Connection/Writing

Finger Tied

Posted on by noemikjames / 4 Comments

If there is one thing I’ve learned about myself in these many years of writing, it’s that the words do not come easily to me in times of crisis. I want to write something. I feel like I should, I MUST, write something and yet the words don’t come. My hands sit on the keyboard, lifeless.

Fellow bloggers are writing such important posts. If you haven’t been reading Mrs. T at A+ for Effort or Elizabeth at A New Version of Me, I highly recommend you head over there. They are both doing an incredible job of articulating all this hard shit eloquently and with empathy. Your time is much better spent on those blogs right now.

As for me, I’m totally tongue tied. I just can’t find the words. Even in text conversations, or face to face with my husband and friends, I’m not relating anything of substance. A part of me is disappointed in myself, but I also know this is my par for the course.

Maybe some day I’ll do this better.

Life

These made me smile

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

I am meeting a friend from my old neighborhood this morning. Walking through the dog park where I spent so many hours with my daughter in the first two years of her life, I saw these. They made me smile.

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

And my personal favorite:

Life

Struggling

Posted on by noemikjames / 1 Comment

I’m struggling to find the words right now. I’m not even attempting my morning pages.

I’ve been sick since Wednesday. And not just sick of spirit. I actually woke up on Wednesday physically ill–with the worst cold I’ve had in a long while. Right now I’m just trying to get through the days. Putting one foot in front of another.

My tentative plan is to get my house in order. Figure my own shit out so I can be of service for others. I have a few plans in mind, but I’ll probably wait until the early months of Trump’s presidency to actually dedicate myself in the ways I’m thinking. Hopefully by then I’ll have a better idea of where my efforts will be most needed.

In the meantime, I’m focusing on home. I know I can’t give of myself if I don’t have anything to give. Now there is even more reason to streamline my efforts so I have more of myself to give to others.

Uncategorized

Angry

Posted on by noemikjames / 8 Comments

I’m cycling through the phases of grief. Today I spent a lot of time in anger.

I’m angry at the people who voted for a hateful bigot who believes I am worth nothing more than the number he’d use to rate my appearance.

I’m angry that all the news outlets need to treat that racist, misogynistic monster with kids gloves now that he’s the president-elect. That he basically gets a free pass on all the horrible things he said and all the hate he spread.

I’m angry that I’m being implored to have empathy and understanding for the close-minded people who did this, when it’s clear they have no empathy and understanding for people who are different from them.

I’m angry that I will have to be the bigger person, because it’s clear that the people who support Trump are not capable of being the bigger person themselves.

I’m angry. And right now I’m not interested in bridging the divide. I’m not interested in empathy and understanding. I’m not interested in feeling for the white man who feels marginalized by the reality of 21st century America, who is scared of globalization and rapid technological change, who just wants his good old, white, hetero normative privilege back (though he won’t admit to enjoying such privilege).

Right now I’m angry.

And I’m not going to make myself feel anything else. At least not yet.

Uncategorized

The saddest part is…

Posted on by noemikjames / 2 Comments

…nobody won last night, least of all the people who voted for Trump.

That’s the saddest thing.

I haven’t processed my thoughts well enough to write a post worth your time, so I’ll just share this piece on Jezebel, which brought me to great heaving sobs tears.

Abiding with everyone right now, in this time of shock, fear, uncertainty and searing disappointment.

Life

I can’t look

Posted on by noemikjames / 10 Comments

This election has hurdled me into a tail spin of anxiety. To combat the horrible feelings of doom, I’ve done a lot of sticking my head in the sand. I know this isn’t the most socially responsible way to handle something as important as a presidential election, but this year it was all I could manage.

election-cat

This is pretty much how I feel about today. I wish I could just wake up tomorrow, when it’s all over.

Life/Parenting & Family

Falling Back

Posted on by noemikjames / 8 Comments

I remember when the hour we got at the end of Daylight Savings Time felt like a gift. A whole extra hour to do with as I pleased.

Now I dread how this day drags on like the longest day of the year. I suppose it is!

And then I feel guilty for wishing I didn’t have an extra hour with my kids.

