What seams difficult . . .

On Saturday nights, I listen to Prairie Home Companion, and I pay bills, and I mend clothes.

Except that now that my sons are finishing up 11th grade, getting closer and closer to the day they'll launch into the world on their own, I pay bills and have my sons mend their own clothes.

Fixing a ripped seam -- like the one on N-son's bike jersey -- takes maybe 3 minutes if you know how.  And I darned well want my sons to know how, and not to toss a piece of clothing that's easily fixed just because they're too intimidated by the process of pinning the fabric or threading the sewing machine.

The first time my sons asked me to mend some clothes and I turned the job back over to them, they panicked.  To me, that says that the lessons were all the more vital.  How did I let them get to that point?

I'm really pleased that by now, they accept the task matter-of-factly.  They know how to back-stitch at the beginning and end of the repair, how to remove pins as they stitch along, how to turn the needle so that it finishes up, how to snip the threads when they're done.

They're even sort of proud of their skills.  Sort of.  But I guess I don't have to leave that particular chore up to my sons; I can take on the the task of being proud so they don't have to do it themselves.

[addendum:  when I read a draft of this post to N-son, he replied, "Boo-YAH, I'm proud!"  So I guess that's yet another thing he can handle, after all.]

A Tale of Two Shoes (or, rather four shoes, because two pairs )

This past month, J-son went the frugal route and paid $140 for a pair of "new" shoes for himself, while I went crazy expensive and plopped down $5 for mine.

Or something like that.  Our experiences are just a little story about how "anchoring" prices can affect what we think about what we pay.

J-son loves shoes.  He really, really loves them -- so much so that last Easter, instead of putting candy in J-son's Easter basket, I gave him a shoe polish kit, and he fell over himself thanking me.  He has a carefully curated stack of shoe boxes in his bedroom, each containing its own pair of sneakers.

About a month ago, J-son came home jonesing for a new (well, new to him) pair of shoes.  His friend's dad had bought them a year ago for $400, had hardly ever worn them, and was now getting ready to sell them for the low, low price of $140.  J-son had spent most of his money on other things already (snacks, movies, and other shoes), so he didn't have the money in his bank account, but he knew that his birthday was coming up and with that, he saw the possibility of beaucoup de birthday money dawning on the horizon.

You can take it for granted that he got the usual Miser Mom homilies delivered during his waiting period:  "A sure-fire way to blow $260 is to buy a pair of shoes for $400 and sell them a year later for $140."  "This is why you don't waste money on silly things like Quick-Mart snacks; because you won't have money for things you care about."  "Before you got the last pair of shoes, you said that they were the only thing you wanted; how do you know these will be any different?" Blah, blah, blah.  He'd heard it all before, but he and I both know that consistency is a crucial aspect of parenting, and who was I to let him down on the consistency front?  J-son listened to my pearls of wisdom with good grace, even occasionally agreeing with me.  But he really, really wanted the shoes.

His birthday rolled around, and with his birthday came some birthday money.  I will admit that haggling was involved: J-son is super nervous about the prospect of voting, and his community-oriented mother hinted strongly that actually registering to vote (which he wasn't super keen about) might somehow be linked in her mind to birthday-shoe money (which she wasn't super keen about).  Voter registration happened, and birthday money happened, and J-son scraped his money together into a pile and spent "only" $140 on this amazing, wonderful, long-awaited pair of shoes.

With the box.  Because the box is part of the package, apparently.

Are these not lovely?  Already he's told me he's saving up for a bigger shoe-cleaning kit.

About a month before J-son joyously emptied his bank account---and also pre-dedicated his birthday money, and would have given away his first-born child (had that been part of the asking price)---for his new shoes, I went through my own kind of anguish over whether to spend as much as $5 for a pair of shoes for myself.

The reasons for my recent shoe hunts are manifold.  Because of a case of frostbite I got as a kid, my feet get cold easily, even in the summer, so I wear shoes a lot.  I wanted summer shoes that I could slip on without socks, that had good grip (so I could bike in them), that I could wear with just about anything (skirts, shorts, etc),  and that were super flexible and light, so I can sit cross-legged in them.  My previous summer shoes (N-son's abandoned water shoes) had been perfect -- and free.  The pair before that, I found at a yard sale for a dollar.  But both of my previous summer shoes were wearing out badly, and yard-sale searches had turned up nothing.

I have a personal rule of thumb to try to spend no more than $1 for a pair of shoes, unless the shoes are so amazing and so hard to find that I agree to double that amount to $2.  The last time I violated the rule was almost three years ago:  while I was training for a marathon in a super-cold January and was worried about frostbite, I bought a pair of warm running shoes for the exorbitant price of $11.  I've tried to avoid a similar crazy splurge ever since.

So I was keeping my eyes open for a decent pair of summer shoes, but as yard sale season waned I was realizing how vanishingly small my chances of success were becoming, and I could feel my price point slipping.  And then I popped into a so-called thrift store and saw this pair for $5.

So expensive.  So, so expensive.  But the shoes were everything I wanted, and actually even prettier than my previous summer shoes. (Can you see in the picture that there's gold tint mixed in with the brown stripes?  oooohhhh . . . )  They've got great tread.  They're flexible.  They slip on and off.  They look great with all my outfits.

So I splurged, spending a whopping $5:  500% of my normal shoe budget and 250% of my "fancy" shoe budget on this cute little pair of shoes.  I didn't clean out my bank account or spend future money, but I was just as spendy, in my own Miser-Mom way, as my young and enthusiastic son.

a Checklist Manifested

Earlier last week, I binge-read a fun book called A Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.   Serendipitously,  this happened to be a great week for brushing up on the art of the checklist (although, really, isn't every week a good week for brushing up on checklists?)

It was a particularly good week for checklists -- at least in the MiserMom household -- because we've reached the point in the school year where N-son typically starts falling apart, and sure enough, this year he has started disintegrating right on schedule.  A quick on-line check of his grades gave  us most of the scrabble letters we'd need to write "FLAFF".  His squash/academic tutors wrote with descriptions of trying to organize his notebook, and then a subsequent home inspection showed the notebook had papers from all subjects interleaved, with a few left-over assignments from last year (a different school even) mixed in for good measure.  And his bedroom, which has always been a bit of a construction zone, was awful even for him.  (I know people make fun of teenage boys' bedrooms, but this round of mess was seriously bad.  As in, ants were crawling all over me while I was helping to clean it, and his drawers contained biohazards I won't even name here.  Really, really dirty room).

