Doomsday preppers..

Kent & I were flipping channels & stumbled upon 'Doomsday Preppers'. I'd seen it advertised, but never watched it (and admittedly, only made it through about half the show tonight). The thing I don't get - these people are wanting to be 'prepared' for some sort of disaster - the people featured tonight wanted to be prepared for an attack on our electrical infrastructure that would essentially shut down the US grid, resulting in chaos. So they dug a "foxhole" (their term) under their garage and had enough food stockpiles for 6 weeks, as well as other things (food, fuel, toilet paper) etc that could be bartered.

Well, yeah...that'd fine and dandy and all - but what do you do after 6 weeks? We changed the channel, but it appeared like the next segment was going to talk about how they escape on a boat......eh....not finding that realistic.

Here's what I don't get - why do people feel the need to be prepared by buying and saving things as their only source of preparedness? This show said the guy spent $70,000 on his setup..Ok fine - if you're going to spend that kind of money, why not buy a few acres of land in the country and learn the skills you need to be self-sufficient - grow/raise/preserve your own food?

It baffles me how few skills people seem to have anymore. I've become more aware of this over the last several years as I have a pretty handy husband who has helped friends out doing various things....not to mention all the stuff he does for me. He replace a faulty light switch in our bedroom....took out ceiling lights and installed ceiling fans. He can fix our cars (most of the time). Today he & dad replaced the phone/DSL lines running into the house so we could move our wireless router inside.

I'm not faulting those who don't know how to do those things - because odds are it's because they've never been taught. But it baffles me at how many people have NO INTEREST in learning to do things themselves, and would rather pay someone else to do them.

Again, not making judgements....just baffled at the priorities of modern-day society.

Why

Kent's Mom, Step-dad and grandma are here visiting for a week. I was explaining to Alex how everyone was related...that grandma is daddy's mommy, and great-grandma (ge-ge) is grandma's mommy etc. He kept asking "Why" the whole time...finally I got frustrated and asked him "well...why am I your mommy?"

He responded "because I NEED one!!" (as if it were obvious) - LOL! :-)

Made me feel so...needed. :-)

Little Mouse

Most kids have an imaginary friend at some point in their lives. My son has an imaginary mouse. I don't know where he came up with "Little Mouse" (that's its name) but I just love hearing the tales (no pun intended) and adventures of "Little Mouse".

I don't believe he's seen or heard of Stuart Little.

I love Little Mouse though :-) 

New Bike

It's an amazing thing watching your children grow up. Tonight Alex learned to ride a bike without training wheels in about 5 minutes. I'm not kidding. We took him over to the hill, started on the north side. First try - fell immediately. 2nd try - fell immediately. 3rd try - went all the way to the far side of the garden. And that was it! He still needs a bit of help getting started but really one little push and he's gone.

I'm a very proud Mommy tonight

Late May update

I've been basking in the joys of freedom from work and school now for almost 2 weeks. 2 more weeks until I'm back at it. Thankfully I'm only teaching one class this summer, and only taking one class as well.

Swimming on his own (in 4 ft end of the big pool - where he can't touch!)

Little pool - working on sit-dives

I was about a half second late with the camera, but he jumped off of the platform. His favorite part of the lesson.

Alex is still in swimming lessons, although we might take the summer off and explore some other activities. He really likes his teacher, but gets intimidated because the teacher likes to goof around with them in the water and sometimes Alex takes him literally (thinking he really WILL throw him in the pool, and not trusting that he's teasing). Both the teacher and I have sat down and talked to him about it but I'm not too concerned as his teacher said he wasn't going to be teaching on Sundays anymore. So I don't know who we'll have.

Will have to blog about his first Tball game later.

One more week

Until I'm free!! Well....free for about 3 weeks, then summer semester starts. Just the same I am more than ready for the break.

A quick update from last week - we decided to move Alex's loft bed in front of his window. This will allow him to lay in bed and look out the window (what he was trying to do both times he fell out) without the danger of him falling out. So far it seems to be working - he looks out the window until he falls asleep.

This week is his first t-ball game, I'm pretty excited for it. I hope he enjoys it. His last practice he seemed to really have fun - not only was he obeying his coaches, he was doing so enthusiastically! He has been grumbling about going to swimming lately. He moved up a class (Pike Plus) and I think he is just adjusting to going from being able to do everything that was asked of him (Pike) to being back at the 'beginner' stage again. Although Kent & I do not want to force the kid to do something he doesn't want to do, I see swimming as a life skill first, a sport second. He's going to keep going. Once he can swim to the point where I am comfortable he won't drown if he were to fall in a pool, he doesn't have to go anymore. I'm not concerned about him doing swim team or any of that. I just want him to learn (more or less) how to not drown.

