![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
100 Days of LJ? Day 1.
Jun. 5th, 2015 02:49 pmSomeone suggested this is a thing, so I am going to attempt the thing. Probably for about a week, but who knows. Some days may be very short entries - you laugh, but I'm serious.
Man oh man, what a great timeless sort of day! First day of summer vacation, and it's just about perfect. It doesn't seem like much, spending an hour in the morning getting 3 kids to 2 schools, and an hour in the afternoon picking them up...but it really changes the whole day in a significant way. This is also a day without roller derby, a day without college classes or tests online, a day without STEM club or dance shows or counseling or orthondontists or scheduled guests or an award ceremony. Poor Grant, stuck at work.
It's raining outside, and half gray.
Ananda's on the front porch drawing, and the smell of the bergamot oil she's constantly diffusing in her room is filling the whole hallway. Her room is full of paintings and dioramas she's made, many of them gory in some way, but none disturbing because of her cartoon-glam style. She turned 15 on Monday. She was not interested in wrappable gifts. She spent Friday evening out with homeschooled friends she misses, at a mall, and then Saturday at a beach with them. Sunday she wanted just Grant and I with no siblings, to go see a drag show, get second holes pierced in her ears, and have delicious food and good coffee out. On the actual day, after school, I made her cream of mushroom soup from scratch and presented her with the french bistro cake she'd picked out. I think she's mostly satisfied with being 15, and I think she got scared about that as it approached. On Tuesday, in honor of the end of the school year, she asked me to shave a patch into the side of her head ("the latest punk rock trend," she called it, and wouldn't hear me out about how there are no trends in punk rock). Then she bleached the rest. It came out pretty good. She's DYING for me to go with her to see Mad Max (which she already saw). Possibly tonight when everyone else is in bed.
Aaron has spent the whole day either in a giant fort he made that involves half of the overturned papasan chair (Aaron still likes forts? What?), or playing video games, both in the tv room. His fingers are all swollen at the ends, and two have hairline type bloody scratches, from violent piano playing - and broken keys/sharp old glue. Electrical tape to the very temporary rescue... He'll be 14 later this month, and I have not given up on somehow making a new piano materialize for him. He's very sad that his girlfriend missed the last 3 days of school, and paralyzed about setting up any kind of meetings with her during the summer since nothing seems "good enough" or "quite right." He was very very happy to earn the "Young Masters" Award in dance, meaning he is the best dancer in all of middle school. He also brought home a permission form last month for me to sign, because his teacher wants to move him next year - freshman year - from Level 1 to Level 4, with the Seniors. He wants to, so I'm letting him.
The library is filled half with another fort, that Jake made, which has a fan going inside of it, and half with legos that Isaac, Jake, and Elise have been building with all day today and most of yesterday. They're making whole scenes and acting things out with different parts. I like how they utilize their figurines - "look mom, this really muscle-y guy has no shirt and long hair, and rocket boots!" "Look mom, we gave Ariel short black hair, I think she looks awesome!" Now, they're actually watching endless episodes of Bob's Burgers in the dining room, after a few YouTube videos of metamorphoses in tadpoles. They want to catch some tadpoles soon.
Jake and Elise are a little irritated with me that starting Monday, they've still got to do schoolwork M-F. Homeschoolers have never had summer breaks around here, because they only do a little each day and that just wouldn't work. A&A didn't even have weekends off when they were their ages - it made it really easy to be very chill about it all the time.
Isaac is VERY irritated with me that I'm still only letting them all camp out in the tv room with movies, for bed, on Fridays and Saturdays, rather than all summer long.
I'm still in my bra and underwear, at 2:30pm. I recently walked through the house with a ginger and white tea candle we have that melts into massage oil, stopping in various places like the bathrooms and kitchen to rub what had melted into my arms and legs and back while the luscious smell spread. Eventually I left it on a library shelf and moved through the house with a stick of nag champa. I think I'll make a giant vat of ramen with broccoli, brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and more for everyone after I finish here, and then maybe a big pot of chai... I keep saying I'm going to make muffins and then we eat all the blueberries first.
