Family

Next fall three of my four kids are transitioning into new schools. I knew that would require extra focus and emotional energy. I just wasn’t expecting it to begin hitting in March, but it does. Of course it does, because March is when the kids pick their classes, choosing the shape of the school year to come. It is when we have orientation and transition assemblies. It is when everyone looks ahead and begins to understand exactly how different next year is going to be. Apparently March is also when the youngest sibling, the one who is not transitioning, the one who gets left behind, also realizes that life will be changing. The three in transition have things to look forward to as well as things to fear. The youngest just knows that life will march forward without regard to his personal readiness for the changes.

I sat with Kiki while she cried about leaving. I hugged her and told her how I cried for two days last fall because it felt like the beginning of the end. Then I told her about all the fun things I’m looking forward to for her and with her.

I sit with Link in a dozen quiet conversations where we talk about how things are different in high school, about classes yet to come, and about why boys tease the girls they like. Link still doesn’t get that last one. “Mom, if you like a girl, you be nice to her and give her flowers. Teasing her isn’t nice.” Link sometimes seems younger than his peers, but inside he is so much older.

I hold Gleek tight when she is scared, when the world gets to be too much. Then, when the fears have passed, we talk about where they come from and how to manage them. I sat with her on the bench last Sunday, after everyone else had left the chapel. I told her that her fears are bigger than they should be, that her teacher and I are working together to try to help her, and that she’ll be going to some new doctors who may be able to help as well. She took it calmly, almost relieved.

I snuggle with Patch at his bedtime while he cried about Kiki leaving. He connected it with his friends who moved away and how–even though he still sees these friends–it is not the same as when they lived next door. I could not offer happy rewards that will come after his sister leaves. All I could do was say that he had every right to feel sad.

I sit in our front room with its new chairs, across from Howard. We talk about his recent visit to the doctor. We spectate his depression and the effects that medication has on those moods. We also talk about how the depressions affect him, affect our kids, affect me. The depression is not new in our lives, but these conversations are. We’re sorting, learning, and things are getting better. It feels strange to say that, because they felt good before, we were fine, but apparently better is possible and we would be foolish not to reach for it.

I open my laptop to read the internet. I stare at the blog post box, it is empty and my head is full. It seems that I ought to adjust that balance by putting some of my thoughts into words. There is no time. My days an evenings are thing after thing. They only pauses I get are spent on eating, sleeping, or finding an escape in fiction. Not my fiction, which would require emotion from me that I don’t have to spare, but the fiction of others.

I meet with teachers, meeting after meeting. We talk options and concerns. I listen, not just to the teacher, but also for sparks of inspiration, pieces of direction from which we can formulate a plan. They come. “Here is what we’ll do.” I say. Then I ask the teachers to check planners, to love and observe at school, to let me know what they see. I promise to talk at home, to track homework and make sure it is done, to insure good sleep, to provide a solid breakfast. They are small changes, things I should have been doing anyway that got lost in the shuffle. They may be enough. We hope they’ll be enough. So we agree to meet again in a week to compare notes again.

I sit on my porch in the sunshine, so very grateful for the sixty degree weather. It draws the children outside. They run and play, getting fresh air and exercise. I am glad, because I know that the lack of these things was part of the problem. I promise myself that next winter I’ll do a better job of making sure they get exercise. I hope I remember to follow through.

I sit at restaurants with a friend across the table; more than one restaurant, more than one friend. We talk and I spill all the worries in my heart. Because I know I am carrying too much. I have to carry it all and the only way I can hope to continue is to make sure that I do not ignore the signs of strain in my heart and body. I have friends to support me. I eat on schedule. I sleep when I can. And I know that transition does not last forever. Six weeks from now these transitions will have settled out. It may not even be six weeks. Next week might be more reasonable. I can continue until then.

On the morning after three hours of sleep I expect the day to be a disaster. The fact that it was not I can only consider a series of small miracles doled out to me as I flowed from one task to the next through the day. Flow really feels like the right word, because I have been carried through this day from rolling out of bed, until this moment when dinner is simmering on the stove and I have my first moment of quiet to get on a computer. I have three hours left until bedtime and I pray that I can keep riding all the way through without ending up beached or shipwrecked.

