Jenyfer Matthews

It’s been a busy week here in southern Ohio. I bought a manual transmission car AND learned to drive it – I think I’ve pretty much done it all at this point: starting on a slope; stalling the engine at an intersection; driving up a hill; driving in mist, on the highway in driving rain, and also in snow flurries. I even put gas in it the other day A week ago I wouldn’t have thought it possible that I’d be tooling around in a five-speed like I knew what I was doing. Go me!

I also enrolled the children in a very nice local elementary school. The transition for them has not been without its bumps – neither child knew the Pledge of Allegiance for instance, and the way they teach handwriting in the British system is very different from the American system – but they have both found a few friends and overall seem to be adjusting fine. The first words out of my daughter’s mouth when I picked her up after school yesterday were, “Every day it gets better.” After all the turmoil of the last month, hearing her say that really made me feel good.

I truly hope that by getting us all into a routine, I’ll be able to get back to writing again soon. As you might expect, I’ve been a little busy and distracted (and stressed and depressed) lately.

Today I will make some calls and try to arrange some tennis lessons for the children. Both the children are extremely high energy and the lack of organized sports and the cold drippy weather hasn’t made it very easy for them to expend as much energy as *I* would like them to. Fingers crossed that I’ll be able to arrange for at least one lesson a week. Next on the agenda is a community soccer league and a YMCA membership for swimming.

The weekend – who knows? Maybe I’ll just load them up and hit the highway. I’ve got wheels now so the possibilities are endless. Well, not really but it doesn’t sound as good to say “the possibilities are limited to a 50 mile radius and a budget of $20.”

This week Ohio, next week…Ohio…

The sleet on Monday afternoon ended up delaying my husband’s flight out to London by two hours, but the children sure did appreciate the overnight snow the next day. Ever the mom, I used the snow as the carrot to get them to do their school workbooks. It was amazing how efficient and cooperative they were about it, with the fresh shiny snow beckoning them.

I admit it – after a decade in the desert, I’m not much of a cold weather person. I like the idea of it more than I like the reality. But after the last few weeks, we all needed a little bit of levity to break up all the tension. After the school work was done and we’d all had a snack, I walked the children up to a nearby community park.

(click any image to enlarge)

This is my snow angel. What? You didn’t actually think I was going to LAY IN THE SNOW did you??

There is something irresistible about fresh snow.

The only picture I would allow of me right now.

When you walk from place to place and really look, nature always offers something beautiful to look at no matter where you are.

I saw these before the snowfall – they are even prettier with the snow filling.

I don’t expect the snow to last all that long, but we’ll enjoy it while it lasts. I’ll be especially grateful if the cold temperatures and the snow play encourages my children to sleep earlier at night…

Monday is the day the new maid comes and was pretty much another wasted day. Even though she is doing all the heavy cleaning, I just can’t seem to settle down and get anything productive done while she is bustling around. Notice how I keep calling her the “new” maid, even though she’s been coming for three weeks now? I guess in my mind I’m not convinced I’m going to keep her.

Overall she does a good job and my windows have been looking really good. But I hate having to go behind her and put the knick-knacks back the way I like them or flip the sofa cushions so that the zipper is on the inside or check the latches on the windows so that they don’t fly open in a hard wind and slam into a flower pot (as happened last week) I know, I know – these are pretty small potatoes over all and not much to complain about. But I’ve notice the same staple on the floor behind the bathroom door now for two weeks. I’ve left it there just to see how long before she notices it. Another tiny reminder to me that I would be doing it all so much better.

This week I hid my dish sponge before she came. Yes, I’m sick – and very picky about how my sponges are used and for what purpose. I nearly outwitted myself as I couldn’t find it when I went to wash dishes later in the evening after dinner.

