Um, hi.

A coworker recently gave me this card. It felt apropos.



















Work is crazy right now; due to pending layoffs at a different department, we are likely to see a bunch of "bumping" through the union contract, which allows people who are laid off to bump out other people with the same job classification and less seniority. (Not bump OFF, just bump.) I am exceedingly likely to get bumped, due to having only a few months of seniority in this represented position. I'm pretty resigned to it, because my bleak worldview generally gives me a helpful perspective on this sort of thing. (I AM dreading being unemployed again, but at least I'll get unemployment benefits for a while, and we're financially okay.) However, the uncertainty and the anxiety of the people around me at work is making me anxious. I did have a big surge of anxiety before I learned more details, because I was afraid my boss was just going to show up at my desk without warning and escort me to the door, which seemed awful.* I have since been reassured that I will get at least a little advance notice, so I feel generally better about everything. I haven't even been eating very many cookies.

What else? Not much. It's raining. The girls have been spending their clothing allowances. To my disappointment, Skipper did NOT purchase this furry thing.

























* Cook suggested I bring a boombox to work, cued up to play some kind of triumphant song, and just press "play" when I was escorted to the door, so I could leave in a blaze of glory. I found some comfort in this idea, but I'm still much happier with a quiet advance notice. I'm really more of a sneak-out-under-the-radar kind of a person.

Kids these days

I've been reading a book about how screwed millennials are, and what I'm gleaning from it* seems like it will dismally apply to Duchess and Skipper.

Also, Duchess and her phone. Ugh. She's constantly holding it and staring at it. Last night I made her turn it off earlier than usual, and she was such delightful company - she played a stupid card game with Skipper, manically and amusingly did a dance and voice interpretation of my uterus, and worked on a crossword with Cook.** I've missed her.

*Kids are having to work increasingly hard on training themselves and making themselves more valuable resources in order to compete with each other for increasingly unstable and poorly paid jobs. This is bad.
**I have fond memories of doing crossword puzzles with my friend in middle school, in the Eugene Maleska era. That's how I learned the word "ort."

Still here

You've probably been waiting for this update. Here it is: we're alive!

Duchess had a wonderful time on her ultimate frisbee adventure to Minnesota. She loved everything. She loved playing (in spite of all the losing) and she loved staying with her teammate's relatives (canoeing, kayaking, swimming, and driving a golf cart), and everything went smoothly. One of her hosts even sent me a nice email saying what a lovely guest she was.

And school is starting! Duchess is very excited. Last weekend Skipper and I actually took her to the mall to meet up with her friends and shop for clothes. I'm not sure when I became a character in a sitcom, but it has happened. And I did appreciate how many people were at the mall in family groups, clearly enjoying themselves together - I enjoyed it, too! For a little while, at least. And then we bought a bunch of bulk candy and pried Duchess away from her friends so we could get out of there.

Here's something I've noticed about Duchess. (I should have realized this before, but I've been very busy worrying constantly about the end of the world.) She's a nice person (well, not always to her family members, but to others), and the thing she values above everything else in other people is that they are nice.

Skipper is a little worried about school, but also looking forward to it. She might actually be tired of doing nothing.

Because it's fall, it's time to assemble the hodge-podge of the year's extracurriculars. We're scaling down a bit this year, since Duchess wants more time to hang out with friends and Skipper wants more time to recuperate from everything. Duchess is doing gymnastics and ultimate, leaving kung fu behind. Skipper will still be doing the after-school kung fu program because she needs aftercare. She's signed up for ultimate, although she was dismayed to learn that she would have to participate in a tournament. (She said she likes running around, but she doesn't want to actually catch and throw during the games - it turns out that she thinks of herself as "a back-up," hovering around in case everybody else breaks their ankles. So we'll see how that works out...)

And Cook and I are trying not to panic about everything. It'll be okay, right? RIGHT?

Yule

Christmas happened. It was a good one. Skipper still hasn't changed out of her pajamas.

The things you can control.

