So Today Was Hard

Today was hard, which started two days ago. 

Two days ago, we spent $1400 on car repairs. All needed, all good, all regular wear and tear, and we did a whole bunch of things all at once. It still hurt. 

Last night, someone stole the catalytic converter off of one of our cars. This is the second time this has happened to us, the first was several years ago. I was awakened last night to the awful sound of the saw bad guys use to snatch the catalytic converter from a car's undercarriage. One quick growl-whirr got me up and to the window, wondering who the hell was using machinery at 2 am. On my way to the window, I heard the second growl-whirr, for just a bit longer, and realized what was happening. Pulling the curtain back, I couldn't see anything right in front of the house, but then a car sped past my window coming from the left, from where our two Priuses (Pri-ii?) were parked out of my line of sight. 

Rick went outside and started all of our cars -- successfully. So we went to sleep thinking that the theft had been foiled somehow. But alas, Prius cars start just fine on battery. When Rick started his Prius again this morning, and it kicked over from battery to gas power, the telltale sound of a car without a converter echoed through the quiet, smoke-and-ash-filled street. 

Yes, smoke and ash, because we are in California, which is currently battling over 300 wildfires. The air is thick, with a yellow tinge, and the girls' pod-style soccer practices (thanks COVID) are canceled because of air quality. We are also experiencing a heatwave, and our only respite from that is to open all our doors and windows and catch whatever breezes may come. But in wildfire season, that means inviting ash and smoke into the house, along with headaches and sore throats. So our house is sealed up tight and hotter than hell. 

For weeks and weeks, the only safe place to go (thanks COVID) has been outside – walks, hikes, soccer practices, socially distanced cocktails on decks and patios. Now, with the fires raging, the open air is also a health risk. Even the outdoors is closed to us. 

Oh, and I'm worrying about friends who are being evacuated in Napa County and other places. Again with the Nixle alerts and consulting maps for air quality and checking on dad in Sonoma, and generally experiencing the clutching fire-anxiety that is now an annual, weeks or months-long experience. 

Also eighth grade started today for Big T (formerly Little T but that's just not descriptive anymore). It was bumpy, not gonna lie. Distance Learning is just plain hard: teachers and schools are doing their best to do it right and do it well, and it's just a beast of a process. Today's Distance Learning experience featured three or four utterances of "I can't get into the Zoom," a few of "I don't have the right link," one of "My teacher keeps calling me Jimena," and several "I HATE THIS" blood-curdling screams, while on mute of course, or during the five-minute breaks between classes. I've got one extremely perturbed 8th grader on my hands, who I am trying to support and encourage while also attending to the demands of my own work. Also, we've got this very cute and very restless dog (no walks for us today) tearing through the house barking and burrowing into our legs and laps as we sit at our laptops.

Are you sensing the chaos?  I can't wait for the 11th grader to start the same process in few weeks, followed by the UC Santa Cruz frosh beginning her college days here at home, in the room her sisters desperately want her to vacate so that they no longer have to share. 

Today's kicker -- the thing that has me crying UNCLE -- was logging into my health insurance portal to pay a bill and discovering A SECOND BILL for over $1,000 that we didn't know existed and that NO ONE had mentioned to us as we were deciding on a course of treatment for my migraines. That one expense was for the first of four total treatments, and no one thought it might be important for us to know that we were accepting a $4K+ total expense? And I asked SO many questions about having this treatment done in the first place...except for how much it would cost and I'm kicking myself now.

So, a recap: 

• Distance Learning going awry, with more in the forecast;
• Speaking of forecasts: heatwave;
• Then we've got the fires fires fires and the worry worry worry about where they will go next; ash and smoke and hazy skies pressing in on us; 
• Expensive car repair;
• Stolen converter, which is going to be hella expensive to fix; 
• Outrageous health care bill; 
• A global pandemic raging unabated (thanks Trump); 
• Oh, and that guy is still our president. 