To compound all this, N-son has a real aversion to being criticized or corrected, so cleaning up with him puts him in a totally grumpy mood.  We call it the "hedgehog" -- very prickly.

Stage 1 of intervention is to clear out the mess and get things back to presentable.  We spent about two evenings going through his bedroom and then his school notebook.  Stage 2-through-whenever is trying to come up with a system that maintains some semblance of order for a while, to postpone as long as possible the next round of disaster.

Fortunately, N-son loves checklists and to-do lists.   These lists don't feel like criticism or correction to him; he sees them as a form of autonomy.  So it was lovely that I'd just read Gawande's book, because The Checklist Manifesto is more than just a love letter to how great checklists are, it also has some advice on what makes a good checklist (and what makes a bad one).

First of all, a checklist is different than a to-do list.  A to-do list is something we create with mostly one-time tasks, but a checklist is repeated every time a certain situation arises:  one example Gawande uses is a pilot's pre-flight checklist.  Another example he doesn't use, but which is probably more familiar to most people, is K-daughter's leaving-the-house mental checklist:  "keys, phone, wallet, baby".  She repeats this four-item list to herself every time she heads for a door (and yes, she sometimes would have forgotten the baby if she hadn't!)

What makes a good checklist?

• It has to be short: he suggests no more than 9 items (and preferably, fewer than 9).  If you get longer than that, people tend to start skipping the checklist, and it becomes worthless.
• Because of the need for brevity, the items on the checklist should be crucial items, ones that people are apt to overlook under stress.  He gives a lovely example of this:  a checklist that pilots use when an engine dies on a single-engine Cessna has only 6 items.  None of the items are "call the radio tower", because pilots always remember to do that.  But one of the items is "FLY THE PLANE" -- because if you're freaking about how to turn the engine back on, steering and maintaining altitude are easy to overlook.
• The items on the checklist have to be precise and specific.  "Room clean?" is too vague, but "all empty hangars are downstairs" is specific.

Gawande notes that a checklist is more than an OCD way to maintain control over your tasks, it's also a great tool for ensuring communication between various parties.  N-son now has at least 5 different adults helping with his homework at various times; his  four-item notebook checklist will help not only N-son, but also all those adults helpers plus his teachers know what his system is.   (Okay, cross fingers that what I'm saying is true).

Already, N-son has managed to maintain a surprisingly clean room for a whole week, as confirmed by my husband.  (And note that the checklist means that N-son knows what to clean, and also that my husband knows what areas *I* think are important to check, so the room has stayed clean without any direct intervention on my part).  And even more, N-son seems to be really happy about having this direction about what "clean your room" actually means.

For what it's worth, here is N-son's bedroom checklist.  We'll continue testing how well this works.

Trash 

1. Trash cans emptied; trash bags removed. 

2. Newspapers, school papers, and all other papers in recycling or put away. 

Floor 

3. Picked up. 

4. Swept and/or vacuumed. 

Closet 

5. Empty hangars downstairs (not on doorknobs or on the floor, but hanging on a rod downstairs) 

6. All shoes in the closet, on the floor 

Dresser 

7. Clothes in correct drawers (shorts in shorts drawer, etc) 

8. Clothes are all clean. 

9. Clothes are neatly folded.

Where is X-son?

Back in December 2011, my husband and I visited Haiti to meet, among the many people there, one young boy.  A friend had met him on a missions trip and fallen in love with him; she thought he might be a great fit for our family; and so we took the trip ourselves to see if we agreed.

This kid (whom we call "X-son" in this blog) was . . . well, charming.  He had a presence.  He was a leader among the kids in his orphanage; he was respectful; he cuddled up to us.  We, too, fell in love and started a long, convoluted adoption process that eventually went nowhere.  (A fuller explanation of what happened to the failed adoption is in this old post).  

Since then, what's happened?  Well, we "supported him" at school in Haiti.  It's hard to feel like that's really support, because a whopping $300 paid for all of his schooling and uniforms and transportation for the year -- but even though it doesn't seem like enough, we sent our $300 and occasional notes down to Haiti along with another missionary friend.

The updates were sometimes sweet, but a lot of the times, they were hard to hear.  A year ago the missionary wrote,

He is doing well. He goes to Mario's school. It is a Haitian school. A poor school. I cannot promise the quality of education but he is happy. He lives with his mom. Life is hard. There is no running water or electric in their area. All water must be carried a long distance. There supposedly is a truck that brings water but if you do not have money to pay, you do not get water.

When we asked about helping pay for water, the missionary cautioned us:  

The one thing I think I would be careful of would be to create a dependency for him and his family. Giving is really tricky. Let me talk with my Haitian advisor on that one. See what we can do.I so not think it will tempt him into trouble, it would create him to ask you for everything. 

 We ended up not sending down money for water.  Contact got increasingly infrequent. I suppose that's to be expected from both ends. X-son at one point asked for money for a computer; instead we arranged for him to share a computer with the son of a local Haitian minister.  And that was the last we heard for a while, except for brief "thinking of you" posts on Facebook.

So when my missionary friend was heading down to Haiti again, I asked her to look up X-son.  Does he need money for school this year?  What's he up to?

She wrote:

I have not seen [X-son] for over a year. Last time I saw him was right before the start of the 2015-2016 school year. I was under the impression that was his last year of school. I do see one of his friends, and he told me that [X-son] was making poor choices. Other than that, I do not have any other information regarding him. I am leaving for Haiti tomorrow and will inquire about him and see what I can find out for you.

He called me a few months ago talking real ghetto-like. Calling me “baby”. He wanted money. It was not the same boy I knew in the past. It really makes me sad for him.

And then, after her trip down, she wrote 

I just got back from Haiti on Saturday and was in Montrouis. I asked several people about [X-son]. No one had information on him. I am under the impression he is making poor decisions in his life. He broke contact with his prior friends that I know and am sorry to say they do not know where he is. I am sorry.

So, we've lost him.  In multiple senses of that word.

Part of me thinks, if we'd managed to get him out of Haiti right when we'd met him, we could have made a real difference.  He was still young enough that we could have taught him English, given him reasonable hope for a decent future, yadda yadda.

Part of me thinks, this is just one kid.  There are so many kids in Haiti in the same situation as X-son: scrambling to find some way to survive in a country that's torn by corruption, deficient in basic needs like food, water, shelter, trash removal -- as well as in bigger social needs, like a functioning government and a stable community infrastructure.

