Not a Wasted Word

Break has officially started! I already feel so much better than I did last night.

Run

I got out before the fog came in. It was so nice to be out in the sun. And it was nice to get a break from the kids in the middle of the day. I came back feeling energized.

Fused Beads

Both kids got a fused bead set from our Elf on the Shelf, who knew we’d need a little something to do today. My son’s was a Mandalorian set. I made Asohka and he made Boba Fett and R2-D2. My daughter got a Sanrio set and I made the frog. I made mine into ornaments.

Library + Glasses

We picked up some books on hold, and I found a couple more I’m hoping my son will read over the break. He’s at that stage where he could read longer books but he’s loathe to actually do it. It’s been hard finding books he’s interested in. If we let him he’ll just read Big Nate comics on his pad all day.

On the way I got my new glasses adjusted. They were a mess and I wasn’t really wearing them because of it. But now they are fixed and I like them a lot. I’m so pleased that worked out because they’ll be closed for a while.

Starter Villain

My son and I are listening to John Scalzi’s Starter Villain. It is NOT a kids book. Or even a YA novel. There is a ton of swearing. So. Many. F-bombs. And we both love it. It’s smart and funny and my son is super into it. We laugh a lot. Will Wheaton is a great narrator. It’s fun to have a book just we are listening to, as opposed to the Lockwood & Co. series that the whole family listens to (we’re on the last one of that now!) We listened to it while we did fused beads today, and while we folded the kitchen towels.

Dominion

One of my last minute Christmas presents was a deck-building game called Dominion. It came today and I decided my son and I should play it, instead of wrapping it. So we did. And it was really fun. I think it will become a family favorite.

We also watched an episode of Monarch tonight. It’s good, but we’re caught up and have to wait for the next episode. My kids have so rarely watched shows like that. It’s kind of funny to see them deal with the waiting.

I didn’t get any decluttering done today, but I’m okay with that. I did a ton of laundry and the house is in decent shape, despite us having out in it all day. Hopefully I’ll get a little more done tomorrow.

I have had a couple instances where I needed something random and knew it exactly where it was, because of the decluttering. That was pretty awesome and it’s giving me the incentive I need to keep going.

Well I did it. I made it to the winter break. Limping to the finish line. Maybe crawling. But I got there!

Work was brutal. I subbed during my prep all week. I hosted rainy day lunch twice. One day I literally had not one minute of break – I had to ask someone to come watch kids in my classroom while I peed.

Afternoons weren’t as bad though, which is probably why I survived. And in the end I got all the assessments graded. And the projects. Most grades are inputted. I said goodbye to my student teacher and felt a lot of feelings about it.

It struck me today that this week holds the shortest days of the year, and yet they have absolutely felt like the longest days.

And now I have two weeks at home with my kids. I’m being reminded tonight that if I don’t set some boundaries around screen time (mostly the 13yo and her phone), there will be constant conflict. I shall be figuring out what those boundaries look like tonight, so I can communicate them clearly tomorrow.

I am so glad work is over. And I am looking forward to the holidays. But I need a day or two to decompress in between. I hope Friday and Saturday can provide that. Friday I’m with the kids and I have a couple very low key things planned for them (trip to the library, a melty bead project for each of them), plus a run by myself to relieve some of the pent-up stress. Saturday they are going to my parents’ house and I am so looking forward to 24 hours to do with as I please. I don’t even have that much wrapping left! Right now I can’t even fathom how I might use that time, when I consider it my brain goes blank. I hope after tomorrow I can start contemplating a whole day to spend as I see fit.

In the meantime, here are some photos of the sunset yesterday. I pulled over into some key spots on my way home to get these. I absolutely love Crystal Springs Reservoir and the way the fog can sit on top of the mountains. It’s one of my favorite places in the world.

I wanted to write a little update on our decluttering project, partly because I want to remind myself that we have in fact done some good work, and partly because I wanted to assuage fears that we are living among Costco bags of junk.

