October 1st: A Recap

October 1st. It’s 61 degrees. The moon is full.

We have been slowly shifting from a performance focused school mindset to a love of learning school mindset.

The oldest child is nearly 12. We are fully into the moody, blessed years of pushing against the constraints of childhood and getting ready to grow up in mind, not just in body. She’s too dang smart for her own good with her newfound access to technology, and this very afternoon I was googling how to foster self control in children, since that isn’t my strong suit either. It’s beautiful and terrifying to behold. The angsty pixie haircut, the love all things black. The hours spent in her self-made cocoon of sheets and Christmas lights, drawing and listening to music on her headphones. But she still has that cute little upturned nose she got from her Grandma Jackie and sleeps with her ragged stuffed bunny. I coax her out into the sunlight by making her walk her dog and sometimes make her forget her angst by dancing with her in the kitchen until she giggles. She’s smart enough to see how ridiculous the mood swings are and has the grace to (sometimes resentfully) laugh at herself. If I get her alone and out of her room, she tells me all the crazy fun things that are bouncing around in her beautiful brain.

The middle child is in the waning part of his 9th year, set free from the bounds of public school and set loose on the world (neighborhood) to test his mettle. He is a dreamer, a thinker, a builder of epic lego concoctions, a consumer of books, and a distract-o-bot who loves making art and comics with his trusty BFF (the middle F fluctuating between the two parts of Frenemy) /youngest brother at his side. I see him out in the sun on the sidewalk, or catch a bare foot dangling from his hammock and I ask what he is doing. “Just thinking”, he replies. He’s all war and knights and battles and pirates, troll hunters and epic beasts, his eyes lightly skimming over the gore and horror of the topic and landing on the feats of bravery, band of brothers camaraderie, cool weaponry and armor. He’s the one who seeks out new music and chases down rabbit trails of snippets of songs he hears until he says, “Mama. You gotta hear this music.” And I find myself listening to D.J. Marshmallow without knowing how this happened. He’s the one who is never in his body, but somewhere in his head. The scars on his knees and elbows (and this week his mouth) are evidence. He keeps my first aid skills fresh. This week he had me googling “wound care in the mouth.” Good times. He’s still my sensitive soul. The one who passes through logic to the heart of the matter and no amount of words will explain it all. I just hold him while his big grey-green eyes look up at me, as if I have the answers.

The youngest child is my live wire. My prankster, my jokester. My Loki. Still mercurial in his moods, still my early morning riser who greets me (and the dog) at the dawn with the grin only a 7 and a half year old sports, all teeth too big for his face and gaps between them big enough to squish through a considerable amount of jell-o. He’s all muscle and scrappy quickness. He climbs and jumps and leaps where angels dare to tread. He’s the kid who told me days after it happened that he had gone for a walk alone around the block. I never even knew he was gone. I thought he was outside playing in the yard while I made dinner. He follows wherever his big brother leads, but will straight up cut you if you don’t also listen to his opinion. He holds himself to a high standard and when he doesn’t understand or get it perfect the first time, is so hard on himself that I have to tell him that I don’t let anyone talk to my kid that way. Not even him. His mind is quick and logical, cunning and silly. He doesn’t let anything slip past him. Cookies in the house? He knows how many are in the box and how many everyone else has already had. He’s gonna get his fair share. He’s desperate to be big, but is still the one who comes in for a morning snuggle.

Charlie is 9 months old and has a nose for legos. I wish I had started an art piece called “Things I fished from my puppy’s mouth” the day he came to be with us. It would be disgusting and epic. He chews things he shouldn’t but brings them to me as if to say “Please take this away from me.” He’s the best soccer goalie in the family and makes epic stops, leaps and catches mid air, as long as the ball is kinda flat. He’s a great addition to the family and we are finally coming out of that phase where I feel like I have a hairy baby to take care of, but who I occasionally put in a big metal crate to sleep and if he were a human, that would be totally wrong.

I’m 43 and 11 months and I’ve had a grown up job for most of this year where I get paid and everything! And no, I don’t mean homeschooling 3 kids. That’s my other job, which is awesome and I am loving but am not confident in yet. I’m a freelance project manager for a marketing firm and who woulda thought after managing a house, 3 kids, a rental, childcare, finances and everything in between that I’d be good at holding all the strings of a project in my hand and making sure everything gets done. Matt says I’m the best he’s ever worked near. High praise! I got a bit closer to finishing that album I’ve been working on forever and amidst love and loss and Covid, I found that I do survival really well. It’s looking forward and making plans for 5-10 years out that is harder to keep my mind on. We are renovating the house after nearly 14 years of just living with things exactly as they were the day we moved in and this week after working with the guys who were setting the countertops, one joked that they should hire me and the other asked me when I was going to get my General Contractor license. I talk the talk but am still fumbling my way through this process. Hard and costly lessons are good teachers but hard masters. I try to keep my eyes on the good things most of the time. I look for good and glory and grace. It’s hard in the midst of all of this to not get swamped by the weight of it all. I fight the good fight, rest and then wade back into the fray.