I’m in an irritable head space right now. I find myself being judgy, towards others and towards myself. I find myself muttering “it must be nice” a lot. So many people have it easier than I do! Except I know that’s not the case. (98% of the world has it much harder – so, so much harder!) than I do, at least). I know that when I start to feel this way, it means some part of me is not happy with some part of my life. Now I just have to figure out what that part is.
I’ve been feeling down about this space too. Or, better said, unsure about it. It’s hard to articulate to myself why I keep writing here. What does this place have to offer? To myself or others? I’m really not very sure. And I suppose I never am, it’s just sometimes I care than I’m not, and sometimes I don’t.
And… I wrote those two paragraphs over a week ago, but never added anything or posted. It’s still true, but maybe less so. I think part of my issue is that the few blogs I still read are not really “working through life” blogs, but are instead “here is what I have to offer” blogs. And they have a lot to offer! And I do not. And I do find myself wishing I could afford more of what other people have. Even just a house cleaner would be amazing, but that feels out of reach. Even my friends, all of whom are struggling in some way or another to get by, have house cleaners. Some of them also carry credit card debt, so we clearly have different ways of managing money. And that is okay! I’m sure if I started having one, I would do all kinds of financial gymnastics to keep one. Maybe that is why I’ve never had one come regularly, because I know I’d quickly feel like it was a necessity.
But I do read some blogs and I never read about how they manage chores. Work. Kids. Exercise. Passions. Child care. Sure! All of that is there. But laundry? Grocery shopping? Driving kids around? Vacuuming? Dusting? Cleaning toilets? Changing bed sheets? None of that is mentioned. But maybe it’s just too boring so they don’t write about it. It feels like those tasks take up my entire life (especially the driving kids around). How does one not mention that stuff?
But maybe I feel overwhelmed by that stuff because of who I am (someone who struggles mightily with executive functioning), and for other people it just gets done.
I think I just need to read some different blogs, ones that don’t make me feel like my life is lacking. Except where does one find new blogs these days? Pretty much impossible.
Things are really busy right now, and I’ve become the family chauffeur. It’s gotten so complicated that my husband and I create a weekly spreadsheet with everyone’s activities and who is taking and picking up. My daughter is swimming three times a week downtown, near where my husband works. I drive her there and he takes her home on BART. It’s only like 2.5 miles away, but because of traffic it takes as long to get there as it does to drive to work every day (30 minutes one way). Many days I get in my car at 3:15 and I don’t pull into the garage until after 6:30pm. It SUCKS.
I’ve tried to see if anyone wants to carpool, but so far I haven’t found anyone. I even lost my carpool to the dojo (for my son), because the kid quit martial arts. So now it’s back to me taking him all the time.
There is one day a week we can’t make the activity Tetris work without my in-laws taking my son one way. It’s that crazy. ‘
And sometimes, even if we spend 30 minutes planning everything on Friday, it doesn’t work out anyway. This week is parent-teacher conferences at my kids’ schools, so they get out early. It shouldn’t matter, because we pay (exorbitant amounts of money) for aftercare, but there are some “field trips” taking place that our son suddenly can’t bare to miss, which means we have to move everything else around. So now, after I write this, I have to sit down with my husband for another 15 minutes to retool the next three afternoons. Boo.
Sorry to be such a downer. I know this is part of life. But it sucks. I hate spending hours and hours in the car. It’s just not how I want to live my life.
But I do want my kids to participate in just ONE ACTIVITY EACH! Especially activities that are beneficial to them physically and mentally.
But there have been some highlights lately too. This weekend our son was invited to a friends’ house last minute and our daughter was at her grandparents’ house so my husband and I went out to lunch together. We walked 3 miles into the Mission and then walked 3 miles home, with our nine year old! And the sun was out! We’ve had some much rain and cold weather (for us), that an afternoon outside was GREATELY appreciated.
My son and I watched Godzilla vs. Kong, which was super fun (he loves that stuff, and it’s a treat to watch movies like that through the eyes of a here-for-it kid). We finished Lockwood & Co Book 1, and we all loved it. Sitting quietly in the living room in the evenings, listening to a book together, is amazing, and I can’t wait for the next book to be available on the library lending apps (the kids are super stoked to keep going too!). After we read the second book we’re going to watch the show on Netflix (it includes both books in the eight episodes).
