The Problem with Cartoons

Curling up with cartoons in the morning is a long-standing tradition that dates back to the year Mr. A was born. I was working nights, and being able to kick on the television and distract him for a few hours was my key to catching another hour or two of sleep.

Maybe not the best habits to foster, but hey. A mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.

Now, when Mr. A was born, good cartoons were a dime a dozen. We’d watch “Bear in the Big Blue House”, “Darkwing Duck” and “Dora the Explorer”. Things started taking a downturn when Princess C came along, but they weren’t bad. By the time G-Money was old enough to appreciate the wonders of animation, his options were pretty gosh-darned cruddy.

Fortunately, we were too cheap to pay for cable. All those Dora and Blues Clues DVDs came in handy.

Now that the kids are older and moving beyond Thomas the Tank Engine and Care Bears, I’m not impressed. We’ve pretty much banned Cartoon Network in my house for excessive violence and encouraging bad behavior. Even the Disney Channel is letting me down. I love Phineas and Ferb, but even Suite Life and Pair of Kings is a perfect launch pad for anarchy and terminal verbal diarrhea.

Short story, our kids are getting bombarded with messages about how it’s “cool” to talk back to their parents, play pranks on their supervisors and disrespect their friends. And it’s not cool.

What happened to the cartoons of our youth? I know I’m not romanticizing it. These days, if nobody gets their butt kicked, my kids don’t want to watch it. I did, however, find one show I really like.

Magi Nation

If you have older kids who are into Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon, you have to check this out. The show is essentially Pokemon, but in a dream world with dream creatures. The best part is, there are math and science lessons incorporated into each show. The kids get to see Gorram be captured and sent back to the dream land AND discover the lattice and pure minerals inside crystals. They track down the dream stones while discovering addition, subtraction and greater than/less than, which might not mean much for older kids but is solid gold when their six year old brother’s in the room too.

Most importantly, it teaches things like friendship and family values while still giving them enough action to keep them interested. I love it.

 

Yay Sick Days

Hello hello hello! Did you miss me?

It’s been a wild summer. Kids spent a month out of state with my in-laws while I finished some college classes. (More on that when I’ve put the trauma out of my mind.) I spent that whole month scouting out great things to do with the kids when they got back.

I planned camping trips. I planned amusement park days. I planned for picnics and pools and movies and all sorts of other stuff. So what’s the first thing they do when they get back?

Okay, the first thing they did was spend two days at Jellystone, which was AMAZING. The second thing they did was get sick.

Yup. Sick. For the last one…three…five days I’ve had at least one kid down with the plague at any point in time. Princess C had to come home early from a slumber party the other night. I left her home with Dad to take the boys to the state park for a day of fun, sun and swimming, only to have Mr. A drop on the way home with a fever, cough and general misery.

I was so aggravated with the amount of time they spent on the computer and watching TV while they were gone. I SWORE I was going to get them out and about when they got home. What happened? We’ve had a five day cartoon marathon while the kids lay around in bored misery and mom tries to work, catch up on two weeks’ of errands and housework, job hunt and play nurse, all at the same time.

No days at the park or Chuck E. Cheese with my laptop in one hand and a juice box in the other. No early morning work sessions so we can spend the afternoon at the pool. I love sick days. (sigh)

Laundry and Dishes are KILLING Me

3 kids. 2 adults. A never-ending pile of laundry and dishes. It’s one thing to groan and bang your head on the table and complain about it. It’s something else altogether when you actually have to DO it. 

 

Between running to dance and tae kwon do, work and wading through homework every night, along with the never-ending fun of a gluten-free lifestyle (which means no pre-made food), we’re low on time as it is. I’ve talked about my house being a wreck, and giving up on trying to keep ahead of everything.

There’s only so loose everything can get though. Kids still have to have clean clothes to wear to school. Can’t eat without dishes to eat on. And pots and pans start to seriously stink if you leave them lying around long enough. The question then becomes, how do we manage to stay on top of everything with a minimal amount 

of time or effort required?

Hint: This is the part where all of you who actually manage to keep ahead of your housework hop on down to the comments section and share the awesomeness of your expertise.

I don’t have much to ante up here, obviously, but there are a few things that are helping us keep our heads above water in terms of organization.

1)     

 M&M plates went on sale not too long ago. We bought a full set of plates, cups and bowls in each color. We let each of the kids pick what color they wanted to be “theirs”. They use those for each meal, and wash them when they’re done. It doesn’t always work out like that, but most of the time it helps make sure the kids always have dishes to eat their diner on.

