by Jen Logan | May 1, 2018 | Life, Parenting
A couple animals escaped!
I placed an indefinite moratorium on toy purchases until my child starts enjoying doing things more than buying things. It may be a long time before anything made of plastic is paid for with plastic. We went to the zoo over the weekend and all she wanted to do was check out the gift shops and food stands. She literally walked right by two anteaters without blinking on her way to a bin of stuffed polar bears. How do you walk right by an anteater? It’s like a saw horse wearing a shawl. Which end is which? During her three hour quest for cheesy popcorn and anything stuffed or remotely shiny she did stop to see some reptiles and a zebra. I am fairly certain, however, that the only reason she stopped to gaze at the zebra was because he was peeing.
This behavior is not unique to the zoo. My daughter tries to shop everywhere she goes. When I invite her to tag along on a quick trip to Target to buy some deodorant or vitamins, she declines after her request to purchase a toy is denied. The first question she asks whenever we are going somewhere is if she can buy something. Her Dad stopped at Home Depot to pick up fertilizer and she tried to buy a toy there. She was seriously disappointed in the selection. In her mind all stores have toys, food, or something else that she can waste her money on. Good thing home improvement stores have hot dogs!
Mom, I NEED a pinata!
I would like to blame this shopping obsession on toys like Shopkins that are teaching kids to be little consumers, but I really can’t. It’s genetic. She comes from a very long line of gifted shoppers. By gifted I mean we can find a way to purchase something anywhere. The gym, post office, church, sometimes even in the car while stopped at a light. I don’t advocate online shopping while driving, but sometimes commutes are long and things happen. I don’t know if I have ever known my mother to leave a store without buying at least one thing. The wee one is following right in her footsteps. The problem with this is a seven year old doesn’t have the same understanding of money that an adult does. She just wants things and will do what it takes to get them.
Materialism has sunk it’s teeth deep into my child. We are putting up a good fight but it’s hard to compete against all the glitz and glitter. This battle has been going on since she could walk. It goes a little something like this – child wants toy, asks parents for toy, parents refuse to buy toy, child cries to grandma, grandma buys toy. The parents never win this battle, not that I know of at least. So, I declared a a cease fire. My house is much like the Cuban missile crisis. Demands are made, threats are returned, and we both back away. I know this is a fight that will also last as long, if not longer than the Cold War. That’s okay, I’ve got stamina.
The good news is summer is upon us. It is a time to spend doing things and not buying things. It is hours in the pool and out at the lake. The bad news is I am already having visions of Amazon Prime deliveries floating out to us with my daughter’s name on the packages. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
I wrote this story while listening to Sonic Youth “Daydream Nation”
by Jen Logan | Apr 16, 2018 | Being Awesome, Life
My Mom has a bell that sits on a table in her family room. Last month my daughter was playing with it and my husband started saying “bring me my chair!” My daughter, of course, looked at him like he was crazy and went about her business. After he said this three times, she finally asked what he was talking about. I shared the fifteen year old joke with her.
The year before my husband and I were married my dad was in a pretty bad motorcycle accident. He was halfway across the state on his way to Sturgis on the weekend of my parents’ thirty fourth wedding anniversary when it happened. A teenage girl made a left turn in front of him and hit him head on. He went over the hood of her car after his handlebars broke his pelvis in four places. He was taken to a hospital 150 miles from home. He called me to come pick him up. He said he was fine but his bike was damaged and told me to bring “the big ride”, which was his car, so he could lay down in the backseat on the way home. I would like to say that he was delirious from the pain meds, but he refused to take them, so the idea that he was leaving the hospital that day in his own car was purely his own stubbornness. I realized when we got there why he had called me to come with my mom and why he wanted his car – my poor mom almost fainted when she saw him. The doctor pulled up the x-rays on the screen and they literally had to bring in a gurney for her to lie down. My mom does not do well with trauma or blood. I vividly recall her hitting the floor when I had blood drawn at the age of seven. She was not going to do well taking care of my dad’s wounds as he healed. Which brings us to the bell…
My dad got out of the hospital as quickly as he could after his accident. He spent a week in a room with an elderly man that continually rang the nurse demanding “where’s my pain pill?!” My dad dislikes nothing more than whining, so his patience was tested the entire time he was in that hospital bed. I think ditching his roommate was his biggest motivation for being discharged next to being able to eat ice cream directly out of the carton at midnight. He was brought home in an ambulance and took up residency in a hospital bed in my parents’ family room for the next several months. He was home, but immobile with pins and a halo around the front of his body. My mom gave him the little gold bell to ring when he needed anything.
The little golden bell has been a staple in my parents’ house for as long as I can remember. When I was sick as a child, my mom would get me all tucked in on the couch and put the bell on the table next to me. I was plagued by stomach issues as a child so I am guessing the bell was just as useful for my mom to be able to get ahead of a mess. Unfortunately, I normally rang the bell after I barfed all over the floor. Luckily my dad used the bell more timely than I did as a child.
Loud pipes save lives!