I had planned to start on a new quilting project this week. The first thing I needed to do was to wash all the fabrics I intended to use. I started that, but then began to second guess my color / pattern choices. Nearly a week later and I haven’t cut a piece. I’m still debating color choices, trying to put things together in my mind and see the answer before I cut anything. I want to use my precious balis and batiks but it’s so hard to take the plunge to cut into them.

I’ve been going to a chiropractor for a few weeks for a problem that I’ve had for years – stiff shoulders. Stiff enough that turning my neck is uncomfortable. So stiff that I’ve managed to pinch a nerve in my shoulder so that that when I lie on my back my shoulder hurts and eventually my arm will fall asleep. Taking a break from heavy cleaning is actually not a bad thing from that perspective.

I’ve had x-rays done to look for any structural issues and good news is that my upper back doesn’t look too too bad. A few degenerative disks, but given how bad my lower back is, that isn’t surprising. Nope, main problem is muscle tension. The chiropractor has twisted and cracked me very thoroughly in the last few weeks and it seems to be helping. He’s also given me a prescription: continue doing yoga and also watch my posture. Shoulders back and down.

It’s kind of ridiculous how often I have to remind myself to adjust my shoulders down. Whenever did I get in such a habit of hunching them up? It’s not only a problem when I sit over my computer or my sewing machine either. It’s all the time. My husband carries stress in his lower back, mine is all in my shoulders. Overall, my life is pretty good so it’s absolutely absurd how often I have to tell myself to relax.

Sometimes I find things to worry about and other times my daughter helpfully supplies them – like when I discovered she went behind my back and started a Facebook profile behind my back. I happened upon it by accident and when I went to check it out, her privacy controls were next to nonexistent. Is it any wonder my shoulders are stiff? Even my acid reflux flared up when I found that. She’s lucky she’s been away on a class trip for a few days to let me cool down and think things out before I confront her on her deception. She is only ten and has no idea of what she is inviting into her life by exploring the internet without a guide.

Raising children in today’s world is a stressful job and judging by my experiences with my own mother, motherhood means you never stop worrying about your children. My youngest is only eight so I anticipate much to stew about in the coming years. Yoga or not, my shoulders will likely be rigid until I die.

My children take the bus to school, which means when they lose something at school I have to rely on them to find it because I’m not at the school every day to follow them around. There is a central lost and found and most of the time they find whatever it has gone astray within a week or so. On occasion, however, there are so many things missing that I am compelled to go and look for myself.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate to lose things?

Yesterday was one of those days. On my list of missing items were several water bottles, my daughter’s swim bag (containing a towel, her swimsuit, a NEW pair of goggles and NEW swim cap), and my son’s swimsuit and goggles – which were mysteriously removed from his swim bag which he lost and then later recovered. I had little hope for the water bottles (I’ve since given up sending my daughter with “good” water bottles and instead just reuse disposable Gatorade bottles!), but I really did want to get my son’s swimsuit back. I only bought it at the beginning of the school year and it wasn’t cheap.

Every time I visit lost and found and I am astonished at what has accumulated there. How can people not notice when their children come home minus their school shoes? Their name brand jackets? How can children not notice they are missing their underwear??? The PTA eventually sells the unmarked, unclaimed uniform pieces that end up in lost and found. They must make a killing. There were piles of sweatshirts, shorts, and tops. I could outfit my kitchen with the number of unclaimed plastic containers just sitting there.

I did not find any of our water bottles, though it looks like my daughter isn’t the only one who has trouble hanging on to them. I was happy to find both my son’s swimsuit and his goggles. Why they were removed from his bag remains a mystery – especially as they were labeled with his name. While I was digging, I ran across what looked like a brand new pair of Adidas tennis shoes. Again, how do people not notice these are missing?

I have two theories that actually overlap. One is that the vast majority of the families at the children’s school are employed in the oil field ($$$) and usually have maids who look after the laundry. The maids probably don’t really pay attention to what is coming in – all the uniform pieces look the same and they just wash them and put them away. They don’t have any investment in looking to see if the item is the right size or has someone else’s name written on the collar. (I suspect that this was the fate of my daughter’s swim bag) The other theory is that most of these children probably have so much stuff that if one pair of shoes goes missing they just wear another and no one even notices the missing pair.