I have a chunk of tedious and challenging studying to get through at some point, but I'll savor this slowness for a while more first.
Man oh man, what a great timeless sort of day! First day of summer vacation, and it's just about perfect. It doesn't seem like much, spending an hour in the morning getting 3 kids to 2 schools, and an hour in the afternoon picking them up...but it really changes the whole day in a significant way. This is also a day without roller derby, a day without college classes or tests online, a day without STEM club or dance shows or counseling or orthondontists or scheduled guests or an award ceremony. Poor Grant, stuck at work.
It's raining outside, and half gray.
Ananda's on the front porch drawing, and the smell of the bergamot oil she's constantly diffusing in her room is filling the whole hallway. Her room is full of paintings and dioramas she's made, many of them gory in some way, but none disturbing because of her cartoon-glam style. She turned 15 on Monday. She was not interested in wrappable gifts. She spent Friday evening out with homeschooled friends she misses, at a mall, and then Saturday at a beach with them. Sunday she wanted just Grant and I with no siblings, to go see a drag show, get second holes pierced in her ears, and have delicious food and good coffee out. On the actual day, after school, I made her cream of mushroom soup from scratch and presented her with the french bistro cake she'd picked out. I think she's mostly satisfied with being 15, and I think she got scared about that as it approached. On Tuesday, in honor of the end of the school year, she asked me to shave a patch into the side of her head ("the latest punk rock trend," she called it, and wouldn't hear me out about how there are no trends in punk rock). Then she bleached the rest. It came out pretty good. She's DYING for me to go with her to see Mad Max (which she already saw). Possibly tonight when everyone else is in bed.
Aaron has spent the whole day either in a giant fort he made that involves half of the overturned papasan chair (Aaron still likes forts? What?), or playing video games, both in the tv room. His fingers are all swollen at the ends, and two have hairline type bloody scratches, from violent piano playing - and broken keys/sharp old glue. Electrical tape to the very temporary rescue... He'll be 14 later this month, and I have not given up on somehow making a new piano materialize for him. He's very sad that his girlfriend missed the last 3 days of school, and paralyzed about setting up any kind of meetings with her during the summer since nothing seems "good enough" or "quite right." He was very very happy to earn the "Young Masters" Award in dance, meaning he is the best dancer in all of middle school. He also brought home a permission form last month for me to sign, because his teacher wants to move him next year - freshman year - from Level 1 to Level 4, with the Seniors. He wants to, so I'm letting him.
The library is filled half with another fort, that Jake made, which has a fan going inside of it, and half with legos that Isaac, Jake, and Elise have been building with all day today and most of yesterday. They're making whole scenes and acting things out with different parts. I like how they utilize their figurines - "look mom, this really muscle-y guy has no shirt and long hair, and rocket boots!" "Look mom, we gave Ariel short black hair, I think she looks awesome!" Now, they're actually watching endless episodes of Bob's Burgers in the dining room, after a few YouTube videos of metamorphoses in tadpoles. They want to catch some tadpoles soon.
Jake and Elise are a little irritated with me that starting Monday, they've still got to do schoolwork M-F. Homeschoolers have never had summer breaks around here, because they only do a little each day and that just wouldn't work. A&A didn't even have weekends off when they were their ages - it made it really easy to be very chill about it all the time.
Isaac is VERY irritated with me that I'm still only letting them all camp out in the tv room with movies, for bed, on Fridays and Saturdays, rather than all summer long.
I'm still in my bra and underwear, at 2:30pm. I recently walked through the house with a ginger and white tea candle we have that melts into massage oil, stopping in various places like the bathrooms and kitchen to rub what had melted into my arms and legs and back while the luscious smell spread. Eventually I left it on a library shelf and moved through the house with a stick of nag champa. I think I'll make a giant vat of ramen with broccoli, brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and more for everyone after I finish here, and then maybe a big pot of chai... I keep saying I'm going to make muffins and then we eat all the blueberries first.
I have a chunk of tedious and challenging studying to get through at some point, but I'll savor this slowness for a while more first.