We have done some good work. My husband made amazing progress in the kitchen last weekend, and four big boxes/bags of stuff were gone the next morning. We also cleaned out one side of the mantel bookshelves, getting rid of a bunch of books there and reorganized them to better use the space. Now many of our board games live on those shelves, along with books and picture albums. I cleaned out four drawers in the living room and have put back three of them: one with the tools/tape/permanent markers we use regularly, one with cat care products (brushes, nail clippers, etc) and one with rechargeable batteries and their accoutrements. I also have two cameras in with the batteries, which doesn’t feel like the right move because we don’t use either camera very often. They will probably get moved again. One of the drawers is still empty, but there is a small-Costco bag worth of junk I still need to go through. I also went through all the pens and pencils and tried each one out and threw away a sizeable bag of writing utensils that no longer write.

Today I went through the “tools.” For me tools are anything that provide a utility, including tapes, glues, zip ties, etc. And of course, all the nails and screws and nuts and bolts. We’ve purchased and put together a LOT of IKEA furniture over the years and we have so many little bags of left over assembly supplies, including all the wall mounting equipment I’ve never used. My actual tool box is also a disaster. (Yes, all the tools stuff is mine, I am the one who assembles furniture, hangs art, fixes broken things and generally uses tools around our house). So I left the car outside after I dropped my daughter off at a holiday party and I sat on a stool in the garage and went at it. I got rid of a large Amazon bag of random junk, and I reorganized everything else in my tool box, a set of four smaller tool boxes I got at Costco, and my kids’ old LEGO sorter (this was so clutch).

There are several more weird drawers to dump out, cull and reorganize in the other half of the mantel. And the two biggest categories have yet to be tackled: “technology” (which for me means anything with a cord or charger, including ALL THE CORDS AND CHARGERS) and self care (which includes vitamins, medicine, beauty products, etc). Tech is going to be tough to tackle, but self-care is just sprawling. We have self-care products in both bathrooms, and the hall closet. Self-care is going to be a PITA. I would be more worried about it, except I reorganize the hall closet pretty regularly (every six months or so) because it becomes totally untenable without attention.

My daughter’s bedroom got a little attention ahead of her friends spending the night. We got rid of a box of LEGOs and threw away several bags worth of junk and old art work. We took a bunch of book series out and rehomed them in her brother’s room (she LOVED the Horrible Histories, Horrible Sciences, and Murderous Maths series from Scholastic UK – each of which has 15-20 books) to make space for her drawing guides and other art suppies. We put all her painting stuff where the LEGOs had been, Her room still needs real work (especially her closet), but for now things are a lot better than they were.

We also donated my son’s BeyBlade collection to his aftercare program and got rid of a bunch of his books.

We’re doing the work, slowly but surely. Obviously being sick and having a packed week didn’t help, but I’m getting back at it. The only reason why any of this is working is because we live in a neighborhood where you can put anything out on the street in the morning and it will be gone by the time it gets dark. Last Sunday we put out five large boxes/bags full of kitchen stuff and book at 8:45 and by 9:18am they were ALL GONE. Someone must have pulled up with their car and taken it all. It’s crazy. My son’s school also has a clothing pantry where I bring their still-wearable, but too small clothing.

Being able to pack things up and then just put them outside to get rid of them is truly the only reason this is happening. If we had to get rid of one pile of stuff before putting more in its place (we have a very small spot to “stage” give-aways so not much fits there), we’d still be one step one.

I recently read How to Keep House While Drowning, and was reminded that things are now as dire as they could be. There was a time when that book would have been way more useful to me, because I needed to know that it was okay for clean laundry to just sit, unfolded, in Costco bags, while we pulled out what we needed. It helps to be reminded that my mess is not a moral failing, but I don’t need tips on how to wash enough dishes to be able to use my sink. Organized Living finally became available at the library and I picked it up last week. It’s a beautiful book. I enjoy reading about all the professional organizers – and seeing their beautiful homes – but I have no desire to curate living spaces like those. I’m not looking for perfection, I just want to think about my shit less, so I can enjoy my life more.

