Not a Wasted Word

I couldn’t sleep last night. I went to bed at 10:30 and read until 11pm, but at 1am I was still up.

I feel sleep at some point in the next hour I think, but refused to look at he time after 1am.

And now it’s 6am and I have to start my day.

It really throws me when I can’t sleep like that for a night. The nights when my son wakes me up and interrupts my sleep for a good thirty minutes are hard (and still happen way too frequently to be honest), but the nights when I just can’t fall asleep myself wreck me. I’ll be trying to recuperate from last night all week. 

I guess I should just be thankful that it doesn’t happen to me too frequently. Some people deal with insomnia on the regular. Or they wake up every day at 3am and can’t fall back asleep. I know elusive sleep is a big issue for a lot of people.

But it does feel like, what’s the point of any of it if sleep is always so hard to get. Between my son and my own sleep issues, it feels like I’m rolling be dice every night.

God I’m so tired. I want nothing more than to sleepy for another three hours at least. But instead I have to get up; teach, administer retests, go to several hours of conferences, come home and manage my kids, including helping my daughter catch up after missing a day yesterday (she came down with a bad cold suddenly on Sunday night, while I was combing out her hair).

And if I don’t start now I’ll be late to work.

This post barely makes any sense, but there are some photos if you keep reading. You’ve been warned.

It’s officially October. I like October. I like Halloween, I love Day of the Dead (which is actually November 2nd, but which we study for much of this month). I like celebrating my son (his birthday is the 22nd). I like when the weather gets cool, and the heat waves finally stop making surprise appearances. I like fall, and I like knowing the holiday season is fast approaching.

I have already pulled out my Halloween leggings and we put up our Halloween gel clings. I’ll be getting the other decorations out this week.

So I’m trying to be excited for October, but right now I feel really beaten down.

I did laundry all weekend. At least it felt like I did. I combed my daughter’s hair out again today. I honestly don’t know how to look for lice or nits – I’m the worst when it comes to identifying what is a bug and what is dandruff or something else. So I have no idea how my daughter’s head looks. But I’ve used the Kapow! treatment twice and combed it out twice and put coconut oil on it in between, so I’m feeling pretty confident that it’s a lot better than it was on Thursday. I think I’ll take her to one of those combing places next weekend, or later this week, to see what they say. Or ask my friend’s mother-in-law to comb her out. She is really good at it, and doesn’t mind doing it for others.

I think I managed to avoid getting them myself. I’ve had a few people check for me, but I haven’t combed my hair out, or asked anyone else to do it for me. Maybe I’ll do that this week as well. Except this week is going to be really busy,

This week is Conferences at my school. I HATE conferences. There is never enough time and the students’ you need to meet with the most never show and it’s an exhausting week all around. We see all our classes for just 35 minutes every day, then we have a short 30 minute lunch before we start conferencing for two or more hours. By the end of the day I’m just wrecked.

Our admin really dropped the ball this year too, and we didn’t start planning for conferences until basically last week, which means we aren’t at all prepared. We started a week later this year and I swear NO ONE is taking that into account with planning. It’s driving me nuts. This year has felt so rushed and chaotic. I’m over it and we’re only six weeks into the school year.

But at least this week zero period starts at 8am instead of 7:45am. I will ABSOLUTELY take those extra 15 minutes and put them to good use.

Saturday we stayed home and got shit done, but Sunday we went to the Presidio for the first Sunday of the month event at the new Tunnels Top park. It was a beautiful day and the views were stunning. The kids had a great time, and I was grateful to get out of the house, because if I’d stayed there all day I would have just kept doing laundry. Last Sunday I did chores all day and was in a foul mood by the end of it. I’m glad we made it out of the house this Sunday.

My daughter and I were actually in this same area last weekend, but the bridge was totally covered in fog. You couldn’t see it at all. So it was nice to have such a beautiful view this weekend.

On the way home last weekend I got this shot of the city, which is my new favorite. San Francisco can drive me crazy, but she really is a pretty city.