Speaking of books, RF Kuang’s Babel finally came available after a two month wait at the library. My son and I went to get it on Sunday. I read it for over an hour that night and am so excited to have something I really want to read on my nightstand. I’m also 3/4 of the way through Robert Bolaño’s 2666, which is long and, uh, a little hard to tackle. I’m reading it in Spanish. This is my third attempt. The books is all over the place, but this time I stuck with it and I think I’m finally going to finish it. It’s been on my list for over a decade and I’ve very excited to have finally conquered the 1200 page (45 hour) tome (I have both the hard cover and audio book copies, but I’ve been mostly listening to it on audio book at 1.1x speed). It’s a lot.
(Let’s not talk about the fact that RF Kuang is a bad ass, 26 years old, multilingual woman and has written a trilogy and this book. Nope, not going there.)
Hey, but I worked out today (while I was writing this). And I do think the driving this week is going to work. And I may even get to enjoy happy hour with a fledgling friend this Friday! I have to take the little wins when I can.
Yes the driving can be insane. When will you feel your eldest is ready to take muni/BART to her swiming as well as home without an adult accompanying? Criteria. I AM NOT PUSHING YOU TO DO THIS. Wondering the criteria.
I can say the conversations while trapped in car are some of the best times to both hear and share on complex topics with your kids as they grow up. Make it a No Zoning Out to media/electronics time. It can be startling but because it is not face to face but parallel bodies time it is easier for most kids to talk about some topics.
Hang in. Your writing bout gritty realities of life and kids and working and homes and …. life Is a huge reality gift and touchstone. Really glad the grands are able and willling to pitch in and help with some of the logistics. Good for everyone in every generation!
Currently we listen to Spanish audio books or podcasts in the car, which helps make it feel more worthwhile. Our daughter is taking the bust to swimming all this week because it’s conferences (early dismissal) and she has the time. Normally she can only take it on Wednesdays because the other days of the week she gets out of school at 4pm and swimming starts at 4:30. I barely get her there on time with the car, in the bus she’d be really late.
Ugh, I’m not a fan of driving a ton anymore either, but thankfully most of the kids’ stuff is walkable for them so they walk themselves to/from activities (except for skiing – we drive an hour each way, and soccer games in fall/spring are 30 minutes away). I agree with Purple & Rose – no screens in the car means lots of great convos with the kids when they aren’t face to face with you. Both of my kids open up a lot when we do that!
As for all the “other stuff” –
Laundry – The kids do their own now, it’s one of their weekly chores. And I end up starting a load probably every other day as well 1st thing in the morning & moving it an hour later before we even leave the house so it’s dry and ready to fold at night.
Grocery shopping – I try really hard to only go once every 2 weeks, though sometimes it’s weekly if we are running out of fruits/veggies. More often than not now I do a clicklist for pickup because I tend to buy almost the same thing every time, so it’s really easy to repopulate the cart and adjust based on what’s on sale. It takes me maybe 10 minutes on my phone vs. an hour of wandering the grocery store. Or sometimes I put on an audiobook and pop my headphones in and enjoy the hour wandering around the store by myself 🙂
Vacuuming – I almost never do it. We did get a Roomba a few years back and that gets most everything pretty well (it automatically starts every morning at 8am & that forces us to have rooms picked up before they leave for school). I actually pull out my physical vacuum maybe once every 3 months. LOL
Dusting – I never do this. Never. I hate dusting, hence why I pay for a cleaner once a month. Even before the cleaner I just didn’t dust. Ha!
Cleaning toilets – Ditto, also hate this. But the kids have to clean their own bathrooms now and I do basic 2 minute wipedowns in my bathroom as needed until the cleaners come once a month.
Changing bed sheets – Yeah, I rarely do this. I read somewhere you’re supposed to weekly, and thought I am *SO* not an adult apparently. I probably strip the bed and wash everything every 2-4 weeks, same with the kids. It’s just not something that stresses me out or that I care to spend time on. I’m sure that’s gross to some people, but it doesn’t bother anyone in my family, so that’s what we do!
So basically – I just don’t do a lot of the things that you wonder how people have the time to do…. we all pick & choose what we care about!
It sounds like you have your kids doing a lot (good on you!) and have some other good systems in place. It also seems like a monthly house cleaner is helping a lot. Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and get one. I’m sure if I did I could make it work.
