Quicky Linky Love ~ Teaching Kids a Valuable Lesson

Nail on the head Apron Thrift Girl.  Nail on the head…

Wordless Wednesday ~ The First Rule About The Girls Club Is…

Okay, not technically wordless, but it warrants an explanation, LOL.  Tucking nearly-7yo Moo into bed last night (she shares a room with her brother), I spy this delightful list of rules for a mythical ‘Girls Club’ pinned to the underside of the bunk above her (she’s on the bottom bunk and likes to hang her toys from the bedframe above).  Just in case you can’t make out the words:

Girls Club Stuff

1.  We rock / boys drool.
2.  Are (Our) club is on my bed.
3.  We keep the door shut and have alone time.
4.  If boys come in we tell Mum we (are) have (ing) alone time.
5.  Sometimes we stop for food / drink.
6.  We say to boys girls rock and boys drool.
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 

I’m particularly proud of her judicious use of “/”, the fact she’s even messed up the club motto - it’s meant to be Girls Rule, Boys Drool of course - and the spaces she left for adding in new rules as she makes them up.  Atta girl, LOL.

I am so hopeless…that wasn’t even close to being wordless.  Oh well!  Promise I’ll do better next time!

For more Wordless Wednesday, clickety-clack over to 5 Minutes For Mom.

Cheers,
Lizzie

Works For Me Wednesday ~ Command Central

When it comes to tackling the endless paperwork merry-go-round that having three children (in two different schools) inevitably produces, this is my secret weapon:

It’s an A4-sized 5 drawer thingamajig.  Totally it’s real name by the way, LOL.

The labels read: Current Bills, School, Needs Action, To File and To Read.

Current Bills - pretty self explanatory.  I never liked the idea of sticking bills to the fridge where everyone who visited could gawk at how much you paid for electricity this month.  I will put a disclaimer here though.  A large wall calendar or personal planner - one you actually look at every day! - is a MUST if you’re socking unpaid bills away in an unseen place.  It took Talented Hubby ages to understand this approach.  To him, you need to be looking at that bill every day so you don’t forget its there.  As soon as we get a bill in the mail, I make note of the due date on the calendar - ours has huge squares and no pictures.  Boring, but seriously practical :)  Then I put the bill in the top drawer of Command Central.  I check the calendar as part of my Evening Routine anyway and if a bill is due the next day, I’ll put it front-and-centre on the kitchen bench (usually underneath my keys) to remind me to pay it.

School - sometimes the kids have special notices announcing events that require a little more input from me than merely attending.  I note the relevant details on our calendar, and file the note in this drawer.  As I check this daily, I never lose a note and I (almost!) never forget to bring that plate of cookies/volunteer on a stall/see so-and-so to organise a parent teacher interview.  And the notes stay off my already cluttered fridge!

Needs Action - non school related tasks that need completing, such as the recent list of phone calls I needed to make in regards to booking accommodation for an upcoming trip, or hardware store purchases we made note of to complete projects around the home.  Not to be confused with Current Bills, which should have their own dedicated drawer.

To File - When things have been dealt with, sometimes we need to keep them.  Paid bills, receipts, tax information, itineraries, product manuals and so on.  Since the idea with Command Central is not to mimic a perfectly-run office but merely to initially control paper clutter until we have a bit more time on our hands, anything that needs filing in the big filing cabinet (ie, that we need to keep for a period of time), gets tossed in here.  When the drawer is full, I file it properly.

To Read - I like catalogues, LOL.  Since I like to flick through them so much, the ordinary clutter-fix of recycling them immediately after getting them in the mail (or putting a ‘no junk mail’ sign on our letterbox) won’t work - but I can’t leave them stacked in one spot either, because they look messy and tend to breed (especially at this time of the year!)  Things I want to peruse later get tossed into this drawer, including grocery circulars and department store mail.  It works surprisingly well :)  As soon as I’ve looked through them though, out they go.  I’ve been known to cut out single items and paste them on a piece of white paper and tote that to the store rather than put up with a bulky catalogue.  So much easier.

So why does this make so much more sense?

No more loose papers.

No more (well okay, reduced) fridge clutter.

No more “Honey, did you see that slip of paper? You know, the one with the number on it for the guy you met at the place? Who does the thing?”

Everything in ONE spot.

Did I mention it keeps things tidy?

Each day when I’m unpacking the kids uneaten sandwiches and dog-earred library books from their school bags, I do a quick sort of their paperwork.  The time this usually takes is around 30 seconds.  If a task can be completed in a couple of minutes, I’ll sign forms/pay for excursions/check diary for notes right away and return them to the kids’ schoolbags, job done and forgotten (yay for autopilot!).  If it can’t be dealt with immediately, it gets sorted into Command Central.  Later, as part of my Evening Routine, I have a quick looky-see through the drawers to see if there’s anything I can do while I’m having my evening cup of tea.

