Maggie's distressing day

Many internationally adopted children are diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. Daniel's therapist believe he was suffering from it & there are a lot of signs that Maggie has it too. Their prior experiences can result in the level of stress that these kids can handle being extremely small. Maggie can be tipped over the edge by virtually nothing. This morning, I laid out her clothes on her bedroom floor and asked her to go & get dressed. After about 5 minutes, I hear her crying and saying "I'm cold", "I want Daddy", "Mum, help me". I went upstairs and she's sitting on the floor completely dressed and putting on her socks. She has herself convinced that she just can't do anything & starts crying immediately. After she was dressed, I said "oh Maggie, look at you, you are so cute in that outfit". Maggie said "but Mum, everyone's going to laugh at me". Oh great, something else to stress over!!!!

I tried to take a picture since she looks great in this new outfit, but all she'd do is stand hunched over frowning!!!!

In the car, Maggie said "Mum, everyone at the store is going to laugh at me"

Me: Why will they laugh at you?

Maggie: Because I am wearing a dress

Me: Maggie, most people think a little girl wearing a dress is cute

Maggie: What's cute?

Me: It's when you look nice

Maggie: I don't want to be cute

Does Maggie have post-traumatic stress disorder? Sam says Maggie has post-traumatic dress disorder. GROAN!!!!!

A room with a view?

This is the view from our kitchen window of the house next door. Let's just say that over the last year, the weather has not been kind to it.....

For anyone who doubts there is a recession

You have to be living under a rock to be unaware that there's a recession. However, for any nay sayers, the last vestiges of doubt have now been removed. An article in the Post Dispatch this morning reports that the Girl Scouts of America will be shorting us on cookies this year because of rising ingredient and transportation costs. This announcement comes hot on the heels of the one in January that the cost per box was increasing for the first time in 12 years. Here in Missouri, we are now paying $3.50 a box. Thin mints will be thinner!!!! Samosas and Tag-a-Longs will decline in number. What? Stop! I need to go and lie down.

Of course, we shouldn't really be that bothered by this. After all, apparently the focus of the program is not about selling cookies, it's about "teaching the girls how to market, develop budgets & provide good customer service". I don't really think that increasing prices and reducing product at the same time really falls under the "good customer service" description. The marketing appears to be guilting your family, friends and complete strangers into buying an average product at an inflated price because it's "for a good cause"

We've bought into this ourselves. I think between all the girl scouts that we know, we've bought at least 10 boxes of cookies. At $3.50 a box, that's $35. We have no intention of eating them either, we'll probably take out a couple and the rest will end up at work in the break room!!!! Judging by the number of boxes in the break room, we're not the only ones that do this.

So, at the end of the day, I guess it's really NOT about the cookies at all and we really don't care as much about the size or number of the cookies in the box, but helping those we know and love. After all, I have no intention in buying $35 worth of cookies at Schnucks and feeding the vultures at work.

On a big scale, there is a recession. At the community level, apparently there is still some hope.....

Balancing cost and benefit

Our kids may have been the only ones not sledding down Art Hill in Forest Park (or some similar hill in St. Louis) yesterday . Why would this be? It's mostly because Ben & Maggie just don't have suitable clothes to roll around in the snow for a significant amount of time. It is hard for me to justify buying snow boots, gloves & waterproof clothes for the kids to use for a couple of days a year. We don't have that much Winter weather and we don't ski, so what do we do? Both Ben & Maggie love being in the snow, so maybe I will start looking around for suitable clothes in places like Goodwill and see if I can get them kitted out for next year. We'll probably just have an unseasonably warm Winter with no snow, but then that wouldn't be bad either.....

Our many memberships & how we use them

After writing a post about Monkey Joe's, it prompted me to reflect on just how many memberships we have these days and how effectively we use them. The first membership we ever got was the one for the City Museum. Their membership is pretty expensive, the lowest level is $200 a year. However, for that you get 20 admissions throughout the year (normally $12 each), 4 parking passes ($5 each) and in January & September you can take up to 5 people as often as you like for free. So, on the years that we have had a membership, I tend to take the maximum number of people I can as often as I can in the free months. By the time the month is out, the kids have had enough of the City Museum for a while and we can change to something else. Our second membership was to the Science Center. The first year we got it, they had a special offer on their 20th birthday & we got our membership for $20. With this membership, we got 10 Omnimax tickets ($8 each)and 6 parking passes ($8 each), plus unlimited admission to the Lego Mindstorm and Discovery rooms. My friend & I now share a membership to the St. Louis Zoo, primarily because her children are grown now but she still wanted to support them. Essentially, we get to share the cost ($40 each) but use the majority of the passes, which include 48 passes (worth up to $240 total) and 6 parking passes ($11 each). We have a family membership at the Maplewood Pool, which is $135 a season and allows us to go every day during the Summer. You can see how the savings can add up quickly if you utilize your membership to its maximum.

Our year pretty much consists of the City Museum in January, the Delta Dental special weekends at the zoo in February, Easter Egg hunting in March, lots of trips to the Botanical gardens in April & May, Summers at the pool, back to the City Museum in September, the zoo when it's nice in October/November and lots of holidays to get us through to the end of the year. Throw in trips to the Science Center, Money Joe's, McDonalds, etc and it makes me wonder how I have time to go to work!!!!

Monkey Joe's

Sam took Ben & Maggie to Monkey Joe's yesterday. It's a great place for the kids to get rid of some energy and for parents to relax. They found a machine that sells fake moustaches and managed to persuade Daddy to buy them one.

A more legitimate snow day this time....

Ben will be so happy this morning. Once again, he was right and the parents were wrong. No school again today. Not such a big loss this time as it was a half day anyway. Today is Sam's turn to look after the kids and I think it's time to take them somewhere to get rid of some energy. They did very well yesterday, they played with the girl from next door for most of the day. Ben set up all the books in his bedroom and made a library, they played Hullabaloo (with prizes!!) and with Lego for most of the day.


We had freezing rain on & off all day yesterday and then it started a big fluffy snowfall last evening which has left us with quite a significant amount of snow/ice. I came into work at my usual time as I figured at least there would be little traffic on the roads. The downside to that is that the roads are still not clear and so there were some parts where you just had to let the car go where it wanted to. For the most part, the other drivers on the road were being as cautious as I was, but I still saw some spectacular slides in from of me. I made it into work in just a little over my usual commute time, so I was happy about that. Another downside to getting in early is that SLU has never cleared any of the snow/ice away. This morning, I had to work my way through a huge snowbank that they had made when they cleared the sidewalk. Luckily, I was prepared and had rolled up my jeans & worn boots to work. I was able to change into my shoes & dry out by the heater in my office & can now start my day.