Monthly Archives: June 2009

Photo a Day

Posted on by sarahtar

5/14
5/14 - Learning to count by 5
counting by 5

5/15
5/15

5/16
5/16 - snuggle bugs
This is how they sleep if I let them get close enough to each other. And, ps, who needs pajamas, right?

5/17
5/17 - hat
i still need to put on the button. because it obviously doesn’t close with a diaper pin. and it’s a bit big.

Photo a Day

Posted on by sarahtar

Well, it looks like I just deleted May 2-7 in an unfortunate Memory Card Cleaning accident. (I’m taking Sara’s advice to always reformat the card every time I remove pictures, but I kinda forgot that I was doing that and also that I had downloaded just that one week’s worth of pictures into this odd folder on my hard drive, and anyway… they weren’t anything stunning anyway, so not a huge loss.)

May 8:
5/8 - Grill-less grill
Driving around junk day in Urbandale, we found SO MANY of these – grill stands without grills. We didn’t get it, until Abby explained that metal recyclers usually snag the grills right away to resell as scrap metal. It’s not a funny now.

May 9:
5/9 - playing Doghouse with Aunt Lisa
Spent the weekend with my extended family in Alta. Wally loved playing Doghouse with my aunt.

May 10:
5/10 - Windmills
It’s been interesting watching the development of the windmill industry in NW Iowa. My aunt and uncle have several windmills on their property, and I think they’re a little uncertain whether they’re a good thing or not. They’ve had them for, gosh, over 10 years now. When they break down, the company just leaves them stand there, broken. They’re too expensive to repair. My cousin had a blade fall off one of his and it dug a HUGE furrow in his land (cropland) and on top of that, they’re still waiting for the company to come remove it. He ended up having to plant AROUND it, meaning that he loses some yield.

May 11:
5/11 - Playground
Playground

May 12:
5/12 - Genna

May 13:
5/13 - The little tree in my garden
I’m cultivating this little tree, that grew as a volunteer in my herb garden.

Part of Sabbath’s comments didn’t get properly responded to.

Posted on by sarahtar

And what does that teach them? That they should put every waking moment of their lives on hold for their children?

I would rather have my daughter grow up knowing that she can still be a wonderful mother, and foster/enjoy whatever talents or desires she has. Because maintaining that balance is important to me. We want to foster these wonderful independent people, and it just feels backwards to not also tend to our own independence.

And WHY is it bad to have other interests outside of your children. And what about Mom’s that work in the home? Are there times when our stay at home ventures may interfere with how much attention we pay to our children? You bet. But why is that better than working outside of the home?

——

I don’t know anyone who thinks that putting “every waking moment of their lives on hold” is a good thing. Nor do I know anyone who does this for an extended period of time. Fact is, there are times when our children need us THAT much. And there are times they don’t need us quite as much. There were a few days when Genna was sick several months ago that I did exactly that – I put EVERY moment of my life on hold for her. She needed me THAT much. That’s my job as parent. Over the Memorial Day weekend, we finished up our chicken coop. Genna spent most of the weekend entertaining herself (or being sung to or whatever) while I worked with both hands and no baby attached to my body. She didn’t need me as much. When she needed me more than that, I put down my tools and gave her my attention. Same with Wally, who needed me far less, but still has needs for attention. It’s not every waking moment, it’s on an as-needed basis. I’m having trouble coming up with even one example of someone who has put “every waking moment” of their life on hold for their children. So this is a gross overstatement, probably trying to make a point, but the point is weakened by the hyperbole. (whoo hoo, vocabularly.)

The second paragraph quoted above, I respond in much the same way. I don’t know why one would need to work outside of the home to enjoy whatever talents they have. (I’m not going to talk about enjoying whatever desires one has, as the idea at its root is abhorrent to me.) Even if I didn’t own a business, I would still sew, and knit, and craft, and create, and write, and read, etc. Because I’m still me. Again, I am coming up empty when trying to think of moms who don’t pursue their own interests as there is time. Some interests, by nature, have to go – there just aren’t enough hours in the day, and when you add something you necessarily have to take something away.

Why is it bad to have interests outside of your children. I don’t see anywhere where I have said that. Nor have I ever said it. (this is known as a strawman.)