Early morning class for Kiki was followed by a battle over breakfast with Gleek. Link had a slow and grouchy start because of bad dreams. I dropped him at school and headed for an early morning meeting with a couple of Gleek’s teachers. There are matters of concern and we needed a plan for them.

(Interrupted here by more evening stuff. Began writing again in the kid’s bedtime lull while they read before lights out.)

On the way home from that meeting I stopped at both the grocery store and Walmart. Shopping lists had been accumulating, filled up with lots of small but important needs for the kids. Having these small things perpetually incomplete had been wearing on all of us. I came home to unload. Then I went back out to Sam’s Club for prescriptions and the last few stock-up items. While there I ran into a long-time friend I haven’t seen in years. She was exactly the person I needed to talk to today, and I was just who she needed as well. We stood near giant bags of beans and talked for forty minutes. It was going to make me late to pick up Kiki, but then Kiki called to let me know she had her own ride home. We scheduled lunch next week for more talking time.

As I drove home I saw Link on his walk home from school and picked him up. Then he and I sat down to do some homework for which he needed my help. It was paused while I fetched Patch from school. On the way home Patch mentioned he felt sick. I didn’t pay that much mind, instead I fixed myself some food, the first since breakfast. I retrieved Gleek from choir and had a pause before she and I had to return to the school to meet with her teacher. Gleek needed to be apprised of the plan.

Then there was dinner, Kiki’s friend visiting, Gleek’s homework, Patch demonstrating that he has stomach flu, a girl scout delivering cookies, a relative stopping by to pick up stuff, Family Home Evening, and carefully shepherding Gleek through the evening because she’s particularly intense today.

This sort of packed day usually ends up with me collapsed in an overwhelmed heap. Instead I see clearly that each part of the day was exactly what it needed to be. Each challenging thing was an important step from where we are to where we intend to go. I’ve been calm and assured, even during the hard bits. I’ll probably do my collapsing tomorrow. For now I’ll just be grateful for today.

A storm blew in only a day after the last of the snow melted on our front lawn. The back lawn, shaded by the house, was still a blanket of white when the first flakes of new snow landed on it. At first the storm was interesting, it blew lingering seed pods from our mimosa tree, blasting them upward with sudden gusts only to drop them spinning to the ground. The snow started falling and for half an hour it felt cozy, the quiet hush of falling snow while I was safe indoors. Then the ground was white and cold. The sky was gray and it began to feel like every day in January. I wrapped my arms around myself and promised I’d by a potted hyacinth the minute I saw one at the grocery store. I needed a reminder that spring does come.

While the snow fell outside, two sisters faced off after an argument over a video game. I’d spoken to each of them separately. Kiki lamented to me that she always got frustrated with Gleek, that every overture of kindness was rebuffed, every interaction ended in yelling. Kiki did not want this. She felt like a horrible person when she yelled at her sister, so she avoided contact. It was easier. Gleek lamented that Kiki did nice things for her, but that Gleek was mean in return. Gleek said there was a huge rift and it was impossible to bridge it. My suggestions about apologies were met with a declaration that Kiki would yell and Gleek didn’t want any more yelling. They both loved each other. They both wanted to be closer, happier together. Yet they stood far apart, each an armed fortress defending herself against the hurt she felt was inevitable. I pleaded with them to talk, to open up. They didn’t. They didn’t. And then, when I would not let them retreat in anger, suddenly they did.
“I don’t want you to go away to college.” Gleek said as she hugged her sister tight. “I won’t have anyone to look up to.” Tears fell, far from the first of the day, but these were the first that did not drip anger. Kiki hugged Gleek in return.

The snow fell outside as Link sat on the couch expressing feelings of loneliness. He used examples to explain what was going on with him. I listened and knew that my son needed our relationship to shift. He needed me to stop assuming that he would not be interested in my activities. I needed to start inviting him along and letting him choose whether to participate. We ventured together out into the snow on a shopping trip. Link likes coming shopping for groceries. He doesn’t even mind being along when I look at some clothes so long as we don’t linger in the girly stuff for very long. He told me about the game he was playing, giving details for every jump and button press. I do not play this game, nor understand half of what he was telling me, but I listened because it is important to him and I need to understand the things that matter to him so that I can understand him better. I need to be part of his things and he needs to be part of mine. He came home smiling and I knew I’d taken a step in the right direction to be better at relating to my son.

