The Queen's Rambles

Thanks, everyone, for your stories about allowance. It’s really interesting to see the different perspectives. I totally agree that each family/child is unique and has to do what works for them. I really like the idea of doing chores because you are a part of the family and I also really like the idea of getting an allowance because you are a part of the family. I want that to work for us, but Erik is totally motivated by money so I’ve “found his currency” as they say–and it happens to be actual currency.

I try not to talk about parenting choices with a couple of my real life friends. They are both very insecure and defensive. They are compelled to explain in a very stringent manner why they don’t do things they way I do them, which ends up feeling like an attack. When really? I don’t care one bit about the way they do things as long as everyone is happy.

And well behaved, of course.

Not that my children are well behaved.

Elsa’s behavior is that of a normal two year old. She runs around like crazy and doesn’t listen very well. She doesn’t hit as often anymore. Instead she runs out in middle of the road. I was freaking out with Erik at this stage, but it is so much easier with the second one. I know the stage will pass sooner rather than later.

Erik, on the other hand. I don’t know. I think we need to go to family counseling or something. He is moody and unhappy and I don’t know how to fix him. Not that he is constantly moody and unhappy. He has times of great happiness, but you never know what will set him off.

We went on a tour of a dam owned and operated by our water company with MOMS Club yesterday. He was excited to go. He was happy in the car. As soon as we walked into the building he turned into a grump monster. He wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even his best friend and his “fiancee.” He wouldn’t participate in the group story. He rolled himself into a little ball in the back corner and gave everyone incredibly dirty looks. I think I may have a bald spot from the death ray lasers. It hurt my heart as his mother to see him so unhappy and it was also embarrassing for my friends to see my child act in such an unbecoming manner. Thankfully no one made a big deal of it or asked who let the badger out of the cage.

The presentation was so engaging that eventually he crawled closer and closer to the story teller and by the end he was participating and answering a lot of questions. He was fine by the time we started our hike and had fun eating a picnic lunch and playing tag.

When questioned about the problem he couldn’t explain himself at all. “I just felt grumpy.”

Tonight we decided to watch the Olympics as a family instead of letting the kids watch cartoons and he flipped out. FLIPPED. He closed the basement door and wouldn’t let us get by. I bodily picked him up and moved him without saying a word. He started screaming and howling at the top of his lungs. This went on forever (ok, maybe an hour), but Mike kept checking on him and telling him he was welcome to join us as soon as he stopped crying. Mike knew that if I checked on him I would make it worse. I am not good at comforting a sobbing six year old who is being completely ridiculous for more than two minutes.

Finally Erik came down and told me that we made him sad because we all hate him and don’t want him to be a part of the family and we’re going to make him find a new place to live but it’s raining and all his clothes will get wet and he doesn’t know where he is going to go out in the dark.

I held him on my lap for a long time and cried with him because it was so sad. How can my little baby have thoughts like that? I make a point to tell both my children how much I love them, why they are special to me, that I am so glad they are a part of my family every single day, several times a day. Maybe it means nothing because I say it so often?

I just wish I could make him a happy, content human being. I don’t know how to accomplish that. He has so much–food, shelter, loving family, happy home, basically everything he asks for (except a dog and a DS).

A part of it is probably from outside the home. He is having a lot of social trouble in the neighborhood, which is unusual. I’m used to him being the most popular kid around, but his moodiness and bossiness is catching up with him. There are other alpha males in the neighborhood now, and they completely clash. That old saying that boys just need to fight it out, then they are fine? So not true. Erik can hold a grudge like nobody’s business.

One of the boys from the low income drug house has been picking on him. That boy doesn’t know what trouble he has caused for himself. I’ll still give his sister and little brother snacks and allow them in my home, but he is cut off. He’s only 8 years old and I hate to think of a hungry child, but there are limits to my compassion and generosity. You mess with my kid, you get a mean ol’ mama bear, even if you are just repeating the behaviors that you’ve learned from your environment. I’m not a social worker. I can’t save everyone.

