A Few Things in Life

Enjoying: 

• Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners outside
• Hummingbirds coming to our feeders

Struggling:

• Intense projects at work that I am unexpectedly responsible for

Reading:

• The Sediments of Time by Meave Leakey, Samira Leakey
• The Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett

Need to do:

• Plan what hikes and activities we want to do during our vacation
• Start packing
• Figure out what items (sunglasses? sunscreen? hats?) we are missing for the trip and buy!

Looking forward to:

• Reading
• Hiking
• Going to the pool with kids

Not looking forward to:

• The week after we come back from our trip, the 3 kids are in 2 different camps that start/end at the same time and that are in opposite direction. While it's lovely that they'll be having fun 9 to 3, the drop off and pick up is going to be a challenge.
• The good thing is, one of the camps is literally 5 minutes away.
• I will be asking my parents if they can pick up from one of the camps.
• The bad thing is, one of those days I have an important meeting during the pick-up time... making the logistics even more complicated.

School is (Almost) Out

My oldest (9th grade) has finished his last final today! He is done. No school tomorrow.

The next-to-oldest had her 8th grade graduation ceremony today. She has an (optional, I guess) half-day tomorrow that she might go to.

The youngest has her last day of school (4th grade) tomorrow - and it's a half-day.

So... they are pretty much done with school.  They are super excited about summer and NO HOMEWORK. 

Except of course there is going to be some homework... all 3 take music lessons and will need to practice, so there's that. The older 2 have mandatory reading assignments from school (only 1 book for the whole summer... but for the one going into 10th grade it's Frankenstein - so that should be exciting). My kids generally like reading but they are not so big on assigned reading. They like to pick their own books. My son is planning to take a European History class, and I'm pretty sure I have a copy of  Machiavelli's The Prince lying around from my college days - I think he might like it. 

The older 2 also have mandatory math assignments that they need to finish before the new school year starts. 

The youngest has already found an activity book for 5th graders that she wants to work on, and she plans to do 2 pages of LA and 2 pages of math daily. I hope she does some writing just for fun, too. 

There also will be chores. So many chores... (just kidding - there will be some)

There will be camps.

The oldest one has a job. And he will have cross country training starting in July.

We will be travelling for a couple of weeks.

We will be going to the shore with extended family for a week.

Hello Summer!

Finals

E, a high school freshman, will have his first FINALS next week. I remember those days - studying, eating chocolate, studying, falling asleep on the floor next to a pile of books...

I have to say, 9th grade has been... intense. For a non-perfectionist bright kid who barely had to do any work during elementary and middle school and still got good grades, this was a huge change. He is still figuring out how to study, how to manage time, how to - and when - ask for help.

I feel rather inadequate as a parent. I should have made sure he had all these skills long before now... and he sort of knew that hard work was important. With violin, the more time and effort he put into it, the better he got... But I don't know, it just seems like the motivation with putting in the work into math or science or english classes is kind of fizzling out. With music, one can experience a pretty quick cause and effect. With schoolwork.... sometimes it's hard to have the end-game in sight.

Do you help your kids with school work? If so, how? How do you help them stay motivated?

Weekend Report: Recitals, Pool, Teenagers , Pianos

Ah, June is here!

Our middle child had a piano recital last weekend.

I loved listening to her play. I don't think she is  happy with herself, though - she made a few mistakes. 

It feels like she is taking out her frustrations on the rest of us.

Work is still crazy and I have zero patience with people around me.

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The kids had some pool time this weekend. I haven't dared to go into the water yet... Maybe today?

The oldest child has 3 tests today... after working at the pool yesterday until after 8 and then staying up to study and finish up homework past 11... I hope he is feeling OK. He has a recital next Sunday and finals Monday and Tuesday... He just wants to be done with everything...

I stayed up too late with him last night...I wanted to keep him company and then he asked  me to quiz him on some of the vocabulary he's been learning.

And then our middle child and I had yet another fight. Ugh. Teenagers. Exhausting.

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We are looking for a new piano... We've had ours since Chicago (we bought it used back in the grad school days) and it is not in a good shape at all.... Our favorite piano technician says it doesn't make sense to do anything with it beyond tuning....

We looked at a couple of instruments last weekend. I am not sure my husband and I are on the same page here - I think he may want something that's just "an upgrade" from what we have. I'm looking for a piano I can fall in love with. There was a new Boston upright there that sounded nice. But we need to look around more... 

Speaking of pianos... I still miss our "Riga" piano that I grew up with... It's been more than 30 years, and I still love it and miss it. It was part of our family and it was a huge part of my childhood. 

What do you miss the most from your childhood home?

Swimming, Rain, Rabbits

Kids opened the swimming pool season on Monday!

It was a rather cool, overcast day. We knew there would be thunderstorms in the afternoon. When the 2 younger kids asked to go to the pool, I was initially skeptical. It was kind of chilly! Also, I had work to do. Also, I was stressed out and wanted to hide somewhere with a book. And then I thought to myself: "Well... I could just bring a book to the pool and read there. And a walk to our neighborhood pool and back would force at least a tiny bit of much-needed exercise on me. And I barely spent any time hanging out with the kids over the long weekend... I should go!"