Skipper continues to refuse to wear anything but a very small roster of clothing items. Every night and every morning we have been having the same insane discussion* with her, and Cook and I are both extremely over it. Yesterday I took everything out of her dresser and closet that she hasn't worn in the last month (she has a ton of clothes handed down from the twin Blond girls), stuffed it all in a large duffle, and put it in the basement. Her wardrobe is now composed of the following clothes that she will consistently or occasionally wear: four t-shirts, three pairs of shorts, one pair of pants, seven pairs of days-of-the-week socks, three pairs of underpants, one hooded sweatshirt, two raincoats, one pair of sneakers, one pair of too-small crocs, one pair of rainboots she will wear only if the alternative is getting her sneakers muddy, two hankies, three kung fu uniforms, a leotard for gymnastics, and a swimsuit for swim lessons. Period.

While this is plenty of clothing for most purposes, it is problematic because a) it is difficult to launder her clothes quickly enough, given our schedules and lack of a dryer,** b) several of these most-loved clothing items are getting very ratty, having experienced several owners and now getting worn and washed at least twice a week, and c) the wardrobe is really not warm enough for the kind of weather we're getting into. Also d) it's a little embarrassing to send your kid to school every day wearing the same clothes, especially when they're ratty.***

I ran into an acquaintance recently, and in the course of our conversation I discovered that her kid has very similar issues, that also seem to be a blend of control and sensory issues. (Her kid also has very conflicting reasons for disliking different pieces of clothing, and abruptly decides she doesn't like a piece of clothing she has loved for months.)  It was a relief to hear that, but also alarming, as her kid is nine and has been like this for years, which suggests that this is not necessarily a short-term problem, as I had been hoping.

I can't figure out how to solve this. My acquaintance has her kid wear clothes she dislikes in the evening for an hour at a time, so she can get used to them without having to wear them all day, and we may try something like that. It isn't very helpful to take Skipper shopping, as she has no interest in it, and doesn't want to try anything on, but it's also very risky buying her anything without her trying it on, because odds are extremely high that she will dislike it. It also pisses me off to have to buy her anything at all, given that she has an enormous collection of clothing already.

Anyway. Presumably the situation will improve. I expect.


*"I don't have anything to wear! Waaaaahhhh!" 
"You have a dresser stuffed with nice clothes," 
"NO I DON'T!!!! WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

** Skipper has several times gone to the basement to dress herself in half-dry clothes off the line. Sending your kid to school in DAMP ratty clothes that she's already worn to school twice that week provides bonus mortification. Also, clothes hung to dry in our basement this fall smell slightly unpleasant in a dank way, which suggests that we need a better dehumidifier and makes us all smell like maybe our family lives clandestinely in an elderly person's unfinished basement, which further increases my anxiety about what Skipper's teachers think of us.

***I must acknowledge here that I also very much prefer to wear baggy, comfortable, ratty clothes, and I also have a uniform that I wear when I have a choice - it is notably comprised of two hooded sweatshirts, one ratty cotton cardigan, one pair of jeans, and my four favorite t-shirts. The main difference between my choice wardrobe and Skipper's is that there are fewer pictures of animals in mine. However, unlike Skipper, I am willing to wear other things when I must.

Boxes

Skipper has a pretty solid wardrobe of hand-me-downs, but she prefers to wear only a small selection of things. She most likes clothes with pictures of animals, and she has asked repeatedly for shirts and sweatshirts with dinosaurs on them. She wants a swimsuit with fish on it. Or any sea creature, actually. And as all her swim suits are baggy and threadbare, I thought I'd find her a cheap new or used suit with a fish on it. And I can't find one. Flowers, yes. Fish, no. I've found a hundred boys' swimsuits with fish on them, but she wants a girls' suit. So here's a quest for you - find Skipper a swimsuit. If it has a swimming dinosaur on it, you get bonus points.