I am not looking forward to the challenges of first grade. I don’t know if the teacher will be kind to Erik and give him the type of academic work he needs. I don’t know if she will just be annoyed because Erik doesn’t listen and wiggles too much. I don’t know if the kids will be kind to each other or if there will be a ton of social problems. Well. . . I guess I do know that. It is the very, very rare class that doesn’t have lots of social issues.

I just want to wrap my arms around my son and protect him from the world, but at the same time I want to flip a switch in his head to make him better able to protect himself. He is ultimately in charge of his own happiness and he so often chooses anger and frustration instead.

I don’t know what’s up with my internet, but it is super slow today. You’d almost think I was on dial-up.

Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration. I don’t think dial-up would even be possible with today’s websites. You’d be waiting for ten years just to load the ads.

It won’t load any of my pictures to flickr, which is driving me mad. Mad, I tell you! You need to see pictures of my children frolicking in the ocean and squishing each other. How can you live without seeing their darling vacation faces? They are super special snowflakes, gosh darn it. And cute, to boot.

Here’s the question of the hour.
What’s the allowance situation in your home?

We just started giving Erik an allowance about three months ago. We went with general internet wisdom and did $1/years old. Since Erik is so impressed with his half year, he gets $6.50/week. I have to admit it feels like it is kind of a lot, but then I look at the benefits and think it is fine. Erik has told a few of my friends about his allowance and they all have a horrible gasping intake of breath and tell me it is way too much.

I don’t know. Is it way too much? We can afford it, so that’s not an issue.

Here is my defense. I need to vent it to you because I am not good at articulating my thoughts in person. Not that I need to defend myself to YOU or anyone else, but I need to mentally defend myself to someone so you, lovely internet friends, are it.

*I’m not organized with chores. I don’t really have things that I need done on a weekly or daily basis. I need things done when I need them done. Saying “yo, child, do this thing now if you want your allowance” works for me.

*One mom suggested I pay as we go. I find it difficult to come up with a list and assign a value to each chore, then pay for each chore as it happens. We tried it, it failed. He did not see the value in getting a quarter for bringing in the trash can and would say he didn’t need/want to do chores because the money wasn’t worth it. He didn’t really get that it all added up.

*Having enough money to buy something of value rather quickly is very motivating and makes our daily live much easier. If I paid him $2/week as one friend suggested he would never do his chores. We’d be fighting constantly over it. He wants video games and Beyblades. Saving up for two or three weeks is doable. Saving up for weeks for one thing is not something he has the attention span to handle. I want him to actually DO HIS CHORES. I don’t want to be deducting money and fighting over his allowance. Currently when I say “chore time”, he may complain a little but he does it and usually does it with alacrity.

*A big part of having an allowance is learning to manage money. Having enough money to manage makes it easier to learn this lesson.

*I rarely buy him treats, toys and extras. It is so wonderful to be able to tell him “if you want it, buy it” when he starts begging me for a candy bar, ice cream cone, new video game, etc. He often changes his mind very quickly when I make him responsible for the purchase. One of the friends who criticized me the most harshly for his allowance regularly buys her child $50 toys “just because.” Which is totally fine. You want to treat your kid, do it! But don’t go judgey-pants on me because my kid’s “treat” comes in a different form.

Whew! It felt good to get that out! I am very happy with our current system. It gives Erik a feeling of pride to feel like he is working and getting paid. Thus far I have been able to get him to do just about anything I ask. He regularly does vacuuming, he folds wash clothes, he puts away all his own clothes, brings in the trash can, helps pick up around the house, cleans his room, dusts the floorboards and wainscoting, etc. Just having him doing the floorboards is more than worth it!

We had a wonderful, relaxing, spectacular vacation. It’s funny how much I loved it, considering how little planning I did for it. Basically I decided to go to Boston and then realized Boston was near Rhode Island. RI sounds magical to me, so I wanted to stop by and see it, but then I discovered that there’s really nothing there. Mystic, CT, home of a great LJ friend (not sure if you want your name here if I say the name of the town!) was right there as well, so I kind of planned around that. Silly way to plan a vacation, but doesn’t the name “Mystic” sound like a place you must go if you get a chance?

