Wednesday, June 04, 2014

Things I Would Like to Remember

I have quite a backlog of "real" posts waiting to be written- an Ask Cloud post about getting into grad school, a write up of our recent weekend getaway, some thoughts about all the questions Pumpkin is asking these days... But it turns out, setting up a company is consumes a lot of time and mental energy. I knew that. But now I really know that. Still, I miss writing... so here is the post that I can manage tonight, about something I want to remember in 10 years.

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The first thing is the feeling of setting up the company. I can't remember if I've said it here before, but this particular career move was a leap of equal parts faith and frustration. I'm choosing to focus on the faith part: the way in which this move is me having faith in myself. The most probable positive outcome of this experiment is that I end up with a solid contracting business. (I won't dwell on what the most probable overall outcome is.) However, I'm not setting the business up as if that were the outcome for which I'm aiming. I have created a corporation with one name and filed a different fictitious business name for the consulting practice. I have chosen to do my accounting in a way that allows for other sources of revenue. I am registering separate domain names for the "main" business and the consulting one.

I am doing all of this even though I still have no firm idea of what the non-consulting part of my business will be. I am just trusting myself to figure it out, once I finish the paperwork and other set up overhead and can use the time I've freed up to try things out.

No matter what happens, I want to remember this time, when I believed enough in myself and my ideas to give this a go.

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Petunia is moving up to the final class at her preschool next Monday. She's very excited. I look at her and wonder when she got so big.

She says "oops-a-daze" when she does something she didn't mean to do. I have no idea where she got this, and whether she's the one who shortened "oopsie-daisy" or if one of her classmates did it. But it is adorable.

She loves the movie Frozen with all her heart. Pumpkin still won't watch it, so Petunia only gets to watch it when she's home without Pumpkin. She's only seen it three times, but she basically knows it by heart. She likes to play Frozen, which mostly involves sitting in our bedroom with the lights out. I haven't gotten to watch it with her yet, so I have no idea what she's doing, but it keeps her entertained for ages, so I am not complaining.

Petunia is much better at playing on her own than Pumpkin was at her age. She also likes to play with Pumpkin, and they act out long, detailed scenarios with their little dolls. My favorite is the Frozen-Doc McStuffins mashup that seems to involve a bunch of princesses getting check ups from the Doc.

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Pumpkin continues to grow up faster than I can keep up with her. I will write that post about the questions she's been asking, because this is a phase I'd like to remember- at least for when Petunia hits it!

She still loves to invent elaborate games, and it still disappoints her when her schemes do not go off as planned because other people don't follow their parts. Luckily, Petunia will often be a willing actor in her set pieces. A couple of months ago, one such piece (the details of which I've long since forgotten) involved her creating signs for our bathrooms. There is a hand-lettered sign in our hallway pointing to the bathrooms, a "girl's bathroom" sign on the main bathroom, and a "boy's bathroom" sign on the bathroom in the master bedroom. I can't bring myself to take them down.

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I'll be back with more posts soon. The urgent set up tasks for my business are almost complete, and then I should be able to slow down the pace. Of course, by then it will probably be time for our vacation. But at some point, surely, I'll make the time to write some more posts. For now, I'm off to work on vacation planning. Mr. Snarky has once again underestimated the distances involved in American travel, and I need to figure out which of his proposed stops I should argue we cut from the itinerary, so that we can have an actually relaxing vacation.

24 comments:

  1. this was a lovely post, especially the bits about your girls, and very sweet! many good wishes on your independent ventures.

    i have a parenting question for you: at what age did you start allowing your children to watch TV / entire films? I allow my 2yo (nearly 28 months) to watch around a half hour to an hour of favorite songs on TV when we get home in the evenings so that I can cook and he can just sit and recoup from his 10 hour day...and am wracked with guilt about it. I would love to let him watch a full film on weekends but haven't done so yet...your thoughts?

    PS. my boy LOVES your Zebra said Shh – he repeats parts of it even though he doesn't actually know English yet!

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    1. We did things differently for each kid. Pumpkin didn't see an actual movie until she was... hmmm. Maybe 3? It was Cinderella, because she heard about princesses at day care and loved them, and we thought she should see one of the movies. She watched educational shows we had on DVD earlier. We started Signing Time a little before she was 1, if I remember right. After that, we slowly added more. I think the next thing was the Noodlebug DVDs, and then we started adding others. I can't remember when we started letting her watch shows like Dora and the like. Sesame Street started pretty early (around 18 months, I think) because that was how we got her to let us brush her teeth and put her sunscreen on.

      Petunia came into a house where TV shows were already allowed, and rather than try to fight that, we just let her start watching shows earlier. She started watching Cinderella by age 1, I think, and loves it. Perhaps because we allowed that movie and the Nick Jr shows earlier with her, she never liked the educational DVDs as much as Pumpkin did. That could just be temperament, too, though. Our two girls have quite different personalities, and always have.

      We don't allow unlimited TV time, but we probably allow more than many of our peers, because neither kid naps on the weekends anymore, and neither goes to bed particularly early, and we need some breaks from the constant questions, etc. I've used TV to keep the kids entertained while I make dinner since Pumpkin started watching Signing Time.

      We still don't watch many movies at home, mostly because Pumpkin doesn't like them. My husband took Petunia to see the LEGO movie this year, though, and they both loved it. He tried the Muppets movie with her, and had to leave.