2020 hates us all. 

I figure there's really only one response to this cluster of a day: pour myself a stiff drink, pull out my violin and drunk fiddle until Obama's address at the DNC.  If I get nothing else out of this day, at least I can torture my teenagers.

How?

We are back at school.  One of my kids hates it.  Let's call the kid Pat, for the sake of this blog post, a non-gender specific name, and let's go with she as the pronoun to refer to Pat, just because.

So Pat is miserable.  She is a smart, kind, funny, generous, well-grounded kid, and she is miserable.  She loved homeschooling...or so she says now, looking back, never mind that some days, getting her to participate in a modicum of school-like activities was challenging to say the least.  But I knew this transition would be toughest for her, of all the kids.

So she's truly miserable.  It's only a little over a week into the new arrangement, so we can still give it time and still play the wait and see game.  But here's the thing.  She's really miserable.

And if there's one thing we moms hate, it's seeing our kid miserable, suffering, struggling to make sense of what seems like the senseless.  One interesting wrinkle is that a handful of folks at the school have said things to me -- not aware that Pat is miserable -- that kind of tell an opposite story, that she's doing better than she's leading me to believe.  That doesn't really surprise me, as I think I would exaggerate to make a point, were I in Pat's shoes too, and not all exaggeration is falsehood.  So there's that.

But again.  Miserable.  After school, we have the sobbing, the gnashing of teeth, the questioning: "Why did you do this to me???"  We have literally hours of homework to slog through.  We have devastation and despair.  We have tears and sadness and frustration.  

I've tried many, many words to soothe the misery and help the poor kid out.  Words are falling flat for now, and I'm left with only words for myself, a mantra that isn't quite working yet: Be patient.  Be encouraging.  Be hopeful.  Wait for my words of wisdom to sink in, to show themselves to Pat as true.  Be patient.  This too shall pass.

So now, My Dear Internetters, I turn it to you: How do you best support a child who is miserable, when you cannot change the situation creating the misery, or at least cannot take him or her out of it, and when the child in question is highly, highly resistant to your efforts?

I want Pat to know she is loved, that she can handle this situation, that we are here to help, that the school is here to help, that good things can come out of bad situations, that she and we will prevail.  I want her to face this challenge with all the support necessary to overcome it.

But how?

Help.  Please.  I need some rockin' good ideas.

* * *

Bad Attitude: Discuss

On this bright, warm, gorgeous summer morning, on this summer solstice celebration, I am all by myself.

Three kids at art camp. 10-1.

One kid at Vacation Bible Schoool, 9-12:30.

One kid at Vacation Bible School, 9-5.

Which gives me from approximately 10:15-12:15 by myself.

I find myself utterly unable to enjoy it. I am too overwhelmed by the messes, the stresses, the little failures (like the monumental task of finding people shorts this morning), the looming chores, the tasks that I never have time for when the kids are around but which are far too numerous to be tackled in two small hours.

So. Two hours to myself, and all I'm doing is feeling sorry for myself. I can't kick my brain over into that a positive frame of mind, can't see the silver lining, can't enjoy the respite from "Mommy Mommy Mommy."

I am, in short, a fun sucker. (The older kids watched Freaky Friday yesterday after we hiked at Alvarado Park in the brutal heat.) I'm sucking the fun out of my own morning with my grumpy grumpous attitude.

Someone give me a swift kick in the rear: maybe I'll land someplace cheerful.

* * *

And Then I Hit the Brakes

A little advice from an experienced mom.

