Layout:
Home > My Baby is 14

My Baby is 14

March 14th, 2014 at 04:47 am

I can't believe that my youngest son turned 14 years old today.



He is 5 foot 10, starting to get a mustache, and his voice has more or less settled. He has shown some real maturity in the last six months. It amazes me when I think where he was just last summer, short, chubby, cracking voice, no body hair. Now he is tall, slender, steady, needing to learn how to shave pretty soon, and a nice baritone.

For his present he got a WiiU. We made him pay the first $210 out of his savings, though, and covered the remaining $100 plus the rest of the tax. He has been saving most of his allowance for half a year, most of his can money (he collects aluminum cans around the neighborhood from people who save them for him and takes them to the recycling center for cash), and even part of his rabbit money (he generally gets 33% of rabbit sales unless I need it for feed money).

He spent almost nothing on anything else during those six months. I am proud of how hard he worked to save the money. He is getting a really good work ethic. He still wants to start an egg business when we move, too.

We have been throwing around getting ducklings this year, but I'm not sure if we are going to. We got mom to okay it, but then at the last minute she said, "But I don't want any of those upright ducks." Well, that is what I wanted to get, Indian runner ducks. I'm not going to buy the ducks, pay for the feed, build a house for them, and then not get the good laying ducks that I wanted just because she thinks they look stupid. I'd rather not get them at all and wait until we move so I can get what I want. If I'm paying for them, I should get to choose.

Sometimes I really do not understand how my mother's brain works. But whatever. It's her property. Basically she wants ducks and wants the ones she wants, but doesn't want to take care of them or pay for them. I wish our house would sell. I am so tired of her random edicts. We pay enough to live here, but whatever. I love my mother, but man, she is the one person on this planet who can drive me right up a wall.

I'm participating in a pantry challenge right now on my other blog. Everything I make for the rest of this month (except milk) is to either come from our pantry/freezer stores or from what we grow or raise on the homestead. I'm not buying anything but milk and that is from a local farm. It's been interesting to figure out what my meals will be.

To be honest it is not all that different from my usual way of living, just without any eating out. But I can't just go to the store if I want something. I need to make do with what I have on hand. If I run out of onions or potatoes I can't just go pick up more, I have to break into my dehydrated ones. If I run out of bread I can't just pick up a loaf, I have to bake it. If I run out of garlic I have to use powdered.

If I am craving fresh greens, I need to make do with the herbs growing on my kitchen windowsill and try to jolly my lettuce starts into growing a little faster. I do have 3 cabbages and 10 pounds of carrots stored, so it's not like I won't have anything fresh veggie like. I do have some frozen veggies, too. But it does limit my choices a bit and make me stick to my inventory. But we've been needing to eat down the freezer for a while now, so it works.

7 Responses to “My Baby is 14”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    1394801025

    We usually only gift $100 to our kids for their birthday, so if there was something more expensive they would need to chip in as well. I think this teaches the ability to save and patience for something they want.

  2. CB in the City Says:
    1394805373

    Your pantry challenge sounds kind of like my normal life! Smile
    My baby is 34. Horrifying!

  3. crazyliblady Says:
    1394812973

    Sounds like a great kid with good money sense! (Although I admit that I wonder about spending money on a gaming system.)

  4. LuckyRobin Says:
    1394823907

    Crazyliblady--Well, he's active outside, gets all his schoolwork done, reads 2 books a week, does half of the work with the rabbits and chickens, and doesn't watch television, so I don't fret too much over gaming. He is limited on how much he can play in a day and he can't play games past rated Teen. It was the gift he chose. He didn't want anything else except maybe another model train set and we don't have the room for that.

  5. LuckyRobin Says:
    1394823949

    CCF--Exactly. He has learned a lot of patience by having to save up for all or most of what he wants.

  6. LuckyRobin Says:
    1394823973

    CB--Yeah, it is a lot like normal life, here, too.

  7. Looking Forward Says:
    1394851437

    Happy Birthday to your DS! Smile (I could see the little shadow on his upper lip too!)

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]