Old Enough

I'm reading a book that says parents can't drink alcohol and still expect their teenagers not to drink alcohol AND smoke pot (because pot is reportedly less dangerous than alcohol).

I was all, "Oh, crap," and started composing a memo to Paul ("To: Paul. Re: Alcohol. Memo: GET READY TO TOTAL THAT TEE, BABY"). Then tonight as I was folding laundry and thinking about how I couldn't expect my teenager not to drink if _I_ continued to drink the gin-and-seltzer I was sipping, I had this thought: "Wait. Yes I CAN expect that."

Because otherwise, I would also need to give up driving: I can't reasonably expect my un-driver's-licensed teenager not to drive if I'M going to drive. And I would need to stop having sex, because otherwise how can I possibly suggest to my child that he or she not have sex, if they know from the number of children in this house that _I_ must have done it at some point? I can't stay up until 10:00 or 10:30 anymore; I'll need to go to bed at the kids' bedtime. And I will need to stop using matches, because otherwise I'm practically INVITING them with my own match-usage! And I can't SWEAR, certainly, and still expect THEM not to! And so on.

It's silly to think that it's hypocritical to do grown-up things while expecting our children NOT to do grown-up things. The message isn't "THESE THINGS ARE EVIL!! NEVER DO THEM!!!," it's only, "Wait until you're old enough."

Pierced Ears

Elizabeth's ears are pierced, and have been since she was five. It's gone really well, much better than when I had MY ears pierced at five and they got infected, and KEPT getting infected, until we let the holes close up.

She's had two minor infections in the last couple of years, both of which cleared up with a few days of cleaning them with the stuff they gave us a bottle of when we got her ears pierced, and putting antibiotic ointment on them. Other than that, they've been zero care: after the first six to eight weeks or however long it was that the ear-piercing place told us to take daily care of them, we haven't routinely cleaned them or done anything at all with them.

I asked her yesterday what percentage of her female classmates had their ears pierced, and she said about half. I was interested because customs vary widely: in some communities it's common to get the ears pierced in infancy, and in others it's common to wait until the teens. My GUESS was that my particular community the curve would show very few (but SOME) infancy piercings, and very few (but SOME) "not until you're 16/18/21" piercings, but then the biggest chunk of piercings divided into three basic age groups: the "about age 5-6" group, the "about age 9-10" group, and the "about age 12-13" group.

I really wish there was a good way to COLLECT information I'm curious about. I can stare at everyone's ears and come up with a very loose estimate---but that doesn't give me BACK STORY. I've gotten used to the blog-type community, where if I'm curious about something I can just ASK. ...Maybe it's not too late to get my questions added to the ballot.


Here's basically what I'm wondering: What was your own pierced-ears experience, and how was the age decision reached? And then, what about your daughter-related experience/plans? (You don't need to have daughters to answer this part---it can be what do you think you WOULD do if you DID.)

My own experience is that I got my ears pierced twice in early childhood, at about ages 5 and 7, once with star-shaped studs and once with birthstone studs. I remember really really wanting them pierced, so my guess is I did it at the very first age I was allowed to. The first time, the ears got repeatedly infected and we finally let them heal over, and the second time was a re-do in a slightly different location (the piercing person said the first pair hadn't been done in the right place). Then I got them pierced twice more in high school, so I have four holes in each ear. (I use two: top pair and bottom pair.)

For a daughter, I could think of upsides and downsides to any age for piercing. I wanted her to be old enough for it to be An Exciting Event, and I had age 5-8 in mind.

Behavior Regression

Elizabeth is having a behavior regression of some sort. One reason it's hard to put a finger on what kind of regression it is is that I think I stopped using the word "regression" after babyhood, so it no longer feels like a natural word to use. But I'm finding it's a really good word for post-babyhood, too, as it implies "temporary" and "a step back, but still on the path" and so on. Encouraging! It felt better to say a baby was having a sleep regression instead of saying that the baby had stopped sleeping nicely, MAYBE NEVER TO START AGAIN; and it feels better to say 7-year-old Elizabeth is having a behavior regression, instead of saying that she may be morphing into someone who leaves her coat and backpack on the floor even after I've told her three times to pick them up.

Exhibit A

Based on her temperament I don't THINK it's defiance, although it's likely to be line-finding: seeing how much she really has to do. Paul told me that when he was a child, his mom would tell him to do a task---say, mowing the lawn. He would start mowing, but then halfway through he'd "come in for a drink of water" and then drift away and start reading a book. He found that if she came upon the task half-done, and then found him reading, she would sigh heavily and then finish the task herself. As you can imagine, this pattern has caused us some issues in our marriage. Thanks for the enduring legacy, mother-in-law.