It’s almost 11pm and I’m still finishing up a presentation for tomorrow. If I have what I need ready from last year, I can keep my head above water, but when I need to create new materials and resources, everything goes off the rails. My Spanish 1A class is pretty much set for the year, but there is a lot I have to make for my Spanish 1B class, and it hasn’t been easy to find the time to do it.

Next weekend is a three day weekend. I’m just counting the days until that Monday off. Maybe then I can catch up a little. Maybe.

And… my daughter has lice.

Talk about a pre-pandemic throw back! I almost forgot about lice!

But lice did not forget about us.

We realized around 7:30pm. She wasn’t in bed until after 11:30pm. I combed out her hair with a nit comb, washed all her bedding on hot, braided her hair, made her bed, and threw a bunch of other towels, clothes and blankets into bags for washing tomorrow.

I guess it’s good that changing my daughter’s sheets was a task that I let fall by the wayside for so long. I would have been pissed if I’d finally changed her sheets last weekend, only to have to wash it all on hot tonight.

Today was actually a pretty good day. I was starting to feel like maybe I could get out from under the to-do list. Now of course it’s grown exponentially.

I really hope I don’t have lice too. For the past two days my daughter has been doing my hair while we listen to Ender’s Game. She swears she didn’t use any of her own brushes or combs on my hair, but it seems unlikely that I won’t get them. We shall see.

Blerg. I’m bummed out, but I know we’ll get through this. We have many times before, and even though I’m a little rusty, it’s coming back to me.

I’m sorry I’ve been AWOL. Things have been busy, both at work and at home, and I’ve been struggling to show up here. I feel, simultaneously, that I have too much to say, and nothing really at all to relay.

I’m definitely in one of those weeks, that if I write about it I’ll come off as kind of neurotic. This is a busy season, with the start of the school year for myself as a teacher and for both my kids. My husband is back at the office three days a week. My son and I are at martial arts. We’re all getting little viruses that are making the rounds. It’s that time of year.

My to-do list is too long and I keep pushing stuff that doesn’t get done to the next day. Sometimes things get pushed back a whole week. I start to feel stressed out and overwhelmed. The weekends aren’t long enough to dig myself out of the hole. Things fall by the way side. Some of them can stay there, but others I’ll have to go back for, and dust off.

And that’s all I have in me tonight. Again, too much and nothing at all. Story of my life right now.

How are you doing these days?

*I put OK Computer on the other day and my kids said it sounded like elevator music. I wish they played Radiohead in elevators! And I wish my kids were willing to try a song longer than a minute before they reached for my phone to change it.

I feel like I’m getting into the rhythm of the school year, but one of the only reasons I’ve been able to get into that rhythm is because I have a million alarms and reminders set on my phone. Every day I have alarms and reminders that make sure I get out of bed, start my zero period class on time, stop teaching so certain classes have time to clean up, make it to my break duty, plug in the computers before I leave, pick up something on the way home, take my vitamins, plug in the car, start reading, and so on.

My phone is the only thing keeping me on track.

Of course I don’t have alarms set for my son’s random wake ups in the night. He’s always needed someone to come to him at least once a week. But lately it’s been every night again and it’s starting.to wear on me. No one talks about night parenting an almost night year old but I’m definitely still doing that. It’s really rough.

It’s because he called for someone at 5am that I’m up writing this. But my second alarm is about to go off, so I better just hit publish on this.

I don’t think I’ll be able to get by with no alarms and no reminders any time soon. And I suppose it’s okay that I depend so much on my phone to get through my days. I just hope my son can start getting through his nights without me.

I swear I was going to write this post before SHU put hers up. It does help to know I’m not the only one! I also have a couple other complications that are arising, because unlike SHU, I do plan a fair amount of hang outs for my kids with their friends (I refuse to write out “play dates,” I just can’t).

So one issue we’ve come across, especially since the school year started up again, is our kids’ insistence that they just want to stay home all day and chill. I would love to have a day or two, here or there, where this were possible, but so far it most definitely is NOT. Sure it’s lovely while the kids are playing their two hours of video game time in the morning – this is when my husband and I sleep in (we try to take turns) or get chores done – but as soon as that time is over it all goes to shit.

