A Conversation

A conversation heard earlier today:

(while walking the dogs with MeToo)
"I want to go for a walk around the neighborhood."
"Ok, we'll walk more before we go home."
"I don't like it when you pull my hood."
"Sorry, you kept weaving in front of me. I was going to step on you."
(starts whining and crying)
"Why are you crying?"
"You pulled my hood!"
"I'm sorry. I told you I did it because I was going to step on you. I won't do it again."
(continues whining and crying more loudly)
"You sound pretty tired. I think we should go home instead of walking."
(starts screaming and shrieking)
"I want to go for a walk! I want to go for a walk! I want to go for a walk! I want to go for a walk! I want to go for a walk! I want to go for a walk!" [*as you're reading these to yourself, make sure you stretch out all of the vowels as long as you can]
"I'm sorry, but we're not taking a walk if you're going to scream like this. We're going home."
"I don't want to take a nap! I don't want to go to sleep! I don't want to go to sleep! I don't want to go to sleep! I don't want to go to sleep! I don't want to go to sleep! I don't want to go to sleep!"*
"That's fine, you don't have to. I never said you had to."
"Carry me! I don't want to walk! I don't want to walk! I don't want to walk! I don't want to walk! I don't want to walk! I don't want to walk! I don't want to walk! I don't want to walk!"*
"Well, I'm sorry, but I can't carry you home. It's time to walk."
"I want to lay down right here! I want to lay down right here! I want to lay down right here! I want to lay down right here! I want to lay down right here! I want to lay down right here!"*
"We're not going to lay down on the sidewalk. We're almost home. Keep going."
"I can't hold your hand! I can't hold your hand! I can't hold your hand! I can't hold your hand! I can't hold your hand! I can't hold your hand! I can't hold your hand!"*
"You don't have to until we cross the street."
"I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired! I'm not tired!"*
"I'm not sure I agree with that statement, but whatever. It's time to cross the street. I'm going to hold your hand."
(screaming and whining continues)
"Ok, we're home. Climb into your seat, it's time to go pick up your sister."
"I WANT TO STAY HOME AND TAKE A NAP!"
(screaming and whining continues while she buckles her carseat straps)
She's asleep before we put out of the driveway.
We all knew that was coming.

Scary Early

It's that spooky time of year. As much fun as I had making a sheltie costume (with its realistic shedding fur) for HeyMama, I sure am glad that Halloween is over. But daily life resumes, along with its daily terrors. Each morning dawns with the mild panic of getting everyone up, dressed, toiletted, fed, and out the door by 7:15am to take HeyMama to school. Ok, by "everyone" I mean myself and my three daughters. BestestHusband bikes to work later. And he can dress, toilet, and feed himself. One daughter can wake herself, toilet and dress herself, and feed herself, if we get out the food. One can toilet and feed herself, but needs help with waking and getting clothes to dress in. The third is absolutely dependent, and can't finish up her breakfast while I'm driving in the car. I've been doing it for almost 2 months, but it still terrifies me. 

I am not a morning person. Oh sure, there were those 4 years that I woke daily at 4:30am to row on a cold, dark, twisty river with 8 other people. I woke up on those mornings with the fear that those 8 other people would physically remove me from my bed if I didn't do it first. And sure, there was that time that I was training for a marathon, and had to do some runs before work in the summer, and had to get up crazy early. But I woke up on those mornings with the fear that I'd leave Melissa to run alone, or worse, get behind on our training schedule. It was fear that propelled me from bed both times. 

If my body had any say in the situation, it would happily stay tucked in bed until 10am. Just ask BestestHusband. He's seen it happen. Mostly before we had kids; I don't get to do it so often anymore. So imagine how my body feels when I ask it to get up 4 or more hours earlier than that. It is not a smooth-running machine. Not at all. 

So the 7:15am departure with my entourage is not an easy feat. There is always coffee in hand when I do it. It is truly "scary early" for me. 

