Life's been good to me so far

( feel free to click here for a weeks old entry I forgot about )

(and/)Or, find out how not long after that entry I felt pretty triggered (haha, how ironic).
That led to some serious two steps forward, one step back personal struggles (challenges? INSURMOUNTABLE BARRIERS I'VE SINCE BEEN CHINKING AWAY AT ONE CRUMB AT A TIME?!) with polyamory, as polyamory in general - even in it's infancy - has a way of highlighting every single thing you didn't know you were avoiding dealing with at once. I'm very fortunate to be so deep in a bond that allows for sharing everything patiently, even when that involves stop and starts, and backtracking... Even if we never acted on any of this we know each other so much better, now, and I feel so much closer to him. Paradoxical, I guess, but getting to the "why" underneath every scared and sad feeling is something that's taking us places we might never have gone otherwise. I feel like I'm going to understand life differently and have a different attitude as I get older, because I'm tackling this deep shit inside of me that I've never looked straight at or felt so directly and consciously, before...
I am also pleased to report I can once again take an IQ test without any sense of personal tragedy.

Here are some pics of me and Elise around our neighborhood one weeknight, and some others from a tour G and I took of R.F. Orchids last weekend.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

TL;DR - I am on a general broad upswing that involves some hard times and is not a simple curve. I travel this path with a bunch of other people who are also all on varying and irregular (usually) upward slopes. I feel good about life, and also get tired.

I will probably make a way shorter update soon, about apps I'm using and things I've recently cooked. Take heart, if this is just too damned long and convoluted and TMI.

I am so mentally exhausted.

Ananda is tired all the time. Part of this may be due to correctable environmental stuff we're learning at the allergist, but part of it is definitely regular ol' insomnia making mornings a drag. She's SO MEAN AND RUDE AND RIDICULOUS, in the mornings. It's really hard to deal with sometimes, as none of my kids normally talk to me like that, but also because she and I especially usually have a great relationship. She's not really saying any terrible words, she's just saying things like, "Give me a minute" and "Hold on" and "I'm trying Mom" in the most accusatory, loud, pissed off ways you can imagine. And if I DON'T nag her (which I viciously loathe doing), she basically won't get ready/she'll make Aaron late. So I do, and she responds as though she feels about me like I feel about the alarm on my phone (perish the thought). She's also been having the nerve to be visibly irritated and eye roll-y and just awful about, say, me having her favorite foods ready for breakfast and/or packed lunch.

When it isn't morning, all is well. She's got a couple of great friends and teachers she raves about, at school. Older, homeschooled weekend friends. Derby practice she adores. She's getting good grades and drawing all the time and eager to show or tell me some hilarious thing pretty often. She's very helpful in the afternoons and evenings, around the house. There IS still the hour-at-a-time in the bathroom issue but overall she's experimenting with makeup and enjoying the only door in the house she can lock and we have another bathroom, so who cares.

I went and got numbing cream for her arm and mine, for tomorrow morning when we both go back to the allergist for intradermal testing (needle instead of plastic thing, deeper in the skin, bleeding, ow). She is putting on a brave face about the whole process for someone who used to be so opposed to anything of the sort.

Recent Convo...
Me: you're not gonna believe what I did today.
Ananda: hmm?
Me: I got a bowl of coffee Heath bar ice cream, and I put a partially frozen chocolate snack pack on it as a topping.
Ananda: MOM!
Me: It was awesome!
Ananda: Well, duh.

In one hour recently, she accidentally called her BFF "Mom" in a conversation and then when her teacher was calling for them to turn in their notes, she accidentally referred to hers as her "manuscript." She was like, "I've been to two author events in the last week! I live with a writer!"

Aaron is super emo about his new (requested) haircut. He actually wore a hood the whole first day back at school, thus prolonging the shocked reactions he then had to deal with today. His chronic disorganization and scatterbrained ways are making me nuts at times.
"Mom, my spider needed to eat like 3 days ago, we have to go get it crickets right now or she'll die!"
"Mom I need a math workbook for class by tomorrow, don't you remember me mentioning this a month ago? I don't know what it's called but I think I'll recognize it if we do a Google image search."
"Mom I'm going to be bringing a note home from my math teacher, because I didn't log any of the time I was supposed to on Kahn Academy over the last few weeks."
"Mom, we have a field trip to somewhere, I don't have the form but I think you should come in the office with me when you drop me off because we were supposed to have it turned in by Friday. It costs some amount of money."

Those are all this week. It's only Wednesday. I THINK I strike a pretty good balance between helping him out and making him face his own consequences. It's this constant battle to guide him into setting up systems to be more on top of things, and then seeing where the holes in the systems are. For what it's worth he's doing more, and better, than he ever has (by a long shot) - he gets up right away and gets ready quickly, keeps track of all his school notebooks/supplies/dance laundry, and takes the right stuff for the day on "A" and "B" days. He's getting good grades and becoming less awkward as he gets used to his height, deep voice, very hairy legs, and so on. He's 5'7", btw.

I actually fantasize about taking his headphones out back and beating them flat with a hammer - I have to either scream myself hoarse, go get him, or send somebody anytime I need him for anything because he's always got them on. He has these cushy big noise cancelling headphones we were foolish enough to buy him for his birthday.

He's also a ball of mucus. It's nonstop nose blowing, sniffling, coughing, repeat, for weeks. I can't even keep track of what is a new illness and what is lingering illness, since the beginning of November. The allergist gave him Nasonex and recommended sinus rinses, which I've taught him to do and helps a lot - for about 10 minutes.

His piano playing has moved from amazing to transcendent. I'm not even kidding. It makes everything better for a little while, anytime he plays.

He's going with his dance class to see The Nutcracker. I'm excited for him. We know a lot of ballet dancers who are in that show year after year, but he's never been before. The last time his dance class took a field trip, it was actually to his old studio, where all his old teachers flipped about his height and his being in school now and generally tried to woo him back (none of us have the resources for that at the moment).