Like SHU’s oldest (also a girl), my daughter (12yo now) can hang out and not do much relatively well. She does want to spend the entire time listening to podcast episodes she’s already heard, and drawing on my iPad, but if pestered long enough, she can at least move her art endeavors to actual paper. Still, she requires constant vigilance to make sure she’s not back on a pad again soon.

Also like SHU, my son (9yo in a month) cannot really manage much “hanging out” time. He can read for a bit, and he too can hole up in his room listening to podcasts he’s already heard for a fair amount of time, but eventually he comes out and makes sure everyone who can hear him knows that HE’S SO BORED. Or he spends the hours asking when we can watch some TV (they also get 45 mins of TV in the afternoons on weekends – yes I know it’s WAY too much screen time). He also will read longer if he’s allowed to read on his pad, even if I have the exact same book available in print (right now, for him, it’s the Big Nate graphic novels).

They both say, why does it matter if we’re on our pads, if we’re reading or doing art? To which I reply, why do you NEED to be on your pads if we have books and art supplies EVERYWHERE? It’s clear the pad offers a kind of comfort they crave, even if they aren’t playing a game or watching something on them.

So we make them go do something most days, and even though my husband finds really cool and interesting things to do, they generally make our lives hell for the hour before we leave, and for the first half an hour of the outing.

It. Drives. Me. Crazy.

I asked my mom friends about this, and they were all like, DOING NOTHING IS LOVELY! And when I asked how their girls killed the time, it was clear pretty quickly that they spend a lot of it on screens. We already feel like we’re giving them way too much screen time on weekends, so that is not a possibility for me.

I find that usually just one short outing can be enough to break up the day, even if it’s just an hour long (or less!) trip to the library (and when I say “hour long” I am including the 10 minutes walk on either side). It’s even better if we do something longer. Both kids usually give us a ton of grief when they get ready (though our son gives us less) and have a fine time once they are out (though our daughter can usually hang longer, and in more varied circumstances).

We’re also having them do more chores, which definitely helps to keep them occupied, but it requires a fair amount of my attention and is again more effective with our daughter than with our son. (She’s even getting so good at some chores that it saves me time! Our son is definitely not saving me any time yet.)

When I have a very specific task I’m getting done, I will say that they are welcome to join me in it, or to find their own activity, and that will keep them away for a while, but my son especially always comes back, even more agitated than he was before.

One great way to break up the day is to plan a hang out with friends. My three best friends are my daughter’s friends’ moms, so that used to be really easy (though it’s gotten harder now that they are at different middle schools). My son has a few friends we can reach out too, but a lot of times they are busy doing family stuff. His best friend, who lives really close and was in our pandemic bubble, is available so infrequently that we almost never reach out to him.

{Most of his friends are the older child, so they are still doing a lot as a family with the younger sibling. They also weren’t as used to setting up hang outs with friends. When I first asked one set of parents if I could take their son to the zoo, they were very concerned about when they’d be able to reciprocate. It was hard for me to make them understand that letting me take their kid was actually doing me a huge favor!}

One issues we’ve been having, is making the friend hang out stuff “fair.” And I put “fair” in quotes because my son’s understanding of fair skews HEAVILY to his preferences. There have been times I have not set up an easy friend get together for my daughter because I couldn’t plan something comparable for my son. Or times I’ve done something extravagant with my son, to assuage him when I couldn’t put something together with his friends after his sister got to see hers.

My son has also been having some big feelings about his sister growing up and away from him, which is making this whole situation WAY more volatile than it used to be.

This has become a pretty consistent weekend wrinkle, one I’m not sure how to iron out. My in-laws sometimes take one kid at a time, and that helps, but it’s not a consistent possibility. I find that I’m less interested in having my daughter’s friends over, because they just want to sit on their phones the whole time and as a middle school teacher I just cannot abide that shit. I will be the mean mom who makes them put their phones away, but then they sit around not knowing what to do because they literally don’t remember how to hang out in person anymore. If I’m not trying to “make it fair” for my son, I’m less likely to reach out to his friends, even though doing so would probably make my life easier.

