Recovery and Stepping Forward

So Oz is recovering nicely.  He had some residual fever on Saturday evening, but that seems to have subsided thanks to his massive horse-pill antibiotics.  He's got some angry-looking laparoscopy wounds right now, but I think those, too, shall heal.  He's doped up on the good meds and spends a lot of time relaxing on the couch, which is exactly what he needs right now.

This week is starting out nicely.  It may be a Monday, but it sure doesn't feel like it.  I'm not sure what day it feels like.  It's that time of summer when I would have started school but… yeah, that's not happening this year.  The kids are getting bored and antsy, and we're all kind of looking forward to the first day in a few weeks.  I need to take them back-to-school shopping, but I'm delaying the inevitable.  I suspect I'll do it one day next week.

In the meantime, I got a phone call today.  I started putting in online applications for clerical and administrative assistant jobs about two weeks ago and hadn't heard anything.  It wasn't surprising given that my resume has more holes than some kinds of cheese and I haven't worked since 2010, but it was still frustrating.

Today, however, I got a phone call from a local school system.  Their building secretary had a family emergency that caused her to have to quit her job quite suddenly, and they need someone who can start quickly.  So I have an interview tomorrow for that position… and if that goes well, I'll have training on Wednesday.  So fingers crossed!  I haven't worked outside the home since before Doodlebug was born… at least, not in any capacity where I couldn't take the kids.  So this will be a change for everyone, but I'm excited about it.  I'm ready to earn money again, and even if it isn't much, it's something and it indicates a current job history.

Sunnyview School may not exist any more, but there's still plenty of learning happening around here.  I appreciate all you readers who have stuck around.  :)

The Summer of Blog Neglect

Apparently I can't keep up with this blog during summer.  I'd say I'll do better, but… yeah, I probably won't.  I feel like I should say something like, "It's been 20 days since my last confession…"

But I won't do that, either.

I started seeing a therapist a week and a half ago.  I've only seen her once, for the initial intake, but I liked her.  I go back later this week to start actual therapy, and if the first visit is any indication, I'm going to need a big box o' Kleenex.  At least this time I'm going in with a week or so of decent moods under my belt and not weeks of emotional lability.  It's the little things.  I also have a plan for the future, more or less, and have started working toward it, doing things like putting together a resume and filling in the odd online job application.  Of course, I'm sure I'll wind up doing something through a temp agency because nobody wants to hire a cold-call nobody with an empty resume, but it's a start.  I'll keep working.

I got back from a brief trip today.  A few weeks ago one of my friends announced that her husband was moving his start-up company to some rented office space, which meant that she was going to have a finished garage space to use as a school/game room for her kids, and she needed furnishings for it.  Which meant that she wanted to make a run down to Ikea in Dallas.  Oz and I had been talking about running down there and getting some bookshelves from Ikea at some point (and really, if Doodlebug will ever manage to learn how to take care of property properly, we'd get him new bedroom furniture, too), but he didn't really care if he went, so he agreed to watch the kids, and suddenly I was headed to Dallas.  We also took along some rented muscle - a friend of mine's boyfriend, because my friend wanted another dresser to go with some other Ikea furniture she'd gotten on her recent trip down to the Big D.

Both of them had been to Ikea before.  I hadn't.  We got there when it opened at 10, and Oz texted around 12:30 to ask if we'd left yet.  Nope… we sure hadn't.  We had actually eaten lunch AND made it to the area where we were pulling boxes, which was an impressive feat that no doubt would never have been accomplished if my girlfriend hadn't made a wish list, including aisle and bin numbers, before we even headed out.  That store is an adventure and a half, for certain.

I didn't even wind up getting proper bookshelves… well, not the ones I'd planned to get, anyway.  I got this instead:

It seemed more appropriate to the space, my taste, and the varying sizes of the books and whatever else the kids might want to stash on the shelves.  I like breaking up the monotony a little.  I got home around 6 and put this together before the kids went to bed.  Oz helped a bit when I got frustrated… mostly I hate Allen wrenches and didn't know he had a bit for that in his screwdriver.  That would have been nice to know before I started, but c'est la vie.

Back to reality now and appointments the rest of the week.  I actually booked myself a spa visit for one day this week (using a gift certificate Oz got me for my birthday in April), so that should be an interesting experience in itself!

Busy Weeks with Friends

Summer is officially here, and if I ever had any concerns that summer was going too slowly, they're now definitely dispelled.  This week alone has had activities and visits with friends coming out of every available calendar date.

Sunday night I hosted our monthly book club.  It's an informal gathering (reading the book is suggested but more or less optional) where we mostly sit around and eat, drink, and be merry.  Ordinarily the book club foundress (is that a word?) hosts, but she had been out of town for a couple of weeks and had only gotten home a couple days before.  Nobody should come home and host an event, right?  So I held it here.

On Monday, the kids and I piled in the car and drove across town to visit a friend who has a daughter a little bit younger than Boo.  She and I chatted while the girls ran around; Doodlebug was bored, but that was his fault since I had asked him to bring something to do to entertain himself.  Anyway, we set up a sleepover for Boo and the other girl in another week or two, and they're already counting the days.

Today we went over to another friend's house.  She and I are incredibly close, so when I showed up and her hair was wet and her son was wearing the same shirt he'd been wearing constantly since Sunday, it was no big deal.  She did dishes and cleaned, and I drank coffee and wandered around with her, and then we ordered pizza for lunch because fixing food was out of the question.  Who wants to do that when Mazzio's delivers?  The kids had been playing with water guns by that point and were sopping wet.  Anyway, we had a good time.  

The rest of this week is filled with plans for equally good times.  We have a tour at a museum, another visit with a friend (this one's coming to our house), lunch plans with another friend, the 4th of July, and a get-together with another family.  

Every time I think I'm an introvert, my calendar fills up with weeks like these and I realize exactly how much I love getting together with people and look forward to them.  I love hanging out with my friends, and I'm grateful for all of them!  Knowing a wide variety of wonderful people really does make life better.  

Two weeks!

The last two weeks seem to have absolutely flown by.  I never would have realized that it had been two weeks since I had last posted except that Blogger tells me when my last post was.

