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August 2008
Budgeting leads to entrepreneurial kids
Do your kids contribute to the family’s bottom line? Are they little entrepreneurs?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let me start by assuring you that no one in our family has lost their job and we’re not in any type of financial straits. However, like many American families who are paying higher prices at the pumps and in the grocery store, we are feeling the uncertainty in the American economy and are tightening our belts.
We created a budget about three months ago to help us stop spending frivolously and save even more of the money we are earning. We talked with our children about the new family budget, and it’s had quite an effect.
We didn’t want to scare them but we did want them to appreciate that you can’t just buy every little thing you want. You have to prioritize and look for good deals. (We’ve talked about these concepts before but at 5 and 7 they finally seem to be understanding.)
The kids are not worried about our finances because they’re not eating, or because they don’t have clothes to wear. They are thinking about them because we are not buying them a whole bunch of unnecessary stuff anymore. Concerned by our constant mantra of “It’s not in the budget,” they have started coming up with ways to supplement our income.
As I mentioned in last week’s column, my 5-year-old son has taken to giving me money that he has found. He’s constantly handing me my own change that he found in a bin in the kitchen, lost in the basement and then re-found contributing it to our cause. (I do like that he was willing to share it and wasn’t just building his own private war chest.) He’s also keeping his eyes open in my car and in the backyard.
Walsh’s second plan focuses on a get-rich-quick scheme. (I’m pretty sure I have a future lottery player on my hands.) He says he saw on a commercial that Trix Yogurt is having a contest where you can win $10,000, and he wants us to enter. (I’m not sure what he saw on TV but I cannot find this offer on their web site.). He repeatedly says, “If we could only win the $10,000 we wouldn’t have to be on a budget anymore.”
He demanded we sit down and write a letter to the Trix company to be entered into the sweepstakes. I told him he’d have to write it. After “Dear Trix” he was ready to move on to something else. He told me I could finish the letter.
My 7-year-old Rose is relying on a more traditional avenue of wealth — her grandmother. While on a recent shopping trip with her Mimi, she suggested that Mimi could buy her a shirt she wanted because “she’s not on a budget.”
Mimi tried to explain that she is on a budget saving for retirement. However, Mimi did buy her the shirt.
The kids have other money-raising plans that are less dependent on other people and more entrepreneurial. I feel like I’m living with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney and they’ve got a farm to save. But in our case instead of putting on a big show in the barn, they plan to go door-to-door selling drawings of red and white Pokemon balls.
I’m not sure who the mastermind is behind this plan but I woke up last Sunday morning to their plotting. After which Rose spent several hours drawing these pictures of Pokemon balls and then cutting them out. All 18 of them are sitting on my desk until one of us agrees to take the kids around to the neighbors to sell them.
I’m not sure what the demand is for this product on the open market, but I feel fairly certain there is no competition to worry about.
Despite their pleas we’ll continue to stick to our new family budget — at least until that Trix money pans out or someone buys up all of our one-of-a-kind, hand-drawn pictures of Pokemon balls.
You can reach Theresa by emailing her at ajcmomania@gmail.com.
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Are you watching the political conventions with your kids?
What do you hope they will learn by watching?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve always been interested in politics and so I talk a lot with my children about candidates and how the election process works. The children have been watching some of the Democratic Convention coverage this week and will do the same next week for the Republican Convention.
Are your kids watching the conventions? Will they watch both or just the party’s convention you like best? Are your kids interested? What are they wanting to discuss about it? What are you hoping they’ll learn from it? Do you tell them not to discuss your views with others or do you not care if they share?
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What to do when grandparents show a preference?
One of our readers wants to know how to handle a grandparent who favors one set of grandchildren?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Michelle posted a question last week about how to handle grandparents when they show a preference to one set of grandchildren over another. Here’s what she wrote:
“My husband comes from a broken home. His dad is remarried. The woman he married is less stepmom and more ‘dad’s wife’ since they married when my husband and his brothers were adults. She has two kids from her first marriage and my father-in-law was a better dad to them than he was to his own kids.”
“Anyway, now that there are grandkids involved they show preference for the bio grandkids of the stepmom. This really angers me, especially since my parents are dead and my husband’s parents are the only grandparents. Does anyone else have to deal with an evil stepparent who favors her own kids and grandkids over the natural grandkids? How do they handle it?”