Part of me thinks, Haiti is such a miserable place.  If I were X-son -- buffeted by poverty, typhoid, and natural disasters, steeped in a misogynist, corrupt culture where the people who figure out how to game the system are the ones who survive and thrive -- well, who's to say I wouldn't make similar choices?  Get in with the powerful people. Take what I need.  Stop being a "victim", and get myself up on top.

What X-son has done for me is to make all these abstract, foreign issues personal.  It's not just hungry children somewhere far away; it's my hungry X-son.  It's not just corruption and questions of the best kind of international aid; it's my X-son getting typhoid, running away from the orphanage that beats him, making "poor choices" that might enable him to survive.  

I'm very sorry to have lost him.

"My Mom ate my homework"

Here we are, barely two weeks into school, and I get a call from N-son's new high school guidance counsellor.  Oh, no . . . not already in trouble! I worry. And in fact, I am right -- he's not in trouble!  Whoop!  Even better, the counsellor tells me that the reason for this call is that a spot has opened up in the culinary internship program.

So from now on, N-son is going to spend the first half of each school day at our County's career training center (CTC), learning about things like how to sharpen knives and how to become OSHA certified (two things that probably have some bearing on each other, you think?), and the second half of each day back in the high school muscling his way through things like chemistry and algebra and communication arts.

Yesterday, he brought home his science homework:  a list of vocabulary words at the top ("theory", "model", "hypothesis", "independent variable"), with a bunch of definitions at the bottom.   He was supposed to match them up:  he got exactly one of the thirteen definitions right. Ooog.  Well, at least we caught this early and can re-do his work before he turns it in.

But he also brings home schoolwork from CTC.  Here's a picture of him holding his schoolwork.

I'm bummed that I didn't get him with his puffy black chef's hat that
comes with his uniform, because that's adorable.
I'll have to take that picture of him soon.

Here's a closer glimpse of the schoolwork:  cherry tomatoes and mozzarella balls with basil, in an Italian sauce.  The container isn't as full as when he brought it home because, well . . . yeah.

I get the feeling homework time is going to be a lot more fun this year!

The Seven Essays of a Highly Inefficient Procrastinator

It's September, and school has started up again.  My boys have left the Quaker Local School behind them and returned to public school for their last two years of secondary education.

And here's a story about that transition.

Where J-son has been our child of many spectacular stories because of his impulse control issues, N-son tends to err more on the side of procrastination.  J-son has excelled in sins of commission (if you will), while N-son has taken on the sins of omission.  So we sort of have to watch him and nag him about getting out there, doing things, instead of just sitting around at home playing on his phone.

Last spring, we got an email near the end of the school year from N-son's Bible teacher. Each of the kids in the class was supposed to do a project:  J-son chose to attempt 2-day fast (he lasted 15 hours, but he tried).  N-son, the teacher told us, had promised he would volunteer at the soup kitchen in the homeless shelter that I volunteer at.

Did I mention that this was near the end of the school year?  In fact, there were exactly four school days left at that point, and we hadn't heard a peep out of N-son about any volunteer project.  We quickly got him signed up for a 2-hour volunteer shift on Tuesday afternoon, right after school. He and I biked there together and did the shift together, with me taking on the new-to-me role of washing dishes, and with N-son helping to bus tables and hand out doughnuts.

When we got home, I asked him, "Do you need to write some kind of essay about this?"  After all, I'm a teacher; I know that doing isn't enough for learning; reflection is part of the process, too.  N-son admitted that yes, he was supposed to write an essay and that he'd do it and turn it in the next day.

So Wednesday after school, I double-checked:  Did you write the essay?  Did you turn it in?  Yes and yes, he assured me.

But my husband was dubious.  So Thursday he asked N-son yet again:  Did you do the essay?  Did you give it to your teacher?  Did you actually put the essay into his hands?  N-son repeatedly assured us the essay had been done, adding details:  he did it with Ms. C, his learning support teacher.  He gave it to Mr. S, his bible teacher, in person.

And then Friday, we got another note from Mr. S:  N-son hasn't turned in his volunteer essay.  What should I do?   We called Ms. C, who told us, We asked N-son about the essay, and he said he did it at home.

We told Mr. S he should just fail the kid.  Not only didn't he do the work, but he repeatedly, deliberately lied about it.  We also told N-son that this was the end of the Quaker Local School -- we had made it clear that we were working hard to pay for them to go there, but we weren't willing to do that if they weren't going to work hard also.  So the school was over.

But that's not the end of the story.  Mr. S told us he'd like to give N-son one more chance to do the project late, albeit for reduced credit.  He gave us the complete assignment: it turns out, N-son was supposed to do four hours of service, and to interview at least one person, and to relate the service to specific bible topics.

At this point, because N-son's work-avoidance had created so much more work for all the adults around him, I decided it ought to create more work for him, too.  So I told him that not only was he going to write this essay for Mr. S, but he was going to write essays seven times this summer, one for each time he'd lied to us or his teachers.  You said you did the work, so you'll actually do it.

N-son passed the class with a D-, which was super-generous on the part of Mr. S.   (Or was it?  Mr. S had at one point confided to my husband, "I really like N-son, but I really don't want him in my class again next year.")

But even more, N-son started volunteering regularly -- about 20 hours a week -- at the soup kitchen.  One of the cooks -- a big dude named Calvin with skin darker than N-son's and a lot of experience with wayward youth -- took N-son under his wing.  And N-son, in return, glommed onto Calvin.  He came home talking about making mac-n-cheese from scratch, learning to cut fruit quickly, the importance of no-skid shoes, the proper technique for mopping (or "moping", as he spelled it).  He interviewed the cooks about what it had been like to be homeless, and he heard story after story of wanting to make amends, to give back, to make the most of their second chances.

When it was time to start signing up for classes at the public school, N-son had to make choices about which "Small Learning Communities" to join, and he asked for the "Public Service" community.  When the school talked about sending kids out on internships in the future, N-son put himself on the waiting list for "Culinary Arts".  And he promised Calvin and the other cooks that, even though his essays are done (so he doesn't have to volunteer anymore), and even though school has started (so he has much less available time), he still plans to go back on weekends to chop food, wash dishes, and mope the floors.

I collected up all the essays and made two additional copies.  One copy, I gave to the soup kitchen for their records; the staff there seemed to love seeing themselves through this young kid's eyes.  The other copy, I attached to a cover note that had a large helping of thank yous, along with a "we never know what effect we'll have on our students" message, and sent it off to Mr. S.   He's beginning another round of his own school year, with another set of students who will take on projects in his class.  I wish them all -- and all the students and teachers who are starting this new year -- the very best.  And if these students or their teachers get second chances, I hope they learn to make the most of that spectacular, wonderful gift.

