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Archives for March 2011

School Trip

March 31, 2011 by Susanne 1 Comment

Today I went on a school trip with my son’s class. We went to visit the somewhat local newspaper. Though I took lots of pictures I can’t show you most of them since you can see so many children’s faces. But I thought this one was safe. On our way back to the bus station we also looked at a very pretty old church. This is a St Leonhard’s church for the patron saint of horses:

school trip

The children are all looking at the gorgeous ceiling to find saints that they know:

st

Filed Under: life

Hurry, hurry, hurry

March 18, 2011 by Susanne 3 Comments

These days I spent most time with my son nagging him to hurry up already. From the minute I wake him in the morning to the time when I put his lights out in the evening our encounters are a string of, “Faster, you’re late, hurry up already.” This is not pleasant. I have come to resent the way he closes the zipper of his jacket or his shoes. It’s taking so much time.

He really is very slow in dressing and undressing himself, and in getting ready for anything. He – like me – has a problem with transitions. He – like me – also has a problem perceiving time. He doesn’t really feel how much time has passed, or how long things are taking. This is a real problem when he needs to get ready for school in the mornings, when he has to get home after school, and when he has to get ready for all his extra-curricular activities. His teacher even wrote about it on his report card. How much she doesn’t like reminding him every single day to get ready, get dressed and get home. Even the women who volunteer to help the children crossing streets are getting annoyed with him because he’s always the last one, and they stay there waiting and waiting instead of going home.

We have tried a lot of things, counting, setting a timer, not doing anything and sending him to school without breakfast, but what I mostly do is this constant nagging. It’s totally automatic by now, and I guess neither my son nor me listens to it. It’s just an unpleasant background noise. Sometimes I wonder why I keep doing it since my son has turned deaf to it anyway but then I found I keep nagging because at least that’s a way to release some of my frustration. So I nag, nag, nag, and then I get angry, and tap my foot.

The other day, when he was telling us that the volunteer women had threatened to report him to the school we thought about how he could become better at this. His problem is that he is easily distracted, and so when he puts on his shoes and clothes after school, and chats with the other children he won’t do both at the same time. He either chats or gets ready.

All of a sudden I realized that he doesn’t have a way to measure how much time has passed. He doesn’t know if he is going fast or slow, he is just doing one thing after the other when it occurs to him. He lives pretty much in his head so the fact that he is still standing there in slippers while most of the other children have already gone home doesn’t register with him. And it doesn’t help that the friend who walks with him is about equally slow.

So we talked it all through and for the first time ever I asked him about the other children. He said there were quite a few who were as slow as him. And we asked, “And do they live as far away as you? And do they have volunteers waiting for them as well?” Turns out that those boys live just across the street from the school. So I asked him about the children that are getting ready much faster than him. And there is one boy, his best friend who gets ready very fast. So I told my son to watch him, and try to match him. And he did, and at least he is only late coming home from school, not extremely late.

The problem is that apart from us and the volunteers waiting for him, and getting worried because there might have happened something to him, he also has two days when he comes home, has 15 minutes to eat lunch, and has to leave for school again. Now, this was his choice. We told him not to sign up for those things but he really wanted to, and so we sit there, wait for him with lunch ready on the spot, and then tell him to hurry up because he’s late.

Evenings have been getting better, and then I remembered that that was when I told him the exact time when he had to be in pajamas, and then when the lights had to be out. Of course he couldn’t know. My husband and I knew that we wanted him to turn out the lights at 8.30 but nobody had bothered to tell him. The minute we told him he could look at the clock and see how many time he had left. Of course it helps that he can read time now. You can’t really do that with most younger children but with a second-grader you can.

So yesterday evening I sat him down and told him that he has to wake up at 6.45, get out of bed at 7.00, be dressed and ready for breakfast at 7.10, brush his teeth and get ready for school at 7.25, and leave a little later than 7.30.

Well, today it worked like a charm. He did struggle a bit, and then I know it’s quite a tight schedule, but he made it. I sat the clock next to him while he was putting on his clothes, and for once he realized that he does not have time to read or play in the morning. He could sit down for breakfast and instead of me telling him, “You’re late, you’re late, you should be brushing your teeth now.” he was the one glancing at the clock saying, “I only have four more minutes before I have to brush my teeth.”

I know that our schedule in the mornings is a bit too tight but I also know that neither my son nor I are ready to get up earlier than we do because that would mean to going to bed earlier as well. And having more time does not always lead to having less stress. I know that when I have the feeling to have plenty of time for something I often end up doing everything so slow that I have to hurry up in the end anyway.

