Tag Archives: coparenting

~thankful thursday~ soft walls

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Thursday… ish?

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 11

11/11/22

I am grateful to be feeding a bottomless boy and playing endless rounds of Tiny Epic Quest this evening. As Quinn has slowly reintegrated into life at the dragon house, I stood in Fred Meyer one recent day contemplating the gummi vitamins. The ones in the cupboard from when he was in seventh grade and the pandemic began that led him to shelter in place at his dad’s for over two years were kids’ multivitamins, now hardened with neglect and past their expiration date. On the grocery store shelf, I looked back and forth between kids’ and men’s. Kids’. Men’s. I put the men’s gummi multivitamins in my shopping cart. Grateful for vitamins, and the boy-man sleeping under my roof tonight.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 12

11/12/22

I am grateful for sunshine again. The dwindling of the busy market season allows me to work a little on Saturday to earn my produce, then go home and nap. Then walk in the woods with the kittens (I guess feral kittens love to be taken for walks) taking backlit photos of vine maple leaves to wake up from my nap again. A newt saunters by with a wave. A stand of tiny mushrooms sprouting from a pinecone catches a sunbeam. I go back inside and I am grateful to get to watch Quinn, also sunlit, eat systematically around the flaky pastry crust edge of the Danish I brought home for him, then the gooey cream cheese center, then lick his fingers.

 

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 13

11/13/22

I am grateful for a phone call with Mom today. Another big 2022 gratitude is that I finally got to visit Mom and Dad in January and June, and I’m looking forward to another visit in January. And then June (when I graduate) and then having them come out and visit us in Oregon again. I am so grateful for my parents and for their love.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 14

11/14/22

I’m grateful that even when a day in the middle of November is a blur between the hours of still dark and dark again, sometimes it’s a very pretty blur.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 15

11/15/22

As I spend each November being grateful, I tend to take a closer look at gratitude.

Every October, I know that by mid-November some gratitude momentum will build. But every November 1st is daunting. There is something about October that whittles me down. Only because I know the benefits do I intentionally sit down each November 1st and begin again.

Sometimes I judge my gratitude posts because they are tainted with ungrateful sentiments (say, about a difficult coparent or a bad hiring process) and think, my gratitude isn’t pure. And then I think, if I strain out any negative feeling, I’m not being very real.

I can both have a terrible day and express gratitude. It’s not that gratitude wins, or that it erases death or taxes or my archnemesis coparent. It doesn’t resolve my inlaws’ complicated estate-trust-thingie and it doesn’t end war or defeat the patriarchy.

What gratitude does do, is it lights a little warming fire in my soul while the shitstorm howls and sleets and ices over the part of the world I can’t control, just outside. I have soft walls and the wind can knock me over sometimes, but I prop my shelter up and keep rebuilding my little fire. Imperfections, scars, holes are all illuminated. But so are textures, colors. I notice the way the sunset makes the tent walls glow orange, noticing that the night is long, but the sun does rise again each morning. I keep turning toward it, and it keeps being there to greet me. Grateful for gratitude, year six.

 

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 16

11/16/22

I am grateful for salted caramel rum gelato.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 17

11/17/22

I am grateful to be married to such a hardworking person who works overtime hours for large chunks of the year. I am also grateful that he leaves work promptly at 4:30 for date night, because priorities. Also, the sunrise over the bay when I arrived at work this morning was easy to be grateful for.

~thankful thursday~ celebrating bigger

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~30 days of gratitude~ day 4

11/4/22

I have felt grateful quite a bit in 2022. One thing that happened to me this year is I got hired to a permanent position doing what I’ve been doing for decades, contract to contract, grant to grant, lab to lab, with some lapses. Biologists do this all the time, but it’s a horrific system, and should be phased out, and I’m not shy about holding this opinion. It would be difficult to overstate the amount of relief brought on by this development, after all these years. Even the tiny auto loan I took out ten years ago to buy my 2002 Dodge Neon required payments that stretched, at that time, beyond the end of my one-year job contract. And a one-year contract is a good one, often the best there is. And sometimes they get renewed, like that one did, that year, so I paid off the Neon after all.

Side note: I’m grateful for my little Neon, with its little second engine that could, that I still drive to my job, which is now a permanent job I can keep until I’m done with all the car payments I may ever want to make.

I like fish, and I’m grateful to get to work with them, and I like the people who work on the fish with me. I’m grateful to be needed and valued enough for my skills that a whole job, with benefits, was bestowed on me.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 5

11/5/22

I’m so grateful for all the congrats on the job, wow, thanks everyone! To follow on gratitude for my job, another big thing happened in 2022 that I am also super grateful for. Rich and I closed on our house that we’ve been hoping to buy since we moved into it six years ago. A strong sense of providence and a heaping scoop of divine glitter sparkles pervaded the timing of the job-house combination. See my previous post about payments that extend past the end of contract durations if you want to understand why. Two mortgage payments in, and a lot more to go, these two big adulting milestones feel like they just had to go hand in hand.