The best case scenario is meeting a friend at a play ground for a couple hours. Why is that so hard to manage most days!? Obviously the 12yos aren’t really interested, but my son and his friends would be. I’m always shocked how hard it is to find a friend who is available.

I did just send out invitations for my son’s birthday, and in the process got the contact info for some new families. Maybe some of them will available more often…

I haven’t read much about this on other blogs. The few parenting blogs I still read have younger kids, or older kids, or more kids, and I never read anything about coordinating “play dates” and managing sibling expectations around them. My friends have one child, or their kids are spaced farther apart (7-9 years) so they aren’t dealing with this as much either. I”m curious how other people manage this stuff. Do all kids balk at idea of leaving the house, even to do something fun? Do all siblings melt down if they perceive inequality in time spent with friends?

Maybe I just need to tell my son to suck it up, that life isn’t fair, and weather the melt downs as they come. That is probably the right answer, but it’s not a pleasant or easy answer.

I wanted to wrap this up more but it’s late and I need to head to bed so I’m going to set it to post. Please let me know if you have any insights or suggestions!

I didn’t mean to be gone for a week! Shit got busy!

Remember how I was so happy to have nothing to do last weekend? Well, I invited my friends and their daughters over for a barbecue on Saturday afternoon. Two moms and two girls came (and a five year old!) It was fun. I spent longer at the dojo than anticipated in the morning, and had to take an unexpected phone call in the afternoon (more on that later), so I felt a little rushed to be ready, but it all went off without a hitch. We (and by we I mean my husband) grilled hamburgers and we had a couple sides. It was very simple. I set up the old pandemic play date stuff on the patio for the five year old and we all had a great time. Everyone was gone by 9:30pm, which is about what I can handle these days.

Sunday I went for a run. The air felt cool and I was so thankful for that. I really enjoyed that time outside, after the scorching temperatures the week before. We all watched Thor Love and Thunder in the afternoon, since my husband hadn’t seen it yet.

Monday night my husband and I went to a comedy show. We never go out on weekday nights, and we almost cancelled, but we decided last minute to make it happen. My parents came up to watch the kids, which they haven’t done at our house in a loooong time. The show was fun and we ate a tasty meal before hand, but I definitely can’t handle week nights out like that on the regular.

Tuesday was kind of a shit show work wise. I realized I had skipped an activity at the beginning of the year, and then realized I did that because we started a week later than last year. Day of the Dead always happens on November 2, no matter when we start, which means I need to get two units done before then which means something had to give. So I spent two hours pouring over my long term planning basically until January, trying to figure out where to fit this activity (which I love), and realized our first trimester was only 11.5 weeks long. Not a fan! Who decides this stuff?! So I sent a distressed email to the admins, who never responded back. It wasn’t until I finally worked out at 7:30pm that I could get myself out of the stress spiral I had fallen into. I’m so glad that this year I invested in a simple, $20 planning book so that next year I’ll have a detailed record of how I paced things this year. All I have from last year are some binder pages I folded into squares and wrote vague notes on. It’s a mess. The year of distance learning really messed me up planning wise.

Wednesday I had a work meeting at the other middle school. I also passed along some resources to a mom who wants to her daughter to keep learning Spanish even though the other middle school had to shut their program down when they couldn’t find anyone to hire to teach Spanish. As we walked out of the meeting the staff from my school all saw an email in our work inboxes about how we have to wear masks at work again for two weeks because three of us got Covid at the same time, and that counts as an outbreak. Again, they sent this email right AFTER a two hour meeting we had with all the staff from the other site. AGAIN WHO DOES THIS SHIT!? I don’t really understand the mask mandate – why is it only staff and not students (who have been out with Covid in DROVES this year)? I think it’s an OSHA requirement that just doesn’t translate well to a schools setting where teachers are around students more than other staff.