If you've had a really bad day and you are trying really hard to regroup, and your four year old is making that difficult by ignoring every directive you issue, especially the one about staying buckled in her booster seat while you are running 201 errands, and your twelve year old is devastated and thrashing around over Barcelona's loss to Real Madrid, and you've spent too much time trying way too hard to get people who are ignoring you to do stuff, and you're pretty sure you are PMS-ing because as hard as you try to control your rage response you have failed repeatedly and your throat is sore from speaking too forcefully (aka screaming), and if you planned the afternoon poorly and realized too late that everyone will have to be in the car between 4 and 7 instead of at home eating the meal you had planned, and then the traffic is terrible again so that you are sitting tensely in the driver's seat listening to bickering and worrying about arriving everywhere late, and if your six year old picks the car ride to become the third child to vomit since last Wednesday and then you almost joined her when you had to clean it up on a curb next to your son's soccer practice, and if the only receptacle you can find in the van for your little Barfer Babe to clutch until you can get her home is a (thank God, clean) pie plate, which by the way works fabulously when she throws up a second time as you are on your way to drop of the recovering Barcelona fan at his Shakespeare play rehearsal, and if you pull over quickly to dump out the pie tin so that all of the occupants of the car can once again breath, and if you need this last bit of the evening to go as smoothly as possible so that you can maybe, hopefully finally be home in 20 little minutes, my biggest piece of advice to you is this: Don't hit the brakes too hard. You will regret it.

Apparently, I'm still learning from my experiences.

* * *

It's 10AM and the Day is Gone

image credit: www.claymoreslinger.com/medeival_art

It's 10AM. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the coffee is strong.

So why do I feel defeated already?

From my perch on the couch, I see mayhem.

A quick survey of my to-do list: more mayhem.

An inventory of my brain: piles of mayhem.

The garage: mayhem.

The garden: mayhem. This is serious mayhem, since it will need to be transformed into a native paradise in about three weeks time if we are to avoid the curse of the busman's holiday at our annual garden tour show on May 1st.

Mayhem seems like such an innocent little word. It's kind of cute, in a way. Like "mother may I" and a polite "ahem" are rolled up into one.

But mayhem has a dark side. Mayhem is pinning me down on the couch, whispering menacing thoughts in my ear (you'll never make it), and drilling a little hole in my left heel, from whence all of my energy is draining.

* * *

We overslept this morning, me and my homeschooled children. So at 9:45, they are asking me what's for breakfast, and I am too busy bickering with nascent cramps to answer them. The youngest has a nasty cough and is home from preschool today, which means she will be spreading her special brand of terrorism far and wide. The boys' carpentry class ended last week, so I have no reason to get the kids out of the house.

* * *

I have an image in my head today of me, arrayed in full body armor, battling demons. Demon #1 would be those cramps, which are maturing every minute and are not so nascent anymore. Demon #2 is a serious lack of motivation, daunted as I am by the mountain of work before me. And a little daunted by the mouse my son saw in the garage yesterday, meaning I have to have Fun With Traps today at some point. Demon #3 is the chaos that surrounds me. This demon has multiple arms and legs, and just when I beat him down in one part of the house or garden, I turn a corner and get bitch-slapped again.

* * *

What is the proper way to battle chaos and disorder? With little time, few resources, and far too many demands upon both?

* * *

And did I mention that I gave up yelling for Lent? That was a folly of the highest degree. I do not recommend this for mothers. It's similar to when I gave up coffee for Lent many years ago, and vowed on a bright and sunny Easter morning never, ever to do that again. Giving up yelling has been well nigh impossible.

But attempting to give up yelling has at least focused me each day on the attempt itself. Each day is a renewed chance to not yell. I have decided that less yelling counts as some measure of success, so at least I have that.

* * *

I am rambling. Writing this post has been all about delaying the inevitable: dealing with my day. Better bring it to a close. I will refill my coffee cup, step out into the bright sunshine, and battle my demons.

I just need to find my helmet underneath all the mayhem first.

* * *

Let's See...

...so here's what I've got today:

• Cramps. Big and bad.
• A head cold.
• Not enough sleep, after going to bed at 1:30am.
• Two kids with nasty head colds.
• A body that is aching both from PMS and from tripping over a hula hoop and slamming down onto a slab of flagstone the other day.