But I'm coming to peace with it. Because the other morning, I drove to the next town to take HeyMama to school, then drove back past home to CVS to be there when it opened at 8am. We picked up a prescription and a few other things. I let MeToo play with toys. Then we tried on Halloween masks. We were out of there by 8:30. Given my preference, we'd still be at home in our jammies. But instead, I had an errand knocked off my list already.

And last week, before I got a cold and sinus infection, I dropped HeyMama off, drove to the gym, worked out, returned some things to the library, went to the far away grocery store, and were home before lunch time. Given my preference, we'd still be at home in our jammies. But instead, we had all of our errands done by noon. 

I don't love this early thing. But I'm willing to acknowledge that it's very good for me. Well, at least it's good for my productivity. My body thinks productivity is overrated. 

MeToo was actually laughing under the mask.

I think this one is my favorite.

The eyes lit up!

I'm not sure if it's the contrast of the face size with MeToo's body, the contrast of the pink fluffy Princess coat, or the giraffe-print leggings and light-up sneakers. But these pictures crack me up.

Hope your mornings are less painful!

Today's Triumph

When you have small kids, little things become big triumphs. I'd like to celebrate one of mine with you:

Today, I found a recipe that uses up a bunch of ingredients in my fridge, looks tasty, and doesn't require any trips to the store. 

WAHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOO!

Thanks for celebrating with me today.

Suspicious Pumpkin Death

Earlier this evening, we had 3 pumpkins. One of those pumpkins was from our garden. It was tall and misshapen, but we loved it dearly. The other two were won by the girls in a coloring contest. I use the word "contest" loosely. It was mostly a participation prize. 

Anyway, all 3 pumpkins were sitting on the counter. I went to the other room to plug in my phone and I heard a thud. This is what I discovered. 

The pumpkin was lying on the floor, dead. 

My first thought was that it was an act of pumpkin desperation. I mean, carving season is here. Maybe it knew its fate and decided to take things into its own hands. But that seemed unlikely. It was a happy pumpkin. It had so much to live for. 

I think there were more sinister forces at work. Things were fine until the 2 new pumpkins came into the house. Then, within hours, the old pumpkin was dead. It feels a bit sketchy to me. 

Don't you think this looks suspicious? I'm going to keep an eye on those two...

Birthday in Review

A sincere thanks to all who sent emails, cards, and Facebook messages to wish me a happy birthday. It was, indeed a happy birthday. 

My new birthday tradition ( instituted by me) is that I do minimal dishes on my birthday. On this front, the day was a success. Of course, this means that we ate out for lunch and dinner. Oh well. 

HeyMama was off from school due to a teacher inservice day, and it was a preschool day for Me Too. So I had scheduled a checkup for LittleDebbie and dentist appointments for HeyMama and MeToo. But MeToo wanted to see her friends at preschool. 

So we slept in a little bit, took MeToo to preschool, visited work to show off LittleDebbie and HeyMama, then went to LD's appt. we raced to pick up MeToo, then raced to the dentist. They love the dentist's office. They did great. Then we went out to lunch at the same bagel shop that saw MeToo's infamous tantrum 8 months ago. And we saw the frumpy man that made that tantrum infamous. 

MeToo wanted to go back to preschool. So we took her there and went home. Due to the multiple vaccines that LD got at her appointment, she was sleeping hard. So I decided to do the same. HeyMama allowed me to take a nice birthday nap. 

I woke up in such a good mood and with such energy that I decided to harvest some chard from the garden. There was a lot. Cleaning and chopping was interrupted by feeding children. And picking up children from preschool. And then meeting BestestHusband for burgers. 

Dinner was delightful. Tasty Burger lived up to its name. The girls were well behaved and charming. 

The girls were tired and went to bed easily when we got home. And there were no dishes to clean. But there was a lot of chard. So I cleaned, chopped, blanched, and froze chard all evening. It was delightful. 

And looking back on how I spent my birthday and how much I enjoyed it, I declared myself Old. 