When we're just hanging out, the two of us, like walking back from an appointment or talking in the van on the way over to school, it's unreal how well we get along. If you take all the logistical stuff out of the equation, he and I just have very compatible personalities and have a really easy time being together. Sometimes I have to stay up late with him or take him out somewhere alone just to remember that. I was telling him yesterday how amazing it is that someone ELSE has to try to make him do all his schoolwork, now, and he was saying he likes that better too - and then actually said, "You were so nice, I totally took it for granted how nice you always were about it all."

Isaac is coughing, and coughing, and coughing. He caught whatever Aaron has had over Thanksgiving break. Monday, Tuesday and today I've woken him up, he gets ready, and it's clear by the time I'm driving everyone else that he just can't go to school. He feels ok otherwise, but the booming, violent, uncontrollable coughing fits are just awful. Leaving him gagging and choking sometimes, making him teary often - he coughs like I do :/ He's sleeping semi-upright in the tv room tonight, prescription cough syrup having done nothing, with a humidifier full of Vicks liquid nearby. I read to him for over an hour, during which Grant ran and got him popsicles and some other things, and he's heart breakingly sweet and appreciative about it. There are lots of periods of time when he feels fine, but then the coughing starts again. It's worst in the mornings and at night, like most sickness tends to be.

He is so eager to help out with anything and everything, and so reasonable, and just has such a high threshold for discomfort in general from all the years dealing with his own anxiety and digestive problems - it's kind of unreal. Sometimes I think he's the most mature person in the house.

I am having a GREAT time reading him Order of the Phoenix - he's so into it and this is probably my favorite HP book. He practices his clarinet (and leaves it out all over the house with his stand and case) a lot. He's got music for the GMYS holiday show, music for the school holiday show, and music he just wants to learn on his own.

I went down to their school today, to pay for a field trip of Isaac's, and buy tickets to their holiday show, and get his makeup work for missed days. And I couldn't do any of those things. It was so stupid. Nobody in the office even knew how to help me or where to direct me to, for ANY of my requests. They told me to try to email his teachers about the work, but I don't have email addresses for all 5 of his teachers, only 2 of them. The lady behind the desk didn't have those, and recommended seeing if they're available on the parent portal. Logging into their parent portal requires a student ID for each kid, and my parent PIN for each kid (it's different, I have 5 different parent PINs). I tracked down about 7 of those 10 numbers when I went searching various desks and folders, only actually getting both for two kids. Who were not Isaac. I've never had need of the freakin' portal before, I meet with and talk to their teachers without a portal, some of them even text regularly (though again, not Isaac's).

Jake is all melodrama all the time, lately. I'm trying to ascertain whether or not we need to pull him back out of school, and it's a weird situation with him - he got all As except for one B, and perfect attendance, for the first grading period. Girls like him, teachers like him, he has something he drew or wrote that he wants to show me almost every day. He brings home special treats and rewards for top behavior regularly. Buuuuuuut... he hates it. He desperately wants to stop going. He begs to be homeschooled again - daily. There are many mornings when he cries about going, and many afternoons when he calls from school asking to please, PLEASE be picked up early.

I'm torn between how Jake was the easiest kid in the world to homeschool and used his time well (meaning, he stayed at or above grade level in every subject with almost no effort from me, and then spent all the rest of his time drawing, writing, reading, building, and playing outside), so obviously I should bring him back home if he's that unhappy - and thinking he's doing SO WELL, has such a sweet and cool teacher, and was getting really lonely for friends, here. Also, he is very averse to almost all structured activities (bitching NONSTOP about GMYS til we pulled him out, years into that, even though he had friends and good teachers and his siblings have all also been in it, asking to please be allowed to stop things like Lego Club and Ceramics that he initially asked to sign up for...) and I always have this idea nagging at me that he has to be in SOME kind of structured SOMETHING...doesn't he? Why does he? Maybe he's just a certain kind of weirdo that it's ok to be. A smart, productive, charismatic little weirdo. I mean he is that, whether it's ok or not.

He's always been kind of moody. And it's definitely gotten worse as puberty looms in the distance (he's 9) - he really acts like my son, coming into our room to announce that he just doesn't understand what the purpose of life is, and that you grow up and you learn things and you do things but then you just die at the end so what's the point. Or, that he sometimes thinks maybe it would be better to just die so you don't have to worry about dying, and can see what happens after death.

The biggest complaint he has about school is that he "doesn't have any time to be creative" anymore. When you've got a 9 year old telling you that with tears dripping off his face, you pay attention. Or I do, anyway. He's kinda gutting me over here. FYI, our original agreement was that barring some kind of truly horrible situation, everyone was going to stay in school through Christmas break, when we would evaluate how it was working for everyone. Ananda, Aaron, and Isaac have no desire to leave school, which suits me fine, especially in the cases of Aaron (who was just a huge pita to force to do things and seems to respond much more easily to school structure and accountability) and Isaac (who really does a lot better being at school than he does being home too, in different ways related to his own anxiety, and ambition).

This morning -
Jake: Here, blow these bubbles while I do my homework.
Me: Why?
Jake: It's an ancient tradition.
Me: Well, alright then.

Yesterday Jake asked to go to a cemetery. Elise was psyched that there are REAL GRAVEYARDS and that's not just in movies. Isaac was yelling, "Can we really do that? Can we go right now? Is it far?" So I took them. They were ready with shoes on and out the door faster than I've ever seen them go.

At first they did math and pronounced ages reached, for awhile, looking at headstones. They thought a couple of things were creepy, and asked some funny/weird questions (If you lay down on the ground here do you just automatically die? If a car hits you while you're walking here, do they just bury you immediately? If your ride dies, are you stuck living at the cemetery forever?). Then Jake said that if I died there he'd take my phone and call Dad, they got really sad, Jake announced that he wants to be cremated whenever he dies, and that he never wants to think about me and Dad dying ever, and we left.

Elise loved it. She wrote a letter "to give her grandchildren" that (sort of, to her, almost phonetically) says, "I am dead. I had a good day while I was alive, but I had to move on, and now I am dead. -Elise" For her this is all just very intriguing stuff.

