Terrible/Perfect

The captain has turned on the Fasten Seat Belt sign

Oh myyyyy. After an emotionally and physically grueling three months, I'm pleased to consider that Things are much better. But still, you know...turbulence. I really, really like this new cheesy metaphor. Sometimes you get to get up, stretch, empty your bladder, enjoy the fluffy clouds, take a look at the Grand Canyon, get overly excited about a little plastic cup of Coke. Sometimes you have to plant yourself in your seat and breathe through the bumps. Possibly check that you know exactly where the airsick bag is. I can roll with that. It's so impermanent: maybe this leg of the flight is rough, but we're not going down. I think it might actually do me a LOT of good to think of that cheerful little "bong" sound that they play when the light comes on. For instance, when, oh, I don't know...my first born is relentlessly harassing my second born and taking sadistic pleasure in her tears of frustration. Just in case that sort of thing happens.

So.

Schooling and parenting has been a bit bumpy.

After a waaaaaay long break from doing schoolwork, we're slipping back into the stream. Big Kid was really not having it, but she's adjusting now and I expect that in a very short while, it will be as smooth a process as it can be with this particular child. We're getting back into the swing with math. We use Math-U-See, which I like for both its insistence on mastery and the trouble it goes to to help the parent-teacher help the child achieve it.

We, both the kid and I, needed some mnemonics and structure to grease the process of learning and memorizing the early math facts. She totally groks the manipulative blocks this program uses (and the program USES the blocks in a very systematic, intentional way; they are the primary teaching tool), which are cementing everything for her beautifully.

We've had the program for a bit over one week, and so far she's been doing one lesson a day, just reviewing the material and testing out of that lesson. The lesson she did today had a bit of algebraic thinking, which was cool. It took a split second of explanation and she absolutely got it, and gets how to use the blocks to express relationships between numbers. She seemed to find number bonds (from her last curriculum) confusing, even though it's absolutely the same concept. Kids are different. Go figure.

Having Little Kid around when we're trying to do all of this is super frustrating. The child who will quietly play with Play Doh or count some beans she is not. C'est la vie.

On and on we roll. I'm looking forward to summer. My rapidly growing little tomato plants are making me giddy.

A little craze

About a month ago, life sat back thoughtfully for a moment, then leaned forward and said, "You know what I think I'm going to do for a bit? I'm going to KICK YOUR ASS."

I've been around the block enough times now to know that 1)This is not a true ass-kicking-by-life. This is ass-kicking-by-life lite. Maybe a medium. Just not the sort of down-to-business threshing that life can really dole out when it wants to. Everyone's safe, and everyone's healthy. In a manner of speaking. 2)Really the only effective thing to do when life starts whooping your ass is manage the hell out of your stress.

I could get into the specifics of what is wiping the floor with me right now, but I've tried sort of expressing that lately and it seems to bore and/or annoy people. That's fine. I won't bore or annoy you, mostly because I finally figured out that what I need to do more than seek support from friends is not, as I always seem to think it is, to come up with a magical way to change everyone around me, but to buckle down and focus on how I'm coping.  

Well-being is a comfy fireside chair that rests on four legs: diet, exercise, sleep and stress management. I suck at taking care of all four of those, which is bad under any circumstances, but sets the stage for some kind of true psychological break when life becomes extra juggly and spiky and tetchy.

I really, really need to be at my best right now, so I'm tackling one leg at a time, starting with sleep. I am going to be a filthy sleep hog for a bit. I'm going down for the count as soon as the kids are in bed. If I need to, I'm putting on a video for them in the afternoon and having a siesta. Awesome. I also got a stress reduction book from the library as well as some guided meditation, because new agey or not that stuff is the business. If it puts me to sleep, so be it. Diet and exercise will probably have to wait. Fixing beautiful fresh food and getting up for a long walk every day isn't really where I'm at right now, as much as both would help. Maybe I'll get in a little stretching. Maybe I'll eat more apples.

I need to keep in mind that all any of us can really do when circumstances aren't so hot and other people are melting down is take good care of ourselves so we can think of good solutions for those problems that can be solved, and be patient with the other people in our lives, little and big. We can always offer guidance and support to children, but just like adults, unless they're suffering with true illness, they pretty much need to get through their own crap. I'm not going to make my children stop fighting, or pull my older child out of the weird angry screaming place she's in, or get my little one all growed up overnight, or give my partner the temperament of Mr. Rogers, but I can most definitely ratchet down the thermostat of my own stress response. I can be a safe, well person. I can be a calm presence. If my insides are cool and steady, all of that crazy can kind of roll off rather than stick and stick and stick and make me sick.