I will say that I have a lot of stuff. I like to have what I need – I loathe running out to grab something in the middle of a project. But, BUT!, it doesn’t help to have what you need if you can’t find it when you need it. I still haven’t found the Ki patches that prompted me to open every junk drawer in my house. Maybe I threw them away by accident? But I won’t know until I’ve tackled every single space. I’ve decided the goal is not to purge as much as it is to organize. I will absolutely get rid of all the stuff that we don’t need – the junk that is making it harder for us to access what we do need – but in the end I don’t want the immaculate, minimalist living spaces presented in Organized Living. I just want to know what we have and where all of it lives. If I can manage that, I will be happy.

This work week is only four days and we don’t have much in the afternoons (the dojo is already closed for their winter break), so I’ll have more time to work on this project. I also have a TON of assessments to score and projects to grade, and if there is one thing I’d rather do LESS than decluttering, it’s scoring assessments. Let my procrastinating in one area push me to do something I want to do only slightly less!

UPDATE: The tech stuff has been tackled! I used the old game box (you’ll remember the games are not in the mantel book shelves) to sort the tech stuff into two different big boxes. I also moved the camera and all its’ accoutrements into a smaller shelf/box. I’m feeling pretty good about things right now. This week I’ll tackle the random junk and after Xmas I’ll start in on the self-care products.

I’m at that place where things feel like they are spilling into, and past, the margins. My margins are always smaller than I’d like, the spaces available to push things when plans change, are never what I need them to be. That is one of the reasons I have such a hard time stopping when I’m sick, because if I do it feels like a conveyor belt of shit will just pile on top of me, and getting out from under the pile of shit later will be way worse than continuing to take things of it while I feel tired and overwhelmed.

Because the conveyor belt never stops. It just pushing things at me and I feel like most of the time I barely have the capacity to take them off and put them where they go. So I just throw shit all over the place and then later look around and realize my whole life is a mess.

This conveyor belt metaphor feels really apt right now. It absolutely captures the way my life feels, and the fact that I just can’t keep up.

This is also the time of year where it feels like I’m doing so much for other people, making sure that their expectations are met. Half the stuff coming at me on the conveyor belt isn’t even destined for me, it’s for others. And some of those people (::cough:: my husband and kids ::cough::) aren’t doing much, if anything for me. It’s not that I want anyone to get my anything, it can just be depleting when it all flows out, and so little is flowing in.

But my family is helping in other ways. And I need to keep sight of that. And remember that some things coming at me on the belt are my choice entirely, things I could opt out of entirely too (::cough:: martial arts ::cough::)

It’s now Sunday morning. I started this post on the bus to the dojo yesterday, and never had time to finish it. But that is because I chose to start wrapping presents early, instead of writing this post, or scoring assessments, or grading projects, or decluttering, or even just watching TV. And now and bulk of my wrapping is done a week early! And I’ll have more time on the 23rd, when my kids are at my parents’ house, to decompress.

Maybe, just maybe, the conveyor belt will slow down a little.

Four more days until the winter break.

It’s been a week! I’m glad it’s almost over.

I had a real post to write. I even put some thoughts down in a Note on my phone. But it’s late and I’m tired so it ain’t happening right now.

But the big news is, my daughter turned in her application to the arts school. She got her third piece done over the weekend, showed all three to her portfolio prep teacher on Tuesday, and we uploaded and submitted them today. I can’t believe that it’s finally done. I’m really proud of her.

In the end if was a google form, which felt a little anticlimactic. And she still has to go to the audition in February, where she’ll do a live drawing. But for now, she is DONE!

I got the teacher gifts and we started putting them together tonight, even though the kids have another week of school. I have all the gifts for the kids. And my parents. And my husband’s parents. My husband and I don’t exchange gifts, which is fine by me for this holiday.