Cooking, Exercising, and possibly Gender

Y pulls food out of the fridge while
N-son makes hamburger patties using canning rings.
Miser Dog is *always* ready to help
with the cooking!

School starts up soon again, and in the way that one thing leads to another, cooking meals is becoming a thing-to-reckon-with.  I've long believed in teaching my kids to cook, and I've had intermittent success at actually enforcing a cooking rotation for dinner duties.  Both of my sons have got some serious culinary skills now.

But, man, is it an effort to keep that rotation going!  It seems like any little bump in the road of our daily schedules knocks the dinner-rotation-train off its tracks, and I wind up taking over the main part of the cooking again.  Even this past year, with my husband retired (so that in theory he could take on the majority of dinner-time duties), I've ended up preparing meals about three nights a week, which is more than any other person in the home does.

Part of this is because -- I admit -- I'm a bit of a control freak about some things.  I rescue food from the soup kitchen where I work so that it doesn't get tossed in the trash, and so I make pizza-bagels for dinner that night.  Or we have a family special dinner about once a month, and preparations for those events are Mine-All-Mine, baby.  Or there are vegetables coming out of our ears because of our CSA and our garden, and I feel morally obligated to get those green things onto the table and into our bellies before they turn into something only the compost pile would accept.

So at any rate, I know the dinner-on-me thing is partly a matter of my own bossy and controlling tendencies.

But there's more going on that dictates dinner management, and I think it's a sports thing -- maybe even a gendered sports thing.  I think that athletics conspires to make moms (and not sons or husbands) do the dinner cooking.  Am I crazy to think so?

My female friends and I love running together.   We all, in our various ways, schedule our running early in the morning, to minimize family disruption.  With my friend June, I run about 4k every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 6 a.m.  We get home by 6:30, wake our kids to get them ready for school, and then get ourselves ready for work.  My long-distance friends run together on Saturdays at the "late" hour of 7 a.m., which means our kids can sleep in until we get home.

My husband and his (mostly male) buddies, on the other hand, have a daily bike ride that starts at 4:00 p.m. and lasts until 6 or 6:30 -- which is right when the kids are getting out of school and starting homework.  My sons similarly have late afternoon/early evening sports.  J-son doesn't get home from boxing until 7:15.  N-son has after-school squash, plus evening drums and voice rehearsals.  So the men-folk in my household are not around to prepare dinner, at least not unless we wait until 8 p.m. to eat.  If our friends are any indication, the same pattern holds in many households across our city.


With the school year starting up again -- and with my committee load kicking into high gear this year -- I've been keeping an eye on our dinner scheduling.  We've recently pulled out the old "Family Meal Planning White Board" (with the days of the week in permanent marker, and the chef of the day in dry erase marker).  There are five us us at home (that includes our host daughter, Y, who takes a meal a week), so there are plenty of chefs to go around.  With a bit of careful work, we can coordinate with sports and musical schedules.

Sometimes, the hard part about making dinner is figuring out what to make. But for our family lately, it's almost as tricky to figure out who is making it.  Wish us luck!

Kids who are getting bigger

One last vacation story . . .

On the long drive back from the family vacation, we stopped in a midwestern city to have dinner with my best friend from my elementary/high school days.  The timing of the trip worked out perfectly for this!  Yay, perfect timing!

Also, yay for best friends from long ago, and the chance to catch up with each other!  And yay for a home-cooked dinner on a long drive!

My friend has two kids, and of these two, Sam is very close in age to my own sons.  They've met once or twice before -- in fact, the boys got to play together a few years ago.  So N-son remembered Sam and was looking forward to seeing him again.

And when we did meet up, N-son took me aside and said in an awed voice, "Mom, Sam has gotten a lot bigger since we last saw him!"

N-son thinks it's funny to wear his regular glasses
and his sunglasses at the same time.  

Um, yeah, N-son; Sam isn't the only teenage boy who's gotten a lot bigger these last few years!

Recognizing problems for pay

Picking up where my last post left off . . . we're no longer doing "allowance" in my home, we're paying the boys to recognize problems and solve them.

N-son, at 17 months, putting dirty
shirts down the laundry chute.

A bit of a set-up for this: my sons are 16 and 17, and they're starting to get jobs outside the home.  They've always done chores around the house -- N-son put his own laundry down the laundry chute even before he could talk, and he helped empty the dishwasher (putting away silverware) by the time he was 2.  Nowadays the boys are in charge of vacuuming, feeding the dog, making dinner once a week, cleaning bathrooms, mowing the lawn, and more.  We've worked hard to teach them how to be helpful, and somehow, happily, all that work we did getting them to work . . . it worked.

So.

But if the boys are good at doing everything we ask them to do, what they're not good at is doing what we don't ask them to do.  That is, most tasks around the home are sort of invisible to the boys, until we point the tasks out.  The lawn getting long?  It'll get longer and longer until one of the parents makes noise.  Dog hair and food all over the dining room rug?  Science experiments will spontaneously get underway in the carpet, unless a parent directly mandates that the vacuum cleaner make an appearance.

I have a friend who works for our college's Facilities and Operations department, who supervises a bunch of college students who are summer workers.  He tells me they're like my sons: he calls these students "work amplifiers".  He says, "If I'm doing work and they're with me, then work gets done about 60% faster.   They amplify the amount of work I get done. But once they're out of my sight, they sit on their butts and do nothing, because they have no idea what they're supposed to do.   I have to spell everything out for them, even if I already explained it the day before."

This is not what I want for my sons.  I'm ready for an alternative.

My friend TL has been reading a book on raising kids who are financially not-spoiled, and she liked it so much she decided to have a book group discussion about it.  One of the short digressions in the book led me to a blog post by a dad named Jake Johnson who decided to pay his son to be an entrepreneur.   The post, which he wrote in 2013, went viral -- there's a retrospective in the New York Times at this link.

I'm not a fan of the title "entrepreneur" -- actually, I think it's that I am not a fan of nouns and titles in general.  But I loved the verbs he used:  he wrote,

In our house, you get paid for recognizing a problem and proposing a solution. I've taught Liam that if he wants to make money, he has to pay attention to the world around him, identify a problem that needs fixing, and propose a solution.  We then negotiate a payment.

What great verbs.  Recognize.  Pay attention.  Identify.  Propose.  Negotiate. These are great ways to navigate the world.  I want to turn my sons' heads in this direction.