Luxury

A few weeks ago we all made a field trip to a furniture store to investigate options. It was the kind of store we rarely go to, a vast building surrounded by parking, and it was full of enormous furniture. At first I felt slightly superior in an envious way ("Sacre bleu! All the chairs have cupholders built in! Lazy Americans!") and then I just got into it.  I am naturally inclined toward reclining with cupholders, and if we had any furniture capable of that, I would do nothing but recline. And drink things.

The kids skipped the feeling-superior phase, because they don't know how to do that yet. Also, the moment we walked in, a friendly greeter pointed out the kids' area, which had televisions and these little rocking chair things that doubled as remote controls, so you plugged your headset INTO THE CHAIR and controlled the volume WITH YOUR CHAIR. And they had Xboxes! Skipper sat down to watch "Finding Nemo" while Duchess sat down beside her to play a VIDEO GAME! With an XBOX! Duchess has never seen a game controller, and it was apparently a revelatory experience.

When Cook and I finished goggling at the enormous reclining couches and armchairs with cupholders (and when I finally struggled out of the last one I tried, which I could happily have lived in for the rest of my life), we went to collect the kids. On the way out we walked through the kids' furniture area, which was full of child-sized armchairs with cupholders. As we walked out the door, Duchess said "Mom, can we come back here tomorrow?" All the way home, the kids dreamily discussed how fabulous it would be if we were magically granted all the furniture in that store. Each kid would have their own room! And each room would have a trundle bed! And a giant TV! And an Xbox! And an armchair with cupholders!

On a related note, the girls were reading the wellness handout we got at Skipper's doctor's office on Friday, and they found the advice to limit children's screen time to 1-2 hours per day. And not to let your child have a TV in her room. I silently congratulated myself for being a great parent** while the kids contemplated the possibility that these might be options. I think they may be considering trading me in for a different parent model, possibly one with cupholders.

* Yesterday I let Skipper watch Daniel Tiger for nearly two hours, which I suspect some of my friends would consider borderline abusive parenting. I considered it a great way to make dinner without Skipper's help - she's relentlessly enthusiastic about participating in cooking, which is cool, but also inconvenient for me, as it slows things down considerably. I frequently find myself sneaking into the kitchen to cook, hoping she won't notice. 

Shoes.

I took Duchess shopping for shoes this weekend. I had ordered her a pair of Toms (which all the cool kids wear, so she really wanted a pair) with that lovely holiday gift certificate, but they turned out to be much too big, so I took her to the local store to exchange them. And then it turned out that Duchess has very narrow feet, and Toms are the wrong shape, so she can't wear them in any size. So she was faced with the task of picking out another pair. The last time Duchess was in a shoe store, she was five. Her shoes are purchased used, off eBay or at thrift stores and yard sales. She has no experience of browsing a variety of shoes all of which can be purchased in her size. (I did restrict her choices to only shoes that she can run in. While this is entirely sensible, because she is nine and still actually plays on the playground, it is also aligned with my own, very simple personal fashion guideline, which is in turn aligned with my generally fear-based approach to life; if it limits my ability to escape a disaster, I'm not wearing it.)

Duchess had a very hard time choosing, and it quickly became clear that it was a much bigger decision than just choosing footwear. She was choosing how she wants to present herself. She wanted a pair of shoes that were socially acceptable but also expressed a style of her own, and she didn't really know what that style might be. She is not interested in fashion, and has no particular style. (Bear in mind that she was wearing blue corduroy pants with polka dots, too short in the ankles, with her beloved, omnipresent swim team sweatshirt.) She wants vaguely to wear clothes like the cool girls in her class, but she does grasp that what works for the third grade's queen bee, a small, elfin girl with wispy white-blond hair, might not work for her.

She tried on a pair of boots and a pair of mary janes, both styles that she has admired, in keeping with her liking of prim, classic clothes. She wasn't excited about them once they were on, much to my relief. Duchess isn't really a crisp, classic clothing person, even when you make an allowance for her age. The salesperson, who seemed to have her pretty much dialed in immediately, got her to try on a pair of converse hightops, which I thought were perfect. They're long and thin, like her, and interesting without being too strange. But Duchess felt she would be mocked for wearing them at school. She ended up choosing a pair of bright blue athletic shoes. Duchess and I poked around the clothes department a bit, once she had her new shoes on, and as she mused about what she likes, I could hear her crystallizing this identity. Sporty, colorful, comfortable. We'll see if this identity sticks.

