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altarflame) wrote2011-03-08 10:40 pm
altarflame) wrote2011-03-08 10:40 pm
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I had the most heartbreaking conversation with Aaron last night, about Ananda. We've known that Aaron has some inexplicable depression off and on for the last several months, and that he can be distant. We thought it was related to his injuries when he got back from NY, or from not dancing this year; we thought maybe having friends around the neighborhood was helping.
But he came out about the real cause last night, and cried and sat between Grant and I on a park bench for a long time.
It's just Annie.
She's way bigger than him for the first time since they were babies.
She doesn't play, ever, anymore.
She usually doesn't even want to talk.
She spends long periods of unexplained time locked in the bathroom and gets really mad at him when he asks why.
She gets really mad at him a lot in general and he never knows why.
She reads so much and doesn't like to be interrupted.
She gives her best energy and happiness to outside of the house stuff, like Girl Scout meetings. It's like seeing a different person to watch her with friends.
(in short, she's in puberty now)
This is a Big Deal for him, she has been there literally since he was born and it is massive seismic shift in his earth for her to pull back and withdraw from their twosome.
I told him they might not ever be the way they were before again, but that they will be close in a new way one day. That every girl goes through a stage like this. Some of the things going through Ananda's head and how weird it is to feel the way she does. That me and Aunt Laura are 3.5 years apart and fought a LOT as kids and I was so mean to her but now we're freakin' joined at the hip or something.
But he said he feels alone in the family, because me and Dad have each other, and the little kids hang out together, and it was him and Annie, but she doesn't want him anymore.
He breaks my heart, glassy eyed and shaking his head, looking at the sidewalk.
I wish that she were the sort of girl who would give him a hug and reassure him if I asked her to, but she is not. It just leads to an epic battle of wills that will go on forever if I try to get something like that out of her. She's PAINFULLY undemonstrative and sarcastic with him, and he kind of understands. He'll say things like, "Annie is too afraid to being vulnerable", that are pretty amazing. But then again he does not understand, at all, and will go off on a tirade when we're alone together like, "It just doesn't make sense to treat the people you love the most the worst!"
I think it made him feel a little better, to talk it out with us. I ended up taking him with me to the Y for my swimming and we kept talking in the pool - about Bobby, and all kinds of stuff. He seemed way happier last night. I guess I need to get him alone more often.
I managed to drag myself up by my own bootstraps today and Make Some Things Happen when I had really, really not wanted to, and had been on the phone with my sister bitching about how much I didn't want to do anything and how hard it is to always have so many things to do.
Mainly lately I just feel like I'm failing at educating the kids. I think I'm a really good mom overall and their quality of life is high, but like I've been slack at homeschooling for a long time and now that we've kind of got our sights set on school this fall I've just let it go to a degree that is really not ok, but...*whine*
Anyway I ended up doing lots of math and tracing with Elise and many pages each of phonics with Jake and Isaac and division with Annie and feeling like I don't suck and that wasn't so bad and maybe I can get through til fall comes without their brains falling out OR having to gouge my own eyes out with a spoon.
This is the general pattern of my days lately: waste time, bitch about not wanting to do things I have to do, waste more time, lament the wasted day...and then RECLAIM THE DAY!! Seeings how my kids aren't generally privy to the bitching and enjoy the waste time I figure it's mostly all good.
So, I have a tumblr now. It's a different sort of site and I'm planning on making it a different sort of blog experience. So if you are not wanting to ever have something controversial on screen without warning due to bosses or children, or if you just really only want to view very conservative material yourself, don't go. I'm not going to link regularly and I'd like to have people like my grandfather and Shaun and my mother and my nephew know up front that it's not really intended for them and they'll be viewing at their own risk.
It's not a porn blog or anything (don't get all excited), it's just less filtered than I've honed this thing to be over the last 8 years. I'm also not ever gonna be putting my epic sagas on there; everything I'd normally put on livejournal will still be here (and my "personal blog", I guess). I'm just going to add images I love and quotes I like and little things that tantalize me and thoughts that intrigue me. It's altarflame.tumblr.com
A couple of cool things is you (meaning, anyone) can submit things to be posted on my tumblr (at my discretion) and also ask questions a la formspring, though I'm more prepared to delete all the stupid shit than I was when I had a formspring. I like those interactive parts a lot :) And if you have a tumblr you think I might like, let me know <3
But he came out about the real cause last night, and cried and sat between Grant and I on a park bench for a long time.
