Not a Wasted Word

It’s day four of operation clean up this piece of shit house. I wouldn’t say it’s going great. Even “going well” feels like a strong way to say it. But, it’s going? Kinda? Sorta?

The reality is, suck at this. I am just so, so bad at… well stuff. I want to say it’s just a faulty “cleaning stuff up” mechanism, but it’s more than that. My whole relationship with stuff is dysfunctional.

I’m not ashamed about it anymore. Or even angry. I’m just disappointed. I wish this cycle of accumulating unnecessary stuff, becoming overwhelmed by unnecessary stuff, and then battling against unnecessary stuff did not consume so much of my life. I’ve tried so many strategies to change my relationship with stuff, but none of them seem to work.

I was struck by it while I packed my classroom. All around me, everywhere I looked, were the consequences of my relationship with stuff. Anytime a thing might have made my teaching life easier, I purchased it. Every. Time. There was maybe never a time when I found something that I thought might help me and instead of buying it I thought, but what if I didn’t?

I’ve been trying to ask myself that. When I have somethings sitting in my cart. I ask myself… but what if I didn’t? I swear a lot of the time it’s like tumbleweeds. I can image all kinds of positive (always positive!) future probabilities when I get the thing (it will do this for me! I will feel this!) I even think about how I could eventually just pass it along if it no longer served me. But when I think, but what if I didn’t there just isn’t anything there. Maybe I need to embrace the nothingness, because nothingness doesn’t require anything! It doesn’t require paying, or waiting, or picking up, or eventually giving away. It requires absolutely nothing from me. I need more that requires absolutely nothing from me.

I want to make, But what if I didn’t? My new mantra. I want to ask that every time I’m making a commitment – to a thing, to a person, to a feeling. But what if I didn’t buy that thing? But what if I didn’t go to that event? But what if I didn’t make that commitment?

When I came home from the KOA I told myself I’d take a week off of getting stuff. But then Old Navy was having a sale so I went on for grey tshirts (my son’s new uniform requires a grey top), and then I threw a couple bras in my cart EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NOTHING I NEED LESS THAN BRAS RIGHT NOW. And I’m suddenly obsessed with the idea that I need a new throw for the cat’s chair because I hate the orange one I use when the regular one is in the wash (I’m trying to wash it weekly because she has allergies and sheds like crazy). I absolutely do not need a new throw for the cat’s fucking chair. I DO NOT. But I know I’m going to google it. I just know it.

I’m telling myself I’m going to return the bras. They aren’t even the right size (they would fit but not be all that comfortable). I’m telling myself not to google throws for the chair. But then I think, maybe if I google it I will realize there aren’t any cute ones and the idea will disappear. Of course there will be a cute one. There is always a cute one.

But what if I didn’t? What if I didn’t get a new throw? I know exactly what because we’ve lived that way for ALWAYS and it was FINE.

Right now all my surfaces are clear and there is a giant Costco bag full of the shit that was on all my surfaces. Today I sit down and try to figure out what to do with all that shit. I hope I can remember, as I am forced to manage each one of the annoying ass things in that bag that I think to myself, but what if I hadn’t? What would I be doing with this day if I hadn’t brought this particular thing into my house?

Maybe that will help me as I continue to ask, but what if I didn’t?

Because the answer is always, it would be fine. It would be better, even. Why is that so hard for me to remember?

How do you feel about your relationship with stuff?

My friends and I left the KOA yesterday afternoon. We got one of the girl’s bikes fixed, grabbed some supplies, dipped in the pool, and then hit the road. My daughter was sad to see me go, but she’s doing fine. I send her a picture of her cat and her dragon every day, and that helps. Another mom goes up Wednesday for her daughter’s birthday and the last two nights. They all come home Friday.

Meanwhile my son started karate camp, and Wednesday is my husband’s 40th birthday. His friend and I planned a little “double date” for Saturday, but we aren’t doing much on the actual day. He didn’t do anything besides FaceTime me on my birthday, so there is no pressure for me to reciprocate.

I was realizing that is a big part of why I no longer want much, if any, fanfare on my birthday – I worry that I won’t do as much for others when their special day comes. One of the women in this group celebrated a birthday just last month and I couldn’t even show up to dinner because my daughter and husband were so sick. Then they all got me a cake, and presents, and other stuff on my birthday. I feel awful about that. If there is anything that worries me, it’s being the friend who doesn’t do as much for others as they do for me.

