Sandra Tayler

Some nights coherent thought flees and all I’m left with are bits and pieces.

Howard’s still at World Con. He’s having a good time. I’m glad. I wish I could be there with him.

We’ve all survived the first week of school. I’m not comfortable with the schedule yet, but I’m beginning to adapt. So far no major mishaps have interfered with the kids settling into school too. I’ve begun developing good working partnerships with each of their teachers.

I’ve been rereading my teenage journals. It is very strange. I’ve changed so much since then that it’s like reading someone else’s life. And yet it was mine. It has definitely given me a greater appreciation for the challenges that are inherent in being a teenager. I would certainly chafe at many of the restrictions I lived under back then. I had to ask permission to make long distance phone calls. And a distance of 30 miles seemed an insurmountable obstacle.

There was much crankiness here at the house this afternoon. None of us have been getting enough sleep. Tomorrow we can all sleep in and hopefully we’ll have a better day. Perhaps tomorrow I won’t have to chase Gleek through a video store because she refuses to relinquish a desired candy. Also perhaps I can return the pokemon dvd box that came with the wrong disk inside it. The kids were all very disapointed.

I’ve been a journal writer for most of my life. My journal keeping was particularly abundant during my teen years. It tapered off a lot when I got married and began having kids. But I’ve kept the journals I wrote in. I figured that some day it would be useful to me to go back and re-read them. I had in mind that re-reading my teenage journals might be a big help when I had teenage children. Kiki isn’t a teenager yet, but last week I dragged out the earliest of my journals to see if any of it was applicable to a crisis that she was suffering. It was.

But then there were all those other journals. I kept reading, and reading, and reading. It has been an odd experience. Some of the things in my journal I had completely forgotten, so it was like reading someone else’s story. Other things I remembered clearly and the journal just pulled me back into the memory. Some things have made me laugh out loud, like a list of goals written when I was twelve. Number 6 on that list was “establish personality” as if I completely failed to have one prior to that goal. I am astonished at how busy I was and how social. My journals are full of people I talked to, dances I attended, activities I was involved in, guys I was interested in, all of it mixed up together into one big social whirl. I guess I was much more extroverted during my teen years.

It is also fascinating to watch myself as I develop an identity. I struggled a lot with the emotional/physical desire to be with someone and the intellectual/spiritual desire to be strong on my own. Most of my friends were struggling with simillar issues which sometimes made us perfect confidants and other times we made each other feel worse. There was a strong drive to be doing something. I really wanted to be needed, valued. The practice in modern society of putting teens in limbo where they aren’t children, but aren’t yet adults creates a whole set of problems. And yet teens really aren’t adults. I look at these journals and I was so short sighted and short memoried. I’d make the same realizations and complaints over and over again.

It is odd what got put in and what got left out. I’d ramble on and on about some things and then drop a brief mention of a familial conflict without giving any context whatsoever. I was definitely not writing for posterity, just to sort my own thoughts. Kind of like this entry I guess.

I’m up to age 17 journals. I’m going to finish reading through them all.

Thanks to everyone who has offered to send postcards to Kiki. If even half of the email respondants send postcards, Kiki will be thrilled.

I’m also getting what I wished for. Next week my Mom is coming into town and she’s giving me a whole day for myself. Now I just have to decide what to do with it.

Kiki’s class is trying to collect postcards from all over the world. Kiki gets points for every postcard she brings in. If any of you who live outside the US would like to help Kiki feel like the coolest kid in her class, please email me (sandratayler at livejournal.com) and I’ll give you an address to which you can send postcards.

School began today. I bustled to get everyone out the door. Kiki and Link were off to school. Howard ran down to The Keep for awhile. Gleek and Patches ran next door to play with friends. I was left in an oasis of silence. I had the whole house to myself for two hours. It was heavenly. I didn’t do anything productive with it today, but I will be using that time wisely in days to come.

This week is an adjustment week. I’m getting all of us used to waking up earlier. We’re all adapting to getting kids out the door in the morning. And Howard is gone to world con. Kindergarten starts next Wednesday, so after that we can truly establish a “normal” for this school year. Already things are feeling much calmer because I’m actually getting some quiet time during the day.

So far so good with school. Both Link and Kiki had fun and are happy to be going back tomorrow. I hope that holds up.

School starts tomorrow. Am I ready? Are the kids ready? Will this be a good year for them? Will it be a good year for me? I’m honestly not sure how to answer any of these questions. As I mentally review the personalities of my kids and thier particular challenge sets I see so many places that things could get bad. I also see so many places where things could go really right.

Today I go to an open house where I get to meet Link’s teacher and Gleek’s teacher. More information is a good thing. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen until after 4 pm. I need to fill the rest of the day with useful things rather than with waiting for the open house to begin.

I’ve been in a holding pattern for much of the last week. There wasn’t much on the schedule except waiting for school to begin. Tomorrow the waiting is over.

Today I took Patches to his first ever Gym class. He was uncertain about going and so I scheduled my time so I could stay and be with him if he needed me. He needed me for the first 5 minutes. Then he needed me briefly near the end when he was sad. Other than that he mostly ignored me in the parents waiting area. I’m glad because it means that next week I can go run a few errands while he has his class.

