Just can't

Sometimes I just can't. Put my thoughts into concise sentences. Let go of anger enough to think straight. figure out my boundaries with my kids. Be patient. Feel sexy. Enjoy playing games with my kids. Stop my self from yelling. Remember to take care of myself. Bother with taking a shower, cause it feels like so much effort. Put on the happy face. Find a good attitude. Keep track of everything that needs to be done. Get it done, even if I have kept track. Figure out what to do with 10 minutes, other than sit and write about what I can't do.

Class A vs. Class B

It's interesting to volunteer in each of my boys' classrooms. Watching the teachers at work, experiencing what my kids experience and thinking back on my own childhood.
And I get the chance to COMPARE.
That thing we're not supposed to do... in many cases. It's hard not to, especially in this situation.
And the fact that one of them comes up lacking is unsettling to me.
I do believe that public education is in a crappy state. Even good teachers have to struggle within the limits they are given, follow the curriculum, get the students to test well, and deal with huge classroom numbers.
I also can see very different styles functioning within that system.
- both classrooms have moved the desks into clusters - teams of 4 or so each. One class has hanging signs over each group; Team #1, Team #2, Etc.. The other class also has hanging signs over each cluster: Team Dragon, Team Tornado, Team Cupcake.... and each sign has a description of each of the team members'  strengths written on it in the kids' handwriting.
-both classrooms have to do the same math. One of them does the workbook pages, the other one does the problems on the legs of a spider drawing, or a beetle drawing.
-one classroom has pet toads, the teacher has started reading a chapter book about a kid who loves chocolate, and they got out of work early for PE today.
-the other doesn't, hasn't, didn't.
No surprise that one kid seems to be a little happier in school than the other one.
I feel like one teacher needs saving from the system so she can flourish as a teacher, but then the system would be that much poorer.
I feel like the kids need saving from the other teacher.
IS this part of the problem? Teachers that stay are often ones that are just going through their paces?
Why do people who don't LOVE kids become teachers? How do we, as society, inspire our teachers to inspire? Is there any reward for the creative souls teaching out there to help them stay?
Of course none of this is measurable, and therefore can't be rated by great schools dot net.
And how can the government give a school money because their teachers think learning should be fun?

It Keeps Coming Back Around

So John and I were driving away from his physical therapy appointment and he said "Jeez. Thats' a lot of pressure".
What?
"That he said he wants to see that much range of motion by Wednesday."
I shrugged.
"not that big a deal?"
 Well, honestly, (maybe this is the Lucius part of me) I don't put that much stock in other people's expectations of me.
"Oh my god. We so need to get that kid in a different school."

 How many degrees of separation between John's physical therapy and all our concerns about our kids' education? Two.

I don't remember elementary school being any sort of problem for me, but it may have still been a different education process back then. It all changed in middle school. Expectations were very different. I didn't make it all the way through high school in the public school system. I finished high school only by being at a small private theatre arts school with a very progressive academic program. And I didn't look once, let alone twice, at colleges. I moved to New York City, having been accepted at The Strasberg Institute. Then I used my tuition down payment money as a down payment on an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. Very few people in my life ever even think about wheather or not I went to college.When they discover I didn't, they are usually surprised. My education was a very personal, experiential process.

John's education was much more traditional. He doesn't rememebr it fondly. He had trouble fitting in to the teachers' mold for a good student. He did do well in college. A teacher at our boys' school, upon hearing some of the trouble John had in school, asked "Is that what you want for your boys?". 
Well frankly, John is one of the most stable, happy, personally successful,  people I know. If my boys grow up to be just like their dad, then they have done very well for themselves. They don't need to have done all their homework and excelled on all the tests to be good people and find their way in life successfully.

I would like for school to be a place where they can discover themselves, learn what they are passionate about and get the life skills to follow that passion. Right now it is a system that they hate. They don't want to go. They are not performing at the level expected of them. They resist it all. Lucius downright refuses to do much of the work asked of him, just refuses.

He is totally unmotivated by others' expectaions of him.

and there we are, back at the conversation in the car.

For Today

The mystery of my mood swings leaves me spinning.
Yesterday I found a little piece of myself that made a difference. I smiled inside. It was enough.
Today it seems there is no allowance for life to unfold. My mind wants everything wrapped up and packaged neatly to avoid messiness.
There are magnets in my brain with their opposing poles pushing away from each other.
And my response is to lock up, be irritable, and resentful of containing them.
It's as if there is some secret doorway that I don't know how to find. I just stumble upon it every now and then. It leads to a place where the jigsaw puzzle pieces fall into place with each other. I like it there.
And I keep searching. The problem is when I can't find it, I feel my shortcomings all the more. Because I am quite certain I should know where it is.

