Responsibility. How Do I Teach This? No Really.

Okay so, question:

How do you teach a kid to care about something they... don't care about? That's to say, how do you make a kid be responsible?

Because here's the thing: if we make them be responsible for a thing, then, by definition, they are not responsible for the thing. Because we made them. Which is the opposite of them being responsible for it.

Y'all, we are in a Season with Nathan. He is so bright, and so compliant, and also his head is in the clouds right now. He's just careless, on almost all fronts. His teachers have made a big deal about them taking personal responsibility for homework, no hand holding, no reminders, and are working on teaching them how to use a study agenda. All of these thing make my little planny heart just sing. Yesssss teach them to do it. Yes! YES!

But.

He isn't doing it. He forgets his homework packets, then forgets his agenda, then forgets to turn in his homework packets, then forgets to get new ones, which days to take carpool home instead of the bus, then forgets his glasses, then rushes through a math test and fails it, then loses his homework folder (and agenda).

And when we ask about it and follow up and say (ad nauseum) YOU are responsible for getting it done, it is no one's job to give it to you or ask to make sure you got it, it is YOUR job to find out what you need AND to get it. YOUR JOB he is just... full of excuses. He asked but no one answered. He asked but someone said look at the board, but the info wasn't on the board.

I just. WHAT IS GOING ON.

I am going to pull my hair out. The words we are saying (not our job! your job!) are not sinking in, or if they are, they aren't enough to make him care.

How do I raise a kid to know that there is not going to be a personal invitation for him to do what he is supposed to be doing?

So in the early weeks of this, when we told him he needed to do all his homework for the week (do it and turn it in and get his new packet) in order to earn screen time for the weekend, he sneaked behind our backs when we had a sitter and played a computer game anyway.

And then lied about it.

Oh my god, there were tears.

And yes, we have worked through various consequences and rewards and such, trying to balance the notion that he has to earn privileges, with also avoiding him digging himself into such a behavior/reward deficit he can never climb out, and so just gives up.

He just... doesn't care. I am tired of caring more than he does. He is perfectly responsible and totally on it when it comes to stuff he cares about, but apparently right now homework isn't one of those things. He only cares when he feels in trouble. (Or, if he's reminded, he's perfectly happy to do it.) But I don't know how to move from that "on fire" moment of him wanting to smooth our displeasure, to him caring about it when no one is managing it for him, besides just... letting him crash and burn.

Which we did. He still does not care. (Failed a math test. Barely noticed.)

I feel super powerless about it, which I am. And I should be. It's his thing. But it's so important to me to convince him, somehow, of why he should care and feel responsible for things that are assigned to him. It's hugely important in life. And isn't this our job as his parents? And so, I feel like I am failing him right now.

My dad's advice on these things is always: just wait it out. Almost everything is a phase. Almost everything passes.

So I am trying to tell myself he is barely out of the first month of school, it's an adjustment, he will figure it out and begin to shoulder this stuff on his own, if I keep backing away and let him. Even if it means watching him stumble a few more times before he gets it.

How do I balance assuring him that I will always be here when he falls, with also being clear I'm not going to swoop in and prevent the fall from happening?

I am going to read this book everyone recommends, (which sure sounds like it espouses everything I think I believe about the kind of parenting I want to do), and cry some frustrated tear at both Nathan and myself.

Parenting: I'm always a little bit in over my head, yknow? *sigh*

Mean Mommy, Blah

I'm having one of those bad mom mornings where the kids are up too early and I haven't slept more than a few hours a night in five nights, and the bickering is too much, and when someone cries because they need me, it makes me feel angry instead of compassionate.

One of those mornings where parenting looks ugly on me.

I'm so tired.

And nothing about this season is particularly tiring (aside from bad sleep, everything (except the bickering) has been fine all summer, and fine this weekend in particular. AND YET. Mean mommy is out, in full force. I am so irritated and so done. I was done by 7:30 this morning, to be honest.

By the time I had chased each child to their room (where they stayed) (unheard of) and closed my own door to listen to a podcast for an hour, and then delivered Nathan to his day camp (the drive was in total silence, there and back, the kids didn't even ask for anything from the drive through when I stopped for a sweet tea) (!) I realized... I have fully scared them into submission today.

Charlotte dug something out of her hamper so she could wear my favorite color. 

Nathan packed all the healthiest things into his lunch box for camp and didn't even ask for a brownie (I would have said yes, for the record). 

Anneliese has been holding Hattie close and walking around quiet as a church mouse.

Y'all, that doesn't feel good. It sucks. I know it's okay to have mornings where we are hurt and frustrated at each other, but damn, compliance earned by fear of my anger just feels hard and gross. It's not the first time it's happened, but it's still a gut check every time.

There's no conclusion or happy ending takeaway here, other than maybe to name and own that it's not always sunshine and roses and making the best of the chaos. Some people are good at that, or at least good at telling people that, but I'm not always.

I'm crabby at them and mad at myself and BLAH. Some days are just hard.

Unrelated to anything, other than BLAH in general: Nathan banged his head really hard on a door frame last night and it was a pretty giant goose egg pretty quickly. He's fine this morning (the most fine of everyone here actually) but it sure looks painful, doesn't it?

Send us all some virtual forehead kisses today? We need them.

Holding Pillows

Okay so amongst a handful of other more... typical eight-year-old presents, like lego sets and minecraft shirts and and a toy robot kit and space stickers for his ceiling, he also got a long-awaited... holding pillow.

This is a thing I didn't even know was a thing until the past few years.

They're just those slinky squishy pillows you see in various places, apparently Brookstone has the best ones - fom pillows, they call them - but they're all over. Anyway Another Nathan has had one for years, calls it a holding pillow, doesn't like to sleep without it (whoops I just told the internet about that) (seriously though he even travels with it). So when he moved, and needed to fly back with limited suitcase space, he asked if he could have a holding pillow here, in the guest house, so he didn't have to pack one when he visits. WELL OF COURSE. Easiest thing ever, to make our favorite guest comfy.

Anyway, long story short, we got one, it's kind of cool, and now everybody in my house wants a piece of that thing. I used it in the guest house to prop my book arm up when I would go over there to read. Then it made its way to my bed for leaning purposes, or head propping while watching TV. Then the kids started fighting over who got to hug it and sleep with it. 

Y'ALL. I mean it's fun and soft and I like it too, but... it's just a pillow. Not even a pillow. A pillow-thing.

So in April, one of Anneliese's friend's big sisters gave her this one as a hand-me-down. She was thinking Anneliese would like it just because it's a silly rainbow thing but she had no idea the pure joy of her having her very own holding pillow. (!!!) (?)

Can I say it again? It's just a pillow. JUST A PILLOW. It costs $15. We can own as many of these as we want!

So when Nathan wanted his own too (SHOCKING), which he has "casually" mentioned for months now, I took Anneliese to the mall to pick one out for him. She chose a bright blue one, and I swear it was the happiest thing he opened on his birthday.

And thus ends today's episdoe of You Can Never Predict The Random Things Kids Will Go Nuts For.

Neon Storm Trooper

Okay so I don't think I ever blogged about this, but I fell in the shower several months ago, the first weekend in May, and I bruised my ribs pretty badly and they hurt for weeks. I couldn't carry Ali well, I couldn't get dressed easily, I couldn't steer the car without pain, I couldn't even take a crap like normal. My whole torso hurt.