Oh, you're screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" as loudly as you possibly can because your sister's singing? And you're sobbing because I left the room to use the bathroom? And you're stomping around the house with murder in your eyes?

Alright. Y'all let me know when you're done.

Burn notice

Last week was very, very strange. It was one of those periods in life that have a shape that you can see quite clearly in retrospect but seemed totally dark and nebulous going through...if I'm digging for a metaphor I think maybe we'll call it being hit with a surprise tornado. Oh, yeah. Tornado. That's why my couch is up a tree 30 miles over.

I suppose I have the snow to thank. I'm not sure things would have come to a head in quite the way that they did without it.

Things haven't been right for months. I guess I knew that. I mean...now I know that I knew that. I didn't know that I knew back then. But it was one thing after another...moving, Halloween, a quicker than quick shift into the holiday blitzkrieg, pulling life back together after the holiday blitzkrieg...the normal stuff. I figured it was just stress. Normal stress. Mr. Terrible made plans to attend a two-day meditation retreat. I'd have the kids by myself for the weekend, he'd be home for the Martin Luther King holiday. That was fine.

But things really hadn't been fine for a while, and we got snow. Lots of it. That Sunday was a Snow Day, the super fun kind when everything is really fresh and lovely, and the kids were in and out of the house all day. Wonderful and exhausting. The house was crazy. Mr. T came home from his two days away after we'd all gone to bed. I was asleep in the big bed with both of the kids and remember vaguely telling him there wasn't any room and to go sleep somewhere else.

I suppose I was expecting him to come back to us all fresh and Zen-ful, seeing as how he'd been hanging out in a zendo for two days, but his transition home was really rough. Then he went back to work, and then we got some serious snow and work was cancelled and he was home with us. Except...he wasn't.

Not to put too fine a point on it, because he deserves his privacy even if his wife doesn't seem to need much of her own, but things just weren't working. I found myself in a string of tasks with both kids hanging off of me, literally hanging off of me in a couple of instances. I was helping the toddler soap and rinse her hands while I was sitting on the toilet. I was finding the Play-Doh for the screaming toddler while I was on the phone with my sister. I was opening the oven door to check on the dinner with the fussy toddler on my hip.

And he was reading a book.

I will admit, I lost. my. shit. with him that night. Totally f-ing lost it.

Which turned out to be good, because he managed to mentally check himself back in to the Happiness Hotel that is the life of our family the next day, and because it made me understand what had been going on the past few months:

Burnout.

My job is taking care of my kids and my home. And for months, I have been a working person getting absolutely no reprieve from work. Literally the only time I haven't been responsible for watching at least one of my children is after they go to bed. That's a minimum 14 hour work day, 7 days a week, for months on end.

For a while now I have had very little interest or desire to do...well, my job. All of it. I love my kids, but it had become painful to be around them so unceasingly. I had no motivation to take care of my home. I deeply resented my husband. I was just done. 

Things were laid bare, though, and now it's on the table unequivocally that I need time off every week, measured in continuous daytime hours, not five minute stints at the sewing machine constantly interrupted with demands to wipe a butt or pour a cup of milk.

He needs time off, too. He should get his cup of coffee and NPR by himself, in peace, on Saturday morning, and his weekend meditation retreat every now and again. But I need it too. Even if it's really super hard for him to adjust to being the on-call guy, to flying solo with a high-strung six year-old and a three year-old that wants nothing but, in equal parts: her mother, opportunities to communicate to her father that he's one of God's Unchosen, and the complete destruction of all order in the universe, it has to happen.

The alternative is that I kind of hate everyone.

And I don't. I don't hate them. I love them to bits. I even love homeschooling, even though tossing the big kid on a bus would halve my workload for much of the day. 

Mercifully, just having that little breakdown, that moment when the machine that hasn't been oiled in far too long up and bricks, eased everything for me really quickly. It gave me much needed perspective, an ability to name the problem, which is so very much of almost any battle.

Poof, like magic, I'm enthused about learning science with my science-loving again. About helping her earn Girl Scouts badges. About reading stories to the goofy, frustrating Mama junky about dogs who really, really love chasing balls.

I wasn't depressed. I wasn't lazy. I didn't need a divorce. I don't care if my job isn't taken seriously or if everyone who has ever raised small children has also been spread really, really thin and just sucked it up, I got burned out. It's a thing. I'm dealing with it. It's going to be fine.

The snow came, it stayed, and then it thawed.

O, Pseudotsuga menziesii

We got our tree this weekend. Perhaps that ought to be an exclamatory statement: We got our tree this weekend!

