However, my next dealing with them, involved having the girls' medical records forwarded from Hawaii. It was an inexplicable nightmare.

Time zones are vastly different and the clinic in Hawaii is on a military base. It is operated by and serves exclusively military personnel and their families. Aside from those inherent obstacles, the clinic here in Colorado made a huge mess of things.

I filled out the authorizations for transfer of records at the Colorado clinic and had them faxed to Hawaii. For the next two months, I was pulling my hair out.

I had to fax the authorization twice. I don't know what happened to the first set, but Hawaii informed me that I needed to send a new set.

The first person I talked to at the Hawaii location said it would take a week or more for the authorization to be processed and the records to be returned. Two weeks later, nothing had happened, so I called them back. This time, I spoke to a different person who said that first guy had no idea what he was talking about, "it takes less than a day." So I faxed the second authorization to this new person.

For a while, it went like this:

1. Call Hawaii and ask them to fax the records.
2. Wait
3. Get a call back from Hawaii informing me that the fax went through and a confirmation was received.
4. Wait
5. Call Colorado and find out they never got the records and don't know why.
6. Repeat

Eventually, after double and triple checking for correct phone numbers, Hawaii decided to just FedEx the hard copies because no one could figure out what the problem was. But once Colorado received the package, they still couldn't do anything with it because two of my girls were still not in their system. All three had primary care physicians at this clinic, but only one of them had been seen at this point, so the other two were never added to their files.

I lost my temper. I think that's why they finally added my other two daughters, despite them not having had appointments yet. I just needed printed copies of their immunization records to submit to the district for homeschool purposes. How difficult can that be?

Additionally, when I called the Colorado clinic, I couldn't speak to the receptionist at the location the girls go to, I could only call a general number and select options from a menu, ending up talking to the chain's records department. For some reason, almost every time I called I wound up talking to a specific woman I could hardly understand. To make matters worse, she could hardly understand me. Instead of listening carefully, she interrupted me when I was trying to spell my kids' names for her. Of course, she misspelled them, and couldn't find them in the system even after they had been added.

When they did finally get all of that worked out and printed the immunization sheets for me, they informed me that the girls were all behind on their shots. I knew this. I made an appointment to get them caught up.

I thought we were done with the paperwork fumbling.

After the appointment, they gave me printed immunization charts for M and S which they had updated with pen. That's fine for my use, but I needed one for each of the three girls, and something more official for sending to the district. I called Friday to make the request. They said the charts would be available Monday and I'd receive a call when they were ready.

Monday, I received the call but missed it. The woman left a message that said, "I was just calling to let you know that the shot records you requested for your girls are ready for pick up here at the (location) office. If you have any questions please give us a call. It'll be ready for you at the front desk." So I had Papa drop by on his way home from work.

They told him they didn't have anything to give him and that the call was probably to inform us that they had received the girls' records from Hawaii, which, by my recollection, happened over a month ago. Besides, the woman said the records I requested were, "ready for pick up... at the front desk."

When Papa got home, I raged for a few minutes in my bathroom to avoid ruining my now four-year-old's birthday. Then, I called them back at exactly 5:00. Unfortunately, that's exactly when they closed. I was sent to an answering service that only takes messages about sick kids. I vented at that poor gentleman and then apologized because, "I know it's not your fault. You had nothing to do with it. I'm just very upset because I keep dealing with one problem after another from these people." He said he understood but, unfortunately, the only thing I could do was call back during business hours.

I didn't have to. They called me at 8:58 the next day and left another message: "This is Advanced Pediatrics calling to let you know that (C), (S), and (M)'s shot records are ready for pick up here at the (location) office."

Papa is headed there after work again today. I want to smack someone.

M's Birthday Cake

Some things went wrong with M's birthday cake. The royal icing rainbow crumbled when I tried to remove it from the wax paper on which it was drawn. The icing I originally used to write on the top of the cake melted into the frosting. The piping frosting I made for the clouds and edging was chunky and I had to use store-bought stuff instead. But it tasted amazing, and the cake and base frosting were perfect.