So I went. C and I walked over the the pool. H biked. E was already there because he was working as a lifeguard.

The water was a on the cold side, but not too bad (I put my toes in). There was no one else at the pool (one family stopped by for a couple of minutes but they left as soon as a light drizzle started up). I went to a lounge chair and opened my book. The girls jumped in and played in the water for about half an hour. And then they were cold/done/hungry. E jumped in for a few minutes during his break.

As C and I were walking home, it started raining - harder and harder. We were trying to hurry along, but it was kind of hard, wet flip-flops and all. So we draped a towel over our heads and giggled as we shuffled along the street. We must have been quite a sight. 

It was fun and I told C that it should be on our summer to-do list from now on: getting soaked in the summer rain. 

H, who stayed behind to hang out in a hot shower, caught up with us as we were nearing our house.

E got home a little later, after the pool company decided to close the pool.

The girls biked over to the pool again after school on Tuesday - they stayed about half an hour... They get bored if none of their friends are there. Also, the water is still pretty cold!

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The rabbits keep devouring things in our garden (they are digging under the fence and chicken wire to get in).  Emotionally, I am somewhere between  despair and murderous rage. Technically, rabbits are not kosher, but I may be beyond caring at this point. I really, really, really want rabbit stew. Because relocating a single rabbit that got caught in a trap inside our garden did not solve our problem.

Memorial Day Weekend 2024: Stress

This was a rough weekend.

There is a complete madhouse situation at work - I was plunked from my regular work and thrown into a stalled project that I have minimum experience with. The client is demanding and has been very unhappy with the progress of the project . I've been pretty much "thrown to the wolves". 

Yeah, melodramatic, I know.

I have an overwhelming amount of information to absorb. We were technically allowed to be off for the Memorial Day weekend starting at 1pm on Friday.

Nope, I needed to work all day Friday and into the evening.

I also worked on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. To be fair - it was probably about 2-3 hours of work a day, at most. I spent time with the family and we did some fun things, so normally this wouldn't be that much of a bummer. A couple of hours of work a day during the weekends is not terrible (especially because I rarely feel I need to to it, so every once in a while, when there is a hot project, I'm usually OK with that).

This time around - I definitely was NOT OK with it. I was grumpy, resentful, and snapped at the kids when they kept interrupting me while I was cooking (no, really - do not mess with the cook, people! or deal with over-salted, burned, or otherwise inedible food).

The reason for all this unhappiness was that even when I was not working, my mind kept spinning, and ruminating, and agonizing over the project and dreading all the work that still needed to be done. I just wasn't able to compartmentalize and disconnect from the work-induced stress.

Ah well. Moving on.

I keep telling myself - this is not like grad school. I can quit. I can look for another job. Or, here's a thought - I can do a terrible job and the client will fire us and I won't have to deal with this pile of doo-doo anymore. 

Or maybe I'll just do the best I can and let things be what they will be.

Thermoregulation

Not naming names or point fingers here, but let's just say at least 1 (or more) of my kids completely bewilder me when it comes to getting dressed and ready for school.

What's going on with:

• Refusing to wear winter jackets in the winter and wearing hoodies instead, all winter long. Aren't they cold??? It's below freezing at least some of the time around here. <<My parents would faint if I did this as a kid - they always made sure I was bundled up in 15 layers... even though Latvia was fairly mild climate-wise>>
• Insisting on wearing hoodies year round... continuing to wear them even though it's spring and like 80 degrees outside i! (Explanations I'm given include: but what if I'm cold? But some of the classrooms might feel cold! - and then they run off, with the hoodie on, which all seems rather suspicious). <<OK, to be fair, my parents would have probably been thrilled if I wore a sweater in the late spring... but I clearly remember being so happy about the warm weather because I could get rid of the jackets/sweaters/scarves/hats!!!>>
• Wearing the same hoodie all the time. When I say "please don't wear this today, you wore this same thing yesterday and it's looking a bit ratty" they say "it's fine!!!!" and run off.
• Sports shorts in the winter - this is a battle I've won (at least for the time being) - as in, no shorts in the winter. No, just no. 
• There was a guy I knew when I was in college. He was a grad student in a drosophila lab. He wore super-short shorts year-round. He wore those shorts everywhere - dining halls, classes, religious services. It was... odd. I really, really, really don't want my kids to be that guy. (The drosophila lab burned down at one point.)

Our schools have no uniforms and the dress code is pretty lax (crop tops? super-short shorts? all a go). I generally don't tell my kids what to wear. But I get very annoyed when I ask a simple question (like "why are you wearing a hoodie even though it's warm outside?") and they get this mulish expression and pretty much sprint away. It just makes me feel like they are hiding something (they probably are? because 2/3 of my kids are teenagers and they are certainly very selective with what they share about their lives). 

But really, why would anyone want to wear a warm hoodie all day long when the weather is beautiful and warm outside?