Anyway I texted with my mom and she helped me know what to do and how long it would last, and it eventually went away and felt totally better, but I had also landed hard on my wrist in that fall, which at the time hurt, but not nearly as bad as the ribs, so I didn't think much about it. But in the months that followed, as my ribs got better, my wrist kept not getting better, and it wasn't until I did a whole week at Montreat and had outside eyes asking me things like why I couldn't open jars or doorknobs or hold my hair dryer right, etc etc etc, that I realized how much it was still... off.

So, I went to the orthopedist and heeeeey I fractured it! In two places! And then compensated for that pain with all the wrong types of wrist movements, and thus have inflamed cartilage and tendons and that's what's cause my pain now and ANYWAY I am in a cast for five weeks. Plus some undetermined more weeks of splinting and therapy and I don't even know, I'm tired and frustrated and over it already.

I will say this: cast technology has come a long way since my last broken arm in the 90s. This one is in two pieces, and they still mold it around your arm with hot water, but instead of plaster strips it's sheets of pliable plastic. (They still do plaster casts too, but he asked if we were a Water People and I almost fell out of my chair laughing. YES PLEASE I NEED WATERPROOF.) Anneliese was with me and she talked me into the neon yellow velcro instead of just white or black, which is what I was leaning towards.

I'm kind of glad she did, because with the black I would have really looked like a storm trooper. But with the bright yellow, I'm like a cool 80s neon storm trooper.

Just kidding, I am putting a positive spin on it but actually I hate it. If I had typed this post on Tuesday when it went on, it would have just been cuss words. I'm better now, but still hate it, so here is a list of things (so far) that suck with one arm in a cast/splint/storm trooper outfit:

1.) driving while drinking anything
2.) driving while talking on the phone
3.) tampons
4.) holding a phone in general
5.) bras
6.) buttoning pants
7.) face washing
8.) sex
9.) carrying a purse (while also holding kiddie hands)
10.) pit shaving
11.) pushing a grocery cart
12.) typing this blog post

Stay tuned, there will be more.

How KonMari Got Charlotte a New Room

Okay so I'm basically outing myself as being in a weird internet cult by admitting this, but I read that Japanese tidying book and... I kind of buy into it.

Disclaimers up front:
-- I know the writing is not good (there is something lost in translation, sure, but also she just isn't a great writer).
-- I know that there is some feng shui hippie crap in there that is full-on nonsense. (I do like drawers that aren't stuffed to the brim. I do not, however, think my socks need to rest at night.)
-- I know that the mentality of "throw it away, you can always buy one later if you need it" only goes so far, and that my urban residential many-bedroom home/lifestyle has space for (and requires) storing more things than this lady in a studio apartment in urban Tokyo would ever dream of.

But.

Those things aside, I sort of really love this KonMari method. Basically it boils down to: keep only items that spark joy. That's it. That's the whole criteria.

Instead of approaching house cleaning and sorting with an eye for what you can get rid of, or what you can live without, she wants you to approach it by being intentional about what you live with, what you keep.

It's better, I promise.

You know how when you first set up a dorm room or a new office or enter a beautiful hotel room, and it all feels so calm and orderly and only your favorite things are there, arranged exactly how you intentionally set them up? That awesome ready feeling? That can be your whole life!

(Well, so she argues. I'm not there yet. But the tiny corners of my life that have achieved this are spectacular so far.)

So anyway she has certain guidelines about how to ask the "sparks joy" question in different categories: clothes, household items, gifts, memorabilia, etc. Some of the guidelines work for me, some of them don't; like with any food recipe, I have sort of adapted her method to make sense in my life and house.

I like that she doesn't make me feel like I have to get rid of things that are perfectly useless yet make me happy (my mom's "I survived the Texas heat wave of 1980" shirt that she wore when she was pregnant with me), or that I'm obligated to keep stuff that could be useful, or once made me happy but doesn't anymore.

So anyway, with her methods and my adaptations, and week upon week of purging, we have gotten rid of so much stuff that we didn't want or need. She argues that the energy it takes to be surrounded by stuff you don't love or like is bigger than the energy it takes to part with it. Even things that are hard to part with.

Case in point: I had been having trouble getting rid of the glider in Charlotte's room, even though it's completely broken and too unstable to sit in, and I haven't needed to rock or nurse a baby there in years. But I got over it, dreamed of a better space, thanked it for its service (OH YES I DID), and we removed it.

And it felt so fantastic we did the same thing with the toddler bed (has served five children well, is now broken to the point of unsafe, also the mattress was cracked in half -- the mattress *I* slept on as a baby) and whoa suddenly Charlotte had space for a whole new room.

So we moved her bookshelf under the window, moved her dresser across the room, kon-mari'd the crap out of miscellaneous stuff from my Grandpa Schnack's house (he died in 2009, his small chest of drawers has been sitting in her room, full of his stuff that we never sorted through, we even moved with it from the old house, whyyyyyyyy), rearranged the art on her walls, hung up a ribbon frame I made months ago, in the hopes of containing her ever-growing bow collection, and...

...got her a BIG GIRL BED.

I have been wanting to get a double bed for one of the kids' rooms for ages nowso we could have an extra space for a guest if we needed to (or a guest that might not want to be in the guest house, or a guest who might come when Mark is on night shift and sleeps out there). I just thought it would be nice to have one more "bigger" bed in the house, somewhere.

I assumed it would be in Anneliese's room, since hers is biggest, but she currently has a rolling trundle that we didn't want to move to Charlotte's room for fear of scratching the floors (Charlotte is the only one with hardwood). So we decided the full would work better for Charlotte than in Nathan (who has slanty ceilings on two sides, not just one, which makes his room feel smaller) and ANYWAY, Charlotte now has the big bed and she picked out owl sheets and I bought a clearance Target quilt and she loves her new room. I love it too.

So. I have KM'd a lot of categories now (the system recommends doing it by category, not location, so that you can actually see everything you have of that category and then decide what to keep): linens, bathroom/toiletry/personal care stuff, our clothes, books, papers/desks stuff, and kid stuff including their clothes and the toys (we have hardly any toys now! it's great! big kids don't need them! We kept trains and cars and blocks and legos and doll/figurine sets, put outside stuff outside, and tossed or donated almost everything else. They actually play with what we have now. I could do a whole separate post about this but I won't).

I have donated and thrown away so much stuff, y'all. I got read of well over half of what we owned in each of those categories. I had been feeling so crowded for so long, and I feel so much better now. My whole life feels less chaotic. I know, I know, I am drunk on the kool-aid.

I am not done, though. I still need to do kitchen stuff and outerwear and memorabilia, including a whole mess of Clemson stuff in the guest house, but for now I am done until school starts and I can have the time and space to work on it again.

One of the dreams (since last fall, a bit before I read this book but right in the throes of feeling crowded out of my own space and life and that nothing in my house or time was actually for me) is to make the guest house a sort of grownup/alone retreat when Mark or I need to be away from the chaos of the house, without having to actually flee our home. I'm picturing a big chair and a half, and a pretty lamp, and some pretty shelves of books, and a bed to nap on. Marky is picturing that same comfy chair with a nice tv that can actually hook up to the roku for watching stuff, and a bed for napping. All of this will involve moving the pool table out (no small endeavor, will happen this weekend) and it'll get done bit by bit, but it will happen this year because the Japanese tidying method firmly convinced me that to experience the change in energy and motivation that comes with setting up your home in exactly the order you want, it has to happen all at once.