For her cake, I knew I wanted a batter that would produce a very white cake. My plan was to create a six-layer rainbow cake, so I needed a white base to fill with food coloring.

To make this delicious white cake, you will need:
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 cup milk at room temperature
6 large egg whites at room temperature
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter softened but still cool

I doubled the recipe to make six, thin layers.

Directions:
Make sure milk and eggs are room temperature. If you have a lot of time, just sit them out over night. I put my eggs (still whole and in their shells) straight into a bowl of warm (not hot) water and poured my milk into a measuring cup with a handle, hooked the handle over the edge of the bowl, and partially submerged the measuring cup. I gave it about an hour and all were room temperature.
Preheat your oven to 350. I didn't do this until near the end of making the batter. I'm a rebel when it comes to preheating.
Prepare pans you intend to use. I used cooking spray on the two round pans I have. Needing to make six layers, I cleaned, sprayed and reused my two pans three times.
Mix wet ingredients. In a medium bowl, mix milk, egg whites, and extracts by hand until blended.
Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl (the bowl of your stand mixer if you have one), combine cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt with an electric mixer on medium speed.
Add butter. Cut butter into cubes and add to dry ingredient mixture. Beat on low for 1-2 minutes.
Combine wet and dry ingredients. Add all but 1/2 cup of wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Beat on medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes, then add remaining wet ingredients and beat for 1 additional minute.
Pour batter evenly in pan(s).
Bake for 27-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

For my cake, I separated my batter (a double batch) into six different bowls and added a different color of food coloring to each bowl. Also, keep in mind that I had to bake my six layers in three separate sessions. My last two colors of batter sat on my counter for almost an hour before being baked and turned out just fine. If you only have one cake pan and want to make layers, you can just bake two or three layers separately.

The base frosting I made was much easier, but still tasty.

To make this super easy frosting, you need:
Vanilla Instant Jello pudding mix (I used two large boxes)
Milk
Whipped Cream

Directions:
Empty Vanilla pudding mix into a bowl. Add half the amount of milk that the box recipe calls for.
Whisk until it begins to thicken.
Add whipped cream until frosting reaches desired consistency

This frosting is light and delicious. It holds well as a spreadable frosting but lacks structural quality (after all, it's made of jello pudding) and probably won't hold a piped form very well. It also cracked in my refrigerator after about a day, but that could be touched up easily.

White cake recipe adapted from www.epicurious.com 

Chickens in Aurora

I borrowed this image from this petition for Chickens in Aurora

This entry is focused on my experience. I'll write a separate entry detailing my list of pros and cons with regards to backyard chickens.

We moved into this house about nine months ago. It was a huge upgrade from our apartment in a lot of ways. Now, we have our own back yard and driveway. We no longer live on the third floor (with no elevator), which was a huge set-back for teaching the kids to ride bikes. Our house is close to, but not directly adjacent to, a main road. In fact, it's far enough away that I can barely hear the traffic with the doors open and the girls can safely ride their bikes to the park with us. Perhaps most importantly, the apartment had two bedrooms. This house has three bedrooms, plus one extra which has been repurposed as a playroom. Most of them are bigger than the apartment's master bedroom. This house is more than twice the size of our apartment.

Unfortunately, as with most major life changes, there were a couple of drawbacks as well. Cell phone signal is spotty, and we had to switch providers just to get usable service. Also, our living room is heated with a gas fireplace, and it gets expensive in the winter.

There's one other important area in which our home falls short. At the risk of sounding exactly like what you imagine when you hear "homeschool”... we want chickens. The city of Denver (our geographical neighbor) has approved urban homesteading measures including limited hen ownership in the city. Aurora has not.