I think this happens a lot and not just with stepgrandparents. I have heard of the grandparents favoring non-adopted grandkids and even choosing between their own blood relatives.
It is one thing when the children are small and don’t notice the slight, but it’s another as they grow and start to become aware what is going on. We had a friend who recently had this happen and the elementary-school age granddaughter totally noticed. She asked her mom why the grandmother had taken the other grandchild shopping and not her.
Do you grin and bear it, say something to the grandparents or just explain to the child as they get older “that’s just how grandma is?” Do you try to get equal treatment or just accept it for what it is?
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What’s college like for the parents?
We’ve talked about the great adventure of starting kindergarten but what happens when they head off to college?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yesterday, we talked about braving the bold new world of kindergarten and we had requests to discuss what the experience is like for parents to take their kids to college.
We were talking about eating lunch with our new little school-goers and one mom was teasing another about showing up at UGA’s dining hall to eat with her son.
Do you only get to come to campus when invited? Are they embarrassed to have you at the dorm or apartment or to show you around campus?
How do the finances work these days? How much say do you get in how the money is spent?
How much do you know about their classes and how they’re doing?
How often do you ask them to check in? Do you know or care if they’re “sleeping over” with the opposite sex? (With cell phones it would be hard to tell if they were in their dorm room or somewhere else. We used to not be able to fake that.)
Was it hard to drop them off? Would it be easier if they lived at home and went to college? Do they gain as much from that experience?
Tell us what the college experience is like for the parent.
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5-year-old’s universe expands
How are the first few week's of school going for your kids? How do help them make adjustments to big steps like starting preschool, elementary, middle and high school?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For the last five years, my son’s life has been pretty insular. We frequented the same places, saw the same friends and had the same rhythm to our days.
But two weeks ago my little fellow began a mighty big adventure — he started kindergarten. His universe expanded rapidly with new people, new places and all new experiences.
I have been fascinated each afternoon to hear Walsh’s impressions of his bold new world, and I wanted to share some observations from his first few weeks of school:
He was most excited about was choosing his own lunch at school. Apparently, it hasn’t been any fun just having a dictator named “Mommy” make lunch. He said he mostly wanted to choose broccoli.
He doesn’t always know the names of the other children in his class, but he knows on which letter of the alphabet rug they sit. They use green, yellow and red as their discipline system. If your token is on green, you’re being good. If it’s on red, you’re breaking rules. This system seemed to affect him tremendously. On the second day, he was very concerned about the boy on Y who had to move his token to yellow.
I was stunned. This was all I needed to do the last five years to discipline him — move a token from green to yellow?
“Do you like the boys in your class?” I asked one day. “Yes,” he replied. “One guy.” I then asked, “Do you like any of girls?” He smiled really big and said, “All of them!” (Of course, my little Dobie Gillis!)
By Wednesday on the first week, he was ready to stay home just like he used to in preschool. He got up, got dressed, ate, but then settled in on the couch for a little TV time. I said, “Buddy you’ve got to go to school.” He said, “What?” He was shocked he had to go another day. I said, “Dude, it’s called hump day.” It seems sad that a 5-year-old already has to learn about hump day.
I went to have lunch with him that day because he seemed so distraught about having to go there again. I surprised him outside his classroom door. The door was closed but I could hear him exclaim loudly “My Mom’s out there. My Mom is here!” He hugged me and held my hand as we walked down the hall to the lunchroom. Then he showed me all his new lunchroom skills — how to choose his milk, his tray, his silverware, his food and how to give the lunch room lady his card to pay. He did a good job, but the hamburger was too hot for him to pick up.
I couldn’t believe how hungry he was. He eats scrambled eggs, fruit and toast for breakfast each morning. His class has a snack around 10:30 a.m., and he eats a PB&J, soy beans and more fruit. When I went to have lunch with him, he ate almost an entire hamburger, gobbled up a bowl of English peas like they were chocolate chips, ate almost an entire bag of baby carrots, drank strawberry milk (He never drinks milk.) and then had a popsicle. And when he got home from school two hours later, he was hungry again.
