Adjustments

Alright, I admit. I stayed on until 7:38 pm last night, instead of turning it off, because I can't come upstairs without the kids wanting my attention, so I again didn't get to prepare the meeting enough, and frankly it won't be 7:30 pm by the time I turn it off tonight either, and here's my big justification: my kids are now going to bed later, and then all I have is 10 minutes on the computer. That's not enough to make phone calls. In the evening is the only time I can call the states because of the time difference, and I'm not about to pay long distance when I can use handy dandy google call and call all US numbers for free. So you see darlings, I might extend my computer from 7:15-8:00 pm.
Or is this perhaps a similar phenomenon to dieting, where you say: well I was going to stick with my diet, but then my aunt's sister's cousin celebrated a birthday and I really didn't want to offend her by not eating a piece of cake? Oh, the second piece, you say, why did I eat that? Well, otherwise she might think I didn't like it, right? Or the general addict's reply: well I would have abstained from -fill in the blank- but the kids were just too crazy/ work was just to overwhelming etc.
I don't know. It's possible. I know that I go to bed earlier now, and that being aware of what I'm doing has led to at least four blog posts so far. Not bad.

The other dilemma I have, is now that I'm not mindlessly surfing the internet, I'm dying to use the computer to write, and I also want to do the Rosetta Stone Dutch course. I'm tired of feeling so isolated here. Yes, almost everyone speaks English, and yes I understand Dutch, but that doesn't mean that people speak to me. When I drop off Micah in playgroup all the moms stand around in little clusters chatting, laughing, having some nice social interaction. They all speak English, but no one speaks to me. Most of them grew up right here, so they know each other too. It's very isolating. Most of all I want to be able to speak to the children though.
Anyway, I have so many things, I want to write about and create. Not stories, just thoughts, experiences, like how Ezra amazes me every day with his progress, and that my children acted like absolute angels today. If my kids were always like today, happily playing with each other, sharing, talking, laughing, than I would say that being a mother and parent is just about the greatest thing you'll ever do. Then of course, perhaps I wouldn't see that, if I didn't have to work so hard for it. And can I  just put on my firm grip boots and climb onto my soapbox here? (Of course I can. It's my blog after all and isn't that the point of blogs?)
If you want your children to share and play nicely, there's no way around it: get down on the floor and play with them. Teach them. Tell them what to do, and how to do it, instead of what not to do. For example: if child #1 takes toy away from child #2 and both start screaming and hitting, you just take them aside and say: no, that's not peaceful (if they're older you can explain more). This is how you could do it: Child #1 May I have a turn with that toy? have him/her repeat, and then Child #2 you say: Sure. Celebrate them like crazy, praising them for how nicely and peacefully they were doing it. Reinforce rules kindly but firmly. Explain why and how we do things, and show it to them by playing with them. The parent is the most important educator to the child. Our success in life to a large extent is defined by our social skills and our self-confidence, and no one has greater influence on a child's self-confidence than the parent. He/she will learn more from you than from anyone else. A child invites you to become who you want to be. Be in the world what you want to see in the world.

Anyway, way overtime here and Aaron and I want to go watch a movie. Goodnight friends.

The first 24 hours

I'm sure you're all dying to know what I did after I turned off the computer at 7:30 pm last night...not! But here it is anyway. Don't worry, I'm not planning on giving you a run down every day, but I myself am impressed at how much I got done.

I did in fact turn it off right when I said I would, even though I hadn't even started planning the group meeting for tonight, and in fact should be doing that right now, probably. Anyway, I went downstairs, sat on the couch, and tried myself at doing nothing for a while. It lasted all of two minutes, before I noticed that there were toys everywhere, the kitchen was cleaned only superficially and the playroom was a total disaster area. One thing lead to another, and although I tried periods of just sitting down and relaxing they never lasted longer than two minutes. Apparently I have a very short chill-span. In some ways I think I'm very much like Ezra. He's so hyperactive, always bouncing about from one thing to the next. The only time he slows down is when he reads a book. While I no longer bounce, except perhaps as a passive reaction to my movement, I still move a lot, and only sit still when I read. Anyway, darlings, this is what I did while trying to just chill:

