Quail_Antwerp: Words from the Barnyard...

[Quail_Antwerp]

Today has been a blessed day for us - were told we're getting a car tomorrow, and got the kids signed up with United Way for school shoes! AWESOME!

My ankle is killing me now from walking UP the stairs and back down at the United Way. sigh. It swelled up a little bit, and I've got some burning going UP my leg from my ankle now. Yes, it's proppped, and iced.

and I think I'm going to take 2 tylenol for the pain.

on the downside, when I got home, E met me at the door and said that the boys had put a hole in their bedroom wall right below the window...through 2 sheets of drywall!! and they blamed it on the youngest, who's 3, claiming HE did it last night - well, not true, because last night that hole wasn't there (and I wet vac'ed the carpet!) and the oldest 4 kids were at VBS while E and I were home with the youngest. Youngest stayed out with us all evening - helped his Daddy get potatoes out of the garden, colored in his coloring book, and then sat on daddy's lap just before falling asleep. Oldest kids got home at 9:30 pm, told us about their time at VBS, and everyone went to bed.

I fried their lily white butts.

Oldest DS said it was done because we wouldn't let them watch T.V. Excuse me??? Well that was a sure fire way to make sure YOU NEVER GET T.V. AGAIN.

Ha.

Let them stuff that in their pipes and smoke it!

So now, we've got a wall to patch. UGH. Kids. Boys.

And E was upset enough that he wants to ban them from VBS tonight, but I'm like - I get the most cleaning/work done while they are VBS!

It just feels like a no win. I know they need to learn from their mistakes, but how do you take something away that they really do benefit from?

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

I want to throw out there - we DO give them constructive things to do - and yet they still manage to find ways to be DE-structive while doing what's supposed to be CON-structive.

You should see their swingset. It was brand new 3 years ago - and this summer they took a baseball bat to it and weakened every support bar.

They had a little tykes coup car and a pedal car - they have ripped both apart.

They use the bases to my chicken waterers as frisbees (when they are supposed to be FILLING the waterers)

They shove legos up their noses - and the youngest one swallowed one once and I flipped out.

They smash their hot wheels. And tear the wheels off.

They were told no more toys for special occassion, clothes only, because they do not appreciate or take care of the things they DO have.

 

[PamsPride]

Sigh... it is the same thing here! We put up fly paper strips in the kitchen and the chair was left by it. Someone....not sure who...took a screwdriver of something and put like 5 little holes in the ceiling all around the fly paper strip. They started peeling the paint and drywall up around the sink...while they are supposed to be doing dishes. They take knives and scraped the hole top of the silverware drawer up! Now I have TWO completely busted kitchen cabinet doors and the cover to the silverware drawer is broke off! They do this destructive behavior when they are supposed to be getting the dishes done. URGHHHH!! It is so frustrating!! As if our kitchen does not look bad enough...break the cupboard doors completely off! Yeah, that will make it look better! Of course NO ONE did it!!
We do not have enough money to fix any of it!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Sigh... it is the same thing here! We put up fly paper strips in the kitchen and the chair was left by it. Someone....not sure who...took a screwdriver of something and put like 5 little holes in the ceiling all around the fly paper strip. They started peeling the paint and drywall up around the sink...while they are supposed to be doing dishes. They take knives and scraped the hole top of the silverware drawer up! Now I have TWO completely busted kitchen cabinet doors and the cover to the silverware drawer is broke off! They do this destructive behavior when they are supposed to be getting the dishes done. URGHHHH!! It is so frustrating!! As if our kitchen does not look bad enough...break the cupboard doors completely off! Yeah, that will make it look better! Of course NO ONE did it!!
We do not have enough money to fix any of it!

I'm not alone!!!!!!!


I am thinking about trying to incorporate special "me time" with each kid. It could be something as simple as just one on one time in the garden with me or E or just sitting as a group and coloring together.

Mom said she would say that they need more construction, but she said that our kids actually have more constructive things to do than other kids now days.

The oldest 2 have the most chores right now - but we're giving more to the younger ones, too. DD helps with laundry and washes dishes, and has been in the kitchen with me learning to cook, and she can fix a mean pot of coffee! She is also responsible for her own trio of Bantam chickens.

Oldest son is responsible for taking out the trash. He and our second oldest son are responsible for feeding/watering the chickens and turkeys and goat. Second oldest son also has the job of feeding/watering the dogs, but we're about to pass on the chore of feeding/watering Zoe onto our third son - as he doesn't have enough chores.

They are all responsible for cleaning their rooms and making beds.

Right now, fixing them their dinner so they can eat before VBS tonight. While they are gone I plan to get a couple loads of laundry washed and put away and hopefully get the kids books gone through and organized onto the book shelf. I'm trying to fix them up a reading corner in the room addition, and thinking if I schedule out the days more they'd have less time to destroy things.

Like have a set time for each meal, for chores, for cleaning, for reading (in their reading corner!), for playing, etc.

It would be different during the school year, of course, because there would be home work and evening chores for sure.