But it's declarative: We got our tree this weekend.

There were sleepless children, way beyond exhausted parents, fussing, clinging, screaming, spinning around in circles and knocking things over. Lots of yelling.

We got a small Douglas fir with super weak branches. I didn't notice until we got it home. The kids would not stop asking when they could decorate it while we were getting it set up. Our longest string of lights is burned out. The little one wanted to play with all the fragile ornaments.

It was a total horror show.

But, you know. You roll with these things. Have a laugh. Move on.

Christmas sewing and knitting is humming along.

I'm getting the place tidied up today, going to the library, watching my friend's children in the afternoon. The kids are performing the Nutcracker ballet in the living room. One of them keeps falling over on her rear end and screaming. Not the one you might think.

I hope to buy one or two more scientists each year*. I want to fill up the tree with them. They look incredible hung up. Simple and warm. I think I might rub them with some beeswax. I love them so much. 

I have my eye on Nicola Tesla and Jane Goodall for this year.

I wonder if they'd make a Sally Ride if I asked?

Probably. I love handmade.

*We have six of these. Mr. Terrible has Carl Sagan at work, for some reason. I told him he has to come back.

Ahhhguhguhguhguhguhguhguh

Oh man. That was such a horrible day. It hurt. All there is to say is that Baby and I had a long, full day, running, such as it was, on a scant five hours of sleep. Then there was no possibility of a nap. The tiredness was literally a physical pain. She screamed so much.

Thankfully I have no photographs from today, so look at this instead:

Nick Cave. Wonderful.

Mr. Terrible is trying to work some plumbing magic in the tub drain, and if he succeeds I'ma take a screaming hot shower and go the f**k to sleep.

On a much happier note, I'm on Pinterest now, which seems like it would be a total time-waster, but is actually causing me to spend less time on the internets. I think it has something to do with being able to plonk all the ideas and information I get down in one place (whether it's curtains I'd like to copy, a knitting pattern, fabric, a recipe, whatever), very much like keeping a pad of paper next to your bed to write down all of the stuff rattling around in your head so you can forget about it and sleep. Weird. In any case I really love looking at all of my pins together, they're so satisfyingly cohesive.

Mmm hmm.

Yep.

I'm so tired.

Snooze

Wonky sleep patterns around here. Again. I think I need to get "This too shall pass" tattooed on my arm. I've been buying vintage pink pillowcases and they make me so happy, like a feel-good Sofia Coppola film if such a thing existed. It would be really nice to get a solid night's sleep on them.

The big kid has a birthday coming up. I asked her to write out a list of gift ideas for her dad and me, and she gave me this:

A Kaya doll (which her Grandma just got her as a huge, sweet "just 'cause" surprise...lucky girl!), a Lego Lava Monster (that little orange dude), and a bow and a sword. Not sure where that fighting vibe came from, but okay. I think we're done with theme parties until she's old enough to really commit to a theme, but she keeps telling me all of the costumes she's going to wear for her party: Link, a giant foam Rock Monster suit, Tintin. I love that she really sees all of that happening. She wants a Lego cake with all of her favorite things on top, including pictures of Kaya, Link, the Tintin crew, Moomins, Legos. That I think I can do.

I can't believe her birthday is only a month away. The summer gets away so fast.

Grumplestiltskin

Good heavens. Madness around here. Mad. Ness. I was doing reallyreallyreally good for a long time, being Captain Awesome Mom and then I think the madness just went on too long, and now I'm cranky. But less so, maybe, than I had used to be under such circumstances.

No real complaints, though. In my moments of fullest comprehension I realize that my main issue, whenever my kids get really, habitually crazy, is that I get really afraid. I become terrified that there is something wrong with them. That the big kid has ADHD, that the little one will never get out of the weird No Man's Land she's inhabiting between being a diaper-wearing baby and a consistently tinkling-in-the-toilet child. I worry that one or both of my kids is going to grow up into an adult that is hysterical, whining and obnoxious.

Most of us don't. I mean...some of us, obviously, are more high-strung than others. And whining and obnoxious, too. But most people grow up and gain a modicum of self-control. Most people become more or less an adult. I try to keep in mind what would be the most helpful thing for me, as a mother, to do when the kids' behavior gets particularly gnarly, and all I can come up with is to be the least high-strung, hysterical, whining and obnoxious version of my adult self that I can be.

I'm doing a lot of whispering these days. It seems very calming to them. They're like horses.

So.