Wednesday evening I went to my daughter’s school’s Back to School Night. It was the first time I’ve been inside on her campus and it was AMAZING. She has so many incredible teachers – the staff is so diverse and experienced – and so many interesting classes. I left feeling really good about her school, which I really appreciate because navigating the public school system in San Francisco has NOT been easy.

Thursday I had my allergy shot and then hit up Costco, since the allergy department is right by the one that sells the coffee we like. I thought I’d be in and out but they had the toys out (for Christmas!) and I saw a couple things that I could get my son for his birthday and get his friends for goodie bags at his party. Due of the longer Costco trip, I got my son on the later side from after care and the evening felt rushed because of it. I didn’t start working out until 7:45pm, but like on Tuesday, I was so glad that I finally did.

Today was fine. I ran an errand on the way home, then took my son to the dojo. I dropped the car off for my husband to pick up my son, and then ran some more errands on my bus ride home. And now I’m writing this post.

Tomorrow we may see a concert at the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater at the park near our house. Sunday we have no plans and I will NOT be inviting anyone over for an impromptu barbecue.

What have you been up to?

I’m thankful that today is supposed to be “much cooler” than yesterday, when it again hit 101* at work and 92* in my classroom. They keep saying that the temperatures will drop, and they haven’t yet, but the air last night and this morning was/is significantly cooler than it has been. I have hope!

I’m thankful that my kids are really enjoying school again this year. My son’s Back to School Nigh zoom was last night and all the third grade teachers seem really nice and on top of it. It’s nice to be at a school with so much parent participation and support.

My daughter’s school’s Back to School Night is in person next week and I’m really looking forward to actually spending some time on the campus, getting a feel for what her school days are like. It’s been weird to be so removed from everything for so long, especially since she goes to and from school by herself (well with a friend).

I’m thankful that I don’t have to wear a mask at work anymore. I know many people still do, and I’m not 100% sure that not wearing a mask is really the best decision, but honestly I just can’t bring myself to teach in a mask again. I know I’m incredibly lucky to have had a mild case of covid and to have no one at home who is at high risk of complications, which allows me to make the choices I’m making now. There are still some kids in masks at school, but the percentage of those wearing them to those not flipped over the summer from mostly wearing to mostly not. It’s so nice to be able to hear most of my students now. Before I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying. Now it’s a lot easier.

{And, I of course support students who want to continue wearing masks for whatever reasons. It really is a non-issue at my school. No one really mentions it either way. It just is what it is, and I appreciate that very much.}

I’m excited to get my omicron booster. My husband is looking into it for us.

I’m glad that I was able to find all the parts to an old pair of bluetooth earbuds so my daughter can practice using them (and not losing them) before she gets a pair of AirPods. Having bluetooth earbuds is making not having a phone a lot easier for her to stomach.

I’m relieved that both my kids still like to play Prodigy. It helps them challenge themselves in Math, since they are both accelerated math students with no accelerated math options at school. I paid more for the better subscription, where they get more stuff for playing, and they are both still pretty motivated by that.

I’m thankful that the library by us is open seven days a week now. We go to the library a lot. We read a lot. It makes me happy that we’re a reading family.

I’m happy that we don’t have anything planned this weekend. After last weekend, and this week, I need some time to chill out.

I’m thankful that Costco had a bunch of our staples on sale this past week. I feel like inflation finally hit Costco and I’m really noticing it now. It was nice to have so many things I needed be marked down.

Speaking of money, I’m so thankful for our tax return because my summer credit card bill just got autopaid and oh boy! Was it a doozy. We don’t usually travel as much as we did this summer because we don’t carry debt on our credit cards, which means we need to have the money that trips cost us in the bank before we go. We never would have said yes to that Maui trip without the tax refund (even though it was comparatively an incredible deal for a trip to Maui – $2.5K that should be $5K+ is still $2.5K). I’m so thankful that we could pay for all the traveling we did this summer.

I’m thankful that both of us got COLA increases last spring, which showed up in our August checks.