The snow had turned to tiny flakes when Patch’s friend came over. It was a visit planned days in advance including games and dinner. Much emotional weight was carried by this visit because Patch mourns that his friend does not live next door anymore. It brings home to Patch that life changes and he is powerless to stop it. I could not bring his friend back to live, but visits can be arranged. The games came first, of course. Then Patch began cooking. He has one dinner that he can make all by himself: cream of chicken soup over rice. He cooked the rice and the soup, then served it for his friend saying proudly “I made this all by myself with no help at all.” And he is right.

Darkness arrived and the snow still drifted down onto wet pavements and white lawns. The air had been warm enough to melt the snow from sidewalks and driveway. No shoveling required on this day, despite the constant fall of moisture from the sky. I looked out the window and sighed a bit for the spring which has not yet arrived. I was perhaps more tired than the day called for. Looking at my task list I had nothing that I could check off. The day’s progress was immeasurable by checklist. It was fraught with the potential to go very badly, but somehow we navigated storms of emotions into a place where we’ve learned and are stronger. This is good, but I’m ready for the snow to stop falling. I’m ready for the potted hyacinth–bought on my shopping trip with Link–to bloom. It will, and spring will come. All will be well.

Gleek turned twelve this week. So did one of her classmates. The classmate is throwing a massive party and inviting the entire class. This sort of large scale party is common at Gleek’s current school. It is in an affluent neighborhood where people have houses large enough that they can invite thirty (or fifty) kids for an evening and just let the kids go play downstairs in the basement basketball court/play room. I don’t live in that neighborhood. We drive from across town and our house sometimes feels crowded with just our four children. I’m glad that these families open their homes and provide opportunities for the kids. It is kind of them. Or at least I choose to interpret it as kindness instead of as displays of conspicuous consumption, but we can not reciprocate. I can’t afford to host a party for thirty kids. I wouldn’t even want to. Crowd control on an event like that is not my idea of a fun afternoon.

The trouble comes because birthday parties are one of the only forms of social capital available to elementary school kids. The kid with the amazing party is perceived as cool. My kids are coming up on the second year in a row where I’ve declined to provide that sort of coolness for them. Two years ago all my kids had parties. It exhausted me and burned me out. Last year I declared no friend parties. I loved that year. It let us focus on private family celebrations rather than adding more events to our already packed family schedule. I want to do the same this year, but I remember how Gleek spoke wistfully of a birthday party all last year. She kept doing it even when I told her point blank that an expensive birthday party was not going to happen. So I have to decide whether I want to let her have a party even though we’ve already had a special birthday outing. However opening the door to one party hands a lever to my other three kids who, in my judgement, don’t have the same emotional need for one, but who will fly the flag of fairness. Not only that, but I will then face the dilemma of how many guests. We can’t do a thirty kid party, which means Gleek can’t simply invite everyone she knows. We have to winnow down the guest list. This requires Gleek to prioritize her friendships, and is where all the social capital around parties comes from. After listening to a child agonize about who to invite and who has to be left out, I understand why some parents host a party for the whole class, it eliminates the need to select.

Perhaps instead of a single birthday party, I will encourage Gleek to invite smaller groups of friends over for movie night parties. By removing “birthday” it becomes a less significant event. Not being invited becomes less of a snub, particularly if the “snubbed” person is invited over for a similar event a different week. Of course this has me hosting multiple evenings with pre-teen girls taking over my family room. I think I still prefer that to the pressure and complications of a birthday party. Gleek really does need to be connecting with friends outside of school and we’ve had trouble making it happen lately. Smaller parties have another benefit: my kids get stressed by large parties. They don’t realize they are. They say that they want them, but more often than not the guest of honor ends up hiding in a quiet place away from the noise, or melting down because something did not go right. Smaller parties make sense, but they just don’t hold the same social cachet for kids as a massive spectacle.

Sigh. In some ways all of this gets easier when the kids are teenagers and begin arranging their own social calendars. For now, I just need to put the giant class party on the schedule and make sure that Gleek does not miss it.