The truth is, things are definitely better. Or at least, they can be. My daughter has become, for the most part, pleasant to be around. She still has her challenges and we are still working on some very real struggles around self-control and appropriate emotional response, but since she started the magnesium, things really are so much better.

Unfortunately right around the time things got better with my daughter, they got impossible with my son. The month leading up to his 3rd birthday was a nightmare. He is still really hard to manage, with volatile meltdowns happening frequently, and most of the time for seemingly no reason at all.

When he’s emotionally regulated, he’s the sweetest boy in the world. When he’s not, it’s very hard for all of us around him.

I hope there will be a time when things are, for the most part, easier, when the extra hour at the end of Daylight Savings Time feels like a gift. Right now, we’re just not there yet. Or maybe I’m not there year.

I really appreciated Elizabeth’s recent post about loving the big picture of her life, but feeling overwhelmed by the daily reality of it. I think about that divergence in my own life all the time. When I look at what I have, in the abstract, it’s my dream reality. I’ve quite literally checked off almost every box I thought I needed to filled for me to be happy. And yet the day to day is still so challenging, and I have to work hard to find contentment in what feels like the daily grind of mornings, work, pick-up, evenings with the kids, bedtime, work at home, too little sleep, lather, rinse, repeat.

I will say that October was one of my better months as far as generalized contentment goes (I attribute this to sticking my head in the sand as far as the rest of the world goes and having so much creative work to lose myself in–I plan to write more on that soon), and I know part of that was because things with my daughter were so much easier. So maybe when my kids are a little older (4 and 7-years-old? 5 and 8?!) my feelings about the day to day will better align with my feelings about my life in general.

Life

Cartoon Fall

Posted on by noemikjames / 4 Comments

This morning I slipped on my daughter’s homework folder and came down on my tailbone. Hard. Like, really hard.

In the moment it felt like slow motion, like a cartoon fall. I swear my legs were as high as my head before my body hit the floor.

It happened right in the door way to the kitchen, and the kitchen tiles are higher than the hardwood floor of the living room. That intersection is right where my tailbone landed.

To say it hurt would be a grave understatement. Holy shit, was it painful.

I lay on the ground for a long time, hyperventilated between sobs. My husband and kids were freaking out. It was kind of awful.

But at one point my son reminded me to take deep breaths. “Sniff a flower and blow out a candle Mommy.”

I did and I immediately felt more calm. I was able to gain control of myself and eventually I even managed to roll over.

I’ve been lying on the couch a lot, with a cold pack under my butt and back. Thankfully we had my husband sleep in my daughter’s room last night, in an attempt to get him a good night’s sleep, so is well rested enough to manage the kids with little assistance from his banged up wife.

Ugh, so not how I wanted to start the weekend.

Work/Teaching

A Positive Outcome

Posted on by noemikjames / 4 Comments

I swear, this will be my last post about my event.

So it’s two days out, and I’m feeling really positively about my big even at school. I want to write about it, because I feel like it would be easy to look back on it and remember only how much work it required, and how exhausted I was at the end of it.

For the past two days I’ve asked my kids to tell me what they enjoyed about the day and to give me one recommendation of how to do it better (if I ever do it again). The responses have been very positive; the kids clearly enjoyed the day, and even their recommendations were respectful, and even grateful. I feel better about this 6th grade class than I have all year, and I do think the festival will cast a positive light on all our interactions for the rest of the school year. I created something for them and we shared it, and they seem to be genuinely appreciative. That is really all I could ask for.

The staff has also blown me away with their congratulations and praise. Every single person who participated (and many who did not) have taken the time to say something to me in person or via email. They all thought the event was very well organized and very fun and interesting for the students. They loved seeing the kids participate so enthusiastically, and were proud of being a part of something so unique and fun.

And honestly, I’ve been nothing but grateful for the support I received. My administrators have been so generous and understanding, giving me basically everything I asked for. The teachers were equally as giving of their time and they were super flexible about facilitating activities that they knew nothing about before hand.

Right before the big event, I was feeling pretty down about my job. We voted to abolish the block schedule we were trying this year. Without a FLEX period we had planned for (that was impossible for various reasons), the block periods were too long and the administration determined it was not working for both students and teachers. I was totally bummed (and actually put forth a considerable amount of effort pushing for a third option that the administration wanted to embrace, but that ultimately was postponed until next year), and in the wake of the decision I plunged deep into that dark place I was in at the end of last year, feeling nothing but doom when it came to the school year ahead.

