Fine.

I'm listening to: Julien Baker
I'm reading: Shrill
I'm feeling: I don't know. Indeterminate. Fine, I guess.

Things are fine. It's hot.

The girls are getting ready for school. Skipper feels pretty comfortable, returning to the same school for the third year, confident in her academic chops and excited to see her friends again, though she's of course nervous about new teachers.

Duchess is very excited and nervous about middle school. She has said several times this week "Mom... I'm nervous about middle school!" and she announced tonight that she does, actually, care about what she wears. She was very embarrassed to tell me this, and to tell me that she wants to use her recently-established clothing budget to buy new cheap clothes made by sweatshop laborers.

Things I like

• Songs We Love 2015
• I went to yoga! (I liked the yoga, but the thing I really like is that I went.)
• Cooler weather
• We went to a movie! A first-run movie! In the theater! All of us! For the first time! (Skipper cowered miserably in my lap and Cook's lap for most of the movie, but she was there!)

Just punching my card today

• We're busy. 
• I just finished a big deadline at work, and am picking up all the other things I abandoned in order to get the big one done. That feels both pretty good and also scary, as many of those little things have become bigger things...
• The weather is gorgeous. 
• Yesterday Skipper started plucking at the strings of my very-neglected guitar, crouching beside it and listening intently to each note ring out and fade. "Mom, I'm listening to The Whole Sound!" she said. 
• Skipper has been enthusiastically playing a game she was given for her birthday, which is like Uno in that all her family members are willing to play it; it's a pleasant, not-too-taxing mix of luck and strategy.
• Duchess has nothing to show for hours spent working with her partner on an engineering-y science fair project, because neither of them are interested in taking the time to READ THE DIRECTIONS or to be at all careful in construction, so their constructions keep disintegrating. I'm happy to go with natural consequences here, but Cook pointed out that Duchess, due to her tendency to be satisfied with pretty much anything, never actually learns anything from natural consequences. That is why he is in the living room with her while she builds, monitoring her for slap-dash heedlessness, and I am in here, blogging.
• Last week Duchess and I had a terrible morning (Skipper and Cook usually leave about 20 minutes earlier than we do, because the girls' schools are on different schedules) in which she aggressively and irrationally blamed me for the disappearance of the raincoat which she wanted to bring in case of rain. I totally lost my temper. On the walk to school, she was trying to chat about something, and I told her "I'm having a really hard time just conversing with you right now, because I'm still feeling pretty mad about being yelled at and blamed for stuff that's not my fault. I need to finish being mad before I can be pleasant. Do you understand how I feel?" and she said (I'm paraphrasing, but this is pretty close) "Yeah. You were trying to get lots of stuff done and you were doing stuff for me, and you were stressed out and it makes you angry when I blame you for stuff that's not your fault. I can see why you're so mad. I'm sorry I did that." I was pretty staggered. Duchess's deep flexibility and willingness to see other perspectives, while sometimes worrisome (as when she sees the perspective that an extremely sloppily-executed science fair project is really no big deal), allows her (when she's in the mood) to be sincerely sensitive and generous in her relationships in a way that makes her sound like she's read a bunch of therapy books.
• However, I still don't know what she did with the raincoat. I suspect she lost it, which is why she so badly wanted it to be my fault...

Skipper had a taiko performance on Friday. She was pretty worried about it. She survived:

Growth

We have had a hectic few days. There has been baking, parties, gymnastics, roller skating, visiting relatives, restaurants, ice cream, and much more. It's been wonderful and dizzying.

On Sunday, I took Duchess to get her ears pierced. This was her request for a 10th birthday present, but her swimming schedule required a delay. This seemed like a good time to get it done, so on Sunday evening she and I biked over to a local piercing/tattoo place, a place that regularly handles much more sensitive and complicated piercings than easy-peasy earlobes, and has rave reviews online. She got her ears pierced by a guy with a lot of tattoos who was really great with her. She was thrilled by the experience, and LOVES her new earrings and clearly feels 100% more sophisticated.















































(Though she was mad at me when I took these photos, and thus looks kind of pissy.)

This morning, we went to a well-child checkup. Duchess asked me and Skipper to let her do the appointment herself, so we waited in the waiting room. When they called us in, Duchess's doctor told me that Duchess is "perfectly normal. Except that she's super-tall!"

This is Duchess's growth chart. Those numbers at the right end of the curved lines are percentiles. Notice how far Duchess is above the 95th percentile line? Notice that she's 5'2.5" tall? Notice that her trajectory is heading toward an adult height of over 5'10"? Even if she stops growing today, she'll be taller than a quarter of the adult female population.

It's a good thing the bar is set pretty low.

I'm not invested in Mothers Day at all, but Portland Public Schools is, so I got a pile of cards this morning. Here are my favorites.

