The peace of a productive family night

We had what was, to my mind, a perfect moment this evening after supper. 

Bridget was building and playing in her fantasy world (Minecraft), learning how to spell words like “diary” and “no one” and “secret” and “allowed”.

Jack was finishing his math homework, relaxed and focused, having brought home stellar progress reports from the first month of school.

Hubby was sitting next to me on the couch while I knitted my scarf, occasionally sharing funny videos and articles with me. And playing with the dog. 

   
    
 The TV was off, unneeded. It’s amazing how much easier it has become to turn it off without cable, having our favourite series and films completely on demand without ads. Much preferred over the old stand-by.

And now, as I sit waiting to pick up our teenager from karate, Hubby is helping Bridget with her math, exhibiting much more patience and firm guidance than I could have with her. To be perfectly honest, I sometimes struggle to keep the emotional coolness needed to help with homework after a long day. I get frustrated trying to help her. But Mark understands her and how her mind works, to a far greater degree, in part because she shares many of his personality traits and likely has similar learning disabilities. Certainly, the diagnosis last year of Bridget having a mild intellectual disability fits, and while it’s not quite what he had to struggle against in his youth, it’s close enough. He can relate to her and be the firm voice that she needs. 

   
 I think kids just listen differently to one parent than another, especially when one tends to be a pushover (I blame years of being over-tired, particularly while anemic). Or they listen to certain authority figures differently than a mom or a dad. That’s why it takes a village to raise a child: it’s far easier to tune out the voice that’s around even fractionally more frequent, than the voice called in to take over, pinch-hit, or teach a skill set that is one’s own weakness.

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It’s much later, now. Bridget is in bed, and by some miracle, she not only finished her math with her dad, she also VOLUNTARILY learned to — by the holiest of Holies — wash the toilet. 

Bridget. Cleaned. The. Toilet. 

  
This child, who whined and outright refused for MONTHS whenever I told her to clean the toilet, begging for other jobs to do (and doing them with less and less fanfare), sulking on the couch earlier, scrubbed the toilet with Scrubbing Bubbles’ disposable brush thingy. 

I am in heaven. 

And I made time to layer the front of the Necronomicon with papier mache — got creative with a little corn starch (and salt for preservative), seeing as I forgot to bring glue home. 

   
 
Yes. It’s been a good night.

Teaching the Two-Step through (Pre)Teen Emotions

First middle / junior school dance* of the year, tonight. Bridget was so excited to learn about it yesterday, she was practically vibrating. She had her outfit put together last night, and repeatedly squealed how nervous she was. Jack was more laid back, nearly waiting until the last minute before deciding to go. 

*younger kids went from 6-7:45, older kids/young teens went from 8-10

Bridget didn’t even look back, once I paid her ticket. She drifted forward, Cinderella at the ball, found her friends and there were happy hugs all around. When I picked her up, she didn’t want to leave, of course. Her crush wasn’t there, but she wasn’t too disappointed. She’d chased a different boy down and made him slow dance with her. 

We had another chat about consent on the way home. 9 and a half, folks.

Jack didn’t have quite as good a time as he’d hoped. I won’t go into the details here, but suffice it to say that he finds himself wishing life were scripted. Doing my best to help him figure things out.

This is the part where I concentrate on remembering the roller coasters of fresh hormones at 14. And at almost 10. It’s been getting harder, though. Maybe that’s why some writers focus on youth fiction — it might become easier to reconnect with those memories and be able to empathise with the kids. 

In which my son is introduced to Supernatural . . .

Heh heh . . . watched an episode of Supernatural tonight, a season 1 episode about Bloody Mary, and my fourteen-year-old son decided to join me after his shower. Now he’s all freaked out and doesn’t want to go to bed. Avoiding looking in reflective surfaces . . . I had to put on a comedy for him. Like PewdiePie goes to look at fluffy kittens after getting scared playing Slenderman. I’m trying so hard to keep a straight face . . .

Nope.

HOOOOO boy . . . I understand, totally. I freak myself out once in a while, too. That night hubby saw the reflection of a woman in a long white nightgown in the pictures on our wall, when I was in bed in purple jammies — I couldn’t look up from the floor at night for a whole week. And the morning after he and I watched 30 Days of Night, when he had to go to work in the dark hours of morning in the middle of winter JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIE, he was watching the rooftops for vampires, he told me. And oh, this kid’s reaction when his dad told him, one night, in an ominous tone, “Don’t look out the window, Jack” — yikes! Our son is an imaginative and sensitive soul with a fantastic imagination. You fuel that thing with fear and it runs for hours.

