Monthly Archives: February 2022

This feels healthy.

I think this would have been mostly our approach if we had stayed in California but it is a little bit hard to judge. Over the past few years Noah and I have increased how much we drink for a whole bunch of reasons. We both still drink a small enough quantity that a Scottish doctor will laugh themselves off their chair at the idea that we might have a problem with drinking. But we have a drink a few nights a week and rarely more than that in a night. (Ok, sometimes the drink is stiff.) The older kids ask for tastes sometimes. Middle Child asks slightly more often than Eldest Child and EC occasionally “sneaks” a little bit of something. I put sneak in quotes because she always tells us that she has done it and asks if we are upset.

That has been kind of a consistent theme with her lately. She is pushing boundaries on doing things on her own when no one is around to witness but she doesn’t push that hard or that far and she almost always feels super guilty and fesses up really quickly. Like: I put the baking chocolate/candy in a little plastic box with a 3 digit code on it. She spent weeks figuring out the code then stole some M&M’s. When I finally noticed she laughed hysterically and confessed her prank and immediately offered up more money than the candy had cost to start with. On her own she poured a tiny little bit of the Jammy Red wine and drank it. I believe her that it was a very tiny amount because I didn’t even notice the amount in the bottle change.

The other day MC asked if I would pour them a little bit of the white chocolate liquor that I like a lot. I poured about half a shot glass. They took two tiny sips and declared themselves sated and handed it back with most of it remaining in the glass. EC very much likes a particular brand of cider that I get and when I open a bottle she asks me if she can pour some of it in a cup and share. The whole bottle is 2 units of alcohol and she takes about 1/4 of a bottle. I don’t see a problem with that.

I feel like each kid probably consumes about a full unit of alcohol over a two month period. But they are adventurous and eager to find out what they like and they are developing strong opinions about brands and types of alcohol. Mostly they don’t like the vast majority of strong stuff and that makes me pretty happy. They almost always have a little bit and then say, “Ok I feel that. I’m done.”

I don’t remember seeing anything like this when I was young. When young people got their hands on alcohol they would chug it as fast as possible even when they thought it was horrible. I feel like my kids will be able to go to parties as young adults and only drink if there is something they really like and then not to excess because they are learning what it feels like in their body to just have a little.

Noah and I model fairly conservative habits around drinking. I am not sure when he was last drunk. I really struggle to remember a time when he has ever been woozy or more than a tiny bit extra goofy–but really who could tell when he is such a super dork all the time. (I read him the last couple of sentences and he says he has been drunk and I just didn’t notice because he was low-key about it. Oh, ok then.)

I got super drunk one night by myself super late. I was hanging out in a chat room and I got super silly and it was really fun. Then I went off and brushed my teeth and went to bed and it was a normal day the next night. I also got super drunk night one night when I went off to see friends on the East Coast of Scotland last summer. Like rolling around on the floor singing along with silly songs, drunk. I think that is it since I had kids. I don’t drink a lot.

I worry about this because I have friends who had terrible alcoholics for parents and I don’t want to hurt my children the way my friends were hurt. I am hoping and praying that I am threading the needle on modeling moderation and drinking because sometimes it tastes nice instead of drinking to cope with life.

So much of parenting is this terrible guessing game about “Ok, how am I fucking up my kids?” In this way I feel like we are not doing too terribly. I hope it continues to go well. Of course we are following Scottish law and Youngest Child is not entitled to taste our drinks until she hits the ripe old age of 5.

I shit you not. That’s the rule in Scotland. Children under 5 can’t have alcohol. I guess her next birthday is going to be a real banger. I’m kidding. It is pretty funny, though.

Because I am a loser without a baby book…

Here they don’t do annual well child visits with home educating families so a lot of the normal medical records I have for the older kids won’t be duplicated with Youngest Child. I was talking to someone about car seat/booster needs so I went and checked on where she is in terms of height and weight. This blog (mostly the parts that are now private) are the only place where I have recorded most of this information so I’ll log this today.

She is 108 cm and 18.7kg tall at 4 years and not quite 2 weeks. According to my reading of the charts that means she is around the 95% for height and about 80% for weight. She is a very solid little thing who runs for most of the day so she has barely the tiniest of pudge on her–she’s muscular.

I think that means she is on track to be in between the older two as adults. Oldest Child has past me up at 13 and Middle Child is getting there fast at 11–I think MC will pass me at 12. If the percentages stay true to adulthood MC will be the tallest, then YC, then EC. I get the general impression that EC will resent this for most of their adult lives. Ha.

If my memory is serving (and I’m feeling too lazy to go look it up) MC has stayed around 97-98% for their entire childhood and EC has always been around 85-87%. YC at birth was only in the neighborhood of 75% but has shot up since.

I mean… we’ll see. I have just done such a poor job of record keeping that I feel like I should write it down when I think of it.