–

But this is important – why is working IN the home better than a regular job outside the home? Because when we work in the home, WE are the ones raising our children. My SIL worked full time when her kids were little, and they went to grandma’s house. It was a wonderful arrangement, all things considered. My sister in law did not raise her children. She missed their first words, their first steps. She spent 9-10 hours EVERY DAY away from them, and then they went to bed almost as soon as she got home. She spent the weekends and maybe an hour or two daily with her kids, that’s it.

I work mornings at my house. After breakfast and homeschool, we go down to my office and I work until 1 or 2. But not constantly. I stop every time Genna or Wally needs me. Needs me to run to get a snack, or to nurse, or to be hugged, or just to have a conversation. We have a connection constantly as the day goes by. It’s far, far from ideal. It exhausts me, and I don’t love that I have to repeat 8 billion times, “I’m sewing right now, but when I’m done we’ll go do that.” But it pays the bills and gives him a better (according to research) situation than if I went to an office 8 hours every day.

Maybe you don’t know this about me, but I worked outside the home for over a year when Wally was, hm, 2? Part time, only evenings or weekends. Thought I’d let you know.

I also had to push his needs aside when caring nearly full time for my mother before she died. That was less than ideal, as well, but was necessary. He was with me all the time, so I could give him attention as needed, usually, but he probably would have been happier, all things considered, if he could have spent some days with his grandparents. (We won’t get into why that didn’t happen.)

—

I’m not trying to be mean, but these are IMPORTANT points you made, and several of them are based on false premises and I get SO TIRED of people writing comments under my posts that SEEM like theyr’e comments on the post, but really aren’t because they have nothing to do with what I wrote, but serve to put words in my mouth. It’s really really maddening.

And, really? “decide what kind of parents we want to be without placing judgment on the choices that others make.” Yes, THIS pushes a button. If you want to see judgementalism, stick around for a few months because I’ve got some things percolating. But THIS was not being judgemental.

Go Bags

Posted on by sarahtar

I kind of stalled out on the Go Bags, after making really good progress on the same day I finished my Emergency Kit. We need pictures, and small radios, and pocket knives, and about a half dozen other misc things, and I’ve run out of steam a bit. I’ve now acquired everything except the photos, which are merely awaiting my attention at Walgreens.

But, save those 6 or 8 things, the bags are all finished. I ended up sewing really simple backpacks for each of us, so I didn’t monopolize our actual nice backpacks. I thought backpacks were the smarter choice, in case we need them to leave on foot. (Like, tornado hits the house or something.)

Claxons in Altoona

Posted on by sarahtar

On a whim on Friday, we drove to Altoona for dinner. And went to Claxons on the recommendation of some of R’s coworkers, who, for the record, I’ll never again take seriously when it comes to restaurants.

Claxons has no fabric of any sort in its interior, making it a large, echoy, noisy warehouse inside. Yay.

The food is really expensive in comparison to, um, every other BBQ place in the world.

Their “rub,” which they are really proud of, wasn’t very tasty, the sides weren’t that great, and both of our steaks were well done AND rare all in one. Not great. And the service was really really bad. And I got sour cream splattered on me and then hit in the back of the head with a ball, but that was the fault of the OM team celebrating at the next table.

Apparently, we are not the only ones to have a bad experience here.

May's Vocabulary word

Posted on by sarahtar

So I’m having a hard time coming up with words that are truly NEW to me. I think when one reads as much as I did before kids (ha), one comes across a LOT of words. But I am at least finding words that I either have not used myself that I recollect, or that at least don’t get used much. This month’s word was:

hegemony

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he⋅gem⋅o⋅ny

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–noun, plural -nies.

1. leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation.
2. leadership; predominance.
3. (esp. among smaller nations) aggression or expansionism by large nations in an effort to achieve world domination.

I’d rather not get into the context in which the word was used.

Letter Writing

Posted on by sarahtar

This month, I wrote a letter to our old friends Billy and Lindsay. Not much of a letter, really more of a note, but it will do. Billy and Lindsay are expecting their first baby in June, and ordered a bunch of diapers from Wallypop. I tossed in several extras for their use, as well as a little note explaining the gifts and giving them good wishes for the upcoming birth and parenthood.