My dad was a really easy patient. He rarely asked for anything while he was recuperating. Mostly what he asked for was for people to stop asking him what he needed. The one thing he did need from us was to bring him his “chair” which was really a commode. When you are laid up in a hospital bed for weeks there is not a lot to do other than eat, read and watch television. Fortunately for my dad, my mom provides comfort on plates and she cooks when she is stressed. Because of this, my dad probably ate more in those few months than he did in the year prior. Unfortunately for me, the more you eat, the more you poop. I spent my afternoons bringing my dad’s chair over to his bed and leaving the room multiple times. After awhile my mom and I started a little battle with each other. She fed him chili the night before I came to sit with him and I brought him tacos for lunch. My poor dad’s digestive system was a pawn in our poop war. He even joined the battle one night when he finally succumbed to taking a pain pill but mistakenly took a stool softener. We all lost that battle – repeatedly.
I don’t know where the bell originated from, but it has always been a part of being sick or injured. Much like a warm blanket and soft pillow, the bell is a source of comfort. It sits on the table unnoticed until the patient’s fever hits 101 and then it is delivered on a little tray with a glass of orange juice. It’s a wonder the bell at my parents’ house still rings after my daughter got her hands on it. She could take some lessons in good patient etiquette from her grandfather.
As most traditions do, this one spread – to my house. The Easter Bunny brought me my own bell in my basket this year. It was quickly claimed by my daughter who has been using it to request breakfast on the couch most mornings. She is not really a traditionalist and has decided that if the bell is good enough for sick days, it is good enough for ALL days. She rings that little sucker when she wants her tray of food brought to her and again when she wants the tray cleared away or when she wants a fruit refill. The kid has a pretty charmed life. I’m the bumblehead who keeps coming back every time the bell rings. I’m like Pavlov’s dog without the drool. When she can tell I am getting a little irritated by her demands she waits until I am halfway out the door and yells “BRING ME MY CHAIR!!” It gets a laugh out of me every time.
In honor of Ian MacKaye’s birthday today, I wrote this piece while listening to Minor Threat
by Jen Logan | Jan 12, 2018 | Life, Parenting, Screwing Things Up
Riley explaining technology to Grandpa!
Like all good parents we have password protected our devices, including my daughter’s Kindle, to prevent her from online shopping and/or purchasing apps or games by herself. You wouldn’t think a six year old is able to online shop, but she sees a lot of it going on in our house as well as her grandparents’ house. Quality grandma/granddaughter time consists of searching different legos or barbies and scrolling through pages and pages of product photos. Mini-me can even find where the toy is sold for the best price. I don’t give my Mom a hard time about this because I know that intelligent shopping is in fact a skill that will benefit my child later in life, namely when she needs a pair of knee high black boots that are appropriate for both the office and a night out. It is a skill I acquired from my Mom before there was even such a thing as online shopping!
The password also keeps her from being able to pick up her device and use it without our permission. I am awoken on most weekend mornings by a tiny finger poking me in the middle of the forehead. When I decline to jump out of bed within ten seconds a pink Kindle is shoved in my face with a shake. I type in the four digit password and am left to sleep for an additional half hour.
My husband and I both have the code and we have also shared it with my parents so they can unlock her device when she is with them. This was clearly a mistake. My Mom remembers the code and uses it when needed. My Dad can’t remember the code from one day to the next so he has to consult my Mom for the code every single time my kid asks him for help logging on.
Yesterday, I heard my husband ask my daughter how she was able to get on his phone. She had picked it up on her own and was watching videos. His code is the same as the one we use for her devices. She proceeded to tell us that Grandpa told her the password. I was unclear as to how this would happen since she shakes her Kindle in my face with her password demands when she wants to use it to play a game. I was under the impression that my parents got the same treatment. I was immediately concerned because I thought she had figured out a way to outsmart the Old Man and weasel the password from him. This is not at all what transpired.
My Dad had taken my daughter out to their lake house to do some work. When they were driving home she asked if she could play on her Kindle. I can only assume that she was being persistent or she had worked really hard because he allowed it (which is unusual in the car). Since the four digit password is something that just will not stick in his head, he called my Mom to give it to him yet again. As she recited the digits over the phone he repeated it to my daughter and let her type it in herself. He didn’t pull over and stop the car. Part of me just shakes my head at this but the other part of me completely understands after having witnessed my Dad entering the password on his own. It is similar to watching a monkey use tools, all of the anticipation of wondering if he can do it and all of a sudden he is in!
I would explain to him why this was a bad idea, but he is so bad with technology that he has to have my daughter operate the television when he babysits. I get the impression he may not have been able to enter the password on his own even if he hadn’t been driving at the time. Seriously, he signs his text messages “Dad” on the far right of the text. So I am not surprised when he does something like this. We laugh and change the password. It could be worse, and knowing my Dad, it could really be a lot worse!
by Jen Logan | Jun 13, 2017 | Lemonade out of Lemons, Life, Screwing Things Up
Someone has to sink this ship!
My Dad has been talking about owning a boat for a few years. For every birthday, father’s day and Christmas he has asked for a boat, and he has received a variety of small plastic toys in return. This started when my parents bought a house on a lake the same year my daughter was born. They bought a couple of wave runners that summer which they have utilized fairly frequently on sunny days since then. I ride them twice a summer, when we are bringing them into the water for the first time and when we are taking them out of the water for the winter. My husband and I are not really “lake” people. As a matter of fact, I don’t like swimming in lakes. At all. This is why I was not exactly overjoyed when my parents bought a house on a lake. They, however, have slowly been turning into “lake” people since then. And lake people own boats. (more…)
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