staggering along

Work is swamping me, and all my extra energy is absorbed in the great Eating Less* campaign and in trying to be a decent parent (this is not going terribly well; my kids are also very self-absorbed). I have nothing left for housework, blogging, or planning ahead.

See you when I get out of the swamp!


*Which is going well. It just takes a lot of time and energy.

My daughter, Marie Antoinette.

We're alive. Not much in the way of news. The roof sprang a leak (or rather, we became aware of a leak). Duchess continues to be insanely adolescent (and we have all learned not to talk to her at all until after she's eaten breakfast). Skipper, with all the hiragana characters under her belt, has begun learning katakana. Cook and I are both scrambling at work to get a handle on our workloads, but are remaining more or less above water. Both girls brought home rave review report cards. Skipper has, in the last few months, quit two extracurricular activities,* bringing her to a more sustainable activity level of after-school kung fu every weekday, and piano once a week.

Skipper's fairly dramatic quitting of gymnastics raised a question for me that keeps coming up in my parenting of Skipper. She has a very strong aversion to making choices - I believe it's because she is so afraid of making the wrong choice, or having to feel the responsibility of having made the choice. She much, much prefers for others to make choices for her so she can freely enjoy the benefits and hold others responsible for the negative outcomes, keeping her spirit totally unburdened. This goes for everything - choosing what clothes to wear, choosing what to eat, choosing what book to read, and choosing whether or not to go somewhere to do something. My instinctive feeling in parenting Skipper is that there is a line in there that we need to find - we need to help her practice making choices and working through her feelings about the consequences, so she can learn how to be a functioning human being, but I think we also need to assume the responsibility of making some of the bigger choices, because they're too big for her still.  I don't know if Cook and I came down on the right side of the line in this situation. Here's what happened. Skipper often says she doesn't want to go to gymnastics. We always tell her it's her choice, but that if she chooses not to go to class, it'll mean that she's deciding to quit gymnastics, and she always eventually decides to go, and she ALWAYS really enjoys the class. Last Saturday,when I told Skipper it was time to go to gymnastics, I reminded her that it was her last day in her current class, before a switch to a new class at a more convenient time slot, with an older group of kids. She got very upset, because she didn't want to switch (forgetting that she had previously grudgingly agreed to the switch), and said she didn't want to go. Over the course of the next half hour (in which she dressed for gymnastics and we all got in the car and drove to the gym), she raged back and forth, saying she didn't want to go, she did want to go, she didn't want to go, she did want to go, etc. She repeated many times "You're forcing me to go!" which was such a ridiculously obviously untrue statement that it was pretty clear she was saying "PLEASE force me to go so I don't have to negotiate my maelstrom of feelings about my fear of change and transition and my enjoyment of gymnastics, and make a decision!!!!"

We kept saying "You don't have to go, but if you don't go, that'll mean the end of gymnastics. It's your choice." We might as well have been saying "It's your torture chamber."

The back and forth continued way past the duration after which we expected it to stop, and way past when it's stopped before (even at the worst, it had never gone past the moment when we go out the door of the house), and then, AT THE GYM, four steps away from her teacher, she said "I don't want to go." and I said "Okay. You understand you're choosing to quit gymnastics." And she said "Yes." and we all left. (I will note that Cook and I were both pretty pissed off, though sympathetic.) And on the way home she said in a shaky voice, "I think I'm going to regret my choice." and I said "Yes."

As I work through the consequences of her choice, and the parenting choice that we made (because working through consequences is something functioning human beings have to do), I wonder if we should have lifted this choice, which was so painful for her, off her shoulders and "forced" her to go to an activity that she enjoys and that I think is valuable for her. I don't know the answer. I think regretting your choices is an important experience, and I think it's important to learn through experience that it's not usually that big of a deal when you screw up a decision, even if it's painful. But maybe the lesson wasn't worth the cost. I don't know.

Went on vacation

She lay on the board on the beach digging holes and droning "vegemite gesundheit, vegemite gesundheit" for a good twenty minutes.

Ate a lot of pineapple.

Momotaro was very interested in Skipper. I'm pretty sure he thinks she's some kind of intermediary between the worlds of small people and large people. He also wanted to get her whole head into his mouth.

Food for thought

Note: This is a boring, narcissistic post about diet and weight loss. Proceed at your own risk.