Elise is being homeschooled again. It's a long story I may or may not ever go into here, but for her school was truly horrible and the decision couldn't wait til Christmas break. She is SO HAPPY and it's really nifty to have her one on one, with everyone else at school. That's one reason why I hesitate to say, "yeah, Jake come on back home." She is very behind in some academic ways and was really struggling hard to exist in a 2nd grade classroom. There were things she liked about being there, but nothing she loved, and I have regrets about immersing her in an environment of strictly other 7 year olds...all of whom could read well and write much better than she can. She has some serious doubts about her own abilities and self consciousness about her own intelligence that just weren't ever there before, and probably didn't ever need to be. I could really go my whole life without ever listening to her talk about her Fs on tests, or cry about having to sign the Penalty Pad, again.

It's in my head so often, that Ananda didn't read until she was a whole year older than Elise is now. That never had to involve shame or failure or comparisons, for her. There is a whole schooling movement (Waldorf) based on not even beginning to teach kids to read until they're 7 (Elise's age).

We're doing a lot, at home, but the key is that we can do things that actually help her progress, now, instead of having to devote huge amounts of time to things that just go way way over her head. She can do 3rd-5th grade science and history and art, with 2nd grade math, and K and 1st language arts, and it all works, to move her forward.

We're also moving ahead with the round of private evaluations that were started over the summer. Not the sort she had as a baby or as a preschooler, but the learning disabilities and IQ and so on kinds that they don't do on kids younger than 7. She really enjoyed the parts of the evaluation process that she already experienced, so I hope that stays that way. Isaac always loved it when he was getting evaluated.

Tangential, back to Jake wanting to come home - I have hesitations about him having really given school a fair chance? But I don't even know exactly what that means, either. Or why he has to, or I'd force that issue, when it started out primarily as an experiment, and only because he wanted to try it. Parenting is hard. Sky is blue, water is wet, blah blah blah.

Elise talking to me CONSTANTLY all day every day, while everyone else is gone, is somewhat frazzling. I think it's good for her and one of several things she needs right now - to be able to engage and talk like that (having to sit quietly all day is really sort of the opposite of speech therapy...) It's just also a lot of talking. Did I emphasize "a lot"? I'm not sure you can understand. I'm actually strategizing ways to get her to hush for just a little while, sometimes - like today, when I brightly introduced the idea of audiobooks for car rides. WOULDN'T THAT BE GREAT?! LET'S GET SOME RIGHT NOW! O_O

She really wants to do schoolwork all day and into the evenings, and on the weekends. Her enthusiasm almost never wanes, so that is definitely in our favor. We have handwriting practice and books of number games, as well as a Reading Eggs login, for when she needs to work on her own for awhile and is tired of writing and drawing in her journal. But working with her is really FUN, for me, even though it can sometimes also be tedious as all hell. It's hard to explain, but she just tries so hard and makes so many different kinds of leaps and I do enjoy researching/buying/planning out curriculum materials SO MUCH MORE for the younger grades. I'm truly EXCITED, about the program we have put together for her here.

It is so validating and awesome, btw, how often A&A tell me, or their teachers tell me, how much MORE they know than other kids their age. They consistently wow people with their vocabularies, books they've read, history knowledge, science knowledge, general current event and government understanding, all of it. Other kids ask them to explain things regularly. Both of them have actually thanked me for always taking the time to answer questions and to explain things to them and just generally talk to them about anything and everything. It's pretty great.

Isaac is an A/B student who gets a ton of positive teacher comment codes in the margins next to his grades, on his report cards. Third grade was hard for him, but 4th was easy, and he's eating 5th up. He sometimes gets irritated by his Bs, but with as much school as he's missed this year already? I think As and Bs is incredible.


I'm so tired. I know I started this entry saying this. I know it's late. But I NEED the wind down time, once they're all sleeping, to breathe. Every minute today was cooking, or running to some errand, or teaching/explaining/coaching/asking, or carting people around - I got my shot, picked up prescriptions, went and bought more probiotics, finally got Elise's homeschooling form printed at Office Max (we're out of toner) and mailed, went by the younger kids' school (FOR NOTHING APPARENTLY), took Elise all through a botanical garden and to play at their splash pad, sat with her and worked, ran out this evening with Annie because she needs charcoal pencils and a kneaded (sp) eraser, medicated and sat up with Isaac - my head is just spinning. It never ever ends, and it's all (well mostly...) good stuff, but if I just lie down at the end of it I'm in for hours of tossing and turning. It's hard to let go of this quiet house and surrender, knowing that tomorrow starts early and will be just as relentless.

For whatever reason, I am also feeling pangs over the long lost feeling of nurslings, sling babies, and so on. Not really "baby rabies" feelings, though... it's all very specifically about my own babies gone by. Aaron nursing for an hour and a half at a time. Ananda only sleeping with her face on the "booby pillow." Wrapping my arms around Isaac in the kozy carrier, holding Jake close in the pool while he slept on my shoulder, Elise nursing under a blanket. I think the infinite mama part of me that has to spring eternal for everyone is really thinking it could use a heavy dose of prolactin to offset some of the more stressful moments.

