(no subject)

[the_rck]

My mail program is still being very cranky, but it’s only crashed twice so far today. It did take more than half an hour to get the computer to boot when I got up this morning. That 1.5 GB download I was trying to do took more than six hours, and the computer doesn’t seem to have restarted properly once the download was done. For a little while, we were afraid the stupid thing wouldn’t ever boot. I’m wandering around a bit, trying to figure out where everything is and how it works.

I need to write up all of my health concerns so that I can show them to the radiologist. If I don’t, I’ll forget something. It’s guaranteed. Unfortunately, my head is hurting, and it’s hard to think. I took an Ativan and some anaprox. I suppose the next step is Tylenol and Amerge.

Scott and I trying to figure out a diplomatic way to tell Cordelia and her friends that we’re fine with her best friend and her best friend’s ten year old brother being here while I’m off for radiation, if it’s okay with their mother, but that we’re not fine with another seventh grader being with them while I’m gone. This particular kid is nice enough but not to be trusted any further than I could throw her. She breaks things. She steals things to get a reaction out of people and then gives them back, mostly unharmed. Cordelia has to guard her pencil, eraser, water bottle, etc. in class because they sit next to each other. Once, last year, this girl took one of Cordelia’s notebooks and gave it away to a third grader. Cordelia ended up getting the notebook back, but it had nothing to do with the other girl helping out.

They want to bake cookies and other things in order to sell them and raise money for charity. I’m not entirely against this except that selling food is a lot more complicated than I think they realize and making that food will cost more than I think they expect (then again, they’re expecting us to pay for the ingredients without reimbursement, so I guess they think that cost won’t matter). I’m definitely not willing to let them use the oven while I’m out.

They have two days with no school during the first week of November— that Monday and Tuesday. I’ve offered to take the kids we usually do with the understanding that I will be leaving at about 12:30 to go deal with radiation and not be back for an hour to an hour and a half. Their parents haven’t decided yet whether or not they’re okay with that. I think they will be because they left the same three kids alone at their house for about three hours while Cordelia was staying with them for my surgery.

Okay, time to find some lunch. We have to leave very, very soon.

Comments

[retsuko]

I wonder what kind of home life that girl has that makes her act that way. Is there a chance she's mentally ill? In any case, I don't blame you for not wanting to leave her alone with C when you're not around. Just say that given her track record, you don't feel comfortable leaving her unsupervised. But that's super-easy for me to say when I'm not there.

advices if you want them

[untonuggan]

+1 for home life issues/mental illness possibilities

Cordelia might want some kind of face saving something to tell the other 7th grader if they already know of the idea as well. Maybe something like you not wanting that many kids in the house while you're out or something? Or that because of the radiation, that # of ppl will be too tiring for you (before or afterwards).

(Especially if Cordelia interacts with other 7th grader at school and they have a tendency of violating boundaries + middle schoolers are pumped full of hormones, my own possibly hyperactive gut says "at least publicly making it a not-personal-reason for not having her over is a good idea." But my family dynamic can kind of warp my view of conflict, so. YMMV.)

Re: advices if you want them

[the_rck]

I think the main problem is that Cordelia genuinely doesn't see why one more child is a problem. She assures me that they'll take care of themselves completely.

I did mention that I will be tired and want to nap and that I'm not keen on them using the oven if I'm not close by.

The big difficulty for Cordelia is that she's been friends with this other girl since kindergarten. They've been on sports teams together for years (including many shared rides, mostly provided by her parents). This is the girl who took Cordelia and a couple of other friends to the haunted corn maze last weekend.

She's not mean. She's rambunctious, and she never, ever thinks before she does things. That's part of why she often breaks things. She doesn't intend to do it; she just isn't willing to slow down enough to be careful.

If she was a boy, a lot of people would consider her behavior perfectly normal. (Which is a sad comment on what people generally let boys get away with.)

[the_rck]

We've known this girl and her family for years. She was on all of Cordelia's sports teams up through third grade (after that, she did travel teams and was only on a couple of Cordelia's teams), and they often gave us rides to practices and games when Scott couldn't. We worked with the girl's parents on Science Olympiad, 2nd-5th grade.

I think this girl has never figured out how to interact with people completely verbally. She needs to move fairly constantly and be doing something. She's really good at sports, and that's what her parents have been encouraging her to pursue because doing that makes her happy. She's not a terrible student, but she's not a very good one, either. I think she's pretty solidly a C student. Her parents encourage her to get involved academically, but they're not forcing her to.

Her family has three big, friendly dogs, and I think the girl tends to interact with other humans the way she interacts with the dogs.

My main complaint about the parents is that they don't ever make the girl replace what she breaks.

[retsuko]

I see. That is an awkward situation for you to be in, and I hope it gets resolved with a minimum of hurt feelings on all sides.

[carbonel]

Cordelia's plan to bake cookies and pass off the costs to you reminds me of a venture I used to be involved with.