There has been talk of the possibility at City Council meetings. We are not the only enthusiastic, budding, urban farmers in Aurora. Local people have spoken their points about the sustainability movement. Apparently, our current Mayor is in favor of the change, and has suggested implementing it through a slower process, by which certain wards would set an example for the rest by allowing urban farming first. This way, more resistant wards could watch and learn from others' success or failure.

I've been rallying for backyard hens, but only online. I've passed around a virtual petition. I've debated the benefits and possible risks in web-based city forums with less enthusiastic residents. And my efforts have not gone unnoticed.

I was recently sent an invite to, and schedule of, all of the city council meetings, from the office of our ward representative. I'm definitely considering attending, but I've never been to one of these. I actually don't know what is expected of me, or what I should expect to experience. Is it appropriate to bring my six-year-olds? After all, one of them is deeply interested in the chicken movement, and I think a city counsel meeting would be a fantastic educational experience. What would I need to do if I wanted to speak at the meeting? What would I need to know in order to prepare a speech?

One way to get the answers is to attend a meeting I suppose.

If this is an initiative you care about, check out Chicks In Aurora on Facebook and Blogger.

Vacations with Kids

I don't hate traveling with my kids. I will admit, though, that I certainly used to. Actually, I haven't taken them anywhere on a plane since we flew back from Hawaii a few years ago. Since I have four kids, it's actually cheaper (not to mention easier) to road trip anywhere within the country. But I did fly to Hawaii with two not-quite-two-year-old girls and back with two four-year-olds and a one-year-old.

If you're about to fly to Hawaii with young children, I do not envy you.

In my experience, airline staff are (at least for the most part) understanding and considerate. Having to fly, alone, with my toddler twins, I met only one employee I could have punched in the face. He was a twenty-something, red-headed man at the terminal who said something nasty about why I didn't have help, but only to one of his coworkers... as I was walking away. I didn't have help because my fiancé was a Navy man. We were flying to my dad's house from separate states. "Learn some respect and grow a pair!" is what I should have said.

Rant aside, I have had great experiences with airline personnel. They've always helped me get a better seat when needed, and other passengers have always been very understanding. I need to sit with my kids, preferably near a bathroom, and you do not want to be between us and the aisle.

These are my five most important lessons from flying with children:

1. Pack your own carry-on items as lightly as possible. Make room for all of the stuff your kids might want. They don't understand the frustrating circumstance of being locked in a tube in the sky, unable to access their favorite things on a whim.
2. Have a small diaper bag for the essentials. Pack it with only things you need for a change. Remember, airplane bathrooms are tiny. You definitely don't want to take your hulking diaper bag in there, filled with bottles, bibs, and a huge container of powder. (Side note: buy the travel size powder and cream.)
3. Don't forget to bring changes of clothes. If baby spits up a lot, or soaks diapers to the point of leaking, you might want a change of clothes for yourself, too.
4. Smile. This advice was given to me before my first plane trip with the girls. It truly must be the most under-rated trick in the motherhood book. Smiling makes you more approachable. It may seem like people would want to help you more if you seemed frazzled and helpless, but it honestly doesn't work like that. Smile, say "thank you" in the most cheerful and appreciative tone you can muster, and don't let them see you sweat.
5. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Looking helpless and asking for help are not the same thing. A line from my history: "Is there any way I could get one of those airport trolley things to help me get these car seats to my next terminal?" For some reason, when people see you doing a heroic job of keeping your herd together without a tear, they want to help you.

When it comes to road-tripping, know this: It's going to take longer than you expected.

I have a huge vehicle. We have, in the past, gotten two adults, three kids in carseats, two large dogs, and a week's worth of supplies into my car; now, with a fourth carseat in the car, we can never take the dogs.