I’m still snotty and my throat is sore after a day of speaking loudly in class, but I’m on the mend. I went for a short, light run yesterday and that was a mistake. I felt pretty bad and walked a lot, but it was beautiful out and I was glad for the break in my day. Tonight I did a strength training video and that felt much more manageable.

My husband is much better. He may never have been sick, but instead was over extended from the Saturday of kitchen clean up. Our son stayed well for his one night class camping trip, but now has a stuff nose and sore throat. I’ve been giving him Umcka and AirBorn, and he seems to be pretty mild. My daughter seems to have escaped this one unscathed.

Which is great news because this weekend my daughter is having three school friends spend the night. This is the first time newer school friends have stayed over and I have to admit, I’m curious to really meet them. She has a lot of friends at her middle school, a fact I’m forever in awe of, and I’m pleased to host them for her. She is super excited.

She also has a lot of work to do on her bedroom, which is a giant mess right now. One more massive, time consuming task on my to-do list. But it’s good for her to have a incentive to get it done. And we’re in a “let’s just get rid of stuff” headspace, so that should help.

And it’s almost 11pm, so I should head to bed. I’ve been trying to get more sleep this week, as I get over this cold. I’m already late getting downstairs.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to be gone so long. Saturday was a marathon day (art store run for my daughter, sons’s belt test, book club, dinner + drinks with my girlfriends) and then Sunday I woke up sick as a dog. My throat was on fire and my nose was a block of snot. My husband, who spent Saturday purging the kitchen (the amount he accomplished is astonishing), also felt like shit on a shoe. So Sunday was a struggle.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to make it at work today, but Mondays are the worst days to be out and I knew we didn’t have enough subs, so I drugged myself up and went to sleep early on Sunday. (I also thought my student teacher could take over my classes but she ended up being out with a sick kid herself). Monday morning I felt decent enough to at least drive to work. The morning was rough but I felt better in the afternoon (kind of shocking really). I tested myself Sunday night and this morning but still wore a mask today. I probably won’t tomorrow if im still negative.

My husband stayed home but was feeling better by the afternoon. He got to stay in bed all Sunday while I made two boxes of pancakes, and helped my daughter find corn-based ingredients in our pantry, and take a picture of the price of broccoli at Grocery Outlet, and helped my son make his ginger bread house and glued the puzzle together). He managed to head out to a work event tonight and is still going to chaperone our son’s class camping trip tomorrow. We’re both pretty surprised that any of this is happening.

But I’m still tired, and when my big fat boy cat climbed on my lap about an hour ago I decided to take it as a reminder that I really could use the rest. So I’m resting, even though there are dishes in the sink and tools all over the floor (I am organizing the tools, which is a massive and disastrous category of “junk” in this house). Eventually this cat will get up and I will get going, but not yet.

Well, this week thoroughly kicked my ass. I am in rough shape. I want to say I’m so happy tomorrow is Friday, but the weekend doesn’t look like it’s going to be a lot better.

‘‘Tis the season, amiright?!

My son has a belt test at the dojo on Saturday. I’ve been helping him practice most days after school. He’s a very high belt and has a lot to review before a test. I’ll be glad when it’s over.

My daughter has to submit her application to the art school next Friday. She just finished one of the three submissions. She’s partly done with the second and has no idea what she’ll do for the third. It’s been a lot of work to help her manage her time and big feelings around doing the work. I cannot wait for her to submit her three pieces so we can move on. I’m tired.

The plumbers finished the second part of the big pipe replacement job today. It’s been really stressful to have them in the house so much. The downstairs is a disaster. And so dirty. But at least we can start putting it back together again.

Which means I really do need to decide on tile. Except it’s SO EXPENSIVE! So I might just put linoleum in there again, even though it makes me sad when I can’t afford to make my house look like I want it to. But if most of it doesn’t look like how I want, maybe it’s not worth spending $700ish dollars more to put tile in my bathroom when linoleum would probably look fine.

