Coins Aren’t For Buying Stuff, They’re For Stuffing Pigs (duh)

It seems some kids grasp the value of money very early. My mom tells the tale of me trying to trade a construction worker a dime in exchange for a quarter when I was only six years old. Apparently I understood the value but assumed that other people wouldn’t realize these pieces of metal were worth something. Oh, I thought I was soooo smart.

Other parents of preschoolers are already dealing with the “I want!” cries and the “Buy it for me!” wails. I’m lucky that, so far, my nearly-four year old has yet to be caught up in the tangle of consumerism. She loves TV characters, but rarely asks for any toys at all. I asked her today – if she could have anything at all for her birthday, what did she want the most? She answered a cake and balloons. I prodded her to think of something else, since those were part of the party anyway, and she finally answered, “A ball.” Nothing big, just a ball – perhaps a soccer ball.

Just because she’s my little anti-capitalist doesn’t mean that I should wait to teach her about money, though. I don’t want her to think that money grows on trees, or in our case, comes from little plastic cards.

Of course, it’s hard to teach a four year old about money. For now, our financial lessons are limited to the “money is how we buy stuff” quality. (We’ll save economic principles and the factors affecting inflation for next year.) I’ve explained that anytime we bring something new into the house, it’s because we used money to pay for it, and that we have a limited amount of money, so we have to choose what we buy carefully.

I wish I could say that it’s sinking in. She is the best coin hunter in the house, turning over couch cushions to find stray change and snatching pennies off the sidewalk. When her grandmother gives her a few coins, Cordy holds them as if they are made out of gold. So you’d think she has the concept of money figured out.

But the little bit of money she possesses will likely not see a storefront for a long time to come. Because all of her money goes into her ceramic piggy bank. This little piggy (a gift from Aunt Dot, of course) has been around since she was a baby, and once she learned that coins could go in the top to “feed the piggy” she began putting every coin she could find into it. Her ceramic porker apparently has quite an appetite, because she wants to feed it every day.

Cordy’s well-fed piggy on the left, Mira’s half-starved pig on the right

I once tried to open her piggy bank in front of her, thinking she would be proud to see all the money she’s saved. Instead, she gasped in horror, urging me to put all the coins back in as fast as possible: “Mommy, we have to feed the piggy! Hurry! He needs coins!” She’s actually filled her piggy bank up once already – I partially emptied it when she was asleep one night, adding the money to her savings account, but left some coins in it so she didn’t think that someone was trying to starve her pig.

So far, I’d call this a success in financial education. She saves more money than I do, and if she keeps this obsession going, she’ll be paying her own way through college. If she ever opens the pig, that is.

I think we’re going to need a bigger pig.

This post is part of what could possibly be one of the coolest Parent Bloggers Network blog blasts ever, sponsored by Capital One. Check out their Moneywi$e eLearning tool for tips on budgeting, saving money, and talking to your kids about money.

The prizes? Try one of three iPhones! Because Cordy will never share her money with me, I’ll need to win an iPhone if I ever hope to get one.



The Artist, During Her Big Smile Period

self-portrait, in crayon

You’ll note that the artist is keeping her signature style of focusing on faces, but I think you’ll agree she’s added some impressive new detail since her breakout masterpiece, Blob Face in Magna-Doodle, from January, 2008.



Coming Into Focus Again

I’d like to tell you that my depression has magically cleared up, but that isn’t the case. However, I can report that things are a bit better. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to work through my feelings, and after a few calls back and forth with my doctor’s office, I now have my antidepressants again.

My doctor refused to switch the prescription, feeling this med is the best in my case, but she did change it to a twice-a-day pill instead of the extended release version which costs about three times a much. This cheaper formulation is within the reach of our budget – still expensive, but as long as we get insurance soon, we can eat the costs for a month or two. The big advantage of this antidepressant is it works far faster than many of the others out there. Traditional SSRI’s can take up to six weeks to start working, while this one produces notable effects within the first two weeks.

Gotta say, I’m glad to be reunited with my little round friends. I don’t like medicating my problems away, but I’m also not stupid and know when to cry uncle. Last month I faced some extremely dark days that scared me – days when I would be in the car and let my mind wander briefly to thoughts of driving off a bridge or going to sleep and not waking up. Short flashes of thought – not enough to ever consider as intention, but enough to make me take notice. I went back and forth between feeling completely numb or feeling intense despair. My words were too harsh to my daughters, and I could barely look Aaron in the eye. Going to bed was the highlight of my day.

I’m still not feeling anywhere close to “normal” yet, but I am better. Fleeting thoughts of doom still occasionally trouble me, but I can dismiss them and push them from my mind with little effort. My head doesn’t feel so foggy anymore, leaving me more focused. I’m slowly sifting through the jumble of doubts and emotions that this depression has littered my mind with. My family are so, so tolerant of this process, giving me the space and support I need to work this out.