On the (totally) other hand - I have SO MANY different kinds of moments, lately, when I stop and think about something that used to be the bane of my fucking life, and I just almost cannot believe I don't have to deal with it anymore. I don't know why so much of it has been happening, but geez is there a palpable sense of relief when it does. I recently visited a good friend with a new baby, and I have a few online friends who are pregnant, and here are a few of the things they remind me of that just make me think I am glad to say I've DONE MY TIME:
-everything to do with labor, OBs, birth, C-section, midwifery, maternity wards, and so on (picture me heaving a GIANT SIGH of relief, and then behind me a curtain opens and a combination fireworks display/dance party starts)
-pumping breastmilk (which for me is linked to the NICU)
-infants crying in carseats while driving
-the laundry avalanche of having two in cloth diapers while someone else is still wetting the bed
-getting head/face butted (and having a split lip, bloody nose, or just seeing stars...) when a baby/toddler threw their big disproportionate noggin at me...this is one of those things I'm not sure non-parents even know about. Like how I can stretch now, for years, anytime I want, because I am not pregnant. Stretching while pregnant is a recipe for charlie horse disaster.
-sleeping on a mattress on the floor because of co-sleepers/safety
-the struggle to get somebody to take a nap (HOW MANY CUMULATIVE MONTHS OF MY LIFE....)
-pulling teeth to make Aaron do homeschool work (this...this is cloud-parting kind of shit. It was important. It really seems like it was the right thing. BUT NOW THE RIGHT THING IS SOMETHING ELSE! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat :D)

All in all I'd say the cuddling and kisses and oversized lap loungers I get now - all of whom use toilets and GO TO THEIR OWN BEDS at night, and every one of which can stay away from the street on their own in our front yard - are just about perfect for this stage of my life :) I like kids who can all do part of making dinner, and who each appreciate at least something that's happening on YouTube, and none of whom ever stand on the dining table. It's just a lot of intense, draining, rewarding, amazing, infuriating, affectionate, hilarious, terrifying, high stakes, entertaining, interesting, warm...

I suppose I could write adjectives all night, but I've got to go to bed.

That's what my counselor said today, as a joke attempt, while I was in the middle of listing my current biggest "mom worries."

Annie is probably going to have oral surgery in the coming months, since her impacted canines are not coming down from braces (making space for them) alone. The surgery's not that big of a deal in and of itself, but, geez, general anesthesia? *sigh* For the most part, she's doing really great and I'm pretty much bursting with pride about her at all times. I was very impressed with her team captain skills and skating abilities at the scrimmage in Jacksonville last weekend, but I was just beside myself about her ability to make casual and graceful conversation with Nana, even when Nana's repeating herself, or being semi-delusional. The whole visit was wonderful and a big part of it was only possible because Ananda is somehow, miraculously, mature enough to take the silliness in stride and laugh with her about things that aren't even that funny. I wish I could convey just what I mean here... I just really would have cut her an awful lot of slack, if she'd been uncomfortable with the (Nana's in...) diaper jokes, or if she'd fumbled and stuttered when she got asked the same question for the third time, but I never had to. I think we all managed to have a good time that was very minimally weird, and made everyone feel glad it happened.

Aaron is on a temporary, experimental daily caffeine regimen that I hope might bridge the gap between "this is not sustainable" and "adderall." It seems important to add that this is something his pediatrician and my counselor, who is a licensed clinical psych, recommend as a great next step, along with some dietary alterations. I don't know where to begin, with the schoolwork battles and the all day every day nonsense...both of us are WAY too frustrated. I simultaneously want to throttle him and want him to not feel bad about himself, EVERY DAY. I took him with me to counseling today, and he sat in the waiting room doing his math, and then the two of us went to Galloway Farms Nursery for an hour. He liked it even more than I do, and found big areas I hadn't discovered on my own :) The only problem being that I clearly, completely screwed our first day caffeine "results" by isolating him in a small, quiet space for math and then taking him around a very serene place I knew he'd find ideal to the point of being a utopia. Ah, well. We need a bunch of days in a row to judge anyway, and I want to do as much else as I can to help him cope in general... He is still managing to be EVEN TALLER every freakin' week.

There is an arts magnet opening up that I've applied to for both of them. Annie with her first choice being beginning visual art, and her second advanced cello. Aaron with his first choice being advanced dance, and his second choice being beginning theater. We're taking it as it comes; IF they get in, we can decide whether they want to go, and whether that will be to the arts portion only or to the entire school day. I am cautiously optimistic about the program in general - it's a new location for a very highly reviewed and established main school, up the road. Like, HOLY SHIT the reviews are SO much better than ANYTHING else I've seen for schools locally. So far, we don't even have our audition dates, so, who knows.

Ananda is adamant that she won't go if they don't allow her purple hair. I already happen to know that they don't, on paper at least (Isaac's school claims not to allow all sorts of things that I see there all the time), but I am biding my time.

Isaac is having belly aches and bathroom troubles again :/ I've doubled his probiotics and am pushing water on him a lot, as well as trying to spend a lot of time in our before-bed-calm-reading-together routine - because it really seems like at least part of this is anxiety, like that is what's left of his lifelong belly troubles since we figured out his food stuff and things improved so much. It's hard not to get paranoid that things will rapidly progress to the terrible place he spent so long in before (hospitalization, tests galore, nonstop specialists, meds, etc). He's been doing very, very well belly-wise for almost two years now, so hopefully this will improve soon. I do have some things I can give him if it keeps up... For the most (non-belly) part, I continue to be in an amazed state of NOT worried about Isaac, which still sometimes seems new :)

Something weird that I think about sometimes is just how much Aaron and Isaac open up and act differently (calmer, more at ease, much easier to have a conversation with) when one on one. They seem to suffer much more than the other three for being part of a big family. It's hard for me to ever spend time alone with either of them, see how GREAT it is, and not ache a little for how much simpler, and really possibly happier, their lives would be if they were only children. I know you're "not supposed to say that," and it's not like I'd trade situations - even if I wanted to, two only children is not exactly possible :p - it's just strange to navigate, as a parent of all of them.

With Jake, I really just worry about him falling through the cracks. He's so easy and self-sufficient in so many ways. He does schoolwork very quickly and independently, and is ahead of grade level in pretty much everything with seemingly no effort. He is my least picky eater and the one who is quickest to go get himself something healthy when hungry. He's happy to play independently or with siblings most of the time, and is generally pretty chill. Now and then Isaac or Elise will come "telling" that he hit them or something, if they were play fighting and he got too rough, or if some trampoline-tag type play got out of hand - he does have a temper if someone hurts him first, even when it's an accident. And, he has a tendency to just beg to sleep with Grant and I, at bedtime :/ The combination (periodic aggression and the sleeping alone trouble) make me wonder if he's got some kind of repressed feelings happening, as he trudges along as "the easy one." There are times when he will just randomly tell me he's feeling really sad and doesn't know why. I try to get him to talk about it, and I try to preempt it, but fuck is it hard to always "get to" him in a meaningful way throughout the day when everyone else NEEDS things constantly and he SEEMS, in the moment, to usually be a-ok. I'm actually sitting here re-reading this paragraph right now and thinking dammit, I'm totally making a list right now of little things I HAVE to do with Jake in the coming days, and sticking to it....

