It's mid-November. Today is the official beginning of the "Persephone Period" when daylight is just short enough that all plants stop growing. Even plants in greenhouses with temperature control and the perfect soil conditions will just stop. And wait.
Kinda feels familiar ;)
I'm working hard to let November be November this year, and not just "Pre-Christmas-Month." I've been happier. I don't really like Christmas anymore. There are expectations and standards and "shoulds" and the burden of celebrating and recognizing this holiday for weeks on end. Like it's up to me to create traditions and a magical, spiritual experience for my family 2 months of every year. The truth is, it's never quite enough or quite right. That hurts.
So, no thanks. I'm putting that off as long as I can this year.
Our October and November have been full :) At the ward trunk-or-treat, James ran a candy casino. It was his idea, start to finish, and he had a lot of fun running the games. All three boys had social events to attend on Halloween itself (hip hip hooray!), so we had Erin and my mom over to watch some movies. Bliss.
Nova ate a sock that landed her in the hospital again, but thankfully they helped her work it out without surgery. This time. She's now better supervised and restricted from certain parts of the house. She's also on a strict exercise routine to keep things moving along in case of another incident. She doesn't mind. She'll gladly sleep on the couch all day or go out and run with squirrels. No big deal to her.
Alex now goes by Lukas. It's trickier to change someone's name when they're not around all the time, but we're trying :) We chat regularly. He says I am welcome to share on the blog anything he's willing to share with me. So, he's got a boyfriend and a good group of friends. He's doing well in his classes. He's started testosterone therapy and is really, really happy about it. He says he can already hear a difference in his voice, but most people won't notice much of a change until March or so. He was able to move into a private room at the dorms, which has helped immensely with his panic attacks, and he says college is his happy place. He's finally who he wants to be with real friends who care about him, and his future is wide open.
I've been back at the gym the last couple of weeks. It's good and it's hard.
Matthew has been a lot happier at home lately. He's been able to do his homework at school, or catch up in his after school tutoring sessions once a week. He's in love with a couple new video games, too. We got him super soft and comfy clothes that he's happy to change into every day, which has relieved a significant amount of school morning stress. He still has incapacitating panic attacks with screaming and crying, but they're less frequent when other stressors are avoided. I'm also a little more callous to his episodes. It doesn't pay off to hover. It doesn't change anything to offer a litany of possible solutions to his current stress. When he's stressed about getting out of the car at school, I used to park the car and carefully navigate his emotions back to "okay" before he'd finally get out and walk in on his own. I have since learned that he does better in school. Any time he's out in the car with me, he's falling further behind in class, which only builds more stress later on. It's a pattern we both want to avoid. So, with this logic in mind, he's recently allowed me to walk him up to his classroom. I'm in my pajamas. Hair hurriedly pulled back. He's clinging to me the whole time. His face is buried in my shirt as we pass teachers and kids in the hallway. I smile and say, "Good Morning." I've had to let go of a lot of things to make this possible. Pride, mostly. But, he's on his own two feet and he's going to class. On time.
The longer we live with this, the more we learn. There's a brief window of opportunity in Matthew's panic attacks where intervention can make a difference (usually humor), but once he crosses that threshold, it's no longer about one thing or another, it's out of control. He's kind of an Anxiety Hulk that way.
There'a video game I like to play called Total Battle. I spend a lot of time on it. I love it. It's a slow-burn sort of game where you build technologies and resources over time that allow you to defeat bigger and bigger monsters and gain more and more strength. It's primarily a team game. Your clan matters. When individual players choose to sacrifice a little personal gain in order to help the clan, everyone benefits 10-fold. I like the other players in my clan. There are some genuinely wonderful people that I've grown to love. There are also frustrating people and bullies and miscommunications and cultural differences (our clan is from all over the world). It's fascinating. I was promoted to leadership some months ago and my specialty is clan data. I loooooove the data work. I collect data, look for patterns, and suggest clan action based on the evidence. It's so much more straightforward than dealing with the players themselves. I let the clan diplomats do that stuff :)
The government shut-down was frustrating for me, but I didn't take any action until SNAP benefits were suspended. Then I got a little angry. Seriously? We're starving people now? I loaded up on groceries and delivered them to small, free food pantries scattered around town. Do you have those in your area? They're like those "Little Free Libraries" but for food. It's just a box or cabinet on a post that people can give and take food from as desired. A couple boxes nearby are sponsored by churches, and one cabinet was put up by my friend in her front yard. A woman happened to be visiting one of these free food pantries when I stopped to restock it. She was shocked and thrilled to get a head of cabbage, some grapes, bananas, carrots, a loaf of bread, and a jar of pasta sauce. She said, "Oh, this is so great. I'm going to leave some for other people."
We've had a couple campfires in the backyard since it's grown colder. I bought a "smokeless" fire pit, hoping it would be an improvement, and it was!! So, so, nice. The wood we harvested from Erin's dead tree is almost half gone. I thought it would need a year to dry out, but it was mostly dead already when we cut it down. It burns quite nicely :) James and I sit out there mostly. He's been toying with the idea of blacksmithing, heating up different kinds of metal in the fire and checking out their properties. I couldn't handle the hammering noise, though, and put an end to it. Sorry, James. Last night, he asked for a gas-powered forge in his bedroom. I said no. He can save that dream discussion for future landlords, roommates, and spouses.
It's parent-teacher conference time. Matthew is still reading at an eighth grade level and spelling/handwriting/punctuating like a 2nd grader. His teachers are super supportive, though, as we try to get him the right combination of helps. After Matthew failed a writing assignment because it was utterly illegible, they decided to let him type out his future ELA assignments. He's also a slow typist, but at least there will be some spell-check and grammar help! They say he's engaged and thoughtful in class. They like his sense of humor and big imagination.
James' history, science, and ELA teachers think he's a hoot. They love his comments and thoughtful questions. They like his creativity and semi-crazy ideas. His math and French teachers, however, want to see more from him. No surprise there. At all. His French teacher started off with, "Well, we know that James is James..." I laughed so hard. In short, he needs to work on slowing down and going back to correct his mistakes.
We stopped at the hardware store today to get more paint for James' room. We'll need to go back to get wall putty. When you buy wall stickers for your children, please be sure they are not the "permanent" type. I didn't even know there WAS a permanent type. Sheesh. It's ripped the top layer off of the drywall. Ridiculously timely learning experience. Ugh. He should be able to repair the wall and finish the sky blue base coat by the end of the weekend. I hope :)
Posts