But I did get my new glasses today. And I like them! And I’m so excited to have a dedicated pair of reading glasses, that incorporate my prescription for astigmatism with the boost I need to read these days. I used to put a pair of nose-bridge reading glasses into my regular glasses to read, but after several years of doing that I decided it was time to get a separate pair for reading. I’m wearing them now and they are lovely. Hooray!

Being able to see is never overrated. I learned this the hard way when I forgot my glasses one day this week and really, really struggled to see my computer, and anything the kids wrote.

Oh, and this happened today.

I bit the bullet and started dumping stuff into bags today. Because why not?! But honestly I feel like it needs to happen. Im acutely aware of how much shit is hiding all over my house; and I don’t think I can keep the clutter at bay if it’s also lurking behind every piece of furniture. Hopefully I won’t just leave all this stuff in bags until the summer. I’ve definitely done that before, with stuff I’d cleared off of surfaces when people were coming over (exactly what you described Jenny!) I think this will be different because it’s the stuff in the drawers I am sorting through, but maybe I’m just deluding myself. We shall see. The winter break is in two weeks and most of it falls after Xmas so I have a fighting chance.

The weekend is almost over. Yesterday was spent almost entirely at the dojo, helping them set up their holiday party (and fundraiser kickoff) and then helping during the kid section. At 5:30pm my son and I headed home, just as all the adults arrived for the adult-centric continuation of the party. I was sad to miss the part with my peers, but I was also beat, so I headed home. My husband, son and I ate pizza and watched Blue Beetle, which was surprisingly good.

Today I had nothing planned and I was glad for it. I puttered around doing laundry and picking up around the house. Then my husband asked if we could go over some areas of the house that are causing me stress and I said sure and we did and then afterward I felt even more stress. My house, it turns out, is really just a series of junk drawers full of random shit, which I was reminded of when I tried to find the patches with our last name for my son’s new martial arts Ki. I never did find the patches, but I did find out how many drawers and boxes and baskets full of crap are hiding all over my house.

And I really do need to get the house in order, because in February my husband and I will be spending six nights in Mexico City to celebrate our 15th/10th anniversary. It would be like a second honeymoon if we’d ever had a first, which we haven’t, even though we had two opportunities to do so.

This is our 15th/10th anniversary because 15 years ago (in early January 2024), my husband and I became domestic partners in the city of San Francisco. This process can afford people some protections and insurance coverage, if one of the people involved is a city employee, but for us, at the time, my husband was not. We became domestic partners instead of just getting married, because Californians had just passed Prop 8, which made gay marriage illegal in our state. We also learned that becoming domestic partners in our state was only open to gay couples. This seemed incredibly fucked up to us, so we decided to have nothing to do with any of it, and just became domestic partners in the eyes of our city instead.

We went on to have our daughter, and buy a home together, and then have our son. And in early January of 2014, after Prop 8 was overturned in court, we got married in my parents’ living room with our 3.5 year old daughter and three year old son, and our mutual friend (who introduced us) officiating. (We got married on almost exactly the same date as our domestic partnership ceremony so we’d only have one anniversary moving forward).

Neither of those times, did we go on a trip of any kind. In fact, we have never gone on a trip together without our kids, ever. We’ve spent a night or two at home alone, while they stayed with my parents, and we’ve been on trips alone or with friends, but we’ve never gone anywhere as a couple without them. So this is kind of a big deal. And we’re both really excited to do it. Except for one thing. My in-laws will be staying at our house with the kids for the second half of the trip, which means our house has to be clean. And right now it is not clean.

Right now our house is kind of a disaster area. There is shit everywhere you look, and I just found out, everywhere you don’t readily look. The whole house is just full of shit.

And I have 2.5 months to fix that.

Originally I thought my daughter would stay with a school friend and my son would stay at my in-laws house, and my house could remain as it has been, a gigantic mess. But then my husband said his parents thought staying here was a better idea, and after a muli-day tantrum, I had to relent. It would be better for them to spend the school days of our trip at home, sleeping in their own beds. I just need to get over myself and clean up my house.