November 15, past 7:30 pm

1. picked up all the toys
2. vacuumed downstairs
3. cleaned dishes
4. cleaned kitchen (2x)
5. sorted out the pantry/closet for stuff to give away
6. organized the toy closet
7. organized pantry
8. did a load of laundry
9. folded a load of laundry
10. put said laundry away (always my least favorite part, frankly)
11. tidied and organized playroom
12. swept playroom
13. prepared a glutenfree pastry crust for a quiche in the morning
14. prepared 3 GFCF muffin and cake mixes
15. prepared tea/coffee for the morning (relax Mormons, it's herbal tea, and cereal coffee)
16. chopped up chicken for chicken nuggets lunch, and prepared the mix for chicken nuggets

All of this took me until about 10:00 pm. The result showed this morning and during the day where things just ran more smoothly, it seemed. Now, if I had set myself a to-do-list like this, I would have done maybe two things, and then would have just thought, meh, who cares, I can do it tomorrow. I was pretty pleased with all I got done, but I would consider my evening just as productive, had I just taken time for myself to play through a Sonata, learn new music, or do whatever just for myself. This is what the option process has taught me and I'm starting to grasp and translate it better every day: happiness is the result of your own choice and belief. You are more likely to be happy, if you do what you do, because you want to do it. If you tell yourself: I have to make breakfast for the kids, I have to clean the house, I have to do this or that, because who else will do it, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. If you however see that you're doing it out of love, because you want your children to have a healthy, yummy breakfast, because -and let's be honest here, friends- YOU like the house nice and tidy, and so on, then you're already doing what you want to be doing, without needing anyone else to "give" you happiness by saying thank you or appreciating your efforts.

OK, enough for today. I really need to prepare the meeting for tonight.

First day of computer in moderation

Not bad for my first day, really. I can already see the results today in my new approach. I actually spent probably three hours in front of the computer, but I got the fund-raising letter written, called the appropriate agencies, researched treatments and agencies here in the Netherlands and can say that it was a very productive three hours. And, here I am blogging. So far so good. I did get off the computer yesterday at around 8:15 pm, after I finished writing the last post. I admit it was hard to go to bed without checking my mail or sitting down at the computer, which usually ends up in another 20- 60 min of my time sucked away. Instead of using the computer I went downstairs, made the menu plans for this coming week which surprisingly took an hour, because I had to come up with two plans as I'm doing a special diet right now in preparation for my Thanksgain-a-ton. Aaron and I held a real face to face conversation with some talking involved and then I went to bed earlier than usual and got a decent amount of sleep. Me likey!

I was going to give you an update on us here, but as I started writing, Micah demanded a bedtime story. Clouds on my computer horizon! I came upstairs today to use the computer while Aaron puts the kids to bed, at around 6:30 pm. Usually I stay downstairs so he gets to spend time with them. He typically leaves home at around 7:30 am and comes back between 5-5:20 pm which gives him just a bit less than two hours a day with the kids. Now, that I come upstairs though, the kids want me to read stories, sing, and do bath time. Not so ideal. I'll see what I can do about that. So update will have to wait until tomorrow. Now, one more

OK. It's 7:17 pm and I'm starting to feel antsy. What on earth am I going to do with myself after turning off the computer, and how am going to refrain from just nibbling out of boredom? Yikes. What did I get myself into?