Anyway, so that's the story of how I fell off the deep end, and how good it feels, and basically go read A'Dell's post on her tidying, she talks about it in better and more hilarious ways than I can. Also read this because it's funny. Mostly I just wanted to post pics of Charlotte's new bed, and it turned into a blog post tangent. You're shocked, I can tell.

Allowance (And a Shopping Day!)

I feel like there is an ongoing discussion about allowance and kids - how old, how much, how to connect it (or not) to chores and/or behavior. We are about a year into our allowance system in our house, so -- here's what we do.

Both big kids (not Charlotte yet, since she can't count) get an allowance. They get $5 a week, of which they are expected to:
-- give 10% (church offering plate or the like)
-- save 10% (in a piggy bank, for bigger purchases which will involve a Together Decision with parents -- although neither of them has crossed this bridge yet)
-- and the rest is theirs to do with as they please

Based on the twitter chatter, this is more than lots of kids their age get, but part of the reason (the hugest part actually) that we wanted to give them an allowance was so that they could stop asking us for things, and learn that a finite amount of money means they make the choices about what they want to buy. And $5 is enough that they can actually get something they want. Which means they don't have to whine at me. So, this amount works for us.

(I will say, for both of them, in the first weeks of getting an allowance, they were both drunk on their riches and would wander around looking for something to buy -- just to buy something, anything -- which drove Mark and me nuts. But they grew out of that within a month or two, and it's better now. I know some grownups would do the same with a sudden influx of cash so I tried not to scowl too much, assuming it's a normal part of some money learning process.)

Okay so they each have a wallet and a piggy bank, and they divvy up their $5 every week into the proper pouches/pockets/places for each designation (we give part of it to them in coins to make this divvying easier) and when we are out and about, they buy their own things.

Exceptions: when we (adults) suggest an outing, we pay. We also pay for presents for friends' birthdays, and give them an extra budget at the holidays to choose gifts. And of course, we buy all of what we consider "needs" (clothes, school supplies, activities/equipment). Anything else they want, they can pay for. This system has all but evaporated the whining in Target.

Also, their allowance isn't tied at all to their chores or their behavior. We didn't want to send the message that, A: they "get paid" for doing chores, or B: that doing chores or behaving properly is somehow optional, with a consequence of less/no allowance. No, they behave because they need to behave. And they do chores because they're part of this family. And (I guess) (I hope) they will always need to be part of a household that will require work/upkeep/contribution, and they will never get paid for that, so no we aren't starting that mindset now. I don't know that there is a right or wrong answer about this, plenty of kids get paid for chores or rewards or grades or whatever, and it seems to work fine. This way just made more sense for Mark and me and our family.

Anyway, that's how we do allowance.

I should also say that with the upside kids making their own purchase decisions also comes the downside of... kids making their own purchase decisions. It means ugly things will come live in your house.

Exhibit A: meet Flower. She is a sequined rainbow cat purse, and she was the longing of Anneliese's little rainbow sequined heart. So she saved her money up and now we own this monstrocity and she loves it and I hate it and I have had to make peace with it.

(No, she does not keep money in there. She keeps a mint tin with the Seattle space needle on it, now empty of mints but housing one pressed penny, also with the space needle on it. She should do a "what's in your purse" blog post, yes?)

Mark spent a lot of time hand-lettering that cat nametag, can you tell?

Another of Anneliese's dreams was to take a trip to a mall with just mommy, where we could go into Claire's (the magical land she had heard about from her friends) and also look in any store she wanted, for as long as she wanted, and hey! that's a dream I can relate to!

So she saved her allowance for many weeks and we went with a full wallet and she spent every dollar and walked away happy. She got a stash of accessories at Claire's, including this ridiculous headband that she proceeded to wear all through one mall, and a lunch date, and then a second mall, without feeling silly or self-conscious in the least (I love her).

She also got a little bundle of wooden carved roses sprayed with piña colada scent, which is a kiosk I would have never in a million years walked up to, but she loves them and letting her wander where her heart calls is sort of fun.

She also got that buttefly necklace which came with a matching ring, and in the process of showing it to me to take a picture, she full on flipped me the bird while grinning, and I will not post that picture here, but will happily email or text it to anyone who would be delighted by that kind of thing.

I mean, she certainly delights me. Rainbows and fake flowers and bird flipping and all.

A Day in the Life

Remember a year ago when everyone was posting a day in their lives, and it was fun and interesting to read and see how we all spend our days, but I was too full of Feelings and Exhaustion that I didn't have the bandwidth to take pics all day, much less write about it?

Okay, so, I am doing it now. Because the Ali thing is ending in a few weeks, and I have gotten through a whole year of juggling four kids, and for no other reason than my own memories, I want to remember what it was like. (On an average day.) (Not a terrible day.) (The terrible days I would like to forget.)

This is a Tuesday a couple weeks ago:

6:49am - My alarm goes off. I am still sleeping (about half of the days, I'm not, the kids are up or whatever) so I hit snooze four times before actually putting my feet on the floor. Mark is already at work, which is mind-boggling. (Normally we all sleep right through his wakeup and shower and exit, but some mornings Charlotte hears him leave and pitches a fit if he doesn't wave to her in her window. A FIT. Today is not one of those days. *hallelujah hands*)

7:00am - The kids are eating breakfast; they have yogurt on the bottom shelf of the fridge, and waffles on the bottom shelf of the freezer, and instant oatmeal in their pantry shelf. They mostly fend for themselves, although Nathan helps some with Charlotte. I can hear them and they are fine, so I keep hitting snooze.

7:20am - I finally roll out of bed, let Bowden out, and get dressed and washed and brushed. I always brush my teeth first thing (I have a complex where if I am going to run out of time to fully get ready before Nick or Barbara walks in with Ali, I think it's worse to have morning breath than not have on proper pants or a bra), which I know is ridiculous because I will have coffee in mere minutes and who brushes their teeth right before coffee? Me, stupidly, but whatever.

7:35am - I make my (first) coffee and sort through my list for the day. I made today's list last night, scheduling from my "to do this week" list that I made Sunday night (which is gleaned from my "this month" or "next month" lists that are rolled over and re-sorted every week). My list has everything I will do all day, including drinking this very coffee, and my next. Plus additional things that will crop up and I will do, and then write down and cross off.

Listen, because this is important: I am not sorry for even one bit of this list-begets-list process. I get sh!t done, and this is how.

7:50am  - Ali gets dropped off. My kids are finishing breakfast and I herd them into the bonus room and put the gate up so all four can play.

7:51am - Every day said playing begins with dumping all the foam blocks from their bag onto Ali's head and yelling "soft block shower!"  Every. Day. The blocks will then remain scattered all over the floor for the whole rest of the day, barely played with, until the painful cleanup hour before bedtime. I scowl at the soft block shower. It is no longer cute to me.

7:55am - I sort all of the laundry in our room into piles. Tuesday is laundry day for our stuff (Monday is for the kids, Wednesday is for the towels and sheets and kitchen cloths/napkins).

7:57am - At some point Nathan wanders into my room and checks his school meal menu and the weather, so he knows what to wear. (It's NC in May. Wear shorts. You don't need to look it up, buddy.) He also tells me what today's weather will be like in Holden Beach, Montreat, and Northfield MN. Like every day, I don't have the heart to tell him I give none craps. I smile and say mmm hmm.