- When I left the class on Wednesday his teacher said he was doing great. All greens. But things started to change by Thursday. He had it with school and following directions. He got off the bus Thursday and said “I’m sorry, Mom.” I said what for? He said, “I got a yellow.” He was almost in tears.
On the up side, he put his hand in his little shorts pocket and pulled out two pennies. He said, “Look, I found two pennies in the classroom. I thought we could use them since we’re on a budget.”
While I appreciated his concern for our family finances, I told him he needed to take them back and put them where he found them. He didn’t like that idea at all!
- He did return the money, but things went down hill from there. Around 2 p.m., I got a call from a mommy friend who had been to the lunch that day. She said “I just thought you should know, Walsh was in the cafeteria crying.” I was heading to the library with the baby so we swung by the school to see if he was OK.
I wasn’t going to bust into the classroom or bother his teacher. I just wanted to know that he wasn’t still crying. Luckily his para-pro walked through the office. I asked what was going on. She said he was having a hard day! He didn’t want to share the cash register and started crying when his teacher said he had to. So then he got sent to time out. I made her peek to make sure he wasn’t still crying but she said he was happily playing.
His teacher called after school to tell me about the incident. She was very loving and said the first of school was always a huge adjustment for all the kids and things would get easier. So far, he’s only greens during the second week. (Let’s hope he keeps it up.)
- My intrepid reporter on the scene, my 7-year-old daughter Rose, tells me that poor Walsh falls asleep on the bus every afternoon coming home. She enjoys waking him up when it’s time to get off the bus. He wanders down the steps dazed and hungry from his big adventures at school.
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Is the economy affecting your home life?
Have you had to make changes in your family’s life based on today’s rising prices? Are you teaching any life lessons from it?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Mom requested on Tuesday that we talk about the economy. Here’s what she wrote:
“I spent this morning going through our pantry, getting together a donation for our local co-op. Our church received an urgent request from the co-op—their requests for food are unprecedented, and so many families with children don’t have enough to feed their kids.”
“I have been thinking about how many folks our there are not as fortunate, going hungry, struggling to pay their bills, and it’s made me sad…and determined that we will do what we can to help. And show our baby how to care about others, not focus on ourselves. So, I suppose that’s what led to some of my frustration.”
“Might that make a good topic? How are you and your family doing in this economy, and what lessons are you learning? Are you trying to help others, and if so, are you including your children?”
I would expand on her questions to include: Has the economy changed how you are spending — i.e. are you buying lesser cuts of meat, eating out less, doing home improvement projects you normally would have paid someone to do in the past, waiting to buy certain expensive items? What changes have you made in your lifestyle due to the current economy?
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When do you rat out your tween’s/teen’s friends to their parents?
What is the standard of rule breaking or concern for you to call another parent and let then know what you’ve observed?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So yesterday we talked about the rules of cell phone use and text messaging for kids and teens. My friend’s original message to me included a second dilemma: “Should she tell the parents of the kids who were texting her daughter in the middle of the night just so they know that it’s going on?” (She says she doesn’t know the parents of the other teens very well.)
Which raises a bigger question in general: When do you “tattle” on your kids’ friends to their parents? How big does the problem need to be for you to make contact and pass along the info? What would you want to know from other parents?
One of my friends told me to use this definition of tattling with small kids: Tattling is when you tell on another kid just to get them into trouble. You should always tell the teacher or an adult if the behavior of the child could hurt themselves or someone else.
So if you see someone else’s teen drinking, drugging, or making out — do all these fall into the definitely tell column? Cutting class, heavy make-up, skimpy clothes — do these get reported? Should we view other parents as our eyes and ears when we aren’t around? Does that invade our teen’s privacy?
Does it make it easier or harder if you know the teen and parents well?
I don’t guess the texting at night would fall into that category of a must tell based on our tattling definition, but I kind of think the parents would want to know so they could just tell them to stop doing it.
What would you want to know from other parents?
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What are your text message/cell phone rules?
Do you collect their cell phones at night? Make them leave them downstairs? When and where can they text message or call?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I had a wonderful friend in high school who you COULD NOT call after 9 p.m. It was such a strict rule that we still joke about it today 20 years later. In the1980s it was much easier for a parent to monitor phone use. Generally every phone in the house would ring and even if a teen had a private line a parent would still hear it. It was pretty tough to hide the giant princess phone with cords streaming out of the back.
