Teaching self reliance.

It has come to my attention that we are not doing a super job at teaching our kids to be self reliant. Not to the point where they need to find jobs, and shop for themselves, no. At this point I mean, fetching themselves a drink, and making their own breakfast. Nothing major. I’m just tired of having to feed these kids while they lie in bed with hunger pangs, and it not even crossing their minds to head to the kitchen to grab a drink, or pour a bowl of cereal, or eat a snack bar of some sort. Instead they’ll get ready for school, with our help and then whine that they didn’t get any breakfast. Get up! Walk the fifteen feet to the kitchen and grab fruit, make toast, pour yourself a drink. These aren’t major under takings that I’m talking about here. Ugh.

Maybe I’m just tired and cranky because yesterday involved a tonne of walking, standing, and being on my feet outdoors in the smelly unclean air. My hips ache, and my eyes and chest didn’t feel all the better for it either. But I think these kids are more than capable of sorting out a snack for themselves. 90% of what they need is kept at a level where even the youngest can reach it. Maybe I need to move some food stuffs around, and we’ll have another little demo on how to mix their own chocolate milks, juices, find testable bread, and where the bowls, and cups are – again. The early morning attitude is too much. All that angsty vitriol is too damn high! Perhaps another lesson with the can opener, and toaster are in order. Get these kids up to speed for summer, because I’m busier than ever with work, and I don’t fancy playing maid, butler, chef, event coordinator, and chauffeur all fucking summer long.

Hold on. School’s just called, youngest has a sore throat and I need to collect her and bring her home. So much for horse back riding, and meeting the friendly donkey tonight. Now I need to sort out how to grab my oldest once school is done, and juggle the two for this evenings birthday party out in the woods. Guess I won’t be staying to meet and greet all the animals. Which sucks. But sick kid comes first.

Have her in bed with some pain meds for the throat. Perhaps she’ll sleep? Doubtful. But stranger things have happened. Air quality wasn’t even all that bad outside when I cut the grass this morning. Maybe she caught my wife’s cold, but it has hit her throat first. I’ll have to bust out the Covid tests over the next several days if symptoms persist, and test her a bunch. This was the last real full day of school left. Guess they won’t be doing tomorrow’s half day either. Puts my plans on hold for a bit then doesn’t it. Welp! Not much I can do about that. We will just have to wait and see if she perks up and can drink like normal, or if she is actually out of sorts. I know the coming summer, and changing from kindergarten to grade one has her very concerned. Could just be she’s upset. Don’t know. Need more information, and data points to draw from. Right now, she is medicated, resting in bed with a drink and a show she likes, and I can check her temperature and fluid intake over the next few hours.

Work wise, I got nothing to say today. Take care out there. Ciao Bella.

Lots of running around today…

Doing odd jobs and picking up things for the house. For instance, I always cheap out and get plastic snow shovels which usually break on me part way into the season. So today I laid out some cash for a proper metal one. We needed more matches for candles and such, so picked those up from the store. I bought eye hooks for hanging toy hammocks in the kids rooms to get all those stuffies off the bed/floor. I bought more baby wipes, as they come in handy for more than cleaning dirty baby bums. I grabbed a proper light up wreath for the front door, which the kids will flip their shit for. And for myself I grabbed an extra 300 lights for our Christmas tree, because the white and blue motif we’ve used for going on 13 years is a bit cold and drab. These kids are vibrant, and deserve a little colour. Let me tell you, if our house wasn’t so cluttered with kids stuff, I’d have light up garlands every where, and I’d hang streamers, and put up a whole lot more festive stuff. But that’s too much while all of the kids things are still everywhere. I imagine that once they get into double digit ages, we can pass much of the toy clutter on to younger families, and we’ll still have enough clothes to dress a football team four times over. Once the kid stuff begins to recede I will reclaim the dining room table, and build a nice candle centric display in a glass bowl with left over holiday ornaments and such. A fancy table runner. Oh… it will be very nice in here! Ho ho ho…

So I added the new decorations in to our current line-up, and then powered up the trusty old stud finder to assemble the toy hammocks, and then I will need to fill out the flu shot forms for the three of us going after school today for even more jabs. Such fun! Better than a raggedy ass hospital visit at this point.

I was also paying my bills, as a few invoices have come in, and I can get flush with the mechanic, and the medical stuff I bought for my youngest. A new humidifier and a large Hepa filter set me back nearly $400.00 bucks, but the kid is on the mend (fingers crossed) for more than just a week or two before the next illness comes around. There were some Kickstarter items I backed, and promptly forgot about, so that was a couple more bucks to make up for. I had bought a lot of airbrush paint, thinners, washes, and cleaners last month, so the Amazon bill came home to roost. Plus our Great Wolf Lodge trip had some bills attached to it with Falls Parking, dinner on the town, the Sky wheel ride, and a stop at the arcade & on site store at GWL. It all adds up. Plus gas for both vehicles, and groceries, & oil changes. Bad month. Not a good look. But I don’t have to buy that stuff again, so investments in the house are a good thing. Investments in general health & well being is great too. We don’t vacation much at all (Covid times or otherwise). So I splurged, and now I had to come to terms with that. Bought and now paid for. Next!

It also seems like a lot, on the old Visa bill, because I stopped using my debit card, and now I track ALL purchases on the one card, and pay it off every single month. More secure too. That new tap feature can make you pretty reckless though, holy shit. Tap, tap, tap. I suppose they designed it that way to get you to be more free with the wave of a hand.

It’s funny, I was going to do a couple of movie reviews today for Top Gun Maverick, and Jurassic World Dominion. But I’ll save that for another say. I just had something else to say today. Mainly because I was excited about the new lights for the tree and a proper wreath for the door! I’m positively giddy. That’s all she wrote today though. Ciao Bella!