We are all trying to get settled into the school routine now that we're back to it, and it's been long enough that it's not feeling new, but short enough that we're still sort of hoping it might be a mistake and it's still summer. I'm not really sure what's happening. Mornings haven't been too bad just yet (I wrecked it by saying that, I'm aware), but evenings are proving challenging. I forgot that when everyone doesn't get home until after seven, I really have to crack that whip and shove dinner in front of everyone to keep the evening moving along. (But why are they late? They had cake...
There were a few things different, this year, as we tried to corral the kids for pictures and they rolled their eyes and bickered and insisted they were just plain over it. For one thing, even in wedges, and even on her tiptoes, Chickadee can no longer even pretend to be taller than Monkey. For another, I sent one of the pictures to Kira and she immediately sent back, "I don't mean to alarm you, but someone has swiped your baby boy and replaced him with an enormous man." (This is true. Also: Terrifying.) We were having fun. Then Otto mentioned that this would be our last photo of two sets of...
I remember when preparing the kids for the start of school was practically an Olympic event. You'd get the list of school supplies and head off to your local Big Box store to buy your assigned allotment of glue sticks and whiteboard pens, and if you were supposed to have a magenta with teal striped 2.5" 3-ring binder for a particular subject, well then, you had best find yourself that exact magenta with teal stripes 2.5" 3-ring binder OR ELSE. Plus the clothes shopping. LORD. Uniforms, for the uniform years, or just replacement of what's outgrown (him) and stocking the latest trends (her)...
There will always be an element, for me, of "why in the world would you assume I have any idea?" even when I am being paid to dispense advice. The technical term for this is "Imposter Syndrome." The Mir term for this is "just being my normal neurotic self." Today at Alpha Mom I'm offering up some thoughts on knowing when to suspect autism spectrum disorders in your small child, now that I have the luxury vantage point of my kids being nearly grown. On the one hand, I'm not an expert, and I'll be the first to tell you I made (and continue to make) a lot of mistakes... but on the other, my...
I don't know if you know this, but APPARENTLY simply refusing to think about the realities of having a child applying to college/graduating/getting out of Dodge doesn't stop it from happening. We are gearing up to start Chickadee's senior year and I have many, many feels. SO MANY FEELS. But I have to pretend I don't, because, GOD, MOM, STOP. So it'll just be our little secret, Internet. I know you won't tell anyone. We went through the Cabinet Of School Supplies last week and determined that we still had plenty of pencils left over from the last time we bought a gazillion-pack, but we needed...
If forced to keep it to a single word, these days, about how life is, or how the kids are, or how I feel in general, there's no question that the most explanatory word I can grasp is WEIRD. Life feels weird. I feel weird. Visiting a bunch of college campuses made it all real, I suppose, except it didn't make it any less weird. Chickadee is a senior. Monkey is a junior. After years of just-get-through-today we are now firmly in plan-for-your-future mode and it should be GREAT, yes? It is. There were times I didn't know if we'd ever make it to this point, so it IS great, and we celebrate...
Help, my face is numb. Backing up: What better way to create a gentle reentry into normal life after a relaxing getaway than to visit the dentist? Backing up even further: Once upon a time, we were Visit The Dentist Every Six Months Like Clockwork people. I believe in good oral health, truly. But... at some point I had to cancel a cleaning for Chickie because she was in the hospital (yes, this was years ago, I KNOW I SUCK THANKS) and then our dentist stopped taking our insurance and the rest of us stopped going and hadn't found a new dentist, and somehow---presto, chango, lazy-o---years...
Greetings from... somewhere. I'm not sure where we are, right at this moment. We've stopped for lunch on a whirlwind Tour Of Campuses and so far we are still speaking to each other and cheerful, so things are going great. This is especially impressive when you consider that it's currently 90-something and 70-something-percent humidity and we just spent hours tromping around a campus behind a VERY perky young thing who kept asking Chickadee, "Do ya like it? Huh?" (If there is anything Chickadee loves more than melting in the heat, it's someone asking her repeatedly if she is happy and...
I'm about 700 words into a different post and I realized that wasn't really what I wanted to talk about. In fact, I realized I don't want to talk, because I feel like all I do is talk, and the people I have a habit of talking at/to are tuning me out. IMAGINE. So: I would like YOU to talk, please. LET'S SAY a certain kid is nearing the end of high school and a frenemy situation has reached Maximum Suckitude, where a former friend has extended the expected nastiness and friend-poaching and whispering to maligning this kid's genuine achievements in addition to just plain being an asshole. LET'S...