But I see how easy it is to do, without intending to. When I tell Elizabeth that after she takes her shower she needs to bring her discarded pajamas back to her room with her, and then after she's left for school I find those pajamas still on the bathroom floor, it's easy to sigh heavily and do it myself: I don't want to look at the clothes on the floor all day, and I don't want to bring out the Big Parenting Guns for a single episode of forgetting.

But it's not a single episode anymore, which snuck up on me a bit. With my own temperament, and with this number of children, and with the way I'm typically half-composing a blog post in my head at any particular time, a child has to do something quite a few times before it gets to the front of my attention---which CAN be good (it means my controlling/micro-managing impulses are distracted and I'm not likely to jump on the kids for one single error or for an issue that will resolve itself) but also CAN be bad, because things can get pretty far off-track before I realize I need to engage the parenting engines. Then it takes longer to pull things back to where they should be than it would have if I'd noticed and corrected right away.

As in this case, where even though for several days I have been pointing out the problem to Elizabeth and cracking down on the follow-through, I haven't yet seen a change in HER behavior---just in MINE, which is the first stage of change. I don't remind her three times; instead, the very first time I need to remind her I include a gentle scold with that reminder: "Elizabeth. You are supposed to be putting away your backpack without me reminding you." I DO leave her pajamas on the bathroom floor all day so she can put them in the laundry herself when she gets home from school---and to compensate me for looking at the messy heap all day, I also have her do another little task for me. Instead of waiting to scold until after we've had to scramble and panic, I include a partial scold with an instruction: "Time to get ready for school. And remember, you've been dawdling recently and then we've both had to scramble, and a scolding at the bus stop is not a nice way for either of us to start our day; let's not have that happen today."

(the view this morning, after Elizabeth left for school)

Mental

I have been feeling a little thinner lately, and wondered if I was slimming down a bit without realizing. I started working it a little, even, feeling extra cute and doing a little more sashaying. I finally checked the scale yesterday morning, and I'm up five pounds. Now I feel plumper. I've had the opposite experience, too: feeling really dumpy, SURE I've gained at LEAST five pounds---and then I weigh, and I'm actually down five pounds, and then I feel like I can DEFINITELY tell I'm thinner.

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We rearranged our kitchen a bit, and now we have a little more counter space but also my coffee maker is more difficult to get to. This morning I was wondering why I have felt SO tired and draggy and motivationless recently---and then I realized I haven't had coffee for three or four days, not since we rearranged things. That slight change in coffee pot location made me (1) stop drinking coffee and (2) not realize it.

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I have made a mental note: if I am ever in charge of a group of volunteers, I am not going to spin the volunteer tasks as "FUN!!!" and "EXCITING!!" It gives me flashbacks to teachers in school instructing us to "Have FUN" with an assignment. "Just PLAY with it! Have FUN with it!" No. This is not fun. Let's add the word fun with our vocabulary list, since not all of us here seem to understand the definition. And yet I find myself tempted to say the same thing when helping one of the kids with an assignment: "Just PLAY with it a little! Make it more FUN! Don't make it into such a GRUELING TASK!" Nice. That'll work.

A more recent example is a volunteer "opportunity" I am participating in. I signed up for this on purpose; I am glad to help out for free with the work that needs to be done. But it is WORK. It is NOT FUN. It is CERTAINLY not "The Great [Type of Work] Adventure of 2012!!!" as the PTA officer is currently referring to it, in what I always assume is a voice that could be described as "chirpy." It's all email, so I don't know for sure. Maybe she's using more of a Daria voice. Maybe I could READ it in a Daria voice to improve it.

Acting as if the work is fun diminishes the contribution people are making. I am doing WORK, and I want CREDIT for doing work. I don't want anyone pretending that this is a PARTY and that we are ENJOYING ourselves. I find elements of it satisfying or else I wouldn't do it, but I would never, ever, ever do this for fun. I do this to be HELPFUL and to DO MY SHARE. I am not PLAYING, I am BEING A GOOD CITIZEN.

Acting as if it's fun seems to be intended to make it fun, or to lighten the attitude. Instead, it becrappens the attitude: if someone tells me what a grand fun adventure this is, I find myself noticing how non-fun it in fact is, and wanting to point that out to them. If someone instead thanks me fervently for all this hard work I'm doing, I would find myself saying no, no, I didn't mind at all! It was fun! See? Attitude improvement! ...And kind of an argumentative personality, apparently, but WHATEVER. No more chirping about how work is fun, is the point here.