At least I figured out why I was feeling so uncomfortable about all the focus on my birthday. Still, I enjoyed all the attention and spent the day on the lake feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.

I have to admit, it’s so good to be home. Since June 26th I’ve only slept at home seven nights. After 16 months of barely leaving my house, it’s been a lot. And it’s ending at just the right time. The delta variant is changing the game and it’s making me nervous. We’ll be going back to our previous behaviors as soon as my daughter gets home from the KOA – only masked outdoor socializing for my kids and very limited indoor socializing with a small group for us (though probably even most of that will be outdoor – the fall is beautiful in these parts). I cannot wait until my kids can be vaccinated – I hope it happens soon.

I do worry a fair amount about the start of the school year. Everyone has committed to full, five days a week of in person learning, but the situation seems to be changing so rapidly. I worry about what can happen in four weeks, even in an area with high vaccination rates like our own. If we have to go back in distance learning I will lose my mind.

I’ve read quite a few articles about the people who are still dying from this disease and it makes me so depressed. How does one believe in the power of “natural consequences” after hearing stories of people who deny Covid even as it kills them? It’s one thing when someone doesn’t care about how their choices affect faceless strangers, but when they refuse to care about how they affect themselves and their families? I’m not quite sure how to process that. I can only imagine how demoralizing it must be for the health care workers who have to manage the care of those who won’t get vaccinated, even as they refuse to accept what is happening to them.

I wonder how many people lay there dying, and do realize how wrong they were, and wish they had made a different choice. That is heartbreaking to consider.

I’m so grateful that my family in Missouri are vaccinated. They don’t live in the counties that are being hit really hard right now, but numbers are rising everywhere in the state. I hope they can keep their kids safe until the vaccines are approved for children 11 and under.

Now that all our summer fun is over – and we were so lucky to enjoy a lot of travel with family and friends – I’m ready to turn my attention to my house and the upcoming school year. I plan to spend this week doing a big pick up around the house (I would love to call it a purge, but I doubt I’ll get that far – I just want EVERY surface clear and every random object to have a designated place). Then next week I will be back down in my classroom for a few precious hours a day to move my stuff and start setting up my new classroom. I’m starting to think about how I want this school year to look – how I teach changed so much in the last year, I need to think long and hard about what I want to keep, what I want to return to, and how both can coexist in a classroom. The obvious place to start is my overarching goals, so I should spend some of the coming weeks to articulate those, before I start thinking about how to incorporate what I learned last year into my in person classroom.

I’m also excited to embrace flexible seating in my new space. I had just started experimenting with before the pandemic hit – I literally got rid of my desks two weeks before shelter in place began! I know there are a lot more rules about seating now, but I’m hoping I can still adopt some nontraditional arrangements. I have a bigger classroom than most, and it already has a lot of furniture that can’t be moved to the newer, smaller staff room, so hopefully that will help. My principal is a very open minded, level headed leader so I know I’ll get as much support as can be provided in our return to full time in person learning.

Only 3.5 weeks until my first staff day. The count down to the end of summer has begun.,

When I was a kid a lot was made of my birthday. My summer birthday was celebrate multiple times – in May with my classmates, on my actual birthday in July, and later in the summer with other cousins whose birthdays fell in June, July or August.

My birthday was always a big deal. I expected it to be celebrated. I expected gifts and special events. I expected, kind of, a lot.

Gift giving was also important to me. I took great care in giving gifts, and I felt gift giving was one of my “love languages.”

And then I started sharing my life with a man who didn’t give gifts and didn’t celebrate birthdays.

It took a LONG time but I eventually became a person who didn’t want to do much for her birthday, and didn’t look forward to gift giving obligations (I eventually came to dread them).

My husband’s birthday is four days after mine, so I’m always acutely aware of what I have to do to “match ir surpass” his efforts. It’s usually nothing and I’m generally relieved. Since Mother’a Day is a month before Father’s Day this is always the case. After 13 years I appreciate the time and energy saved by not celebrating or gift giving on holidays or birthdays. It just doesn’t mean what it used to for me anymore.

The reality of how much my attitude towards birthdays and gift giving has changed has been really apparent in recent years, as my friends have taken on the task of celebrating my birthday. My 40th birthday happened last summer during the pandemic and my friend hosted a celebration in her backyard, despite it being very inconvenient for her at the time.