Alright. I put a bunch of stuff in my (jam packed) phone calendar. They're small things, but it's meant as extras, beyond the normal "we have tea or dinner all together, and I hug him when he wakes up and tell him what to do with school work, and am around to show stuff to, and usually read to him and Elise together at night" kinds of things. Like having smoothies together while talking about our dreams/lack thereof tomorrow morning, having him help me bake the lemon syrup cake I have planned for Friday, and taking him over to the library for an hour Saturday afternoon.

I have him and Elise in the "lottery" for Isaac's school, for next year. He, Jake, at least, seems to really want to go, and I think it would probably be either a good or neutral thing for him at this point. Elise also wants to go, but I am not sure if she can really thrive in that environment, or not, re: various short term memory things I mentioned in previous entries... my counselor, hearing my descriptions of her issues and knowing her history, immediately suggested I take her in for a neuropsychological eval, at her old neuro practice within Miami Children's Hospital. That made so much clear and obvious sense that I felt irritated that her doc hadn't mentioned that possibility. I wonder if her doc has some kind of reasoning why it's not valuable or something? I mean she had a pretty thorough developmental evaluation during her preschool year (which showed her behind in speech but average or ahead in every other area, including things like comprehension), but testing before the age of 6 is a lot more limited. I called today, after counseling and Aaron time and arts charter applications and lunch, to get her in for that. The receptionist offered me an appt in the middle of July with what seemed like very little understanding of what I actually wanted to happen. Now, I'm waiting on a call back once she can fully explain to me exactly what she is scheduling Elise for. Because I am ok with waiting months for THE RIGHT THING, but...gah. I wish it were more possibly to actually get a doctor on the phone. Ever. Any kind of doctor. About anything. That is one thing I like about their ped - he actually does do that.

It is not outside the realm of possibility that I would have all five kids in school next year, which is a pretty bizarre and surreal concept. But I just don't feel capable of creating the sort of structure and consistency they need, a lot of the time :/ They all need such DIFFERENT things, and their doctors and orthodontist and dentist and extracurriculars, and my counselor and doctors and college and exercising, aaaaaall start to infringe on our school days, in various ways. And all of those things seem too important to just cast aside in the name of a peaceful and uninterrupted home school day. And I think there are trade-offs, and pros and cons, with everything, and that in a ton of ways, homeschool is still the better choice for them. In other ways, though, it's not. I think Jake REALLY needs friends, for instance - everyone else has a pretty solid group of friends that they get a lot out of, between their activities and PATH, etc. Jake really has siblings and cousins and that's it most of the time, though :/ Which is not as ok as it was a couple of years ago, and he's lonely.

Of course, the local schools are mostly ABYSMALLY TERRIBLE, very overcrowded, extremely crime-ridden, rife with language barriers...and so we are definitely at the mercy of charter school spot availability to even consider school as an option. And who knows how that will go. Earlier I had the ridiculous thought that maybe they'll all get in, they'll be doing well....aaaand then we'll have to move for Grant's job o_O

It would be really expensive, to put them in. We would deal, but there would probably be scrambling. When Isaac started 3rd grade and Elise started Kindergarten I was shocked by the prices of their mandated uniforms, and the crazy supply lists. They ask for tons of stuff "normal" public schools don't, it's a 40 item list from big class sets of tissues and many reams of copy paper, to thumb drives and ear buds for each child. He needed things like a spanish-english dictionary; colored pencils, markers, AND crayons; 10 different folders, all in different specific colors; and "at least 200" of those little loops for loom craft kits. They demand sneakers, and Isaac didn't even own them when he started (he had two colors of Crocs, and sandals, because Florida), and you feel like you need to buy your kid good sneakers to be in all day long every day, including PE. Back pack, lunch box, wtf - I spent over $500 for the two of them, all told. The uniforms being a big chunk of that.

I'm also still trying to figure out how to finance and budget all their normal summer activities, with the clock ticking for actually getting THOSE spots.

So yeah, that is a lot. It makes it really hard to care at all about shit like my own homework. Or writing. Which reminds me, my "review episode" recording, for Liz McMullen, is scheduled for the same time as Annie's next bout, and I need to try to move that. And since my editor is sending me another stack of copies, I should try to get that Tumblr contest going again. I don't have hours, you know? I've stolen this journal entry out of my sleep, partially in the hope that it will be easier to sleep once I say all of this.

I definitely have zero resources to expend any effort whatsoever on shit like polyamory (good lord, I'd be so thrilled to actually spend some time WITH GRANT sometime soon...). Once I got off the phone with the neuro office this afternoon, and we all had tea and talked on the deck, and I talked to the coordinator about this "Mythologically Speaking" PATH event they're all going to be in, it was time to take Elise to Girl Scouts and Annie to derby, and while we were out alone the boys and I got her things for the GS sleepover event Elise is doing soon (sleeping bag, raincoat, bug spray, new water bottle). And a few little birthday things for her (shorts, Rainbow Dash shirt, new sheets for her bed) that are stashed away, now. Then we picked her up, and we read, and I cooked, and Grant brought Annie home, and bleeeehh my eyes are seriously crossing.

Elise will be 7 on May 1. I have little chocolate stars for the top of her cake, and we're taking her to High Tea at a local place that does it in an absolutely over the top way she's REALLY EXCITED about, although she can't stop switching back and forth between the two dresses that are in the running for the event.

Annie turns 14 on June 1. She wanted a very low key birthday last year, which kinda makes me want to do something more significant this time around. Though I have no idea what that is, yet.