Ugly Nailpolish

I would like to nominate a candidate in the "Ugliest Nailpolish" category:

I'm not sure even this ugly photo lets you appreciate just how ugly it was. Maybe another photo is needed, a super close-up:

That's still not QUITE expressing it. I'm not even sorry I didn't do a good job staying in the lines, because I think the bits on the skin give a better feeling for what the color looked like. Nauseating yellow-greenish brown, with chunks. It felt like it ought to come as part of a Halloween costume. A zombie, maybe. Something decaying and dirty.

It's Revlon Nail Art Moon Candy in Cosmic, and I'm so happy I got it on clearance instead of paying full-price:

It's two attached bottles. First you're supposed to put on two coats of what looks in the bottle like a nice dark green but is in fact a streaky algae/mud combination. As I was doing that, I was thinking, "Wow, I wonder how the topcoat is going to transform THIS?"

Then you put on the top coat, which looks like it's going to be a glorious gold with cool shimmery iridescent bits, but in fact ends up adding a "pee" element to the color, as well as being more litter than glitter.

I took the pictures quickly, so I could remove the polish right away---and I NEVER take polish off immediately, even if I think it's meh, because it's discouraging to waste all that work. But I wanted this OFF MY NAILS. (I didn't even wait to take the picture of the bottle, figuring I could do that later; you can see the edge of my thumbnail, which is now a much nicer medium green.)

It was fun to show the kids, though. I was like, "Look at my nails!" and each in turn said "EEEEEEWWWWWWWW GROSS!!"

Driving in the Dark; Cadbury Screme Eggs

I had to drive a little bit yesterday evening, and some of the "grateful to be alive" feeling persists even unto this morning.

I drive in the dark only a few times a year. Part of it is that I don't like to. Part of it is that I don't need to: we're pretty much always in for the night after the dinner/bedtime routine starts (at, like, 4:30).

I feel like I can't SEE when I drive at night. Part of this is that I'm a nervous driver, so any changes (different roads, different passenger, different weather, etc.) increases that nervousness. Part of it is that IT IS IN FACT DARK, and I don't know if you've noticed this but WE CAN'T SEE IN THE DARK. And then, while it's dark and I'm driving, lights shine intermittently into my eyes. That DOES NOT HELP.

I feel a little emperor's-new-clothes about it: like, how come everyone is acting like it's okay to do this already-dangerous activity IN THE DARK? Shall we also now have surgery in the dark? chop wood in the dark? scythe hay in the dark? get haircuts in the dark? rapidly cut vegetables in the dark? How about in the dark AND with bright lights shining intermittently in our eyes?

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I bought four Cadbury screme eggs, and I have not eaten a single one: the stuff inside the eggs is green for Halloween, and that makes me queasy to even think about. (If the regular white filling makes YOU queasy to think about, I beg you not to explain why.) And yet I WANT to eat Cadbury eggs! What a treat to get to have them even though it's not Easter! I WANT to eat them! Maybe I should eat them in the dark. (And here, shine this light in my eyes.)

Pleasant Teenager Moment

We were out shopping and Rob saw a shirt he wanted at Target: it had a picture of a bird wearing a pocket protector and glasses, with "NIRD" under it. He wanted it quite badly, and I liked it too, and I said I'd keep an eye out for it to go on sale as those graphic tees routinely do. He countered by saying he really really really wanted it today, and I countered with huh. He countered with a dismissive remark about the skimpy amount of money saved by a sale, and I countered with the suggestion that when he was handling a household's finances he could decide for himself whether sales were worth it or not. This was fun banter, not tense teenager-wrangling---but he really did want the shirt, and I was losing interest in the conversation and starting to walk out of the department.

As an aside, Rob's clothes now need to be purchased from the men's department. The MEN'S DEPARTMENT. I don't think I'd ever really pictured myself shopping in that department for my children's clothes. I guess I thought the kid sizes went...all the way up? or something? But no. MEN'S DEPARTMENT. (Why doesn't spellchecker like "men's"? Does spellchecker assume I can't possibly be shopping for my child in the men's department and want me to change it to "boys' department"?)

Anyway, Rob then asked what I expected the shirt to go on sale for, and I said probably eight dollars. He asked if we could buy it today if he paid the two dollars that separated the full price from the sale price, and I said yes, and he bounded back to get the shirt and then spiked it happily into the cart. I reiterated that if he would just WAIT he could have it SOON without having to pay ANYthing, and he said cheerfully that he didn't care, it was an awesome shirt and it was worth it to get it today.

It was a very happy transaction, including the part where we got home and he remembered on his own to get the two dollars and give them to me. The whole thing reminded me of the good parts of my own teenagerhood; I remember being pleased with the logic of "I can have the shoes I want if I pay the difference between the ones my parents would have bought and the ones I'd prefer." Some of my friends' parents would have gotten this wrong, saying that the child would have to pay the full price of the preferred shoes, rather than just the difference---which made it even more satisfying to be in a household where it was Right.