This year they are doing it again, trying to make up for the 40th blow out I couldn’t have by really doing up my 41st. They got all sorts of special things for me to enjoy today, little things they know I love. And everything is about me, about my day and about celebrating it (even though this a joint summer trip that all of us are a part of). I’m so unaccustomed to all the attention that it’s actually a little hard. Which honestly feels crazy to me; there was a time when the lack of fanfare around my birthday was so hard for me to handle – I believed that caring about it was a fundamental part of who I was (some people just CARED about their birthdays and others did not, I believed). But I’ve done a complete 180* and now I would maybe prefer my birthday be all but forgotten. I don’t mind that it’s mostly just another day – I kind of appreciate it. But now I have friends who want to celebrate it, and I’m not sure if I like doing that anymore. I’ve maybe switched sides on the “caring about my birthday” part of my identity I previously believed was intractable.

All this to say, today is my birthday and I’m turning 41 and my friends are celebrating me and I am appreciative and feel loved and I also have other complicated feelings about it. I’m not ungrateful, just a little confused.

Here’s to everyone on their birthday.

How do you feel about celebrating your birthday?

Well we did it! We made it through Phase 1! My son left this morning and now it’s just the (infinitely easier) group of girls. All the mom’s come later today and then the fun (Phase 2) really begins!

{Phase 3 is when three of us moms leave and the fourth has to stay and make the magic happen. I’m so glad that is not me! I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again.}

The three nights with my son actually went really well. There were definitely spats between him and the girls, especially in the cabin, but most of the time it was fine. I framed the weekend as special mom/son time (thanks Irene!) and he seemed excited about that. He especially loved sleeping in the same bed as me for “all night snuggles.” (This was less fun for me because that boy is ALL OVER THE PLACE when he sleeps – but as long as he was sleeping I was grateful).

And we have been sleeping! After a rough first night the subsequent sleeps have been decent for everyone. It’s generally silent by 10:30 or 11pm and they aren’t up until after 8am. Pretty ideal idea you ask me.

The first day the girls were all over the place – doing a million things for 30 minutes or less. I found this exhausting and unsustainable. Yesterday (at my urging) they found a much better rhythm. Instead of going to the pool three times for 30-60 minutes a pop they just hung out down there for four hours. Much more manageable.

We also managed to start a fire and make s’mores (at my son’s request). I was quite proud of myself (camping is not my thing and I don’t have much experience with any aspect of it).

My dad picked up my son at 11:15 this morning. Right now the girls are eating lunch and playing Uno. Then they plan to head to the pool. I’m not really sure when the ladies are coming up, but we’ll likely be at the pool when they do. It’s going to be a good day.

Tomorrow we head to Clear Lake! Tomorrow will be a really good day.

Thanks for all your support as we attempt our DIY overnight camp extravaganza!

{Written early Wednesday…}

We made it! Getting everyone’s stuff, plus a ton of food, plus six bodies, into the SUV was tough, but we managed. We left later than we had intended, but the traffic ebbed while we were eating at In-n-Out and there was still plenty of daylight to explore once we arrived.

This place is great. There are tons of families here. It’s a super low key vibe. The kids can bike around by themselves. There is a playground with a little climbing wall. A pool. A jump pillow. Some little activities like mining for gems and tie die. There is a petting zoo too!

I’m giving the kids a lot of freedom. We have a set of walkie talkies with big enough ranges to work within the grounds. Right now three of the girls are biking around. My kids are still in the pool (my daughter wanted to keep swimming, which thrilled my son). Everything is outside so the kids don’t have to wear masks. It’s awesome.

The cabin is really cute. It’s the perfect size. There is a queen bed set up, a loft above that and a small room with bunk beds. There is a full bathroom and a kitchenette with a full fridge, microwave, and gas cook top. There is a little flat screen on the wall with basic cable and a couch. It’s great.

All told this will probably cost each of the four families about $1K. It’s a great deal for 10 nights / 11 days (including an afternoon on Clear Lake). I’m so glad we made this happen.

{I tried to upload some photos but I couldn’t make it happen – maybe when I get home.}

Yesterday was…overwhelming. A lot of errands with my kids and then more errands alone. A lot of shopping. A lot of running in to grab one thing. A lot of worrying I was forgetting (despite all my lists).

But now, after an early morning trip to the hardware store to get cinch lashes for the roof bag, I think we have it all. Or at least enough to get through the first three days.