Some of his friends like watching Supernatural so he said to me, close to the end of the episode, “I’ll have to watch from the beginning. I’m sure the others aren’t horror.”

Oh, my poor, sweet, dear firstborn child . . .

BRB — I have to stand in the kitchen with him while he gets his bedtime snack.

*

*

*

Aaaaand I lost it. And now he’s upset. Get it together, woman! THIS IS YOUR CHILD!

See, here’s the thing: I really do enjoy the show BUT I have not been able to watch it for YEARS because it came on right when I would be trying to get the kids to bed / keep them there. We didn’t have a DVR / PVR so I couldn’t tape it. And even streaming — well, when you have your youngest always wanting to sit on your lap and cuddle the minute you sit down, you’re not watching scary awesome TV. So I have missed almost all eight seasons and honestly, Mama wants to do some catchin’ up with those nice Winchester boys.

Seems as though I’ll be doing on my lonesome from now on.

I think I’m okay with that.

#badparent

Randomness!

Inappropriate game for road trips: Roadkill Bingo!

. . . am seriously considering making one for the next long drive. So . . . Patent Pending, right?

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Got my hard drive back at last! My files, oh, my files . . . how I missed you! Sadly, I cannot access the photos stashed inside, but my desktop probably wouldn’t be able to handle the load anyway. I’ll be able to get to them again, right? RIGHT?

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I live in a house of a thousand corpses. Mosquito corpses. Stuck to the walls and ceiling.

I know. It’s gross.

However . . . TROPHIES OF MY VICTORIES AGAINST THE PESTILENTIAL INVASION!

I should make little tiny plaques documenting the date and time of each kill.

https://whatnowblog.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/the-adventures-of-timothy-hope-tutor-letter-4/

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A watched pot never boils. A watched 9 year old never washes her plate. But you go and take a shower and suddenly she’s doing it . . . WHILE YOU ARE SHOWERING.

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Two weeks ago I was looking for socks and bundling up in a sweater. Today my region had a heat warning and I went out in a sundress with sunscreen and a sunhat and I still got a bit burnt. #wtf but also #lovingit

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The 9 year old started researching hotel prices and flight costs to Paris, France, for her future trip when she is 18, and recording them in a chart. This is the child who hates math. WHAT IS HAPPENING?

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The teenager did a sink full of dishes this morning without complaining, in lieu of mowing the lawn because he was running out of time to do a chore before going to a friend’s house. I repeat: WHAT IS HAPPENING?

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Oh. The Road Kill Bingo is already a thing. But we need a CANADIAN version, right? With porcupine, moose, goose, doughnut, Tim Horton’s cup . . .

AND THAT’S RANDOMNESS!

Dreaming, reading, writing: my nature as an escapist

With the edits on the proof of Crystal and Wand finally in the hands of my awesome publisher (YAY! Release coming SOON SOON SOON I promise!), I am finding myself a little adrift. The creepy dollhouse story aside, there are any number of other ideas that I could look at as well — most of them being on my harddrive, which I’m still waiting to get back from the repair guy (long story short: don’t let your bearded dragon poop on your computer!).  Plus my list of other things to do. Household organization (and reorganization), parenting, bill paying, gardening, and the like. You know. Grown-up stuff.  The trouble is I’m an escapist. I just want to read. I finally read a book for myself, for the first time in months, just yesterday (still need to write up a review for you), in the space of four quiet hours. Normally, you see, I skim around my favourite blogs and hubs, reading nonfiction, informational, quirky or human-interest stories, finding out what’s going on in the world and learning about stuff in general. I like doing that, too. But because I tend to get interrupted often, I rarely get the luxury of sinking into a lovely drawn-out fiction. It now feels a bit decadent to devote a whole afternoon to a book, although let’s face it — if it’s not a book, it’s article after article after article through io9.com or Gawker. Or Buzzfeed. Usually brought to my attention via Facebook.   

If I’m not reading SOMETHING, then the other temptation I face is to go sleep for a while. I love dreaming, even when it’s got the annoying element of being in a car that brakes too slowly, almost drives off a cliff into a river, or I discover it’s driverless and I’m having to take the wheel and find the pedals by contorting myself from the passenger side or the backseat. The problem is that sleeping too much is unhealthy, and is rather too escapist. Plus, I always forget to write the damned dreams down so that activity becomes pretty unfruitful, except for the temporary enjoyment.