What Is This and Why Do it?

So I've been thinking about what I am doing here.
It certaintly isn't what I would've called "writing" before now.
Is it? Does it matter?
And then I kinda got this feeling, like maybe (since this experiment started started on the theory that no one was reading it anyway) just maybe, what I am doing is discovering my voice. My. Voice.
I'm not trying to imitate a favorite author. I'm not trying to impress any specific person. I'm not trying to get an article published by a certain magazine with a target audience.
 I am trying to express myself just for the sake of expression.
You can take it or leave it.
I'm just feeling my way around in the dark and figuring out where the barriers are and where the passageways let me through.
You don't have to come with me.
But I do like company sometimes.

School (probably the first of many post on this subject)

I have begun seriously exploring private education for my boys.
 And not only does the undo-able price tag frighten me, I find I am overcome with anxiety about the application process. Petrified of rejection. It's almost to the point of stopping me from even looking at the options.
John keeps saying "if they don't want us we don't want them". Yeah. I know.
And also there is the form they all seem to need, that gets filled out by the student's current teacher. I know how it will read. And it won't look good. "If they don't know our kids and see past this, then we don't want them" says John. "They need to know the boys" John says.
Yes. It's true.
It's just that......
No matter how much I love my boys, I have trouble believing others will look beyond the troubles and see the good.
Is this a lack of faith in my boys? Or a lack of faith in others? In educators?
And I also have a horrible stereotype of private school administrators in my head. I think it comes from tv shows about families going through hoops to get their kid into a school, going to meetings with snooty judgmental admissions officers looking down their noses. I don't want to be the begging, shananigan doing parent desperate to get into the "right" school. I want to get my kids the education that will help them flourish. I want them to discover how to be the best they can be, and enjoy learning. I want them to believe in themselves and be good people.
Public school is pushing them through the hoops. They are falling short of the public school expectations. They don't sit still well. They are not dumb. But sometimes they think of  themselves that way. And behave correspondingly.
I need to explore the options.
Push myself past this anxiety.
Yet another part of this parenting process I would like to run from, and know I just can't. I am their advocate. I must do what needs to be done, to the best of my ability.
The fact that they are not your "typical" or "average" student can not get in the way of me helping them thrive.
 Yes, there is also homeschooling.
That's a whole other post waiting to happen; "Why Eden Can't See Herself Homeschooling".

Appearances

So this morning I had a new thought that surprised me.
 Awhile back a friend of mine posted on Facebook "When did I stop caring how I look?"
 And my first thought was "I relate to that". Then I thought "but is that a bad thing?"
 Since then I think about it every so often. Usually if I am on my way to the grocery store, or to pick up my kids from school. Was it the kids? Being a mom definitely changed my priorities. I'm not sure that's it. But it could be... and, again, is this a bad thing? Is it so awful to feel like one can go out in the world without "putting on a face"?
But there is something in the question that pokes me. There is something wrong here.
Do I not care? Or not worry? Is it from a strength? or a laziness?
And today I see an interesting (to me) arc.

Once upon a time (like as a teenager) I wanted to be looked at, sought after, admired. I was either preening or disgusted with myself. I also was under the impression that everybody looked at me. I better look good. 
In my twenties I hated myself for awhile. Still convinced that everyone was looking at me, I hated my acne (often calling my reflection a "monster") and also felt self-conscious if I looked "too good". I didn't like the attention I was getting. living in NYC was like walking through a landmine of harassment. And at the same time I needed to be pretty/sexy/something for auditions. And I had developed a worry that I would look like i wanted to "flaunt"myself.
In LA everyone is in cars. It got safer. Plus I stopped acting, therefore stopped auditioning. 
By the time I hit 30 i think I felt some confidence in my appearance and carefully dressed in ways that I thought expressed who I was, at least on that day. It didn't control me. I wasn't obsessive about it. But it did still matter.
In my mid thirties I started to realize I wasn't getting the unwanted attention anymore. I sort of tucked that thought away. It was perhaps the beginning f the end.

Then came pregnancy. Kids. Spit up. Nights spent breast feeding every few hours. Huge gigantic boobs that didn't seem at all sexy to me. Survival mode. Weight gain after breast feeding stopped. Weight loss and control to a tleast feel sort of ok. I remember a Halloween party that sort of made me crazy trying to dress up sexy yet not reveal how gross my body seemed to me, and not sure if it mattered.
maybe that was when it happened.