When I last posted, I was feeling down.  Really, really down.  Doodlebug was at Camp Quest, Boo was coming home from a sleepover so she and the other girl could have another, consecutive sleepover, and I was - and still AM - finally down to the lowest weight I have been since I was 18 years old.

The girls had their sleepover, and then on the 12th, Oz, Boo and I climbed in the car and drove up to Grand Lake for a family reunion with my dad's family.  One of my uncles has a home there and graciously hosts us all.  There's a reunion every three years, if possible, and this was The Third Year.  There's a picture of all of us floating around somewhere - all 91 of us who came (I think there were another 20 or so who couldn't make it?) - in our color-coded T-shirts.  My dad and all his siblings pick a different color for each of themselves and their families, and so at least on Saturday you know who belongs to which family group.  The rest of the time, all the newcomers wander around in a daze trying to figure out all the people and names and everything else.  But it's a fun weekend.  This year was the best-organized yet, and two of my cousins held a cook-off (jambalaya vs pastalaya) and a bunch of the guys threw money into a pot and went out clay shooting to win a new gun.  Yes, we're that family.  Beer was, I'm sure, drunk during the contest.  It flows freely throughout the weekend.  We spend time on the water - my uncle takes out the boat, and other folks are permitted to use the jet skis if they're trusted, and my husband is trusted - and the kids commandeer the game room in the basement or watch videos or run around with their cousins.

I actually didn't stay for the entire weekend.  One of my dear friends is moving to another state for her husband to finish college, and she had a combination birthday/going away party on Friday night that I swore up, down and sideways that I wouldn't miss, so I left the reunion on Friday afternoon and attended that.  Then I spent the night at home, picked up Doodlebug on Saturday, and headed back to the lake to finish off the reunion.  It was a whirlwind, but it was great.

Did I mention that by this point my depression had subsided and I was… and am… now in a much better place?  There were a few days I was concerned I was absolutely manic, because I was talking and typing and going 90 miles an hour the entire time, but even that has settled down now.  Thankfully.  Being in constant motion was almost as bad as not being able to move.

After we made it home from the reunion (and did all the laundry), last week was quiet.  Nothing to report, and I didn't even think about the fact that I hadn't looked at the blog for ages.  It seems so odd to blog on a homeschooling blog when I'm not homeschooling, and I haven't quite made the mental transition to being a public-school mom yet.  Because I'm not… yet.  Not till the middle of August.

This week is busier again, which is good.  Yesterday I caught up with some friends I hadn't seen for quite some time, and this weekend I have both another night out with different friends (we're going to one of those wine and paint places, and we're contemplating going for fondue first) as well as a book club meeting at my house.  Usually the book club is held at the club leader's house, but she's been out of town for two weeks and didn't quite feel like coming back into town and hosting an event two nights later… and I don't blame her!

So things are puttering along.  We've been to the pool once so far, with plans to go again soon, bowling once, and the kids want to go to some museums and do a couple other things before school starts in August.  Summer may have just officially begun, at least in terms of the solstice, but we're well into it and, I think, are having a good time.  I have some pictures I want to share; I'll try to remember to post more often and actually get them on here. :)

Revival

I realized yesterday that I hadn't posted since my ugly post about depression.  Don't get me wrong - it's still there.  But I've made it out of bed every day.  I've brushed my hair, brushed my teeth, fed myself, and kept the house in working order.  I haven't taken the kids anywhere or done anything spectacular, but I've stopped yelling as often.  I think.

I still have bad days.  Worse, I've been having bad nights.  Insomnia has taken hold.  I've spent five nights out of the last six lying in bed thoroughly exhausted and yet unable to fall asleep.  Last night was the worst.  I started drifting off about 2:30 when the thunder started rumbling in the distance.  The rain came at 3:30.  That was when I moved to the couch.  Sometime around 4:30, I think I dozed off, but I know I woke up at 5:30 because I checked my phone.  At 6:30, Oz was up because he had to leave the house early for work.  It's an ugly cycle.  Contact lenses are no longer my friend because by 2 p.m., my eyes are so itchy from fatigue that I want to peel off my corneas, let alone the lenses.  Driving probably shouldn't be on my agenda.  Thankfully it's been cloudy, so I haven't felt too sleepy behind the wheel (I'm weird… the sun knocks me out in the car far more than clouds do), but it's still a dangerous proposition.

I do have to drive, though.  As of last Saturday, I have had things on my calendar again.  Schools are out, the pools are open, and the kids have camps.  This is GOOD.  If I'm doing things, I can't dwell on the ugly and I can't become a hermit.  Having a schedule makes me more human.  On Saturday we went to a friend's house and I helped her paint her kitchen, and then Boo spent the night.  Today we visited another friend's house where I hung some shelves in her son's room, and in a little while, I'll take Boo to her first day of acting camp.  We also have an upcoming family reunion with my dad's family, and another friend is having a combination birthday/moving-away party.  So there are things to do.  

Doodlebug had his physical for his summer camp this morning.  He's 5'5" tall, which puts him at the 99.19%ile.  I find this number amusing for some reason.  The pediatrician did, too.  They have new software at her office, and she spent several minutes this morning playing with it to see what numbers she could plug in.  Doodlebug's projected adult height, based on mine and Oz's, it 6'5".  I'm pleased with that; Doodlebug was annoyed.  He wants to be taller than his father.  The pediatrician said that because he's showing early signs of puberty already, he probably won't grow too much past the curve of 'normal,' so he'll just be tall and not scary tall.  For the first time today, Doodlebug let them draw blood (for cholesterol and general screening since issues run in the family, not for anything specific) without having to be held down.  That was nice.

I'm not out of the hole yet.  I probably won't be for a while.  But things seem less dark right now.  I can keep going.  I'm still giving myself mental high fives for getting out of bed, but some days it's easier.  I hope it lasts.

Summer Break

So we've been on summer break for what… a week and a half now?  It seems longer.

The first day off, the kids were bored to tears by 2 p.m.  There were actual tears.  Doodlebug in particular was crying because I'd kicked him off the Wii and told him to find something to do other than stare at a screen, because I wasn't going to have him turn into a vegetable just because it was summer break.

By 6 p.m. that day, they'd been grounded from the Wii for sneaking back onto it.

By 6 p.m. the next day, they'd had the power strip removed and all electronics banned for two weeks.