Wow. Even I'm impressed by that list. If there were ever a day to be sequestered, this is it.

Failing that, and in an attempt to ignore everything that could have me weeping in a corner this morning, I will here list an equal number of things I am grateful for.

• The Monarch team families. I love the families of my 8 year old daughter's soccer/futsal team. We all watched them get their butts handed to them on a silver platter last night...but the other parents make every game a playdate for me.
• My husband and his flexible work schedule, because he will be taking the three healthy children to their dentist appointments this morning, relieving my crampy, snotty self from having to do it with two crabby, snotty young ones in tow.
• My own dear mother, who is celebrating her birthday today. Mom, happy happy birthday to you and thank you for still taking care of me so well. You help me and us in a thousand ways, and I can't imagine raising this brood without you.
• Steel cut oatmeal, with applesauce and almond slices mixed in, and Irish breakfast tea with just the right amount of milk and sugar.
• Reading out loud to my kids, getting to the end of a chapter, and hearing "One more chapter, mom! Please just one more!" (They got three more out of me that way last night.)

I can't crawl back into bed this morning, so I'll just keep returning to this list -- and hopefully adding to it -- to get me through the day.

* * *

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

Mom: "I really need some tea, but I'm too tired to move, so I guess tea is not happening for me."

Dad: "That's what you have kids for."

Mom: "Right! Cenzo, will you put the heat on underneath the tea pot for me?"

Son: "Is that really why you had kids?"

Dad: "Well, if it is, then we are absolute failures, because you never help us do anything."

Word, daddy-o.

* * *

It's been a red letter week at Lake Alatorre. I couldn't even write it if I tried. Actually, I wouldn't want to. This is a week I hope to leave behind, and one that had better result in a reduction in my overall Purgatory time. Good-bye week. May your ugly head never rear again, may your claws unclench forever, may you scurry away into the hole from whence you came. And may that hole be a black one, a swirling vortex that will swallow you whole and for all time.

OK, maybe it wasn't that bad, but still and anyway, I'm damn glad it's almost over.

How was yours?

* * *

Saved By Fingerpaint

The sun was shining.


You were both under my feet, in my hair, on my arms and driving me mad.


Thank God for fingers and for paint and for the combination of the two.


Thank God for sunny days, when fingers and paint can come together out of doors and make a mess far from my dining room floor.


Thank God for bright colors, the yellow sun, the blue flowers and the orange hat.


All converged to ensure that I survived another day without losing my precious mind. I have lived to scream another day. But not today, because today the sun was shining, and there were fingers and paint in lovely motion.

* * *

I Wish It Were Monday Morning

Most people dread Monday morning, and the work week that comes with it. Most people live for the weekend. I enjoy weekends, yes, but I bet there are a few parents out there who might agree with me that all that Family Time carries its own brand of stress and angst.

But that's not why I like Monday mornings. I like Monday mornings for the possibilities they represent. Every Sunday night, I get myself ready for the week. I make a pretty list. I strategize. I ooze organization and preparedness. And Monday morning brings with it optimism, energy, and the belief that I can do it all. Mondays usually go very well for me, the momentum of a good list carrying me through the day.

With each subsequent day, I lose a little heart. By Wednesday, I'm slumping. By Thursday, I'm hoping to survive five minute increments of time. Fighting children, greeted with detachment and clarity on Monday morning, elicit a growing rage response as the week progresses. Repetitive tasks, like serving three squares a day and cleaning the kitchen, provide order and peace on a Monday but become increasingly oppressive and impossible with each passing day. Faith in my abilities wanes...doubt increases...The Critic gets mouthy.

So here I am, midway through my Wednesday, trying to figure out how to break the pattern and how to beat the week to Friday with my self-respect intact. My cable receiver box has a reset button; I think I need one of those.

I'm about as likely to find one as I am to find the off button on my three year old.