2)      Each kid has a laundry basket in their room. They put their own clothes in their basket. Once or twice a week the baskets come downstairs, one at a time, to be washed, dried and filled with clean, folded clothes. All their clothes, all in one load, and back in their rooms. No sorting required.

3)      We have a big basket in the front hallway for hats and gloves to land in on the way in the door. Suddenly I’m not spending 30 minutes every morning (and missing the bus) because I can’t find the other half of a pair of Transformer gloves.

4)      Shoes come off in the front hallway or land in the shoe closet. Not a perfect system-I dug my daughter’s out from under her bed yesterday. And my own are forever making laps around the house. But again, it increases the chances that the kids will have both a right and a left when it’s time to walk out the door.

5)      The swim bag stays packed. If I had a dime for every swim trip we’ve had to cancel because I couldn’t find a bathing suit, only to have it pop to the top of the laundry pile two days later, I’d be a very, very wealthy woman. As soon as my daughter started dance and I realized her dance shoes would disappear at the drop of a hat, we started packing a dance bag. We do the same for swim. Swim clothes and towels go in. They get used. They go straight from the swim bag to the washer to the dryer and right back into the swim bag.

6)      We finally mastered the socks.

Yup, that’s it. Except for that, I’ve got nothin’. What have you got?   

Winning the Sock Wars

Laundry breeds in the dark. I’ll swear by it. The way my laundry pile grows…and grows…and grows the minute my back’s turned leads me to the only possible conclusion: Asexual reproduction is taking place in my laundry basket at the speed of a six year old mowing through a container of chicken nuggets. Competition for resources is so stiff, they’ve resorted to cannibalism.

Which brings me to the worst part about laundry: The bloody socks. 

I’m not a hoarder. I’m really, really not. I just can’t see the logic in throwing away a perfectly good pair of socks. Because of that, my kids have also adopted the mantra of, “It doesn’t have to match, it just has to fit.”

The sock basket. It’ll cough up two socks at a time. Good luck finding two of the same. It’s just easier to let it ride.

That’s fine if you don’t care, but I was getting frustrated. I couldn’t always find my youngest’s little socks in the bottom, so he’d end up wearing his dad’s or his brother’s. (He wears a 3. They wear a 12 and a 9, respectively. It wasn’t pretty.) I could never find a pair. When I sat down to sort socks, I’d spend almost two hours trying to put things together. The sheer volume of options was so overwhelming, I avoided sorting socks like the plague. Which resulted in the sock basket throwing up at regular intervals all over the stairs.

Enough. Was. Enough.

I stumbled over a fantastic post the other day that I wish I could find again. It was written by a mom of seven talking about how they managed socks. Her advice? To buy unique styles and colors of socks for each kid. All of each kids’ socks should match-that way you don’t have a pink sock, a purple sock, a blue sock, a white sock and a penguin sock, and not a pair to be found. When they outgrow those, gather all of them up, throw them away, and buy another bag.

I was a little skeptical, but I had to do something. So I bought everyone a new bag of socks, 10 pairs for each, and tossed all the old socks away. The first time sorting socks took me five minutes instead of 50, it was SO worth it. If there was a sock missing a pair, I could just grab another and put them together. 

That’s what we did. How do you keep your socks in line?

Homeschooling and the S Word

Today's post is brought to you by Jenny Herman, the social media coordinator for the Home Educating Association and blogger at ww.manyhatsmommy.com. She's a homeschooling parent, which made her the perfect person to ask when the question of how to socialize your homeschooler popped up!

The question? We learn so much in school. Not only our ABC's, or our 123's, but how to deal with people. How to cope with boredom, and the fact that life isn't always going to go our way. We make friends, test our boundaries, and develop a personality outside of our life at home. How do you help your homeschooler do the same? Jenny talks about her experience homeschooling with autism, and how she's making it work for her.
Homeschooling and the S Word

When I was young, I decided I wanted to be a teacher. I went into elementary education, and taught for six years in a private school. My mom assumed because I was a teacher that I would homeschool my children. That rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t want to homeschool. Just because I had a degree and experience in education didn’t mean I wanted to teach my own kids all day!

My oldest son decided to change that. He has Asperger’s syndrome, which on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. Regular preschool did not work for him. It was the worst seven weeks of my life. After much agonizing debate, my husband and I decided to put him into the developmental delay preschool room. This worked great…for a while. After a year, my son was at the top of his class, so to speak, and was starting to bring home regressive behaviors. But the other classes were not an option for him.

What to do now? How can I pull a kid who has social delays out of school? But if I don’t, I’m losing all we worked so hard for over the last year. Not an easy decision. What’s a mom to do?

Read.