One of the best, best things that I have ever done as a mom I did the other day. I told the big kid that I never wanted her to be sitting up at night by herself, feeling afraid. I did a lot of that as a child, because I had a very overactive imagination, and it was horrible. I remember being pretty old, under ten but too old to go crawling into my parents' bed, and just sitting up crying with the light on because of whatever I imagined was under the bed or in the closet or what have you. So I told her that no matter how old she is, if she becomes really afraid at night, that not only can she come to us for help, but that she should.

She meandered out into the living room last night sweaty and mumbling something about Monsters, Inc. She fell asleep lying on his chest, like a baby otter.

Octopuses

We had a crazy Easter weekend. I feel like there was something I did on Friday but I can't remember it. Saturday was the animal parade, which is, if you are not a curmudgeon, as I know some of you are, charming. I'll let Wikipedia do the 'splainin, if the drum major dressed up as an octopus frightens, confuses, and/or arouses you. In that photograph it kind of looks like he's wearing tap shoes. I can only dream. Sunday was Easter, and my children became crackheads. They ate chocolate for breakfast and it was downhill from there...just all day madness and then so. much. screaming. at bedtime. I feel bad for being a fascist about sweets and then we have a day like this, when they're eating the same amount as other kids and they get jacked up, can't sleep and then don't fully come back to normalcy for a few days. No more damn chocolate!

CAFFEINE IS THE DEVIL.

But all that is over now. Let's move on.

I feel self conscious posting about bought objects as much as I do, but I really shouldn't. I don't read a ton of blogs but the ones that I do read are about stuff, when it comes right down to it, specifically about crafting and the supplies related to crafting: fabric, yarn, notions, etc. I should just get over it and own the whole thing.

I LIKE FABRIC. A LOT. To a lesser extent I like mid-century pottery.

To be fair the "stash" is fundamental to fiber arts. It's like having the full spectrum of paints. For realz, I'm not making that up.

I stashed it up a bit last week; my JoAnn got the Denyse Schmidt line and I went all the way. Or 1/3 of the way, if we're talking in fractions of yards.

There are two colorways in the full collection, "Picnic" (reds and blues) and "Fairgrounds" (greens and blues), and I love the Picnic fabrics like crazycakes.

The Fairgrounds are less inspiring, but I have an issue with getting so hung up on loving a fabric that I can't decide what to do with it, and it sits unused. So I got the Fairgrounds prints to relax with and actually get quilting.

The bottom fabric is actually "Picnic", and there is a yellow print that is "Fairgrounds" not shown here. Obviously some of the elements are mix and match.

I have a serious log cabin quilting problem. Every time I start pulling fabrics out and plotting for a quilt, I start thinking log cabin. Whenever I say or think "log cabin" I think of Log Cabin Republicans. Anyway, I want Modern Log Cabin Quilting really badly. I think I'd make every one of the projects in that book. And Susan Beal, World of Geekcraft? Say what? We are friends now. I just decided that. I have this dream of a periodic table quilt, and I think she would fully understand that vision. 

So I'm log cabining the DS Quilts fabrics:

Why are you puckering in the middle? I don't care. I'm going to wash you so hard.

I'm going to mix up the blocks between the ten fabrics so they're all a little different (I also have six solids to try and make things pop a bit) and then I think I'm going to do a bento box. A large throw size. I'm stoked. 

I also picked up a bit of this amazing floral, from a line called Botanical Pop:

The baby crunched it all up, but dang! Pow.

I think I've used up all of my creative time this evening writing this groundbreaking piece of prose but I'm fired up for some sewing. I realized I hadn't worked on my Mendocino quilt for many months, and when I pulled it down I was all ahguhguhguhguhguh.

Why did I abandon this project? It had something to do with thread, and a bobbin. I remember that much. How stupid.

DS Quilts Fairgrounds bento box, it has been...satisfactory. But I'm in love with someone else, and I'm leaving you to be with her. I hope you'll understand. She's a freaking mermaid.

The light at the end of the tunnel

I've been noticing lately, even in the midst of one of Baby's long, stressful stints as a sleep-hating mutant, that we're passing out of the uncomfortably (very near unbearably) intense patch we were in as a family. The Big Kid and Baby Show has begun to look more like the Big Kid and Little Kid Show, which is both sad and wonderful. More and more the two girls play together for longer and longer stretches, requiring less and less intervention from me. I remember this well when Big Kid was entering her twos: how suddenly space began to open up in my life for getting things done here and there. The house began to look tidier, I had time to work on projects, we were productive and we had fun. Then it seemed like time for baby #2 which, of course, it was.