But now itty bitty phones with vibrate settings and silent text messaging make it much harder for parents to monitor and control their child’s/teen’s phone/texting interactions.
I got a note from a friend with a 13-year-old 8th grader. Her daughter’s friends have been texting her in the middle of the night. The mom made her daughter tell her friends to stop and they have complied. (This mom has a secondary issue with this problem that we will talk about tomorrow.)
She also wrote about another friend who doesn’t allow her daughter to have a cell phone, but all the other girls bring their phones to spend-the-night parties. Can she collect them at the door and hold onto them while they’re visiting — house rules?
What are your cell phone and text messaging rules? How late can they call and text? Do they get to keep their phones in their rooms at night? I assume they take their phones to school for use in theory after school — are there problems with kids texting during school? I think that would be very hard for teachers to monitor as well.
And how does a parent know if bad things are being texted? How do you know if bad language, sexual stuff or bullying is being sent to or by your child? How do you monitor texting content?
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I’ll soon be a UGA football widow again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ask me what I’m doing on Saturdays over the next three months and I’ll consult my handy-dandy magnetic Georgia football calendar. It conveniently hangs on my refrigerator door and lists when the Bulldogs will be at home and when my husband won’t be.
The No. 1 ranked Dogs’ season runs from Aug. 30 to Nov. 29. That means the next time my husband will be available to hang out with his family on a Saturday will be when Santa Claus is at the mall.
As Michael counts down the days until kickoff, I’m counting down the weekends that I have left to get him to reorganize the laundry room, clean out the basement, clean the carpets and repaint the bathrooms.
Since Mark Richt arrived in Athens, my family events on fall Saturdays have been limited to bye weeks and occasional morning outings when the Dawgs play a night game on the road — although we have to be home in time for Michael to watch kickoff.
How I long for the days of mediocrity under coaches Donnan and Goff, when my husband would stop caring about football in early October. I remember trips to the mountains in November, a late September trip the beach and a quick weekend getaway to New York.
This season, with Dawgmania at its peak, I’ll be lucky if I can get him to run to the hardware store on a Saturday morning before he heads to Athens to get his tailgate on.
My kids won’t know the simple pleasures of apple picking in Ellijay or the spectacle of the Georgia National Fair in Perry. It’s too difficult for me to take the baby and the other two on trips like that, and we can’t fit church and a long drive in on a Sunday.
I’ve been criticized a lot whenever I have complained of being a football widow. Let me rebut the two most common criticisms.
“It’s only six Saturdays a year.” Actually, it’s a lot more. Add in Georgia-Florida, which is a three-day trip. Plus, there’s often at least one road trip to Nashville, Knoxville or Columbia, and perhaps an SEC championship game. Occasionally I’ve dragged him out when Georgia is on the road, and he spends the whole time looking for a TV, radio or checking the score on his Treo.
“Why don’t you go?” The answer is simple — because I have three children who don’t enjoy sitting on 14-inches of metal bench for four hours in direct sunlight with thousands of drunk, loud fans. Also, five season tickets would be quite a hit to the budget. Once a year, we do all go to one game together. And Michael occasionally takes a big kid to Athens if his buddy can’t go.
I know I’m not the only one experiencing this type of scheduling phenomenon. There are thousands of families around the state dictating their lives around high school, college, NFL and youth football schedules.
A few years ago, a Steelers fanatic we know kept trying to go to games in Pittsburgh while his wife was on bedrest to prevent early labor. A coach’s wife we know spends every Friday night at high school football games and all day Saturday at the youth fields watching her kids play and cheer.
I’ve decided to accept that our Fall will be scheduled around the Bulldogs (at least until they start losing).
I am planning activities for the kids and me so we don’t just sit around bored and angry about being left behind. Here’s a sample of our plans for an exciting fall without Michael:
We’re going to do some fancy cooking, making petit fours with hand-formed marzipan roses with my niece, sister-in-law and parents. Maybe we’ll leave the kitchen messy for Michael to clean up after the game.
My mom and I may take on those bathrooms while Michael is in Athens — if my dad will watch with the kids.