This means that since last Tuesday, my children have had no electronic stimulation whatsoever.

When I doled out that punishment, I knew - I just knew - that the person who was going to be punished most by this was myself.

My children, however, have surprised me.

Doodlebug has gotten out his whittling knife.  He made a couple of wooden items before running out of usable wood, and then I let him carve my last block of Fels-Naptha.  Over the weekend, Doodlebug and Oz went to the local woodworking store and bought a bunch of wood so he can use the real stuff again.  He said soap was too easy.  Yesterday Doodlebug got himself grounded after being in his sister's room for the fourth time in 24 hours (he's not allowed into her room at all EVER, but he has a hard time respecting privacy - he invades my room, Oz's office, and Boo's room whenever he wants, to say nothing of the pantry, and I've had it, so I lowered the boom), so he pulled out his K'Nex and Legos and started making robots.  By dinnertime he had two built.  He got up early this morning and, instead of going into his sister's room and waking her like he normally does, which results in a grumpy sister and an even grumpier mom to start the day, he built another two robots and a Ferris wheel.

Boo has been less obviously productive but equally busy.  She's read several books - kid versions of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Oliver Twist, and Gulliver's Travels - and created a 'house' in the greenbelt across the creek.

They've both been in the kitchen at least once, and they both intend to do more cooking throughout summer.  Yesterday Doodlebug made tuna salad, cucumbers & onions (omit the paprika… that's weird… really you don't need any of the parsley or dill, either, if you don't want them), and sweet potato fries.  There was leftover tuna salad, so today the kids made a picnic lunch and walked down to Boo's house to eat.

They left for their picnic at noon.  At 2:15, they came back up and informed me they'd been having a philosophical discussion about a tree falling in the woods and whether or not it makes a sound (Boo insists that logic states that it does; Doodlebug is having a blast playing Devil's advocate, though I suspect he rather agrees with her assessment) and by the way, Mom, can we spend the night outside?

I was on the phone at the time, so I nodded absently at them before processing the full scope of their rambling.  By the time it all sank in, I heard the attic door close.  Which means they'd gotten out the tent.

So far they're still up in the game room.  I'm curious to see if they expect me or Oz to help them with their camping preparations.

Either way, they're amusing themselves.

And this makes me happy.  Maybe I just… won't tell them when they can have electronics back.  This is much nicer.

The Final Week

We're in the final week of school now.  We'll do a review week in July, but this is the last week I really have to go upstairs and do anything with the kids.  It's also their last 'interest week,' where they get to pick a topic and study it on their own.  Both kids have some grammar to finish, and I'm asking them both to keep working on math right up to the last day because that's something they'll lose if they don't use it, but they're just about done with everything else.

Except their play.  I really can't wait to see their play.  I'll take a video of that and post it after they perform it for us on Friday.

Anyway, because there's so little left to do, I have very little to do with them.  We went to the library today to pick up books and videos on their chosen topics - turtles/tortoises for Boo and venom/poison for Doodlebug - but once they finish grammar in a day or two, they'll be working entirely independently.  For the last two days of school, I will be utterly superfluous.  Right now, for instance, both kids are parked on the loveseat with Tom the Bearded Dragon, and they're watching a video on venom.  Boo is all curled up and totally disturbed, and Doodlebug and Tom are both watching with mouths agape.  Boo came to me a few minutes before the video started to tell me she's learned the difference between turtles and tortoises already.  They learn quickly.

I suppose, in many ways, it's a good thing that they can work so independently, that they don't need me.  I've said before that it's bugging me how quickly I've become so useless to them.  They only need me now to coordinate events with other parents, take them to and from things, and occasionally (OK, ALL THE FREAKING TIME) remind them to do this, that or the other.  Still, it's going to be an odd summer since I will be, more or less, superfluous.  I'll take them to the pool.  I'll set up sleepovers, and we'll go see friends.  We'll do things.  But I won't really be necessary.  OK, OK, I know that I really am necessary.  They can't organize things themselves quite yet, and they certainly can't drive.  But they can figure out things to do on their own.  They fix their own meals and have finally learned to write things on the shopping list if we need them.  They can do laundry and dishes, clean anything they can reach… if they could learn to do these things without being reminded, I really would be unnecessary around here.

It feels so odd to be ending this particular phase in my life.  I've taught Doodlebug for five years and Boo for two.  And I feel so completely and utterly lost now.  Before, even though I haven't had any personal goals, that was okay because my goals had to be on hold while I made the kids' education my priority.  Now, even though their education is still a priority, I'm handing over the reins and I'll have a few hours of peace and quiet each day.

This final week is messing with my head.  Even though I have three more months before I really have to worry about what to do with myself, I'm already mulling possibilities.  Instead of making early lesson plans, I have nothing.  Instead of setting up a potential schedule, I'm wondering when the 2014-2015 school calendar will be out.  It's a whole different life.  And I'm not sure I'm ready for it yet.

Whew!

It suddenly occurred to me tonight that I hadn't updated my blog in a while.  I can explain!

Summer has taken over my home.  Each year, I let the children make a list of all the stuff they want to accomplish over summer.  Usually the kids write a bunch of little things - complete the library's summer reading program, catch fireflies, play in the sprinkler, go to the pool.  But the kids are getting older, and the list this year has reflected that.  This year they included things like:

• Have a family game night
• Make homemade sundaes
• Visit the zoo
• Visit the aquarium
• Go on a family bike ride
• Visit Purple Glaze (a pottery-painting studio)
• Take a trip with Granny (this was M2's)
• Take a trip with Dad (this was M1's)
• Go through a cave (also M1's, and we're incorporating that into the Daddy trip idea that will happen later in the summer season)
• Go camping in the yard
• Go to Great Wolf Lodge (not happening)
• Visit the Fab Lab and print some stickers (also not happening because I don't have the training on the machines that you have to have before you can use them)

Some of the traditional list items appeared as well, and I've added a few other things - the library reading program wasn't on the list, but we're doing it, anyway, and I've made it a point to take the kids to the farmer's market.  Oz also wants to take the kids out for sno-cones.