Anyway, maybe I’ll keep on with the creepy dollhouse, see where it takes me — there are an awful lot of what-ifs in my head. Maybe I’ll do a light-and-dark concept, with a romantic / fluffy piece to counter the dark / freaky thing that feels like it’s coming. There will either be evil, vengeful Wee Folk or ghosts. Hey, my imagination says, Why not both? 

And in the meantime, stuff to do. I was feeling a bit bad again today, thinking I hadn’t been productive enough, but when I was chatting with my friend David and related that I’d taken Bridget to her doctor’s appointment, made a few needed phone calls, helped her learn / practice some math skills by letting her budget some money sent to her by my great-aunt so she could buy some crafty things at the dollar store and pay for them herself (sincere apologies to the nice lady behind us at the till who just wanted to pay for her iced tea and leave but was held up by Bridget’s anxious confusion between the value of a loonie and the value of a toonie in counting out seven dollars and ninety-six cents — we thank you for your patience!), took her on a walk to the school she’ll be going to for grades four through six, with Elizabeth on her leash clinging to my chest (tomorrow we take Skittles on the journey), and attended Jack’s soccer game after supper. He pointed out to me (bless you, Dave!) that in fact I did have a productive day and it was okay to feel tired. I am NOT Wonder Woman or Mary Poppins or a Time Lord. (Maybe that should be my mantra?) I can only do what I can do. All the wonderful things I envision happening in a musical montage of whirlwind cleaning, sorting, training (hey, both kids have done their laundry this week AND done a few dishes!) are just not humanly possible.

Although . . . Wonder Woman, Mary Poppins, Time Lord — that’d be one helluva cosplay mashup, now wouldn’t it? And isn’t Mary Poppins really Gallifreyan ANYWAY???

Yeah, Moffat’s all over that one.

I want to sigh, and yet I can see the possibilities there  . . . and so off I go, finding yet another fun way to dream, avoid the chores (they’re always there anyway), because if it’s not reading or writing, it’s designing and crafting.

Good thing I’m not a maniacal villain determined to take over the world, now, isn’t it? Take ON the world, on the other hand . . .

I need chocolate.

The 9-year-old’s Boyfriends, or a Look at the General Philosophy of Romantic Love

Well. I wish I had recorded THAT conversation.

And I face a slight ethical dilemma in sharing this with you, because when she saw that I was transcribing what we’d talked about, she didn’t want me sharing the story with anyone but her grandparents. And honestly, I won’t give you all of the details, because even though she’s only nine, I get it. It would be like taking a page from her diary (if she had one) and posting it online for all the world to see. Too personal, even for someone not quite an adolescent.

But my Bridget — my precocious, adorable, creative, maddening nine-year-old — has been describing to me the three (THREE!) boyfriends she has had so far in school.

Now, I know that the childhood definition of “boyfriend” changes substantially when you’re into the teenage years, and there’s perhaps a subtle distinction between a teenage boyfriend and an adult boyfriend. But the central idea is still the same: a chosen, special companion, singled out from all others for individual attention and care, playtime and comforting. Forget the physical intimacy of those old enough to partake: it’s enough that your partner will hold your hand, when you’re a kid.

Hell, I still love it when my husband holds my hand. Maybe that in of itself is a gesture of intimacy. After all, you wouldn’t normally hold a stranger’s hand, or very often, a friend.

But back to Bridget.

This conversation all came about while she was playing with playdough, and at some point she started singing the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”, and she asked me why Dad had fallen in love with me. I said I didn’t know and she’d have to ask him. Then she said she thought it was because he wanted to be tortured.

O-o-o-kay.

I don’t know, maybe there is something to that. Science has shown that powerful chemicals are at work in the process of choosing / pursuing a partner, and the concept of lovesickness has been chewed over by countless poets and authors and songwriters. That lyric, “Boys only want love if it’s torture” — so often, we (boys and girls and most of us in between) crave that which is most out of reach, forbidden, or dangerous, because that suspenseful high resulting from the risk makes our hearts beat faster and those stolen moments all the sweeter. Who wants a love that’s easy? 