One of the dangers of any system of monetary rewards I use is that my rewards tend to be so low that other people thwart my system.  My husband, especially, is prone to impetuously throw money at the boys because . . . well, because they don't have much money.  But fortunately, this system seems to work well through my husband's lenses, too.  If the boys are running low on cash and they've been sitting on the couch all day, surfing their phones, . . . well, there is money hanging from the branches of the bushes that need to be trimmed, money growing out of the ground with the weeds that need to be pulled, money sliming up the walls of the hallway that could use a good scrubbing.  All the boys have to do is put down their phones, open their eyes, and grease up their elbows.

So two weeks ago, we sat down with our boys and told them the allowance journal days are over, for now.  The boys will still have to do household chores, and they still won't get paid for regular household work.  But if they notice a problem area in the house and suggest/follow-through on fixing it, and if they do it before I make them do it, then they get paid.  On the other hand, if that problem bugs me enough that I make the boys do it before they notice it gets bad, they do it for free.  Being proactive pays.

The flip side, I told them, is that from now on they pay for all their clothes themselves, plus sports and musical equipment.  It's time for them to start learning that side of the earn/spend financial world.

I have a giant list of things that will eventually need to get fixed and/or cleaned up around the house, and I used this list as a "for example" spreadsheet to get the boys started.  They both asked for, and got, photocopies of this list.  I also suggested that, all other things being equal, a rule of thumb would be to think of an hour of work as being roughly $5 (that's like minimum wage, minus taxes, rounded off to make it easy to calculate).  Tasks that require more skill would likely get more money.

Then I off-handedly suggested something that turned out to be the golden halo of awesomeness, as far as the boys were concerned.  I said, "you don't have to negotiate for money.  You could offer to do a chore in exchange for getting to keep your phone for a night or two instead."  Little did I expect that that would be the biggest draw.  For example, J-son took out a big bush from the front yard that needed to come down; we agreed that in exchange, I'd give him $5 and two nights of having the phone in his room, subject to good behavior.

[Our long-standing practice with these phone-addicted boys is that they turn in their phones to us before bedtime, and we charge the phones overnight.  This has worked incredibly well at making sure the phones aren't lost, broken, or being used for all-night video gaming.  But the boys -- particularly J-son -- would like to be able to use the phone for music and as a wake-up alarm.  We're cautiously experimenting with allowing this.]

This is clearly going to be a long-term endeavor.  Changing my sons' mindsets isn't happening overnight, in the same way that teaching them to do chores in the first place took more effort (initially) than doing it myself.  I'm doing a bunch of suggesting problems to them that I think they ought to recognize.  So far, I'm not finding myself going broke because of all the money projects the boys are throwing themselves into.

Here's what they've done so far in the two weeks we've been in this system:

• J-son:  sawed down a bush, trimmed bushes, fixed a sideboard from our grill, washed the car with N-son, carried a chair back to campus with N-son.
• N-son: peeled 80 lbs of bananas and placed them on trays for freezing, washed the car with J-son, carried a chair back to campus with J-son. 

All of these are jobs that I proposed they ought to recognize, not ones that they recognized on their own, but it's a start.  I think I'm down $16 and four nights of phone use -- compared to $20 of allowance money that I would have forked over for the same time period.  And I'm up a bunch of help around the house.  So selfishly, I'm ahead.  But I'm looking forward to the days when the boys catch fire with this system, and start genuinely seeking out ways to be a help, even before I ask.  A year or so from now, I'll let you know how it goes.

Giving money to my sons

As my family has grown and morphed, I've transferred family wealth from parent to child in a variety of ways. We're currently in the process of transitioning to yet another scheme that will allow my sons to get their itchy hands on my hard-earned dollars, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this new scheme works.  (Early indications are hopeful).

Our early money lessons came in the form of "Mommy Dollars".  I just can't sing the praises of those Mommy-Dollar-Days enough.  In fact, just recently my 16- and 17-year old sons were sighing nostalgically and suggesting that maybe we ought to bring Mommy Dollars back.

I don't really think these guys actually want to carry purple, orange, and neon green currency around on their oh-so-cool persons, but I understand the nostalgia.  From their point of view, Mommy Dollars was almost as compelling as video games.  They got paid every day!  They got to carry tokens around in their hands!  They got nearly instant feedback on daily activities:  finish homework?  earn $20!  leave socks on the floor?  lose $5!  And the money that they got to carry around was like score cards, score cards that they could use to compare themselves to the day before, or to their brother.  They learned the importance of wallets, of not leaving money in your pockets when you put your pants down the laundry, and whenever they had the discipline to save instead of spend for a little while, they got their first taste of having wealth.  There's nothing like carrying several hundred dollars around in your pocket to make you feel like you're something, even if the dollars are the colors of popsicles and have the pictures of dogs and big sisters on them.

And from my more manipulative point of view, Mommy Dollars allowed me to retain control of their financial education.  Every dollar they earned, they earned from me.  Every dollar they spent, they spent with me or with each other.  This meant my money lessons couldn't be thwarted by well-intentioned relatives who would spontaneously shower the kids with real money.  It meant that I got to give them daily lessons in basic applied arithmetic, that I got to introduce them to important concepts like the difference between "rent" and "deposit".  Because of the "auctions" we held over deeply emotionally charged aspects of life (like, who gets to hold the TV remote this time, or who gets to put the napkins on the table, or who gets to wear the Bling Watch --- meaningful stuff, here!), they learned a healthy life-long appreciation for how easy it is to get carried away in financial bidding.

Eventually, though, the larger world beckoned, and Mommy Dollars declined in value.  So we switched away from our nightly payment of Mommy Dollar earnings, and moved to a weekly allowance of US dollars.

But the financial lessons also progressed to a new level.  For the past year or so, the boys have had to keep an "allowance journal", each week writing down three things:

• Where their past money actually went in the previous week.
• What they plan to do with their next allowance for the upcoming week.
• Their current savings balance.

That's all: reflection, anticipation, and a tally. In the "plan/anticipation" category, I've required them to be specific: more than saying "give $1, save $2, spend $2", I want to know what they think they might spend the money on. (And oh, yeah, my sons rock an allowance of $5/week. Because I am MiserMom, and that's all they're gonna get from me.)

Needless to say, the allowance journal is not as much fun as Mommy Dollars. But the boys really have learned a lot from it. J-son is the impulse spender; he's the one most likely to vow to save all his money, and then to blow it all a half-hour after it gets into his hands.  He'll even ask me to hold it for him so he doesn't get tempted . . . and then an hour later, he comes back to me to ask for the money so he can go to the convenience store with his friends.  He hasn't curbed his impulses at all, but the weekly practice of reflecting on his impulses has started to convince him that "just this once" isn't really just once.  He can laugh along with me when he says, "I just need this one more pair of shoes, and then I won't need to buy anything more".  Because "just this once" is really "just this hundred times" with him, and now he knows it.