This was right when I was hitting on the wall on preparing for the festival. My 6th graders were giving me a lot of grief and I was sure they were going to grumble through the whole day I was working so hard to prepare. Working on both campuses was feeling so burdensome, and I just generally hated my schedule. I was just done, and to have the one thing I felt positively about (the block schedule) be taken away, felt like the last straw. I was despondent for 2-3 days. I just didn’t see how I was going to make it through the year.

Then the festival happened and I’ve felt a renewed appreciation for my school, my staff and even my students. Not only do I feel really good about myself, for everything I accomplished (I’ve been realizing in the days after the festival that no one else has ever organized such a big event all by him or herself, usually a grade level or content area team will work together, but no one else has put on something like this alone), but I’m so grateful that I work at a school where an event like this is not just tolerated, but supported and even celebrated. I really am proud of myself, and I’m trying to revel in that feeling, but I’m just as proud of my school, staff and administrators. And I needed to feel good about my work almost more than I needed to feel good about myself.

So there you go. The Day of the Dead festival ended up being 100% worth it, and I’m so glad I took it on. Sometimes it really is worthwhile to challenge yourself.

Parenting & Family

Abusing the Babysitter

Posted on by noemikjames / 11 Comments

I am working out right now, and my kid is in front of the TV.

The AAP just updated their TV recommendations for 2017. The generalized “two hours of screen time for kids over 2-years-old,” has been modified quite a bit. Now they recommend just one hour for kids between 2 and 6-years-old, and after that it depends based on what the screen time is for. School-based screen time evidently doesn’t need to be restricted, or at least doesn’t “count” toward their goal amount.

And of course, the TV is not to be used as a babysitter.

Except that is the main way I use my TV.

Sure, I watch movies with my kids. Well, I watch movies with my daughter. The movie version of a book incentives her to listen to longer and more complex novels every day, and I love discussing how the book and movie are different after we’ve read and watched both.

When my son is older, and we can watch a movie together as a family, I will cherish that time together and I won’t cringe thinking that our 90 minute flick went over the one hour a day recommendation.

But right now, my kids get at least 45 minutes of TV a day (they each get to pick one 22 minute show when we get home)–sometimes more–and I absolutely use that time to make dinner, check my daughter’s backpack, start a load of laundry, and just generally get shit done.

My husband has been using screen time to get ready in the morning. Our son is in a very challenging period developmentally, and there are only so many battles of the wills one adult can have before 8am. (I totally support him on this, by the way, our son is impossible right now).

Sometimes I have to drag my kids to a meeting and I absolutely sit them in front of devices so I can participate in a meaningful way. Most days my kid are getting around the one hour of screen time that is recommended, and that time is almost always in a “babysitter” capacity.

It just makes me feel bad. As if there aren’t enough things that make me feel shitty as a parent, now I’m feeling bad every time I use the TV to get some shit done. Ugh.

I get it. I really do. I understand why they have these recommendations. I understand it’s their job to educate people on what is best for kids. I also know I’m probably doing better than a lot of people when it comes to screen time. But I’m surely doing worse than many too. I mention that not to tear myself down or build myself up in comparison to others, just to be honest with where I probably stand in the using-the-TV-as-a-babysitter continuum (which is probably somewhere in the middle, and so probably not something to actually be alarmed about).

I’m sure if I asked my kids’ pediatrician about it he would smile understandingly and tell me not to worry. So why do I? Why do I feel bad about something that I can’t see changing any time soon?

Maybe if I feel bad about it now, when there really doesn’t seem to be much other choice–my kids just cannot entertain themselves in the afternoon/evenings, especially not when they are together (they will fight and need constant refereeing)–I will be more inclined to make better choices in the future, when those choices are hard but still manageable. Or maybe I’m just a glutton for (self-imposed, totally unproductive, guilt-induced) punishment.

All I know, is I wish the AAP hadn’t amended their recommendations. I felt safe when I was under the two hours, and when I didn’t have to feel so bad about using the TV as a babysitter.