Numbers and Rates and Graphs, Oh My!

I had another epiphany.

I know. After sharing my last epiphany my readership fell about 10%. I realize I'm taking my chances here.

As much as I love being at home full time, I miss work. I miss earning money. I miss time away from my children to go hang out with other people's children. Which is kind of ironic. Alannis Morrisette ironic, at any rate. Stay with me, I'm heading somewhere with this.

Besides for missing working with some really cool kids, I miss the numbers and graphs and concrete evidence all rolled up in a lovely package of a binder or clipboard or a pocket PC. I loved being able to see that what I was doing was making a difference, and it all being confirmed with numbers and climbing graphs. Or on the flip side, seeing what wasn't working and figuring out how to change our teaching strategy. And it occurred to me in the wee hours of the night that perhaps that is why I have become obsessed with Google Analytics.

Google Analytics has graphs. Lots of graphs.

There are numbers. Percentages, rates, averages, and oh my gosh, overviews, and my goodness gracious, there are lots of graphs.

I love being a mom, but let's face it, there's not a lot of immediate feedback on whether I'm screwing things up....I mean, other than the fact that they're all still alive and I haven't had to visit the principal's office this week. Some days feel like I'm coasting through this role, hoping I'm not messing up too badly.

And I love writing, but it's a lonely place. But I've discovered that blogging gives me immediate feedback on what I'm doing. Kinda like work. The epiphany that Google Analytics is filling in for my work high is really not that surprising.

A thought has occurred to me. Maybe I should start keeping data and graphing my mothering successes and failures.

No. Just the successes.

I'll have to start small. I most certainly want to build success into my new system.

I'll start with some basics.

• The number of consecutive hours I go without swearing under my breath.
• How many loads of laundry I do each day and an analysis of the correlation between the day of the week and the number of missing socks.
• Tally the number of minutes preparing meals per week. Make sure to post this one on the fridge. Include highlighting and a really fancy graph. In red.
• Keep track of kilometers driven in the new van and gasoline purchases and figure out gas mileage (kilometerage?). Use this as direct evidence when explaining to teenagers in the house the reason why you won't drive to Tim Horton's to get them a double double.

Well. That's a good start.

Tune in next week when I analyse the direct correlation between my mood and the number of chocolate eggs I haven't eaten.

And please tell me you obsess over Google Analytics, too.

A Job

I've been contemplating a job.

Not a job in my field of expertise (perhaps that's stretching things....my field of "I know a lot about it" may be more apt?) A job that's 'just' a job. A job where you go to work, do what needs to be done and then you get to go home and not think about that job until your next shift. The kind of job that you figure out how much you just made working said job as you drive home. The type of job that doesn't send you emails between shifts, and involve worrying about children that are not your own. The kind of job that doesn't take over your family.

So I've come up with a few parameters for my search.

1. It has to be when either the husband or the oldest is home. There's no point in paying a babysitter for the youngest one if you're working for minimum wage.

2. It can't be when any child in the house has a scheduled activity to be driven to. Summer is fairly light, but during the school year, this eliminates Mondays (Sparks for Eilidh), Tuesdays (Irish Dance for Kaitlyn and Eilidh) and Wednesdays (Soccer for Patrick, Youth group for Kaitlyn) and Saturdays (Soccer for Patrick).

3. It cannot be when Kaitlyn needs to be driven to work and Heath is not home. She usually works Mondays, Thursdays and on the weekend.

4. The job has to be close by. With the price of gas, I'm not interested in driving to work just to pay for the gas to get there.

5. It can't be at dinner time. That's family time.

6. It cannot rely on Heath getting home from work at any specific time. Sometimes he needs to come home when work is done, not when the clock says so.

7. It has to be flexible to children waking up in the morning with fevers, unexplained rashes and projectile vomiting.

8. No brown uniforms.

So, when I work all the above into a grid, I think I'm looking at working Thursday and Sunday nights from midnight - 3 am, barring sick children and unknown skin issues.

Perhaps I had better start recycling those coffee filters.

Supervisor

I've reached a new rung in the supervisory world.

For those of you that know me (haha, yes, very funny, I'm well aware that if you're reading my blog you know me - it's been a long day and it's not done yet). Ahem...those of you who know me are well aware of the many levels of supervision I've been involved in. I started out supervising assorted siblings, moved on to the supervisory world of babysitting and then made my way into the supervising of 22 children at a time in the ECE world.

As time moved on, I gave up that role to start the supervision of my own brood, and somehow along the way helped to supervise assorted other children, with nieces and nephews thrown in for good measure. What can I say? I like to drink at the end of the day.

My life of supervisor branched out to the supervision of children with autism, and on most days this would somehow include various children at school. Along with this role came the supervision of other therapists.

Now, I'm just the taskmaster of four children and a husband. It's plenty on my plate and I hadn't asked for more. But life has pulled me up another rung, and I have been handed another supervisory position - I am the newly appointed Supervisor of the Boyfriend.

Shoot me now. I have not enough strength. I have been given no manual for this new position, no rules, no job description. I've looked on eBay, Craigslist and buysell.com, and although you can get a manual to repair your 1972 shotgun, there are no manuals for boyfriend supervision. Oh, wait....maybe that is the manual.

For all the men out there, you know why I'm stressed. For all you women, do you have any suggestions for wrinkle cream?