Day 48: Ids, Ids Everywhere

I’ve turned the monitor on its side this morning.  Mostly because I can.  But partly because I wanted to see if DarkRoom would work in portrait.  Not sure what I was expecting to go wrong.  Nothing has.

Yesterday I took the two week old hedge trimmer out of its box and mounted the handle.  In three weeks time I expect I’ll be able to get the extension cord plugged in to make sure it fires up.  Sparks up?  At this rate, by February I might be looking forward to using it for the first time.

I don’t recall if my housekeeping post of a few days ago shared that I was going to be watching the kids all weekend without Carrie, but I did.  Late Friday to dinner time on Sunday.  I think we all had a good time and things went well.  It’s alot of work but not complicated.  I am not sure I could do it everyday for as long as she has without getting a little nutty.  Taking care of children this age makes you feel a little like you are tamping down the various parts of your brain that need things except on the outside.

Internally I can quickly handle the near simultaneous desires to pee, eat, watch TV, and be confused and angry.  Externally, as those disparate needs are continuously shuffled and dealt amongst the four of us it becomes a little tougher to manage.  With all your ids inside you they can communicate via back channel chatter.  “I know you said you had to pee, but is it really bad enough not to wait till a commercial?”.  “Wait, commercial time’s already set aside for getting a cookie.”.  “Hello?  Peeing is at the top of the list no matter how you work it out.  I can wait till the commercial but no longer.  Cookie needs will either have to wait till the next one or potentially conflict with watching all that show.  What is it anyway?”.  “‘Friends’.”.  “Jeezus! That’s a rerun you ass.  We’re all waiting on a rerun?”.  “It’s the one where Ross and Rachel hook-up.”  “Oh, why didn’t you say that earlier.  Let’s get popcorn.”

Waiting on others is not an easy skill to teach to a child.  For them now is quite tangible.  They can count on a glass of juice being poured now finishing successfully because it’s already begun.  The idea of prioritizing needs isn’t useful because they really only have one at a time and in order; all of them are critical.  Thus, later, next, soon, and when I am done with your sister are all times equivalent to no, never, not on your life, because they aren’t right now.  But that’s what parenting is about–one of the things.  Teaching your children to understand what is happening around them.  To appreciate and understand the plot of their days.  “Did you just see what happened there, Sweetie?  I asked you to wait till I was done with your sister and, now, here I am helping you.  I didn’t forget.”.  “Can I have some water now?”

I gotta look up punctuation on dialogue.  I seem to use it in a way that makes me stretch my understanding of what I already thought I new about it.  I thought that ending a statement with dialogue punctuation; closing quote; then sentence punctuation was correct, but it looks like crap.