My Manifesto for my Family

Manifesto is a cool word -- sounds like I'm taking over the world, but it just means a stated plan or intention.  Here is the manifesto I created a year ago for my family while I was in the midst of dealing with angst around the behaviour of one of my boys (you know who you are!).



My Manifesto for My Family
* open to interpretation and different methods of implementation

Love

• You are my child/partner and I will always love you.  I will not always love the things you do or the attitudes you have but I will always love you, just as you are. I won't love you more if you behave better; I won't love you less if you behave badly.

 

Loyalty

 

• I will always have your back.  I will always do what will benefit you most.  You may not always like it or agree with it.  No matter what happens, I will stand beside you.

Safety

• Home is a safe place where you can be yourself.  You will not be hurt or ridiculed.  You will be accepted just as you are.  You will not be allowed to hurt or ridicule anyone in this house.  If "who you are" hurts people, I will find you the resources to work through this.  Home is safe for everyone.

Encouragement

• I will always encourage you to go for your goals, try new things and take chances (within reason).  I will do whatever I can to help you.

 

Teaching and Learning

• I will teach you what I know, sometimes even things you don't want to know, like chores, consequences and responsibility.  I am willing to learn what you have to teach me, even if I don't want to. Things like patience, humility and that I'm not always right.

Being Together, Being Apart

• I want to spend time with you -- alone, with the family and with others.  I enjoy your company and we can't achieve the other items if we don't spend time together.  I also need time away from you -- and you need time away from me -- so we can be our own people with our own friends and interests.

ADHD Awareness Week

Happy ADHD Awareness Week!  We will be celebrating by . . . trying to remember what we are celebrating.  In our family we have great PLANS to celebrate things but we often get lost in the details.  Executive functions aren't a strong point.

I often have people ask me if I really believe ADHD exists or if it's just an excuse for lazy parents/out of control kids.  Anyone who spends time with someone with ADHD can attest that it does exist.  I struggle daily to keep on task, keep focused, remember what I need to do and not be distracted.  It's frustrating and sometimes heartbreaking to see how easy other people manage to do something as simple as make a meal.  For me it likely means some ingredient will be left out, or something will be burned, or the side dish will be served with the dessert because I forgot to put it on in time to eat with the main course.  It means that the dishes don't get entirely washed because when I went to the living room to pick up empty glasses I noticed the jacket that should go on the hooks, where I found a box that needed to go in the sun porch, where I found the laundry hamper that belonged in the bathroom .  . .

It means that I'm continually explaining to people that my kids aren't being mean when they get rough, or rude, or impulsive.  It means explaining to teachers that Sam CAN'T remember to bring his homework home without a reminder and this will not stop once he's "got into a routine" around Christmas.  It means explaining to teachers that Liam NEEDS to fidget in class and sometimes leave the room because the urge to fidget is almost painful.

It also means that we have a house of fun-loving, up-for-anything people with lots of energy, creativity and optimism.  I often emphasize to my children that ADHD isn't a disease, just a different way of interacting with the world that has some good points and some bad points.  We deal with them as best we can and try to laugh over the mistakes and problems we have as well as celebrate when things are going well.

If you want more information on ADHD Awareness week or ADHD in general, this website is a good starting place.

We went to the pumpkin patch

And found this!

Dill's Pumpkin Farm is where we went.  Every giant pumpkin in the world today is a descendant of one of Howard Dill's world champ pumpkins.

Aaron and I took Carson there while the big kids were in school but didn't pick out a pumpkin because we were walking and it would be too heavy to take home. We'll go back in a week or so and pick out a good one -- or 5.

Thanksgiving #2

We celebrated our second Thanksgiving of the year at Aaron's brother's.  We brought:

pumpkin cheesecake pie

AND

chocolate cake balls -- mmmmmm

 AND

a birthday card.

It was a beautiful warm day -- we were outside for most of it.

Tomorrow we have our third Thanksgiving feast -- this one will be ham though as we are turkey'd out!  

Thanksgiving #1 -- at the cottage

Our first of three Thanksgiving feasts, this one was held at my friend Betty Jo's cottage on the lake.  We picked cranberries and bbq'd turkey

Apples and caramel dip on the deck

The cranberries were on an island that we took the peddle boat too.  Nomdi just swam.

This guy was diligent about looking for berries

Greeting us at our triumphant return with cranberries.  I meant to take a picture of them but forgot.  We had a hard time finding any ripe one, they were mostly white, but they cooked up well!

A little music before dinner  . . .

To an appreciative audience

The remains of the feast.  Yes, that is pumpkin cheesecake . .

Believe it or not, these two are the same age.  In fact, Sam (on the right) is one week older.

 Sitting around the table telling jokes.  The kids really like the one about the monkey's butt.  Go figure . ..

  My attempt to take a picture of the scene without flash.  The candles did not look like this at the time (too bad!).

Three of a kind

I love this picture

Liam

Carson

Sam

 It's my current favourite.

Still making things

like this!

Carson December 30, 2010

I think he turned out pretty good.