We've done road trips lasting anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days with these kids. I've braved long road trips with them for their entire lives, starting with two infants. Let me share my knowledge of the road:

1. Overestimate... everything. We always plan time for meals, but we forget how long it takes to get kids to eat enough food to tide them over until the next meal. Count the number of diapers you use in a day: bring at least one and a half times that number for each road trip day. Another huge mistake we've made is not bringing enough music. You won't alway have radio, and you're going to get tired of the same six CDs. Man, I wish I had an aux port.
2. Learn to love cosmetic wipes. I wouldn't recommend cleaning your face (or anyone else's) with a standard baby wipe, but a cosmetic wipe sure hits the spot when you can't take a real shower. Besides, for some reason my face feels greasier when I've spent a day in the car.
3. Remember what not to pack. Bring your kid's favorite stuffed animal or blanket, but, for the love of sanity, don't pack it! Put it in the floor, in front of them, or on the seat beside them. You do not want to pull over to find it when they want it five minutes after you pull out of the driveway. Bring snacks, water, and appropriate games and toys. Put them in a separate bag where you can access them on demand. If your car has those nice pockets in the back of the driver and passenger seats and your kid can reach that far, use them.
4. If you can help it, try not to stay on the road over night. You're not the only one who would benefit from some real rest in a hotel, or at a friend's house along the way. It's hard for kids to sleep in the car. It's hard for me to sleep in the car. And if everyone is grumpy at 6AM on day two, we're in for trouble.
5. Even if you can't stay at a hotel, they will, in fact, sleep. Still, don't bother with the usual schedule. They won't sleep for the normal eight or more hours at a time, but it will still be nice when they do stop babbling back there. Bring a book, a crocheting project, your laptop, or anything else you can spend that time doing (unless you're driving).
6. Again, make a diaper bag of only the essentials. You don't know what those gas station restrooms will have in store for you. Bring sanitizer and, if you have someone in diapers, a portable changing pad.
7. And, if you do have a diapered bottom, stop frequently. This is incredibly important because sitting in those diapers for long periods of time can cause unbelievable diaper rash, even if they're barely wet. I made this mistake early in my motherhood. So, change the butt-cover early and often. Keep powder and cream on hand. You may even want to do a preemptive powder coat with every diaper to keep a dry bottom.

Things I Didn't Know About Homeschooling

It's not always easy for us to talk about it.

You would think that we would be great public speakers, with all of the explaining we have to do. We should just be used to it by now, right? People ask our kids, "what grade are you in?" and our kids respond, "what?" Now we feel like we need to say something. I say, "they're homeschooled" and I spiral into explaining the whole situation, because people are curious. There are lots of questions. 

These are not bad questions. There are no bad questions when it comes to topics you're not familiar with (there's the homeschooler coming out). The problem is simply that I don't know how to answer you. I get nervous and feel like I'm making stuff up. Of course, I'm not making it up. I just don't have a prepared speech and new people have always made me a little nervous until I get to know them. I'm really not very good at this sort of thing. I'm afraid I'm going to say something stupid on accident and this stranger is going to start worrying about the future of my children, being educated by this idiot.

Not to mention, every homeschooling parent is like a spokesperson for homeschooling. I don't want to make a bad impression. I want to improve the public image of homeschooling. But I didn't sign up to be a billboard advertisement for my life choices. It's a tough spot.

It's not always "school at home".

This has got to be the biggest misunderstanding I've encountered. No one I know has had a single negative thing to say about my choice to homeschool (if you don't count my ex-husband... I don't. Besides, he has changed his mind now that he's seen what we've accomplished.) So, that aside, the most awkward situation I run into is people asking things like, "when are your vacations?" or "do you do lessons through the summer?" or "where do you get your materials?"

Six-year-old helping install Linux

We're not just like a standard public school, but at home. And not all homeschools are the same. What works for some definitely does not work for all. And since these are exactly the questions I always feel blind-sided by and nervous about, let me just answer them while I have the time to think about my response.

First - Our vacations are... whenever. Our field trips are, too. Sometimes we might take a day off entirely because the baby is sick, or there's something really neat going on out of town. I have actually worked a lesson about dinosaurs in because I wanted to go to the museum. We scheduled next year really loosely and with built in wiggle room, so we can take a few days off whenever we choose. And when we are doing lessons, it only needs to be a few hours of the day, and we can do it anywhere. So you don't need to schedule anything around us. 

