I am all about the bribery and/or threats

Today's bargain:

• If I finish this blog post before my daughter finishes her homework, tomorrow I get to send her vegetables instead of a few pieces of Halloween candy in her lunch.
• If she finishes her homework first, she gets ice cream for dessert (and Halloween candy in her lunch tomorrow).

I would feel bad about making this sort of deal - after all, isn't motivation and perseverance part of what homework is supposed to be teaching her?  But let's be honest.  My kid's homework isn't exactly thrilling, and she's easily distracted by pretty much everything.  Too much noise, too little noise, people nearby, no people nearby, needing a sharp pencil, admiring how sharp her pencil is now, having to go to the bathroom, having to hide in the bathroom to use the iPad she's not supposed to have until after homework is done, needing a snack, needing a different snack, needing even more snacks because meals are something other people eat ... all of those things derail her from the "let's finish your science notes in less than two hours" train.

It's handy to have something I can say in place of the usual, "Are you actually working on your homework?"  I already hate the sound of my voice asking that question, and it's only November.  One of us is going to explode if I have to keep that up until June.  But not keeping on her back just leads to procrastination, bedtime meltdowns when she panics about what she didn't accomplish, and bad grades that give her headaches and stomach aches and a bad case of "I don't want to go to school."

For some reason, it's less annoying to both of us for me to say, "Wow, you really don't want ice cream tonight, do you?" every time I see her staring at a wall.  She bolts back to the table and gets back to work when ice cream is involved, let me tell you.  "Which kind of veggies should I send tomorrow?" is a little more passive-aggressive, but I'm willing to go there if it gets the assignment done.  And as a side benefit, trying to keep her motivated means I actually have to write a post, which I probably would have blown off otherwise.

Homework isn't the only area where I'm using a carrot-and-stick approach.  Another fun motivator I instituted this year: If I have to drive her the 30 minutes to school (because she dawdled and left home too late for the 5 minute drive to the bus stop) I will spend the entire drive to school lecturing her about all the human sexuality stuff her school doesn't cover in health class.  If we leave the house in time to make the bus, I keep my mouth shut and we listen to the radio.

I made it through female anatomy, male anatomy, consent, and non-heterosexual relationships before she realized I was serious and I wasn't going to run out of material any time soon.  I even had a video all loaded up on my phone to supplement one of the discussions - it was epic.

I have also offered to send pictures of her (very obviously uncleaned) bathroom to the mother of the boy she liked, and threatened to send photos of her carelessly discarded clothing to her grandmother so she knows not to buy Liza any more nice outfits.  I'm kind of a bitch sometimes.
 
But hey, if it works, I can play the Evil Mom card occasionally.  I certainly wasn't getting anywhere with my other approaches.  Maybe eventually I'll figure out some way to motivate my child that doesn't involve threats of embarrassment and/or withholding treats.  In the meantime, I'm hoping she gets lazy in the mornings again.  I don't want to have all those pictures of STD symptoms saved on my browser for nothing.

Blergh - or, I need to be more specific about methods and timing when making weight loss goals

I had all these intentions of starting the year off right, making substantive, thoughtful posts for a whole year.

Then I spent the whole day alternately crapping or puking my guts up (or moaning and clutching my stomach and wishing I would hurry up and complete one of the former actions so I could feel better for 10 minutes).  I'm the third person in my house to come down with The Great Intestinal Discomfort of 2010/2011, and hopefully I'll be the last, because I wouldn't wish this on anyone, not even my husband who decided it was a good idea to fill the house with a cloud of bacon grease this morning while I was hiding in my bedroom trying not to puke.  Sorry, dude, but that ranks right up there with the Burrito Incident of 2007 in terms of thoughtlessness.