One of the things I've been busy with this year (too busy to blog!) is my new lifestyle change, Eating Less. Eating Less is something I've historically been terrible at, so I went into it feeling very pessimistic. Also, annoyed that I have to Eat Less. Last year's lifestyle change (exercising 2-5 hours a week all year) was a big lift for me, and I felt like I should have lost lots of weight just from doing that. I deserved it!

But it became clear after a few months that exercising alone is not going to help me lose weight. I spent the rest of the year feeling indignant and disappointed in myself and sad. For me, being fat is an unhideable shame. It feels like wearing a big sign on my head that says I AM A WEAK FAILURE OF A PERSON.

I have had a blog post half-formed in my head about this for a while, about how I feel about being fat, especially when so many people, some of whom seem like pretty crappy people, manage to not be fat, which makes me feel like I must be even more crappy. I don't understand why I continue to fail to do something simple - just not be fat. It's not like you need any special skills or talent to not be fat. I'm kind of great at not doing stuff, so you'd think I could handle this.

However, I never got around to actually writing that blog post. (And lest you feel obliged to reassure me that I'm not an extra-crappy person, I really do know that I'm not really extra-crappy. I have many valuable qualities. And yes, I am proud of my 2015 lifestyle change.)

So here, instead, is what I'm thinking about right now - it turns out that Eating Less, while somewhat time consuming (so much lunch and snack prep!), is actually not that hard. I can't say I LIKE it (spoiler alert: I don't), and I also can't say that I'm being as healthy as I could be (hello, fatty cheese! whipped cream with berries!), but I really also can't say that it's been hard.

I was reluctant to identify this, because my brain extrapolates it to two conclusions:
1) It's ridiculous that I haven't done it before. If this is so easy, that means I'm even more of a weak failure than I thought.
2) If I fail to continue something that is easy, that means I'm even more of a weak failure than I thought.

I feel how dangerous that thinking is. I recognize that something that's not hard for me right now, in my current emotional state, could be very hard for me under other circumstances. There are things that are true now that weren't true a few years ago. I have a job in which I feel appreciated and challenged, my kids are relatively well-settled in their lives, etc. I can also see that if anything gets off-kilter (hello, unemployment!), it could stop feeling so (relatively) easy. And I can also see that it will feel different after months instead of weeks.

But it's (relatively) easy right now. So I'm going to run with that.

Resolutions

A whole new year! We flew back from Maine on New Year's Eve, and were all asleep by midnight (the girls both fell asleep as the plane was landing, actually), so we kind of jury-rigged some conversation about reflection and looking ahead over the following few days.

2015:
Duchess got braces.
I was employed continuously ALL YEAR!
Skipper really learned how to read.
Skipper rode a horse for the first time.
Duchess read the entire Lord of the Rings.
Cook built a bike.

2016:
We're going to Hawaii.
I will be employed at least half the year.
Duchess will learn how to needlepoint.
It will definitely snow in 2016 in Portland at least once.

Back From Vacation

Yup, still alive.

I realize that the fact that I have to keep posting reassurances that I haven't died since the last assurance suggests it might be time to retire this blog. But I'm not going to do that. Let's just assume I'm alive unless I post otherwise.

We're in Maine, visiting the Big Cooks. I've been lying on couches a lot, reading newspapers and also staring out the window. The weather has been gorgeous, and it might even snow for us tomorrow!

Cook and I took Duchess to see Star Wars today. I enjoyed it tremendously, Duchess enjoyed it, and Cook thought it was okay. (He reasonably thought it would have been nice to see a movie that was more different from the first movie, but I didn't care. Fan service works great for me, and I felt an actual thrill when the Millennium Falcon took off.) Skipper wisely chose to stay behind and have a fast food and video-at-home date with her grandparents. (She's in her sweet spot watching Mr Rogers, and would have hated this movie. Not to mention the EIGHT awful-looking and violent previews that came with it.)

And we had a lovely Christmas, full of food and sloth and presents. And instill have almost a week before I return to work! (Which I will - they extended my job another six months. I found that out about two weeks ago,)

I hope you all had holidays with the exact right amount of food and sloth!

Oh, hi! You may have thought I was dead. I'm not. I've been busy doing things like unsubscribing from email lists, trying to clear out my email inbox, listening to a backlog of podcasts, etc. You know, end-of-the-year kind of stuff.

