If every single child in our family makes it to school on every single appointed day this week—that’s five for three of them and three for Saskia—this will mark the first full week of school for all of them since the week before the Columbus Day break (or maybe earlier than that, even). Lest we forget, next week is Thanksgiving.
I think that’s to say, I’m a bit upended and a bit fragile—and busy. I’m overextended busy, not comfortable busy. I’m overtired because I’m upended, fragile because I’m tired. The synergistic forces conspire to fuel some sort of infinite loop-to-loop of complaint.
Things that would help are probably a really big cry, and a really big rest. Yesterday, a really lovely yoga class did its trick. I felt like I’d reached—and that reaching sensation is one I’ve begun to crave and especially on Mondays, it’s delicious.
Saskia was upside down on a chair the other day. “That’s an inversion,” I told her, as I snapped a photo.
“NO IT’S NOT!” she screeched at me. “It’s a headstand, but I can’t reach the ground.”
“Headstands are a form of inversion,” I informed her. As if she cared.
“Okay,” she replied.
**
When I feel the most agitated, the chaos surrounding me, the literal, physical part leaps out. Found on my camera last week is a moment when I l let myself be a tiny bit charmed by it.
In order to embrace the overextended, stuck in the darkening phase of the year, and overrun by demanding teens moment, I think finding the flashes of charm is a good coping strategy. In the weekend’s morass of unhappy that overwhelmed us for a little of Friday, the middle of the night Saturday and some of Sunday, I forgot some really basic things like an eighth grader returning from a great trip to DC with his class is going to be grumpy about the boringness of home. Last night, we took a walk together in the relatively balmy evening. That was one thing we discussed. Also, how much he enjoyed his afterschool community service club going to Whole Children yesterday to volunteer with the chorus. And of course, we discussed the Thanksgiving menu: he wants it to include Brussels sprouts.
The reconnection—and the realization of what had gone awry—was helpful, even healing. I think my letting him know—in a near puddle earlier in the day—how frustrated I was feeling wasn’t the worst thing, either. He and the middle brother want their mama to have a rest; the third grader has notions of serving breakfast in bed and catering to an in-bed all-day-mama.
Amazingly, the 13 year-old also came back from the walk and (nearly) of his volition did some cleaning up. As anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, that’s not something that guy does except under duress, which perhaps he was. If so, it was cheery duress.
Fueled by her nap and upended by the happy but confusing change of getting her papa back after his four-day trip, the little girl was determined to stay awake and by the end the mama had to complete the bedtime ritual—until 10 PM. Yeah, big sigh.