So, I get to start off my year with ... intestinal discomfort.  Not very life-affirming, or substantive, or thoughtful.  It's very hard to find inspiration while drowsing in a sour-smelling bed, dry-heaving in a trashcan, or sitting on the toilet.  Well, okay, the toilet can be very inspiring***, but it's hard to work up a good blog entry when every minute or two your thought pattern is interrupted by "ohmygodjustkillmenoooooooow."  I got a few rounds of knitting done in between rounds of illness, so I guess I get to Lysol the heck out of my new sweater once I'm better.  And I have no idea how to disinfect my iPod, which has been propped on my pillow playing hour after hour of old This American Life and RadioLab podcasts to keep me from sleeping all day.

The annoying part of the situation is that ever since my mother came down with something similar right around Christmas, we've been vigilant about cleaning up and washing hands and flushing with the seat down and all the other stuff you're supposed to do to prevent transmission of a stomach bug.  Only it turns out that Norovirus isn't killed by standard soap and water, so unless we'd completely Chloroxed everything she touched or breathed on, we were still at risk of transmission.  Me sitting there with the kid on my lap while she puked probably wasn't the best idea to slow transmission, either - but in my defense I almost ALWAYS get whatever she comes down with,  no matter how far away I stay or how much I wash, so I figured the proximity wasn't going to do anything other than speed up the show.  I'm just hoping that by staying in my room (and the bathroom) until after my mother-in-law changed her flight and left to go home a day early, I've kept the germs away from her.  She visits her mother a couple times a week, and I'd rather not have some offspring of my illness infect anyone in Mom-mom's nursing home.

What's really ironic is that, after Liza had been puke-free for more than 24 hours and was back to actually eating something other than Pedialyte and crackers, we went to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and spent a lot of time exploring the Disease Detectives exhibit.  You know, the one with all the hands-on exhibits where you can try to figure out what got various mannequins sick by checking their temperature, listening to their heart, or exploring other the very touchy-feely-movey-aroundy exhibits of the data the doctors used to diagnose the real-life cases.  It's a really cool exhibit, and Liza loved it, but about 1/3 of the way through you learn how long bacteria and viruses can live on dry room-temperature surfaces, and all of the adults in our group started looking for hand sanitizer stations and making up excuses to go to the bathroom so we could wash our hands.  I'm willing to bet that the museum's water bill has skyrocketed since they installed the thing that demonstrates exactly how long you have to wash your hands to get them fairly clean.  Twenty seconds seems like forever ...

I feel bad that I didn't find out until about 10 minutes ago that Liza was probably still contagious when we went to the museum, and she may be able to spread the love for another week or so.  Me?  I'm potentially on the hook for another day of two of active symptoms (whimper), followed by up to two weeks of being contagious.  Guess I'm not helping with Pizza Day at school on Thursday, huh?

At least I've managed to keep down the 1/4 cup of flat ginger ale I've been sipping for the past couple of hours.  Maybe by tomorrow morning I'll be able to nibble on a cracker!  Yay!  In the meantime, I'm off to see if I can locate a copy of Fever Dream by Ray Bradbury, a short story I read as a child (while suffering from stomach flu at my grandparents' house, as I recall) that I just now finally found confirmation actually exists and wasn't just a dream of my own.  Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to know the name and author of a story and STILL not be able to find a copy of it?  I'm just happy that, at least according to Wikipedia, I remember the story pretty accurately.  It would have been even more annoying to finally locate it and have it be nothing like what I remembered.  At any rate, I'm off to request the book from the library so I can lick all the page corners and spread my infection to EVERYONE!  BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

(5 minutes later) Well,  I'd have to special order one of the short story compilations in to my local library, but there's also ... HOLY SHIT WHAT KIND OF SICK FUCK MADE THAT STORY INTO A PICTURE BOOK FOR KIDS?!?!

(5 minutes later) Anyone other than me notice that my sentences get even longer and my punctuation gets even more creative when I'm sick?  Another day or two and I'll be at one with good old e.e. himself.  And is it just me, or is that poem totally about sex, not cars?  Wait, not just me.  And why did they let us read it in high school, if that's the case?  Ms. Leonard-Peace, you dog, you!


***Ari, remember Pete in high school and his legendary bathroom trips to get "inspired" for Stage Crew?  Good times, good times.