It's just Annie.
She's way bigger than him for the first time since they were babies.
She doesn't play, ever, anymore.
She usually doesn't even want to talk.
She spends long periods of unexplained time locked in the bathroom and gets really mad at him when he asks why.
She gets really mad at him a lot in general and he never knows why.
She reads so much and doesn't like to be interrupted.
She gives her best energy and happiness to outside of the house stuff, like Girl Scout meetings. It's like seeing a different person to watch her with friends.
(in short, she's in puberty now)
This is a Big Deal for him, she has been there literally since he was born and it is massive seismic shift in his earth for her to pull back and withdraw from their twosome.
I told him they might not ever be the way they were before again, but that they will be close in a new way one day. That every girl goes through a stage like this. Some of the things going through Ananda's head and how weird it is to feel the way she does. That me and Aunt Laura are 3.5 years apart and fought a LOT as kids and I was so mean to her but now we're freakin' joined at the hip or something.
But he said he feels alone in the family, because me and Dad have each other, and the little kids hang out together, and it was him and Annie, but she doesn't want him anymore.
He breaks my heart, glassy eyed and shaking his head, looking at the sidewalk.
I wish that she were the sort of girl who would give him a hug and reassure him if I asked her to, but she is not. It just leads to an epic battle of wills that will go on forever if I try to get something like that out of her. She's PAINFULLY undemonstrative and sarcastic with him, and he kind of understands. He'll say things like, "Annie is too afraid to being vulnerable", that are pretty amazing. But then again he does not understand, at all, and will go off on a tirade when we're alone together like, "It just doesn't make sense to treat the people you love the most the worst!"
I think it made him feel a little better, to talk it out with us. I ended up taking him with me to the Y for my swimming and we kept talking in the pool - about Bobby, and all kinds of stuff. He seemed way happier last night. I guess I need to get him alone more often.
I managed to drag myself up by my own bootstraps today and Make Some Things Happen when I had really, really not wanted to, and had been on the phone with my sister bitching about how much I didn't want to do anything and how hard it is to always have so many things to do.
Mainly lately I just feel like I'm failing at educating the kids. I think I'm a really good mom overall and their quality of life is high, but like I've been slack at homeschooling for a long time and now that we've kind of got our sights set on school this fall I've just let it go to a degree that is really not ok, but...*whine*
Anyway I ended up doing lots of math and tracing with Elise and many pages each of phonics with Jake and Isaac and division with Annie and feeling like I don't suck and that wasn't so bad and maybe I can get through til fall comes without their brains falling out OR having to gouge my own eyes out with a spoon.
This is the general pattern of my days lately: waste time, bitch about not wanting to do things I have to do, waste more time, lament the wasted day...and then RECLAIM THE DAY!! Seeings how my kids aren't generally privy to the bitching and enjoy the waste time I figure it's mostly all good.
So, I have a tumblr now. It's a different sort of site and I'm planning on making it a different sort of blog experience. So if you are not wanting to ever have something controversial on screen without warning due to bosses or children, or if you just really only want to view very conservative material yourself, don't go. I'm not going to link regularly and I'd like to have people like my grandfather and Shaun and my mother and my nephew know up front that it's not really intended for them and they'll be viewing at their own risk.
It's not a porn blog or anything (don't get all excited), it's just less filtered than I've honed this thing to be over the last 8 years. I'm also not ever gonna be putting my epic sagas on there; everything I'd normally put on livejournal will still be here (and my "personal blog", I guess). I'm just going to add images I love and quotes I like and little things that tantalize me and thoughts that intrigue me. It's altarflame.tumblr.com
A couple of cool things is you (meaning, anyone) can submit things to be posted on my tumblr (at my discretion) and also ask questions a la formspring, though I'm more prepared to delete all the stupid shit than I was when I had a formspring. I like those interactive parts a lot :) And if you have a tumblr you think I might like, let me know <3