Especially now that he has a paying job (working for his boxing coach),  J-son is getting savvier about putting fences around his money so that he's less tempted to spend it.  For example, now that he has a checking account with a debit card, and now that his debit card has gotten wear and tear from some serious action for the past few months, he's asked me to file away his debit card in my sewing room for him.  

And N-son?  He's not at all as drawn to hitting the stores.  He's steadily split his allowance between charity, saving, and a pittance of candy money, and so even without an outside paying job, he's managed to accumulate a few hundred dollars in his savings account.  He doesn't like keeping track of his money, which meant that one day this month he woke up to discover what he hadn't realized before: he's rich.   Having actual wealth is a motivator, that's for sure.  N-son had been a bit (well, more than a bit) jealous of all of J-son's toys . . . but, dang, N-son's got the bucks.  That's a cure for jealousy, right there.

But, as with Mommy Dollars, so with Allowance Journals.  Lessons have already been learned, and new lessons beckon.

We are moving into a new realm of wealth transfer:  "Recognize Problems and Propose Solutions".  (Shoot; I really need to come up with a better name for this system;  RPaPS is a miserable acronym).  

But this post is long enough.  I'll think of a better name for this baby and write more later.

J-son's Resolution

So, what's been going on with J-son?

I've hinted a few times that things had been rocky earlier this year, and occasionally scary bad, and that they've turned around. This is a description of the turning around. It's kind of long, but the distance he's come is so remarkable I want to share it.

I don't want to share what he did that made things rocky, because that's his story.  But I can share the effect that those things had on family and on him.  For one thing, he alienated both of his nearby sisters.  For several years now, K-daughter had been (justifiably) suspicious of his every move and angry at him for what he'd done to her.  I-daughter, last November, confided in me that "I know I'll probably forgive him someday, but I don't want to be in the same room with him for a while, and he is NEVER allowed to set foot in my house again."  And I completely understood.

My husband had such a hard time dealing with the fallout of J-son's behavior that he (thank goodness) started going to therapy, signing up both boys as well. He had many discussions with me about what would happen next year, when J-son turns 18 and becomes legally an adult: will we move him out of our house? (Because J-son repeated kindergarten way-back-when, when he turns 18 he'll still have 16 more months until high school graduation).  In fact, these conversations put a bit of a stress on our generally solid marriage: at one point, I remember telling my husband that if I were forced to choose between parenting J-son until graduation and staying with my husband, I wasn't sure which I'd pick, but it'd probably be J-son.  I think it's no surprise that it was this particular winter that I wound up twice in the hospital for suspected heart attacks that turned out to be "only" heartburn; it's been a fairly intense time.

It's not that I'm particularly pollyanna-ish about this kid.  My husband affectionately calls me the "Iron Maiden" because I tend to hold the kids to higher standards than any other parents he knows.  When I thought I couldn't do more, I've "given up" on other children: I was the one who called the police to come take C-son away when he spiraled out of control; I was the one who decided to leave X-son in Haiti and help support him there rather than bring him to the U.S.  When J-son was spiraling into the awfulness we associate with what our family still calls "The Horrible Week",  I was the one who confiscated his bedroom furniture so he'd have no hiding places, who did daily inspections of his room for contraband, who put an alarm on his door so I'd know of nocturnal wanderings, who signed him up for more drugs and for therapy.

But through it all, I do think that his troubles are something that J-son can be parented out of.  He's not mean; he's not defiant --- in fact, most of the people we know outside the house go out of their way to rave about what a great kid he is.  He's fantastic with small children.  He's funny.  He's really good with his hands and has the potential to do really well in the trades (we're thinking welding).  But he's had huge problems with impulse control.  Everything I know about developmental psych -- and everything I see in J-son himself -- tells me he's got a good chance of growing out of this, if he's got the right kind of help.  So I want to see him all the way through high school and into a technical school, and I also want to help him get beyond the stupid, hurtful things he's been doing.

***
Things came to a head on Christmas night.  J-son came into our room, all bubbly and happy to talk.  During the conversation, he complained that his job as a ride operator at the amusement park was boring.  It was a minor complaint, but the compounded effect of all the built-up stress caused my husband to blow his top:  How could this kid, who we'd done so much for, be so ungrateful about having a job?

Later that night, my guy vented for a half-hour to me.  I don't even LIKE this kid anymore.  I can't wait until he leaves the house. I know he's supposed to be my son, but I can't stand him.  I tried pointing out that J-son was trying desperately to earn his father's approval and affection; the complaining about work was what he thought grown-ups did.  I told my husband that J-son and I had had lots of talks about my husband; J-son had no idea what it was that my husband wanted him to do.  That's NUTS, my husband said.  I asked him, Well then, name one thing he could do or say that would show you he's actually trying.  My husband stared at me for about 15 seconds.  See? I said, if it's not obvious to you, think how much harder it is for him.  Finally, my husband said, Gratitude.  He could say 'thank you' for ANYTHING he has. So, we'd made some progress.

Except that when I left the bedroom, I discovered that J-son was sitting on the stairs near our bedroom, sobbing.  He'd heard every word.  He'd heard all the   I don't even LIKE this kid anymore.  I can't wait until he leaves the house. I know he's supposed to be my son, but I can't stand him.  And of course, J-son was devastated.

***
That was an awful night, but it was a huge turning point.  I did a bunch of  . . . well, not shuttle-diplomacy, but shuttle-therapy.  Upstairs to J-son's room, to sit with him and let him sob.  Downstairs to our own bedroom, to talk with my husband.  Finally, for the first time, I got them both in the same room talking to each other.  My husband got to vent some more, but this time in front of J-son.  You think you're so great, that you don't ever ask for help.  And when you get caught, you feel bad, but it's all about yourself.  You feel shame, but not guilt.  If you felt guilty, you'd care about other people and not just making yourself feel better.  And so on.  J-son listened and agreed.  Me, I was sitting there thinking, "What the heck do I do now?"  Not wanting the conversation to end there, I had J-son repeat back what he thought he'd heard his dad say.  He did.  I asked my husband, "Did J-son hear you correctly?"  My guy said yes, and added some more.  I asked J-son, "Do you agree you need to ask for help?"  J-son said yes, and that he wanted to ask us for help.

And the stormy clouds parted just a little.  My husband said, That's the first I ever heard you say that. Maybe there's hope.