From Skipper (made at home). There's a draft version that says "I heart Yuo mom" 12 times in a row.

I don't listen to her when she talks about video games, either, but she's generous.

Our life right now, in numbers

9,998 - hours to go before I become a guitar virtuoso.* I've been increasingly bothered by the gap between the amount of time I spend on supporting my kids to do cool activities and the amount of time I spend on doing cool activities myself, so I bought a super-cheap guitar** and an online guitar course. I can now play super-simple versions of Amazing Grace, Happy Birthday, and When the Saints Go Marching In, very slowly and badly. Also, my wrists hurt. And my brain hurts.

4 - my remaining weeks of work

6 - the remaining weeks of school

89 - degrees in Fahrenheit at the hottest part of the day last Thursday.

41 - Skipper's height, in inches.

36 - Skipper's weight, in pounds.

25 - Skipper's height and weight, as a percentile of girls her age in the United States.

1 - the number of times Skipper said "Fuck!" at her appointment with her new pediatrician.


*Also, apparently I need to concentrate and get good coaching, too. But that's harder to put into numbers.
** So new that it is still offgassing solvents, and smells like the tears of abused, underpaid Chinese factory workers.

Acorns. Eels.

Skipper's class does a lot of singing with their Japanese teacher. Skipper's grasp of Japanese is minimal, so when she sings or speaks Japanese to us, we're always skeptical that we're actually hearing Japanese. For example, she was sure that Happy Birthday in Japanese was "Otanja azania." However, it turns out to be "O tanjō-bi omedetō" which is sort of close. I guess. 

She came home yesterday singing a song called "Donguri Korokoro" which is apparently about acorns. Her singing sounded like gibberish,* so I looked it up. It turns out she had most of it more or less right, with missing words and parts of words. It is also, fortunately, a popular children's song, so there are plenty of videos online. And now the song is completely stuck in my head, and I will be singing about acorns for the rest of my life.

Skipper, by the way, was very embarrassed to make this video, so I had to promise to sing it with her.

*While I know absolutely nothing about Japanese, I'm starting to get a sense of how it generally sounds.  I've heard much more Japanese spoken in the halls at Skipper's school in the last two months than I heard in my entire life before. 

Holidays

So! The kids are on break, officially. And I am leaving my job after this Tuesday. THIS TUESDAY. So I will also be on break, indefinitely. I feel great about this, in many ways, enormously relieved. In other ways, I'm feeling terrified. My biggest immediate issue is that I really, really, really don't want to take the kids out of childcare, because if I then get a job, they won't be able to get back in to their programs. Skipper confessed the other day that she likes everything about her preschool, except for one kid who hits her. I don't want to take her out of there. Duchess loves kung fu more than anything else in her day (and she loves pretty much everything in her days), and I don't want to take her out of there, either. We'll go on as we are for a little while, and then retrench. Essentially, I need a job in order to keep my kids in childcare.

My biggest long-term issue is my deep fear that I will never find another job. I'm going to try to ignore that for a few weeks, long enough to eat a lot of cookies, watch the kids revel in Christmas, and enjoy the tremendous pleasure of listening to Cook and Duchess play holiday songs on the piano. Life is sweet.

I wish I had an orchestra of my very own.

We went on a road trip.

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.

Music in schools

I'd write about it, but I'll just let Sheila Esquivel tell you about it.

Small triumphs.

Today I spent an hour calling people and asking them for money. I have gotten involved in the efforts of the brand-new school foundation* to raise enough money to pay for staffing for some small scrap of a music program. We're shooting for a half-time position, though it's extremely unlikely we'll get there. However, we have raised about $13,000 so far, which I think is actually pretty awesome considering half the kids at the school get reduced-price/free lunch, the foundation only started fundraising a few weeks ago, and all the families have been asked all year to pony up for stuff like school supplies, playground balls, field trips, PTA fundraisers and direct donation drives, etc. So I called people. Talking on the phone is not my favorite thing, and asking people for stuff makes me feel sick to my stomach, so I felt pretty much like throwing up the whole time. But I did it. Nobody gave me their credit card numbers on the spot, but several people said they plan to donate,** and nobody yelled at me, so I consider the experience a huge success.

I also helped organize a letter-writing event last week after school, in which participants used our talking points and materials to write their own letters to legislators about the need to reform school funding at the state level. It was a good event,*** though also kind of sad. People kept looking up and asking things like "Hey, how do you spell 'appalling'? How about 'hopeless'?" The legislator who attended (it's her district) was very pessimistic about the prospects of any kind of improvement, given the refusal of Republicans to entertain any discussion of revenue reform. Actually, what I was told by somebody who knows more about this stuff than I do was that the pension expenses should be under control in about 15 years, at which point the spending on schools will immediately improve, barring social collapse.**** So after Dutch and Skipper are done with their public schooling, things might look up a bit.