8:00am - I start the first load of laundry and then go pack lunches. Today it's just for Anneliese and Nathan (who has determined that whatever was on his school menu didn't sound great). Nathan makes the sandwiches and fills the water bottles and I do the rest. He sneaks pieces of candy into both lunch boxes and I pretend not to notice. I write notes to both kids and sneak them into both lunch boxes and he pretends not to notice.

8:10am - All three girls have been bickering in the bonus room. Someone has pulled someone else's hair, someone colored on someone else's page, Ali has a crayon in her mouth. Normal stuff. I ignore it til lunches are done, and then break it up and send my girls upstairs to get dressed, which for some reason they aren't yet.

8:20am - I do some really excellent lazy parenting from my desk chair, nagging the bigs to brush their teeth, asking Anneliese to find her brush, telling Charlotte that no, "brushing" her hair with her hand doesn't count, and reminding people that no, I don't know where your shoes are, because you are in charge of your own crap. I text a little bit with Mark to say good morning and stuff, and he asks how I slept, which is always a Question, since I fail at sleep, frequently.

8:35am - I check the baby gate and lock the doors and leave Ali and Charlotte playing in the bonus room while Nathan and Anneliese get their lunch boxes/backpacks/cello and we walk to the bus stop at the end of our block. They make bets on whose ride will come first - Nathan's bus, or our friend who gives Anneliese a ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays since she is driving by anyway.

8:45 - 9:15am - I walk back to the house, switch the laundry, and do the louder things on my list (dishwasher, dishes) before I change Ali and make her a bottle and put her down for a nap. Some days this is my gym time, but today Ali's mood can't make it another hour, and I know I will need a block of time to get groceries later anyway, so the gym isn't happening (it's really hard to to both gym and groceries in one morning, with her nap).

9:30am - Ali is napping, and I go in between supervising Charlotte doing dot art painting on the porch, and working through my list. Today that means replying to a few emails, scheduling a playdate, rescheduling a dentist appointment, making a grocery list, hunting down a high-ish resolution image to download and mirror image and print onto iron transfer paper for a t-shirt for a costume for Anneliese next week, firming lunch plans with a friend with a new baby tomorrow, tying ribbons around chocolate bars for teacher appreciation, lots of glamorous trophy wife things, you know.

10:30am - Another Nathan calls with his daily good morning on the way to work, and we chat for what I always think is five minutes but is actually ten.

10:45am - I have my second coffee of the day, this time with toast. Also with twitter and instagram and whatever fun sales might be in my inbox.

11:00am - Ali is awake and chatting in the crib, so I switch the laundry again and make her a snack-to-go, and then get her up and throw both girls in the car.

11:15am - Grocery shopping. Easy enough, with just Ali and Charlotte. (Which is why I do it on Tuesdays.)

12:15pm - I come home and buckle Ali into the high chair and she eats lunch (today Nick and Barbara sent black beans, sweet potatoes, a sandwich, and some cheese; this is more food than Charlotte will eat in the whole day but Ali gobbles it all), safely contained while I unload the groceries. Charlotte is also sitting at the table but instead of eating, she is crying, because obviously. (?? No idea.)

12:45pm - All the groceries are put away and the inside of my fridge looks like the dairy section at the store (we buy about thirty yogurts a week, and five or six gallons of milk), and I check all the packaging for box tops for Nathan's school (when they bring in enough, they can get extra library books!) and then Charlotte takes the rest to the recycling bin. She does it without complaining or whining  HA HA HA NO sorry y'all I can't. Nope. She is a pill about it.

12:50pm* - Back in the car to go to church and get Anneliese. I fight for parking, send a few cussy texts about it, and then find a spot finally. I parallel park LIKE A BOSS.

(If I were a superhero, my power would be parallel parking. No, making good lists. No, parallel parking. I would save people from villains and crime in tight parking situations like preschool pickup, where no other hero dares attempt.)

*1:00pm - that 12:50 up there is a lie, it's always 1:00. Anneliese's class is always one that runs on the late side, and I just can't ever get out the door any sooner. It's 1, every time.

1:01pm - I leave the car and a/c running with the girls in it (ALERT THE AUTHORITIES) (no, don't, it's mere feet from the door, not even a parking lot to contend with since we park on the street, and it's legit safer to leave them there than unbuckle into traffic, so shut it), and grab Anneliese. She asks for skittles from the preschool office, which is an option every day, but I am mean and we only do it on Wednesdays. Which means I always have to answer a question about what day it is. Even though she knows full well what day it is. Answering questions that don't need to be answered! Many times on repeat! Parenting!

1:15pm - I bring a bag of books to the public library to return, and pick up a few new holds. It's slightly embarrassing how often we go do this. Like, several times a week. I also drive through for a fountain drink diet coke to have later with my lunch. Sometimes you just need a fountain drink diet coke and nothing else will do.

1:30pm - We are back home, I switch the laundry (it never ends), Anneliese unloads her lunch box pieces into the dishwasher (new parents: IT GETS BETTER), and the girls play outside. Ali is juuuust on the verge of walking, so she toddles a bit holding onto my fingers and watching the big girls swing and sing. (Swinging and singing go together at our house. It's hard to do the former without the latter.)

2:00pm - I give Ali another bottle, change another diaper, and the girls all go down for naps. Only Ali sleeps. Some days they all need naps, and some days I need both big kids to stay awake, and some days it's just too nice to chase them inside, but today they are all going upstairs. Charlotte and Anneliese can play in each other's rooms (they are joined by a jack & jill closet) as long as they stay upstairs and don't wake the baby.

2:05 - Charlotte wanders downstairs to poop, because she went pee before alone time but forgot to poop. This happens every day. I always remind her before she goes upstairs. It never works. I sigh.

2:15pm - I eat my favorite lunch on the back porch, this salad of perfection from trader joes (I am not even a kale person! kale is dumb! but this salad is everything -- sweet and spicy and crunchy and perfect. I love it more every time I have it. It almost tastes like candy to me, and yes you can smack me for saying that about kale, because I hate myself for it too, but it's true. BUY THIS SALAD), and my diet coke that has been waiting in the fridge. I listen to a podcast while I eat, and I say hi to Another Nathan on his way back to work after his own lunch break. He is in the middle of a day of annoying meetings, and he needs to cuss about them, and I am always glad to listen to some lunchtime cussing. I mean who isn't?

3:00pm - I have a quiet break sitting outside, trying not to be "productive" but just doing a few minutes of what I want to do. Which is important! Important enough that "read/rest" gets written on my to-do list every day. First, so I don't have to be feel bad for doing it. And second, as a reminder that time for me to zone out is as important as all the other things I do, for everyone else's well-being.

3:15pm - (I also write the first half of this blog post, and sew sprinkles and buttons onto a few cupcake tops for a felt food swap I am doing.)

3:45pm - Ali is awake so I bring all the girls to the bonus room and supervise some playtime while spending some time doing some Calendar Magic. Every Tuesday night this month we have three overlapping activities -- my choir rehearsal, Nathan's baseball games, and Mark's softball games. The time vary slightly each week, and I am trying to juggle which nights we can work around Mark's shift (he is done about 7) and which days he is off and how we can coordinate pickup/dropoff/bringing various children to our various events, and hopefully no one has to miss more than one event each. (I cuss as I do it, knowing full well that at least some of these arrangements will have to be RE-arranged as life actually unfolds. One game rained out means the next one shouldn't be missed even if that was the plan. A rained out game means choir is easy this week and therefore can be skipped next week. Etc etc. It's always something, and I hate planning it knowing stuff will change, but also, we have to plan something. SO.) Calendar magic = invisible work = parenting!