***

The week after that, my husband went to New York with N-son.  J-son stayed behind and we worked together on apologizing and asking for forgiveness.   J-son put heart and soul into that task. He decided to ask for my help putting a poster on his wall -- like Martin Luther, he wanted to nail his resolutions up where he could see them and remember what his dad had said.

This kid.  As I told my husband, J-son has many mothers:  his birth mom, his foster mom, and me, and he gets to see all of us with varying frequencies.  But he has only one dad.  And oddly enough, he takes after my husband in so many ways, both for good and ill.  They both care about clothes and style; they both are athletic; they both lose things like cell phones and glasses; they both are people-pleasers.  At least half of J-son's impulsive  habits that drive his dad crazy are ones that his dad does that drive me crazy.  J-son loves being told that he's just like his dad.  For all the work I do with this kid, it's the love and respect of my husband that J-son wants the most.

By getting his boxing license and working hard through three different fights, J-son chose the perfect medium for connecting with his dad.  Persistence, toughness, bravery: these are qualities my husband has strived for in his own life, and so the two of them have a lot to talk about.  Things are going so well, in fact, that sometimes N-son gets jealous now, and I have to remind my husband to shower a little attention on his other son, too.

But beyond boxing, the work on humility and forgiveness seems to be taking root.  Both K-daughter and I-daughter have told me that they're impressed by how much J-son has changed.  It's good to see those wounds healing.  When I sit down to dinner with the family that's here in my home city -- with the five children who have five different last names and who come from five different sets of birth parents -- I feel again how incredibly wonderful it is that we've managed to build one family out of such distinct pieces.  It's a miracle at mealtime.

As for my own work with J-son:  all along, I've tried to stress honesty above all else.  It doesn't matter what you do, if you tell me the truth I can try to help you.  But you HAVE to tell me the truth.  I've read several books on lying so I could get into his head, and I've read Spy the Lie over and over again --- I can't recommend it enough.  That book changed our family dynamics for the better in so many ways.   For example, if my husband thinks J-son might be stretching the truth, he drops the subject immediately (don't let J-son dig himself further into a trench) and hands him over to me if a follow-up conversation is needed.  So much better than responding with exasperation!

For me, that emerging honesty is where I see the biggest change happening.  It's not so much that J-son doesn't do impulsive things anymore -- he still does, but they don't seem to be of the same magnitude or harm as his earlier mistakes.  But more importantly, he's much more willing to admit to me what he's done.  He takes responsibility for making a mistake and for making restitution.  He accepts suggestions for avoiding stupid mistakes in the future.  That's such a huge difference; combining that kind of integrity with his already strong likability gives me such hope for his future.

My sons' teeth and lungs

Last Thursday was the last day of school for my boys -- the last day of the Quaker Local School, in fact.  They'll be going back to public school next year.

On Friday, to celebrate their first day of "freedom", they visited the oral surgeon for their long-awaited wisdom tooth extraction.  Woo-hoo, right?  Because what could be better than starting summer vacation with anesthesia and chipmunk cheeks?

N-son went first, because his teeth were the worst.  We'd had the x-rays confirming it for years; his wisdom teeth were coming "in" sideways, pointing at his other teeth, not up or down.  Yuckers.  The oral surgeons knocked him out, got out their jackhammers and TNT, and opened up new spaces in his jaw.

N-son is no stranger to orthodontic intervention.  Even before he had braces, his orthodontist had me choose between nightly headgear and a more substantial (scary looking) piece of equipment called a "Herbst Appliance".   We chose the Herbst Appliance, mostly because I knew my son's propensity for breaking things, and I knew the headgear didn't stand a chance of lasting.  The Herbst gets bolted to the inside of your (kid's) mouth, and is virtually unbreakable.  Which is why N-son only broke it three or so times, each time much to the bewilderment of his orthodontists.  Yeah.

So when N-son had the oral surgeons digging foxholes in his jaw, they warned us he'd be in some pretty significant post-operative pain.  Fortunately, we discovered that a kid who can crumple Herbst appliances in a single bound (to mix metaphors) has a fairly high pain threshold.  He was on Vicodin (generic) for a day and a half, but since then he's been on nothing stronger than tylenol (also generic).   So, all went much more smoothly than expected.

J-son, with the much more straightforward extraction, was second.  The anesthesiologist put him out, numbed his mouth, . . . and then woke him back up as fast as they could without touching his mouth.  Because apparently his oxygen level had plummeted to disturbingly low levels.  (Actual description to my husband:  "If this had been an emergency, we would have put him in an ambulance, but it wasn't yet an emergency."  This was delivered to my husband over J-son's catatonic, drooling body, and was not particularly comforting at the time.)

Apparently, J-son reacted to the anesthesia like a morbidly obese patient or like an extremely elderly patient.  The oral surgeon said, "his general level of high fitness might be masking the fact that he has a serious medical problem."  He hinted at sickle cell anemia, at the same time noting that it didn't fit with the rest of J-son's profile.  (I looked it up:  pain and lethargy.  No, "lethargy" doesn't describe this kid at all.)  After a weekend of waiting for the test results, we were greeted with an old, familiar diagnosis:  weak lungs.  We knew about this when we adopted J-son, and we thought he'd outgrown this.  But apparently he's just out-exercised his apparent need for his inhaler, and not the underlying condition.  He's back on his albuterol inhaler twice a day now, possibly moving to a non-steroid inhaler in the future.

So, we'll reschedule the oral surgery, with a different kind of anesthesia, once J-son has been on the inhaler for about a week.  Do we need a medical warning bracelet?  Or notes in his medical file?  We don't know; those are the next questions we'll get to ask.

In the meanwhile, J-son is still boxing, training harder than ever, and looking amazingly good. Who'd  have thought that J-son would have the harder time with his teeth, or that N-son's tooth removal (dreaded for several years now) would go so smoothly?

How to wash a dog (large stuffed animal version)

Many years ago, I found a large, stuffed dog by the side of the road, set out next to some garbage cans.  I won't make analogies to abandoned pets, but I did bring the animal home, and my sons immediately co-opted the dog as a wrestling buddy.

Over the years, Big Dog has moved into N-son's bedroom, and like any real live dog, Big Dog eventually got smelly and needed cleaning.  This stuffed mutt is so large that it would unbalance and break our washing machine if we tried to stick it in there.  So instead, I had N-son take the dog outside for a bath.  This was fantastic fun for N-son.

First, fill the tub up halfway.  Don't worry that the big tub isn't quite as big as Big Dog.  Add laundry detergent.