This set of drawers cost me about $20 but you can certainly set up something similar cheaper - simple stackable ‘in’ trays would work really well (and probably be cheaper, LOL) but I really liked the ‘all enclosed, no chance for escape’ approach :)

For more Works For Me Wednesday goodness, drop in at Rocks In My Dryer!

They’ve Got Jam In Them…Thanks For Asking

I’m not the only mother who has ever put a batch of muffins into the oven at 11:30 at night, am I?  Anyone?

Time management issues strike again!

I’m so going to bed.  No, really.

Lemme just read these here blogs for an hour twenty five minutes…

In other news…has anyone noticed that there’s a MERE MONTH UNTIL CHRISTMAS DAY?  I have not shopped.  At all.  This is terribly unlike me.  But this year I just realised buying stuff simply for the sake of ’tallying up’ over the holiday period is a complete and utter waste of money.  I know.  I’m a slow learner.  This year, the only things on my ideas list for the Piglets were bikes, desks for their rooms (one each) and a puppy - and even then, the bike idea will probably be passed on as an idea for the grandparents.  This puppy will cost a bomb, some of which will of course have come out of our usual Christmas budget, but it’s more about the simplifying this year.  I must admit, it’s rather liberating not to have a ‘wish list’ from each kid in my purse at all times (in case I see ‘the’ present while I’m out and about), or to be rushing around getting to this or that sale.  I’m not completely off the hook - there are still extended family presents and stocking stuffers to get, but we take it pretty laid back in that department around here :)

Cheers,
Lizzie

Raindrops And Respite

I have a confession to make.  I’m no martyr.  In fact, there are days when the absolute last thing I want to do is to be a parent - shhh, don’t tell anyone!

Whilst I love my kids to bits, the reality of having a special needs child is that it’s exhausting work.  You have to think ten steps ahead at all times.  You can’t do as many things together as a family.  Cinemas are out, restaurants that don’t include cookies on the menu or plastic play equipment are a no-go and a ‘real’ holiday, one where you go a bit further afield than Grandma’s, seems impossible.

Before long, the wonderful ‘challenged-but-enjoying-it’ attitude you’ve worked so hard to show the world begins to crack.  Suddenly you’re raising your voice to the kids.  You’re hard-pressed to find the enthusiasm to eat a sandwich, let along prepare meals for the family.  Housework is a distant memory.

My husband once mentioned to me a fantastic analogy for stress which I’ll share with you know:  Imagine your life as a bucket, and the everyday stresses as the raindrops which fill it.

Every day, even if you don’t realise it, the raindrops add up.  Some days a lot - perhaps Junior had one of his world-famous meltdowns in the middle of the supermarket - and some days hardly anything at all.  Suddenly you come to the realisation that your bucket is almost full.  You’re almost at your limit.  Even just one extra drop and you’re going to overflow.

This is where respite care is worth its weight in gold.

Initially I was quite apprehensive about the whole idea of respite care.  I didn’t much like the idea that I would be handing over my children into the care of a relative stranger.  I was used to our son’s unique personality and worried about the poor respite worker being lumped with his difficult behaviour.

I needn’t have worried.  Our respite worker Rose came for a ‘meet-and-greet’ before our first real respite night and she and the kids hit it off immediately.  A huge plus for us was also that all workers contracted to our respite program carry a senior first aid certificate and other qualifications such as a manual handling certificate.  Not to mention having specific special needs care experience in spades.

Some folks choose to use their allocated respite hours to run errands which they might not otherwise be able to fit in around caring for a loved one twenty-four hours a day.  My husband and I have been quite lucky in that regard - we’ve always had various combinations of childcare, kindergarten and now school to give us that break during the day to get the basics done.  What we were lacking, however, was time alone in the evenings.  So we use our time on ourselves, often going out to dinner and a movie.  It’s a wonderful time.  Without the use of this respite service, we would have to give most of this up - it’s a rare thing indeed to find a regular babysitter who is both trustworthy and infinitely patient and we live too far from relatives to impose on them very often.

I once read a statistic that said parents of a special needs child have a much greater risk of divorce than the national average of about one in two marriages.  Technically speaking, the odds are stacked against us.  Having the ability to spend time together, without the added pressure of having our brains on auto-pilot, has been a godsend.

We think of it as ‘emptying our bucket’.

* This is the second in a series I’m calling The Mama Bear Files. Originally written 2005.

Postscript ~ Clearly, a lot has changed since this was originally written.  We are still accessing respite care but a lot of the issues that were once prevalent concerning what we could do as a family no longer stand (thank goodness!)  J was only 6½ when this was first written and now, at age 10, we’re blessed to have a lovely - and mostly agreeable! - child :)