Summer is just another part of the year. We don't have to submit a schedule to the district for anything more than 172 days, averaging 4 instructional hours per day. So I don't. The rest of the year, we are unstructured learners. The kids might take a community center class. I'm always here to feed their curiosity and provide them with information, and they have access to the internet. We still do crafts together, go to the zoo, read, write, draw, and do other random things they're interested in. But we have no standards to meet for the summer.

I get our materials at the same places you shop when your kids go back to school. So far, I get most of our stuff at target. Their worksheets and projects are things I make up or find online. I have no desire to spend ridiculous amounts of money teaching my kids things I can teach them for little if any money.

Our structure is deliberately not strict, and we don't have special materials you can only find at a homeschool store.

It's not always about religion.

When we were putting together our plan for this year, I found myself wondering if religious homeschooling families include their theological teaching intentions in the plan they submit to the district. We're not religious. We didn't choose to opt out of public schooling because of qualms with lack of prayer or creationist teachings. We're doing this because we believe we can do a better job, because we know our kids, personally, as individuals. And, we may have four kids, but we don't have fourteen, or twenty. 

We don't think we're better than you. 

That last point probably made it sound like we do. I don't see anything wrong with sending your kids to public school. I think the problems come when you either can't, or don't try to, choose a good school for your kids, and don't contribute to their education. Pick a private school, public school, weird independent school, homeschool, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you're invested in their education. Even if you have no choice but to send your children to the school nearest your home, and it's awful, I believe you are an excellent parent if you are attempting to fill the holes in their education when they're home with you. 

Homeschool kids are not different. 

I used to think they were all smarter than me. They must have been smarter than me to start with, so their parents decided public school wasn't good enough, or if not... they were certainly smarter than me, now. Obviously, they must have learned much faster than me, since they were able to learn at their own pace. 

Do homeschooled kids start out ahead of others? Sometimes. Not usually. Homeschooled kids come from every different category. Some parents homeschool because their kid has special needs, or social or emotional trouble. In 2003, a survey was conducted that found eighty-three percent of homeschooled students were being homeschooled, at least in part, because their parents were concerned about the negative environment in other schools. (cite)

I homeschool my kids because I feel we can do a better job. In public schools, twins are often pressured to perform equally well, get confused for each other, and get treated as the same person. My twins are just not the same. And I do still strongly believe that working at their own pace has got to be good.

Potty problems

I debated, internally, whether I should write publicly about this. After all, this is the sort of topic that might embarrass a kid. And, as her mom, it has embarrassed me over the years. One of my six-year-olds was still wetting herself multiple times a day, until I sought help.

That shouldn't be embarrassing. My other six-year-old is potty trained, having very rare wet incidents, and so is my three-year-old. I have not failed. If you're reading this and your older kid is regularly changing clothes, you are not a failure.

Potty training is complicated.

After years of struggle and nothing to show for it, not a single week of dry days, I worried. Two of her siblings were trained, and she had reached the age of concern. I'm homeschooling her, but can you imagine what public school would do to her if she was still dealing with this at her age? First, the school itself probably wouldn't accept her. But even if they did, would the other kids? Would she be bullied?

And, although I homeschool, I still expect my kids to be involved in activities with peers, outside of the house. She is taking guitar lessons and a gymnastics class this season. I don't want her to be "the kid who smells". As much as I hate to admit it, there was a, "kid who smells" in my elementary school, and I saw her bullied on a regular basis. She was one of my friends... but I did find it uncomfortable to be too near her.

I took the advice of other parents and put the potty power in her hands. We grown-ups made suggestions about how we thought she should go about it, but left it up to her to decide what was best for her. We tried a timer to remind her to go, and giving the clean up responsibilities to her. But when she was wet ten minutes after her scheduled potty break, almost every time, we assumed it wasn't working and started worrying.