In an ironic insult, we plan to attend several Georgia Tech games with my parents. It’s easier to get there, tickets are cheaper, and it’s a lot more low-key. We can even stretch out among the empty seats. And, my dad is much nicer when Tech loses than my husband is when the Dawgs lose.
I have scheduled my first annual Mom-cation for the bye week, while my husband keeps the kids.
I’m sure I will continue to moan and complain about football, but at least we won’t be sitting around pining for him while he’s with his second family, all 92,000 of them.
Do you schedule your family’s activities around sporting events? What does the family do when dad or mom is away with their second “family”?
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Do you ever leave your child in the car unattended?
Getting coffee, dropping off drying cleaning, do you ever leave your child in the car while you run short errands?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I spotted an interesting blurb on the Internet this weekend about the California Highway Patrol trying to bring more attention to children being left alone in cars. Here’s the link to the story and here are some highlights:
“The California Highway Patrol has affixed ribbons to the antennas of their patrol vehicles this month to warn the public about the dangers of leaving children unattended in cars.”
“The purple ribbons are in memory of children who have lost their lives because they were left in the car, including 6-month-old Kaitlyn Russell who died from hyperthermia in 2000, according to the CHP.”
“ ‘Kaitlyn’s Law,’ also known as the ‘Unattended Child in a Motor Vehicle Act’ states that anyone who leaves a child of 6 years or younger inside a vehicle without the supervision of someone at least 12 years old can be fined $100.”
I searched to see if Georgia had a law about this but I couldn’t find one. Do we have any police offers or lawyers reading who could tell us?
I think most parents know not to leave their kids in the car for a long period of time but is any time OK and how close do you have to be to the car for it be to be OK?
Can you leave them in their seats to drop off a tape at the Blockbuster at the outside drop?
Can you run in to get coffee if you can see your car through the window? Does the car have to be parked on the row touching the windows? What about on the other side of the lot but still seen through the window?
Do you leave them parked in the car to run to the ATM or what about into your elementary school when parked in front of the school?
Is it ever OK to leave your kids in the car for any length of time?
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Youth football/cheerleading too intense in Georgia?
Are the elementary feeder leagues (and older) asking for too big of a time and energy commitment from our families?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My daughter asked this summer to sign up for cheerleading for the fall. We went to the information meeting to find out what it was all about. First of all, it was about $400 for the uniforms and necessary items. (I’ve heard other leagues ask for much more than that.) It was at least two practices a week plus game days. Before the competitions, they usually added another practice. That seemed like a huge commitment for a 7-year-old to make to one activity.
I was relieved when our church schedule clashed with the practice schedule — how could it not with that many days of practice. But I’m not sure what we’ll next year. I have this terrible feeling if we did try it, I would have to drag her to all the practices once the novelty wore off. It would be nice if there was a little cheerleading league that would meet one night a week practice a few cheers and show up for an hour game on the weekend and that would be it.
I haven’t looked into football yet but I feel certain the type of commitment will be the same.
Do you feel the youth programs that feed into the large high school programs are too intense and ask too much of our family time? What have you experienced? Have you found other programs through churches or other groups that allow the kids to have the experience without committing so much time and money?
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What age OK for makeup, fancy hair and bras?
Fifth-grade, sixth-grade, seventh-grade? When do girls get girly?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I got a note from a friend recently who has a daughter in the fourth grade. Her daughter hasn’t started asking yet, but she is wondering when do young girls usually start wearing makeup, getting the hair highlighted (or permed - do they still perm?), wearing bras or wearing heels? She says the sixth-graders at her daughter’s school all look like they’re already into it.
When did you start letting your daughter get fancy and what was your reasoning behind the age?
Also what are they allowed to do when? What do they generally start with? Is Amy Winehouse-style eyeliner only for high-schoolers? What shades of lipstick are appropriate? Do they ever get to wear reds? Is it lip gloss or matte lipstick? What about base — I remember base being a big deal.
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Is kindergarten the new 1st grade?
Many parents are holding back boys from kindergarten -- are they not ready or is it too hard too soon? What was your child's kindergarten experience like?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My 5-year-old son will be starting kindergarten on Monday but many boys his age across the country, and in our community, won’t be joining him on that first day of school.