Getting dressed

Skipper just got brand-new shoes, courtesy of a generous holiday gift certificate.

Me: Hey, it's time to get on socks and shoes to go get Duchess.
Skipper (sprinting away from me to fetch her shoes): OH! I will put on my AWESOME socks to wear with my AWESOME shoes to go with my SPECTACULAR outfit!

Farm Munny

Skipper and Duchess both get an allowance. Duchess has gotten more careful over time about how she spends her money, but Skipper has been miserly from the start. When I ask her if she wants to bring her money to, say, the candy store or the toy store, she always says, without hesitation, some variation on this:  "No, because if I spend my money I won't have it any more."

Yesterday I asked her what she's saving her money for, and she said, again without hesitation, "Animals." It turns out that she's saving up to buy a farm.

Miscellany

Skipper is into space this week.* She has been asking lots of questions and poring over an old Click magazine issue about space. She dug up an astronaut bear stuffed animal given to her by a NASA fan a few years ago, renamed it "Davy Baby Space Bear," and given it Most Favored Animal status.** However, when Cook delivered a bedtime story (an installment in the six-year-long Pippa and the Penguin series), in which the child heroine and her avian companion were SEPARATED from the parents and accidentally caught a ride on a spaceship, Skipper freaked out and had to hide under her pillow until the family was reunited. Apparently, we will all have to come along when Skipper makes her first space mission.

Today we took the girls to an open house at a local dance/theater/music education nonprofit, where they were offering free half-hour classes. Skipper was excited in advance, but when we got there, she didn't want to participate. ("I don't like this class because you have to talk," she told me.) Duchess, however, got to participate in an improvisational theater class, which (of course) she adored. Cook and I watched the whole thing, and we were both really struck by how much any 8-year-old (or human being of any age) can benefit from some improv training. The primary rule, more or less, are that you say "yes" to any idea that is tossed your way, that you listen and respond and not "block" your teammates' ideas by changing the storyline too drastically or by refusing to go along with their ideas. Funny but irrelevant non sequiturs are discouraged. There are no mistakes. It's all about paying attention, being generous to yourself and your partners, enthusiastically diving into ideas but still keeping an eye on the big picture to make sure things aren't veering too far off course... doesn't this sound like a recipe for success in conversations, relationships, projects - just about everything? I've decided that every second-grader in Portland should have a weekly improv class.

While I'm fixing up public education, I've decided that math needs an overhaul, too. This week my curiosity overpowered my budgeting willpower, and I purchased a ridiculously expensive ($6!) math game app for my awesome tablet. Duchess has been playing it as much as she is allowed, and it appears to be more or less teaching her algebra.*** It's pretty cool, and I think the school district should have all the kids learn algebra by playing a video game for a few hours. I'll include that in my overhaul.

And, for your last item of miscellany, I took Skipper to the dentist last week, and she LET THEM DO AN X-RAY. She cried quite a bit throughout the whole experience, but the incentive of getting screen time ("Wonderpets" again) was enough to make her power through. She may be actually growing up. For a bonus, the staff lavishly praised her excellent oral hygiene, she got a sticker, and she has no cavities. Huzzah!


* Hey, NASA. I assume you're aware that Sunita Williams is a fabulous ambassador for the space program, but having her/allowing her to host a 25-minute video tour of the space station was a really great idea, particularly if you were wanting to add "astronaut" to the career wishlists of girls around the country.
** Eat your heart out, Punghy.
***Though it's not perfect, and occasionally the presence of a coach with some grasp of math is very helpful.

Merry Christmas!

We had a lot of loot. There are no good photos of the orgy of opening, but this is our tiny tree under siege last night.

