My oldest DS was doing homework tonight and needed information about sporting team rivalries. He went to Sport Illustrated to get the information. And there at the top of the webpage was a link to the swimsuit edition of the magazine. Now I understand that this 'edition' has been published for a number of years, but it seems that the photos get more and more provocative.
I am dismayed that a simple homework assignment can lead to viewing soft porn in my own home.
UGH!
Showing posts with label parenting issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting issues. Show all posts
Monday, March 23, 2009
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Should have done this earlier!
In an attempt to keep our boys from wasting their entire summer in front of the Wii, my hubby wrote a little computer program that allows us to track their time.
First the boys have to earn time on the Wii. We enter time into the program after they've earned it, doing such things as reading, helping around the house, playing outside, etc. Then they use the time to play on the Wii and we enter that as well. Hubby even set up a daily limit for them! I am amazed at how my youngest wanted to read yesterday! He's a hoot.
And my oldest is off at my mom's working on a quilt with her. All of his sewing time counts towards Wii time as well.
The bottom line is that we're so SICK of them doing nothing else, that we've limited time to force them to do other things. I think for this week at least, we've been successful.
Now if my hubby could just hack the Wii so that it would shut off automatically.....
ha.
First the boys have to earn time on the Wii. We enter time into the program after they've earned it, doing such things as reading, helping around the house, playing outside, etc. Then they use the time to play on the Wii and we enter that as well. Hubby even set up a daily limit for them! I am amazed at how my youngest wanted to read yesterday! He's a hoot.
And my oldest is off at my mom's working on a quilt with her. All of his sewing time counts towards Wii time as well.
The bottom line is that we're so SICK of them doing nothing else, that we've limited time to force them to do other things. I think for this week at least, we've been successful.
Now if my hubby could just hack the Wii so that it would shut off automatically.....
ha.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Drowning in junk and other weighty thoughts
As I've said before, it's been a hard year around here.
And when you walk into my house, you see it. We never get all of the laundry done at one time any more. That I'm coming to grips with. I'll just do laundry daily until my kids are grown. O.K. I have kids. They are healthy. They get clothes dirty. I can do the wash -- and so can they (thank goodness).
But...my hobby of stamping cards and other stuff has taken a back burner this year. I miss having time to do that. I miss being invited to be the demonstrator at stamping parties. Of course, I have to get out there and rebuild my business and get new customers who want to have parties. And when will I find time to do that? Who knows!
I never seem to have a single room completely clean any more. I can hire people to clean the house, but NO ONE can clean the house if it's drowning in clutter. And I don't have the drive to get it in order. Depressed? maybe. Discouraged? yes. Wishing that I could twitch my nose like Samantha did on Bewitched? You bet! But we all know that THAT only happens on T.V.!
And adding home schooling to my list of activities and responsibilities this year certainly didn't open up any free time. If anything it created another area in which I can feel inadequate. (And yes I did have to rephrase that sentence so it didn't end with a preposition! Maybe I"m learning something too! ha) I don't think that I have done the best that I could as a home schooler this year. But I have to measure that against "the best that I could do...given that my life stunk this year." And as a good home school friend has told me -- "God knew what your year would be like when He placed it on your heart to home school. Don't worry about it." I need to have that tattooed on my arm or something so that I can see it all the time.
But, my son is able to read now. He is reading for pleasure on occasion. He is still loving math -- which was always a love for him. We do occupational and speech therapy, in addition to musical education -- all of those three are outside the home.
What were my goals when we started home schooling?
1) to teach my son to read.
2) to give him a more relaxed environment in which to learn -- we certainly don't hold to any strict schedule here!
3) to allow him another year to mature and to overcome gross and fine motor skill problems in the hope that handwriting would improve.
4) to work on tackling the speech issues.
5) to get the ADD under control, so that he can concentrate and learn.
If I sit and look back at that list, then I have been successful. I hope that others think so. It's difficult when my mom is a retired public school teacher. I feel the urge and push to put my child back in public school so that I don't make her think that I thought her career was misspent. My choice to do home schooling this past year had nothing to do with her, or her career choice.
