Tidbits

I miss writing.  I am not sure how on earth I can fit it in.  Days blur by.  We homeschool.  We cook and clean.  We tend Grandpa.  We deal with the forest and it's surprises.  I try "to Art" (as my secret brain calls it), but am usually too tired.  So, blog-schmog.

But there are a few things happening that should really be recorded.

Jonah has begun reading.  Really, really reading.  Last year at this time he was agonizing through, "Pat can tap the map.  Tap, Pat, tap!"  One year later, and he is reading a 5th grade chapter book called  Because of Winn-Dixie (which he prounounces WINN-dixie, like Windex).  It is still a struggle.  He still gets stuck on words with b's and d's (bdbdbdbdbdb...wouldn't you?), and we bumble along together slowly, but HE chose the book, and he chooses it again and again every day at reading time.  And he choses every day to try, very, very hard.  I am in awe of him.  And because he loves being read to, he pays me for “extra chapters” in the books I read aloud to him, by reading TO ME for five extra minutes per mom-read chapter.  Deliciously, the author we are currently reading is the master of chapter cliff hangers, always leaving him wanting.

Tessa has begun high school.  It has been a brutal transition.  Tessa was a "casual" student in middle school, not worried or terribly serious.  Very chill.  But she is our first child to hold any interest in College, with its high degree of scholarly expectation.  Her online high school is full of teachers to hold her accountable that don't share her DNA.  She is newly motivated to succeed, and has already been heard to say, "But I'm ALMOST down to a B!!!"  It's uncharted territory for me as a parent.

Ellie is transitioning.  Adulthood is around the very near corner, and she is making plans.  She talks about moving out, and job plans.  She got her covid-belated driver's license today. She suddenly cares about school.  I hear the rustling from within her cocoon.

Adam is thriving in Utah.  He is learning to balance life.  Adam never learned to "hang out with friends" until the last two months of his senior year.  While the sudden joy of that discovery was really a relief to me (isolated and introverted teenagers worry mamas), there was a learning curve that took it's toll on his savings.  He has struck a lovely balance now between work and play, and is expanding his social circle, which was tiny for too long.  He has found a real  love-of-learning about all things Viking, which has expanded to history, archeology, ancient languages and even his own genealogy.  It's a glorious thing to watch, and I have been learning along side him so that I can understand all that he is absorbing.  This week I found myself touring an online Norwegian Viking museum, and attempting tablet weaving.  I failed, but I will keep trying.  I have a goal to make Adam a gift for Christmas; a woven Viking belt, a replica of the one found on the Oseberg Burial Ship.  Yep, I'm geeking out.

Ethan's not very vocal about his world, but work seems good, and he is coping well with lame car disappointments.  Between work and his own personal study, he has piled more skills onto his already broad knowledge of all things mechanical and electrical.  I'm so proud of him.

The sea-sickness Guy was suffering from the wildly rolling waves of his new principal job seems to be subsiding.  He is learning which wheels are truly in need of aid, and which will continue to squeak unappreciative to any amount of oil given.  We are finding a rhythm, which includes some later nights, and my learning an all-new jargon.  There should be an "Orientation for Spouses of New Admins", including a dictionary, program flow charts, and a little training on grief counseling.  The first two months were very hard.  Hard, plus covid.  Everybody is mad at school administrators, as though they knew this was coming and hadn't bothered to plan for it.  "Fair" has lost all meaning in a world where there simply are not answers, where need and demand outnumber available manhours threefold, and where people are screaming to get their never-again "normal" back, and they are screaming it at YOU.  Try stepping into that chaos on your first day.  Hard.  Really hard.

One more thing... I found a new doctor.  It's just the very beginning of what will likely become a long and difficult process.  But I am hopeful that by this time next year, I will show as much improvement in my health as Jonah has in his reading. 

Oh!  And Natalie lost her first two teeth, and one more is starting the dangle-dance.  There is a comfortable, if not slightly sad, predictability in that little detail.  I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that tooth isn't going to be there come Thanksgiving.