By that point, I had been trying to potty train her for well over four years. When she was about a year and a half old, I got her a potty and put it across from the toilet so she could try it if she was curious. When she was two, I started incentives and regular potty breaks, then a potty chart so daddy could see her achievements when he got home.

I was very positive about the whole situation, and so was one of my six-year-olds, but not the other. She was terrified of the potty.

The first time she did poop in the potty, I discovered that she was definitely constipated. No wonder she didn't want to use the potty. It was hurting her to try. Her sister was getting rewards for pooping, so she was pressured to poop... And it hurt.

At the clinic, her doctor prescribed Miralax. You can get it over the counter. WebMD says Miralax, "is used to treat occasional constipation. It works by holding water in the stool to soften the stool and increases the number of bowel movements. It is known as an osmotic-type laxative." It is intended for adults, but can be taken by children. Ask your doctor first, because giving it to children is "off-label" use, and there is no dosing for children on the label.

That did clear out the problem poop, but didn't convince her that the potty wasn't scary.

I thought it would just take time. It never got better.

After the six-year mark, I finally threw my hands up and decided I had to get help. I was worried something might be physically wrong with her, and I needed to know. We had her on a high fiber diet with fiber supplements, to combat constipation, and kept Miralax around incase of emergency.

I read a book called It's No Accident by Steve J. Hodges, MD, a board-certified pediatric urologist. He also points the finger at poop problems. Even if your child never has a poop accident, there's a good chance that backed-up poop could be causing pee accidents. But my daughter didn't seem to be backed-up. She was pooping every day, and most of them were soft. We tried the Miralax cleanse he suggested, anyway. What could it hurt?

When that didn't improve the situation, I turned to her pediatrician, who referred us to a urology specialist at the Children's Hospital.

There were some preliminary tests my daughter was subjected to, so the urologist could see what she was working with. She had an ultrasound. That came back normal. She had an x-ray. That came back normal. Then, we finally found ourselves in the urologist's office, receiving the good news that my daughter was totally normal, as far as anyone could see.

But, what did that leave us with?

I talked to the urologist about my daughter's potty history. I said what I'm saying, now. She was constipated and scared, early on. Then, something worse happened.

I found myself in an unhealthy relationship with her father, unable to stand up for myself or my convictions, I let him treat her pretty poorly. He over-reacted to her short-comings and terrified her with screaming fits. At one point, when she was about three-years-old, he moved our dining room table into our bedroom to make space for a tiny, plastic-gate play yard, barely big enough for our daughter's mattress, and a potty. He said he was going to leave her there until she stopped having accidents. Her sisters got to roam free and play in the living room, where she could see, but not participate.

That was the last straw. I didn't let that continue long. I finally built up the courage to tell him, "I don't think this is working. I don't think it's going to work" and to take the play yard down. What I was really thinking was much worse. I was crying when he was away, about how horrible this situation had become.

So, the urologist's assistant took us to a special bathroom with a child-sized toilet that had a machine built into it to measure how much my daughter peed and at what rate. Directly after my daughter used that toilet, the assistant used a tool that seemed similar to an ultrasound wand and measured how much urine was left in her bladder. Reviewing the results with the urologist reveled that my daughter was only half-emptying her bladder at any given bathroom break.

Put simply, this is what was happening:

When you void, your bladder contracts to push its contents out. When you're not trying to pee, your urethra has muscles that tighten around it to hold urine in, even when you don't feel like you have to go. Your urethra is basically holding a cap on your bladder while it fills up, slowly, over the course of hours.

When you sit down on the toilet (if you're a man, replace with your own bathroom scenario), the muscles closing your urethra need to relax while your bladder is emptying.

Potty terror, and then accident terror, had trained my daughter's muscles to fight each other. On the toilet, her bladder would be trying to empty, but the muscles around her urethra would never relax enough. Her bladder was saying, "let's go" and her urethra was saying, "no." So, she was always carrying at least some urine.

