ImPerceptibility

Archive for October, 2006

I mentioned that we are adding on to our house. A nice new bedroom, bathroom, and a garage/workshop for my husband. We are very excited about it. The architect finished the plans and we hired a contractor to do the foundation. He showed up one beautiful morning and got everything going. I thought it would take a long time to get everything done. I was wrong. I woke up the other morning and opened up the curtains in the front room. I was shocked! The bathroom was all done.

It didn’t turn out quite like I expected.

Her: Mommy, you better kiss me a lot now because you won’t be able to kiss me as a six year old anymore.

Me: I’m going to kiss you a whole lot as a seven-year-old you know.

Her: Yeah, Your even going to kiss me when I’m a teenager….Thats because you are going to love me forever.

There is no doubt about that.

I recommend that you never:

say “I’m trying to figure out if Greg, the Wiggle is dying” when your husband asks you what you’ve been up to on-line for the last 40 minutes.

As I promised, a new look for my blog. I was worried about the background color for the posts. Seemed a bit girlie. But, I’m a girl so I think it’s alright.

I showed it to my daughters and asked them what they thought. They liked it. The little one wanted to know why I put a marble on it. I put the marble there because, when I decided to start drawing again, it was the first thing I was happy with. I told my daughter it was because I lost my marbles. She looked at my with a sad face. “You are still upset about it?” she asked. Then she patted me on the back and told me I could have one of her marbles. She went and got me one that looks like my drawing. What else is there to say after that?

I hope you like the new look. I plan to fix a few small things and make new icons when i get some of that free time stuff. I hear it exists. If you see any send it my way. :)

I switched to Beta. Guess what, it’s working. I think…

I really like the labels. I like the label cloud code I got from phydeaux as well. It’s over to the left in the sidebar. It worked the first try. Great instructions! Thank You phydeaux!

Beta makes it bit easier to layout your template. The whole widget thing. This way when I try and add stuff, and mess it up royally, I only have to delete one thing. All my madness is contained in a little box on the editor page.

I’m working on a new look. Time for a makeover. I’ll let you know when it’s finished.

Now I MUST get to bed.

You can complain all you want about blogger. I’ll probably join you if it weren’t for that gift horse and a mouth thing. But, you have to admit the -Next Blog- button is quite a treat. I feel like I’m on a 15 minute field trip every time I use it.

Here’s what I mean:

I start out, get on the bus and enjoy the scenery. Then I sit through the educational part. I decide to sneak out before it’s finished. After a few false turns , I find the back door that leads to the alley and have some real fun. Then back home to write up a report.

Sure beats scrubbing the toilets. :)

I went to the dentists today. Yeah, so what, you’re thinking. So did probably 100’s of thousands of other people. My trip was special though. It was my first trip in over 7 years. Yeap, I neglect my oral health. I had intended to go sooner, but I didn’t get around to it. I had an appointment seven years ago. I caught a really bad cold and cancelled. So, today I finally got around to going.

The appointment seven years ago was for a filling. I had a small cavity in my upper right something or another molar. It had a number as well, but I forgot what it was. (It was seven years ago, give me a break.) I am also a big stinkin’ sissy when it comes to going to the dentists. I have good reason to be.

Eight years ago when I had my wisdom teeth removed, the newly licensed dentists broke off my tooth, leaving two of the roots behind. I watched as his face turned several shades of pale, then white. You may have to see an oral surgeon he said. I sat up in the chair. No, fix it now. I’m not coming back for a long time. He looked a bit frightened then became confident. He called the nurse and got all the necessary tools. Things with names like root pick and scalpel. He got to work and got those roots out. The whole time he kept saying ‘if this hurts let me know’, ‘Is everything alright’, ‘can you feel anything’ I would respond – ‘Ughhmmmsuf’ because his hands were in my mouth. It did hurt, but I didn’t care. I just wanted everything done. He was amazed when he was done that it hadn’t hurt. I told him it did hurt. He said he was sorry and I told him I wanted good drugs. He gave them to me.

When I found out I had a cavity, I had every intention of getting it taken care of. I didn’t want it to get bigger or turn into an abscess or anything. I just couldn’t make myself schedule a new appointment. I wasn’t scared, I was procrastinating. I have been to the dentists’ office twice a year for the last 7 years for my children’s appointments. But, no appointment for me. I had to talk to my husband and see when he could take off and watch the kids. I’d do it later

Last week, my oldest daughter had to have a filling. It wasn’t a cavity. She had an enamel defect that was going to become a really bad cavity if they didn’t fix it. It’s been there since her tooth came in but it was getting worse. The same dentists that had pulled my wisdom teeth came in and looked. I should have been scared, but I wasn’t. I felt totally comfortable with him. I felt this weird sense that he would take care of my daughter better than any other dentist in the world would. He fixed it right up. No novocaine was needed. He fixed it in less than five minutes and my daughter was smiling when he finished. He showed me what he had done. It was perfect. He let her look in the mirror then asked her what she thought. She told him she should get two stickers. We looked at each other and laughed. Like mother like daughter I guess. I realized it was time to fix my tooth.

So, I made an appointment and went today. The hygienist told me my teeth looked great. I told her I had a cavity in the upper right something or another molar. She told me the dentists would be in to look and check the x-rays but she didn’t see anything. The dentists looked and there was nothing there. Sometimes a small cavity can remineralise she told me. They heal themselves. That’s a good point I told her. She then offered to make another appointment for a checkup.

The question ‘Are you scheduling appointments seven years in advance?’ came out of my mouth before I could stop it. For some reason she didn’t find that half as funny as I did.