Obviously some of these items are a lot more time-consuming than the little things that used to be the center of their universe.  I've been working pretty hard to make sure that as many items get crossed off this list as possible and still make sure we get together with friends, visit family, and let them have time to relax.  This week is our last free week till we start school again on July 15, because M1 has a day camp to attend the week of the 8th (and I have a two-week project of my own starting that week), and the only things left on the list at this point - that we're going to manage to accomplish - are playing in the sprinkler, which will happen on the 4th; camping in the yard, which will happen as long as the kids accept that it will either be hot or will happen in the game room instead; and visiting Purple Glaze, which I intend to do on Wednesday after a visit to the library and the farmer's market.

Also happening this week is a trip to Kansas to visit my grandmother and going to a friend's house... along with hitting the grocery store for regular groceries as well as July 4 food, doing laundry, and all the other things that have to happen just to make our lives function.  Oh, and the kids want to go to the pool this week as well, since we've only made it once so far this summer.

It's hard to believe that our summer break began nearly two months ago.  It has been a lovely summer break - it really has! - but I do believe that we're all mentally ready to get back into a more regulated routine.  Two more weeks.  Time does fly.

Summer Does NOT Equal Relaxing

We're in the throes of summer now.  It may not officially begin until next week, but I can assure you that Mother Nature and Oklahoma have combined forces to remind us that 'hot' is the keyword of the season.  To be fair, it's nowhere near as nasty as it was already this time last year, and I'll take it, but our air conditioner kicked into high gear this week, which of course means that one of them is now not working particularly well and needs a check-up.

'Tis the season.

Anxiety Girl's anxiety is running full tilt as well.  If our schedule was quiet and consistent, I think all would be well.  However, it is not.  Each Sunday she writes down the things that are to happen during the next week.  During the school year, these things stay fairly regular - swim, violin, even laundry make her list.  This week, though, she's losing her mind, and her calendar reflects it.  For instance, I'd planned to go to the pool on Friday.  However, due to circumstances beyond my control, it's going to be easier if we go on Thursday.  It will make Thursday a crazy day, but we'll wind up at the pool and get to chill there for a bit, and I hope that will help.  Anyway, she had to change that on her calendar and add several things - a vet appointment for one of the cats and a trip this weekend with my mother being some of the larger examples - and it's messing with her head.  She's developing a series of OCD-like tics that are getting bigger and more noticeable the crazier our schedule gets, and this week is just about as hectic as can possibly be.  The next time I have to ask her to stop pushing on her eyes and swinging her head in circles... or to stop pacing manically around the island in the kitchen... poor girl.

We visited a friend today whom we haven't seen yet this summer, and while it was good to see her and her kiddos, the tragedy occurred when our girls asked us when they can have a sleepover.  The answer involved much consulting of calendars and discussion, but the end result was... July.  Seriously.

I also realized today that we start school in a little more than a month, and our time between now and then suddenly seems full, leaving us little room for chilling out and doing some of the projects I kind of wanted to do.  Does it really matter if we do them?  No.  And I'm not going to stress out about it.  I simply wish that time didn't seem to fly by so quickly.  I wish that our friends weren't as busy as we are so that we'd have more of a chance to connect.

Of course, when we start school again, it will still be summer.  After we finish our work each day we will still be available to go visit friends, go to the pool, and even take a few weekend trips before the summer season is over.  Summer won't be over, not by a long shot.

Still, time in general is moving too quickly.  It breaks my heart and makes me proud of my kiddos at the same time, that they have great friends and great things that they want to do.  I just want to slow down a little, absorb the beauty of each moment, and breathe before moving to the next thing.

Perhaps for the rest of the summer, my - and M2's - focus will be on mindfulness.  I think it can only help us all.

The Feast

Before the end of our school year, the kids and I discussed what we wanted to do over our summer break.  M1 mentioned that he really wanted to get out his Italian cookbook and make some of the recipes.  When he was poking through it, I noticed a recipe for a rosemary leg of lamb.

"Hey," I told him, "we've already got a leg of lamb in the freezer if you want to use that."

Of course, he did.  And the menu snowballed from there.  Soon it became known in our house as M1's Feast.

After much deliberation (and several grocery store runs), the feast finally happened.  I won't say that he made everything without any help, because I did step in when he asked or clearly needed me to, but he planned and made the vast majority of the meal by himself.  I'm pretty proud of him!

Click the photo for a larger and easier-to-read image

M2's contribution was to type up and print menus for everyone to have at their place during the meal; she couldn't resist adding a few personal touches after printing, though.  

This is what my boy looked like just before we ate.  Beatific.

You can see how beautifully he arranged all the salads.  He firmly believes in food presentation.  If you look closely at the bowl of tapenade on the table, he'd like that.  He arranged the pita chips around it, too.

The piece de resistance was the leg of lamb and potatoes.  It had finished cooking while we ate our appetizer and salads, and it looked amazing by the time it got to the table.  I did carve it; the idea of doing that was a little too intimidating for our young chef.

Still, he's proud of himself.

Finally, he brought in dessert.  And bowls.

Don't be fooled.  Underneath all that chocolate is a homemade tiramisu.  He and I even whipped everything by hand, and he grated the chocolate himself.  (No, we didn't make the ladyfingers.  I do draw the line somewhere.)

Congratulations on your first feast, my boy.  Very, very well done.

Preventing Boredom

It's probably a darn good thing that I am good at compartmentalizing and managing time down to almost the minute.  Last week this house threatened to get boring, and summer break seemed interminably long.  This week?  Not so much a concern.  In fact, by Sunday we will all probably welcome a quiet day.

Today - any minute now - my stepsister's kids are showing up to stay till Wednesday morning.  That will be an adventure.  After they leave on Wednesday, the kids and I are going to run errands.  Specifically we're going to drop off a book I'm selling, going to the library, and perhaps going to the grocery store on the way home.  In the afternoon, they're going to do some research for a meeting we have on Friday.

Thursday will mean house cleaning and probably some laundry.  The kids aren't very thrilled about that, but I've told them that the advantage of having a big house is that we CAN have groups here; at the old house, it wasn't as hard to clean, but we also couldn't invite people over like we can now.  The good, the bad, the ugly... it's a balance.

Friday means our meeting, which is going to be a potluck lunch event, plus any laundry that didn't get done on Thursday.