Next, mush Big Dog into the tub, spraying the dog as needed to soak it all the way through.  As the dog gets wet, it compacts even better.  Do not try this with live dogs!  Doesn't work!

Also, don't jump up and down on a live dog!  But Big Dog seemed to get cleaner and less smelly with a bit of large muscle work. This is a happy chore for a teenage boy, and Big Dog doesn't mind one bit.

See?? Big Dog is happy to be curled up in the tub.  I totally love this picture.

And afterwards, rinse Big Dog and then leave Big Dog out on a fence panel/pallet to dry for a couple of days, turning the dog over every once in a while to air out.

Here's Big Dog with a 5-gallon bucket, just to show size.

So clean!  So fluffy!  And not stinky any more.

******

What does this have to do with being a Miser Mom?  My husband, when he started worrying about the smelliness of Big Dog, suggested we get rid of the beast, since cleaning it in our washer just wasn't feasible.  Earlier, he'd suggested the same thing about a heavy cloth floor mat.  Both of these were fairly easy to clean outdoors in a giant tub, sunshine, and fresh air.

And for kids, hand washing (or even foot washing!) their stuffed animals during the summer might be another fun activity to keep kids busy and productive, as well as entertained.  

What's in a deposit?

J-son has been working off-and-on for his boxing coach lately. Because of this, he's been earning some big bucks; and because he's been earning big bucks, he's gotten more life lessons with his brand-new checking account.

He's had a savings account at our local credit union for a few years now, but we haven't really let him access the money there (except through me) because of a host of behavior issues, linked to impulse control issues.  The double good news is that (1) he's gotten a job and also (2) his behavior problems seem to be fading.  So he opened a checking account with the credit union last fall, and this spring he's getting chances to learn how to use it.

His job last fall was with an amusement park that deposited his salary. Now he's working with his boxing coach; he gets paid intermittently, and in cash. I'm sure it's breaking all kinds of tax regulations, but J-son is not getting paid enough to worry about taxes this year.  So I'll leave the tax lessons for later; I'm focused on more basic finance skills for now.

The first time J-son wanted to put his boxing money into his checking account, I gave him an ATM envelope, reminded him of the steps he needed to take, and sent him to the ATM alone. He begged me to go with him, but I reminded him that I had done that with him and in the fall. He was on his own this time. The worst that could happen (or so I told him) was that he wouldn't be able to figure it out and would just come back home with his money. All went well. Yay!  Lesson 1 complete.

A week or so later, he wanted to take out money to buy snacks. I reminded him that the ATM two blocks away from the convenient store is free, and that the ATM at the convenience store would charge him. He used the ATM at the convenience store, and was fairly horrified at the $1.75 fee he had to pay. Another good lesson!  (albeit a temporary one).

Last week, we got more practice. I was explaining to Y, our host daughter, that J-son wanted to deposit another $60. He responded, "No I want to put this money in my bank." I reminded him that "deposit" means put money in; "withdraw" means take the money out. Because the free machine was shut down temporarily, he went back to the convenience store.

The next day, pretty much on his own, he figured out how to set up electronic access so he could check his account online. That's how we discovered that instead of depositing his cash, he had instead transferred $60 from savings to his checking.  Somehow he also got the envelope with the $60 into the machine. We call the credit union right away, and they said they have to wait for the envelopes from the ATM to make their way through the system before they can figure out for sure what happened.  I figure that there's a really good chance that his $60 is lost.

My husband is horrified and feels really sorry for J-son. As for me, I'm glad to let my son learn from this experience. J-son has earned several hundred dollars in cash --- and spent almost as much on ephemera. If his earnings hadn't been so under the table, I would have enforced the rule that he should save up for future purchases. But instead J-son has blown most of the money on clothes and shoes, often while he's still at the boxing events where he'd earned the money.  Some these clothes, we have already taken to Goodwill because he no longer wants it. Blowing a few hundred dollars on fancy shoes hasn't taught him anything much about money. But losing $60 because he doesn't know the difference between "transfer" and "deposit" has been a lesson he'll remember.

I do think we're going to start enforcing savings and keeping track of income soon.  But one lesson at a time, and we now have the first set of lessons under our belt.  Phew!

Mother's Day electrical work

What could be more fun on Mother's Day than a little mother-son electrical work?

I wanted a timer switch on the fan in the bathroom (most of my family hates the sound of the fan running, so we don't use the fan while we shower.  But if we could leave it on for 10 minutes after the shower is over, we'd save ourselves a lot of mold grief.  Hence, a timer switch seems like a prudent idea).

And of course, J-son loves to be the technical expert of the house.  So for Mother's day, he learned how to switch off circuit breakers.

Once we'd turned the power off, we removed the switch plate.  It's good to do this in daylight (since, of course, the electricity is off, so no lights, so sorry for the blurriness). It also helps to bring along a flashlight or lantern because those little electric boxes are tiny and dark).

Next, we removed the switch that controls the fan.

Here's the out-going electrical switch, pulled out of the box.

In some switches (like our out-going one), the wire is curled around the copper screw.  In some switches (like our ingoing one), the wire sticks straight into a slot. So J-son got to straighten the ends of the wires with a pair of needle-nose pliers.

He attached the wires to the new switch, and screwed the new switch in.

(Optional step:  Then realize that the new switch is so much bigger than the old one that the wires behind it take up so much space that you have to rearrange them.  Take out the new switch, rearrange the wires, and sigh with relief as everything slides correctly into place.  Screw in the new switch again).

From there, it was a simple matter to get the switch-plate back on and add the timer plate on top.  Voila!



For me, it was fun to watch J-son grow more adept -- learning to steady the screws with his thumb as he started them in, getting a sense of the tools he was using.  I also had fun anticipating what lay ahead.  "I'll get a lantern," I'd say, and he'd say "No, I'm good.  I can see!"  (But then a little bit later, he'd ask, "Could you hold that light up here?")  Or I'd say, "I'm going to get a smaller screwdriver," and he'd say, "No, this one works fine.  I don't need a smaller screwdriver!" (But then a little bit later, I was the nurse next to the surgeon, helping him alternate between the two screwdrivers and the pliers, handing him what he needed as he asked for it).


It was a 30-minute task, maybe 40 minutes when we included getting out and putting away the tools.  Just about perfect amount of time for a 17-year old boy to spend with his mom.  As he left, he showed me the picture of the girl he's been spending time with.  

Hmm . . . maybe she'd like to learn how to replace a leaky U-trap under a sink?  I should have him invite her over!