And as that Baby becomes less and less of a baby, as she becomes more independent and willing and able to leave my side, it has been a marvel to watch the two girls becoming friends. Big Kid is enormously proud of her little sister, always thrilled to see her when we pick her up at preschool, showing her off to her friends. They adore one another. And they fight, always over the stuff, but mostly it's hugging and kissing and running around the house laughing together. I found myself standing at the sink, doing dishes the other afternoon, while they murmured together, playing with toys and books.

"Oh. Yes. This is how it will be, mostly," I thought.

I have a little breathing room in other areas, too. Mr. Terrible and Big Kid's relationship has improved dramatically*. That fact is of no small significance in both of their lives, or mine. With the freedom and encouragement to attend sesshin regularly, I think he'll be happier, which means we all will be happier. I don't mind. It means that we can move forward as a family. I can begin to think about regularly scheduling in what we've all needed so badly for so long: time alone for each child with each parent, time for each parent to be alone, and time for the parents to be alone without the children (that one's going to take some working up to).

It's been sunny outside the past few days. We've been to the park again, we've been walking. We pulled out the table work again (Singapore Math) after a months-long hiatus.

I'm looking forward to the coming months. I see a massive spring cleaning and home reorganization in my future (IKEA HO!), as well as lots and lots of time spent outdoors.

I see hiking, and picnics, and perhaps even a long afternoon alone in the house with my sewing machine.

And like that, we will have done it.

We will have made it through, together.

*I don't think I've ever discussed this here, out of respect for Mr. T's privacy. In essence, Big Kid and Mr. T's relationship never recovered from the whole-family turbulence of adjusting to a new family member. Which is to say, the two of them did not adjust at all. I don't think it is unfair to say that their dynamic has dominated our family life for two years. It's been...difficult.  

Needle work

I'll have to beg your forgiveness for the doom and gloom bitch and moan of my last post. My emotional life in high school and college was pretty crap, and I'm having a damned difficult time trying to keep my hands on the reins right now, but overall it's...well, I have nothing to complain about. As my mother reminds me, this is all really a tiny moment and some day I will be surrounded by very small dogs because I miss mothering small children.

The real issue of the moment is that the the baby is teething; when this happens everything, and I mean every. thing. is thrown into chaos. It is a little quarterly household Armaggeddon. Baby can't get to sleep, can't stay down, can't rest without help. So I get no sleep, and no time between the kids' bed time and my own. Laundry piles up into a scale model of the major volcanic peaks of the Pacific Rim. The dishes don't get done. We eat rats and collect rain water in pots and pans and sanitize it in a solar oven made of pie pans and a child's magnifying glass.

I could reflect further on this, but I won't. Waa waa, boo hoo. My life sucks.

No it doesn't.

The opposite of suck is this:

Although I think the opposite of "suck" is "blow", so never mind. This does not blow.

It's Heather Ross's Mendocino line, which is out of print. My local fabric store (is there some kind of quilting insiders' jargon for this, like "lys" for "local yarn shop"?) happened to actually have some, so a few weeks ago I snapped up a bunch of fat quarters and the remaining two and a half yards of the mermaids. I'm going to make a throw for our living room out of these (and some others) using the quilting method in Patchwork Style (Amanda Blake Soule has done this a number of times, and uses Mendocino in her latest project).

I also got these:

These are both from Heather Ross's Lightening Bugs and Other Mysteries line, which I can't even find a link for. The fabric shop had a ton of the dogs, which I stupidly only bought half a yard of. A couple days later when I went back to get more (Big Kid wanted something to wear made from it), someone in New York had bought the whole bolt and had it shipped to them. People is crazy. The little bikes I got from Etsy, and I will not tell you how much I paid for a single fat quarter. I is crazy.

But Big Kid has a little yellow bike that she loves, and one of my future dream projects is a twin-size quilt, again in the Patchwork Style, uh, style, that tells something of the story of who she is right now.

 

Did I mention that Big Kid is a capital-G Girl? I really wasn't, so this is super funny to me (and perplexing and sometimes maddening, like when she said she wanted to quit soccer and it turned out that she didn't want to have to put on her boy-ish soccer gear; a pair of pink cleats and a skort later and she was right back out there). She chose the ballerinas and the music notes (she is a cultured little thing), and I chose the bikes and the birds and the flowers (the birds and flowers are from the Windham Fabrics Full Bloom collection). I'm going to order a set of Heather Ross's Far Far Away II, as well, because I have a problem.

Honestly though, she's amazing.

Lastly, there's this:

There are only a handful of yards left of this skein, which means I am nearly done with a knitting project.

GREAT SCOTT!

I will finish it during the next couple episodes of True Blood, because for tonight, at least, the baby is asleep.