I am a bit upset with some of the comments I have read at various parenting sites. They have to do with making children eat properly. Some people seem to think that children should be required to eat whatever is put on the table. Some people even force their children to eat by re-heating their meals over and over until they are too hungry to refuse. Just reading those comments makes me nauseous.

When I was a child dinner included several types of vegetables, pasta or potatoes, a meat, fruit, bread, and dessert. You sat down at the table and ate whatever you wanted. There was never an issue of who was eating what or how much. You could leave food on your plate. The dog loved it.

The only real food problems we had were at family gatherings. Everyone would bring his or her ’special’ dish and you had better be seen taking a big helping of it. If you shirked Gert’s potato salad, you would be hearing about it for years. Sometimes, we didn’t like a dish. My dad taught us how to deal with problem.

You took a large spoonful and proclaimed that it looked or smelled good. You could be creative. Wow, Gert, your pickle cubes are my favorite size! Then you put about half of the spoonful on your plate and returned the spoon to the dish. Throughout dinner you would occasionally put some of the offending food on your fork and then place it back on the plate. After you had spread out the food and it looked like you had eaten it, you were off the hook. Simple, easy, fun. I’ve taught my girls the same technique and it works great.

Everyone in my family is an adventurous eater. I think that is because we didn’t have to be. Food was a fun time with family. NOT a battle.

My husbands’ family was very different. Dinner consisted of one vegetable, bread or potatoes, and a fancy meat dish. Things like chicken cooked in wine. A lot of what he ate wasn’t stuff kids would like. Growing up in WWII England didn’t lend itself to having a healthy attitude towards food. You ate what you had because you were thankful you had it. That’s the attitude my husbands’ parents continued for their own kids. My husband had the misfortune of being born into a 10-year-old battle over food that started with his oldest sister. By the time he was old enough to care, they had adopted a – you will eat everything that is on your plate, within a certain time limit, or you will be punished policy. I remember his face when he told me about this. It made me cry. I had some really bad feelings for his parents after that.

One of the few things my husband and I absolutely agreed on when we had kids was that under no circumstances would we EVER force our children to eat anything. That didn’t mean we wouldn’t encourage them to eat new foods. My husband frequently tells my picky eater not to touch the dish she doesn’t like. She tries to sneak a spoonful. He pretends to grab it from her, but she gets it on her plate. Then he tells her ‘Well, OK. But only one bite.’ Sometimes she takes a bite, others she doesn’t. But, it’s her choice. My oldest daughter will try everything that doesn’t contain nuts or peanuts. My picky eater is expanding her food choices as well. I am confident that both will grow up to be healthy adventurous eaters.

I do not worry about proper nutrition. I use to. My pediatrician, a father of three grown kids, told me not to. If you have healthy foods and only a few snacks in the house they will eat what they need. I didn’t believe him. But, I decided to try. I let my daughter choose whatever she wanted for a week. I wrote down everything she ate and entered it into a nutrition program I found on the Internet. Over the course of a week, she fulfilled all of the nutrition guidelines. Her daily average was sometimes off, but her weekly average was perfect. So, I stopped worrying.

I sometimes get upset when my kids don’t eat a meal I spent time in preparing for them. It’s frustrating. That’s my problem. I expect them to turn down what’s offered politely and fix a healthy meal of their own if there is nothing on the table that they want. I am not going to let my ego superceded respecting my children.

So, there you have it. The four main reasons people cited for forcing their kids to eat.It will offend others.

They will never eat a variety of foods.
They won’t be healthy.
I worked hard on that meal.

Problem solved. Stop forcing your kids to eat and start respecting them for the unique people they are. Offer a variety of healthy foods and make dinner fun. Teach them to turn down a food politely or fake eating it. It takes a little work, but it’s worth it. Trust me, your future daughter or son-in-law will not think kindly of you if you don’t stop that non-sense.

What do you think? Am I way off on this or do you think I make a good point? Were you ever forced to eat food as a child? Was the experience valuable, harmful, neither? How did your experiences with food as a child shape the way you eat today or the way you handle food issues with your own kids? I’d like to hear more about this. Please leave a comment or write something up on your own blog and leave a link.

A few years ago I watched, from the passenger seat of the car, as a guy in a BMW cut off a guy on a motorcycle.  He then stopped suddenly in front of him.  Luckily the motorcycle driver swerved and just missed a collision.  For the record, this wasn’t a Sunday driver kind of cyclist.  This was a leather-clad, metal helmet wearing, chopper driving kind of motorcyclist.  He took a second to collect his thoughts and then issued a two handed twirling flying bird salute to the jerk in the Beamer.  If you have not had the pleasure of witnessing this act, let me explain.

The left leather gloved hand extends the middle finger in an upward pointing direction.  The right hand then, does the same.  Then, both extended digits, in an aggressive manner, twirl in opposite directions.  It was so cool!  In a biker dude kinda way of course.  The jerk in the car was a little intimidated.

Up until today, I never had the opportunity to use this particular gesture.  I usually had the kids in the car.  Today however, when the idiot in the white Camry almost ran into the side of me because he was to important to stop at the stop sign, the kids were at home.  Who knew, I would actually have the pleasure of re-creating it.  It felt good to express myself.  That’s all I have to say.

I’m sure a mom in a T-shirt driving a car didn’t have the same affect as that biker. The driver did speed off and I think he might have checked his rear-view mirror.

So tell me, have you ever witness the rare and elusive two handed twirling bird or any of it’s exotic relative? Feel free to tell me about it.  I think I might start collecting them.

How many times have I said ‘Pick up the towel and turn out the light’ after one of my kids have washed their hands? Here is evidence to suggest that they do listen.

I’m sure I’m not the only parent who is hanging their head in defeat when they view this. :)