Because what I realized this morning is that I don't think anybody really is looking at me, or noticing. I am wearing the same baggy, old cut-off denim shorts i wore yesterday and I highly doubt anyone has noticed. Or will. So why bother?
 Seriously, there was a moment of "oh, I wore these yesterday" and then the thought "oh its not like anyone will notice. Nobody really looks at me".

I'm still back at "is this really a bad thing". Maybe it's true in a freeing way. Stopped obsessing about what other people think because chances are most people are too busy thinking about how THEY look to see you.
Maybe.
 Or maybe I just feel like I don't matter.
At least not as much as getting my kids out the door to school, getting the housework done, the groceries bought and then picking up the kids and needing to feel comfortable running around after them.

I see women picking their kids up at school that blow my mind. Tight skirts or short dresses and amazingly high heels. Like hooker heels. How do these women parent kids? I want to start a photo album titled "really?". 
And I am happy to not be those women. I am more comfortable. And that has mattered to me a lot for many years now. Comfort rules.

There ya go. No conclusion. No deep understanding. Just exploring something.

Bog

This is a morning of struggle. I am struggling with my blackness.
 I see every nook and cranny of dark shadows and feel them calling to me, wanting me to immerse myself in them and get lost in their murky depths.
I am angry, hurt, tired and sick.
I tug against the bog and it sucks me further down.
I imagine a world where i don't feel this way, but I don't believe in it.
Imagine.
 Not good enough.
 Create.
 Please.
 So that I can believe.
 Move. On.
 Yet Again.

A strange poem for the day

Voting day.
Kids' school is a polling place. But not OUR polling place. Damn.
Need to go pick up Cosmo's ashes from the vet.
Pick out large potted plant for funeral ceremony for him.
Wish we could do it today because it's Dia de los Muertos .
 It's voting day.

Candy

 November 1st.

As a mother of two six year old boys guess what's on my mind this morning.
Sugar.
We have two enormous trick or treat bags full of candy. Plus what they came home from school with on Friday. And what my mother brought with her yesterday before trick or treating.
 Sugar.
 What to do about sugar.
I grew up in a household where candy was out in dishes around the house. I don't remember ever asking if I could have any. It was there  for the taking. As I became an adult I began to believe that my eating habits were largely responsible for some of my emotional/mental fragility/instability. The whole anti-sugar movement was in full swing. Sugar Blues. And  I had a very definite dependence on caffeine by the age of 17. It wasn't a weight issue with me. It was a crazy issue. And in my adult years since I have tried to be aware of this as a nutrition issue as well. Health. Matters.
Of course I also don't remember ever eating so mush candy that I threw up. Or hiding chocolate chips under the couch in the shag carpet so I could eat them without my mom knowing.  My husband was raised around watchful, maybe limited, sugar use and has these memories.
 So. as a parent I have a dilemma. To withhold and create a compulsive desire, or to allow and risk bad eating habits, poor health, sugar spikes and crazy/wild behavior. blah blah blah.
It has been suggested to me that some of the behavior problems with kids could be their diet.
I also have read about some studies that basically show that sugar does not make kids hyper. That it is all in our perception.
I know people from both routes. They each seem as fine as the other. Basically. Sometimes it's hard to tell for sure.
So I try for the in between route. Some is ok. But not all the time. And not a ton.
 Every day I struggle to find the line between ok and not ok. Is it ok to have a piece of candy.? What about two? And if yesterday then why not today? Treats are a sometimes thing. But when? And why?
And then comes a holiday. There are so many sweets involved with all our holidays, it feels like deprivation to say no. Even to limit seems to be scroogelike.
And then there's Halloween . A holiday built around candy.
They were up much past their bedtime last night. Allowed to eat some of their haul. (which is fairly sizable bw). And now hey have a day off of school (nice coincidence, huh?) and I will be facing down the question; "mom. can I have my candy?"
Well, yeah. How much? When?
 And then; what about the left overs.
 They count up what they have. They organize and memorize every piece.
We tried putting it all together in one big bucket. Family candy. Bickering and squabbling quickly tore that down. How to decide what is "fair"? So each one knows what he has, and expects it to be there until he has eaten it himself. 
And, of course this leads to the fact that we have candy here from their birthday last January. There is more there than can be eaten at a reasonable pace in a reasonable length of time. We always have candy. Holidays are too close together and provide too much to ever get rid of it. 
Unless we just junk it.
Today i will probably toss whatever was here before yesterday.
Which isn't saying much.
Being a parent has taken all the joy out of candy.