Also, I've decided that I should probably look for work in a field where my work is not subject to criticism from people beyond the basic circle of my coworkers. It turns out that I do not like being criticized by lots of strangers. (Not that I'm good at handling criticism from anybody; it's a major flaw of mine.) I take it far too seriously, and it makes me feel awful and I pretty much want to lie under my desk and cry, and then pretend it all never happened. Also, I want to punch the people who are criticizing me, but of course I don't. It's all a very Skipper-like response.

It has been raining steadily for weeks - flooding and general misery abounds. I know that you think that it rains all the time in Portland, but it actually doesn't, really - we typically get a lot of grey and frequent but not very heavy rain. Not only has it been relentlessly grey (the sun came out for about an hour this afternoon, and I think it was the first time in at least ten days), but there's just been A Lot Of Rain. I biked to a dental appointment in a tremendous downpour last Monday, and I arrived (after adventures including at one point having to carry my bike up a brambly bank to avoid a sidewalk-and-street-swamping lake) completely drenched, dripping all over everything. The receptionist offered me a blanket. All our clothes are wet, all our shoes are wet, and the umbrellas drip on the floor of the mudroom all the time. It's like we live in a submarine.

However, everything is basically fine. Some lists.

Skipper's roster of Clothes She Is Willing To Wear:
- four pairs of pants
- four shirts
- one fleece jacket
- one raincoat
- three pairs of socks
- one pair of sneakers
- one hooded sweatshirt

What Duchess is Reading (all at once):
Navigating Early
The Two Towers*
All Creatures Great and Small

What Skipper is Reading (and LOVES):
Harriet the Spy

What Cook is Reading:
Barbarian Days

What I am Reading:
If You Only Knew**
All your awesome holiday cards. Thank you!

Hey, NPR has the 2015 version of the Book Concierge up! (The girls recommend Interstellar Cinderella, by the way.)

That's all I've got. I have to get back to unsubscribing to things.


*She picked up the trilogy again because she really wants to watch the movies, and Cook is holding firm on his Book Before Movie rule, but then she got sucked in. It's fun to see.
**This is a romance of the sort that you would probably never read, and while I read lots of crappy romances, this is pretty good stuff. I recommend it, should you be inclined the romance way.

Life wisdom

Skipper is very amped up on the walk home from aftercare, most days, and usually talks non-stop. Tonight she told me about the (latest) misdeed of one of the boys in her class, who today tried to convince Skipper and some other girls to jump in a pile of leaves at recess. Skipper said "I did NOT do it, because I have learned, the hard way, THROUGH EXPERIENCE, that when boys want you to do something and they're smiling and laughing, it's almost always a bad idea."

(It was a thin layer of leaves over a pile of dog poop, as it turned out.)

Why parents drink.

The scene: Skipper has just gotten out of the shower, and flossing and tooth-brushing before bedtime is the next step. She is feeling fairly jaunty and pleased with herself for having (finally) executed this weekly chore. Because the mood is positive, I dare to suggest a minor break in routine.

Me: Hey, do you want me to braid your hair before you go to bed?
Skipper: (puzzled silence)
Me: It would help keep your hair contained so it won't get tangly while you're sleeping. And it would be kind of curly in the morning!
Skipper: I don't want it to be curly!
Me: Okay. No braid. That's fine.
Skipper: It's not fair! I don't want a braid!
Me: Okay.
Skipper: You can't make me have a braid!
Me: You don't have to have a braid. I was just offering to braid your hair if you wanted to try it.
Skipper: Fine! I'll have a braid! But you can't make me floss and brush if you're making me have a braid!
Me: You don't have to have a braid. I'm not making you have a braid. If you want a braid, I would be happy to braid your hair. But I'm not making you have a braid. (I walk away with an armful of dirty laundry, attempting to avoid escalation, but inevitably enraging her further by making her feel that I am diminishing the significance of her feelings.)
Skipper: YOU ALWAYS DO THIS! YOU MAKE ME DO THINGS AND THEN YOU GIVE ME STUPID LECTURES ABOUT IT!
Me: (unable to resist engaging in petty argument, even though I actually do know better) I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as a lecture.
Skipper: YOU'RE MEAN!!!!!!!
Me: (walking down the basement stairs with the laundry, thinking "And you're a PSYCHOPATH!!!!") I know you're feeling really angry.

Thanksgiving

She lost this tooth today.

Note the braces!