Thanks go to many of you who have provided words of support, too. So many of you left supportive words on my post and in e-mails to me, and I appreciate it so much. Reading each of those reminded me I wasn’t alone, and gave me that extra boost I needed. I’m sorry many of you didn’t get a response from me – after spilling out my feelings in one burst, I couldn’t face discussing it again right away. In general, my Inbox is still a mess of unanswered e-mail and messages with stars next to them, reminders to get back to those particular items. I’ve started tackling some of that mess, and hope to get through the essentials by the end of the week.

If this little space of mine on the internet could provide one nugget of value, it would be to not ignore that little voice in your head that tells you something is off, either mentally or physically or externally in your life. You deserve to feel your best, and anything that gets in the way of that should be addressed.

I’m going to use all the tools I have to get past depression and feel stable again. I’m not looking to be little Miss Sunshine, but I’ll settle for nothing less than Miss Mostly Sunny with Occasional Clouds. My daughters aren’t the only ones who are strong-willed and stubborn – after all, where do you think they got it from?



The Age of Worry

Today I took Mira to her first Mommy & Me class. One of Aaron’s relatives runs the class, and even though Mira was a little young for this group, we were certain she could keep up with the other kids. Mira was a little confused by what was going on, but she enjoyed herself and I think each week she’ll get more comfortable and play along.

Mira is now 15 months old (I know – where has the time gone?) and I can’t help but compare her to Cordy at that age. Mira has been walking since before her first birthday, and is currently working on building up speed to run. She still won’t say a word, or at least a word we can comprehend, but she has a sharp mind that follows everything we say. She’ll nod her head yes or no to any of our questions, and finds other ways to make her thoughts known. She’s smart, stubborn, very independent, and loves to see new people.

The only thing she has in common with Cordy at that age is the last sentence. Cordy didn’t take her first independent steps until she was 15 months, and she was talking up a storm by this point, with a vocabulary of several words and the ability to count to 5. But she was social. She loved to be out in public, just like Mira.

And then between 15-18 months, something changed in Cordy. Her social nature turned inward, with only those who saw her regularly getting any kind of notice. She wasn’t scared of anyone, but she didn’t care to interact with anyone, either. Eye contact was minimal. Where she used to notice other kids, she now looked right through them most of the time. Tantrums escalated over the slightest thing, which we dismissed as nothing more than normal toddler tantrums. While she could walk, her fine motor coordination was poor. She didn’t get into things like most kids – she was content to sit and examine the toys in front of her.

Play became more linear, either focused on counting items, lining them up, or stacking them. There was little imaginative play. Her vocabulary increased, but I noticed the sentences that formed were just repeats of things she had heard on TV or from me. More often than not, when she talked without repeating something, it was gibberish. She didn’t like to be touched on her head or feet, and couldn’t stand the feel of anything gooey, like liquid soap or applesauce. Other kids played with their food – she wouldn’t touch anything of the semi-solid variety. She started to develop repetitive motions, like pacing back and forth like a caged animal.

It was the beginning of Cordy’s slide away from many of her developmental milestones and towards the autism spectrum. Looking back over many of my blog posts from that time period, I can see the beginnings of problems, but the clues were so small back then it’s easy to see how I missed them. And much of that period I didn’t share on my blog, too, because I didn’t want people to think she was a demon child. (I’ve since realized that it’s common to think of an 18 month old as a demon child. Who knew?)

So having gone through all of that, it’s no surprise that I look at Mira – my social, curious baby – and realize she’s now the same age Cordy was when it all started to change. And realizing that paralyzes me with fear. Will this outgoing personality fall away from me to be replaced with a far-off stare and lack of interest in those around her?

It’s not pleasant to think about, but I have to prepare myself for the possibility. There is a 1 in 5 chance of a sibling being on the spectrum if one child already has ASD. And there is nothing I can do to stop it if it happens. There were things I changed this time, like organic baby foods and a delayed vaccination schedule, but there’s no promise they’ll help.

This has been bothering me for several months now, actually. I’m not letting myself get worked into a panic about it, because that’s silly when there has been nothing yet to suggest signs of autism in Mira. But that nagging worry has persisted in the back of my mind. Is her lack of words a sign? Should I be concerned that her head size is off the charts, too? These next three months I’m on high alert for any changes to her behavior that could indicate a problem.

I’ll be honest: I don’t want another child on the spectrum. I’d rather spare Mira from the additional hurdles she’d face with autism. But I wouldn’t love her any less. If she did end up on the spectrum, I’d do the same thing I did with Cordy, and start the fight to get her all of the services she needs to be successful. Even with the extra work, we’re lucky that Cordy is high-functioning, and over the past year Cordy has made amazing progress (more on that to come) an accomplishment I credit to all of the hard work put in by her teachers, her therapists, and us.

So for now I watch and wait, hoping my second feisty, stubborn and oh-so-smart girl remains the social butterfly of the toddler scene.



Haiku Friday: Not Fair

I sneeze and sniffle
I can’t breathe and my head hurts
This is so not fair

The weather is hot
so why am I suffering
from a stupid cold?

Colds are for winter
Not summer – I can blame this
on my one year old.

She had the sniffles
first – guess that’s what I get for
sharing food with her

To play along for Haiku Friday, follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. What’s a haiku, you ask? Click here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON’T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! I will delete any links without haiku!

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