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ETA!! This was going to be a fb status, but on second thought - can you guys give me some packed lunch suggestions for my various kids? I'm really at a loss as to how not to just give them hundreds of pbjs all summer for their various day camps. Ananda is a vegetarian and got REALLY sick of packed salads last summer, and says she doesn't want to go there again O_o Jake and Elise are very open to super healthy stuff like raw carrots and hummus, my main challenge there is that Jake needs a LOT of food and eats ridiculous amounts. Isaac is very very picky but claims to hate sandwiches altogether - he and Aaron both would be happiest with a lot of little packaged snacks, which I don't really feel very keen on. One thing I'm sure of for Isaac is he adores cheese and crackers, although he sometimes gets weird about "how cheese is when it gets packed," even with a cold pack. And Aaron actually needs two packed meals per day, for Mondays and Wednesdays, and I have a hard time not giving him double of the same thing and/or not enough. Aside from really expensive stuff in small packages (pistachios) nuts tend to come home uneaten. ....help?
This is where I realize how often I make a big pot of oatmeal for breakfast and a big pot of soup for lunch, and/or just let them graze all day here at the house, neither of which are feasible options for this. I mean soup in thermoses might work, for some of them? Gah. It seems kind of messy and the boys are all sort of ridiculous about things being heated enough. I'm very spoiled on keeping our house stocked and telling them to just grab things themselves, and/or find something else themselves if they don't like what I'm making, when we're here...
Additional Notes:
-A and A love Asian stuff like spring rolls and sushi, but that's complicated/expensive to maintain (I'm not a maker of sushi, the spring rolls Annie likes are very time consuming)
-Isaac can't have anything with corn in it
-gah
Now then - Parenting Stages
Or, "Things That Occur to me as I Drive all Over God's Green Earth..."
I really love babies, toddlers and preschoolers. They're huge amounts of work, and often involve tedious amounts of repetitive tedium (getting them down off the table AGAIN, cleaning up pee AGAIN, reading that board book AGAIN). But they're adorable and fleeting for every moment of it, and often deeply engaging of my hormones as well as hugely emotionally embroiled with me. You have to take a picture to not lose how they look THAT WEEK forever, and they are just constantly doing something brand new. You see the emergence of personalities for the first time as a new human being unfolds. I love nursing, cloth diapers, slings, cuddling with sleeping little people, sick slow small folks wanting extra love, introducing NEW everything (from walking and talking to taking newborns outside to getting to show them EVERYTHING - the zoo is a thing! Parks exist! Fruit is awesome! Holidays happen!). It's really sweet and exciting and kinda amazing. I love wooden stacking toys and silly poems and how easy it is to just make them SO HAPPY (most of the time...) by announcing outings or trips or treats or game times, or, anything. It's very simple to exist completely in the house and yard, or around town in your life rhythm, without fighting to protect that dynamic.
I do not love latency, or tweens/preteens. I find this whole phase irritating beyond belief. Most kids go through several awkward phases, in looks and behavior, during this time. Whether my own kids or other kids, I just don't enjoy interacting with (often sarcastic) children who act put upon about chores, argue with words and rationales about bedtimes, and constantly try not to act like they like anything TOO much. They are as picky about food and ridiculous about everything as toddlers are, except they're supposed to know better and are sullen. They tell horrifyingly not funny jokes all day every day for months at a time, and show me staggeringly complicated lego creations with many weapon features HOURLY for years, and beg for tv and other screen time way too often regardless of how I consistently limit those things. These kids are suddenly hyper-modest even though they haven't hit puberty yet (give me a naked 3 year old on a trampoline any day...) Mostly, they school their features too often to not get excited about exciting things, or show sincere enthusiasm too often, and I hate that shit. Tiny little precocious hipsters, refusing to wear clothes you buy them out of nowhere and all too cool for Sesame Street, let's just fast forward this nonsense :p I feel obligated to have them in activities, but have to practically drag them to the damn things half the time, and they just change their minds and stop being interested in things they thought they had to do the week before.
I have these memories of myself that make me want to die, 9 years olds and calling everyone "Babe" in a condescending tone, and 11, flipping my hair and asking if everyone thought my (jeans and a tshirt) outfit was "just too polyester." GAAAAAAAAH. I don't know to this day how nobody stabbed me in the eye.
I love adolescents, though. There was a period of time when (nephew, lived with us at the time) Robbie was a preteen while Ananda and Aaron were preschoolers, and I thought Robbie and I had intrinsically clashing personalities and my kids were these sweet easy angels. Then, a few years later, Robbie was a teenager and even though he was kind of a mess - I was visiting him in the psych ward after faked suicide attempts and things - we could talk for hours about his life and interests and family issues. I brought him over, sometimes, for the selfish reason of enjoying his company. Suddenly we were sitting in the front seat listening to Regina Spektor and Kid Cudi together while Ananda and Aaron were unbearably eye rolly and obnoxious, behind us, so awkward and trying so hard that it was cringeworthy and PAINFUL.