9

Now this

has become this

Wonderful imagination, constant talker, cuddly nine year-old.  Smart, spacy and funny.  What would I do without you?

Happy Birthday Samwise Gamgee!!

Eagle Watching

Every year from December to March, hundreds of bald eagles migrate to the Annapolis Valley.  In January and February they have special "eagle weekends" with food and festivities.  They put out food for the eagles and you can stand around watching the hundreds of eagles feed.

Mom and I decided to go see the eagles but didn't go on the weekend as it would be too crowded.  We went on a Tuesday.  The weather was beautiful -- warm(ish) and sunny.  There were a few others there but not too many.  The eagles are fed between 9 am and 10 am.  We were late getting off and worried we would miss it. 

No worries necessary.  Apparently there is a pecking order in bird feeding.  First the seagulls, then the crows, then the eagles.  We were surprised to learn that the eagles waited for the other birds to eat first.  Also a surprise -- the eagles sound like canaries!  Not like great fearsome birds at all.  We waited around for an hour (it was warm, but not that warm) before leaving.  The seagulls hadn't started to eat yet but we were hungry!

We stopped at the local fair trade coffee shop.

Mom ordered our eats (hot chocolate for me, latte for her and some giant cookies), lovingly created for us by Doug, the barrista.

Just Us Coffee also makes fair trade chocolate.  I looked for job applications for tasters but only found free chocolate samples.  Yum!

They also sell items crafted by third world artisans, in addition to a little museum about how the average coffee grower lives. 

All in all, a good day.

14

Who would ever believe that this:

would one day turn into this?

(you can't tell from this but he just dyed his hair black and purple)

Liam, the middle child, concieved after a loss, six years younger than one brother, five years older than the other.

At first he was a quiet child.  Too quiet.  We soon learned that with Liam, quiet is bad. (Noisy isn't that great either).

Too smart for his own good, no baby-proofing device could stop him.  He could turn on the oven and crawl in it in the time it took to answer the phone.  He could open the door and leave by the time he was two.  Thank god for the fenced in yard as he could get out of his crib (by somersaulting over the rail) when he was one.

When he was two he broke his bedroom window when put in there for a time out. He was obsessed with pots and pans and would only watch cooking shows on TV.

He came down with chicken pox on his 5th birthday.  He had to put up with a baby brother just when he was enjoying being the youngest.

During the "bad years" before his father and I broke up, Liam ended up being the responsible one to get him and his older brother off to school.  Too much responsiblity for an eight year old. (I did not learn this until after we split -- he and his brother hid much).

In grade 6, when the school decided he was too much of a handful to be in the classroom, all his teachers and principal told me that he wasn't bad -- he never hit, or bullied, or was mean to anyone, ever.  He just didn't do what he was told unless he felt like it. (I can identify with that).

Liam in the most like me and the one that drives me the craziest.  He is my best kid and my worst kid.  The one I want to spend the most time with and that I need the most breaks from.   He has the best sense of humour, is smart as a whip and an excellent listener (unless you are telling him to do something).

Where did 14 years go?

Happy Birthday, Wonderful Boy!

In less than 24 hours

I will be on the plane, heading to Toronto, first stop on the way to Ireland. Mom and I are going to spend a couple of days with my sister, then head across the pond. I'm trying to find something to occupy the loooooonnnnnggg flight. Other than sleeping, which I'm planning to do a lot of. I have to go light on the books (and the library hasn't been showing me any love lately) but I found a new scarf pattern I might try to my for my neice.

See, I do do crafts.

Oh, note the new link on the site for artsy-crafty babe. Gotta love anyone who calls themselves a babe but her blog is great fun besides that.

I just don't want to

I'm making a packing list. I'm going to Ireland the end of this month for a couple of weeks and I'm trying to figure out what I need to take. Trouble is, I don't want to go.

I've been fighting this thought for months. At first I figured it was because Aaron and the boys weren't going -- it's just my mom, my sister and me. Then I thought maybe it was because it was just my mom, my sister and me and two weeks is a long time to be with people you haven't lived with in years. Then I thought it was because I didn't know which relatives I would be staying with, or I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the kids while I was gone or that I was using up too much vacation. I finally realized why I don't want to go.

I don't want to say goodbye to my dad. Dad died unexpectedly in May and we are using his "estate" money to take his ashes to Ireland. I'm not big into reality and I've kind of been pretending in my head that he isn't dead, he's just visiting in Ireland and he'll be back in a couple of weeks. Once we go over there, the pretending will end and my dad won't be visiting, he'll be gone. And I don't want him to be gone.

Re-arranging

The Most Wonderful Man in the World was busy yesterday. He is on vacationi (yay!) and re-arranged our living room. I had just jammed stuff in there because I am not a decorator. It looked -- okay. Like a room with furniture in it. Aaron moved some furniture out, some furniture in, taking care to decorate around The Drip (another story). It looks so cozy now! We even hung a picture. If we have to stay in the morgue for a little while longer, we might as well make it look homey.

this is the Most Wonderful Man in the World (MWMW).

I love him very much. I love how he came into my life and rearranged everything so that I am cozy now.