My own children have what they need – nothing more, nothing less. I can assure you that I would notice if their shoes went missing. Children grow fast so while it might make sense to have more than one pair of school shoes in case one pair gets lost, it doesn’t make sense financially to me to buy multiple pairs that might only be worn for a short time. Treating shoes like disposable items seems an especially conspicuous waste in a country where there are little barefoot children on the streets selling travel size packets of tissue to make their way instead of being in school. I might be taking an unnecessarily harsh view of things that has nothing to do with the reality of the situation, but every time I go to the lost and found, it’s pretty much the same situation.

To be fair, many of the women I know from the school spend a tremendous amount of time doing charitable work for the poor in Egypt. For me, it starts at home – waste not, want not.

On another note, I took this picture while I was out scouting the neighborhood for Halloween damage on Monday morning. They never even stirred as I walked up to take the picture. I suspect they kept up late the night before!

Can’t you just hear The Beatles singing “All We Need Is Love” ?

My weekend will be spent keeping the children moving in different directions and tired enough that when they are in one place, they’ll be too tired to fight.

Hope you have a great weekend!

It’s a new school year and I’ve made a resolution to take a step back from my children’s homework assignments. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

All in all, they don’t have as much homework on a daily basis as I recall having. My son typically has one worksheet a day, the subject varying by day of the week, plus a short reading book. My daughter’s assignment pattern is similar, only now that she’s a bit older the assignments are more complex and are given at the beginning of the week. It’s up to her to get them done and back when they are due.

My son still requires a fair amount of prodding and encouragement to get things done. But instead of nagging, threatening, or bribing him as I did last year, I’m backing off. If he wants help, I’ll help him. If he doesn’t want to do it, I don’t push – but I remind him that he will have to explain to his teacher and the head teacher (principal) why he didn’t get it done. He procrastinates, but has yet to shirk it all together.

The school issued my daughter a laptop this year, the idea being that they could use it in school and out to complete their assignments. In addition, she has a weekly planner. When I think what I could have accomplished in high school with a laptop and internet access! But I digress. She’s only ten – so far her favorite thing to do with her laptop is to use the webcam to make silly videos of herself and her brother.

I’m trying to stay out of her homework as well, but I haven’t been totally successful on that front. One assignment was to make an oragami crane. The instructions might as well have been written in Japanese as far as she was concerned. She colored the paper and I made the crane. Another assignment involved her finding a news article that discussed “antisocial behavior”. That topic covers a lot of ground so I admit I hovered nearby and provided guidance so that she wouldn’t run across anything too shocking or disgusting. In the end we found an article about a teenager who was arrested for shoplifting 17 tubes of toothpaste.

(Toothpaste?? I suppose he had his reasons. Makes me wonder if there is some ingredient in toothpaste that can be boiled down to crack or something)

When I was ten, my parents both worked full time so I had a key to the house to let myself in after school. I had an older sister who was usually around doing her own thing, but I remember getting my own snacks and doing my homework myself right away because I couldn’t go out to play until it was finished. No one looked over my shoulders or checked up on me but I always got all my work done (never mind the fact that I nearly failed math in third grade) It’s very hard for me to imagine my own children being so self-sufficient, however, they have recently started making their own snacks. Here’s hoping by the end of the year, they’ll both be a bit more independent. Maybe they’ll even have mastered the toaster by then!

This weekend kicks off soccer season – our first game(s) are Saturday morning. My husband volunteered me to organize snacks for my son’s first game, which I suppose is only fair since I volunteered him to be the assistant coach!

