Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Allowance, boys and swimming

I'm typing on our old desktop computer tonight.  It's old and slow and pretty much just used by the kids playing computer games.  I forgot how slow it was.  Our laptop died on Sunday.  It has been giving us a warning for a while.  It told us to back everything up because hard drive failure was imminent.  That didn't sound good.  But we got almost four months before the imminent failure happened.  I turned it on Sunday afternoon and it told me the hard drive did not exist.  I'm not as expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not good.  So now we're looking for a laptop.  Fun, fun.

Jorja has been helping out a lot around the house lately.  She is super keen to clean the table off after meals and even cleans the litter box once in a while.  We decided that since she was starting to show some responsibility that we would give her an allowance.  So we started at the beginning of April - $5/week.  To her credit, she knows what she wants and can save till she gets it.  She's had her eye on some clay charm-making craft book/kit at Indigo for some time now.  It was $23.99.  She had a bit of money from before the allowance started, so she saved every week, and when she had enough, she asked if she could go and buy it.  So we did.  She brought her own wallet along with all her money.  I thought her chest might explode when she was up at the till paying for her stuff with her money by herself.  It was pretty awesome to see.  We had a chat before we started this about how saving is important, but that giving is also important.  I asked her if she had $10, what would be a good amount to give away, and she said a dollar.  Sounds like 10% to me.  So she's been taking a loonie every other Sunday to church.  She's a pretty awesome kid and we're pretty proud of her.

Of course Ginny sees the allowance thing and it didn't really hit home until Jorja bought her own thing.  Ginny was pretty upset that day.  So we had a chat with her too, and if she helps out and does her part, she could have an allowance too.  Not as much as Jorja, but a start.  The first couple days after the chat was a bit much.  Dad, what can I do now?  Mom, what do you need done now?  Should I dust?  Should I clean up?  Should I make my bed?  If only the enthusiasm would last.  She's pretty good about doing her part too though.

Ginny and CeCe both seem to be better friends with boys than girls.  Maybe it's just that there have been more boys than girls their ages at daycare.  I'm not sure, but Ginny is best friends with a boy from daycare who is also in her preschool class.  They play well together and have a great time.  The boy, I'll call him C, came to Ginny's birthday party.  As Julie was curling Ginny's hair that day, Ginny said, "I bet C has never seen me with curled hair before."  As it turns out, she is not the only one concerned with her appearance.  We had C over one weekend for a play date and he got his Mom to do his hair for the occasion too.  It was all gelled up and spiky.  Pretty cute.  They were playing for a while and then C seemed to be quite taken with our piano.  He really enjoyed playing it.  So he was plunking away for a while and Ginny was sitting on the steps not very impressed.  I guess when you have a piano in your house and take lessons, some of the thrill wears off.  After a while he looked up and saw the look on Ginny's face.  He said, "All right Ginny, I can see that I'm annoying you.  What would you like me to do now?"  The boy's learning young.

CeCe has a little friend in Sunday school.  I'll call him Z.  We're friends with one of the volunteers in their class, so we get some behind the scenes info that we normally wouldn't.  One morning we walked in, and Z yelled from across the room, "Hi CeCe!"  I guess he had been asking before we showed up if CeCe would be there.  Our friend figured that we must be friends with Z and hang out outside Sunday school, but that is not the case.  He only gets an hour a week, but he likes to make the most of it.  Last week, the two of them were sitting side by side and he looked over and said, "You've got pretty flowers on your dress CeCe."  CeCe didn't miss a beat and replied, "I know!"  That's all she had to say about that.

The older girls finished up their skating lessons and both made huge improvements.  Jorja went from just walking on the ice to actually gliding and almost doing cross overs.  Ginny went from not being able to stand up to going with now walker and moving up a level in her class. 

Now we're into swimming lessons.  All three of them this time though.  They all love it, but CeCe talks about it all the time.  "I'm going swimming?"  Not today, Friday.  "I'm going swimming on Friday?"  The lessons themselves worked out awesome.  All three girls in different lessons in the same half hour time slot.  We'll probably never be so lucky again.  They all look like they are having a blast when they're out there.

Hopefully my next post will be sooner coming than this one was.  Later.