Anyway. That's why I've been doing all this asking. It's very tiring, but I'm trying not to feel hopeless.


*I hate the idea of school communities fundraising from their own pockets to pay for stuff. There are deep-pocketed schools that support multiple FTEs through fundraising, and others who have no foundation at all. But I don't want our school to keep losing enrollment, and I don't want any kids at the school to go without music. So I decided to start participating in the foundation effort AND the legislative reform stuff, in an effort to feel less awful about the foundation fundraising. 


**At that point a good fundraiser would ask them to pledge to donate a specific (high) amount, but I'm a terrible fundraiser, so I just said "Great!"


*** There were bubbles!


**** My disclaimer for most statements about the future.

More miscellany

Dutch had her recital today. The 20-odd performers were piano and voice students of three teachers in a music co-op, and they ranged in age from maybe 5 to maybe 35, and in skill from just beginning to what seemed to my non-musical ears to be somewhat competent. The last performer played the piano AND sang.* This just about blew my mind. I can't imagine being able to play the piano with two hands doing different things, and the idea of then adding singing to that is staggering to me. Watching this unbelievable thing taking place RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME was like watching another human being sprout wings and fly. This wasn't a person who is launching a musical career, either, just a normal human being with a day job who is taking piano and voice lessons. It was great. I loved every minute of the recital. Dutch carried off her performance with aplomb. I have no idea if she played it right, but she was very composed and calm. She enjoyed the other performances, too, and sat raptly through everything. Watching her play, and watching the other more and less advanced students play, made me feel even more sure that I want to keep her in piano lessons for as long as she sustains interest. Particularly given that she won't be getting any music at school...

In other news, we're in the middle of a solar eclipse! And we got to look at it with our new solar-viewing glasses I got for the upcoming transit of venus! Thanks, Astronomers Without Borders!

We briefly had a house guest, which was lovely. Dutch, as usual, followed him everywhere, talking and showing off. Skipper took longer to warm up, but was very sad to see him go.

Oh, and Dutch finished her 4H poster. It's titled "Rabbits are Amazing!" Cook and I managed to convince her to leave off the most egregious invented "facts," so the final draft is mostly non-fiction.

Skipper woke up from an exceptionally long nap too late to attend Dutch's recital and the subsequent library/grocery trip, so she and Cook made pizza and weeded the garden. He reported that he put on some music and she told him she didn't like it, she prefers "violent music." After some discussion about what she meant by that, he put on the Dead Kennedys, of which she approved.

*She sang an Adele song, so it wasn't the sort of singing-along that I can actually do, where you just sing along with the melody that the instrument is playing.

Busy

It's a busy month around here. Dutch has a piano recital and a  4H presentation coming up (requiring her first poster - it's very exciting). Cook is busy with work shenanigans and some extracurricular cartographic dorkery.  I'm busy with work* and with volunteering at Dutch's school** but not with cleaning. Nope. You should see the dustbunnies.*** And I'm way behind on the vegetable garden. And blogging. Skipper is busy being insane about her eczema.****



*It's Bike Month, you guys! Plus I'm moving my whole program to another organization, involving lots of packing and budget maneuvering. 
** I wildly over-committed myself, taking on lots of tasks associated with Walk+Bike Challenge Month (May), Staff Appreciation Week (May 7-11), an effort to reform education funding at the state level, and the establishment of a school foundation aiming to raise over $150K in 6 weeks. (And yes, that's impossible, but we figure it's worth trying.) All these commitments seemed worthwhile, but May is pretty hectic.
*** However, I am married to a person who seizes on a blissful window of family-free time, not to lie on the couch and read a book (which is what I would do), but to clean the bathroom and exercise. So the house is much cleaner than I deserve. 
**** Cook and I, between us, have spent maybe 5 hours this week cajoling/outwaiting/bullying Skipper into taking showers, getting lotion put on, and having antibiotic cream applied to her oozing sores. That kid is unbelievably stubborn.

I can't bear it, either.

Dutch cried most of the way home from school today. Her music teacher (an energetic, generous, joyful woman who is, I suspect, the heart of the school) made the official announcement to the kids at an assembly today that she* will be leaving the school this summer. Dutch said her music teacher cried and her classroom teacher cried, and Dutch cried too. Dutch being Dutch,** she said "Mom, I can't bear it! I can't BEAR that she's leaving!" and I found myself fighting back tears, too. I'm sure Dutch would be just as sad if her beloved teacher was retiring, or voluntarily leaving for another job, but I wouldn't be, and I'm guessing nobody else in the school community over the age of 10 would be. But I think that a lot of other parents and school staff are shedding tears over this loss.

Obviously, we CAN bear it, and it will still be better than many schools in the world, and better than no school.*** But it feels really sad, and weighted with more meaning, like Everything Good is Going Away.