Since this is my fourth soccer season, you’d think I wouldn’t stress myself out about what to bring. Nope. I still worry myself over which way to go – healthy snacks that parents will approve of, or sugary snacks that will be popular with the kids. The only improvement this time around is that I didn’t worry about it for as long. I got two varieties of granola bars (sugar with a bit of fiber thrown in), oranges to be cut into wedges, and drink boxes. I refuse to bake because I can’t stand to see a child take a bite of something I’ve taken the time to make and then throw it away. I take it much less personally if they reject my granola bars and oranges.

The worry that I used to waste on soccer snacks has however bled into my children’s school lunches. Their school does not have a cafeteria, everyone has to bring their lunch. Generally speaking, I like that situation because at least I can send them something worthwhile. It does present some challenges on a practical level though because my son has two snack periods and my daughter, who has a longer day, has three. They are both very good eaters so I end up having to pack what amounts to a picnic for each child each and every school day.

Believe it or not, I’m not always at my best at 6am when I have to pack these lunches and I’ve gotten into a rut with packing the same cheese / PB&J sandwiches, a piece of fruit / sliced veggies, and a muffin / granola bar / cookie every day. Even children, who tend to like to eat the same things all the time, get tired of things after a couple of years of the same old things. So I’ve been trying to mix it up a bit.

I bought some small cheese pizzas from a local bakery to take the place of a sandwich, and also bought some “fancy” sandwich rolls. The cheese might be the same, but a change of bread shape adds a little pizazz, as does a slice of tomato. Last week I got some croissants and sent them to school stuffed with smoked salmon. Hummus topped with pomegranate seeds was a hit and I’m planning to make a pasta salad this week for a change of pace. Once a week or so I give them a real thrill and toss in a bag of chips or a candy bar.

It’s only the first month of school though. We’ll see how long I can keep this up.

Overall, I don’t think they have anything to complain about. I was lucky to get cheese and crackers and maybe a Little Debbie snack cake. My son prefers spreadable goat cheese with jam. How long before he starts demanding a small carafe of wine instead of his usual juice box?

As I expected, it’s been an adjustment getting used to the time change and getting up while it’s still dark outside. I’ve had to really pull myself out of bed every morning this week by sheer force of will and responsibility. If I don’t get up, the kids miss school – incentive enough to get up and going.

This morning my son woke me up at 4am – he’d sneezed out a loose tooth and felt the need to tell me about it IMMEDIATELY. I suppose that’s a good thing as I was able to help him arrange things so that the Fairy could make a last minute stop before dawn. However, while he was able to get back to sleep, I was not. Sigh.

When I was a child and had a loose tooth, I would wiggle and worry that tooth until I got it out. It sometimes required liberal applications of Now & Later candies (a sort of taffy), biting down firmly and then pulling up fast, but I was determined to get that tooth out and cash in. My own children are strangely reluctant to pull their teeth – which in turn leads to some really odd and often inconvenient retrieval situations.

My daughter’s first loose tooth was hanging by mere strings but she refused to pull it. She ended up knocking it out with the straw of her drink during a movie – which in turn meant that I was on the floor of the theater looking for it under her seat with the flashlight on my cell phone amongst all the spilled popcorn kernels. I found it and we put it under her pillow that night – which just happened to be the same night that we were going on our summer vacation and also moving away from the United Arab Emirates forever, so it’s not at if I didn’t have other things on my mind. The Tooth Fairy paid her $1US which she was determined to spend in the Dubai airport if possible (she ended up having to wait).

Her brother helped with the removal of her second tooth, while they were playing in the bathtub. He was sticking his finger in her mouth and she was trying to bite him. She got him just as he pulled back. Ouch.

Another of her teeth fell out in the middle of the night while she was at a sleepover. The only two that didn’t actually fall out because of gravity were pulled by a dentist because they were in the way and she was too passive to pull them herself. That cost so much money that I told her that I didn’t think the Tooth Fairy paid for dentist assisted extractions! She got the next couple out on her own.