At PATH, the preteens stand around refusing to dance at the dances. The teenagers get up and freely make fools of themselves and have a good time. The preteens stand around at the park dodging the little kids, not wanting to be seen interacting with them. The teenagers give the little kids piggy back rides and include them in their conversations because they're adorable (and often unintentionally hilarious).
Anyway, Ananda and Aaron are (FINALLY O_O) moving out of the preteen bullshit phase, and I am SO glad. It seems like the first initial year of puberty has to be out of the way before we can actually talk and hang out easily again and they can react naturally to things and, geez! There are, of course, pain in the butt teenager things - they are much harder to get out of bed early, sometimes, and I always feel like we're about an hour away from them managing to somehow become addicted to internet porn without me ever realizing they've even seen it, and I get SCARED about the independence they need and have as they skate off around the corner together or decide they want to do things like play roller derby with ambulances standing by or go en pointe and potentially ruin their feet...
But I ENJOY them again in a way that I haven't for years (Ananda for about a year and a half now, Aaron for the last couple of months). They're great to be around. They autonomously take showers on their own because they don't like stinking or having gross oily hair, and brush their teeth because they don't want them to be yellow (I am so glad to not be fighting those battles anymore like we ALWAYS were when the BO and greasiness started...), and they clean and organize their stuff without me even knowing they did it O_O Not all of their stuff, their rooms can still be ridiculous and they will totally "forget" their chores exist if I don't remind them, but then they do them as though they'd just forgotten, when I remind them, rather than going into histrionics like did for several years - Ananda would drop her head backward and moan, Aaron would actually lay down on the floor from the crushing weight of the injustice. KILL ME NOW :p
They have this grace and ease with Isaac, Jake and Elise that is really different than the screechy "don't touch my stuff!" and "stay out of my room!" and "I will not play Monopoly with you" that we were dealing with as normative for so long, too. The little kids bicker and tell on each other and A and A roll their eyes in a GOOD way, with a smile, and share a knowing look with me. If I pull them aside and ask nicely they'll usually say yes to doing enriching things with them as though it was their own idea ;)
We have these great, quiet conversations about ideas they have, about things to potentially do with their lives, and where they want to go with their current interests and hobbies. I also LIKE THEIR FRIENDS - let me tell you, I am a sort of horrible person about not being into "other people's kids." When I have babies, other babies are cute but overwhelming because my own baby(ies) is so all encompassing. It's often frustrating to deal with outside toddlers and preschoolers because of the inevitable violence, stealing and angst, and the irrational favoring of my own kid/desire to dropkick the other one :p As you may have guessed, without the unconditional love of parenting to gloss over the whole annoying preteen thing, it's damn near intolerable for me personally to be around.
But now my (older) kids' friends are discussing which are the best book series and favorite vloggers and telling me how awesome my belly cast is when they come over. They have tumblrs and love sushi and Starbucks and have an interesting array of activities they do. They're planning cosplays for cons and say things like, "is there anything I can do to help with dinner?" and "thanks for driving me" without any guardian around to prompt them.
Sometimes, Ananda or Aaron spend an hour and a half in the bathroom, or are way too self depricating, or I wonder about their increasingly complex internal lives. I am revoking privileges to get them back on track with schoolwork very regularly. But I would so, so much rather deal with this kind of stuff than, like, standing people in the corner for slapping each other or calling each other butt faces. They can walk along with me in a store, without asking when we can leave the store, ducking under racks or around aisles making me panic, or running around me in circles. We're just walking through the freakin' store together. In between "kid is in the sling/cart" and this, there is a barren wasteland of frustration in taking kids out!
ON THE OTHER HAND, Jake is deep into annoying-as-shit tweendom, and Elise is starting. *sigh* He wants to interrupt with the devil's advocate position for every single thing anyone says, and can only respond competitively to anyone else's achievements ("Didn't Isaac do great in the school talen show?" gets met with, "So what, I blah blah blah" and then we have a lecture on being considerate and supportive that he grudingly suffers through before saying "But I really can blah blah blah"). He corrects Elise's grammar constantly when she talks, and is weirdly self conscious about making any mistakes in his schoolwork. It's like all conversation with him is through the lens of subtle defensive hostility. He suddenly finds it humiliating for us to look at or even have baby pictures of him and thinks I'm purposely insulting him if I reference those days. He's still pretty affectionate, and adorable, and fairly independent, but he also has a too-long, too-loud, obviously fake laugh that he forces out about things that are not even remotely funny until I want towring his neck punish him for having a bad personality :p
Isaac is a whole other animal and an exception to every rule I've ever had - he was so difficult and troubled in so many ways for the first 7-8 years of his life that I am in a constant state of happy amazement at how much better he's doing. He is a preteenish sort of 9.5 year old, but he's so calm and thoughtful and kind and healthy and just holy shit *OK* compared to how he's ever, ever been before. I love it. And am kinda nervous about him hitting puberty since I worry that he might have some dormant mental health issues that get exacerbated when his pituitary goes crazy :/ Here's hoping that goes smoothly...