* and therefore not only music classes, but also the 5th-grade band, the 4th-grade drum group, the holiday community sing-a-long event, and probably more other stuff I don't know about...
**Sentimental and extremely fond of drama in any form.
*** I guess. Though I think we may be reaching the point where I really could provide a better education through homeschooling. Actually, I fear that keeping Dutch at home for a carefully-planned curriculum of playing complicated pretend games with Skipper, arguing with me, coloring, and lying around reading books about horses would provide a better education than what she's going to get at school next year.

Two little monkeys playing Bobby Shaftoe

Dutch is struggling with the piano. She loves her lessons, but hates practicing (though she likes it AFTER she's mastered the relevant song, of course). I made a video of her the other night attempting to play "Bobby Shaftoe" and I captured an awful meltdown, which I am not going to embarrass her or horrify you by posting here. Instead, you can watch her playing it WITHOUT melting down, the following evening. (I warn you that it is a very boring video. I guarantee you have never heard "Bobby Shaftoe" played, with or without mistakes, so slowly.)

Also, here is Skipper accompanying herself on the piano. (That's Cook reflected in the background, attempting to remediate a paint crisis.)

Not much going on.

• What I'm watching:  this*
• What I'm doing when it isn't raining: this
• What I'm doing when it is raining: this
• What I should be doing, but am not: this **
• Number of jobs for which I've applied in 2012: 6
• Number of jobs for which I've gotten an interview in 2012: 0
• Approximate amount of time it's taken me so far to get our taxes together: 5 hours
• How crushed Dutch was when we realized that our schedule precludes her participation in the K-2 Talent Show (she was planning to play Yankee Doodle Dandy on the piano, because it's easy and she wouldn't have to practice it, because my daughter is both lazy AND a total whore for the spotlight): this
• Percent of American girls Skipper's age who are larger than she is: 75
• Percent of American girls Skipper's age who are louder than she is: 1

* Is it okay that I love Blake Shelton and his little waistcoats? And is it okay that I don't understand what "pitchy" means?
**I KNOW. I just got stuck. I will get back on track. I don't want to weigh 500 pounds any more than you want me to.

Six things about my week.

I haven't been writing because I've got very little to say. Here, in no particular order and with no attempt to stitch it all together, are your random updates:

1) I crashed my bike today. No cars or kids were involved - it was just me, my bike with its slick tires, and a frost-rimed intersection on which I was turning left. I went down pretty hard, but not very fast, and neither my bike nor I suffered any serious damage (though yikes, ouch). Several bicyclists stopped to make sure I was okay and one of them said helpfully "It's pretty slick out today."

2) Dutch had her first piano lesson with her very cheerful hipster 25-year-old teacher. She loved it. I'm not sure if it's the music, her expectation of immediate great success, or just getting undiluted attention from an adult for 45 minutes, but she's thrilled. I overheard her singing a song to herself this morning that went something like this: "I can't wait for Thursdays! Thursdays are my faaaaaaavorite day of the WEEK! Thursday is when I have piaaaaaaaaano lessons!"

3) Skipper's rash is getting uglier lately. She has a new, sandpapery kind of rash (the internets think she has scarlet fever, but I'm confident that's not the case) on her belly and back, plus the regular eczema on her arms and legs. Nothing seems particularly itchy, and she's not uncomfortable, but it's pretty gruesome. We're cutting back on both gluten and dairy in the hopes that it'll reduce the flareups, if not the base-level rash. Poor kid. In related news, I'm going to launch my first gluten-free baking project this afternoon.

4) I've been doing a little data entry for a short-term project, bringing in enough cash for a few days' worth of groceries. Woohoo!

5) We decorated for the holidays tonight. It was totally hilarious, in a way that I do not have the writing chops to capture in text. You're just going to have to imagine it. These are some of the elements: both kids loudly singing what they think are tuneful holiday songs (Skipper: " HAAAAPPPPEEEEEE KrissssMUSSSSSSS! HAAAAAAPPPPEEEEEE... HAPPPPPEEEEEE!!") completely regardless of the actual music playing on the stereo, Skipper cavorting (rashily) in her underpants around the heat vent saying things like "It's WARM inside my pants!", Dutch reading all of "A Visit From St Nicholas" out loud (unsolicited), the kids fighting like drunk raccoons over possession of a bell ornament, Dutch announcing excitedly "Mom, I think I know what my Gift is! I think it's SINGING!", Skipper running out of the room, shouting "Christmas, goodbye!" and then returning and yelling "Christmas, I'm back!" and I don't know, a hundred more obnoxious, funny, cacophonous, adorable, bratty moments. Cook said later "That was definitely not what I imagined holiday decorating with my family would be like," which he meant in a good way. (I'm pretty sure.)

6) I got an email from somebody named Galadriel, and it wasn't spam.