And Saturday means a hair appointment for me (and possibly M2) followed by a different potluck in the evening with a different group of people... still at my house, though.

There's no way anyone here will be bored this week.  It's probably a good thing.

Those Happy Weekend Days

This is going to be one of those posts where I simply word vomit the contents of my weekend, so if those sorts of posts hold no interest for you, I suggest you move on.  No hard feelings.  *smile*

Memorial Day weekend is one of those glorious weekends where there are no family obligations, no gifts involved, no greeting cards to send - you do what you and your family want and hang the consequences.

Friday evening kicked this weekend off with a bang.  One of my good friends and I piled in her car and waited in interminable traffic to get to Rocklahoma, which, I might add, didn't seem anywhere as crowded as the traffic and parking issues would originally have led us to believe.  We had a blast, and there's just something genuinely fun about driving home at midnight and stopping at a convenience store on the way home to grab Bugles and a Milky Way (me) and an energy drink (her).  We're already hoping that the lineup next year is equally good; we'll work our schedules so that hopefully the traffic issues aren't as pronounced.

Yesterday was a quiet day (OK, I'm just comparing it to today... it wasn't quiet at all).  Oz had to run down to Moore to do some work in that tornado-ravaged town, so the kids and I had the house to ourselves during the morning hours.  After lunch, we ran to a neighbor's house.  Their daughters recently turned 4 and 1 within a few weeks of one another, and as they're even newer to the neighborhood than we are, they invited several families they've met as part of a birthday get-together.  M2 was playing with one of the other neighbor girls, whom she had met before - the birthday family moved into the home where some girls M2's age had lived - and I got to meet the dad and exchange phone numbers.  The other girl is also in Girl Scouts, so when I call and introduce myself to the mom, I intend to discuss that as well, see if I can find out information for M2.  M2 was beside herself.  Oz got back during the party and walked up, and our whole family enjoyed cake and good conversation for a couple of hours before three of us headed home.  M2 stayed and entertained the older birthday girl and some of her out-of-state friends for another couple of hours before I retrieved her for dinner... and camping!  No, I did not actually sleep in a tent.  The kids had been begging for a month to camp in the yard like they do every spring, but it had been too wet to set up the tent.  It's finally dried out enough that I agreed it was time.  The ground is still moist, but we can finally walk through it (well, most of it) without water squishing between our toes, so M1 helped Oz set up the tent, and the kids spent an evening parked in sleeping bags and on air mattresses before sacking out about 10:30.  If I'd been smart, I would have gone to bed then, too, but I'm nothing if not a night owl, so at 10:30, Oz and I were in the middle of Saving Private Ryan, which neither of us had seen, and I had Ben & Jerry's Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler ice cream, which is my favorite ice cream ever, and so I didn't find my pillow till about 1 a.m.

Again.

It was hard to get out of bed this morning, but at 8 a.m. I was jolted awake by a cat who decided it was time for me to get up, which means that she climbed on my arm (I sleep on my side, but that does not deter this cat), perched herself firmly, and purred in my ear till I was awake.  She repeated this until I was too awake to go to sleep again.  It's her modus operandi when she wants breakfast, because she knows if I get up, then the boy gets up, and the end result is that she gets fed.  It's complicated feline logic.  The boy was, in fact, awake in the tent, and he and his sister had been awake long enough to have packed up their sleeping bags and rolled up the air mattresses so they could haul everything inside and dump it next to the back door on the way to FOOD OMG FOOD I HAVEN'T EATEN SINCE LAST NIGHT FOOOOOOOOD.

After they consumed sustenance, I divided and conquered.  M1 did a couple of chores in the house, and M2 came outside with me to mulch the herb garden.  I hate doing things that early in the morning, but we had too much going on today to procrastinate... and anyway, I had coffee by that point and could (almost) function.  It was still very nice to come in and crash on the couch and watch some Monaco Grand Prix for a bit before I had to move again.

For lunch, we piled in the car and met Oz's family at a park for lunch.  We took the lazy route and picked up food on the way; everyone else brought coolers and meat to barbecue.  It worked out well for us, though, because by the time we had to leave, they were just finishing their meals... and I'm pretty sure that my food-seeking children wouldn't have survived that long without a feeding.  I'm not entirely convinced they'd have turned cannibalistic, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.  Anyway, we had to leave earlier than everyone else because M2 had her first sewing lesson with my stepmother today, and we had to be home in time for her to get picked up.  Oz corralled M1 and made him go run errands - lots of them - while I stayed home and exercised and made new binder labels for the next school year and ran to retrieve the girl.  She was delighted with what she learned, and she's assigned herself a couple of 'homework' projects that will mean I have to actually walk into a fabric store.  I may not survive; my fabric-store PTSD may kick in.  If I stop blogging and disappear from the web, you'll know why.

By the time everyone came home, we were drop-dead tired.  I fixed dinner and read the kids a chapter from the fourth Harry Potter book that we just started, and they were off to bed.  M1 was out like a light; M2 took a bit longer, but I think she's out now, too.

I'd say that tomorrow will be a piece of cake since we don't have to go anywhere and Oz will be home, but I fear it won't be the case.  My stepsister's sons are spending Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning here, and it's been a long, long time since I've had a little boy... and I've never had two of them at once.  It will be an interesting week.

Hope you all have a fun, safe Memorial Day (or Monday, depending on what country you live in), and I'll let you know how the child-minding goes.  Send a few good thoughts my way.

OK, *Now* It's Summer

It is Thursday, May 16.  It is 66 degrees outside, and it is cloudy.  The ground is muddy from all the rain we got last night (again), and the children are upstairs in pajamas playing hour after hour of Wii.  This is the first day we've had at home since we finished school last Friday, so I'm letting them bask in the laziness.  I'll pay for it later, but it's glorious now.

Last Friday, as I mentioned, was our final school day for the 2012-2013 school year.  We will start school again in mid-July, so I have a couple of months in which to paint the school room and take all the old material off the book shelves so the new stuff will (hopefully) fit in.  I also need to set up new binders since A) the old ones are falling apart and B) both kids will have more than one this year - we'll have a binder specifically for writing and another specifically for science, and I'm debating about whether to have a third for history.  We shall see.  It will be my fifth year homeschooling, and it seems absolutely bizarre.  Another mom asked me a few weeks ago how long I'd been doing this, and when I told her, she said, "Oh, so you're a veteran then."  Wait... what?  No!  I'm still figuring this out as I go!  I'm not a veteran!  Still, compared to many, I suppose I am.  I've been digging trenches in this particular battlefield for quite a while now, and even though I doubt myself on many an occasion, I think I finally have a good handle on things and a solid picture in my head of where we're headed in the long term.

