T-3 Days

As much as we wish for the opposite, there comes a time when your spouse/partner/significant other will need to go out of town for longer than overnight.  In other, more rare times, this length of trip extends to longer than a week.  Whenever these times come up, it really makes you appreciate a lot of things that you are forced to live without temporarily.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Alison being here every day and every minute and normally don’t do well without her when she just leaves for a girls’ night out.  I subject myself to violent sports or reality shows with either pizza or wings and random grunting until she gets home. Okay, I still do that when she’s here but usually skip the wings.  Anyway, here we are at the tail end of two weeks without my spouse, counting down the three days until her return.  There have been some lessons learned and some traits that have changed over the years.

The first lesson learned is that kids are like wolves.  They can sense when they have the advantage and will take the opportunity to get away with everything they can, every time.  I usually caught that when I would step away from them for any amount of time during the day for things like getting a glass of water, but have noticed it more now that I have to spend every waking moment with them and the amount of things I need to do increases.  I do my best to stay where they are all of the day but I have discovered that I need to eat too.

Something else that is learned is how much an infant going through a growth spurt can put down.  There are times where I can’t even finish cleaning out the bottle and throwing away the diaper that I just changed before he is rooting around, looking for the bottle and will down another entire bottle.  The boy must have gained seven pounds since Alison has been gone.  No kidding, the boy ate three times from the time we got home from the zoo yesterday and when I handed over the torch to Grandma four hours later.  I think he is part pit.  The bottomless variety.

One of the traits that have changed for me as I get older is the amount of time that I like to see dedicated to cleaning.  On regular days, we have cleaning times between breakfast and lunch and before nap if necessary.  I haven’t swayed from that at all but I have increased the area of affected cleanliness to include the rest of the downstairs, including the laundry room.  In olden times, like last time Alison had to leave for more than two days, which I think was three years ago, I would let it get messy because I was focused on other tasks that I needed to complete and cleaning wasn’t very high on the list of priorities.  That is, until it was the day she was coming back.  I always said I was the King of the largest nation in the world, Procrastination.  Now I find myself taking little breaks over lunch and dinner and find some area of the house that needs some special attention and doing a blitzreinung to get it cleaned.  Small steps, you know.

T minus three days.  The best thing that I have learned in this self-made social experiment of mine is that it is coming to an end in three days.  Three days until I can have someone to entertain (read: guard) the kids when my blitzreinung targets an area bigger than a dinner plate.  Three days until I have someone else that can take care of the leach when I’m trying to make lunch for everyone else or when I just got home from work and have been asleep for thirty minutes.  Best of all, three days until the missing void in my daily life is back where she belongs.

Week in review

With the first week of solo parenting in the books, it sounds like a good time for an update. That and a baby who likes to be awake all night gave me some time to write instead of sleeping. It has been a pretty crazy week with not a lot of sleep and lots of adventure. Well, not really but maybe a little.

There were times when I worked in food service that I wanted to be a cook for some fancy restaurant. Every once in a while, I read these reviews of the chefs at some of the restaurants downtown and it sparks that interest again. I can safely say that after this week alone, that desire is gone. On a normal week, I make breakfast and lunch for everyone in the house with the occasional dinner too. There is a good balance between preparing for the kids, the the wife and then myself. Directly after I clean up from the meal, it's time to start preparing lunch which is usually something for kids and something for adults. I started the week thinking that Gus would fill the spots allocated for Alison with his feeding and the balance would be okay. I was wrong. Turns out it takes roughly half the time to cook for Alison that it does to feed Gus a bottle. That shifts out me eating for the most part. It only takes three days of eating a handful of cereal for breakfast and some dinner before that becomes an issue. On the good side, it's helping my diet out pretty well.

Sleep. A magical word that I take for granted. Over the years, I've grown accustomed to only really needing five and a half hours a night. That, of course, is a minimum. This week, I have averaged closer to three... with an hour break in the middle for a feeding. This is only a two week deal so I've learned to be okay with that, even though I have been exhausted. The funniest part of that is today, I decided to go to bed early and went to sleep at 9pm. I heard a noise at midnight that I thought was a baby stirring and now my body thinks it has had enough. Now, I'm having a little trouble getting back down. I'm sure that I will be fast asleep soon as my usual bedtime approaches. One more week, though, and that will be an old story I tell the kids when they complain about how hard life is.

Now for the adventure. I went to Target tonight with the five kids. I had to get a few things before the large shopping trip this weekend. Not really a big deal because people do it all the time. The funny thing is that not a lot of dads do it. That became obvious when I started seeing wives shoot husbands dirty looks after seeing me lugging the cart around and football holding the baby. It was pretty funny. Okay, it was really funny. Funny enough that I did a few laps just to watch the dirty looks and elbow nudges. That's all. Solo parenting with five kids gives new definition to the world adventure. That's a good thing because I don't know that my exhausted, starving body could take much more.

Day two

Today is the second full day of my wife being out of town for two weeks. Things are pretty much the same but louder. I have a pretty low tolerance to loud noises but am a lot more paranoid that she'll get in trouble at work if one of the kiddos start belting out twinkle twinkle.