This past year was about doing what was best for my child so that he could learn at a pace that worked for him.
But now the 'school year end' is looming. And so are the questions from everyone about "Are you going to continue to homeschool?" At this point I have to say "I don't know." I am trying to decide if it's worth the trouble to have ALL of that testing redone in the public school system (because they won't use the old results -- for good or bad). It's a huge mess that I'd have to navigate once again. And when the testing is done, there's no guarantee that an IEP would be created for my child. Then I'd have to approach the school system about a 504 plan. Sort of a way of getting the services needed, but without being under the special ed umbrella.
OR
I could give it another try this year with a different curriculum. And possibly join a co-op so that we have 1) other friends who are home schoolers, 2) a social outlet for me (see previous post from today), and 3) the opportunity for my DS to socialize and play with other kids.
Why am I so moody today? It's not a full moon. The weather isn't changing, is it? All elementary school teachers would tell you that if either of those occurred, the kids would be swinging from the rafters. And if they happened to occur AT THE SAME TIME! oh my word.
That's what I feel like today. Full moon + weather craziness all wrapped up into one big mess and thrown at me. and that the world hit a bullseye on my emotions.
Ugh.
And when you walk into my house, you see it. We never get all of the laundry done at one time any more. That I'm coming to grips with. I'll just do laundry daily until my kids are grown. O.K. I have kids. They are healthy. They get clothes dirty. I can do the wash -- and so can they (thank goodness).
But...my hobby of stamping cards and other stuff has taken a back burner this year. I miss having time to do that. I miss being invited to be the demonstrator at stamping parties. Of course, I have to get out there and rebuild my business and get new customers who want to have parties. And when will I find time to do that? Who knows!
I never seem to have a single room completely clean any more. I can hire people to clean the house, but NO ONE can clean the house if it's drowning in clutter. And I don't have the drive to get it in order. Depressed? maybe. Discouraged? yes. Wishing that I could twitch my nose like Samantha did on Bewitched? You bet! But we all know that THAT only happens on T.V.!
And adding home schooling to my list of activities and responsibilities this year certainly didn't open up any free time. If anything it created another area in which I can feel inadequate. (And yes I did have to rephrase that sentence so it didn't end with a preposition! Maybe I"m learning something too! ha) I don't think that I have done the best that I could as a home schooler this year. But I have to measure that against "the best that I could do...given that my life stunk this year." And as a good home school friend has told me -- "God knew what your year would be like when He placed it on your heart to home school. Don't worry about it." I need to have that tattooed on my arm or something so that I can see it all the time.
But, my son is able to read now. He is reading for pleasure on occasion. He is still loving math -- which was always a love for him. We do occupational and speech therapy, in addition to musical education -- all of those three are outside the home.
What were my goals when we started home schooling?
1) to teach my son to read.
2) to give him a more relaxed environment in which to learn -- we certainly don't hold to any strict schedule here!
3) to allow him another year to mature and to overcome gross and fine motor skill problems in the hope that handwriting would improve.
4) to work on tackling the speech issues.
5) to get the ADD under control, so that he can concentrate and learn.
If I sit and look back at that list, then I have been successful. I hope that others think so. It's difficult when my mom is a retired public school teacher. I feel the urge and push to put my child back in public school so that I don't make her think that I thought her career was misspent. My choice to do home schooling this past year had nothing to do with her, or her career choice.
This past year was about doing what was best for my child so that he could learn at a pace that worked for him.
But now the 'school year end' is looming. And so are the questions from everyone about "Are you going to continue to homeschool?" At this point I have to say "I don't know." I am trying to decide if it's worth the trouble to have ALL of that testing redone in the public school system (because they won't use the old results -- for good or bad). It's a huge mess that I'd have to navigate once again. And when the testing is done, there's no guarantee that an IEP would be created for my child. Then I'd have to approach the school system about a 504 plan. Sort of a way of getting the services needed, but without being under the special ed umbrella.
OR
I could give it another try this year with a different curriculum. And possibly join a co-op so that we have 1) other friends who are home schoolers, 2) a social outlet for me (see previous post from today), and 3) the opportunity for my DS to socialize and play with other kids.
