Settling in

The kids are getting into the groove of serious school now, past the heady first days of orientation and nametag art projects. Skipper feels pretty optimistic* that this year will not be as terrible as last year, and that her teacher is less of a tyrant than last year's edition. Duchess is thrilled to be back among her people, and resigned to her class schedule. They're settling to the after-school schedule, as well - Skipper walks herself home and reads for hours after school (except for her once-weekly roller-skating class) and Duchess catches a ride from a teammate's family to her rowing adventures and busses** herself home afterward. 

There are two major battles we're working through with the kids right now.
1) Sibling assholery. They're awful to each other, and it poisons our family life. Our current approach is to pair off on a revolving basis for on-on-one time*** (which I'm calling "dates" in the absence of a better term, much to Duchess's dismay, because she's revolted by the notion of a date with her dad) to strengthen our connections to each of us so we can better deal with all of us.
2) Duchess's phone. I don't even... it's just shitty. What I  hate most is that her attention is always partly in phone-land. We just recalibrated our devices policy to create more blocks of phone-free time, so she's either totally on the phone or totally off it and she's pretty much being a jerk about even the mild restrictions we're enforcing. I'm sure the drama will continue to unfold.

What else? I have been reading this blog from the beginning (and so have the girls), and I was struck by how wearisome and unstable our life was from 2008-2012. Reading it, I remember how exhausted, how spread thin, and how despairing about the future I felt. Our current state, in which I can casually buy expensive groceries every week AND a new hammock chair for the porch AND a pair of brand-new shoes for Skipper AND save money for retirement, and our kids take care of themselves after school, is dramatically better in almost every way (except for trying-to-guide-a-kid-through-growing-up-in-the-smartphone-era and the president). Also, I really enjoyed watching videos of Skipper in her moray eel phase.

I might get a job for real (at the place where I've been temping in one form or another for four years). I'm interviewing in a few weeks.

That's pretty much the news. I'm leaving out The Great and Endless But Slow-Moving Saga of the Crumbling Foundation. You're welcome.


*Or what passes for optimistic in Skipper-ville.
**It will very soon become too dark after rowing ends for me and Cook to feel comfortable with this - she catches the bus at a physically isolated stop on a bridge (under another bridge) near multiple homeless encampments, a stop where I wouldn't feel comfortable waiting alone. So we're going to have to start picking her up, which adds another step to the evening. I recognize that it's still a much easier routine than when both kids needed retrieval from daycare/school, but it's annoying.
*** Some of the dates so far: Cook and Skipper went to see RBG, Skipper and I baked blondies and made lemonade, Duchess and Skipper went to see a bad second-run kids movie and eat lots of candy and popcorn, Cook and Duchess played video games together. They've been pretty successful. SO FAR.

It isn't summer any more.

It's fall!

Duchess is in eighth grade, and she seems cool with it so far. She has a pretty brutal rowing schedule lined up, so it remains to be seen how that works in balance with homework and her demanding social media brand. I'm guessing a bunch of tantrums will be part of the process, but I'm holding out hopes.

Skipper is in fourth grade. She would like to drop out of school. I'm guessing a bunch of tantrums will be part of her school year as well.

We took first-day-of-school photos, and they were really adorable. However, there was no memory card in the camera, so they exist only in my memory.

Summer catch-up, part two

Momotaro has a sister now! We got to visit her in August, combining the trip with Duchess's first rowing regatta. (I say first because she's decided to go all in on rowing this fall. She rows every weekday after school for two hours, and on Saturdays for three hours. Rowing is not a sport, it's a cult. More about that later.)

Momotaro, incidentally, doesn't think much of me.

Skipper was thrilled to see Momotaro, who is pretty much her favorite person in the world, but she was willing to spend a few moments with his sister.

Summer catch-up part one

So, the rest of summer happened.

We went to Timothy Lake with friends. This involves camping right next to a man-made lake and a whole bunch of other (loud) people, only a short drive from home. We pretty much just alternately float around the lake (with a priapic floaty) and take naps in the hammock all day. A good destination for half-assed campers like us. (I should note, though, that Cook went running several times, so he EARNED his hammock time.)

Duchess and her friend spent a lot of time taking photos of each other, as middle-schoolers seem to do.

It was a lovely weekend. On the way home, we stopped at a food cart. This is the way Duchess always looks at me these days.