I'm up late, lingering over the very last of the lovely holiday...in the beginning it was honestly sort of hell. I was just totally overwhelmed with trying to get the entire house clean and cooking so much, with company coming and time limits. I was doing school presentations and things the day before my Dad arrived, and I'm so freaking exhausted. I was taking 20 minutes once an hour to lie down, for an entire evening. Once things were underway, though, and it was too late to do any more than was done, I started coasting, and that has been wonderful most of the time since...

And Grant has had 9 days off in a row, Isaac 4, we've had so much cool intermittent company, put up Christmas trees, and blargh. This week is gonna be wall to wall, as all weeks tend to be lately. It's the end of the semester, and today I did two quizzes, some discussion board stuff and submitted a 5 page paper, online. The beginning of the end of the all too brief peace and lazing about. After we grocery/Christmas shopped, this afternoon, Grant took Ananda and Aaron to see Gravity, and I put a movie on for the littles and took the quiet hours for schoolwork...

Tomorrow I have to get Isaac to school; go by my doctor's office; go spend two hours getting fillings; then go to the school to make-up a theater exam, give the disability services people more documentation, and sell my textbooks back; make a power point presentation; write another paper; drive Aaron to dance; make dinner; read to everyone before bed... Tuesday I have classes, then a B-12 injection, driving people, feeding them, readings. Wednesday is counseling, gastroenterologist, blah blah blah. The three littles have a holiday concert instead of their normal music classes, after my classes, on Thursday. I'm trying to figure out with Nancy when we can see each other again before she leaves town in a couple of weeks, and with my sister when I can babysit so SHE can go to the doctor. Both of which are important to me, and more "good" than "work".

I make a point of scheduling leisure and downtime, lately. Tuesday evening, Grant will be here since he works from home Tues/Thurs, and we're going to watch a movie. Wednesday there are a lot of activities, but they're spaced out and local to where I can get a lot of quiet time at home with just Isaac and Jake, which is an unusual combination of kids to have home alone. Friday-day we will do nothing but guided schoolwork that they can't auto-pilot or do on the computer or whatever, since the rest of this week is low on that.

I'm just SO. fucking. TIRED. All the time. Friday, Saturday and today/Sunday, I've been going to bed around 1-2am, and sleeping until 1-3pm. Then I drink a lot of caffeine, and...take a nap. Still, I end up dozing off around 10 or 11. Second wind til bedtime.

I spent awhile up troubleshooting Ananda's chocolate chip cookies, with her, tonight, while everyone else was in bed. They came out hard as rocks and completely stuck on the pan, and she's very spoiled on early successes since she's made some challenging stuff like cheesecake and had it come out perfect. We talked a lot about the French law against face coverings for Muslim women, too, since I had to write about that earlier for school and she was interested - so many layers of racism and freedom and religious expression, etc...

I wrote another poem the other day. I've written a lot of poetry these past few months, for the first time in awhile. ( It's under here. )

Continuing with getting all of my November pictures posted!

Ananda's derby team had their first home bout this month, which was the first time I got to see her actually playing (not just practicing) in person - Grant and Gloria had previously taken her to away bouts. We got a lot of people to come out, including old high school friends of mine who are not pictured, and some of Annie's friends. Pre-bout tailgating included a big taco spread we brought along. Derby makeup, and nerves:


Gloria and LJ, excited:


Shaun and Cristy:


Aaron:


Possibly tipsy Grant, and Elise in mini-derby makeup Annie put on her:


I dressed up.


Half-time.


With Miguel and Izzy, all trying to look tough and then bursting out laughing as soon as the picture had clicked.


#1 fan.




It was fun. One of her coaches, who is on the adult team that had a bout after theirs, told her how well she'd done. She TOTALLY hero-worships this woman, and it made her flip. She was silly-stupid-happy for two days after :)

Back at the ranch - the chickens have finally started laying, as Jake and Elise wasted no time in RUSHING in SCREAMING to tell me ;)

Yes, it is a blue egg. And they roam free a lot, so it's like an Easter hunt every day :p

I randomly went outside for something else and found them wearing cut up cups as crowns.


Elise watching TV with Tom:


Isaac, sleeping with a special shell his penpal sent him :D


The cats use his bed, when he's at school.


One night, we had Miguel and Izzy and Izzy's brother Francois over, for dinner and a projector movie/sleepover. After the movie, Grant sat at the laptop projecting things on to peoples' faces. Like sunglasses, and clown noses, and celebrities.

Much laughter all around.

Next day:


New closed coils post-extractions, and new colors:


Our little Beasty's Girl Scout troop was in a parade up at the Falls - her shirt says "Keep Calm and Camp On," from this summer at GS camp.

Her brother's saved her a bubble necklace they'd gotten while watching the parade. You can see highlights from the rest of the parade (I didn't get any good shots of her group, unfortunately, and it seemed more important to scream and wave anyway) are here. <--They all get bigger. It's wild how the quality and variety of what is in a parade goes up, driving 30 minutes north :p

Sisters...


Some Thanksgiving pictures...it seems somehow ironic that these cuddly chickens were safely hanging out in the kitchen for part of the afternoon. They all just walk up to people and fall asleep in your arms, making little happy noises. It's ridiculous.



We were all SO. STUFFED. Nancy and Steve and their little dog Sundae, and my father, and Laura and Frank and their kids, and Gloria, and Shaun, and Grant and I and our kids. Delicious. And stuffed. And haha, you can see the picking my kids had done off of the edge of my clementine cakes.

Hours later:

That's Elise, (niece) Elizabeth, me, and Isaac.


You can see Gloria, Ananda, and Frank...we were still outside at 1am.

The only black Friday shopping we did was at Guitar Center...

Aaron, in Grant's hoodie and his new hip hop sneakers, drooling over expensive headphones.