4:15pm - Nathan gets off the bus and crashes into the house in a way that shows me a glimpse of his teenager years. Door flung open, backpack falling off his shoulder, trudging over to where he can set his cello down and empty his lunch box. Everyone starts clamoring for a snack. YES! Have a snack! The answer is the same every day!

4:20pm - I put the last load of laundry into the dryer and silently congratulate myself with a mental party hat emoji. What gives you a better (albeit fleeting) illusion of control than a stack of finished laundry?

4:25pm - We have a busy evening ahead with very little downtime for the kids, so I concede to some playtime in the pool now while we can. The kids all change into their swimsuits and leave a trail of shorts and underwear and clothes all over the porch (EVERY. DAY.) and they jump in, while Ali sits in my lap and we watch from the side.

4:45pm - Nick arrives to pick up Ali. I give him the report on how she did, which today isn't much. She pooped x1000 (normal) and her bum is red (less normal) and apparently these are the things we talk about now. I want to go back in time and tell 12yo Nick to stop throwing snowballs at me just for kissing his brother, because I'm sticking around, and oh by the way I will care for your child one day and we will happily talk about her poops, so BE NICE, PUNK TWEEN NICK.

5:15pm - I reluctantly chase everyone out of the pool and into the house for dinner. We eat leftover pork tenderloin from a few nights ago, and easy mac, and believe me when I say the only reason it's even that fancy is because I am writing this post. Otherwise, we eat oatmeal and cheese slices on hectic nights. Or cereal. Just keeping it real.

5:50pm - I am ready for cleanup and bedtime but am I still writing this? Is our day still going?

6:00pm - Nathan changes into his baseball uniform and sits down to practice his cello, which becomes the backup music to my nagging frustrated voice trying to get the girls to clean up the bonus room and their rooms. "Are you cleaning?" "That doesn't sound like cleaning!" "I am going to do the dishes and when I come back, this room better be clean!" "Mommy is mad!" "How is this room not clean?"

6:30pm - The dishes are done, everything is clean, and I am trying to herd people to the car. Charlotte takes four tries to find her shoes, ends up in tears and needing help from literally everyone else to find them (they are in the middle of her bedroom floor), and then insists she doesn't need to pee because she went last year. Um. (She pees anyway BECAUSE I SAID SO.) Anneliese deliberates over just the right chapter book to bring along (she can't read) (she is trying to impress some older girls who are little league siblings too) (the whole thing is moot because she is not staying for the game) and Nathan is pissy because his baseball bag isn't where he left it, or it was left open, or some other trivial thing I don't care about AT ALL. Whoever has messed with his stuff is a much smaller transgression in my book than listening to him complain about it.

6:31pm - I hate 6:30pm. I don't even like it when it's the start of bedtime, and I really hate it when we are all walking out the door.

6:45pm - We drop Nathan off for his baseball game, leave him under the eye of a friend of ours, another dad on the team. When Mark gets off work he will go straight to the field and watch the game, and should only miss the first bit. He had considered taking Nathan with him to his own softball game after that, but it doesn't even start til 8:30, so he isn't going. Thank goodness. It's too much for one evening.

7:00pm - The girls and I go to choir. They bring Hattie and Sheepie and a box of crayons, and they sprawl on the floor of the choir room and color. Halfway through rehearsal they opt for a liturgical dance in the back of the room. A few minutes after that they get out a music stand and pretend to conduct. I tell myself everyone is charmed but I'm not really sure.

8:00pm - Choir isn't over, but the girls are done. Anneliese is slumped on me in my row, and Charlotte is curled up in a ball on the chair next to me, where she had to spin in many circles like a puppy before she got comfy. We bail on the end of rehearsal.

8:10pm - Mark and Nathan get home at the same time as we do. Mark does bedtime with the girls while Nathan does homework and then leans on me and reads. He likes us to read by ourselves together. I sit and stare at the wall. Somehow an hour passes. I have no idea. Twitter? iMessage? Instagram? Seriously no idea. We send Nathan up to bed before he falls asleep downstairs and we have to carry him. (This happens at least half the nights, because... couch parenting.)

9:00pm - Mark and I chat and catch up on our days while he makes us some dinner. I have a taste for shrimp and grits which he doesn't really want but makes me anyway, because -- wait for it, this is important -- he is a gem. Eating after 9pm is super normal for us. We watch two episodes of a show on Netflix and then I can't take any more noise or talking. My tv limit is very low these days.

10:00pm - I do the dishes and then escape to the guest house for some silence. I read a few chapters of Goblet of Fire (I am re-reading all the HP books this year, which is fun because although I love them, I've only read each of them once. It's been a decade. It's time.) I start my list for tomorrow, and I write the second half of this post.

10:45pm - Another Nathan calls after his gym time. Tuesdays are one of our nights for longer catchups; I tell him about our choir people he misses, and talk through my angst about employment ideas for the fall, and he's trying to wrap his brain around the final push with his choir for the program year, and tells me about some fun plans with his parents this weekend and stories of what he's up to with his new people up there. It's nice to make time to hear each other.

11:30pm - I take my bedtime shower by candlelight, which sounds way sexier than it is. Mostly it's just that it smells delightful (coffee!) and it adheres to my doctor-organized Sleep Plan of having dim lights after certain times, amongst a million other things that are supposed to ensure me good sleep but only get me there maybe half the time.

I read a few chapters, and then toss ans turn, and then think all the thoughts, and sometime after 1am (or 2 or 3, depending on how unlucky I am), I sleep until sometime before but not after 6:49am again.

A day in the life.

Spring, it Sprang

Where did spring go? It took forever and a day to get here, and now summer is basically upon us. School will be out in a few weeks, and we are in the throes of the end-of-the-year stuff: concerts, recitals, school events, forever and ever amen.

Mark and I went out last weekend to celebrate the 18th (that's ten plus eight, EIGHTEENTH) (!!!!) anniversary of our first date, back when we were sixteen. We were dumb naive teenagers, and we cringe now at thinking we knew what the heck we were getting ourselves into, yet also really really happy that we did. It's so fun to remember the very beginning, and feel happy and grateful about where we are now.

Nathan and Anneliese, waiting for their school rides together. Anneliese is so tall for her age, and Nathan is still so tiny, and I get asked now more than ever if they are twins. Anneliese can't wait til next year when she can finally (finally!) get on the bus with Nathan.

Yes, I know Nathan needs a haircut. No, I do not know why wearing your instrument on your back and your backpack on your front is a Thing, but among the second grade orchestra set, it indeed is.

Anneliese sang in a little concert at preschool, and she was a cow, and she is officially the cutest singing cow that ever sang.

And! The preschool did a big Letterland Day, to have fun with the reading and writing curriculum they use (which is very cool, if you care about linguistics and pedagogy), and each kid got to dress up as a letter character from the Letterland world (haaaaaa I say "got to" like I wasn't cussing up a storm about having to come up with a costume in the last weeks of school... I totally was, make no mistake).

ANYWAY she chose to be Annie Apple, and she was the only one in the whole preschool, and everyone clapped for her. I have no idea if she loved or hated that, but she was hella cute. And this is the part where I pat myself for an illegal download from a google image shirt, reversed onto iron transfer paper and an etsy hat. Costume! May! Super cute! Whatever!