This year's note to Santa. Duchess included a take-away container, having been somewhat offended by Santa's leaving leftovers last year.

Birthday morning

Trying out the new tumbling mat

It's been a quiet week...

We get Dutch back tomorrow! That's pretty much all our news. I've been listening to this a lot. We went to Ikea and bought a picnic table,* and Skipper has insisted on eating outside every day this week This is how she feels about the awesome peaches-with-ginger-biscuits-and-piles-of-whipped-cream dessert we ate tonight.

*We were hoping to forage a super-cheap used table to go with our yard-sale chairs ($2 each), but then we realized that we were just wasting a lot of summer days.

Self-medicating

I'm not much of a medication user for minor complaints like colds, fevers, indigestion, etc. I generally feel that  suppressing symptoms just takes away your cues about what you need to do to take care of yourself, and it's not worth the money, the waste of environmental resources, or the addition of foreign chemicals to your body. I'm not hard-line on this, but even when I do buy and use medication, I usually try to stick to things with only one active ingredient at a time. It's a general approach that Cook shares, so our medicine/first-aid kit before kids usually consisted of some elderly ibuprofen, bandaids, and maybe a few cough drops. We've beefed up the first aid side of things over the last few years,* but we still don't really have much in the way of over the counter medication.

Today, though, I bought the kind of cold medicine that has THREE active ingredients and claims it'll make you feel totally healthy. I felt a little frisson of danger, like maybe I was going to go home and cook up some meth.** I live a crazy life! Actually, at the moment I'm just kind of beyond caring about cues to take care of myself. I'm tired and under-exercised, yeah. That's not news to anybody, and I have stuff to do, and it's raining. Now dope me up!

*Especially recently, after Cook sliced off the very tip of his finger and we discovered the value of non-stick dressings.
** Though apparently that's not possible any more. 

Sunday

Today was the sunniest, warmest day of the year so far. It took us a little while to get moving.

Blueberries we planted last year, posing with strawberries.

The azalea I'm very carefully "unshearing" on a multi-year schedule.

One of this year's blueberries, with tulips and roses we haven't yet killed.

The grapevine is budding out! Maybe we'll get some ripe grapes this year.

The salmonberry plant we put in last year. I have since learned that salmonberries will take over your entire yard given half a chance, so I probably shouldn't have put it in. But it's gorgeous, and tenacity isn't necessarily a bad thing in a plant under my care. 

Dutch actually sold five of her unique pipe cleaner bracelets (she raised the price to 25 cents for "normal" bracelets and 26 for "crazy" bracelets). She paid Skipper to do all the hawking, so Skipper stood in the driveway screaming "BRACELETS FOR SALE!" at the bleary-eyed young folks staggering along our street toward the uber-hip coffee shop on the corner. We don't need to worry about a college fund for either of them!

Dutch squeezed our two lemons and the girls had lemonade in the driveway in the evening, after their showers.  They took it pretty seriously.

Money, consumption, tulips, etc.

Today Dutch's school had a 2-hour snow delay, throwing a wrench into my plans for the morning. I took her and Skipper along on a multi-modal errand adventure, using as incentive for good behavior the promise that I'd take them to the big grocery store so Dutch could buy a toy she'd been wanting. She wouldn't tell me what it was, but she said she knew exactly what she wanted and she was confident that the $2.87 in her coin purse would be sufficient to purchase it. When we got there, the two toys she wanted cost $8.99 and $9.99. She frantically cast around for a few minutes to find something she could afford and actually enjoy, and came up with nothing.

Then we talked about fads. The toys she wanted are both currently extremely popular with boys in her class, who trade them and play with them after school. She wants the toys only for the social engagement to which they are a ticket. We talked about how the Pokemon fad in which she had been so eager to participate had ebbed recently (just after she finally got her own pack of Pokemon cards). I told her about the tulip bubble.* We talked about how if she's going to spend ten bucks on something, it'd probably be a good idea to make sure it's something she will enjoy playing with even by herself. She agrees, in theory.