Now watch my kids throw me for giant loops and change everything.  They're good at that.

Friday was a nice, easy day, as all last days of school should be.

First we made fans for our Spanish project.  While they were coloring them, the kids got to watch a short video on one particular style of Flamenco dancing.  They really enjoyed it, especially the part about stomping with their whole foot without raising the knee.  My little herd of elephants practiced all day.

Then we got down to serious business.  Our final project in science this year was to set off rockets.  We talked briefly about how rockets worked, what physics principles we learned this year that we could apply to what we would see, and touched on safety protocol.  Then it was time for assembly, and we wandered off to the cul-de-sac in front of our home (the rockets purchased are small and have only a tiny flight radius, so we could do it here... if I had bought larger ones, we would have had to take a trip to a park, which I didn't want to do).

M1 was desperate to set his rocket off first.  Sadly, he got a bad igniter for his first try, and it nearly broke him, but we eventually got things working.

They really liked the countdown part, especially because I told them they were allowed to yell it as loud as they wanted.

FIVE... FOUR... THREE... TWO... ONE...

Zoom.

I honestly think the kids had as much fun recovering their rockets as they did setting them off.

They really, really liked that project... and sometimes, they even pretend to like each other.  Happy summer, everyone!

A Typical Conversation... for Us, Anyway

Picture it.  It's a partly cloudy, humid, late spring day.  It's the last day of school, and the kids have been playing outside in the glorious weather since setting off rockets at 11:30-ish a.m.  They've colored the sidewalk, driveway, and a good chunk of the cul-de-sac with chalk, ridden bikes, taken walks, eaten lunch on the front porch, and just really, truly enjoyed being outdoors with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Then they went into the woods to entertain themselves.  I, for the first time all day, hear silence.  It is good.  I take advantage of the moment to go through e-mail.  Soon, the back door opens.

"Mom, we would have stayed out there longer, but we both found ticks on each other," M1 announces.

"And I don't like ticks.  Can you check my hair?" corroborates M2.

Dutifully, I check their hair and find nothing but sweaty scalps (thankfully... the ticks have gotten absolutely horrendous all of a sudden, and I have now informed the children that they need to make sure they put on bug spray before they go into the woods any time between now and... whenever tick season is over.  Anyone know when that is?  I'm assuming fall/winter).

The children are not at all deterred by the abrupt change in their plans, however.  They have a goal.  Or, rather, M1 does.

"Mom," he continues, "since we're staying inside, can we watch a movie?"

"Oooooo, yeah!" M2 chimes in.  "Which one, M1?"

"I was thinking the tornado one," he answers, referring to "Tornado Alley" by Sean Casey, which he checked out of the library earlier this week.

"Oh."  M2 deflates.  "Can I watch a different movie, Mama?"

"Um... and just where, exactly, do you plan on watching a different movie?"

"Upstairs."

"And just where do you think M1 is going to watch his?"

I am greeted with silence.  This has not been thought through.

"So can I?"  M2 finally replies, deciding to ignore the fact that I've asked a question at all.

"No.  You can watch the tornado movie with him upstairs, or you can watch nothing with me."

M1 is pleased and announces that he is going to take a shower to make sure there aren't any more ticks hiding anywhere, because "once I found one on my butt," which I highly doubt, but he is a 10-year-old boy and likes saying the word 'butt' as much as possible.

"Wait... does that mean we have to get into our pajamas?" M2 wants to know.

"Well, you don't have to," I answer, "but if you aren't going back outside, it's certainly an option."

"I'm going to watch the movie with M1," she decides.  "Or come sit with you.  And I'm going to take a bath, too.  And maybe put on pajamas.  Or not."

"Right," I answer.  "You do... that."

And off they trot.

Opportunities

Sometimes opportunity appears at odd times.  It's funny to me how just when I start to worry that things are at a standstill and that there's very little purpose or meaning to my life, things happen to show me that I am, in fact, worth something and that I should continue doing what I do.

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Back in March, I applied for a job.  I haven't worked in more than two years, and that job wasn't exactly skilled labor - I worked as a medical transcriptionist for a company based out of Massachusetts.  I had quit because I could no longer keep set hours every evening, what with swim meets and everything else, and since quitting I'd reached the level of stagnation and boredom that I enter right before I find a new job/hobby that consumes my time, and I'm sure Oz was getting rather frustrated with how depressed I had become, because when I'm not busy, I get depressed, and then the poor man has to listen to me whine about how impotent and useless and horrible I am because here I am at 31 years old and have no purpose and nothing to show for my life, and that, in turn, causes me to create incredible run-on sentences that really have no great literary value.  Not really, but that is one nasty-long sentence there.  Feel free to parse it for grammar mistakes.  I'm sure there are many.

Anyway, a couple of positions opened up or are being created (not sure which) at a company that teaches writing to homeschool students/families, and after much encouragement by Oz and some of my friends, I applied.  I honestly never expected to hear a word.

I heard.  I panicked, and then I answered some questions via e-mail and gave a critique for a small student writing sample... and I honestly never expected to hear a word.

I heard.  Again.  And again I panicked, because this time it meant the word interview, and I've never interviewed for a job in my life.  My first jobs - mowing and handpainting pottery - were courtesy of my father.  My journalism job fell into my lap while I interned as a high school student; when I graduated, I moved into the recently-vacated lifestyle reporter position.  I did some temp work while I was pregnant with M1, which required me simply to show up, and when he and M2 were small, I ran a church nursery because I was willing to do it.  After I quit that gig, I took up medical transcription, which did require some study, but when I applied for a job, everything was done online.  None of this interview business.  I did do one interview with a local company about a transcription position, but it was largely a skill test.