Look how many romance novels and movies and plays are all about the struggle. The angst. The “what-if” and “better-not” and “you’ll-get-in-trouble” of it all. My nine-year-old is already experiencing some of these things, even though they are limited to heads resting on shoulders and hands being held at recess. For her, dating a boy isn’t yet about anything more than those simple, brief acts that make them both happy. After all, she’s never spoken to me about making a boy hold her hand who didn’t want to (we have had a couple of conversations about the idea of consent — guess we’d better keep going!), or been devastated by losing her favourite’s attentions. 

So . . . if romantic love is about finding companionship with someone who makes you feel special and cherished, but experience suggests that we only get that through emotional and physical struggle, deprivation, and mistreatment, is it still romantic love if it’s a couple of elementary school kids who say they’re boyfriend and girlfriend for a few recesses at school? Is that something that we should deride as being cute and harmless, or take seriously?

I vote for the latter. Because I remember liking liking boys and girls when I was in elementary school, and the struggle that went along with deciding whether to admit to those feelings. Opening yourself to that gives those who are cruel a fresh chance to spike your most vulnerable spots. No matter how much you want to show that you like someone more than everyone else does, maybe by blending your personal space bubbles by joining your hands, you’re taking a risk that bringing the feelings out in the open will encourage the other kids to make fun of you. Or get you into trouble, particularly if your school has a no-touch rule. Or start rumours about you. No, romantic love is a serious business even when you’re a child, perhaps even more so in some ways than for adults who are not exposed to the wolf-packs of the playground twice or three times a day. 

I told Bridget tonight that I wish she had told me some of these things when they’d happened, but I understand and respect why she kept them to herself. And I hear my mother’s own voice in my words. My daughter is developing her capacity for and understanding of affection beyond her immediate and extended family, growing her ability to love others for themselves. She has given herself (and I have reinforced) boundaries for expressing her feelings. And for now, it’s a stable course. Interestingly, too, her experience so far has been completely different from my own: her way of seeing others, her ability to make those romantic connections, her attitude when the connections are over, all are separate from my own memories of kindergarten through grade 3. This doesn’t mean I have less to worry about — instead, I have to start considering alternatives that she might go through. I can’t just imagine her in situations like those I experienced, and that’s awesome. What’s less awesome is that I’m now in some unfamiliar territory as a once-girl and now-woman, pushing 40 in a world substantially different than the one in which I grew up, raising a daughter to be confident, self-aware, etc. If she was more like me (as my son is), this job wouldn’t be as much of a challenge. But who ever said parenting shouldn’t — or couldn’t — be challenging?

Fever and all that comes with it: A Parent’s Poem

Heat under my palm where cool should be

Sleepy eyes ringed with circles over pale cheeks

Hoarse cough and hoarse voice 

Dry and baking little fingers clasping my own

She asks for water after her medicine.
Not her first time with fever, nor the last

But her colds are rare, often sickness undaunting —

She turned down bouncy castles today

Choosing couch, pillow, blanket, quiet

Not her typical personality.
I count my blessings always that she’s healthy

I watch her drift into sleep with flushed cheeks

I hope and pray it’s just the virus others have had

A temporary shift into discomfort

Try to keep her happy.
But knowing there is only so much

Life goes on and due dates tick closer

Guilt and apologies, letting go her hand

She’s old enough to understand

Not sure which part aches more.

Here’s to All the Last-Minute Moms and Dads out there!

I — we — don’t mean to do it. Sometimes the events, the appointments, the important dates just sort of sneak up when we’re busiest. And at some times of the year, it’s a shitstorm of sneakiness: medical appointments blending with birthday parties and end-of-year school trips, impending in-law visits and changing work schedules and due dates for tasks. Thank heaven for the alarm on my phone — but if only I would remember to put everything into it . . .

So here’s to the parental grapevine, and those moms I know who keep their phones handy. I appreciate the stress relief of the jokes, the shared moments, and I’m eternally grateful for the loan of last-minute supplies like bug spray. I may have known about Tuesday’s Pond Study trip since Friday, but somehow, we skipped out on gathering what he needs until about an hour ago. The kid’s got the clothes and the water bottles covered. It’s the bug spray that has me concerned. The voracious local insect hordes love him as much as they love me, so for the kid to go out in the marsh and pond areas gathering samples, he’s going to need to be virtually soaked in something that will keep them bastards off him. I’ve got Skin-so-Soft, but I know he’ll need something stronger, plus maybe a netted hat. Thank heaven that I’ve got friends . . . We’ve nailed the bug spray for tomorrow, and I should be able to get him a netted hat in the morning from the local bait shop.