I just gotta figure this out so they don't have time to destroy the house!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

ok, I thought I'd try these - but I am doing 10 at a time since the list is so long, because some of these, I really need to think about the answers.

1. What state/province/country are you in and what is your climate like? Ohio, United States

2. How many people are in your family? Marital status? Let's just say I'm building my own colony.

3. How would you define self sufficiency? As harder than it looks, but doing as much as you can for yourself without being dependent on the outside world.

4. What would you do with your spare time if you had any resources you needed? travel

5. Have you ever built a house , or other types of building? Do you want to? Does a chicken coop count?

6. Can you weld? Steel, aluminum, MiG, TiG, stick, Oxy-Acet? No

7. Who or what inspired you to become more self sufficient? Inspired? more like did out of necessity. That, and wanted to be prepared as much as possible incase we should meet with another depression like my grandparents did. That, and it used to make me mad that my mom had all these skills (sewing, canning, knitting, crocheting) that she never taught me, and I had a romanticized view of how it must have been like back when my grandparents were doing it all from the land, and not very dependent on stores.

8 Cloth or paper? for what? I use t.p. but for the little ones, we have old wash rags for cleaning bottoms and I don't usually have paper towels or napkins in the house.

9. In what ways are you self sufficient now and in what ways would you like to learn more? Um....We work for ourselves on our own little farm. Grow a garden, have chickens, ducks, geese, a goat and a cow. Hoping to have a milk goat. Learning how to can. I don't know that I really want to learn more, I'd rather have a job and steady income.

10. In what way(s) will you never choose to become self sufficient? Will have to think on this one. I'm not really sure.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

11. Are you interested in stocking up for future needs? Absolutely.

12. Where do you end up when you sink into yourself, away from the outside world? In my bathtub - heading there in a little bit!

13. Can you drive a farm tractor or a semi? No, but E can drive a tractor.

14. Do you make crafts or useful items? Would you want to teach others how to do these? I cross stitch, does that count? and I can sew blankets and curtains. Would like to teach my children.

15. Can you have legally livestock where you are at? Do you have any? What kinds? yes. chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, goat, and a cow. 2 dogs and 2 cats

16. Can you operate a lathe? Metal, wood? a what??

17. Do you like to garden? If so, what do you enjoy growing? I am not the green thumb around here, my husband is.

18. Do you fish? Bait or explosives? I don't fish. Dh and the kids do. I cook.

19. How much space/land do you have or rent? City? Country? almost 7 acres. Country.

20. Are you a Novice, Technician, General, Advanced? ARRL? I'm advanced in breast feeding - does that count?

 

[abifae]

I remember taking down a couple fence posts in pitching practice and at least one window lol. My brother put his head through a wall in a tantrum (age 16). Auntie's Max... need new words for his level of destructo magic lol.

 

[Farmfresh]

They shove legos up their noses - and the youngest one swallowed one once and I flipped out.

As for swallowing Legos .. my D1 swallowed a yellow one one time and called us scared to death. I was at my sister's at the time and the kids were home alone for a few minutes. Their dad decided to call Ask a Nurse.

All went well until the nurse asked "How old is the child?"
to which my hubby replied, "Thirteen."
"Thirteen months?"
"NO Thirteen YEARS."
The nurse even started to laugh!

We also have had other stuff swallowed. AS TEENS my son swallowed a metal pop tab and my D2 swallowed the plastic ring off of a MILK JUG!

When they were smaller they:

Fed the youngest MILK WEED PODS (resulted in ER visit)
Went out of window onto 2nd floor porch roof - ages 5 and 3!!
Smashed sibling into pool and covered them with lid to sandbox then tried to sit on it.
Taught youngest to "ride a bike" by sticking him on a big two wheeler and shoving him down a hill towards a HIGHWAY!!

By the way they all lived.

 

[Britesea]

kids... whaddaya do? When my oldest was teething, everyone knew it because he cribbed all the furniture in the house, like a horse!

My daughter stuffed a pecan up her nose once, which was really hard to pull out because it kept disintegrating every time I got hold of it. I finally got enough out that she could breathe out that nostril, and then gave her a sniff of black pepper--- that cleared it out! She also decided to burn her perfume in the bathroom once, as a sort of incense. She discovered it doesn't smell as good when you do that, and the counter top had a burn stain on it until we moved out of the house.

The youngest, when he was 5 or so, smuggled a skewer from the kitchen to fight off the monsters under the bed... somehow, he managed to poke it into his eye and break the lens. Sheer good luck that he missed the optic nerve or he would have been completely blind in that eye. As it is, he will have to wear a contact lens for the rest of his life unless he can afford surgery for lens replacement some day (we sure can't).

... and then they become teenagers.

I am firmly of the opinion that the reason teenagers drive you crazy is to make sure you kick them out of the house when they turn 18. If they were wonderful, we would never make them leave; and they would never finish growing up.

We will NOT go into any of the things my parents claim I did. I was framed. I was in Boise at the time.

 

[abifae]