It’s not a new trend but it’s one that seems to be happening more often — children, almost always boys, being “redshirted” by their parents out of fear that they aren’t academically ready or mature enough for the rigors of kindergarten.
And when I say rigors I do mean rigors. Public kindergartens in Georgia are usually all day, every day — not half days. As the mother of a child who finished kindergarten just a year ago, I know they are expected to sit in their seats, stay on task and keep their hands to themselves for a good portion of the time. I also know they are expected to read and write. I have several teacher friends who call kindergarten “the new first grade.”
I called an expert in early childhood education to find out what is up with our boys — why are so many of them not ready to go to school these days? Here’s what I learned.
Stephanie Jones, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Georgia, says to begin with it’s just a myth that our 5-year-old boys aren’t as mature as our 5-year-old girls.
“I think there are lots of different kinds of socialization that happens. Some girls have already learned ‘I sit quietly.’ Boys have learned ‘I get positive attention when I’m moving around.’ Gender behaviors occur along a spectrum. For every boy having one behavior, I could find a girl having the same.”
But more importantly, Jones wants to reassure parents the problem isn’t with our kids, it’s with our schools.
“It is happening a lot right now. What I have seen in the past several years, since the No Child Left Behind mandate, is that kindergarten classrooms are not looking like kindergarten classrooms. It used to be play based - social, emotional and academic. And now it’s all academic,” explains Jones. “This focus on test preparation in the upper grades has trickled down to kindergarten.”
“Kindergarten has been a space where every child was welcome. The teacher expected kids to need to walk around, need to play, and sing. Now they sit very still, follow directions, work with pencil and paper. Some are where kids are not even working with crayons. Some are not even having recess. They are giving up art, music and P.E.”
Jones says that kids used to learn how to resolve problems and work with others through their play but now they’re not getting those skills, and she predicts that will create problems later.
With many of my friends and acquaintances talking about whether their boys would be ready or not, I started to get anxious last year about our son. He has a May birthday and it’s often boys with late spring or summer birthdays that hold off.
We checked in with his preschool teacher and the preschool director during the year and they felt like Walsh would be ready. By the end of the year, they said definitely. He could read, write and count, and they thought he would be bored by another year of preschool. I’m not 100 percent convinced he will sit still, but we’ll see.
So what can parents do if they’re not happy with “the new first grade?”
“Instead of working individually and holding our children back, big groups need to go into our schools and say this is not what they want for children. We don’t have standard children. We don’t want our children to be standardized. We want holistic, well-rounded education,” Jones suggests.
She says that No Child Left Behind is under revision and is hopeful that changing the law will mean positive changes in our classrooms, including our kindergartens.
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Are you in the mood for back-to-school clothes shopping?
Ninety-degree temps ruin my fall shopping spirit.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I have to say I am just not in the mood for back-to-school clothes shopping. It is far too hot outside to be thinking about jeans, sweaters and turtlenecks. However, it’s a Catch 22 because if you wait too long then the stores are completely picked over.
I waited until June to choose sandals for my kids. Oh my goodness, what could I have been thinking trying to buy sandals in June! The Stride Rite store near us was completely out of sizes and styles. I believe the salesgirl said to me, “Well you’re really supposed to buy your sandals in March and your fall shoes in July?” Is she kidding? I’m sure shoe companies would love kids growing out of their shoes before it was even the season to wear them (so then their parents would have to buy more shoes)!
It seems like online stores have fall shoes into the winter where maybe I could order when I wanted to. Has anyone tried to order fall shoes in September or October from Lands End or other catalogs? Are they picked over too?
What about your kids’ clothes? Do you buy them now or wait until it’s closer to actually being chilly? Where do you like to buy from — in stores, catalogs or online? Where do you find the most selection later in the season?
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How messed up are your kids’ bed/wake times?
How are your correcting their sleep patterns for school?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How messed up is your child’s bedtime and wake time from the summer? What times have they been going to sleep and getting up? How many hours do you have to try to correct before school starts?
For school we usually go to bed around 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. and get up around 7:30 a.m. (We’re very lucky our school starts at a reasonable hour.) Rose always takes forever to fall asleep so she’s not usually out until around 9:30 or 10 p.m. Walsh usually falls asleep right away.
