Tag: Miller

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life

A Dose of Competition

Today was a work day for the kids because they have not had to do any of their regular work in the last week. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) we found that they seemed to have misplaced their ability to work. They spent 3 hours on a room that should have been done in 30 minutes. Savannah and Alyssa finally perked up and started working like they’re capable when I challenged them to a race. The race was to see if they could finish the family room they had been working on for nearly 3 hours before I could empty the sink and load the dishwasher.

It really should have been no competition but I managed to nearly finish by the time they passed their quality check. The really nice thing was that I didn’t have to remind them to get back to work. Even when they started dawdling a bit they kept working because I didn’t tell them at the beginning that there was basically no way I could win.

Even after the race was over they kept working on the other tasks that still had to be done. It’s nice to find some effective motivation – I hope I can use that technique in the future.

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culture meta

Wandering

I thought about the value of wandering as one of our neighbors walked past our house this afternoon. He was just out for a walk with his daughter and their dog. There are many possible reasons that might have prompted the walk, but arriving at a specific destination or in a specific time was obviously not a major concern.

I was reminded of similar walks that our family has taken over the years – like our first Christmas soon after we moved into this house when the girls wanted to go for a walk and we met a bunch of our neighbors for the first time after their Christmas mornings. There is so much that we can gain from having times when you do not have a specific goal to strive for and you are free to follow a whim or prompting that you could not plan in advance.

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life

Hide and Seek

I was telling Laura about this and she said I should share the story.

We love playing hide and seek as a family. The kids get into it and Isaac and Mariah level the playing field by staying with Laura and I so we can’t just hide alone where the kids will never find us. We were having a game (I can’t remember if it was Monday or Tuesday last week) and on the last round Alyssa was the seeker. I had Isaac with me and Savannah was staying pretty close as well. When Alyssa came looking I was in our bedroom with nothing but Isaac to hide behind – I thought I would be seen for sure. Luckily Alyssa never looked towards us because she was focused on trying to get the bathroom door opened with Savannah holding it closed.

After she left the room Isaac got distracted with something else (probably chasing Alyssa – I can’t remember) and I hopped over the bed and laid down on the floor behind the bed. A few minutes later after Alyssa had found Mariah and Savannah had admitted to being found Savannah was looking for me and Laura (those who are found generally try to help the seeker – or at least they try to locate the rest of us). I heard Savannah come into our room thinking I was under the bed (it’s hollow under the bed and the bed skirt goes to the floor). When I was not under the bed she crawled right on through and out the far side where I was. She saw me and giggled.

Less than ten seconds later Isaac popped out from under the bed where he had followed Savannah. He then proceeded to follow Savannah as she left the room – proud to have found me. About 30 seconds after that I heard Alyssa come into the room and crawl the exact same path as the other two. Having finally been found by the seeker I just had to laugh at the sight of three of the kids crawling out like ghosts from under the bed right next to my head.

Categories
life

Prophetic Me

My mom was visiting this afternoon as Savannah was performing in a dance recital. Before we left for the recital Mom asked how soon before Isaac would start walking. He was holding on to the leg of my pants at the time and I said, “anytime he wants.” Moments later he let go of my pants and I took a  step away from him to show how steady he was without support. After standing for a few seconds he took a step toward some toys that had his attention. He paused briefly before taking three more steps. Then he decided to use his more familiar form of locomotion and he crawled the second half of the distance.

Mom and I were both amazed at the accuracy of my statement.

Categories
life

Naps Are Evil

Going against ages of parental wisdom, I am prepared to declare that naps for children are evil. Really the problem is not naps, it is anything to do with sleeping (including not sleeping). The holiday seasons seems to bring out the worst aspects of sleeping for kids. If you don’t make some effort to control their sleeping schedule you will have no control over your own schedule. If you do what you can to ensure regularity in their sleeping patterns then you are severely punished when there is a deviation in that pattern.

When parents think of naps they think of something that lasts for some noticeable period of time (somewhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours depending on the child, their age, the weather, and any other relevant factors) but children seem biologically to define naps as anytime they close their eyes for longer than a blink. If I wake my children from a nap they cry, but they won’t go back to sleep. If they fall asleep in the car for even two minutes before I can get them home and in their beds they are fully recharged and won’t go back to sleep for at least 2 hours – no matter how far past their bedtime it is.

The really insidious thing about naps for children is that the children are in a state of constant flux. The schedule that worked so well for my infant or toddler all of last week may be totally useless today so I am constantly in a state of retraining. Then there is that unenviable period where the child is not quite able to handle a full day without a nap, but they are not tired until 2 hours before it’s time for bed.