Then my mom was supposed to go with us, so I discovered it is cheaper to get a beach house than two hotel rooms, only they didn’t have any opening in Mystic so we ended up staying in a little house in Niantic, CT. I don’t recommend Niantic as a tourist destination, but it was beyond wonderful to have our own house during this trip. As soon as we’d get home from the beach we could hose off and throw everything into the washing machine. We could cook as many meals as we liked, put the kids in bed and enjoy our evening, sit out on a private deck, drive down to the HOA private beach that hardly had any people using it. It was beyond fabulous. Even if it did smell like a stinky old lady.

The house itself was spacious, but it was obviously owned by an old grandma who died and the heirs decided to turn it into a beach home on the cheap. It needed a serious dusting and the smell needed to be cleaned up. I think it was caused by a mattress in the kid’s room. The first night I was very hesitant and ready to leave, but by the end I was sold on the vacation experience even if it was not a luxury home. I don’t think I am ever going to want to stay in a hotel again when I’m traveling with kids.

We wanted to break up the trip a little, so spent a day at Sesame Place. We all had a good time, but I sure am glad we were there on a weekday. It must be a complete madhouse on a weekend. We never saw Elmo, but did get a picture with Cookie Monster. Erik kept saying he loved the vampire best, and I kept telling him that Sesame Street doesn’t have vampires. Doh! The Count! I even let him buy a Count plush that he will never look at again. It was a decent souvenir, I suppose.

I was pretty nervous about visiting the beach because Elsa is a water baby and I am terrified of the ocean (so why take a beach vacation? I love the beach, just not the water). I was very relieved when I realized that our private HOA beach was extremely shallow. Erik could walk out to the ropes and only be up to his waist. The kids wore floaties and Mike went with them. They were never in any danger, though I was having some panic-attacky feelings when I saw my whole family out in the ocean.

When we weren’t at the beach, we were driving over to Mystic to do some touristy things. We tried to do touristy things in Niantic, but there was just nothing there but a few expensive shops. Children and expensive tourist shops don’t mix.

We went to the Mystic Aquarium. Shocker! I really enjoyed it. They had all the fish indoors, so you didn’t have to see them if you didn’t want to look. I had to stand against the wall and try not to have a freakin’ heart attack while the kids were in there. I had to tell myself that the tanks weren’t all going to break and the fish weren’t going to swarm to me. Thankfully the kids weren’t that into the fish.

There were lots of other cool things, though. They had beluga whales, a sea lion show, penguins, a sting ray petting pool and a 4D Sponge Bob movie. We also saw a Titanic exhibit that the kids rushed through (I probably could have spent a significant portion of the day in it) and a big canary house where you could feed the birds. The kids loved that one. I think the belugas were my favorites of the day.

We also visited Mystic Seaport. I had no idea what it was and we almost didn’t go, but my friend’s husband works there so I wanted to check it out. I’m so glad we did! It was a little historic seaport with all kinds of hand-on activities. It had a very full schedule. In fact, there were so many things to do we couldn’t do everything. We were going to go back the next day (tickets are good for two days) but ran out of time.

They had a small troop of actors who went around doing little plays. They needed volunteers for two of the plays, so you know Erik was all up in there, thinking he was the star of the show. He’s a born actor.

We had a chance to meet up with my LJ friend and eat at Mystic Pizza. I know I saw the movie when I was a teen, but I don’t remember it at all. The pizza was really good and the company was even better. It was so fun to meet my friend and her family. Our boys are just a couple of months apart and very similiar in so many ways. They took to each other right away and now Erik has a plot to have them move into our neighborhood. There’s a house for sale, after all!

Her daughter reminded her so much of me. Very serious, and very tired of her younger sibling. Ha! She was smitten with Elsa, but Elsa was having none of it. People she didn’t know looking at her? The horrors!

Mike enjoyed getting to know her husband, or maybe he just enjoyed speaking Swedish with another love immigrant.

I was hoping to add some pics to this post, but Flickr is not letting me upload so that will have to wait for tomorrow. If you’re on my FB, you’ve probably already seen them anyway.

Guess I better get to bed. Back to reality tomorrow. Camp is over, so we’re going to have three long weeks of Erik claiming boredom.