This summer we’ve aimed for like a 9:30 p.m. bedtime but due to stories, singing and general roughhousing they’re often not in bed until 10:30 p.m. (Last night, it was 11 p.m.) They’ve been sleeping in most mornings until 9 or 10. Walsh is sometimes up around 8, but Rose would sleep until noon if I let her. (She’ll be the perfect college student.)
We let them stay up late and get up late at the beach last week. (It was vacation.) So now we’ve got one week to try to correct their internal clocks. I’ve been trying to schedule things for early in the morning so we’re forced to get up. If we can get up by 8 a.m. the next few mornings I think we’ll be OK for 7:30 on the first day.
How are you trying to correct their sleep patterns? How long will it take to get them back in the school sleep rhythm?
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Should kids pee in the ocean?
After several hours on the beach most kids need to use the bathroom. Do you let them answer nature’s call in the ocean?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I think most, if not all, people would agree you don’t pee in a pool, but what about the ocean?
Invariably with small children someone always has to go when you’re on the beach. Often you are a good walk from a public restroom (which also are often nasty) or a long walk from your hotel room. So what’s a parent to do?
Do you tell them to pee in the ocean? (Or are you telling your child to poop in the ocean? Surely no one is doing that. Are they?) Or do you try to hustle that bitty bottom to the bathroom?
Either way, what is your reasoning behind your choice? (I.E.: Lots of water, so the pee will just mix in or nasty to think about swimming in everyone’s pee worldwide.) Do your kids want to pee in the ocean or are they freaked out by it?
(I think this is my last vacation-focused blog. Tomorrow I’ll be ready to talk back-to-school.)
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Are you leering at my teen?
What do you do when you see an adult ogling your teenage son or daughter? What about other teens looking?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Editor’s Note: We have two topics today. We want YOU to nominate the BEST PLACES TO SAY “I DO” for The Best of the Big A. Just click on this link to share all your favorite places to see a nuptial.
I was walking back from the beach last week with my almost 16-year-old sister-in-law. She’s the sweetest girl in the world and is also quite lovely. She was a wearing a modest two-piece and every single man we passed stared at her. One guy in particular was very creepy about it, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do. My first instinct was to whack the guy in the head, but I was pretty sure I would get arrested for assault so I resisted. (He should have been picked up for being nasty!) My next thought was to yell: “She’s just 15. You could get arrested.” This guy was so icky I think he would have liked knowing how young she was. I ended up just giving him the evil eye and kind of blocking his view of her.
Normally she would have been wearing a beach cover up walking back but my husband thought it was going to rain and had gathered all our towels and clothes and had already taken them in. But she got the same kind of looks just walking on the beach where she shouldn’t be expected to wear a cover up.
On the flip side, one of my girlfriends was at her pool listening to a bunch of moms talk about the “hot lifeguard.” (He’s in college at least.) Turned out the boy’s mother was sitting in the group and some of the women had no idea they were related. I don’t think she said anything though.
How do you handle adults noticing your teenager’s appearance or body? What is an appropriate response to leering? Does it bother you less when at least the person looking is around the same age?
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Are you using the tax-free holiday for back-to-school shopping?
Do you buy everything on the list? Do you get exactly the brands and sizes the teachers ask for? Do you think it’s a test for parents?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Are you taking advantage of the tax-free shopping days to get back-to-school supplies and clothes? Will it make a difference in your budgeting? Does it matter more in this economy as opposed to past years?
Georgia’s tax-free shopping started yesterday and runs through Sunday. Here’s the story that lists everything that is covered.
I actually did most of our back-to-school shopping several weeks ago because last year I waited too long and everything was picked over. I ended up spending about $90 on two kids. I went to Target but from what I heard from other moms, Wal-Mart’s prices sounded lower. I’ll have to remember that next year.
Do you get exactly what’s on the list or go for whatever brand is cheapest? (None of our teachers want the Rose Art supplies but they are a heck of a lot cheaper than the Crayola.) I did go off the list for glue - the 8 oz bottle was more than seven times the price of just buying two 4 oz. bottles. I wonder if the teachers consider it an exercise in following directions. I don’t want to fail but I don’t want to spend more than I have to. How true do you stay to your teacher’s requests?