So for the first time in my life, I had to do an interview.  It took every ounce of nerve I had to push the 'call' button on Skype yesterday.  I'm glad I did, though, because now I am apparently on the list to receive an invitation to attend some training in July, and if I do well there, I will teach a writing class this fall.  Teach.  A writing class.  When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a teacher and an author.  And a secretary, because clearly I come from a home chock-full of women's lib principles.  Now, I have the opportunity to teach others writing, and that absolutely terrifies and exhilarates me at the same time.  I love to write; I like to think that I can pass that on.  If anyone else who is going through the same process reads this (because I know, via the Internet, a couple of other women who applied for the same job), I hope to see you in training, because I think you also would make spectacular teachers, probably far better than I.  Good luck.

 

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This morning, one of my friends texted me.  First she wanted to tell me what songs to play at her funeral because she seems to be under the impression I'll live longer than she will, which amuses me because while, yes, my grandmothers are still living, one of hers is, too!  After I agreed to make sure that Eminem's song "Shake That" is on the playlist right after Sarah McLachlan and Sting, she said, "[My son] asked if you could tutor him in math this summer.  I'll pay you."

Math?  Oh, what the heck, why not?  I don't mind math.  Up to trigonometry and pre-calculus (except for geometry, which is of the devil), I even enjoy it.  I really like playing with numbers.  Plus, this is a good kid, and he's smart.  He just gets stuck, and his teacher this year hasn't really helped him much.  So... tutoring?  Sure. 

 

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Opportunity.  It's an opportunist.  I just had to be patient, and I dislike being patient.  However, it would seem that it is time to get busy with the next phase of my life.  Things are about to get real here at Sunnyview, and I'm excited - let's roll!

Countdown to Summer

We're on the home stretch now.  Five - well, four and a half - more weeks until we take a couple months off for summer.  It's amazing how quickly time can fly.  It doesn't seem like nine months ago since M2 'officially' came home for her education and we started this school year.  I've been checking what we've done with the goals that I set at the beginning of the year, and we've accomplished most of them.  I never expect to get all of them done, primarily since we always wind up covering stuff NOT on the list at the same time.  Still, I'm very proud of what's been covered, and I think the kids have had a good school year. 

It always makes me a little bit misty-eyed to look at their work from the beginning of the year and compare it to the end.  I don't often save their work over the summer, so I don't have many drastic examples to show the progression through the years for M1, but I showed M2 her work from the beginning of the year, and she was blown away at how far she's come.  Her handwriting has improved, she now knows how to write a proper sentence, and she knows more about history and science than she ever imagined.  M1 has really progressed as well - he uses cursive almost exclusively, which makes his work far easier to read, and he's really come a long way with regard to his writing.  He has finally found his own voice and doesn't feel the need to copy words straight out of a book.  It's a big step.

I'm definitely excited to get into fifth grade for him, third grade for her.  I'm excited to study genetics, to get into the nitty-gritty with geography, to see how far they get mathematically, and to cover ancient history with M2 for the first time.  I'm excited to ask the bigger "why" questions, to write plays and create presentations, and just to keep going.

But I'm not going to get too far ahead of myself.  First comes summer.  Camps, swimming, seeing friends, field trips, lazy days, gardening... it all sounds absolutely glorious.  I know it'll fly by far too quickly, but I'm ready... ready for summer.

Only a few more weeks to go!

Why Pretend?

I've never been good at pretending.  I have an incredibly active imagination, but I've never really understood the idea of faking something when you can do the real thing.  M2 is okay with playing pretend, but M1 has always been (overly?) practical like me.  I've tried to cater to that.  The kids have learned to clean, cook, make things, etc. by using the real deal.  This isn't to say we don't have play food or pretend vacuum cleaners in the house - in fact, fake food was one of M1's favorite toys for years - but whenever they want to understand these concepts, I'm happy to introduce them.

We picked up M1's EpiPen (no more EpiPen Jr. for us... that boy is big enough for the real thing there, too) from the pharmacy, and it came with a 'trainer injector.'  M2 was delighted.  She adores playing doctor, picking up books about various body parts or systems from the nonfiction section of the library and trying to learn as much as possible; I wouldn't be surprised if she enters the medical field when she gets older.  She talked M1 into playing with her...

She knows she's not stabbing him in the correct spot, but she wanted the pictures to be worth her while.  She's also a ham for the camera.

M1 got in the kitchen last week.  He hadn't gotten to do any real cooking in a while, and he begged to be allowed to make chocolate chip cookies.  I wanted to take photos of the entire process but was banished from the kitchen until he wanted me to demonstrate the proper size to make the cookies.  Then I was banished again.

He cleaned up the kitchen, too.  

I love the fact that my kids are capable of understanding these concepts.  I couldn't make cookies like this until I was much, much older, and I certainly didn't know how to use an EpiPen at their age... hadn't even heard of one, to be honest.  This sort of independence is what I've always hoped to foster in them, and I'm thrilled to see it already!

Yay summer!

Summer, So Far

I'm typing this with glitter-painted fingernails; my toenails are light pink.  M2 has red toenails and fingernails coated in a shimmery silver.

There's a painting sitting on the end table next to me.  It was originally declared to be a portrait of me, but this was later altered to be Granny (my mom) because the "golden" (yellow) tempera paint container was empty and M2 had to go with brown instead.  Plus the hair was really big and the shirt was purple.  I must say, the picture does work if you consider it a cartoon of my mother.

The curriculum cabinet has been cleaned out and restocked with the books we'll need in July, and I consolidated all the art/science supplies from two cabinets into one closet.  This only works as long as we have a storage unit that houses all my wreaths for the front door and winter coats, but never mind.  Hopefully we'll move soon and it'll all be moot.  

I dream.

There are orange-juice popsicles in my freezer that M2 and I made, and there's a bag of chocolate chips in my pantry so M1 can make cookies tomorrow.  Next week the kids are excited about helping me make an Indian meal.  I'm going to make the curry, but M1 is making the naan and M2 is going to make raita.

Library books adorn various tables throughout the house.  The kids have been extremely diligent to select some books that meet my "reading level" requirement for the summer reading program.  I'm happy to let them check out whatever they want, but brain candy books don't make it on the official summer reading program list.  Since they have all summer to read 20 books, this isn't a big deal for either one.