* * *

7 Quick Takes Friday: Volume 8

1. What do you call one terrible event, followed by multiple, wonderful acts of kindness and generosity? A big fat juicy blessing in disguise. And not a very good disguise at that.

* * *

2. Children's responses to our recent theft:

Panicky 5 year old with tear-filled eyes just ready to spill over: "Did they take my blankeys?"

Distraught 9 year old: "I JUST UNLOCKED THAT GAME AND NOW I HAVE TO START ALL OVER!"

Clueless 3 year old: "They left a buncha stuff on da flowuh." (No, sweetheart, your room looked like this before "they" broke in; sorry.)

Cool, collected 7 year old: "I hate people."

And last, but not to be outdone by a single, solitary soul, my emotive 11 year old: "F*CK! THAT'S JACKED UP!" Ahem. I don't know where he learned to speak that way.

* * *

3. I cry at Spelling Bees, Kindergarten graduations, and World Cup opening ceremonies. But just for the record, that first goal scored by Mexico this morning was, in fact, offsides. The ref called it right. And I finally get on/off sides. And boy does South Africa know how to celebrate The Beautiful Game.

* * *

4. We went to Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park yesterday.


I thought it would be fun to ride the paddle boats. Rick was not with us, so it was me and five members of the Under 12 Set. The rule on the paddle boats is 4 people to a boat, and one of them has to be 16 or older. One ride costs $20. I could not figure out how to get me and three kids on the boat, leaving a scaredy cat Tallulah on the shore, with...who? Her 5 year old sister, who would have been completely livid about being left behind? Her 11 year old brother, who would sell her for a stick of gum? I wasn't about to plunk down $40 for two rides. So. We hiked the trails instead, and left the paddle boats for another day when dad gets to be with us. I was as bummed as the kids were, truly. Life is sort of set up for smaller families than mine.

That is the downside of having a large family.

* * *

5. Summer officially started for us yesterday. Putting away school uniforms has been blissful. I am really looking forward to having fun with the kids this summer. I hope we go swimming a whole bunch of times. Every year I tell them we'll swim all summer long, and every year I turn out to be a big fat liar. I hope I can end the summer with some Swimming Integrity.

* * *

6. Someone recently asked me what I would recommend for a baby shower gift. Having had one or two of these myself, and having been to a few, I actually have an answer for this! (I usually respond with "Uh, I dunno" when asked questions about babies, their care and feeding, or anything related to hosting parties for them.) Shower gifts are usually of the "care and feeding" ilk, that or the "OMG that is so cute I could just die" ilk. And there is certainly a place, or several, for those kinds of gifts. But I struck on what I thought was kind of unique when I gave a gift of our favorite 6 or 8 children's books to some dear friends of ours when they were having their first child about 7 years ago. Books don't seem to be commonly given at baby showers. It became kind of a tradition that we would give some combination of these books to an expectant family. Giving this gift makes me feel great because these books represent some of our best memories (and current experiences) with our kids. So if you are looking for a creative baby gift, or looking to get some great books for your own kids, here are some of the titles on our gift giving list. I don't want to promote any particular source to purchase these books, so you'll have to google them yourself if you are interested:

A Tree Is Nice
One Morning in Maine
Always Room for One More
My Many Coloured Days -- oooo, love this one. Great for wee one just starting to be read to; we had it in a board book version.
A Time of Wonder -- wonderful and long; good for readers with the ability to sit and be rapt by (or wrapped in) language.
Cowboy Small
Harold and the Purple Crayon

And that's what my memory has fed me today; if I think of more, I will add to that list.

* * *

7. "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -- Albert Einstein; discuss.

* * *

Go to Conversion Diary for the original 7 Quick Takes Friday; she's on Volume 84!

* * *

Just Things

Just Things were taken from us yesterday.

I came home from dropping the kids at school and discovered that our front door had been kicked in. Plaster, nails, splinters of wood were scattered across my front hall.

This is the first time something like this has happened to us. Luckily, we are all completely safe, unharmed, whole, and well.