Why am I so moody today? It's not a full moon. The weather isn't changing, is it? All elementary school teachers would tell you that if either of those occurred, the kids would be swinging from the rafters. And if they happened to occur AT THE SAME TIME! oh my word.
That's what I feel like today. Full moon + weather craziness all wrapped up into one big mess and thrown at me. and that the world hit a bullseye on my emotions.
Ugh.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
February
Last month was a doozie.
Starting on Feb 1st through Feb 17th, my dad has "spells" every day. I was certain that he was having temporal lobe seizures -- up to 12 per day, some lasting up to 14 hours. I helped Mom get dad into the hospital so he could be monitored. Then their GP told mom that the time had come to find a placement for my dad. That meant finding a nursing home. Mom and I spent Saturday the 16th visiting seven skilled nursing facilities. The first place we visited was depressing. It was an older facility, low ceilings, dark small rooms and the smell made me want to vomit. Mom was just crying and saying that she'd just take Daddy home and stop complaining.
We found two other facilities that were much nicer that day. Unfortunately, those facilities denied admission to my dad. They were the first of eight facilities, in total, that turned us down.
As of 4 PM on Tuesday the 19th, I was back at square one, needing to find a nursing home. Mom and I visited three more facilities that evening. The first one was very nice, the second facility was much too large and the last was even more depressing than the very first facility we saw. Mom cried after touring that facility as well.
The next day while I was in Bible Study, I received 3 phone calls: 1) another denial for admission, 2) an acceptance and 3) a call requesting dad's information from a facility we'd toured the night before. The acceptance was from the first of the three facilities we'd toured the night before. It was the facility that I liked the most. It's not too large (only 120 beds) and I have older friends who either have their parents there now, or there were there before they passed away.
As anyone will tell you, there is NO place like home. But, when you are at the end of your rope, physically and mentally, knowing that you've found the nicest place you can find for your loved one is a godsend,.
But we were only there for about 5 days before Dad had to go to Denison for a 5 day video/EEG study. He spent five days hooked up to electrodes to measure his brain waves while being videotaped. He did not have ONE seizure! Murphy's Law was in effect I guess.
The doctor's office did NOT give us all the information we needed prior to admission. Dad had to be kept awake for the first 24 hours. This required that mom or I stay with him 24/7. It's hard to feel that Dad was in a good place for the testing when the doctor's office dropped such a big ball! But the net result of the visit was that 1) the dietician changed his nutrition substitute so that Dad only has to 'eat' 4 times per day now vs. the 7 times per day he was doing before the admission; and 2) even with NO seizure medications on board, Daddy didn't have any seizures.
Does that mean that he no longer has seizures? or are the "spells" the result of too much medication? And since Mom said that the "man" who was there in the hospital room with her for those 4 days was the guy she married -- does that mean that the last anti-seizure medication change caused many of the bipolar behaviors we saw?
I am very lost as to what we should do next.
Mom mentioned that "if he's this good, I could just bring him home."
If she does that, I'll just have to wash my hands of the day-to-day stuff and only help in a crisis.
My oldest DS has finally expressed his thoughts and feelings about the past 8 months and he feels that I"m no longer here for him, that I don't care about him and that "ever since Grandpa started having seizures again, this place [our house] has broken down." I have to agree with that last point. Hearing how he felt made my heart break. I talked about it with the counselor, my husband and my Bible Study ladies. They are praying like mad, interceding on our behalf with the LORD.
My DS and I had a breakfast date today. Just the two of us, no siblings, nobody else. Just us. I asked if there was anything he wanted to talk about. He said no. I must maintain the lines of communication with him. No matter how many problems my dad may have, my son(s) have to take priority. My priorities got all rearranged last June 22nd. They must now return to:
1) God
2) my husband
3) my sons
4) myself and THEN
5) my parents.