      Maybe look around and find some educational DVDs you feel good about, and then let your son watch them without guilt? You need a break, too!

      I'm glad your son likes my book! That is great to hear.

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  2. Anonymous4:51 AM

    I think I'm with most of your readership when I say we believe in you too.

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  3. Lovely post. Mine love Frozen too. They've seen it 10 times, I've seen it twice, mostly so that I can answer the million questions my 4 year old asks about it (there are some...complicated themes there that I'm having trouble with) I don't get why they are so obsessed, though the songs are catchy. I was the one who got the soundtrack because I wanted to sing along, but I rue the day, let me tell you. Not an hour goes by that I'm not listening to top-of-the-lungs-melodramatic renditions of "Let it Go" and "For the first time in FOREVER". They insist I call them Princess A and Princess B. They are boys.

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    1. I love that. I know lots of boys who are really into Frozen. So much for the theory that boys won't watch movies with female leads.

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  4. Alexicographer9:25 AM

    That bit about mileage cracked me up, I thought it usually went the other way (immigrants from other nations figuring you can't possibly go to X because it's too far away, where the distance is one the average native would drive without batting an eye). My best friend from college was a stitch, she came from a SW state to our east-coast school and would say, "Let's go to _______ this weekend!" where ______ was a 10-hour drive, one way. Now she lives outside DC and laughs about this, says she basically won't drive anywhere if it's outside a 3-hour range.

    Good luck adjusting your itinerary.

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    1. He just can't get used to how far apart things are and how big states are, particularly out here in the West.

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  5. Once your business is all set up (which is sounds like it almost is, huzzah!) are you planning to write a more detailed post about that process? I'd love to read about it!

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    1. Anonymous2:49 PM

      Agree!!!

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    2. I'll think about it- I'd have to make it really clear that my post wasn't a how to, though. The rules are different in different states, and depend a lot on how you decide to organize your business, too.

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  6. We all lived for very long time with numbers taped to our door from a game of "hotel"

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    1. We also have a sign on our door that says "Keep out of Mommy and Daddy's room." It is aimed at us- they were playing Frozen (Pumpkin likes to play the game and sing the songs, despite refusing to see the movie) and we weren't allowed in.

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  7. Zenmoo1:23 PM

    It's funny - we did a lot of hours of driving in NZ last year (I think our longest day was Chch to the Catlins at about 6hrs driving time + stops or Chch to Nelson via Hamner Springs or maybe Te Anau to Chch...) however, as an Australian, it never seemed that far because there was so much

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    1. Zenmoo1:31 PM

      To see on the way and driving conditions are such that you don't actually get that much distance for your time. In Western Australia in particular, driving for 6 hours means going through a whole lot of nothing and pretty similar scenery the whole time. I am not enthused by this idea AT ALL - the closest'interesting' place to go is about 3hrs away and I just can't be arsed with that distance for a weekend here even though we did it in NZ. Perhaps there is something in the 'unfamiliar' that makes driving hours/distances seem more interesting?

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  8. Zenmoo1:43 PM

    And sorry about the multipart comments but I'm on my iPad and it freezes every so often.

    I've got a 4 year old Frozen fan too - she's seen it twice, once with her Nana & cousin at the movie theatre and once when my work put on a showing for kids complete with blue ice cubes and blue aeroplane and white milk bottle lollies. I'd sit through it again but agree some of themes are a bit hard to explain to a 4 year old. The lyrics of Let it Go in particular have caused me some trouble! Having said that, I quite like a couple of the messages too (sisterly love, don't rush into getting married...)

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  9. Anonymous2:08 PM

    My sister took my son to see Frozen when it came out. He wasn't enthralled by it, though she was. One of my colleagues in psychology tells me that age 7 is big on gender identification so he should grow out of just enjoying things with male protagonists. In the meantime we'll keep explaining that just because you rescue the princess doesn't mean you get to marry her. And just because there's only one woman in ALL OF LEGOLAND doesn't mean that women can't do things. (He's like, aren't there more women than men in the world, we were like, yes! Then he asked if that was why we have overpopulation, and we were like, no! We've been having some interesting conversations lately...)

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    1. Anonymous2:10 PM

      p.s. My mom said: And longterm I wouldn't worry about [DC1]. He's smart, very nice, and handsome. One day a feisty princess will come along and snatch him up and he'll spend the rest of his life being loved and protected. :)

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    2. 7 must be the age when all of the questions start coming. We've had some interesting conversations, lately, too- which is why I want to write a post about it!

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    3. Anonymous5:43 AM

      I found where all the women in legoland are. They're at the amusement park waiting to be rescued from bad guys. Oddly, only women and children seem to be allowed at the amusement park. My theory is that it is a holding area.

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  10. Baguette doesn't seem to like movies, either. Mr. Sandwich and I have enjoyed Tangled, Brave, and Frozen, but she could not be less interested.

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    1. My parents got Tangled on Netflix for one of our visits. Pumpkin lasted about 20 minutes, and then my Dad and Mr. Snarky enjoyed the rest of it!

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  11. My two daughters (5 and almost 3) adoooore Frozen. I was kinda meh about it on first viewing, but it has actually grown on me with watching it a zillion times. A local daycare had a fundraiser last month where they rented a theatre for a sing-along screening, complete with face painting and popcorn, for which kids and grownups alike were encouraged to dress up. I am now of the firm belief that this is how this movie should *always* be shown...it was epic!!

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