Luckily, I was by myself when I walked in, no kids with me, so no kids around to see me shaking like a leaf, rocked to the core, teary, confused, overwhelmed, stricken.

Luckily, "they" took our computers, camera, ipod, wii, games, but left our precious sentimental stuff undisturbed.

Luckily, "they" didn't find my son's ipod, or his stash of cash. Luckily, my son is a complete slob, or his stuff would have been far easier to find.

Luckily, I reluctantly agreed to have coffee with a friend after dropping off the kids, or I would have been home.

The worst part was telling the kids and watching the knowledge that sometimes people do awful things sink into their brains. My 7 year old's repeated refrain for the last day has been "I hate people."

Sometimes, I do too, sweetie. But I sure do love the family and friends who have responded with calls, food, pizza, beer, friendship, care for our children, care for us, a computer to borrow, a power cord to go with it, and the certain knowledge that sometimes people do wonderful things too.

Luckily everything "they" took was Just Things and can be replaced. Every single unreplaceable bit of love that resides in my home and my heart is still here, safe and sound.

Hug your children today.

* * *

Get Back In That Taco!

My daughter wet the bed last night, due to a wardrobe malfunction, a.k.a., a poorly-placed diaper. She stumbled upstairs, where I changed her in the dark, stuck a shirt of mine on her and tossed her unceremoniously in my place. I grabbed a pillow and spent the next few precious hours of sleep under a meager blanket on the couch.

Combine those events with this day being one of the WORST pms-related symptom days I have had in many, many moons, and you get one colossally difficult day. Each month, I get to spin the wheel. Sometimes, no symptoms at all. Other times, symptoms that turn me into a completely non-functioning person, except for the rage function, which goes into overdrive. Between the blinding headaches, the weakness in my arms and legs, the pains in my muscles, the tearful tendencies, the impatience, the lightning-fast rage response and the wanting to crawl out of my own skin, it can be simply awful.

(Actually, today I sort of felt like I had a little window into what it must be like to be clinically crazy, a state in which the chemicals take over and you have very little control over what you do with the surge. I wonder if that's what it's like, except with less awareness? Or maybe the awareness is there, which would probably make a person even more nuts, knowing and not being able to do anything about it...Either way, my compassion for crazy people increased exponentially today.)

Tonight, the girls had ice cream for dinner. Well, that and toast on delicious farmers' market bread we got yesterday and lemonade. In my defense, I took them out for lunch after school and they ate bigger meals than usual, so I don't think anyone was deprived. And I couldn't move off of the couch...and Lola can scoop ice cream...so it was a win-win for everyone. The boys and their dad are at a soccer field.

My head hurt so badly tonight that even talking made the pain reverberate through my teeth and shoot backwards to the nape of my neck. This is AFTER taking three motrin pills and hoping for the best, which did not come.

All of this is excuse and reason for the fact that I did not change the sheets on my daughter's bed today and didn't realize it until she was just about to tumble head first into bed for the night. I grabbed her, quick, and tumbled her onto the floor instead. Nice save, mom! But there I was, too tired to even contemplate digging out clean sheets when I was *this close* to bedtime. So instead, I stripped the sheets off, and folded her comforter in half like a sleeping bag and had her climb right in. She thought this was kind of a fun way to sleep.

Even closer to bedtime bliss now, I returned to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, because the big glass of red wine I really wanted would have probably turned me into Sybil. I started poking around on email and facebook, when a disgruntled five year old emerged from her room: "HOW COME SHE GETS TO BE A TACO AND I DON'T?"

So I have just returned from their bedroom after making another comforter taco for the older girl, so she does not feel dissed by her mother. And proving that all bad days do come to an end, the evening closes with a cup of tea in my hand, a nice facebook chat with a friend, and these words wafting from the girls' room:

Bob Dylan, if you want a banana, you have to get back in the taco!"

File that under Words We Never Thought Would Go Together.

* * *