Saturday was the Greater Miami Youth Symphony's 55th Anniversary Concert. Grant took Annie, and sent me these, while Aaron hung out with his friend Adrian and I took the littles to my sister's, since our mother was in town. I pretty much spent the whole visit catching my mother up on my latest lab results and apologizing to everyone for my brain fog and sleepiness. Sometimes, right in the middle of visits like that, I do stupid shit like tell everyone I'll run to Publix for a few things and then burst into tears and rant to my husband on my cell phone in the parking lot for 15 minutes until I feel like I can stay awake long enough to continue, uh, living.




Well hello, 3:30 O_o

The birthday boy himself, first thing in the morning as a newly 8 year old person.


And, the next afternoon, ready to host a pajama party :) Few people really honored it being a pajama party, but he didn't care at all.


This is actually from BEFORE the party started, or guests began to arrive...just my sister Laura, surrounded by our collective 8 kids, in our library with a balloon animal kit. It's Laura, Elizabeth (3), Isabelle (almost 2), Jake (8), Aaron (12), Elise (6), Isaac (9), Brian (7 next month), and Ananda (13).


Jakey and (cousin) Elizabeth ♥

We had a lot of people show up, aided in part because two other women brought THEIR collective eight kids. Along with Shaun, and Izzy being over.






It was good stuff, even if my formatting is wonky as ever ;)


This is a random pic I just loved, the other day during violin class.

Aaron is in a period of RAPID change. It's what happened to Ananda a couple of years ago, when she jumped 7 inches in height and 3.5 shoe sizes during a single year. He's suddenly only about an inch shorter than me - he looked different when I got back from Boston, vs when I'd left 4 days earlier O_o I am just waiting to wake up one morning and find he's taller than me.




The rest of these are from today. Here are my girls, waiting for Annie to get called back to get braces put on.





She got RAINBOW braces. That weird bar is to hold open a big enough space for the adult teeth to erupt through. The (3) teeth without brackets are baby teeth that will be pulled next month. She kinda loves the way they look, though she is (of course) hating the constant discomfort. Laura showed up today with flowers and gelato for her, having had braces herself. It was really sweet.

I've been getting all pictures of her approved for about a year now, and she was adamant that the braces were ok cropped but terrible with her whole face in the shot. Similarly, Aaron came out to the deck for pictures shirtless but then demanded I crop out everything from the nipples down :p I would have anyway, most likely, even if he does have a bizarre lot of defined abs from dancing/studio exercise.


Laura took Jake and Elise with her when she left, and this is Ananda, Aaron and I rolling around laughing about nonsense for an hour afterward.


Isaac tried out for the cheerleading squad last month. He loves it. He's the only boy on the team, but mostly hangs out with girls at school anyway. I think it's fitting that the uniform is the colors we've been dressing him in since birth.



And one more Jakey and Elizabeth shot, from this afternoon:

They have something special. We're always lamenting that they're related and can't grow up and get married.

This evening, while Grant got the grill going, I ran up to the store for a couple of dinner ingredients we were missing. Got home, and Elise had on dark sunglasses and a jacket tied around her waist. Arms crossed over her chest, she started doing squats and chanting in a deep voice, "Emo, emo, emo!" Meanwhile, Jake ran past me with a hamster puppet on a wooden sword, yelling, "We're having roast hamster tonight!!!!" Then Aaron appeared, asking if I wanted to see how deep he'd cut his finger while he and Adrian were whittling with Adrian's homemade knives as though I was going to be REALLY impressed.

My house :)

( Right this way to the pictures (and one short video)... )

A couple of my friends who live up in Miami like to say I live in "the sticks," which I always protest, because, what? This is not the sticks! Sure, I get the occasional possum and raccoon on the deck, and yeah, we can walk past a tomato field to feed a horse some carrots, but what of that? :p Then I am actually up around Miami, and come back home, and see this as our highway exit...


Isaac (scooter), Jake (bike), and Elise (running) in our obviously not rural area ;) I'm on a bike, and you'll just have to take my word for it.


I thought it was funny, in an "of course" sort of way, when I got to Girl Scout camp a little late to pick these two up one day, and this is how they were using their time:

She was so thrilled to have people at camp (albeit more counselors than campers) who understood her excitement about the Neil Gaiman signing, and SuperCon :)

Pictures from Dance Empire's (public, widely promoted) Instagram, obviously screencapped from my phone - I had resisted Instagram successfully for so long, but then when Aaron basically started LIVING at the studio and they were posting pics all day, I had to do it. He's in both of those groups, doing ab exercises. Because DE actually takes their company dancers to the beach, since it's harder to run on sand and harder to maintain balance in the water O_o


The thrown together Peter pan costume I mentioned.

Sometimes, there's no living with this kid. Who happened to be turning 12, the day these were taken.

I actually made the entire hat for that ensemble before I realized I'd used a toddler pattern as a guide. It WAS 1 in the morning... Beary got a hat.

Jake is so touched, whenever anyone does anything FOR Beary.

Isaac, with his clarinet (that seems as big as he is, to me) and after he was done riding on Jake's shoulders.


He got pretty darn good on the recorder last year, but this is obviously next level - it's more complicated fingering patterns, harder to make the sound with the reed, and WAY heavier and harder to hold up on his thumbs.

That (Hot Cross Buns) was from yesterday, and he's already doing it more smoothly and also playing Mary Had a Little Lamb, today :D

GMYS posted this one a couple of places. Jake in black on flute near the camera, and Isaac in red down on the end, with his clarinet. They elected to quit violin and switch, this year - Elise is still playing violin.


Sorry this is awkward, it's a screencap from my facebook app, but look at them last year, in their camp shirts, on their way out the door one morning...


And this year:

The biggest difference I see, aside from how badly our mat has aged and how much less hair Jake and Elise are sporting, is in my Beasty's height - I didn't notice at first, but she's on the step in pic 1, and standing on the porch with the boys in pic 2. She's grown so much!


Best ever. Lettuce wraps and bubble tea from Stir Moon, which INCLUDING A 25% TIP is $13. So yummy.


My lovely Ananda baked a cake and made the frosting totally on her own, for the first time.