Then just as I'm starting to feel that I know the order of my priorities, I get a phone call today asking me to consider teaching a senior adult ladies' Sunday School class. I am flattered beyond words that the woman who called thinks I'm up to the task. But right now, life can't be about what makes me feel good about me. My oldest DS HAS to know that he is a priority in my life -- and one of the highest priorities.
LIfe is full of twists and turns. God is in control. I have to remember THAT fact above all else.
Starting on Feb 1st through Feb 17th, my dad has "spells" every day. I was certain that he was having temporal lobe seizures -- up to 12 per day, some lasting up to 14 hours. I helped Mom get dad into the hospital so he could be monitored. Then their GP told mom that the time had come to find a placement for my dad. That meant finding a nursing home. Mom and I spent Saturday the 16th visiting seven skilled nursing facilities. The first place we visited was depressing. It was an older facility, low ceilings, dark small rooms and the smell made me want to vomit. Mom was just crying and saying that she'd just take Daddy home and stop complaining.
We found two other facilities that were much nicer that day. Unfortunately, those facilities denied admission to my dad. They were the first of eight facilities, in total, that turned us down.
As of 4 PM on Tuesday the 19th, I was back at square one, needing to find a nursing home. Mom and I visited three more facilities that evening. The first one was very nice, the second facility was much too large and the last was even more depressing than the very first facility we saw. Mom cried after touring that facility as well.
The next day while I was in Bible Study, I received 3 phone calls: 1) another denial for admission, 2) an acceptance and 3) a call requesting dad's information from a facility we'd toured the night before. The acceptance was from the first of the three facilities we'd toured the night before. It was the facility that I liked the most. It's not too large (only 120 beds) and I have older friends who either have their parents there now, or there were there before they passed away.
As anyone will tell you, there is NO place like home. But, when you are at the end of your rope, physically and mentally, knowing that you've found the nicest place you can find for your loved one is a godsend,.
But we were only there for about 5 days before Dad had to go to Denison for a 5 day video/EEG study. He spent five days hooked up to electrodes to measure his brain waves while being videotaped. He did not have ONE seizure! Murphy's Law was in effect I guess.
The doctor's office did NOT give us all the information we needed prior to admission. Dad had to be kept awake for the first 24 hours. This required that mom or I stay with him 24/7. It's hard to feel that Dad was in a good place for the testing when the doctor's office dropped such a big ball! But the net result of the visit was that 1) the dietician changed his nutrition substitute so that Dad only has to 'eat' 4 times per day now vs. the 7 times per day he was doing before the admission; and 2) even with NO seizure medications on board, Daddy didn't have any seizures.
Does that mean that he no longer has seizures? or are the "spells" the result of too much medication? And since Mom said that the "man" who was there in the hospital room with her for those 4 days was the guy she married -- does that mean that the last anti-seizure medication change caused many of the bipolar behaviors we saw?
I am very lost as to what we should do next.
Mom mentioned that "if he's this good, I could just bring him home."
If she does that, I'll just have to wash my hands of the day-to-day stuff and only help in a crisis.
My oldest DS has finally expressed his thoughts and feelings about the past 8 months and he feels that I"m no longer here for him, that I don't care about him and that "ever since Grandpa started having seizures again, this place [our house] has broken down." I have to agree with that last point. Hearing how he felt made my heart break. I talked about it with the counselor, my husband and my Bible Study ladies. They are praying like mad, interceding on our behalf with the LORD.
My DS and I had a breakfast date today. Just the two of us, no siblings, nobody else. Just us. I asked if there was anything he wanted to talk about. He said no. I must maintain the lines of communication with him. No matter how many problems my dad may have, my son(s) have to take priority. My priorities got all rearranged last June 22nd. They must now return to:
1) God
2) my husband
3) my sons
4) myself and THEN
5) my parents.
Then just as I'm starting to feel that I know the order of my priorities, I get a phone call today asking me to consider teaching a senior adult ladies' Sunday School class. I am flattered beyond words that the woman who called thinks I'm up to the task. But right now, life can't be about what makes me feel good about me. My oldest DS HAS to know that he is a priority in my life -- and one of the highest priorities.
LIfe is full of twists and turns. God is in control. I have to remember THAT fact above all else.
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