I need to go purchase a swimsuit sometime this weekend so that as soon as M1 is ungrounded (he's been really good so far and has earned several privileges back, including snack time and his evening read-aloud time) we can hit the pool.

M2 will be getting her first pair of glasses next week.  On Tuesday, I discovered that she needed to sit forward and squint to read a document on my computer when she was practically sitting on my lap.  On Wednesday we visited the optometrist, who said that her vision wasn't horrible but that if she was having symptoms (and the accompanying headaches and blurry vision from strain) he would recommend glasses.  M2 picked out a pair of cute mauve frames and is excited that the letters in her books won't be "too close together" any more.

We haven't seen too many people yet, but it's still early in the season.  It's been good to see the folks we have, and I'm looking forward to what happens next!

Summer is NOT a Picnic

This was supposed to be the first week of summer vacation.  I had several things mentally planned - splash pad, blueberry picking, maybe a trip to the pool.  But around 7 o'clock tonight, M1 changed our plans for us.  He is grounded for the duration of the week.  Unless someone can come up with a more inventive punishment for what he did, anyway... I'm fresh out of ideas.

I had gone outside to water some garden transplants that we'd picked up from my dad's house this afternoon; Oz came out just as I was finishing up so he could mow the lawn.  I walked into the house less than a minute after Oz came out and was greeted by a panicked girl:  "MOM, M1 climbed onto the coffee table and jumped onto the couch!"

My first reaction was to make sure that nothing broke - our coffee table has a glass top, and somehow I doubt it's been built to withstand 90-some-odd pounds of boy jumping off of it.  "Is he hurt?"

"No, it didn't break.  But he thinks it's funny... and he almost landed on me!"

Thank heaven for small mercies... but what do you do with a child who deliberately waits for the minute he thinks he can get away with things like this... and then DOES them??  Clearly he's not ready to be left alone in the house, not even for a minute.  And I could 'tomato stake' him, but I'm also not up for that level of personal torture.  I love my kids, love being around them... not my philosophical cuppa tea.  So he's grounded.

Oh, he'll get to come out for certain things - chores, meals, bathroom breaks, errands and previously-planned engagements such as a field trip to the local animal shelter.  And if he demonstrates good behavior, I'm happy to let him earn rewards like listening to our read-aloud in the evening or 30 minutes of playtime with his sister.  By and large, however, his week won't be the fun-filled time it could have been.

He does know better.  The minute I hollered his first, middle and last name, he knew what he was in for.  He's never been punished so harshly for anything EVER, and that's saying something, because he's done some really stupid things in the past, like the time he drilled a hole through his bedroom closet wall and into his sister's room with a drumstick or the time he put a rubber band around a cat's paw and forgot about it or the time he carved tic-tac-toe grids into the headboard of his bed using a screwdriver or the time he peed in his nightstand drawer, but I'm really, REALLY sick and tired of dealing with it, especially because these days I get not only the misbehavior but also the "I don't care/you can't make me/it's all your fault" brattitude that goes along with it.  The only rule in this house that I've ever insisted that the kids follow 100% of the time is the Golden Rule, and even he admitted that he wouldn't want me jumping off of his furniture if he'd paid for it, and he sure wouldn't like it if I disobeyed him the minute his back was turned.

Argh.  The logic makes it from the brain to the mouth, but it never makes it from brain to musculoskeletal system.

It'd be really easy for me to stop and say that it's all due to his ADHD or his Asperger's or whatever, but that'd be a load of crap.  His ADHD is medicated to the point that he can choose his behavior, and his Asperger's has no bearing whatsoever on the current incident other than he really doesn't care about anything outside of his own little Circle of Me.

So he's grounded.

M2 and I are going to have a great mother-daughter week!

Storage Wars - The Homeschool Edition

Today is M2's last day of school.  Most of the other area schools have been out for a week; some got out yesterday.  Usually her school doesn't get out until after Memorial Day, but since we didn't have a winter this year, we had snow days to delete from the calendar.

I plan to start our 2012-2013 school year in July.  Our only state requirement is that we meet 180 days of instruction, and I've worked out a beautiful-to-us school calendar that starts in July and ends in early May.  We'll have breaks throughout the year - I think our longest continuous stretch of school is the initial 8 weeks - and still have a couple months of summer vacation to enjoy the weather and see friends who get out of school in mid-May.  Plus I've scheduled it so all our school weeks are five-day weeks.  I hate three- and four-day school weeks.  Personal pet peeve.

Yesterday I tackled the homeschool cabinet.  I got rid of completed workbooks and complementary teacher's manuals that I wouldn't be using again (and also mistakenly pitched the FLL3 teacher's manual, so when M2 needs it I'll have to order another copy... some days I swear my brain has gone AWOL), emptied binders (I saved a few things but really not much), and otherwise purged as much as possible.  The sack of paper that I took to the recycling bin this morning was appalling.  I had to remind myself that for 9 months of work, it wasn't bad.  I thought I did a good job getting rid of everything that I did.

But then I looked at the space I emptied and thought, "Crap."

There is no possible way, in the physical world that we occupy, that I am going to fit next year's curricula into the now-vacant spots on the bookshelf.  How come nobody told me that homeschooling two kids would require twice the space??  I thought I did a good job of doubling up on subjects when possible, but I guess it doesn't matter.

For now, all of the curriculum I've purchased has been stored in my bedroom.  I should have realized when it took an entire shelf of MY bookcase that it would take an entire shelf in the homeschool bookcase, too, but I guess I never did put 2 and 2 together, though I'm reasonably sure that the books have secretly multiplied and 2 and 2 now make 5.  Either that or I did some fuzzy math when I ordered everything and rounded it all to the nearest hundred, so any purchase less than $50 got rounded to zero and therefore didn't mentally exist.  Yes... that must be it.

Regardless, it ain't all gonna fit where it's s'posed to.

Clearly we still need to move.

And I also need to quit procrastinating and get cracking on lesson plans.  Nobody told me that lesson plans for two kids takes twice as long, too.  Those of you with 3+ kids (or teachers who deal with entire classrooms of kids who may be advanced, average, and remedial, and you never know what you're getting) have my utmost admiration.  In the time it usually takes me to do half of the total lesson planning for an entire year, I managed to complete half a year's worth... of one subject.

This learning curve is killing me.