Here’s to keeping to a budget, and knowing where to shop for the little things. Although I forgot about the Pond Study tomorrow, I remembered at 3:50 that he had a birthday party to go to at 4:30, and made it to the pet store and back again with plenty of time to wrap the mini decorative beta fish tank I picked up there for $16.99 (I had to get a new bulb for the lizard’s tank anyway, so I was fortunate in killing two birds with one stone!), find him a card from the stash I keep in a shelf under a side table, and drop him off. Had I remembered the damned Pond Study trip, that would have been a good time to keep going to CanTire and get the rest of the stuff he needs . . . but I went home and napped until he had to be picked up again at 5:55 and taken to karate, to do his last training session before his grading tomorrow. Shit, that means I have to make sure the camera battery is charged, too.

Here’s to making lists (even if we don’t look at them or stick to them or even know where they went to). The act of making the list itself is important. It’s like tying the string around the finger. The brain knows something’s up, even if that thing is still a little distant for a while. Alarms on the phone are better. Sadly, alarms can also be turned off and completely forgotten.

Here’s to charging the phone! The alarm will only go off if the damned thing has power.

Here’s to taking care of business right away. My nine-year-old daughter is annoyingly good at this. She will pack her bags a week before a scheduled visit with the grandparents, or a sleepover with a friend. She insists on shopping for birthday presents the day she gets the invitation. Last week, Bridget brought home a form about Safe-Swim training being provided through her school, but we still had to get a new swimsuit on the quick, because I didn’t move on finding her stuff as soon as she told me. Procrastination, my old enemy . . . we meet again and again and again.

Here’s to finding out the absolute last final due dates. The good news for ordering school photos is that these days, if you miss the school order deadline, you can still order online through the photography studio for up to a month after the end of school! I know, because I had to search for the info today having not yet ordered the spring prints for either of my children, particularly the one about to graduate from middle school . . .

So here’s to all the last-minute parents out there, whether you’re single or attached, foster or grand — I raise my coffee to you. We always swear that the next time we know about an event, we’ll be fully prepared. We’ll store extra presents in the closet and spare wrapping paper and tape where we can easily find it. We’ll go out as soon as we get the field trip permission form (damn, I still have to sign that for the Pond Study) and get the kid’s supplies ready days in advance. We won’t be out cruising the streets at 10 pm at night, trying to find an open store that actually has the stuff that we need.

Here’s to getting creative, when we have to be. And the crazy ideas we get, trying to make do on short notice. I was contemplating buying a hanging mosquito screen door thingy, to cut into a hat-cover for the boy, but I’m holding out hope for the bait shop in the morning.

Here’s to getting up on time, after staying up late trying to get the things done that couldn’t be done while the kids were still awake.

Here’s to double-duty, for those who have to keep straight multiple lists and children and schedules and appointments. There’s a set of things to do at home, and a set to do at work. Sometime’s it’s just a nightmare of juggling timetables and rides, and it’s hard to avoid the blame game.

Here’s to avoiding the blame game. It doesn’t do any good to get mad when time is short and supplies are missing. We can talk about the mistakes later. If the clock is ticking and something is missed, we problem-solving parents know how to hustle — and kids learn how to cope. That doesn’t necessarily mean subjecting my son to slow torture by mosquito hell — if we can’t get everything he’s going to need, he’ll have to miss out on the experience. I know one perspective is to allot the responsibility to the boy: Some parents might blame their child who’s old enough to know the deal for not stepping up to the plate and taking care of business. But I extend that to myself for not providing a better role model or insisting that he get the job done. I’m the parent. It’s up to me to set the example and the tone. Blame can paralyze, though. Blame doesn’t get things done. Guilt’s a motivator, sure, but blame wastes time. Do the mea culpa part after the kid’s on the bus with a full backpack and bug spray.

(deep breath)

Here’s to you, last-minute running, caffeine-loaded, sleep-deprived moms and dads and guardians. This one’s for you.

A leap forward in making use of time

I broke my Saturday pattern today! Didn’t quite shatter it, but made a significant improvement in my usual list of activities, and without having to leave town to do it. Here’s what I did:

• weeded the front garden
• sorted three piles of mail
• organized the vestibule
• had two naps
• took the dog and the daughter for a walk to buy garbage bags
• put away the winter extension cords

There were quite a few other things I wanted to get done, but I count it as a victory that I didn’t sleep half or most of my day away. It helped that my son had to go to a karate workshop at 10 am, so I had to get up at a reasonable time to get him moving, too. And that the sun came out at 11 am, warming it up enough outside to be comfortable. 