One thing that changed was Gus's feeding schedule. Gramma fed him at 11 last night and I brought him upstairs with me at 3. He slept until 5 for a feeding and slept again until 8:30 which is my usual wake up time. Sure it was only five hours of sleep with an interruption in the middle but it felt like twelve considering the usual 4 and 6 am wake up yells. Ahh, the small things are the things to be most grateful for.

UPS

My wife is out of town for eleven days, leaving me the sole parent for five kids. It's a great opportunity for her and our family and I just hope she adjusts well to being in an office rather than across our room in her PJs. The getting ready to leave played in me not updating for the last week. It has been pretty busy around here. Now, back to talking to myself.

I have switched tactics on the sweeping. Just like major life changes, there are various stages when sweeping. First, things go like normal. You enter x amount of contests every day and get excited with the thoughts of what you'll do with the prize. You feel anxiety and excitement. Then, you have your first win. No matter the size of the prize, you feel happy and more excited. Unless you're a very lucky person, the winnings will dry up temporarily and you turn to aggravation and anger at not winning. At that point, you still enter and eventually win again. Sometimes, in the middle of the anger phase, you don't win and the odds are fantastic. 1 in 200 or less. That will spiral you into the "lower your standards so you can win something at least" phase. There, you'll find me except I don't get mad.  irritated sometimes, but still.

The slum standard, as I call it, means you enter more sweeps for things that you wouldn't throw away. Not things you want only, just things that can be given to someone else or you wouldn't toss. For me, this puts me in another place: the surprise win class. These prises are small enough that it doesn't need to be claimed on taxes so they just mail them out. I now know what the dogs feel like when the delivery guys start circling the neighborhood. I guess the only natural solution is to install a peep hole lower on the door and teach the kids how to look for packages for me before Mom gets back. That way it seems more natural and less crazy.

After the Storm

The month end sweepstakes extravaganza is over. There were no casualties that I know of yet. Now we are in the waiting phase of the sweepstakes. This is the only phase that causes me any stress in this new crazy hobby of mine. It's not that I mind waiting, it's just that I like to have an idea of how long I have to wait. Tell me that it's going to be 17 years until I hear something and I'll be just fine and mark it on my calendar. Don't give me an idea and an hour seems like months. Opening the spam folder seems more and more like a chore because you never know if one of the messages are going to tell you the good news or if it's going to be 185 actual spam messages.

I counted up and out of the 1205 possible sweeps that were ending yesterday, I only entered into 37 of them. You'd think that I could find more contests that ended that I could enter into but, again, I only enter for things that I would like to have. Yesterday, in the winner's circle forum, I saw this person who had won a case of some drink as part of their yearly wins and in parenthesis it said "eww gross". Before you can digest that, the show we watched on TV that sealed this fate of sweepstaking showcased two sisters that lived across the street from each other and were both sweepers. They had both won a lifetime supply of beer...delivered. (Wow). Neither of them drank beer. I believe in Karma and try to only deliver good things to the Karmic cycle. That's part of why I only enter for things I would like to have. I see these people who enter to win everything and anything, which for some it is their full time job, and just think of the prizes that other people really wanted to win and probably entered every day for. What if there was someone (not be because it did sound gross) that loves that flavor of drink? I like beer as much as the next person but wouldn't enter to win it for life unless it was the beer that I like. I have even gone so far as to not enter a sweepstake because there would be someone more deserving of the prize. Sure that doesn't help my winning any but it helps my balance.

Yesterday being the start of a new month of sweepstakes starts the one-entry stakes which are my favorite. That way we all have the same number of entries and the odds are just one on one (x 1million). Those are also the ones I enter more frequently. So, here we are, two days into the month of May. This month is starting out to be a performance engine month so I have the potential of having a new auto shop in the garage along with enough tools to make my own Snap-on truck. Also, this month is the last month before they give away a really nice camera that I would love to win. Problem with that is that there are also another 350,000 people that would love to win it also and have had three months to enter. Hopefully I win based on Karma alone but I am still really happy for whoever does win it. I just hope it doesn't go to someone who thinks it tastes gross.

An ode to a car seat

I drive a Toyota Tundra with the crew max cab daily. We also have a Chevy Express 12 passenger van. These are the vehicles you own when you have a portable community that you have to transport from place to place. With four of the children in proper child safety seats and the other three in boosters, I have had my fair time checking out and trying different seats. We've had the Britax and Costco and a multitude old others and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I'm not getting into all of that now, but I am going to give some praise to one of the manufacturers we use: The First Years - True Fit.

First off, let me say that the color or the pattern of the fabric on the seat does not matter to me at all. I gave up having manly seats in the car the instant my first daughter was born. However, the selections they have strike a nice balance. There is enough color and pattern to make those in the house that care about that sort of thing happy and enough black to not make the inside of my truck look like it should be driven by Ken. As I've already said, though, the color couldn't be less of a concern for me. We have a purple room in out house. Purple. Disney Princess Purple to be exact.