My husband offered to help, but in the past he has been categorically unable to participate in any organizing, let alone cleaning, of the house. How was he going to participate while battling depression?! But today he stepped up. WAY UP! And two giant book shelves (built into our mantel) are organized, along with his work-from-home desktop downstairs.

If we keep this up, maybe we could have the house ready for a cleaner to come and finish the job.

The good news is, the second week of the break I have nothing going on except taking down the Christmas decorations and checking to see if I have jury duty (rescheduling my jury duty for that week was a massive mistake – I’m so annoyed at myself for doing that). And hopefully I can find the time to work on small areas every day or every couple of days.

One thing I’m considering doing is taking a Costco bag and going around and just dumping every random junk drawer into it, and then reorganizing it all. I know this goes against many professional organizers advice, but I think it might be the right move because it could all fit in a Costco or IKEA bag while I’m working through it, which means it wouldn’t be making me more miserable before it felt productrive. And there really is a lot of stuff that probably should be put together before it’s culled and reorganized. There are three or four areas with random tech stuff around the house; two or three with important paper work and memorabilia; a bunch with workout/PT materials; even more with tools and office supplies, personal care products, cat stuff, etc. And I have enough bags that I could sort them as I dump it all out, so that I can tackle each area as I purge and sort and put it all back.

It’s a thought. And I even have space under my bed to keep the bags while I’m working on them, because anyone who has ever dealt with bed bugs (even tangentially) never keeps storage stuff under their bed.

So yeah, it’s a lot and I’m struggling to be excited for the trip because all I can think about is how much work I have to do before we go. And yes, we could just leave the house as is, and let my in-laws deal with it, but that doesn’t feel like the right move. They are doing us a favor staying here with the kids, and my house stresses me out, so it would make them miserable (there house – like my parents’ – is always pristine). I know I should reframe this as an opportunity to get my shit in order, just like I did in 2018 when we deep cleaned the house to AirBnB it so we could pay for our first family trip.

And please know, that I recognize how lucky we are to get to take this trip, and without AirBnBing our house to pay for it! It will push back some much needed house renovations, but our massive plumbing project is what really did that, so we might as well enjoy ourselves while try to fill the $8K hole in our “fix the back room” savings. We’ve lived without the back room for a lot of years now. We can keep making do. This is a very big deal for us and I’m really grateful that we get to go.

So yeah, I’m processing some big feelings about my inability to manage my own shit, but I’m also resolved (after much pouting) to do something about it. I checked out How to Keep House While Drowning (thanks Jenny for the reminder that I hadn’t read that yet – I love her podcast but never read her book) and maybe Organized Living will become available at my library to provide some inspiration before I’m done (I was the 11th person to put a hold on the 10 copies they got when it came out).

Who knows, maybe I’ll even find those patches that have disappeared. They have to be around here somewhere…

If someone came to stay in your house would you feel the need to do a big clean? Or your living space ready for guests without much fuss?

Thank you to everyone who commented on my post. I really appreciated your stories and perspectives. I was realizing as I read them that my kids have never asked me, directly or even indirectly, if Heart or Santa or the Tooth Fairy are real. If they had, I wouldn’t have lied, though I probably would have said something along the lines of, everyone has to decide for themselves but I like to believe.

Because it’s true.

And if they do ask in the future, that is how I’ll respond.

We first started our traditions with Heart because I wanted to get advent calendars for the kids but didn’t think they could handle only opening one box a day. So I got the advent calendars, but left it to Heart to portion out the surprises. It was much easier for them when they had no choice but to wait.

I still do that. Every year they get an advent calendar (they either ask for one specifically or I find one I think they will like) and each day Heart leaves the treat from the calendar in a little stocking near her spot. On the weekends they usually get something else, like candy or a pack of gum (I NEVER buy them gum unless it’s for something special like this. I HATE gum.) And that is why I first embraced Elf on a Shelf.

