Random Word Wednesday: SPONTANEOUS

 Another random word that made me giggle, all by myself in the library as I work on stacking up library holds before books are even released. HOW NOT SPONTANEOUS IS THAT?

As I have really discovered in my time-track Tuesdays, I am a Very Scheduled Person, and that's how I like to live my life. Certain things happen at certain times every single day. I always do word games on my phone from 5-2:25. I always work out on the elliptical from 5:40-6:40-ish. I always spend my early evenings in the car doing large loops around my town, picking up kids and dropping them off and then picking them up again. I always take a shower before bed and go to sleep with wet hair and wake up wondering why I am not already gorgeous. (Also I always listen to my current audio book in the shower).

I even get into pretty hardore food patterns. Right now, I MUST eat an everything bagel with whipped cream cheese and lox every morning for breakfast.

Having an unpredictable puppy helps get me out of my routine rut (but even she is a sweet little creature of habit and always goes to bed at the same time every night, for example). Maybe my love of a consistent schedule is why I love little kids so much-- we just get each other.

Time Tracking Tuesday: A Friday

 So far, I have shared with you my house, kid, and dog-free MONDAY and my work and solo parent scramble TUESDAY. Now, thanks to the magic of Laura Tremaine's One Day Hour by Hour (#OneDayHH) on Instagram, I have a record of a FRIDAY to share with you, too.

Yes, I went back on IG for the day. But! Instead of posting to my feed like I have for previous years, I did stories all day and then a carousel at the end since I am sneaking on IG to post a #100happydays picture between now and the end of the year.

Fridays are a mixed bag for me. Ben is in town, so I have the freedom to work all damn day with no domestic issues, but also, we tend to add in kid-centric things this day, so I usually do have house or kid work, too. I had high school conferences with Jack, for example, and this coming Friday, I will have middle school conferences. I did preschool drop and pick up to give Ben space to be on meetings, and I spent my work time at my favorite library to cut out my usual commute time (especially since I was aon campus every other day last week).

I planned to take a walk with a friend, but I double booked conferences (blergh). I have a reach goal of doing coffee/lunch/afternoon walk with a friend every Friday, so we'll see how that goes now that I have said it out loud. **crosses fingers**

Friday, November 15, hour-by-hour.

5:44 am: I have already has coffee and played word games on my phone, and here I am wiping the boys' bathroom before hopping on the elliptical:

6:44: Minnie is the first kid awake, and we looked at Chatbooks on the couch for a few minutes because the dog was still sleeping, so I didn't want to wake her up doing laundry.

7:55: I cleaned all the bathrooms and made all the upstairs beds, but then I just peaced out and left Ben to do the heavy lifting with Annabel and the crew. Selfie with Dorothy before either of us put on makeup:

8:32: Because Benw as home, Minnie is only TWO MINUTES late to school, which is basically EARLY. I forgot how annoying it is to wait while fellow parents sign their kids in and hang stuff up in their sneauxflakes' cubbies. GET OUT OF MY WAAAAAAAAAAAY.

9:36: Jack's AP English teacher thinks I am a monster because I asked Jack if he used ChatGPT to write an essay the teacher was talking through with me. Listen. I teach college kids. I know what a robot-written paper sounds like. I asked the teacher how he checks for robots. He def thinks I'm the worst. BTW: I think there might have been some AI in this essay, and I don't actually feel bad for asking.

10:25: Jack's science teacher is awesome. And Jack is so over me by now, but he DID take a picture of me showing off how tall I am in platforms. After his conference and before his math cocnference, we went to the car wash and OMG did my car need it.

We used our last hour before preschool pick up to sit at Starbucks with holiday drinks. I did a thousand emails, and Jack worked on his essay with zero chat bot assistance. #winning

11:57: Home for lunch and a quick snuggle.

12:31 WORK

1:47: WORK

2:33 WORK

3:45 Walk because ALL OF THAT SITTING-- woof. So much sitting!

4:40: With Dorothy and Minnie on the way to ballet via Culver's for a snack for Dorothy (fries and an Oreo milkshake #MOTY) and a kids' meal for Minnie to eat at ballet. Annabel was taking a nap at home. Jack was work, and Ben went to a Dive with an Olympian clinic with Coop and drove the carpool home (spoiler: the Olympian is a Badger freshman who competed for Germany)

5:38: Dorothy is dancing while Minnie slooooooowly eats dinner and does a Highlight puzzle special magazine insert

6:00: Quick pic of ballet (this is a multi-age, multi-level team class for kids who-- like Dorothy and a friend of hers-- cannot make both of their required ballet leveled classes a week OR have never taken ballet before but need it for another style they're doing this year, like musical theater)

7:58: Managed to grab a pic in the 7pm hour but did not take a bedtime snap like I planned when I was putting Minnie down. This is Ben and me sneaking out for dinner with Minnie in bed and Dorothy and Cooper showered and relaxing and Jack on the way home

8:32: Dinner. I had 2 vodkas, which was maybe not the best plan, come to think of it.