She thought it tasted "weird," but I could tell she was somewhat proud of it as she served it up to a line of eager siblings.

Photobombing, separate days.


My Elisey Beast.




Math, yesterday after dancing. You can see the progression from, "ok, multiplication review" to "WHAT'S THAT?! A CAMERA?!" pretty clearly, I think.


Ananda, sciencing (really, that's a word) in her laboratory room.

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 to wring 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...

One of my favorite things is to be cooking something delicious in my kitchen, with a glass of wine and music playing. Tonight it's a couple of whole chickens being roasted different ways - one dry roasted with onions, potatoes, garlic, carrots and salt, and the other cooked with lots of butter under the skin and along with broccoli and mushrooms. And Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, and Regina Spektor.

Today was pretty good. Grant went and got our three littles from his father's, where they spent the night, at 10. They were thrilled with their time and told us so many stories that you'd think they'd been there for a week.

I went and got Ananda and Aaron from Cybele's, where they spent the night, in the afternoon. On the way back the three of us stopped at Whole Foods for kefir and at Tim's (oriental grocery) for rice paper wrappers and more boba. Back home I made everyone bubble tea and did a ton of work for my Sensation and Perception class - we have three of these massive 50 point assignments that use three different websites and software, and involve printing and filling in 9 pages each. One down, two to go O_o I also have an exam (and he's warned us they're vicious) on Thursday, in that class, and a research project to get out of the way soon now that we're somehow already in week 3 of 6...the summer semester is kinda intense with everything crammed in.

Grant and I went up to Publix in the rain when I was finished, since they had a great deal on this tea I love that adds up if you buy it at Starbucks or on campus. It's nice to just sit in the dry, quiet car with him and talk about sensation and perception and research and cooking and whether we should move somewhere more urban or not.


This three day weekend has involved:

-swimming at the Y, twice - and all of a sudden (just when I was finally about to resort to lessons) Isaac, Jake and Elise are all swimming! And floating! And super excited about it!

-observing both the southbound (Friday) and northbound (this afternoon) highway traffic coming and going from the Keys for the holiday - it was thickly boat laden, with a lot of jet skis, bicycles and tow behinds, and at least one car pulled over with people sitting on the ground playing guitar in the median - and overall this always tends to remind me of this.

-sitting in my car* reading about Alfred Adler and taking notes on my phone while Annie had roller derby practice

-two solid hours talking with her and hugging her and trying to encourage her as she talked about how much she hates being upset for no reason and how freaked out she feels by things that aren't freaky and otherwise cried and raved about the general bullshit that is her age...it is really, REALLY AWESOME to me that she can talk about any of this with me, now...I eat it up, actually. I'm so glad we got a lot of her communication troubles out of the way before adolescence kicked in and over complicated things more.

-dropping/picking up Aaron at dance for the millionth time this month (recital and company show coming up...)

-seeing Brian Viglione post that the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (which I have always had on my bucket list) is in danger in the post-Hurricane-Sandy reality up there, and that he would be playing with Amanda Palmer the following night in a "Save the Mermaids" benefit. I wanted to go to this SO BADLY, like Grant has so many frequent flyer miles and hotel points saved up from business trips that we actually researched flight schedules and ticket prices and hotel locations and I was flipping my shit with longing. I was manic about it. It was a really sucky letdown when it all proved impossible, and then I spent awhile the following morning being very emo about it. Tears. I think it represented something larger to me, about personal freedom and living in the moment - I haven't really went nuts trying to make something impossible like that happen in several years. Sometimes it works, is the thing :p This just would have been TOO inconsiderate, though, unfortunately :/

-so much sex. Really, this was so overdue, and it's been awesome and I am not slowing down anytime soon. HEDONISTIC FRENZY FTW

-also, last night Grant and I had a date out alone, for probably the third time in the past couple of months...it was good, we ate at Outback and saw Hangover 3 - I was very very aware that the movie could go either way (too dumb to even deal with, or hilarious), but aside from some problematic shit I could do without** - it was pretty funny for what it was.

-a bubble bath and textathon Saturday night, while G was out with Shaun

-about 4 hours spent naked that ended with eating gelato straight from the container, with a spare plate, so that I could pull it out, pick through it for chunks and put it back. Because that's how I roll.

-a nap-too-long at an odd time that I woke from confused about day, place, and general life.

-tacos and cider for lunch in our dining room


I've done so many step-by-step pictures as my days progress, either for Jake to see one day while I was in school (he demanded to know what the heck I mean by, "going to college" and why he can't come - Grant works from home on days I go to school but he's fairly distracted with the "working" part), or for Grant when he's at the office and wants to see what we're up to at home. I keep thinking I should just put a DITL together and then realizing that what I get with them in mind is not what I'd put on the internet at all. For instance, Jake's report featured lots of stuff like escalators and elevators and riding in a golf cart, and banks of vending machines, and some guy on a skateboard, and all the sort of things a 7 year old would think was cool.

This weekend was great for the most part, but I get really lonely, sometimes. I have one budding friendship in one of my classes and my sister and I keep having these times when she's like, standing around my front yard with her kids in the car and we talk because she's passing through my side of town for something (they've been mildly sick for weeks with something she's afraid to pass on because it's so hard to kick). But way too many of the people I care about are really far away and only available through my phone.


*We got a second car about 10 days ago! It's such a relief. It's a 2011 Ford Fiesta, which is not really something we're "excited" about in and of itself, but we picked it because it has excellent safety ratings and amazing gas mileage (better than the Prius did - 29/38 city/highway). Already it seems like we'll be saving the payment each month in gas savings and breaking even, it's crazy what a different it is to have a "commuter" for work/school...

**Really, it's 2013 and we're laughing at a "Chinaman" with an exaggerated accent who speaks bad english? *wince* Also, what IS this weird Hollywood insistence that fat people can't have chemistry/fall in love/get it on? The whole idea that it's supposed to be inherently hilarious for fat people to act like human beings is fucking ridiciulous, and obviously has nothing to do with reality.