*I also thought about how much fun it is to get to tell somebody about the tulip bubble. Parenting sometimes makes me feel, in a thoroughly enjoyable way, like I know an ENORMOUS amount of stuff. Of course, the flip side is that the kids expect me to be able to answer all of their questions. Like this morning's question, which was "How do clouds make rain?"

Because you really, really wanted to know how I feel about my footwear.

We've had some Weather here in Portland lately. There's been some snow, and then there was a LOT of rain. Seriously, a LOT of rain. We're used to rain, of course, but mostly of the intermittent variety, but this was a major downpour that just went on and on and on. (The rain is continuing today, and will go on for at least another day, but it's not pouring any more.) Not only did all of us get really, really wet during our morning commutes,* yesterday afternoon our basement started leaking in a determined way. Our basement has never leaked in our experience, including during some pretty rainy periods, but apparently things just got too wet this time, and I spent yesterday afternoon frantically moving things around and mopping up rivers of water while Skipper heckled me from her perch on the stairs. The basement is fairly dry now, but we'll see how we hold up over the next few days. The whole region is in a bit of a state of crisis, with a lot of flooding.

All that human misery, however, hasn't been on my venal little mind (we don't live in a floodplain, after all) so much as a feeling of deep, abiding love for my boots. Remember my boots (Keen Silverton, in case you're in the market)? I've come to think of them as my Carfree Boots because they are such a perfect fit for my life - they've kept my feet dry and warm this week even as I waded through a third-of-a-mile-long, ankle-deep lake of slush between the bus stop and my office,* and stood in a six-inch-deep puddle while buckling Skipper into the bike trailer. They're indispensable for biking in the rain, an experience that can drench your feet and legs even if you're wearing waterproof shoes with low tops. I don't have to bring shoes to change into, because they look nice enough for work, and they're comfortable enough to wear all day, for many miles. I can't remember how I lived without them; what was I thinking? I must have had very wet feet. I should have bought a pair of these the day I moved to Portland. When Dutch and Skipper reach the age when their feet stop growing, I will buy them each a pair of these boots as a rite of passage into car-free adulthood  - they're crazy expensive, yes, but way cheaper than a car.


*Cook is a very, very dedicated bike commuter - one of those people you see slogging along on a miserable day, and you think "Jesus, that guy is nuts," and appreciate your dry, warm bus or car seat that much more. It's probably a combination of his bone-deep stubbornness and his resistance to spending money unnecessarily - but whatever it is that gets him out the door at 5:30 AM to ride to work, when it's dark, pouring freezing rain, and there's an inch of slippery slush on the ground, it's pretty impressive.  Portland is home to a lot of bike commuters, and they're generally pretty indifferent to rain, but this week only the desperate or the hardcore types like Cook were out on the road.

I hope they're at least not laundering their fleece jackets...

While these tweets make me squeamish, I can see as how this could be Dutch in ten years.

Christmas

Christmas Eve morning

Cook took the kids to play kickball with friends. They came back tired.

Christmas Eve dinner: Skipper ate none of it. But it was delicious. 

Stockings. I don't know why Skipper took her clothes off for the event.

Skipper was pretty confused about the whole thing. Early on in the Big Present Opening Frenzy, she opened a set of playdough tools, and promptly retired into another room to play with them. I asked her if she wanted to open more gifts and she said "Just save them for me." (She changed her mind later, and plunged into the Frenzy to a terrifying extent.)

Dutch received several gifts that fit into her Old-Fashioned persona. Actually, we have no idea where the apron came from, or which of us it was intended for. There were some technical problems during the Frenzy that resulted in an alarmingly large number of orphaned gifts. Does anybody want to take credit for the apron? We'd like to know who to thank.

I think Laura Ingalls would have liked the snap circuit kit, too.

And this was one of my favorite gifts, annotated by the giver.

Then Cook took the kids outside again and ran them around. (Dutch is wearing maybe her fourth outfit of the day.)

That's the story here.  I hope you all had/are having wonderful holidays!