I’m always so torn, at this time of year, between being outside as much as possible and using the sunlight to fuel spring cleaning on the inside. There isn’t enough time for both. I want my house to be aesthetically pleasing, as well as clean and organized, but that’s a losing battle. The outside is much easier to manage. It’s just dirt, weeds, and whatever useful plants I put in the ground. And dog poop, but I can handle that. On the inside, there’s the piles of laundry that never seem to end, the stacks of mail that ought to be sorted and filed (I’m sharing that blame with the hubby, because he’s just as bad as I am with opening and filing envelopes. I don’t open his correspondance, and he doesn’t open mine, so between the two of us, there’s a healthy pile of paper to manage!), and all the other stuff that adds up to clutter. 

The good news, though, is that my Bridget is getting better at helping out! She cleaned up her crafting mess this afternoon, without having to be told a second time, and she started cleaning her room (with the help, and perhaps urging, of her little friend Jason). And I have a promise from Jack to sort and fold ALL of the laundry this weekend for some spending money for his upcoming grade 8 trip to Toronto. I also surprised the heck out of myself on Friday evening by vaccuming the couch and finally putting the cushion covers back on — although I can’t find one of them in the laundry pile . . . Remember what I said about the losing battle, though? It’s not just the two-legged family members who are responsible for that. I found a bag of cookies (hard as a rock) and a bag of mashed-up hamburger buns in the couch, and the next morning, when I started on the love seat, I found a — wait for it — stick of butter buried between the cushion and the arm. And it’s not the first time Skittles has buried butter in the couch! But, still, we are making progress — Jack is helping out by cleaning up whatever mess the dog has made when he gets home, though I still have to ask him to do so 75% of the time. Baby steps, right?

Tomorrow, I have a meeting at 12 that will last most of the afternoon. My mission is to get more cleaning done inside and weed another patch of garden. Plus I have my marking, and I have to wrap up the edits / proofreading that are taking me far too long on Crystal and Wand — that latter has been a real struggle to complete. Doesn’t help that I’ve had more days lately where I can’t sit or stand comfortably for more than a few minutes, but the regular visits to the chiropractor are helping with that, little by little. I used a chair to help me with the weeding today, but I found that I couldn’t do much more than 20 minutes without pain. It’s hard to focus on certain things when you’re hurting. For my friends with chronic pain isues — I know I don’t have it as badly as you do, but over the last month or two, my understanding has definitely increased. 

So, goals are set and I will work on being easier on myself for not getting all things accomplished. I feel like I should be some kind of Super Woman, and it’s hard to accept that I am not. Would be much easier to be resolved either way, though.

An absent computer cord, an evening of skating, and a helping of parental guilt.

Left my computer cord at work, so this post is being composed on my iPhone.

I’d rather be typing on a keyboard. Oh, well. 

Had a small attack of the guilts tonight while watching our daughter in her skating show. I was sitting next to our teenager, who expressed a bit of jealousy and a wish that he had gotten involved in skating lessons this winter when I had first offered. So now he wants to try a month in the spring session, which I’m happy to provide. 

The guilt comes from not insisting that he continue the skating after his one year of lessons, when he was 7 or 8, or that I didn’t decide for him that he should be in lessons this winter. I think he would have enjoyed it. At the same time, Jack has karate twice a week and archery on Fridays, so his concern that he might end up doing too much — especially when we added skiing to the mix — was likely valid. On the other hand, he’s a very creative and highly expressive individual. He’s also waffled over going back into dance. 

Guilt, guilt, guilt . . . I don’t want him to be overwhelmed either, yet I want him to get involved with physical activities that he’ll enjoy and will add to his skill set. Bridget, too. But there were a few years when they were both small where I was barely keeping it together, let alone having enough energy to do activities. So I didn’t insist that he keep going in skating, or guitar lessons, and maybe I should have. 

I told him tonight, though, that it’s not too late to start. So hopefully he’ll give it another shot next month, and he says if he likes it, he’ll do skating next year. 

Or dance. 

I’m so tired . . . 

Meanwhile Bridget did very well. She’s made progress in leaps and bounds (mostly figuratively), and even helped the younger ones. So proud of her! 

I’ll try to post some video tomorrow, once I retrieve my damned computer cord.