After 48 hours of solitude (for the first time in at least more than eight years) on the Cape, I returned home—three-hour drive a contributor to this feeling—exhausted. Mostly, the exhaustion stemmed from having let my guard down just the teeniest bit. Imagine exhaustion’s floodgates ready to burst forth. That’s pretty much me: what’s behind the floodgates. So this gal’s leaning back into the gate vainly hoping I can just click the latch shut (for what, a few more years?).
**
At Remy’s pal’s house where I fetched him in Brewster, I sat with Kate’s mom (my good friend, Jennifer) and her good friend, Leah, and her mom (also my friend, Pat) and we chatted and whilst chatting I filled out a stack of forms (two schools’ worth). The preschool forms were already a bazillion years’ late.
I had, with that form, one of those parent-of-fourth-child moments when I reached this question: How do you handle your child’s fussy times? Answer: Good cheer.
I said to the ladies in the kitchen: Had I been responding to this form for my first child, I’d have written volumes. Back then, I worried more and would have taken the opportunity more seriously to explain myself. These days, I think I worry less (in some ways), and parent more intuitively (or more from a place of exhaustion, take your pick).
In any case, the gist of what I wrote about Saskia was that she’s great and fun and when she acts out we’re quick to a time-out and when she’s sad we’re quick to big hugs. Shorthand: more time-outs, loads of hugs. That’s kind of it.
On the form for my going-into-middle-school son where parents are asked about anything you’d like to bring to the teachers’ attention in three lines, I wrote something like Lots, mainly about how to get this kid to SHOW UP and be present and take risks. I look forward to talking with you.
Lest you think I don’t worry, trust me, I do. That sentence is just a teeny expression of how much I hope the floodgates burst on this child and he lets himself burst through the gates, all his ideas and energies (think of that hope with the surety of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s catchy tune, Shut Up and Kiss Me).
In fact I returned to that guy’s melting down numerous times during the first evening and following morning of my return and I always feel when that’s happening like I wish I could figure out better ways to calm him down and help him stay happy. He both wants all our attentions and in true tweenager form pushes us away with the most unpleasant piss-n-vinegar-n-swear-words. It’s no fun (and to keep my theme going, it’s exhausting). We are working on the tween-parent equivalent of the tact with the toddler: quick to time-outs and quick to hugs. We aren’t quite so successful, at least not yet.
**
With summer winding down, I keep trying to remind myself that returning to school—for two kids, new schools—looms larger as the days press on and this isn’t so easy (never is). I’m trying to shore up a little stockpile of patience and trust in the process of restarting, to remember things that maybe help it along, like reconnecting with friends and previewing what’s ahead and trying to get everyone to bed earlier and also not stopping with the summertime fun, but savoring its last drops.
After a moment of grumpiness, the tweenager and I ended up having a late-night bath and he said of the party he didn’t want to go to but attended and enjoyed that he met a kid from the new school. “Nat’s going into I think fifth grade, but it’s more fun when there are all-school things if you know a couple of kids even in every grade,” he explained. I guess he’s doing a good job preparing, too.
And then, I slept… hard. I’m exhausted, remember?