I definitely took on too much of the planning and shopping, but since I’m the only one not working, and I have the Costco card, it made sense. I’m so glad I’m at the front of all this and can bow out after Sunday to let others take over.

My husband keeps marveling that I’m not at all concerned about being the only adult up there with five kids for three days. Honestly, four 11 year olds don’t worry me at all. Actually, I’m sad that really I’m just worried about one of them, my son, who I assume will make those three days incredibly difficult. I’m not quite sure how it got this bad (actually, I have plenty of ideas), but he’s not the kind, considerate kid I want him to be. He’s not even content most of the time. I know he’s going to be upset about all kinds of things during the next three days; no video games (the arcade is actually closed), no streaming services, no friends, nothing to do, etc.). He will be angry with the girls no matter how much they include him. He will be angry at me no matter how hard I try to make it fun.

It’s just… a major bummer. I know it’s hard to be the sibling who is only there because he’s, well, the sibling. I get it. But I think many kids could happy to hang out in a new place with lots of cool stuff (maybe not many, but just some?). And maybe he will be, if I hang out with him. And if that’s the case then great! I’m not expecting this to be restful or relaxing for me. Far from it. I’m totally ready to be with him 24/7 – I just don’t want that 24/7 to be nothing but bitch and moan. My son is SO GOOD at bitch and moan. He absolutely excels at it.

I informed my kids today that once school starts we won’t be playing video games during the school week. They can watch two shows a night, Monday through Thursday (so they can each pick one) and that is it (I want to phase this out eventually but that probably won’t happen for a while). They were NOT happy about it. I have been thinking about implementing this rule for the final three weeks of summer, when they are in camp, but I think that will be too much (for me as much as for them). At that point I’ll just bring their video game time to one hour (with no TV) so they aren’t just going cold turkey once school starts.

Our screen time really has ramped WAY up since the pandemic started. It’s not good for them. It erodes their contentment. My son, especially, struggles. We’ve taken a few days off, when his reaction to losing in a game or to stopping has reached totally unacceptable levels. We talk about how it’s not a punishment when that happens, it’s just a break when our reactions tell us that the current amount of play time is overwhelming. We talk a lot about whether video games actually make us feel good, and that if they only make us feel good while we use them, but make us feel bad a lot of the rest of the time, then we should rethink how we use them. He seems to get that.

When he has finished playing, but a long afternoon stretches in front of him, he can ratchet the begging for more video games to truly discouraging levels. But after about an hour he will eventually go read a book or do a quiet activity. We never back down from our screen time limits once we’ve made them for a day, so that helps, but man is the 30-60 before he finally accepts that hard on everyone.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when parents were assured that crazy levels of screen time were actually fine, we didn’t worry so much about how much they played video games. Just getting my son through the long morning with almost nothing school-related to do (while we worked!) felt like a major accomplishment. At that point, two hours in front of the Switch felt like a reward for all of us. But as the pandemic wore on we realized that 15+ months of this kind of screen time was way too much. Articles coming out at the time suggested the same. “Experts” were walking back there “do what you need to do, it’s fine!” comments to a more conservative, “well it’s been over a year of this and if we’d known how long this was going to last we could have suggested a more measured approach.” Of course, measured was impossible in the early stages of this crisis, and by the time it might have been more possible we were exhausted and overwhelmed by the uncertainty of when it would all end. We were given so few options, and we did the best we can, and I’m not going to dwell on it except to glean useful information for moving forward. An organized day of camp full of socialization and physical exertion is absolutely what my family needs to get our screen time back on track. And that starts again for us next week!

I didn’t mean for this to be a post about screen time, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot because the KOA will be a big reset for my daughter (less so for my son because he’s only going a few days). I know the way we’re using screen time no long serves us well, and I want to make changes, and changes require consideration and planning. So I guess that ended up happening here. SHU’s post this morning was probably also a motivator. 😉

And now it’s time to stop because the brief respite of my son being in the bath and my daughter being on a zoom call with her friends (they are all vibrating on the same insane frequency right now so it’s best to let them do it together via a screen lest they make their families crazy) is over. My son is now repeatedly entering his sister’s room despite her increasingly frustrated assertions that he JUST LEAVE. I suggested my son FT his friend who just came home from Hawaii, but he hates to FT so no. At 1:30 they get to play video games while I switch cars with my friend, get the roof bag on the top, and pack all the food. I guess the reset starts when we get there!

Do you help to reset screen time for your kids (or yourself?!)