This is where I realize how often I make a big pot of oatmeal for breakfast and a big pot of soup for lunch, and/or just let them graze all day here at the house, neither of which are feasible options for this. I mean soup in thermoses might work, for some of them? Gah. It seems kind of messy and the boys are all sort of ridiculous about things being heated enough. I'm very spoiled on keeping our house stocked and telling them to just grab things themselves, and/or find something else themselves if they don't like what I'm making, when we're here...
Additional Notes:
-A and A love Asian stuff like spring rolls and sushi, but that's complicated/expensive to maintain (I'm not a maker of sushi, the spring rolls Annie likes are very time consuming)
-Isaac can't have anything with corn in it
-gah
Now then - Parenting Stages
Or, "Things That Occur to me as I Drive all Over God's Green Earth..."
I really love babies, toddlers and preschoolers. They're huge amounts of work, and often involve tedious amounts of repetitive tedium (getting them down off the table AGAIN, cleaning up pee AGAIN, reading that board book AGAIN). But they're adorable and fleeting for every moment of it, and often deeply engaging of my hormones as well as hugely emotionally embroiled with me. You have to take a picture to not lose how they look THAT WEEK forever, and they are just constantly doing something brand new. You see the emergence of personalities for the first time as a new human being unfolds. I love nursing, cloth diapers, slings, cuddling with sleeping little people, sick slow small folks wanting extra love, introducing NEW everything (from walking and talking to taking newborns outside to getting to show them EVERYTHING - the zoo is a thing! Parks exist! Fruit is awesome! Holidays happen!). It's really sweet and exciting and kinda amazing. I love wooden stacking toys and silly poems and how easy it is to just make them SO HAPPY (most of the time...) by announcing outings or trips or treats or game times, or, anything. It's very simple to exist completely in the house and yard, or around town in your life rhythm, without fighting to protect that dynamic.
I do not love latency, or tweens/preteens. I find this whole phase irritating beyond belief. Most kids go through several awkward phases, in looks and behavior, during this time. Whether my own kids or other kids, I just don't enjoy interacting with (often sarcastic) children who act put upon about chores, argue with words and rationales about bedtimes, and constantly try not to act like they like anything TOO much. They are as picky about food and ridiculous about everything as toddlers are, except they're supposed to know better and are sullen. They tell horrifyingly not funny jokes all day every day for months at a time, and show me staggeringly complicated lego creations with many weapon features HOURLY for years, and beg for tv and other screen time way too often regardless of how I consistently limit those things. These kids are suddenly hyper-modest even though they haven't hit puberty yet (give me a naked 3 year old on a trampoline any day...) Mostly, they school their features too often to not get excited about exciting things, or show sincere enthusiasm too often, and I hate that shit. Tiny little precocious hipsters, refusing to wear clothes you buy them out of nowhere and all too cool for Sesame Street, let's just fast forward this nonsense :p I feel obligated to have them in activities, but have to practically drag them to the damn things half the time, and they just change their minds and stop being interested in things they thought they had to do the week before.
I have these memories of myself that make me want to die, 9 years olds and calling everyone "Babe" in a condescending tone, and 11, flipping my hair and asking if everyone thought my (jeans and a tshirt) outfit was "just too polyester." GAAAAAAAAH. I don't know to this day how nobody stabbed me in the eye.
I love adolescents, though. There was a period of time when (nephew, lived with us at the time) Robbie was a preteen while Ananda and Aaron were preschoolers, and I thought Robbie and I had intrinsically clashing personalities and my kids were these sweet easy angels. Then, a few years later, Robbie was a teenager and even though he was kind of a mess - I was visiting him in the psych ward after faked suicide attempts and things - we could talk for hours about his life and interests and family issues. I brought him over, sometimes, for the selfish reason of enjoying his company. Suddenly we were sitting in the front seat listening to Regina Spektor and Kid Cudi together while Ananda and Aaron were unbearably eye rolly and obnoxious, behind us, so awkward and trying so hard that it was cringeworthy and PAINFUL.
At PATH, the preteens stand around refusing to dance at the dances. The teenagers get up and freely make fools of themselves and have a good time. The preteens stand around at the park dodging the little kids, not wanting to be seen interacting with them. The teenagers give the little kids piggy back rides and include them in their conversations because they're adorable (and often unintentionally hilarious).