The thing about the seat that makes me want to worship the designers and engineers that came up with this seat is the functionality and ease of use. I know what you're thinking, how hard can it be to use a car seat? Not very, really. Where the difficulty lies is when you have more than one child needs to use the seat depending on what you are trying to do and who you are taking with. Also, when the passenger grows, we all know about the threading of straps backwards and pulling from that deranged hook in the back to re-thread and find it needed to go up two spaces. This thing has two knobs on the side that you pull out and adjust the strap height as needed and loosen or tighten the straps. That's it. You don't even have to unlatch it unless you're going from rear to front facing (which is crazy easy too). Alison also says something about it being easy to remove the cover too with it still strapped but I always just use Windex on whatever spills.

Long story shortened; if you ever have a need to share a car seat between multiple kids, you need this seat unless you just don't like things that are easy and time means nothing to you. If your kids grow at all, its still a good investment so you don't have to put off adjusting the straps when they approach the next height notch. Overall, these are just great seats.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!!!

Not too unlike those monster truck commercials for utter annihilation, Sunday is the d-day when it comes to sweepstakes. Sunday brings a massive amount of drawings for new winners tied with another large amount of one or two day entry period sweeps that pop up. The great thing about those are that the short entry times don't allow for a lot of entries, increasing the chance of winning. Needless to say, Sundays are the only days I really dedicate any amount of substantial time to sweeping.

What makes this Sunday different, however, is that Monday is the last day of the month. The last Sunday right before the last day of the month is a combination of all the monthly, weekly and monthly contests converging. Last time I checked, there are over 1200 sweepstakes ending on Monday. Now, don't get all hysterical, I don't actually enter that many. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that I'm close to ten percent. Some of the other people that I see on the sweepstakes pages are closer to 90. Not saying they're crazy or anything, just that having seven kids and a family that I love to spend time with prevents much more time than I currently commit. So, in normal people terms (those people that don't sweep) today is equivalent to Black Friday. Well... not exactly because I think I rolled out of bed this morning around 10am and am not bloated from eating too much turkey and pumpkin pie. ..and it's not Friday. The level of busyness and severe need for organization to make it through, however, is exactly the same. Ah, the price we pay for trying to win something that we only want bad enough to spend the time and energy it takes to fill out a form online and have an increase in our spam folder.

If you're a sweeper and your here reading this, GO BACK NOW AND KEEP ENTERING FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SACRED!! Also, I didn't call you crazy, just less sane than me in the sweepstakes area of the brain. And before you get mad about that, just keep in mind that me being more sane gives you better odds of winning all those prizes. WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?!? THERE ARE SWEEPS ENDING AS THE WORDS KEEP FLOWING!!!

What came first?

Instead of the age old chicken or egg question, a recent trip to our local Target struck this question in a different way to me. The customer in front of me clearly had a problem with other people. No one in particular, more of a general dislike of all people mixed with the anger of needing basic items to maintain life from a public place. The sneers he was giving the cashier alone was enough to make me want to start sneezing on him, just to watch the immediate freak out that would surely follow. Then the rude comments he uttered in response to the credit/debit inquiry spun me into my 24 hour rule to avoid opening my mouth and saying what we all were thinking. He finished up and the cashier gave a small sigh of relief. My turn. I tried, as many of us do, to give him some acknowledgement to how well he handled himself to a clearly difficult customer. I said, "Wow. Sorry you have to deal with people like that. I'm sure that makes for a long day."  He sneered back at me and said that there are other lines open. I was taken back at this and just stared at him blankly, paid for my stuff and left. While I contemplated calling the store manager to let them know the attendant on aisle 3 needed a break, I wondered how I would act if I had 6 customers like that in a row. Would I be able to still be polite to the next person? What starts the bad customer service experience? Is it just bad service or is it like the last flight of the day that has become 5 more minutes late at every stop, adding up to three hours when it's time for you to fly? What came first, the rude customer or rude associate?

For those of you that are so lost in the internet that you have found your way here, you have just stumbled upon the completely random gripe pad for me.  My name is Aubrey Power.  I am a parent of seven kids along with my lovely wife Alison in DFW. 

Second to my family, two of the things I find joy in are sweepstakes and standing up for consumer rights.  The latter is a trait that I picked up from my mother but I think it has moved its way up in importance the older I get and the more I see it moving the other direction.  What you can expect to find here is a sounding board for both.  The sweepstakes stuff because I don't like to be negative on the sweepstakes sites I go to when I don't win stuff.  It brings a cloud with it that brings down the mood for some of the fine folks that are much more dedicated to sweeping than I am and I won't be that guy.  The consumer gripes will be more of a place where I can say what I'm thinking and read it when I'm further detached so I can work out what the next course would be.  I'm sure that it will also include me bookmarking good deals I find on random stuff.

If you got here because you lost peripheral vision while typing in a website because of a migraine, take a couple of Excedrine and my apology for making it worse.  You can direct your browser to google and search for a blog that isn't random and will be more interesting than listening to the Police scanner.  If you found your way here because you wanted to see what I have to say, direct your browser to the same location but, this time, make the search be for mental help.

Enjoy

Aubrey