Note – this is not really a frustrated rant though I’m sure it sounds like one. It is actually a collection of thoughts I’ve had as we have started the holiday schedule jockeying and I have reflected on the mirage of nap-time benefits from the past. I found the thoughts amusing and thought I’d share.

Categories
life pictures

Crazy Storms

Most of the people in Utah know about the crazy storms that we have had the past 2 days (mostly yesterday). I thought I would share just two pictures showing the results in our yard.

Sunflowers after a windstorm

These are our sunflowers. They were already bending under the weight of their ripening heads, but they were over 9 feet tall. I’m surprised to see that two of them are still standing.

 Fence hit by pool

This is our fence, which we just put up this year. The wind caught a plastic pool in our backyard and blew it around the house and into the fence. The toprail is bent and will have to be replaced, and we have to  pour more cement around the gatepost so that it can be secure again.

It could have been worse – we could have lost our trees like the four trees that were downed in our church parking lot.

Categories
life

Learning to Ride

I’ve spent the last week thinking that it would be fun to announce that Savannah had learned to ride her bike. I spent an hour trying to teach her. I learned something important – it’s easier with the right size of bike. I was trying to teach Savannah on a bike that was slightly too large for her. Once we switched to the smaller bike she caught on fast. The next day (and ever since) she is on her bike every chance she can get.

This left us with a slight problem, Alyssa no longer had a bike to use since Savannah can only ride the small bike. This morning our neighbor came over and asked if we wanted her daughter’s old bike – perfect size for Alyssa. Tonight I started teaching Alyssa to ride the new bike. She learned to stop faster than Savannah, now if she can learn to start herself my job will be done until Mariah gets old enough to learn.

I can’t wait to take family bike rides with the younger two in the trailer and the older two on their own bikes.

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life

Marathon

Today was my marathon. I had hoped to finish in under 4 hours. The race began inauspiciously, with the buses arriving more than 30 minutes late to take us to the top. It continued promisingly as I ran well ahead of my pace for the first half of the race (on pace to finish in about 3:40). It ended with me learning a lesson. I had not done enough hill training and the first 17 miles of the race were all downhill (except for more than a mile of uphill). That accounted for my time being so good for the first half, but it also caused my calves and feet to fatigue early because I was using the muscles differently from when I trained. The result was that I started walking after 17 miles because I could hardly lift my feet, a problem I never had when I ran 22 miles on flat ground. I finished the race at a run after adding more than an hour to my time. I crossed the finish line at 4:57:23.

I know that some of my supporters were worried that I might be disappointed by that time but I recognize the deficiency of my training. While I feel I could have pushed myself to do a little better than I did, I could never break 4 hours on this course without some significant hill training before the race. I am not disappointed in the results – I achieved a long-held goal to run a marathon and, as proven by some of the most seasoned runners I met on the course, that is nothing to feel bad about no matter what time the clock says when you finish.

Categories
life

Bedtime Dynamics

As Savannah and Alyssa share a room we have a near nightly ritual where one gets mad at the other for some infraction of the Sisters Code of Conduct™ (at least on the nights where they don’t both test how many excuses they can find to leave their bedroom after bedtime). The result sometimes is that they will keep Mariah awake in the next room.

On many Saturdays we allow the girls to choose alternate sleeping arrangements for the night. Last night they chose to sleep on the couches in the family room. Mariah saw what was happening and decided that she wanted to be part of the sleepover. I thought it was worth the experiment so we let her sleep down there as well. I fully expected that we would be going down before 10:00 pm to move her back up to her room.

We didn’t hear a sound from any of them. At one point we went down to peek in and see if they had fallen asleep. What we discovered was that they were all playing very quietly and very nicely with each other. The older girls were sharing toys with Mariah and being nice to each other.

Now Laura and I are wondering how we can promote that kind of peaceful coexistence every night between the kids.

Categories
life

Needed: Waterless Bathing System

Someone needs to come up with a way to get kids clean without involving water or a bathroom. My kids have just used the necessity of a bath as an excuse to break every possible rule in the bathroom. Toothpaste behind the toilet, toilet paper down the sink and water, or the remnants of water, in various unwaterable places.

Truth be told, this is not really about bathing. It’s about a certain unnamed person who has decided after two months of nearly angelic behavior, in which no significant disciplinary action had been necessary, that it is time to find out if the rules will be enforced. This bathroom incident – in which not a single bathroom-related rule was left unbroken – is just one of many tests to see if we have just forgotten to apply the rules.

There was outward disappointment to discover that all privileges magically evaporated for the night. I doubt there will be very many more infractions before the inward rebel goes back into hibernation.