The natural course of things
My kids are getting old, you guys. (This, presumably, means I'm getting old. Let's talk about that in another post.) This year, nobody in the family had to buy crayons for school. Let that sink in.
My family is Beyond Crayons.
Here's what the kids are up to:
1) Skipper is totally and happily back in the school routine. She has a nice variety of friends and feels comfortable and happy with her social situation. Academics are a breeze. She had a friend sleep over for the very first time last weekend, and today is off on an all-day hike with another friend and her family. She's made a new friend at her kung fu after-care program and continues to really enjoy that. She has chosen to do piano lessons as her one additional activity and is showing signs that she may eventually stop being a complete asshole about practicing it. She is willing to wear at least four different pairs of pants, though she still refuses to wear any shoes but the one pair of sneakers (her fourth pair of the same make and model, though she has gone through several different colors). She continues to be alarmingly clear-eyed and articulate, and to be aggressively nasty and obnoxious whenever she feels any kind of emotional pain (it's way more comfortable to dump your pain by blaming somebody else than to unpack it inside yourself, apparently). In sum, everything is going pretty damn well. Homework starts this week, though, and that may introduce some new unpleasantness...
2) Duchess is hurtling into teenagerhood at high speed. Cook and I are taking a fairly hands-off approach to her middle school experience, giving her a lot of independence and letting her work out things like how to organize her stuff and her time effectively. She's the last of us to leave in the morning, so she washes the breakfast dishes, turns off the lights, locks the door behind her, and walks very slowly to school, picking up a large gaggle of friends on the way. She negotiates a day of switching classes, moving herself, her notebooks, her PE uniform, and her flute to class and between lockers as needed. Also, apparently lots of social negotiations. After school she hangs out teenagerily with friends on the playground for a while, then walks very slowly home, dropping off a large gaggle of friends on the way. Two days a week, she gets ready for her evening kung fu class, feeds herself a snack, and leaves the house again to walk to class before the rest of us even get home. Yesterday after school she walked straight to ultimate frisbee practice and then straight to a Dungeons and Dragons* session at a friend's house. Cook picked her up at 8PM, twelve hours after he had last seen her. She's thriving. There are occasional flareups of tantrums/histrionics and she's pretty nastily sarcastic (fair enough, given her genetics) and sulky, as might be expected, but in general, she's just straight up happy. She likes her teachers and classes fine, she is building new friendships and reinforcing old ones, and generally she's delighted with everything. She's probably 5'6" now and looks like she's 15, so she's getting attention from older boys that is confusing and alarming and thrilling, and she often wants to discuss and analyze those experiences she had during the day that felt out of her depth. She still wants to talk about everything, actually. She literally follows me and Cook around the house, talking endlessly about her teachers, her friends, her worries, her excitements, her D&D character, the book she's reading, etc. This is lovely and also spectacularly tedious.
Also, Cook and I are okay.
The weather has turned and it's definitely not summer anymore. This is okay, too - time marches on!
* Yes. This is happening now. Duchess's extracurriculars are gymnastics class, kung fu classes, dorks-in-the-woods one weekend a month, ultimate frisbee and Dungeons and Dragons. Basically, nerd training. Oh, and she's doing band at school, so she practices flute at home a lot. Nerd training!
My family is Beyond Crayons.
Here's what the kids are up to:
1) Skipper is totally and happily back in the school routine. She has a nice variety of friends and feels comfortable and happy with her social situation. Academics are a breeze. She had a friend sleep over for the very first time last weekend, and today is off on an all-day hike with another friend and her family. She's made a new friend at her kung fu after-care program and continues to really enjoy that. She has chosen to do piano lessons as her one additional activity and is showing signs that she may eventually stop being a complete asshole about practicing it. She is willing to wear at least four different pairs of pants, though she still refuses to wear any shoes but the one pair of sneakers (her fourth pair of the same make and model, though she has gone through several different colors). She continues to be alarmingly clear-eyed and articulate, and to be aggressively nasty and obnoxious whenever she feels any kind of emotional pain (it's way more comfortable to dump your pain by blaming somebody else than to unpack it inside yourself, apparently). In sum, everything is going pretty damn well. Homework starts this week, though, and that may introduce some new unpleasantness...
2) Duchess is hurtling into teenagerhood at high speed. Cook and I are taking a fairly hands-off approach to her middle school experience, giving her a lot of independence and letting her work out things like how to organize her stuff and her time effectively. She's the last of us to leave in the morning, so she washes the breakfast dishes, turns off the lights, locks the door behind her, and walks very slowly to school, picking up a large gaggle of friends on the way. She negotiates a day of switching classes, moving herself, her notebooks, her PE uniform, and her flute to class and between lockers as needed. Also, apparently lots of social negotiations. After school she hangs out teenagerily with friends on the playground for a while, then walks very slowly home, dropping off a large gaggle of friends on the way. Two days a week, she gets ready for her evening kung fu class, feeds herself a snack, and leaves the house again to walk to class before the rest of us even get home. Yesterday after school she walked straight to ultimate frisbee practice and then straight to a Dungeons and Dragons* session at a friend's house. Cook picked her up at 8PM, twelve hours after he had last seen her. She's thriving. There are occasional flareups of tantrums/histrionics and she's pretty nastily sarcastic (fair enough, given her genetics) and sulky, as might be expected, but in general, she's just straight up happy. She likes her teachers and classes fine, she is building new friendships and reinforcing old ones, and generally she's delighted with everything. She's probably 5'6" now and looks like she's 15, so she's getting attention from older boys that is confusing and alarming and thrilling, and she often wants to discuss and analyze those experiences she had during the day that felt out of her depth. She still wants to talk about everything, actually. She literally follows me and Cook around the house, talking endlessly about her teachers, her friends, her worries, her excitements, her D&D character, the book she's reading, etc. This is lovely and also spectacularly tedious.
Also, Cook and I are okay.
The weather has turned and it's definitely not summer anymore. This is okay, too - time marches on!
* Yes. This is happening now. Duchess's extracurriculars are gymnastics class, kung fu classes, dorks-in-the-woods one weekend a month, ultimate frisbee and Dungeons and Dragons. Basically, nerd training. Oh, and she's doing band at school, so she practices flute at home a lot. Nerd training!
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Claire