Oh well. I hope I can be old again next year. 

Long Time No Chat

So it's been a while since I last posted a new entry. Sorry about that. 

I thought I'd post a few pictures to update you all on life in the Bundles of Joy household. Here they are, in no particular order, because I'm doing this mostly one-handed on my phone while holding and bouncing Little Debbie.

Dried lavender flowers from the garden. BestestHusband painstakingly snipped each stem, then I let them sit around for awhile until the flowers fell off and I swept them up into a ball jar.

Two noteworthy garden finds. The pumpkin was the only one out of 3 planted vines. Oh well.

Ingredients for packing lunches. HeyMama loves kindergarten, and MeToo still loves preschool. I don't love having everyone in the car at 7:15am. Oh well.

LittleDebbie in the evening. She's swaddled, horizontal, and being held, just like she demands.  I know I don't usually post pictures of my children, but her cranky face looks pretty generically cranky-babyish to me. I think she still has plausible deniability as a teenager...

Plastic containers that need to be organized.

Plastic containers that have been organized. I spend a lot of time managing and organizing clutter. 

A graham cracker house. I had leftover frosting in piping bags. It was yucky outside. BestestHusband was in Hamster Dance. (you know, that city in the Netherlands?) Or maybe this was when he was in Germany? See the cup of coffee in the background? I drank a lot of coffee while he was gone. Both times. I'm very glad he's back.

HeyMama turned 5. She had breakfast in bed. She was happy.

We Denied Our Nanny Health Insurance

Once upon a time, we had a nanny. Ok, it was a nanny share. HeyMama was 3 months old, and my friend/coworker had a son who was a few months older. They lived less than a mile away. We decided to share a nanny to care for both kids. 

We're law-abiding citizens who happen to have work benefits that encourage paying childcare on the books vs. under the table. So we payed payroll taxes. We got workman's comp coverage. We enlisted a payroll company to prepare weekly paystubs and make sure we filed all of the appropriate paperwork with the government. We wanted to do it all right, and be good employers to the person who would care for our child. 

So we didn't offer health insurance to our nanny.

This might sound a bit odd. Let me explain.

We live in Massachusetts. We have Romneycare. (It's the inspiration for Obamacare, if you didn't know). So everyone has to have health insurance. Everyone. If you can't afford it, it's given to you, or heavily subsidized. 

Now, in case you've never worked in childcare, let me inform you that nannies don't make much money. Especially if you work for people like us. But that's a good thing in the world of Romneycare. Because that means you qualify for subsidized or free insurance. BUT only if your employer doesn't provide it for you. 

We ran some numbers. If we payed for some of our nanny's insurance, she would have to pay for the rest of it out of the money we paid her. And it was expensive. If we payed nothing towards her insurance, she got the money we paid her AND she got insurance. We had a finite amount of money we could pay her, and it wasn't enough to approximate a reasonable weekly wage PLUS provide insurance. In fact, paying for her health insurance meant that she barely made any money at all. So why would we pay for her health insurance if it hurt her instead of helping her?

We read the rules. As household employers, we were not required to provide insurance. We were required to provide workman's comp coverage. We were required to file payroll taxes. We did these things. We went into the situation expecting to provide all of the benefits that our employers provided us. And them we realized that the healthcare laws of our state actually incentivized us NOT to provide benefits for our nanny. It would actually HURT our nanny if we did. 

So I was not at all surprised when I heard about companies cutting most of their employees to part time in advance of the coming Obamacare changes. If the employees aren't full time, they don't have to be provided with health insurance. I was not surprised at all. Unlike our situation, they're not doing it in the best interest of their employees, just their own company pocketbook. But is anyone really surprised? And what other unintended consequences will we see? What's the likelihood that they will help employees instead of hurting them?

Only time will tell. 

PS. Our nanny share ended when the nanny stole my friend's engagement ring and was seen wearing it in public. But that's a story for another day.