Moving on.

We are also in the throes of All The Baseball.

Okay so baseball is a pain, y'all. It's too many times a week, with lots of rain schedule changes, and not much notice, and it's the busiest time of the year. Whyyyyyyyy. I mean, Nathan likes it and Mark loves it so we go, and we cheer, and I absolutely love to see him having fun. But make no mistake, it's a pain.

Charlotte (who wears this outfit every Tuesday, because I do their laundry on Mondays and she is obsessed with this outfit and mostly only cares that I do her laundry so she can wear it, and does at the soonest moment it is clean every week) has taken to eating toast with me in the mornings.

I used to guard my toast and coffee time as my own alone time, but on days when it's just her at home (well, while Ali is napping), it's sweet to have a snack together. I sort of love it. It has been a good school year of Tuesday and Thursday mornings with her.

So, also. I made a bowl for Charlotte; our church gives us these little stone thumbprint things to mark faith occasions (baptism, Bible reading, confirmation, communion, etc) and there is always this brunch event when the kids are three, where the parents make little bowls for them to collect said "milestones" as the years come. We have one for Anneliese (with a rainbow imprinted in the bottom), and Nathan's is a blue hand-me-down pottery bowl that Another Nathan made at Montreat, since we missed the bowl making when he was three. Anyway! So I made Charlotte's, and then I put it in the oven, per instruction, at like 200 degrees for four hours, except I actually cooked it like twenty hours, and it's totally burned.

It's supposed to be... white.

I really wanted to toss it and start over, but she saw it, and she thinks it's SUPPOSED to be this color, and, well, now what do I do? So we are keeping it. And at every faith milestone we will remember the story of the time I miraculously didn't burn the house down. *sigh*

In other less serious milestones, there is a new Princess Charlotte! And when I told Charlotte there was a new princess Charlotte, a real one, she insisted that she was the real one, and promptly made herself a dot-art crown from her dot-art book, and wore it grocery shopping. Soooo... she sure told me?

And on that note, this is where I make a bloggity plea that anyone who wants to send any Princess Charlotte kitsch my way, I totally definitely want it.

Why I Can't Blog

You know how sometimes there's this big chunk of bullsh!t in your life that isn't bloggable (or in my case, several not-major-but-still-unbloggable-bullsh!ts) and because you can't blog about that, but it's IN your life, and it COLORS your life, you can't seem to blog about anything ELSE in your life either?

Nothing major happened. Swearsies.

I just have ongoing Stuff (annoyances, not even real stressors) (but that still aren't fit for public consumption) (although YOU, yes you, I will email you anything you want to know, I love a good vent or rant) and being too venty on the internet seems rude, but not mentioning it seems dishonest, and I used to do a great job (to me) (if I say so myself) (brushes shoulders) of treading that line just fine, and balancing it well, and I'm not sure I'm good at it anymore.

Anyway, lest this sound like the blog version of vague-booking (it's not! NOTHING BAD HAPPENED, I'm just crazy busy* and easily annoyed, apparently), I will stop. And just say hi.

I just wrote a (fun) ranty email and it made me miss blogging. So, hi.

I am getting caught up. It will be bland, because.

Three months is the longest I've gone without blogging. I have so many things started and half-written but waiting on pictures or complete sentences or lots of deleting of profanity (or deletion altogether). But maybe I can get back to normal.

Oh and also I had some teal dyed into my hair, because a Lady of a Certain Age needs to have more fun in her ponytail, amiright? Here, a picture:

(*If you look at my Goodreads list you will see I'm obviously not that busy. But please no comments about how it "must be nice" to have so much time to read because just no.)

Chaos Theory of Parenthood

Okay so my friend Arwen has this theory (well, her husband does) about chaos in parenting. The theory posits that Chaos Mode - that thing with young kids where you feel like you're just trying to keep your head above water, putting out fires one at a time, but not necessarily kicking ass at any of it (or even particularly wanting to), because Chaos - happens in the season when the number of kids you have is greater than the average of their ages.

Simple, right? Yet kind of genius.

baking with three kids: a comedy of errors

Okay so if we don't account for Ali, we have 3 kids averaging age 5.4, which is well out of Chaos Mode (and perhaps entering into Delightful Mode).

When we do account for Ali, that's 4 kids averaging age 4.3, which means we have juuuuust recently eeked out of Chaos Mode. Which explains why the last few months have felt fairly settled and relaxed.

This theory also accounts for the fact that a first child, even just one, feels hard and exhausting and chaotic for the whole first year (1 kid, "average" age is less than 1) while being alone with just, say, your third kid? Even as a newborn? Feels like SWEET SWEET FREEDOM.

You can be more specific with this if you do the ages by month, go read Arwen's blog post. Don't read it if you have a newborn. Don't read it if you have twin toddlers. Don't read it if you have 3+ kids, none of whom are school aged yet (looking at you, dear sister). If you're in those camps, your energy is better spent on Chaos than math, because I promise - you are still in Chaos Mode. And will be for years.


But I'm here on the other side, to tell you - the chaos settles! It does! Babies are cute and full of wonder and all that, and yes, enjoy it, of course. But know that the chaos settles. And in the meantime, you're doing just fine. Don't expect more of yourself than Chaos Mode allows.

XOXO, parents of the internet. Hashtag: it gets even better.

All The Sicks. ALL OF THEM.

We have officially survived a sicker sick week than the horrible Sicksgiving of 2012.

First, Anneliese got pinkeye.
Two days later, Ali got the pinkeye. And a cold.
One day later, Charlotte got the cold.

Two days after that, Anneliese had a random one-time vom. We disregarded it because we are fools.

(Also because it was a horrible week for our community, burying one of our former youth choir girls, who lost her life to depression. It was tragic and gut-wrenching and we had way bigger things on our mind than assuming we had a g/i bug floating through our house on top of everything else. And yet, we did.)

That same afternoon, on top of her cold, Ali also started throwing up (she was home with her mom, because of the funeral), and the next day the voms hit Mark too, all night. I banished him to the guest house, because obviously. He slept for a whole day afterwards.

Two days after that, Charlotte got pinkeye, and a fever, and it turns out her cold had moved to an ear infection. Our first, after seven years and three kids (well, except swimmers ear).

That night, Nathan felt queasy, and by morning was throwing up. He kept at it all day, every fifteen to twenty minutes, constantly. I have never seen anyone throw up so much. It was like... fifteen hours of vomiting.

Meanwhile Ali and Charlotte still both had fevers, and Anneliese was as crabby as I have seen her in months, even though she seemed to have already made it through all the sicks.

By bedtime when Nathan's thing still hadn't run its course, he could barely stand, and couldn't pee, so we called his doctor and they sent us to the ER for fluids and zofran.

They tried the dissolvable zofran first and he promptly threw it up, everywhere. All over the triage area. It was so sad, y'all.

Eventually they got an IV in him and he got some fluids and some zofran and he slept for a spell, and dang he woke up a whole different kid.

Amusing anecdote from the hospital: when Nathan was awake and comfortable enough to talk to the doctors, one of them asked what the best book had read recently was. He told them a biography of J.K. Rowling.
"Oh, so you're a big Harry Potter fan?"
"No I have never read them, I just really like biographies."
(Picture me making the cry-laughing emoji face right here. Haaaaaa. So Nathan.)

