We no longer negotiate with children in this house...

Well maybe sometimes... and maybe if they are well behaved and quiet....

I declare that in my house, we are no longer a democracy, but a dictatorship, and I am the dictator (okay... co-dictator... the other parent has a say too...sometimes...). This house shall no longer be ruled by an eight-year-old tyrant.

I am just so tired of asking for things over, and over, and over, and over again. And these are not even big, time consuming, absolutely no fun things like clean your room. All I want is for my daughter to wash her hands and come to dinner. This should not take twenty minutes.

Though I want to encourage my daughter's preparation to become a lawyer (the child tries to find any technicality to weasel her way or bargain her way out of doing things), the countless minutes/hours of negotiating with her to do the littlest thing is grating on my nerves. Why must everything be done in “five minutes, mom?” which in child time spans can range from anywhere from an actual five minutes to half an hour.

All I want is a couple of days in a roll (I have even given up the hope of it lasting a full week) of me not leaving my house in the morning angry, because we wasted half our morning 'negotiating' an extra five minutes of TV or five minutes of petting the dog, which if you think about it is not that bad, but my daughter is a dawdler and is easily distracted, by air molecules... that extra 10 minutes is the difference between a leisurely, happy stroll to school or a mad dash up the hill.

I have tried the natural consequences route. I have explained it to her, repeatedly, that if she eats a bit faster or skips her television show, she can play with the puppy longer; or if she does not want to play with the puppy that is fine too, then she can have more TV. I have tried the not rushing thing and just show up late to school. Guess what, she does not care. She whines a bit about being late, which is annoying, but in the end she runs in, sees her friends and forgets all about it.

So I have now put my foot down. She will do what I say when I say it.

However, my problem is that I do not want her to grow up and just blindly follow orders (with the exception of mine, of course). I want her to question authority if she feels that something is wrong. I want her to be able to stand up and think for herself and to find her voice.

But my feeling is that she is still in single digits, and for now, mommy does know better in some things, so she really should listen and do what mommy tells her to, for now. However I told her that she can always ask me why I told her to do certain things after she does them. In fact, I encourage her to always ask me why, but after. And, I promised her that if she shows that she is listening better, she can start asking 'why' before she does the thing, and maybe we can negotiate about starting to negotiate again.

Unsolicited Advice...

Recently I learned that the only thing that will cause more people to give you advice than walking around with a baby/child, is walking around with a puppy.

Not that I do not appreciate the help, and sometimes the suggestions are actually quite useful; however, sometimes I just want to walk my dog; and thanks, but no thank you, I do not need you to teach him to sit/come/stay/down and even once swim....

Getting all this advice reminded me how easy it is to be influenced by other people, and how easy it is to start believing in certain things, like not vaccinating your children.

I admit, for one minute of my life I considered changing my child's vaccination schedule (I was never not going to vaccinate, I just considered waiting until she was bigger). I remembered this because some nice person told me all about when to neuter my puppy and to look up the information online.

Just like when my little one was small, I was once again completely sleep deprived, and when that happens, everything sounds slightly reasonable to me....

So I went home and looked up the studies regarding when to neuter my puppy. The science is actually a bit controversial. Yes there is some evidence that suggests you can reduce the chances of certain cancers, diseases, and problems if you neuter or spay later (if at all), however you increase the chances of other types of cancers, diseases and problems if you wait.

So I asked my vet about this during the pup's check up. I figured my vet spent years and probably lots of money going to vet school to learn about this sort of thing, while I spent maybe an hour on the internet... she would probably be a good person to ask. What she told me was it doesn't hurt to wait, but if my pup's behaviour changes, or other dogs are getting very aggressive with him, maybe it is time.

I know this had very little to do with the choice to vaccinate or not, but the situations were sort of similar. Back then, I was very much sleep deprived when I heard from somewhere about vaccines increasing the chances of autism. So I did what I usually do and looked on the internet (by the way, my uncle is a doctor and he repeatedly tells people to stop looking for medical advice on the internet, Dr. Google may convince you that you have ebola when you may just be suffering from seasonal allergies...).

Anyway, there they were on my screen, articles after articles on how vaccines were bad. Then being the suspicious person that I am I looked some more. For one thing I learned the biggest advocate for this movement (at that time) was Jenny McCarthy. Now... I am willing to take fashion and maybe beauty advice from celebrities, but I definitely draw the line at medical advice. So the more I looked - which really was probably me hitting page 2 on my google search - the more I learned about the methodology flaws, and other controversy over the paper where this whole vaccine-autism thing began. But the most important thing that I found was most international medical associations clearly state that vaccines do not cause autism (I said most because I never bothered looking them all up). So yes, my little one got vaccinated on schedule.

People mean well, but you know what they say about good intentions... I am sure the people who stop me and offer me suggestions on how to train my dog is only trying to help. And I have no doubt that people, including Jenny McCarthy who tell you not to vaccinate your children do not actually want your kids to get polio, diphtheria and other horrid diseases.

What I learned back when my little one was a baby, and was reminded about now, is that, it is important to listen to people, but a little scepticism is not a bad thing. And, always check where your information comes from. Google is great at finding information, but so far, not so great as to filtering truth from fiction... that I still need my sleepy brain to do.

So I have found a new obsession...

Selling stuff!

A friend of mine introduced me to one of those Facebook neighbourhood groups that lists things for sale. I understood that I will not make much, but it is still better than nothing, and is definitely better than just throwing things away (I feel a little bit bad since most of my used stuff usually gets donated).

And now I am a bit hooked. Not that I really need any more encouragement to check my Facebook page (even though there is nothing interesting about it, I still look, all the time)...