Sitting in the waiting room was interesting because I got to eavesdrop on the conversations of other moms who were watching thier kids in Patches class. In particular I listened to two women. For both of them the 3 year old was their oldest child. They were both obviously pregnant. One had two kids the other had three. I listened to them discussing behaviors and potty training and I remembered being them. I remember being stress about the things that they were stressing over. I remember being buried under the needs of multiple young children. It seems odd that I’ve moved beyond that. Now in conversations about toddler behavior I get to be the voice-of-experience rather than the frustrated/stressed seeker-of-answers. When did that happen? I also wonder what, of the things I am thoroughly stressed about right now, will seem like no big deal in a few more years.

Gleek also attended her gymnastics class today. She last took a gym class when she was Patches age. I was amazed at the behavioral difference a couple of years can make. She did much better at following instructions and staying with the group. And when it came time to leave I didn’t have to physically grab her and carry her to the car. I think Little Gym is going to be good for all of us.

Tomorrow Kiki and Link have thier classes. The day after that is the first day of school. The summer has finally wound down to a close. Only the weather doesn’t seem to know it. It was over 90 degrees out today. Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter. Tell me again why I should be buying sweaters for back to school clothes?

This morning had a cheerful beginning. Patches had crawled into bed with me at some point during the night and we both woke up at about the same time. It was a perfect opportunity for snuggly giggles, so we had some. Then we got up and headed downstairs for breakfast. We ordered pizza last night so that the boys would have something special since the girls got to go camping and make dutch oven pizza. I’d put away the left over pizza, but left the boxes out on the table. Patches saw the boxes and announced “Pizza!” He pulled the coupon sheet off the top of the box and studied the picture of pizza on it. He then walked over to the fridge where we have a Pizza Hut magnet. He pointed to the magnet, then to the flyer in his hand. “Pizza and pizza. There are two pizzas!” He held up two little fingers to emphasize his point.

We had leftover pizza for breakfast, which made us both happy.

After breakfast Patches wandered off to play and I wandered into my office to fill some book orders. Right now the process of fulfilling orders requires both my old machine and my new one. It’s a newly complex process and I was pretty focused. Patches appeared at my elbow. He had in his hands a small stack of little papers. They were the little white tabs which go inside binder separators. Apparently Kiki had some left over yesterday. I’m not sure whether Kiki gave them to Patches or whether he appropriated them, but he treasured this little stack of papers all day yesterday. This morning he informed me that he was a pizza man and the little papers were pizza orders. He was ready to go to his friend next door and play. I was distracted and not ready to walk him over, so I told him that he had to get dressed first. He accepted that and went off to play again.

I was deep in the printing of invoices when Patches appeared at my elbow again. This time he had a full set of clothes in addition to his pizza orders. I helped him change. Once dressed, Patches reiterated his request to go to his friend’s house. I figured that he’d earned it. So Patches the pizza man clutched his little stack of “pizza orders” and went to ring his friend’s doorbell. The friend was still in pajamas and couldn’t play yet, but this did not dent Patches’ irrepressably good mood. Instead he took his “pizza orders” and started back home. Every few steps he stopped to jump over or dodge an invisible obstacle. Sometimes there were shooting noises as well. A whole adventure happened in the space of two driveways and one short front walk. Apparently Patches is not just any pizza man. He is more akin to the Pizza Deliverator from Neal Stephanson’s Snow Crash.

We came home and I began this blog. I can still hear Patches over my head running from kitchen to living room and back. Apparently pizza delivery has never been so exciting as it is today.

Today was better.

A mouse obligingly died in one of the traps. But I still hear skittering, so there are more mice for me to catch.

My new computer arrived. I’ve got most of my settings and files moved over with a few critical gaps. I may have to bite the bullet and upgrade Quicken and Quickbooks. Software that is 5 or 6 years old starts being unsupported.

Kiki and Gleek ran off with Howard for a daddy/daughter campout. It has been a nice quiet evening with half as many kids around. I intended to spend most of it with the boys, but lots of it went into computer stuff. I did help them make smores in the microwave though. Hopefully that was enough to help them be happy about not getting to camp.

The big grumpiness from me continued today. Not sure why I’m so grouchy. Could be that Howard has been so incredibly busy. Could be me needing more breaks from the kids. Could be the huge messes that I find every time I turn around. Just this last week I found that some kids had made bird’s nests out of cut grass in the middle of a bedroom floor. The dried grass was then kicked all over the room and mixed with dirty clothes, clean clothes, books, yarn, toys, more yarn, and some TV tables. It was a truly amazing mess.

Of course some of the over-powering mess is a result of the fact that I was siezed by a story this week and I had to get it written before it got away from me.

I really want a break. I want to take a day and go do something with no kids. The first window of opportunity for that will be in two weeks after Howard has finished his pre-world-con crunch and has recovered from his post world-con crash. Also my parents are going to come and visit then. I’ll bet I can get them to babysit while I run off for a day. Grandparents like to do that kind of thing.

I am tired of my computer terrifying me with new and unusual noises. My new computer should arrive tomorrow and then the reign of terror will be over. Hopefully then I’ll be back to blogging in a relaxed state rather than listening for the impending death of my machine and saving every two seconds.

I am tired of having to be super wonderful extra nice mom at bedtime. Can’t they just go to bed?

I am tired of the mouse that keeps skittering across my kitchen floor and ignoring the traps I’ve conveniently set up for it to die in.

I am tired of dishes.

I am tired of messes.

I am tired of laundry.

I am tired of weeds.

I am tired of the summer schedule. I want school to start so that my kids will stop being so bored that they entertain each other by picking fights.

I am tired of fights.

I am tired of being irrationally grouchy over every little thing that happened today.

At least that last one I have some control over. I’m going to bed now. Tomorrow will be better.