Anyway we got home and slept hard, and the next morning, Mark woke up with pinkeye, AND THAT IS WHEN I LOST IT.

It was a very long ten days. I cried.

But! Brightsiding! In between Charlotte's ear infection appointment, and Nathan's never-ending upsturned stomach, we did have some half-birthday cake for him. Also, Charlotte never threw up. I never threw up. I never got pinkeye. I never had more than a bit of congestion. So if any of you want to know my superpower, it is apparently Immune System of Steel.

(Does not apply to mono.) (Or pleurisy.)

(Okay nvm I have odd sickies too, but NOT THIS WEEK UNIVERSE SO KISS IT.)

Old Lady Eyes

It's groundhog day, the snow days will never end, winter will never end, we are coming off a week when everyone is sick, so much fever and pinkeye and vomming and ear infections and and and AND.

That's a mess for another day. For today, tell me that even in my pure unfiltered* exhaustion, my new glasses are pretty.

Yes, I waited til I had a good hair day to take this pic.

My old lady eyes have new progressive lenses, and they are basically the sh!t because:
1- I can see everything now, including my phone screen! and food!
2- They are teal on the inside.

(When my eye doctor asked if I was having any trouble with my glasses, I joked and answered my only problem was that I lost them all the time. He was like... how do you lose them when they should be on your face? Do you take them off? Me: HA HA YES x1000 per day. Him: Like to eat and read and look at your phone and computer? Me: omg yes and now I feel really foolish for not realizing my perscription is indeed woefully wrong.)

Anyway, that's the story of how I can see my computer again. Maybe I shall be better at blogging catchup? One can hope.

(*I just lied straight to your face, there is an instagram filter allll up on that.)

I am Over the Cell Phone Shaming

Okay apparently I have more crabbies to get out. This one has been brewing for a while.

So suddenly (well, gradually) everywhere in my life, there are signs prohibiting cell phone use in x or y or z situations. My OB's office has them in the waiting room. So does our pediatrician's office. Actually almost every medical provider I can think of. Also, waiting in line to vote. Restaurants where one might procure takeout, or feel like eating a quiet lunch alone.

And the new director of the girls' preschool requested in her back-to-school letter (yes, months ago, yes I am still annoyed) that parents refrain from cell phone use while we drop off and pick up our kids. Her reason? Not because it slows down pickup/lines (which I could allllmost understand), but because our little ones are excited about their days! And want us to listen to them!

Ummmm y'all, did I just get parenting shamed about my phone? Not cool.

Of course it's nothing new, the whole "dear mom on her iphone at the playground" open letter trope is done and re-done and done again. Phone shaming isn't news. I think I'm just officially... over it.

Look, I get to determine which ways and times are good for ME and MY kid to communicate. MOST people are not ignoring their kids at school pickup to text or tweet (any more than if they are having a real human conversation with a fellow parent or a teacher or flirting it up with the cute dad in the hallway), but if they were, and their kids learn that sometimes mommy is talking to someone else and it'll be their turn in a sec (because OTHER PEOPLE ALSO EXIST), then... that is okay.

Also, if you're the kind of parent who is legitimately ignoring your kid at a time that is legitimately harmful or hurtful to said kid, then that is not a PHONE issue, that is a HUMAN issue, and people blaming the phone is a cop-out.

ALSO. If I am waiting on YOU, I get to use my waiting time how I want. This goes for waiting in preschool pickup times and medical offices alike. I'm sure it would be more CONVENIENT for the doctor if, when he came into the room, I was standing with bated breath, questions at the tip of my tongue, children patiently silently nearby. But, dear physicians of America, YOUR convenience and time is not more important than mine* (it isn't! I promise! it really isn't!) and if I have to wait twenty minutes for my appointment, I will treat that time as MINE. If, after my loooong wait for you, you have to hold on four seconds for me to put my phone away when you come in, YOU WILL SURVIVE.

(Again: having patients who cannot or will not disengage from their phones for a whole appointment, or who miss their name being called when they are distracted, or whatever - those are HUMAN problems, not PHONE problems.)

My friend A'Dell wrote last year that her take is: anywhere it's socially appropriate to read a book or magazine, it should be socially appropriate to use a phone. Lines, waiting rooms, airport lounges, traffic jams, etc.

Actually you should just go read that whole post because I basically agree with every word, and she is such a good ranter. Get on board, folks. The future is now, etc etc.

*No really. It isn't.

Inefficient. And Overwhelmed.

I'm fighting a bad spell of sleep and general overwhelm about life this week, and I don't have a ton to say about that, but I do have this to say, about one part of the overwhelm:

Raising humans is terribly inefficient work.

"I don't need to do alone time, I'm not even tired!"
Mmmmkay.

I don't mind hard work, I really don't. My bosses have generally loved me as a worker, in every job I've had. I was a good student. I am a focused task-doer. But when I work hard I want it to result in... something.

Being a housewife/SAHM/homemaker/whatever term you like for it: I have never worked harder in my life, nor felt less successful at achieving the end I'm working towards.

Behavior/teaching things with the kids get reminded and then forgotten and then reminded again. Meals get prepared and then complained about. Messes get cleaned then re-messed. I live in chaos, far more than I ever would have guessed I can tolerate.

It is all just so... inefficient. There is hardly a thing I can do one day, one morning, one hour, that I won't have to immediately repeat within a coming window of time. The same work! Again! And I don't just mean the household stuff but also just the general rearing of what I hope will be future good citizens. It's like trying to frantically build something while someone else, or a team of someone elses (often the very tiny humans you are trying to raise, themselves), take it apart, working against me. And I just have to keep doing it over and over again, be faster than them and smarter than them to find productivity and progress despite them, even though it's for them, and hope that one day it will be the day that it doesn't come apart.

And keep telling myself that in the meantime, it still matters, and I have to keep trying, even when I feel like I'm getting nowhere. Some days I believe myself. Some days I don't.

Someone told me years ago that being effective is more important than being efficient, but, oh man, I don't know, MY KINGDOM FOR A HAPPY MEDIUM.

Odd Melancholies

Behind on blogging excuse #617: I have odd melancholies right now. Like, I need to complain, but I'm not sure what about, exactly. And I'm tired oh so tired, which I know is a tired song (see what I did there) but I keep singing it because it keeps being crappy. Tired of being tired and all that.

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Some housewife honesty: some (many) days it feels like almost everything I do is for someone else. And instead of feeling happy or fulfilled by what I want to think of as a service role, it mostly makes me feel ugly feelings about the people I'm caring for.

If I could just get aloooooone that would be SUPER.

I need to work on some boundary setting or something. I'm feeling a little over being treated like a public commodity. I love taking care of my people, and I know it's also my job to do it.... and, also, right next to those feelings, is some exhaustion at the constant demands, and the assumptions (intentional or not) that I must exist solely to take care of them. Yknow? Yeah.

I want something -- well, more somethings, more often -- to be for me. And I want to not have to fight so hard for it to happpen. I'm not sure what to do about that, but there it is.

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A bunch of my friends from my old job were in Amsterdam a few weeks ago for a work thing that looked like a lot less work than play, and I didn't want to feel jealous, but... I totally felt jealous. I know that if I were there, I would have been so sad missing my kids' first days of school and such. I know I can't have it both ways. I know. But.

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Some days I can't believe how busy I can be and how bored at the same time. Other days I am high on life and filled with love that I get to do what I do, because it feels like the best thing ever. Hmm I guess I don't have to feel the same way about all the things, all the time. I need to remind myself of that.