So far, I am batting 50-50 with things sold vs things I am still stuck with. But because I sold the first two things so fast, I am now impatiently waiting for my phone to ding to let me know if someone is interested in something else! It is really quite pathetic how often I hit the refresh button. (I admit, I just checked it again right now).

I know last week I said I needed to do something, but I am thinking selling all of our possessions is not it... on the other hand, I may end up with the lovely, open, de-cluttered house that I always wanted.

Back to school....

YEAH!

School has started again! You would think I would be ecstatic over having the house to myself again, especially since I miscalculated this year's camp schedule – usually I like to have two camp free weeks to relax before the start of school, but this year, school started late and we had three weeks... and I admit, though I did not throw out the book on limiting screen time, I did tare out a lot of pages from it, during that last week.

Well, here I am, at home, and I find myself missing my little nut. Sure the first day back was fun. I decided to watch TV instead of doing anything that remotely resembled work. But now I find myself not quite knowing what to do.

I think I need to find a new schedule for me. Sometimes I fear that my life is so revolved around hers that I do not know what to do on my own. I am as dependent on my little one as she is on me. This cannot be healthy.

So perhaps this fall should be like a new school year for me too. I will learn and/or start doing something that is just for me.

Still Feeling Blah...

I think I might had figured out why Fifty Shades of Grey was such a popular book.

I am pretty sure I am not the only person who finds herself with a to do list so long that one needs another list just to organize the original list.

I just do not know where to start. And frankly, it is hard to get motivated to do anything when you know that as soon as the rest of the family gets home, the house more or less looks like you have not cleaned at all.

So here I find myself in the afternoon, or sometimes in the morning, taking a survey around my house. Taking a deep breath. And saying Screw This. Why should I be the only who cares/

Next thing I know, I am sitting with a cup of tea (I probably would had prefer wine, but I really should draw the line at drinking at 9 in the morning...)... reading a digital copy of Fifty Shades... nothing like mindless fiction to take the edge off.

And sadly.... my fantasy does not so much revolve around the playroom, but having a person to clean my playroom.

Never done....

Awhile ago I wrote about feeling a little bit dissatisfied with my life; about feeling a little blah (you can read all about it here).

Well, while I was vacuuming, I figured out why I was feeling a little bit antsy. Actually two thoughts popped into my head.

A) I think about a lot of weird and random stuff while vacuuming, doing dishes, folding laundry...

and B) I am not happy (granted I am not actually unhappy either), because nothing I do ever gets finished.

I miss the feeling of completion, of feeling like it is done; it is over; never have to look at it again. You know, like the feeling you get after writing the last final of the year (before the panic on how well you did or did not do sets it). It is the same feeling I got when I submitted finished projects at work.

But now, nothing I do seems to end. I vacuum, and then the rest of the family comes home, and I might as well not have vacuumed at all. The same thing happens when I clean. And don't even get me started about cooking; sometimes I feel like I am chained to the kitchen.

I realize when I worked, after one project was finished, we immediately started working on another project. However, here is the key word – ANOTHER – as in something different. Why? Because the last project is done, finished, in the past. However with housework and some other things happening right now, I feel like I am doing the same things over and over and over again.

And, I know raising a child is a job that will NEVER end. My own parents still treat me like I am a kid, and I am pretty sure that I will always be a little bit worried about my little one, even after she is all grown up with kids of her own.

But, still this does not stop me from wishing for just one moment to feel like I have finished something.

I guess the best I can hope for today is this post. As it is done, over, and posted.

Secrets to a good marriage....

So I think I may have stumbled on one of the secrets for a great marriage while I was mopping the floors the other day. And the secret is...

    Marry someone whose tolerance for dirt and messiness is less than yours.   

    This way your partner will most likely breakdown and clean before you do.

But I did not do that. My mother did though, as my father does most of the cleaning in their house, which makes my mom a very happy person.

Not that I do not have a good marriage, but I think my relationship will be even better if my husband cleaned, picked up, or tidied more often.

And I am not even a very clean/tidy person; I am one of those people who think it is silly to make the bed since it will just get messed up again later. As a child I never picked anything up until my parents threatened to throw the object (or me) out of the house. But sometimes it feels like my family takes this tolerance to clutter and stuff EVERYWHERE to a whole new level.

There are times when just walking into my daughter's room will instantly cause my blood pressure to rise. I am surprise she is able to find anything in her room. Hell, I am surprise she can even walk in there. However, at least with her, I can use threats to get her to tidy up and clean a bit (usually with my help). I find telling her that she does not ever have to clean her room, but then mommy will come with a garbage bag to clean it for her usually does the trick.

With the husband, I am not sure what will work... Sometimes I will even test our tolerances for garbage lying around, kind of like a staring contest. I will purposely not throw away something that is obviously garbage to see who can take that piece of trash sitting on the counter longer. I usually blink first.

Actually the husband is not actually that bad. He may be messy, but he is clean. He will make sure to do things like scrubbing down the counter tops if he cooks chicken, and disinfecting the toilets. However, he sometimes leaves his socks on the bedroom floors for a week (we finally got a new hamper, so no more socks on the floor!) or the recycling next to the recycling bin.

And he knows my hate for cleaning. One mother's day, or anniversary, I cannot really remember, he offered to hire me a cleaning person. Not just any cleaning person; he found a company that sends good looking cleaning people who will come to clean your house in various states of undress. My first question was do they actually clean? Because what will turn me on at this point is a guy who is using his arms to dust the top of the book cases or on his hand and knees cleaning my floor moldings.

There is a Part B to the above mention rule – you can marry someone who does not mind messes everywhere if you a) really like to clean or b) learn to like to clean.

I am finding somedays cleaning isn't so bad after all.