My son was much more proactive about his first tooth – he was so determined to get it out that he gave it a mighty twist and just ripped it out. The blood and pain put him off of that plan for the subsequent teeth. He is on #5 now and his new strategy is to amuse his friends by twisting the loose tooth backwards and smiling. Once he’s done that trick a few times, the tooth usually falls out. Eventually.

Between them, we’ve got a whole lot of teeth to go. I wonder how long it is until one of those teeth just goes missing entirely? Or until one of them wakes up and catches the Fairy?

How much did you get for your teeth from the Tooth Fairy? I got about $0.25 and my children get $1 or 10LE (Egyptian) but a friend recently told me that her kids get $10. I hope that my children and her children never get to talking or there is going to be trouble!!

My poor son is the victim of his birth order and my thrifty nature. If I can get a little more use out of something by handing it down to him when his sister is done with it, I will. I’ve saved untold amounts of money from the fact that until recently my daughter was the ultimate tomboy.

The Christmas my daughter was three, Santa brought her a pretty red Huffy bike with white wall tires and chrome fenders. It was a nice sturdy bike with a pedal brake, which is much easier for a child to learn to use and not all that easy to find (not that I would know since Santa brought this one) When she outgrew it and got a new bike, I handed it down to my son, in spite of the fact that it was a “girl bike” with a downward sloping bar. I figured that was only in his favor – he is a wild boy on a bike and what engineering genius thought it was a better idea for a man to have a high crossbar anyway??

Just before my summer vacation, my son’s red bike got a flat. We tried to patch it but the tube was a loss. So were the tires – and since my daughter is now ten and those tires never gave us an ounce of trouble in SEVEN YEARS I could hardly complain. I ordered a couple of thorn resistant tubes and new tires to pick up in the US and bring back.

In the meantime, my son grew taller of course. He’s almost too big for that wonderful red bike now. He rode his sister’s larger bike recently and it looked much more size appropriate. I had thought of getting him a new bike for his birthday, and I may still, but while every toy store in town has a selection of bicycles most of them are total crap – you wouldn’t believe how many of those locally available bikes I’ve seen people buy and throw away within a year. And most have hand brakes besides.

A good friend of mine who left this summer also left two bikes behind at the building where we were neighbors before I moved in February. Her son had the same kind of Huffy bike my daughter has, with a pedal brake, so I decided to go and take a look at it, with the idea that maybe it could serve as a stop-gap for my son while I look around for a good bike in the meantime.

My friend’s son is a wild man and he rode that bike hard. Extremely hard. I knew that when I went to see it, but I figured that if it could survive my friend’s son (who was also a close friend of my son) that it must be decently constructed. That other boy makes my son look almost sedate!

The bike had a torn up seat (which it turns out was a replacement that had previously been on my son’s toddler bike), was missing its hand grips and one pedal. But since it was overall in okay condition in spite of the rough treatment it received, I decided that I could make it work. The bike is black and neon green. Now it’s a Frankenstein bike. We cannibalized a few bikes destined for the junk man and replaced the seat with a red and black one and took a purple pedal off of my son’s toddler bike. I’ll have to hunt down some hand grips and also get a new tube for the flat tire and a couple of matching pedals if I can find them, but otherwise, it’s good to go.

Lucky for me, my son doesn’t care about the hodge podge of mismatched parts – he is thrilled with his “new” bike. He’ll be even happier when I get that tire fixed…

This is what happens when mommy is too sick and tired to play with the children on a holiday weekend and allows them to play with her digital camera instead of taking them out.

They take pictures of the television.

They also took pictures of each other, but frankly, most of these were better.

See what I mean?

I’m going to need a reprieve on the new-recipe-a-month resolution thing. Pain and illness are both excellent appetite suppressants and no inspiration for cooking for others. I’ll try to do TWO in June as soon as I’m up to speed again. We’ll see how that works out…