It’s definitely a lot of work. And by the end of the month I’m super over it. But I know it means a lot to my kids, and talking to my daughter about it last night made me feel good about my efforts, both past a present.

I haven’t really changed the way I talk about Heart with my daughter, but instead of asking her what Heart have her this morning, I asked her if she liked what Heart gave her. A small change, but a significant one. I think she noticed it.

My little girl is growing up. My son isn’t far behind her.

I’ve done a lot of NaBloPoMo’s before, but I haven’t done one like 2023’s in a long while. And I don’t know if I’ve ever participated in one that was so well curated and organized. Hats off to San for showing us all how it’s done.

December starts tomorrow. I’ve already kind of been operating in December mode – I erased November’s calendar on the white board last week, since I could fit the final five days at the top of December’s calendar. I’ve even been using the December’s calendar for this week in my paper planner. And my school planner! So it kind of feels like, about time!

Having said that, tomorrow is very different from today in that Heart, our Elf on a Shelf comes tomorrow. My kids are 10 and 13 and they both might still believe in Heart. I say that not jokingly. My 13yo has given no indication that she understands someone else moves Heart around, or is getting her the little gifts Hearts has for them every day. Last year she marveled at how well Heart knew what she wanted! Where does she get her intel?! It didn’t sound like she was joking.

While we were at Great America, my son asked his friend if an Elf on the Shelf came to his house and his friend said, oh you mean one of those parent tricky things, and my son’s face suggested that he had never considered Heart might have anything to do with his parents. After a few awkward beats he responded with a fierce, “It’s not a parent tricky thing!” I quickly stepped in to say our family chooses to believe in Christmas things like our Elf on a Shelf and left it at that. But later talking to my husband, he admitted that he didn’t know what the end game was on Heart and Santa and all that stuff. When do we tell our kids that we have been deceiving them?

This really hurt me. I never considered that I’ve been deceiving my kids when I move Heart around the house and put little treasures in the mini stockings she brings for them. But I suppose I am. And I guess I just assumed that one day they would figure it out for themselves. I never considered that they might be mad at me for deceiving them all this time. And I never considered that they might end up believing for a lot longer than their friends do.

My daughter used to believe in dragons. Like really, truly believe in them. She had an imaginary friend/pet dragon named Aqua that she talked about all the time. Lately I’ve been learning that her friends gave her a ton of grief about Aqua at sailing camp when she was 11 until she finally stopped talking about her. She told me, around that same time, that Aqua had her own baby dragons and had moved on to live with them somewhere else. I didn’t realize that happened because her friends made her feel silly for believing so fiercely in something that wasn’t, to them, true. I talked to her about it recently, just like I talked to my son after the incident at Great America, reminding her that we all choose what we want to believe, especially about things like dragons and Christmas, and it’s fine as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, and I think she understood.

But I remember last year I said something about forgetting to put the money under her brother’s pillow when he lost a tooth and she seemed shocked. She was probably 12 at the time? She is a smart kid who reads a ton and listens to hours and hours of podcasts. Can she really believe in things like Santa and the Tooth Fairy? Is it bad if she does?

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get into this on the last day of NaBloPoMo. I’ve just been thinking about it a lot since last weekend, and it’s weighing on my mind a lot tonight, as I prep the elf and her reindeer and the stockings with the little treasures for their debut tomorrow morning.

Am I deceiving my kids when I do these things? Should I be saying something to them, and if so when? I love how much fun they have with Heart and her little surprises; it absolutely takes the edge off waiting for Christmas, and makes the whole month special, not just the one day. But maybe, in the long run, I’m doing more harm than good. I really don’t know.

UPDATE: I just talked with her and she does know Heart isn’t real. But she still likes to pretend that she is. She likes to believe. She’s a good kid. Growing up can be tough stuff. I’m glad we talked. We should do more talking.