Of course, now that it worked (once) I’m a bit angry at myself for not realizing this earlier. And I’m a bit afraid that this might be one of those things that work once, and then nevermore. But then I know that when I, as a grown woman, finally realized that catching the 7.05 bus meant leaving the house at 6.55, and that meant brushing my teeth and putting on makeup at 6.45, and that meant having breakfast at 6.15, and that meant getting up at 5.45, and that meant setting my alarm for 5.30 – that felt like a revelation to me. “You mean in order to catch the bus at 7.05 I have to set the alarm more than 1 1/2 hours earlier? Oh, that’s why my timing never worked. No wonder I had to rush and scramble every single morning. Duh.”

Duh indeed. I really hope that I will cease to resent the way my son – slowly and diligently – pulls up the zipper of his jacket. Or fastens and unfastens the velcro on his shoes not once, not twice but at least four times each time he puts them on. And I really hope that I can become more than a nagging device for him.

Filed Under: changing habits, family, parenting

The Goal – month two and beginning of month three

March 3, 2011 by Susanne 3 Comments

And it’s already the beginning of March and so I thought I’d give you a little update about my huge goal of the year. Which was to lose at least 10 kilos (that’s 22 lbs) until the end of the year. As to be expected I got a little lax in February. The middle of February is traditionally known as the time when New Years resolutions start to drift away. You still remember them but you’re slowly sliding down into resignation. Into the “this is hard, and now that I’ve been so good for three weeks I’ve surely done enough.”

Well. That’s not how one loses weight. At least not me because this is not about losing a pound or two. So let’s see: I started out on January 1st with 89.9 kg, and the 1st of February saw me at 88.6. That looks great, doesn’t it? I should keep that in mind for motivation.

The problem is that then my weight went up again. At the beginning of January it was easier not to drink alcohol because my husband was skipping his usual glass of wine in the evenings as well. But now I keep finding reasons why tonight is a night where I’m entitled to just this one beer. Just this once, today. For almost a month or so. Oops.

Also in favor of pleasure now like donuts, or chocolate I keep forgetting the Goal. I keep forgetting that I was determined, and still am, to get to a weight where my knees don’t hurt, and where leaning down to tie my shoes doesn’t mean I pinch my stomach fat between my ribs and my thighs.

So while I haven’t done really badly so far I have to re-commit to this whole thing. Which I hereby have done.

Oh, and something that almost made me blow the whole thing? In the middle of February I read some sort of headline somewhere (I know, I’m all about diligent documentation) going like this: “I’d rather be skinny than have sex.” Really? Really? Not me. Nope. Definitely not. Of course that’s not a real choice. But if it were down to that I’d rather be fat. Also if I had to deny myself any pleasure at all. There is a reason I keep choosing the comfort of eating and food above being skinny.

So I hit a bump in mid-February and started to feel like it would never happen but – then I lost some more weight. Ha! I’m at 87.6 as of this morning. Which is 2.3 kilos less than on January 1st. And that even though I had half a liter of ice cream on Monday. And donuts today. But I tell you something: I won’t be doing that every day. That was the first ice cream this year so far, and I have vowed to not buy any more until May or so.

In February I thought I’d never lose any more weight and then I just carried on, and now I even look a bit slimmer. Not slim, mind you, but slimmer. One day I might have visible cheekbones again…

What about you? I’ll keep you posted.

Filed Under: changing habits, weight loss

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Subscribe to Handgemacht » Podcast

Handgemacht mit iTunes abonnieren

Subscribe to know when Susanne’s next book comes out

* indicates required

Manic Writing & Such

500words-150w

Archives

Categories

  • birthday letter (3)
  • blogging about blogging (21)
  • blogher (1)
  • changing habits (53)
  • crafts (55)
  • creativity (37)
  • daily journal (1,045)
  • family (20)
  • fashion (15)
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  • green living (8)
  • happiness (5)
  • health (20)
  • hear me sing (7)
  • just post (28)
  • knitting (47)
  • knitting patterns (2)
  • life (212)
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  • meme (19)
  • mindfulness (1)
  • music (34)
  • NaNoWriMo (12)
  • parenting (39)
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  • Podcast (162)
  • procrastination (2)
  • project 365 (14)
  • projects (35)
  • Projekt "Farbe bekennen" (14)
  • reading (9)
  • Rhiannon (5)
  • script frenzy (2)
  • self-help (40)
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  • spinning (31)
  • story of the month (13)
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