The more I read, the more I found that often kids who are homeschooled get more socialization than their peers. Of course there’s always extremists in every case, but would those hide-away folks be socialized if they went to public school? Probably not.

I read many stories of children who could communicate with any age, not just those within the same birth year or two. (The one comment that really stuck out to me was, a classroom is the only place where we are with people our exact age. Everywhere else, we’re around mixed ages.) These children participate in things like Boy Scouts and 4-H. Many participate in competitions of all kinds across the country. Others reach out to those in their community—visiting elderly or babysitting youngsters. Parents mentioned how sports and fine arts developed not only talent but also social skills in their children.

But what about my child on the autism spectrum, who already has social challenges? I found a book that specifically discussed homeschool and autistic children. Many of the parents interviewed stated that socialization is actually more successful for autistic children who are homeschooled. Why? They can practice the needed skills at home first, in a safe, encouraging environment free from distraction. They can get the social script down pat and then take it out into the community when they are ready.

These kids get to practice in all different settings—grocery store, post office, playground, karate class, church, bank, shopping mall, library, etc.—at all different times of day. They experience social success and gain confidence.

This was a tough decision for me, but I knew we needed to change something. I am now a homeschool mom. Not at all what I expected, but the more I learn and watch, the more I see that the big S (socialization) isn’t such a big deal.

Come learn more about parenting with autism, homeschooling and how to be AWESOME by visiting Jenny over at www.manyhatsmommy.com!  

Review: "The Hunger Games"

Over the past three days, I’ve had three questions tossed at me: 

1.  Should I read The Hunger Games before I see the movie?
2.  Should I take my kids to see "The Hunger Games" in the theatre?
3.  And finally, after catching "The Hunger Games" on the big screen last night during opening weekend, “How was the movie?” 

Since it’s hard to review a movie without tossing lots of spoilers in (and spoilers really aren’t fair when you’re one of the only people you know who snuck out to see it opening weekend), I figure I’ll catch these instead!

Should You Read the Book First?

Let me start off by saying that I’ve had a dozen people ask me this since I scooted out to see the movie last night, and I’m no closer to being able to answer it than I was before.

It should be noted that I’m a dedicated book snob. 9.8 times out of 10 the book is much-much-much better than the movie. Things move at a slower pace. You get a better look at the inside of the characters’ heads. There’s an opportunity for more detail, smaller events, that can set the tone for the story but would take up too much time in the movie.

When I heard that The Hunger Games was coming out on film, I told my kids if they’d read the book first I’d take them to see the movie. After watching the movie, I’m not sure if I made the right call there. On one hand, there are giant gaps in the movie that don’t make a great deal of sense if you haven’t read the book. The screenwriter clearly counted on their audience already being familiar with the book. (I spent most of the first twenty minutes leaning over whispering explanations in my husband’s ear-I suspect he was ready to duct tape my mouth shut before it was all said and done.)

Not having a clue what was going on would have made parts of the movie extremely frustrating. It definitely loses something in translation. On the other hand, as with most book adaptations, there were giant parts of the story that were cut out. It hopped between major plot points without lingering too long over any of them, leaving huge gaps in the action, in events and in the characters’ thoughts that the book would close. So if you haven’t already read the book, think of it as…one of those really awesome movie companions. You get to see all kinds of cool and interesting things that didn’t happen on screen.

So should you read the book before you see the movie? Honestly, I’d say it’s up to you.

Should You Take Your Kids to See "The Hunger Games"?

By the end of the first day, "The Hunger Games" had made a splash. For what? For an excess of death, blood and violence in a story primarily intended for kids.

24 go in. 1 comes out. What exactly did they expect? If you’ve read the book, you know that the entire story is a testament to one young woman’s will to stay alive at any cost. There’s blood. There’s violence. But for the amount of death that takes place in a book like The Hunger Games, the gore was kept to a minimum. It was much more PG than I was expecting it to be.

My 9 and 11 year old went to see it, and I was fine with that. There were a few points where the kids jumped, and I think my daughter covered her eyes at one point. The makers did a good job keeping the more grisly aspects of the games to a minimum. If your kids are prone to nightmares, are easily frightened or flinch from the violence in television shows and cartoons intended for older children, this is a movie best watched at home-or when they’re a little older. On the other hand, if they’re fine with all of that, they’ll probably be okay.

At the point, the question is whether or not you’re okay with your children watching the Games play out on the big screen.

So How Was It, Really?

This is the part where I have to roast a film that had a $214 million opening weekend. The screenwriter who created "The Hunger Games" was guilty of the same crime as the people who created the first (and the last, if we’re going to be honest) adaptations of the Twilight books. They coasted on the success of the book, without putting nearly enough effort into creating a film designed to stand on its own.