Three month computer-in-moderation experiment

How much time do YOU spend on the computer? How much time is leisure, how much work, research, play? Are you spending hours on your computer browsing facebook or youtube after your kids go to bed? Do you obsessively check your email/facebook/twitter (I don't have twitter, but just to include everyone) to see if someone has emailed you or replied to your thread? Do you fill out quiz after quiz for entertainment or to find answers to questions you wish you knew? Do you measure your value as a person by how many people reply to your posts? Have you looked at pictures of your friends, and secretly coveted their life/house/vacations/job/children/fill-in-the-blank? Have you ever said to yourself: how on earth is it 11 pm already, and then stayed on for no reason in particular? Do you consistently stay up past the point when you're body signals for you to go to sleep? Have you ever chatted with your husband online while you're in adjacent rooms (actually that works quite well for us when we're sharing links and looking at places to move to, as well as when we're arguing, because it removes tone of voice, and encourages thinking before writing. Just saying!)?
I have at some point or other been guilty of all the above, and I deem this no longer a desirable way of living. Mainly I'm just curious how much I could do, and frankly WHAT I would do, if I put my computer time to good use. Let's face it: I can't live without the internet anymore. I don't want to. It's cheap and practical to stay in touch with my family and friends back home in the States, and all over the world. And if people move, it doesn't matter, because I no longer need to keep track of their physical address. And I'm certainly not about to head down to our library in Eindhoven, to research a subject when all they have are outdated Dutch books, that you have to pay for to check out. I wouldn't even do that in the US. Google rocks. Thanks for inventing it. And can I just say: AMAZON!!!


Just FYI we don't have TV in our home. Many people find that bizarre, but we don't miss it. At first I only wanted to watch two shows, but then we would record others on the DVR just out of curiosity. It got to the point, where I felt I had to schedule time to keep up with all my shows. We were amazed at all the time it freed up once we got rid of it. Now that we live in the Netherlands and have few friends, it seems that our free time has gradually shifted towards the computer. I can live without TV. DVD's work fine, and occasional going to the movies. But how do I live with the internet without letting it take over my life, and replace my real life socializing with virtual friendships? Here's my experiment. Since I don't want to live without internet, I will attempt a three month computer-in-moderation plan. I will actually schedule time during the day to do what I need to do, and then cap off my computer time at 7:30 pm at night (except for tonight because I'm writing this lengthy blog post, and Micah wanted extra attention). My kids go to bed at around 7-ish, so I have 30 minutes to write a blog entry, and check email and calendar for the following day.
I find that for me one of the major problems with staying on too late is that I have valid things to do that I really need the computer for. My main online work consists in organizing my son-rise program, creating, editing, and reviewing forms, searching for volunteers, and researching more treatment options for Ezra, and Micah. On the leisure side I would like to create videos and photo albums of the kids, write a novel, or at least update my blog more than once every two months. I also use the computer as a phone book and a cookbook. However I simply don't get to these during the day, because as soon as I sit down in the office, the kids come bouncing in with requests for music, or play, or they get into trouble, because they tend to be aggressive with each other.   I think I'll just do it when the kids are in bed. By the time they are though, I'm just too exhausted, and the last thing I want to do is look for more treatments for autistic children. So I log on, feeling somewhat isolated after a whole day of talking to just my kids and my mom, thinking I'll first catch up with some friends and get some social interaction. And sometimes I do get to skype with a friend and that is fun. YAY, skype inventer. Well done! Best thing invented since google. But other than that I just browse facebook, and watch funny youtube videos to distract myself and relax. The result is, that I get less real interaction with friends, and I probably make less friends here in the Netherlands, because a) I hardly go out because I'm tired, and it's rainy, dark, and cold now, and b) the friends I have online I rarely email them (why email if I can just post in one line how I'm doing on facebook, and aren't they all on facebook?). I get no work done, and then feel more stressed about it, because I have to do it some other time. I go to bed too late, wake up slightly sleep deprived and somewhat groggy, which affects my parenting, and my health, and after one and a half of staying up late, I don't speak Dutch, I've written no novel, found only two stable volunteers, and haven't gotten all that much closer to my friends back home. Bit of a wast of time, huh? To be fair, I did create a website for Ezra, have organized several of our pictures, written blog entries, and have learned a lot about treatment options for him, not to mention the countless research papers and articles I read. Still, I'm hopeful that with budgeted screen time, I will be more productive and happier. Wish me perseverance!