Our spinning guild used to have an annual charity fundraiser where we would get vendors to donate fiber, then we used the fiber to make stuff, then we sold the stuff and donated the proceeds to Heifer International. The process was fun, if a lot of work, but I was in charge of getting donations for a couple of years, and realized that the retail value of the donated material was at least double the amount of money raised by selling the final product. After that, my enthusiasm for the process dimmed quite a bit. We're not doing it anymore because too much work and insufficient volunteers, but I think it's just as well.

It also reminds me of a Scholastic book from the 1960s, 100 Pounds of Popcorn. That was my first introduction to the difficulties of running a small business.

[the_rck]

I'm mostly worried about how they plan to sell the stuff they make. They can't sell it at school. They could sell it in our front yard, maybe, but that would mean one or two sales for every two or three hours. I'm not letting them go door to door, and there really isn't any place they can get to easily that's high traffic and that would permit them to sell there.

I don't think anybody'd get particularly upset about kids selling home baked goods in their front yard, but selling the same stuff on a street corner downtown would lead to a world of trouble.

[carbonel]

>I'm mostly worried about how they plan to sell the stuff they make.

That was the basic problem when I tried a lemonade stand one time. If door-to-door isn't feasible (that's what I always did for Girl Scout cookies and candy for a school project), perhaps there's some high-traffic location where they could get permission to set up a table, like outside a local grocery store?

Back when, my mother got my father to take my Girl Scout order sheet to work to get co-workers to sign up -- back then, the rules discouraged that; now, it's apparently SOP. Any comparable family option available?

[the_rck]

A lot of stores will let people sell things outside in their lots, but one has to get permission, and that tends to go to well known groups. This is just a few kids who want to raise money for charity. They have a club name, but it sounds really ridiculous.

Also, all of the groups I've seen selling stuff have been selling commercially packaged food. Selling homemade stuff requires jumping through some legal hoops that would likely cost money that the four kids don't have. It might even require having my kitchen inspected.

Various of the parents do work in offices. I'm not sure what their supervisors would say about them bringing in baked goods to sell or how their coworkers would react. Scott's coworkers would be interested, but Scott's supervisors would pretty certainly veto it as potentially contaminating the factory floor and being a general distraction. There also isn't any place there where Scott could put the baked goods while he worked and be sure they wouldn't get stolen and wouldn't end up getting nasty.

[carbonel]

Perhaps you could channel them into two separate activities -- making baked goods for their own enjoyment, and some sort of direct volunteer work that doesn't involve fund-raising?

[the_rck]

The main problem with most of the alternatives is that the kids are very mobility limited. There's nothing within walking distance of their homes (and my daughter's friends actually live a ten minute drive away from us), and they're not yet confident about things like the city buses. Also, the city buses don't run very often after 6 p.m., so the kids would have to be home by then. Most routes run once every half an hour up until 6:00, and, after 6:00, transfers are harder because the buses may be on schedules that mean long waits even when everything's running on time.

I can't drive, and neither can the other mother. She also often works very late as she's a nurse.

Just a few thoughts/possibilities

[lady-of-mists.livejournal.com]

I would probably just say that you and S know the brother and sister's family well enough to know that C and brother and sister can be trusted to be alone for a few hours by themselves. However, you don't know the other seventh grader or her family to the point that you feel comfortable with her being in your home without adult supervision.

As to the baking project, charity is great, but maybe you can suggest/politely insist that the bakers buy at least some of the ingredients. That's a way that they can claim more of the credit for the outcome.

And yeah, somewhat inexperienced chefs using the oven might not be the best idea while you are out. At the very least, you might be stuck with doing dishes while you don't feel like doing dishes. :P

Re: Just a few thoughts/possibilities

[the_rck]

That won't work. We've actually known the problem girl and her family longer than we've known the other family. She and her parents gave me and Cordelia rides to sports practices every week for years (and sometimes, they took Cordelia without me). The girl was on all of Cordelia's sports teams, K-3rd grade. Then she started doing travel teams for some sports and was only on some teams with Cordelia. The girls go to each other's birthday parties.

It's not that I don't know if this girl can be trusted. It's that I know she can't. She's a nice kid, but she has no ability to stop and think before she acts.

Re: Just a few thoughts/possibilities

[lady-of-mists.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that does put you in more of a bind when put that way. It's not that you don't know or even like the family, but it's just that the other kid's not mature enough to be left alone with three others without more adult supervision (lest *everyone* get in trouble).

And of course, telling someone that their friend is immature is not exactly the best way of handling that. Hmm.

Maybe it can just be along the lines of C, the bro, and the sis have proven themselves to be capable and responsible enough to be at the house by themselves for a few hours. However, you don't feel that there needs to be any additional people at the house while you are gone for treatment unless there is an adult there to supervise -- that would eliminate anyone but the two guests who are already coming?