9:05: St. Denis Medical with Dorothy and Annabel (I like that show-- super cute).

10:05: Showered and IN BED, wet hair and all. Phew!

Money Monday

 Ugh-- I stopped tracking mid week last week when the wheels sort of fell off. Nothing fun, you guys. A parking ticket. A note from a COLLECTIONS AGENCY because BEN AND COOPER did not pay a PA turnpike toll going to dive nats last summer (SO STOOPID), prescription food for the dog (we missed a call from the vet about her PARASITES TWO WEEKS AGO ARE YOU KIDDING ME), lunch account payments because the kids hate the planet and will spend like $40 a week on single-serve plastic water bottles--even though they pack their lunches and have lost ALL OF OUR cheap Gatorade sports bottles AT SCHOOL, preschool fundraiser winter decor, a big choreography fee for Dorothy's dance trio, some holidays gifts at long last, sportsball fees because it is high school dive season-- etc etc etc.

Note: I bought Minnie the horse stable/ manor house thing she fell in love with the Amazon toy catalog and has been talking about for WEEKS. And then she changed her allegiance to the Barbie Dream House the literal DAY IT ARRIVED. We told her maybe she could wait and see if she still wants that on her birthday, but she is pretty passionate. **eye roll**

Ben swears that we are saving a ton of money because we aren't buying stupid crap every day (Annabel got 2 new sweaters last week tho), and I am choosing to trust him blindly (not smart if you see the turnpike thing above).

One AWESOME thing I bought and DO NOT regret is THIS shampoo and THIS conditioner. Yes, this is the same company who makes the moisturizer I love, and the hair stuff? IS ALSO AWESOME. I had a sample that I brought with me to Peoria. I used it after the ball and fell asleep with wet hair and woke up with a GLOSSY MANE. It was like the hair fairy visited me in my sleep. IT'S SO GOOD YOU GUYS. I went straight to Blue Mercury to buy it the second we got back to Madison.

A MAJOR change I have seen since we started being aware of the money we hemorrhage on the daily is the amount of take out, fast food, bar food, etc, we eat on a regular basis. That is to say, we almost never eat out at all, and I don't miss it even a little bit (probably because if I do miss something, we eat it. We had lunch at the golf course bar a couple weekends ago, and it was perfect. We have enjoyed some sushi take out nights, and we have gone on a sandwich run here and there, DQ on the way home from diving occasionally). Mostly, though, we eat the fridge, and it hasn't even really been a hard adjustment or felt like a sacrifice. And! We are definitely making better nutritional choices.

This week, I want to buy one major gift for each kid and figure out the rest of our winter break travel arrangements. **crosses fingers** I am also pledging to write everything down in my calendar even if the numbers make me feel yucky.

Pic of the Week

 THE SIDE EYE!!!

Screen Time for Big Kids

 THANK YOU for this submission on my NaBloPoMo post ideas form:

How do you handle technology with your kids (and how has it changed over the years). New middle school parent here and looking for advice from more seasoned parents about what’s worked/not worked, what you love/hate about kids having phones, etc.

I have NEVER been very pearl-clutchy about screen time. I have always felt like if I want the kids to put down their screens, then I need to have something better for them to do. So, if I need to get work done, I care NOT AT ALL what kind of screen a kid is using. And I will say-- none of the kids is even a little bit weird about screens, even though everyone but Minnie has a phone and also a TV in their bedroom. (Minnie has an iPad, though). Each boy has his very own XBox, and Dorothy has a Nintendo Switch. Everyone has their own computer and/or iPad (H and J have both). WE HAVE A LOT OF SCREENS, is what I am saying.

We have a few basic practices: no screens at the dinner table (a policy for all). No texting while driving (duh). No phones or computers in bedrooms overnight (even Ben and me).

I also set iPhone screen time limits as needed. Dorothy and Cooper do not use their phones AT ALL during the school day (I think because schools have gotten really good really quickly at establishing healthy screen boundaries), so I am not worried about them, generally. Jack and Harry both needed iPhone screen time limits in high school or they would waste so much time on their phones. I am interested to see how this works for Dorothy and Cooper who have grown up with more phones in school and way better phone policies. Maybe they will not need me to manage from afar? I love Apple screen time controls-- very easy to navigate as a parent and a kid, and they have provided great limits, as far as I am concerned.

(I have no idea how Harry is doing in college without any screen guardrails. I know that college instructors generally don't care if you are depriving yourself of learning, so I hope he is able to self-regulate.)

(Also, when gun violence at school is no longer a thing, then kids can be phone-free at school. Until then, I want them to have phones-- that's my hot take).

Cooper signed up for Instagram literally ON HIS 13th BIRTHDAY. Harry and Jack both have IG and Snap Chat, and Harry is sort of on FB and I assume on Tik Tok. Dorothy can have IG when she's 13, too. I am not on Snap Chat or Tik Tok, so I feel less good about those until the kids are older. I think Harry got Snap Chat as a sophomore because that's how all his friends were making plans, so he needed it to communicate, and I was sympathetic to that argument. I have no idea when he got Tik Tok-- I assume over the summer when I took all the parental controls off his phone (LOL). I put 1-hour social media limits on the kids' phones, but I usually approve extra time requests when they come in.