The movie itself was 2.5 hours long; obviously some concessions had to be made for time. Despite that, I felt that parts of the movie that should have been allowed to play out were cut short, and parts that should have been cut short (or ignored altogether) dragged on for eternity. Some of the best moments in the book, moments that cemented your relationship with the characters, were nowhere to be seen.

Overall, I’d give "The Hunger Games" three stars. It wasn’t a bad movie. My kidlets both loved it. And we’ll probably go see the second one when it comes out. But unless you’re a die-hard fan of The Hunger Games and absolutely, positively can’t wait to see it on the big screen, I’d say you won’t lose a thing by waiting for it to come out on DVD.

Did you go see “The Hunger Games”? What did you think?

Mom Needs to Get a Life

I have no life. 
 

That’s the mantra of moms everywhere. We have no life. We, those fun, witty women who used to go out to karaoke on Saturday nights and slip out for cocktail on a Wednesday. We, who used to read books and magazines and get together in coffee shops to sip lattes and talk about life. We, who dressed in stylish clothes and actually OWNED a pair of dress boots to go with our jeans, used to have a life.

Now? Now we’re women in ponytails that roll out of bed in the morning, grab the first pair of pants that smell halfway clean and slog to the kitchen, ready to start another fun-filled day of ushering our children through the finer points of life.

“Mother” Is the Name Synonymous with God in the Heart and Mind of Every Child

See that little quote right above here? Those 15 words are probably the most misinterpreted in human history. (Right up there with “I’ll do it tomorrow.”) That one little phrase inspires mothers everywhere to drop everything and come running the minute their kids are awake, burying themselves in the minutiae of their lives and their laundry until the minute they go to bed. At which point, we lovingly fold even more laundry, wash the day’s dishes, and collapse on the couch to watch the only hour of adult television we’ll see all day.

If that.

A warning to all moms, and one I really, REALLY wish they’d publish in those parenting books they’re always going on and on about. If you’re not careful, motherhood will consume you. You’ll wake up one morning and realize that you’ve been so busy being a mom that you haven’t talked to your friends in a year. You have no idea when you last had a girl’s day out. All those hobbies you used to have? Gone. All gone.

Suddenly, you realize you’re not a mom. You’re a nanny drone. When you’re away from your kids, you’re not (insert your name here). You’re just the weird lady with the messy bun at the grocery store without a lick of makeup on, staring at the broccoli in horror trying to figure out where you went wrong.

Time to Stand Up for Our Right to Get a Life

If you’re not happy with yourself, if you don’t feel you’ve got balance in your life, you can’t be the best mom you could be. It’s on headlines everywhere. Single Dad Laughing is working on a whole series on it. But it’s not something most of us have time to think about.

Cause, you know, the laundry breeds the minute you turn your back on it.

You don’t stop being a woman just because you become a mother. A friend told me that shortly before my first was born, and I wish I could frame it for each and every woman I know. Balance is vitally important. Who you are with what you are.

The question is, how do you balance motherhood with actually having a life?

1)      Stay in touch with your friends. The beauty of text, email and Facebook is that it’s easy to stay in touch with your friends. Fifteen minutes a day can cement old friendships, help you stay up on the news and yes, have conversations that have nothing to do with diaper rash and Fisher Price.

2)      Go out. At least once a month, get together with your friends. Not your spouse. Not your kids. Have coffee. Go to a movie. Go out to dinner or hiking or dancing or bowling.

3)      Avoid the urge to live in sweats. This feels a little hypocritical, given the fact that I’m writing this in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, but spending the day lounging around in sweats makes it easy to let the rest slip away. Enjoy your sloppy days, but don’t forget to get up, get dressed, curl your hair and put on your game face before you go out to face the world. You know, the way you did before you were a mom!

4)      Make time for your hobbies. When I was in school, I was a musician. At least an hour a day was dedicated to half notes and whole notes and trills and scales. Except for the occasional Christmas carols for the kids, I haven’t taken the time to play that flute in years. And I miss that. Take time for your hobbies. They’re part of who you are.

5)      Make friends with people with kids. Keep the friends you had before you were kids, but don’t discount the value of making new friends too. If there’s one thing that really makes trying to balance having a life with being a mom, it’s that motherhood brings children into the mix. Tracking down a babysitter every time you want to go hang out is expensive and impractical. And impractical doesn’t even scratch the surface of what having a conversation with the kids in the room feels like.

So, go to story times. Go to playgroups. Join committees at school. Make friends with people who have children. Let the children play while the grown-ups do the same.

How do you balance motherhood with having a life?