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Anneliese has been very weepy for the past few weeks. Kind of, just, well, always on the verge of tears. She has spells of cheery playfulness and then she seems pulled back down. She is needing lots of time alone with mommy or daddy, and lots of hugs and time and space to cry. It's more than just moodiness, or playing us for attention, we know her and we know that's not what's happening here. Mark and I have both talked to her a lot, and to her teacher, and we think we understand what's causing some of it, at least, but it is still hard to see her feeling sad.

In the last week she has seemed closer to her normal sunny self, which we are glad for, but if that thing about how "parents are only ever about as happy as their least happy child" is true? Then aching for sweet Anneliese might explain my own sense of melancholy too. Will y'all say a prayer about this funk she's in, please?

Back to Preschool!

Everyone is officially back to school!

Charlotte went back today:

Her first day of 3's! She will go three mornings a week, Monday and Wednesday and Friday.

And Anneliese went back yesterday, her last first day of preschool:

Most of the "old 4's" like her are going five days a week (which is a new option at our church), and she is totally ready for that if we had wanted her to (she's actually ready for kindergarten, in my opinion -- and desperately wants to go to kindergarten -- but just after she was born they changed the NC schools birth date deadline from October 15th to August 31st, so she misses the deadline now), but now that I have seen what it is like to have a kid gone all day every weekday, I'm in no hurry to rush it for preschool -- so she's only doing four mornings, Monday through Thursday. On Fridays she will be at home with Ali and me, and I am glad for it.

Can I point out here how much it delights me that my children happily bound up those steps outside church and grab that rail and smile for pictures now? What started as a random photo of Nathan as a toddler has turned into a legit first-day tradition, complete with Starbucks. (All the best traditions come with Starbucks. True story.)

Anyway they each had their first days, and next week starts our new routine. Nathan is in school most of the day every day, of course. And all the girls will be home every afternoon. But the mornings will be more scattered:
- Mondays I will have just Ali,
- Tuesdays and Thursdays I will have Charlotte and Ali,
- Fridays it'll be Anneliese and Ali,
and Wednesday mornings (while Ali is at mmo) will once again be MINE ALL MINE. Those four hours are precious, y'all. Not because I have anything important or pressing to do (although it's nice to have a go-to window to schedule things I don't want to drag any kids along to), but simply because, like most people, even chatty extroverts, sometimes I like to be ALONE FTLOG.

I have big plans for giant coffees, and long showers, and reading under my covers, and I might even poop with no one talking to me. It's going to be awesome.

The End of This Summer

Well since labor day is over and Nathan started back to school last week and the girls start back to preschool tomorrow, I guess it means summer is over... and I feel complicated about that. I don't know whether to feel relieved that this season is passed (because it kinda sucked), or cry because it isn't what I wanted to be and I don't get to go back to re-do it, time being one-directional and kind of a bummer like that.

I am trying to think less about Mark traveling so much, less about the sad screamy-baby months, less about the best friend goodbye, less about the largely-untouched bucket list of family fun -- and think more about the lovely moments (yes! they were there! swearsies!) and fun trips and and new memories. I'm trying. I am! But I'm having trouble shaking that overall, it wasn't what I wanted it to be, and now it's over.

Blah.

At least we did up our last day of summer in style. And by "in style" I mean in a frenzy. Although you would never know it from this here, right?

Besides Charlotte being halfway out of the picture (even after I tilted the camera to accommodate her), and Ali working on her poetic Thoreau-contemplating-Walden gaze, we look like a completely together and un-frazzled lot, yes? Right? SAY YES.

So anyway our frenzy involved taking an extra friend, Beatrice, for the morning (there was a fifth kid) (of course there was a fifth kid) (she is a friend of Anneliese's and her mom needed to work and she is a dream to have around, and after a few days of Anneliese being weepy, she needed some happy distraction so I have never been gladder to have a fifth kid, actually) and then getting Nathan on the bus and Ali to her first day of MMO (see, that's how the fifth kid thing balances out, you send two others to school).

Also, it should not be called MMO, not only because I'm an aunt, not a mom here (and isn't it all about me?) but because I am not the only non-mom who might want or have a kid in the program, and the language around it is gross, and I will begin my campaign to change it shortly.

Like after some more coffee.  Several weeks's worth.

So Ali went to church and I took the big (big?) (middle?) girls out for coffee treats, which was really fun and cute until Anneliese spilled hers and then even Beatrice couldn't quell the weepies. Sigh.

Starbucks with outdoor seating + September = RECOMMEND.

We regrouped and went back to church to do preschool orientations, which were all fine and easy. Charlotte's teacher is one we already know well (both Nathan and Anneliese also had her, but at different ages). Anneliese's teacher is new to us, but seems like maybe the most on it preschool teacher I have yet to encounter, so I'm pretty thrilled about that match.

Anneliese found her coat hook and she loves it.

She also took posession of a rainbow nametag.

Charlotte danced in the hallway with no one watching, as she is wont to do, and then stopped and got all smiley instead when I wanted her to do more.

Then Beatrice and Anneliese climbed on her, because we are the dream family to have lingering in preschool hallways when teachers are trying to do orientations.

Seriously you want us around. We are delightful. And definitely not loud or anything.

And then we skipped grocery shopping to swim in the pool because y'all, the schedule only had so much room.

Also it was hot as the blazes outside. Is it September? It was like mid-nineties today. I literally sat under a bush by the pool like freaking Jonah, just for a tiny spot of shade. I took a picture but it ain't pretty so you don't get to see it.

And then we went back to church to pick Ali up from Aunt's Morning Out™ because apparently three round-trips in one morning is how much I needed to drive to church today. Oh wait! I also did two more, for children's choir in the afternoon, after Nathan's carpool! Yay! Five round-trips! My life is full of meaning and purpose. Wait, what? Anyway.

Ali did just fine at church this morning and was smiling and happy to see me after lunch and she napped hard after her big morning.

But not before she pooped all over me and then (after I took my shirt off) spit up all over my back and down my jeans so I got to do extra laundry and get an extra shower today! I also got to change not one but TWO sets of poopy underwear, AND wait in a carpool line that was longer and slower than it would have taken the bus to get home. Sigh, again.

MEANING AND PURPOSE.

But actually it was not a bad day, just a frenzy. After a few sad no-Another-Nathan tears, Nathan had a fun first children's choir of the year, and he and Anneliese were giggly and playful all evening, excited for her school tomorrow reading books together and practicing writing. Anneliese wanted to write a letter, so Nathan showed her how to write hi and I love you, and I think the love might have just been a heart shape, but it still totally counts. Also she wanted to dot all her i's with hearts, which I would have (probably patronizingly) discouraged, but Nathan sweetly told her "okay just make them as tiny as you can," which is why he's a better person than I am.

(Queen poopy crabbypants went to bed early. If you pretended not to hear her tantruming upstairs, watching Nathan and Anneliese together was lovely.)

Whoever tells me to *cherish every moment* gets a chair to the face.

Hm  it occurs to me (brace yourself, obvious epiphany coming up) that sometimes real life tedium and lovely tender moments happen all at the same time, and maybe my disappointing summer can be disappointing but also okay too? No happy ending needed. No brilliant closure better-next-year takeaways required. Just letting it be what it was, missing what it wasn't, and now starting the next thing.  I think I will try to be okay with that.