We have talked as a family about the idea of a digital footprint, and Ben and I love to share stories about people doing dumb stuff on the internet and facing huge consequences in their real lives as food for thought. Kind of like how in college Ben's mom used to send him obituaries of people with lung cancer after she found out he was a smoker. 

We just don't really make screen time an issue, and it has never been an issue. Generally, the kids watch TV every day. They generally play some kind of video game most days. Minnie plays on her iPad when we drive to diving and dance.(Although she has started to get into audio books in the car and I love this for both of us. Sideways Stories from Wayside School was a HUGE hit, also The Weirdies. We are currently starting the Ramona series, and she is not in love yet **sob**) Dorothy is constantly texting and chatting with friends. But!  They also play with toys and go outside and read and draw and do lots of other things. 

For us, the kids get phones the Christmas of their 5th grade year-- this is when activities run later and longer, and I want to make sure they can be dropped off and have a way to get in touch with me. Plus I can track their every move on Life360, which is so, so satisfying.

I think I am in the minority among parents I now in terms of screen time regulation. Most people have much stricter limits and these complicated management systems (before you can have screens you must ..., etc). For us, screen use/TV watching has just sort of ebbed and flowed organically. Usually, the kids are more interested in doing other stuff, and, so far, we haven't had any dramZ about screens. 

Dorothy's pediatrician asked about screen limits at her last check up, and Dorothy said, "Um, well, my TV has a sleep timer?" Then the doctor asked more pointedly about phones at the table and social media, and Dorothy was like "Of course not," to phones at dinner and "I'm not even a teenager!" to the social media question. LOL for days. 

Movie night, my fave screen time:

Minnie, not choosing a screen, even though she totally can have one any time:

What about you? I assume you have more boundaries than I do-- tell me about them.

5 on a Friday: Things that Suck (47/52)

 1. The 3 hours of my life I will never get back that I wasted at the Apple Store and Best Buy two weekends ago, picking up my repaired phone, setting my repaired phone back up, and getting a screen protector for my repaired phone. NOTE: If you buy lifetime screen protectors someplace, make sure you HAVE THE OLD ONE WITH YOU even if the genius at Apple THREW IT AWAY. Also, make sure you buy it with your current email and phone number, not your husband's work email from 20 years ago and a freaking LANDLINE you barely remember even having. Minnie was THRILLED to play Mario Kart at Best Buy, though, so that was happy **shrug** (I almost started crying on the phone with campus tech support because I needed my email for my phone's e-sim but I could not duo authenticate without my phone-- it was a whole Thing).

2. GAH. THE FREAKING MICROWAVE. Ben bought one at Best Buy (bad karma at this store, I guess) that is the same one we have only 13 years newer. We took the old one out ON SATURDAY TWO WEEKS AGO and thought we could just install the new one in its place since all the mounting hardware was already installed, BUT WE CANNOT because in the last 13 years, GE has changed the number of slots in the back of the machine and corresponding hooks on the bracket that's drilled into our studs. SO WE HAVE INSTALLERS COMING TODAY. For an EXTRA $200. Love that for us **eye roll** Also! When I got my screen protector, I had the Best Buy manager change my contact info the current info that I used to buy the microwave and installation package. So now I have 2 Best Buy accounts that are not merged and will probably be a huge pain when the guys come to install the microwave. **sob**

3. Annabel is not getting the hang of going outside to go to the bathroom as quickly as we might like her to, and I blame the weather. Still, she is tiny and darling, so she's still a net positive. Here she is with a stolen Calico Critter that I rescued ad returned to Minnie's room right after I snapped these pics:

4. That Minnie cannot always be this adorable little squishy blob of a person. I am gong to need some grand kids in the next 10 years.

5.  Duplex life for these ppl. AWKWARD.

BONUS: OUR OVEN IS BROKEN. You might remember we bought it almost exactly one year ago because we shattered the cook top. Ironically, the old OVEN worked just fine **sob**

Thankful Thursday: The Cinderella Edition

 WE WENT TO A BALL last weekend, you guys!!!

It was so fun to get super dressed up and have an adult night out. 

I bleached the ever loving shit out of my teeth (they still hurt!)

I also ended up ditching my sheer black dotted hose (even though the dots matched the tiny rhinestones on the giant bow I wore on my low-tech chignon) because they were too dark and went with bare legs at the last minute

I even got a manicure and shoved all my rings on my fat little fingers

After dinner and the program (it was a fundraiser for a state-of-the-art cancer center) Earth, Wind & Fire gave a private concert, which was of course really awesome.

We stayed the night at Ben’s Peoria place and then turned into pumpkins the next morning when we went home to our kids.

Our kids! Who stayed home with their LEGAL ADULT BROTHER in charge— having a literal adult kid is a GAME CHANGER. We suddenly cannot wait for our 20th anniversary this summer.

(I pregamed with ice cream from my favorite place in the world, natch)