Anyway, Ananda and Aaron are (FINALLY O_O) moving out of the preteen bullshit phase, and I am SO glad. It seems like the first initial year of puberty has to be out of the way before we can actually talk and hang out easily again and they can react naturally to things and, geez! There are, of course, pain in the butt teenager things - they are much harder to get out of bed early, sometimes, and I always feel like we're about an hour away from them managing to somehow become addicted to internet porn without me ever realizing they've even seen it, and I get SCARED about the independence they need and have as they skate off around the corner together or decide they want to do things like play roller derby with ambulances standing by or go en pointe and potentially ruin their feet...
But I ENJOY them again in a way that I haven't for years (Ananda for about a year and a half now, Aaron for the last couple of months). They're great to be around. They autonomously take showers on their own because they don't like stinking or having gross oily hair, and brush their teeth because they don't want them to be yellow (I am so glad to not be fighting those battles anymore like we ALWAYS were when the BO and greasiness started...), and they clean and organize their stuff without me even knowing they did it O_O Not all of their stuff, their rooms can still be ridiculous and they will totally "forget" their chores exist if I don't remind them, but then they do them as though they'd just forgotten, when I remind them, rather than going into histrionics like did for several years - Ananda would drop her head backward and moan, Aaron would actually lay down on the floor from the crushing weight of the injustice. KILL ME NOW :p
They have this grace and ease with Isaac, Jake and Elise that is really different than the screechy "don't touch my stuff!" and "stay out of my room!" and "I will not play Monopoly with you" that we were dealing with as normative for so long, too. The little kids bicker and tell on each other and A and A roll their eyes in a GOOD way, with a smile, and share a knowing look with me. If I pull them aside and ask nicely they'll usually say yes to doing enriching things with them as though it was their own idea ;)
We have these great, quiet conversations about ideas they have, about things to potentially do with their lives, and where they want to go with their current interests and hobbies. I also LIKE THEIR FRIENDS - let me tell you, I am a sort of horrible person about not being into "other people's kids." When I have babies, other babies are cute but overwhelming because my own baby(ies) is so all encompassing. It's often frustrating to deal with outside toddlers and preschoolers because of the inevitable violence, stealing and angst, and the irrational favoring of my own kid/desire to dropkick the other one :p As you may have guessed, without the unconditional love of parenting to gloss over the whole annoying preteen thing, it's damn near intolerable for me personally to be around.
But now my (older) kids' friends are discussing which are the best book series and favorite vloggers and telling me how awesome my belly cast is when they come over. They have tumblrs and love sushi and Starbucks and have an interesting array of activities they do. They're planning cosplays for cons and say things like, "is there anything I can do to help with dinner?" and "thanks for driving me" without any guardian around to prompt them.
Sometimes, Ananda or Aaron spend an hour and a half in the bathroom, or are way too self depricating, or I wonder about their increasingly complex internal lives. I am revoking privileges to get them back on track with schoolwork very regularly. But I would so, so much rather deal with this kind of stuff than, like, standing people in the corner for slapping each other or calling each other butt faces. They can walk along with me in a store, without asking when we can leave the store, ducking under racks or around aisles making me panic, or running around me in circles. We're just walking through the freakin' store together. In between "kid is in the sling/cart" and this, there is a barren wasteland of frustration in taking kids out!
ON THE OTHER HAND, Jake is deep into annoying-as-shit tweendom, and Elise is starting. *sigh* He wants to interrupt with the devil's advocate position for every single thing anyone says, and can only respond competitively to anyone else's achievements ("Didn't Isaac do great in the school talen show?" gets met with, "So what, I blah blah blah" and then we have a lecture on being considerate and supportive that he grudingly suffers through before saying "But I really can blah blah blah"). He corrects Elise's grammar constantly when she talks, and is weirdly self conscious about making any mistakes in his schoolwork. It's like all conversation with him is through the lens of subtle defensive hostility. He suddenly finds it humiliating for us to look at or even have baby pictures of him and thinks I'm purposely insulting him if I reference those days. He's still pretty affectionate, and adorable, and fairly independent, but he also has a too-long, too-loud, obviously fake laugh that he forces out about things that are not even remotely funny until I want to
Isaac is a whole other animal and an exception to every rule I've ever had - he was so difficult and troubled in so many ways for the first 7-8 years of his life that I am in a constant state of happy amazement at how much better he's doing. He is a preteenish sort of 9.5 year old, but he's so calm and thoughtful and kind and healthy and just holy shit *OK* compared to how he's ever, ever been before. I love it. And am kinda nervous about him hitting puberty since I worry that he might have some dormant mental health issues that get exacerbated when his pituitary goes crazy :/ Here's hoping that goes smoothly...