What's the solution? Retraining her body. It's actually not that difficult, but the specialist said it will take time (at least 3 months).

We have a schedule. She goes potty every two hours, throughout the day. She needs to go regularly and often to keep her bladder from ever being over-full. That way, the muscles around her urethra can start to relax, without so much pressure pushing down on them.

Every time she goes, she tries twice. She completes one whole bathroom trip, all the way up to putting her pants back on, then she goes back and tries again. This is called double voiding, and it helps by repeatedly triggering the response her body should automatically have when she prepares to void... relaxation. Of course, it also helps give her an opportunity to get more than half of the urine out.

I've also created a chart for her on which I can record her bathroom activity and accidents. It is important for me to keep track of her stools because constipation has been an issue in the past, and can be again. The charts have been a great reminder of her progress, as well.

We check back in with the specialist, for another round with the special toilet, after three months of this routine. I'm optimistic. We're maybe six weeks in and she's only having a few wet accidents per week, and we've basically eliminated bed-wetting.

An Hour In The Life

I wanted to share with you a typical experience around my house. I think you can get to know a lot about me based on the way I react to normal situations in my life. I chose an hour instead of today because the whole day would take a lot of writing.

"Lunch time." I said, as I placed the plates on the table. My seven-month-old son was laying on the foam floor tiles I have replaced our living room with. In the same, huge, open space, my three daughters came racing to the dining table. I doled out vitamins shaped like gummy bears before eating my own lunch.

When I was done, of course, my daughters were still working on their food. My youngest promised that she was not going to eat hers at all. I explained, to her disappointment, that she could stay at the dining table as long as she wanted. Her options were to finish her lunch, or remain at the dining table until naptime.

"That's what I want!" She exclaimed, defiantly.

"That's fine." I asserted. Then I reminded her, "I thought you wanted to ride your bike, and you won't get to if you sit here until nap, not eating."

She began to eat, clearly begrudgingly.

Realizing I hadn't taken a shower or bath yet today, I decided, "I'm going to take a bath." They know that the bathroom is just down the hallway and, being a mom, I always leave the door open. The baby was safe in his furniture-free, foam-tiled space. However, should he start crying, I would throw on a towel and come to his rescue. If the girls needed me for anything they could just ask. I could hear them clearly from down the hall.

I headed to the bathroom where I discovered that the bathtub definitely needed a cleaning since the last time it was used by the kids. So, back to the kitchen to whip up a batch of baking soda tub scrub. While I was scrubbing the tub, I was also explaining to my six-year-olds, who were now done with lunch, that I can't take a bath in my bathroom because I only have a shower. Only one of our bathrooms has a bathtub, and it happens to be the one the kids use.

By the time I finished scrubbing the tub, the baby was getting pretty fussy. I guessed it must've been time to feed him. So, instead of filling the bathtub, now that it was clean, I returned to the common area of the house to change a diaper, feed a baby, and return him to his crib for a nap.

Most of a container of baby food peas and four ounces of formula later, my three-year-old still hadn't finished her lunch and I still hadn't taken a bath. And I'm sure you know, or can guess, how long it takes to feed a seven-month-old baby most of a container of baby food peas.

Once the baby was down for his nap I returned to the tub and began to draw a bath. But wehile the water was running, I left the bathroom to clean up the mess from feeding the baby.

When I finally did step into the bath, I was bombarded by six-year-olds wanting to talk and keep me company and/or use the toilet. We talked about things like the year being 12 months long, and how far away the next Father's Day and Mother's Day are. I described to them how we plan to remodel their bathroom to make it more usable since three kids are currently using it and eventually it will be four.

I washed myself, scrubbed my nails, pumiced my feet, and got out. I can't remember the last time I spent an entire day without having a single plan get interrupted. I can't remember the last time I found a bath to be truly relaxing.

I am definitely a different person now from who I used to be, and that's just fine.