I’m so thankful, as I start commuting to work again, that I don’t have to worry about soaring gas prices. They are much lower than they were in the spring, but still so much more expensive than anywhere else in the country. I was really surprised to see that even the gas in Hawaii was a full $1/gallon cheaper than around here.

I’m thankful that I have nice classes this year. I was worried about them, because the current 7th graders have a history of behavior issues, but I seemed to have gotten a really nice group of them. I’m very glad for that.

I’m happy that we have an elliptical machine, so I’ve still be able to do my cardio without running this week. I haven’t been on the machine much in the past couple of years, but it’s a really nice machine.

I’m also really thankful that my husband uses the elliptical now – both because it means it’s still worth having in the house, and because he’s so much happier now that he does some regular exercise (I fact that he begrudgingly admits).

But most of all, I’m thankful it’s Friday! TGIF!

It wasn’t so hot yesterday. And it was a minimum day so I didn’t have students during the hottest hours. It all offered a little relief, which I welcomed.

I’m kind of struggling this week. I feel like I’m all over the place. I can’t seem to get on top of things. Or to feel like I am on top of them. It feels like I’m constantly trying to round up a bunch of papers that are scattering in the wind.

I keep reminding myself that it’s only the third week of school. My kids started just a week before me. We’re all still getting used to our routines. We had no down time between our crazy summer and the school year. It’s normal that I feel kind of unmoored. I just need to keep at it and things will settle.

My son has another cold. His second in three weeks. My daughter is begging us for a phone. We don’t plan to get her one until she turns 13. It’s going to be a looooong year.

I’m already thinking about October. My son’s birthday and my kids’ Halloween costumes.

I’m so glad it’s already Thursday. I was wondering if the thing I like better about a day off is the longer weekend or the shorter work week. If I had to pick between working for four days and having a two day weekend (a six day week, basically) or working for five days and getting a three day weekend (an eight day week), which would I pick? I think the six day week. I like to cycle through things faster. And I think two days off would feel more restful every four days.

{I wonder where our seven day week came from. I feel like I read about it once, but I can’t remember. Definitely seems like a topic The Atlantic would tackle in way too many words.}

We don’t get another day off for a month or so. I think it’s October 10th we get off for “Local Holiday” (Indigenous Peoples Day in the city, and Columbus Day most everywhere else).

I’m a little frustrated by how hard this week as been. I had such a good weekend. I wish it were lasting longer, the high of it. I’m sure the heat wave is not helping. Tuesday was really and truly awful. Yesterday was better, but still not great. It’s supposed to keep getting incrementally better, until things are almost back to normal this weekend. I’m not used to that. Usually our heat waves end quickly, with the rushing in of the fog one night. Waiting for incrementally lower temperatures over a week is very weird.

Actually, maybe I’m having a hard week BECAUSE the weekend was so fun. Maybe this is just the hand over.

We don’t have anything planned for this weekend, and I’m glad for that.

I”m doing a good job of heading to bed around 10pm, and reading until 11pm when, I’m usually tired enough to fall asleep without taking anything. I hope I can keep doing that. I miss watching TV, but I enjoy the reading time and being able to fall asleep relatively easily.

It was 106* when I left work yesterday. 96* in my classroom. The two classes after lunch were rough. I have 33 kids in my 6th period. We were packed in like sardines in the sweltering heat.

It was much cooler in the city. A balmy 95*. And by the time I got the kids home it had fallen into the high 80s.

Today it’s supposed to be cooler, but they said that about yesterday too. I’ll believe it when it doesn’t hit 100*.

I know a lot of places get heat like this all the time, but we don’t and we’re not equipped for it. Many of my students were trying to sleep in houses where the temps never dropped below 95* on Monday night. Most of them don’t even have fans for everyone’s bedrooms.

I brought my box fan to school and then brought it back home again. It didn’t really help. Standing in front of it was like standing in front of a furnace.

I really hope it cools down soon. I can’t do too many more days of teaching in mid-90s heat.