Yeah, we started using “Greenlight” for their allowance (an app – if you’re interested text me and I’ll send you a referral link so we both get some cash). It has duties every day for them to mark off after they’ve done. I don’t love the idea of paying for normal chores, but it’s helped a LOT with me not having to nag them to do things. Some things are weekly (clean their bathroom) and some are daily (empty the dishwasher, make your bed). It’s a pretty sweet app, and you can have the allowance automatically split between spend/save/donate amounts, so it’s helping us teach them about money too. They have legit debit cards with their faces on them that they love using around town, too. It’s working well for us so far!
Oh, and if they don’t do all their chores, you can choose to either not pay them at all or pay a percentage (so if they complete 75% of their chores that week, they get 75% of their allowance). Accountability and all that. 🙂
I hear you on the driving. For various reasons, my girls ended up at a school 20 min across town (instead of the one across the street). Their activities are also across town and typically start around 5. So we have this 2 hour dead zone period where we can spend 40 min driving home and back or finding something else to do (which sounds awful after I’ve been working and want to relax).
We thought of moving 15 min closer but computed that with higher interest rates and higher taxes, it would cost us an extra $200,000 in interest and taxes over the next 20 years. We’ve decided to make do for the next 8-10 years but some days the 200k seems worth it!
Not sure if I have any suggestions but I can empathize.
Ugh, sports. We’ve been avoiding signing our kids up for anything that requires driving them more than once or twice a week. We have 3 kids. One kid did not do team competitive gymnastics because it would put an insane amount of stress (and misery) on all of us (plus, she was not 100% into it). Two other kids never got to do travel soccer (because again, the amount of driving it would require would just be so extremely stressful… and probably not sustainable). Instead, they have been doing once-a-week intramural team. They seem happy… The soccer fan (our oldest) does not like anything super competitive, so relaxed weekly games are perfect. The youngest is pretty good and would probably learn a lot more if they join travel team… but – see above – too much. Same with swim teams – I would love for our kids to do more swimming, but 3-4 practices a week? No. So we all go to the pool 1-2 times a month. Maybe I’ll find something that’s close by and is more like 1-2 times a week… but if not, they’ll be OK.
Sometimes I look at our neighbors (with 5 kids), who are extremely involved in sports, and are hardly ever home. I do wonder if we are not doing enough. I bet every parent wonders about that, including those who have kids on 3 different soccer teams… I will keep re-evaluating and keeping an eye on things – maybe someday we’ll do more… Or maybe not. Maybe we are already doing more than enough.
Our 2 older kids are in middle school and there are after school sports opportunities there, including daily practices and meets. They both signed up for track and field this spring. I will need to pick them up after practice, but the school is just a 5 min drive away, so that is very doable.
All our kids are playing musical instruments. That includes weekly lessons (for all of them) and weekly local youth orchestra rehearsals (for the oldest). Plus, school strings club (also for the oldest). Between all that, music practice, rock climbing (once a week for the child who was doing gymnastics but is now loving rock climbing way more), seasonal sports at the school, soccer (once a week)… we are pretty busy but feel OK. We definitely have made an effort keep kid activities to a minimum or limit activities to stuff that’s conveniently located. Because otherwise my head would explode.
About cleaners – we have a cleaner come every other week just for the bathrooms, the entry hallway, and the kitchen. The problem with cleaners cleaning the entire house – things actually have to be picked up before they can do their job. For me, if I’m tidying up and putting stuff away, it doesn’t take much longer to vacuum (I vacuum once a month? maybe?) and dust (whenever the mood strikes – not very often). Bedsheets – once a month (and kids strip/remake their own beds). Laundry – once a week we do 2-3 loads; kids fold their own stuff.
We have a now monthly cleaner and it’s amazing. She does the deep kitchen and bathroom clean. I don’t care about dusting and vacuum when needed, but otherwise, I don’t do a ton of housework (and didn’t before the cleaner which is why I switched to once a month from every other week). It’s one of the things I prioritized when we stopped paying for after-school care. It’s amazing how much money you get when you don’t have to pay for that anymore. My husband does laundry during the day now that he works from home and I’m not going to say how infrequently I change the sheets (oops). I find new blogs from comments on blogs I like. There are still a lot of us starting new ones out there!
I was just thinking of checking out the blogs of some commenters! That is a great idea. And I do think I need to find someone once a month. That would be such an incredible help. My son is still in aftercare and it costs $$$ (grrr – makes me so mad to think how much we pay for what amounts to 5-7 hours a week. It’s outrageous). But we just got kittens and they also cost $$$ so I’m not sure how we’ll make it work. We might actually put less money in the college accounts to do it. Seem ridiculous but I’m maybe that desperate.