So back to me - almost ready to wrap up the year at both LLCC and UIS. I have now finished 2 of my 10 courses for my doctoral program, and will be taking another course this summer. As of right now I am planning on only taking 1 class this fall (my required class) but I have come across several adjunct teaching opportunities that I am going to apply for. Don't get me wrong - I love LLCC, but every semester it seems iffy as to if I'll get more than 1 or 2 classes (I really  need 3 per semester to be able to pay for my UIS class without having to yank my monthly savings account contribution). I have no intent of leaving LLCC but if I could pick up 1 or 2 other classes elsewhere that would provide enough income for me to take 2 classes/semester and get this wrapped up more quickly. So as soon as I'm finished with my last paper for my class I need to start working on my cover letters and update my CV. Hoping and praying I can figure out how to make all of this work and ultimately trusting that God knows the path ahead of me and will take care of us. I refuse to take out student loans to pay for this degree (which I estimate will take $20,000) and am just going to have to be content living on a tight budget for a while. I know it will be worth it to graduate debt free and be able to immediately start building our house (or buy one, if I'm not able to find a job here). Would much rather stay here and build on our property than to have to move. If you know me, I refuse to live in town so that limits things as well!

My kid has no fear.

No pictures this week. Sorry.

So we built Alex a loft bed. He has a rather small bedroom (compared to Haley's tiny room...that's what happens when you're firstborn). He has a fairly large train table which takes up a lot of room. We decided a loft bed would be an excellent option for him as he would have a lot of room to play underneath it.

We built it, using some plans we bought from menards as a rough guide (We mainly robbed the supply list and possibly used step 1...then deviated). Alex's ceiling slopes, and he has a ceiling fan, so I wanted a custom bed. I figured it was cheaper to make it ourselves than to purchase a loft bed (really expensive) or buy a bunk bed (slightly cheaper) and modify.

He's been doing great in it, he's got rails so he won't roll out. Good thing too because he's usually asleep riht up against the outside rail.

Saturday night, about 5 minutes after we put him to bed, I hear a crash followed by a scream. I run in to find him laying in a heap on the floor, on his back, on a small pile of toys next to the window. He'd been messing with it and fell out (and from the way he was laying...I'm pretty sure he did a full somersault in the air as his head was pointed the opposite direction it should have been.

So I scooped him up, cuddled him. Kissed his boo boos (fairly impressive set of small bruises on his back - thanks to the toys) and discussed what happened. I put him back to bed, he immediately went to sleep. Last night (Sunday night) - went right to sleep.

Tonight - didn't go right to sleep. After several trips down there to put him back in bed, and several more times of him getting OUT of bed (he has more excuses than I can recall at this point)...I finally warmed up his rice sack, crawled up on the bed, tucked him in, gave him a hug and had him promise me he would go to sleep. He promised, and sounded sincere (hey, sometimes it works!). 10 minutes later I hear a crash and a scream. I go in and find him in a pile on the floor with the curtain rod dangling. He was definitely hurt - thankfully not bad. He's got a very impressive bruise/scrape on the left side of this chest. So I scooped him up, cuddled him. Kissed his boo boos and discussed what happened (see a pattern here)? I took him in the bathroom to show him the nasty bruise on his chest. That's gonna really hurt in the morning. I sent him out to sit on the couch b/c his crash and screams woke up Haley...so I had to calm her down and get her back in bed. She came out and gave Alex a hug. She seemed genuinely worried about him.

So I had Alex help me pick up the toys and told him he was no longer sleeping on the loft - we were going to wake up daddy and have him help me move his mattress to the floor. (Side note - I did have the toys picked up in the area that he fell.....learned that lesson Saturday night - so he just hit the floor...and curtain rod he pulled down with him).

So he was upset. He was very quiet, sad, and he knows he screwed up. I didn't lecture him, I didn't yell - just discussed with him what happened, and why I don't want to risk it happening again. I made sure he knew I wasn't mad - just disappointed and sad that he didn't keep his promise to go to sleep.

Haven't decided what I'm going to do. The bed is over 5" tall - the top of his rail is above my eye level. That's a long way to fall. I'm not sure he if he learned his lesson. He apologized very sincerely to me for breaking his promise.

Love my little guy.

Trying to figure out the odds of him making it to adulthood without breaking his neck.....