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Oct 30

Je suis fatigue

(just part of why I’m exhausted these days…)

It’s all I retained from high school French.  Mom phrases, as it turns out.  I can also demand that my kids comply “tout suite!” and I’ve been known to holler out “Avec Moi!”  But mostly, I just say I’m tired.

I’m exhausted today because I stayed up far too late.  For no good reason, just wasn’t in the mood to sleep.  But it strikes me that I haven’t blogged in a while, so figured I’d throw up a quick status update, in case anyone was interested….

My life is easier now.  It’s a lot busier, I mean, a LOT busier, but it’s easier.  There’s a lot to be said for having all the kids capable of going to the bathroom on their own, get their own snacks, buckle their own carseats (kind of, I still have to buckle Julie, but it’s a booster and a thousand times easier).  They all dress themselves, in a pinch, they can all pick out their own clothes.   They all sleep by themselves.  It’s a trade-off, I know that.  There used to be long, lazy days, when my schedule revolved around naptime and nursing every few hours.  I’d strap all the kids into strollers or carrier and head to the park, feed the ducks or stay home and bake cookies and fold laundry.  Now I’m in the car, kind of all the time, and I have taken to driving around with dry cereal and snack bars in the front seat because I don’t have time to eat at home anymore.  But it’s still a lot of easier -just physically less demanding, and even the stressful parts of parenting seem to be easier now.  It’s fun, and I find myself marveling at how much I genuinely enjoy this stage in our family.

Jessie really is so much happier at this school that I can’t really imagine how she lasted so long at the last one.  She’s calmer, smiles a lot more.  It’s hard to describe, especially because her responsibilities have multiplied.  She’s switching every class now, with a lot more homework, a new instrument, and bat mitzvah lessons on top of it.   But despite the increased amount of STUFF to do, she’s getting along a lot better with her siblings, waking up happy and content, and is just a lot more fun to be around these days.   Her bat mitzvah is inching ever closer, and I’m looking forward to it for a whole bunch of different reasons, not the least of which is that I’ll be able to stop nagging her to DO HER BAT MITZVAH STUDYING.

Sam is just chugging along in second grade.  He’s still kicking butt in bath, and struggles a little bit with reading.  Struggles isn’t quite the right word, because he’s really improved so much in the past month or two.  Socially, though – that’s really what I worry about.  My kids are smart, academically.  I don’t worry, even if they have the occasional hiccup, I’ve never had to worry about their academic abilities.  Socially, that’s what I want to know about – and with Sam, that’s just a non-issue.  He plays happily with anyone and everyone, and never hesitates anymore at separation.   He’s thriving, and I never, ever take that for granted.  When he jumps out of the car every morning and runs to catch up with his buddies, I think back to those days when he’d start crying at home and just escalate as we got closer to the school.  It was  LONG journey to get to where we are today.

Julianna is in her second year of preschool, and so resilient that it still surprises me.  I know it’s wrong to compare kids, but it’s also (for me, at least) inevitable.  Things that would just shatter Sam at that age are manageable for her.    She decided last week that swim class was unendurable, because she had to get her hair wet, and she hates that.  She cried before she went to bed, and woke up sobbing because Tuesday was swim.  I told her she was going anyway, and we’d just tell Miss Jessica that she didn’t want to jump in.  I know that wouldn’t have worked with Sam, and didn’t expect it to work with Julie – but it did.   It’s just so much easier for her.  I don’t mean to minimize her feelings, because she was definitely dreading going to swim, but she was confident enough that she’d be safe, that her teachers would take care of her, and that’s she’d be able to handle it without me there.  She’s got two best friends, and  every day, comes home with smiles and stories about her day.

Marc is still working a thousand hours, and then studying every spare second.  It’s like he’s working two jobs, and I hate it.  I mean, I really hate it – but I keep telling myself that it won’t last forever.   It won’t.  But I miss my buddy, my husband, my partner.  We try to cram quality conversation into the twenty minute car ride twice a day to get him to work and back, but mostly it ends up being logistical stuff, discussions about who’s going where, when, and what we’re doing for dinner and who’s going to pick up and what time.

Halloween tomorrow, and I insisted that Marc take the day off a few months ago.   I’m glad I did, because he would have hated to miss out on dragging my ballerina, army guy and Cinderella out for trick or treating.

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