I have not made Facebook posts or told many people about these huge life events in real time (July for the job, September for the house) and I know now that I was falling into the silence-will-protect-me trap. I have feared that knowledge of my successes would lead my coparent to strike out, but either these new developments made it to him despite having kept my celebrations small, or here’s an idea, maybe it’s not me or anything I have control over that makes him play dirty.

So I am celebrating now. I am so grateful to have a home with a wood stove that my husband has been keeping warm through the last few weeks as the weather got chilly. I am grateful for the well-insulated walls and the sturdy roof and the quirky backsplash and the big front window. I am grateful for our good well and our septic tank and our driveway covered in a blanket of needles. I am grateful for comfy spots to snuggle our kitties and my borrowed fairy dog. I am grateful for the acre and a quarter sloping gently to the slough-bayou, with giant beautiful redwood, port orford and western red cedar, hemlock, and spruce trees lining the trail we have walked into being and Rich has maintained with his power tools for our daily walks. I am grateful for a couple of redwood trees in particular, the wedding trees we stood in front of when we said our vows five years ago, and so grateful we don’t have to move away from them.

 

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 6

11/6/22

I’m grateful for a day full of real and satisfying work of filling our pantry. I have been attending the fill-your-pantry market since its early days, back when Rew was still my last name, before I even met Rich. When they can’t find my pre-order filed under “H” I know to ask them to look under “R”. When I was a kid eating meat and potatoes on the farm, Dad would exasperate me by telling me the name of the cow I was eating. I usually made a big scene and stomped away from the table, but I have come around to appreciate that close knowledge of where our food came from. I did not ask the nice farm family today the names of the cow, chickens, and pig we will be eating this winter, but I am sure they knew. They also radiated gratitude for our purchase, for supporting their farm, and said it was fine to haul our chickens, sausage, and roasts out to our car in their cooler and bring it back in when we were done.

I am also grateful for a new four-gallon bucket of honey because there is something so wealthy about all that gold.

I forgot my camera, but luckily I always have an abundance of local food photos up my sleeve.

P.S. Happy nacho day!

 

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 7

11/7/22

As I try not to be devastated that the sun is down when I leave work, I am grateful to get a very nifty glimpse of the moon while driving home. The top half was obscured under a periwinkle dusk cloud, which made the moon look like a big whale eye (not the first time I’ve seen whales in the sky). I didn’t capture that image but when I got home I watched it rise up through the trees and then went inside where there was soup in the crock pot.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 8

11/8/22

Today I’m grateful I got to leave work on time before dark, and that it wasn’t raining, or even very windy, and I stopped by the beach. I’m grateful I thought of it this morning, so I had my camera with me. I’m grateful I arrived in time for sunset, and that sunset was quirky and unique. I’m grateful I started my day by turning in my final thirty-page creative writing packet of my third semester of the MFA program I’ve been semi-secretly enrolled in. Twelve thirty-page packets since last June means I’m about to be a thesis student. I’m grateful to be quitting this business of staying small and keeping it all under wraps. Also grateful for my vote and to all who vote for women not to have to stay small.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 9

11/9/22

I’m grateful for an ordinary day of hard work, kitties and woodstove fires, husband hugs, and nachos. (And falling asleep in my chair before posting a gratitude post, apparently!)

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 10

11/10/22

Today I’m grateful for sunshine.

 

~thankful thursday~ feral kitten pirate ship

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A few days after Thursday but here we go! Year six of daily facebook gratitude posts compiled for my non-social-media peeps here on the blog.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 1

11/1/22

It is November. We made it here, again. I am grateful, just for that. If you are new here, I’m about to post every day of this month about something I am grateful for, in which we learn one reason I’m not on twitter (hint: not enough page space). Before I get too far into this, I want to say that if my past five years of gratitude posts have ever made you feel feelings you don’t want to feel, especially involving words like “should”, please visit the three dots at the upper right of this post where there is an option to “Snooze Mary Beth for 30 days” which is the perfect amount of time since I’ll snooze myself in exactly 30 days for the other eleven months. No hard feelings, I promise. This whole thing is about taking care of ourselves and that’s one great way.

I am grateful for the friends who encourage me to continue making gratitude posts each November. Some of these friends have shared that they, too, get SAD and struggle with the lengthening darkness. Making it to another November means we made it through another winter, and we can make it through this one, too. And speaking of mental health, I am especially grateful today for one friend who has made it to today, having survived a year of harrowing health adventures. This friend is also the Therapist Extraordinaire of my lifetime, who taught me: my first commitment is to myself. If you know, you know (lucky you, too).

T.E. was on my mind this morning when I emailed Lauren (so grateful for her every day), something about my son’s father to the effect of, “I’m so pissed that he is doing this right now. It’s bleeping day one of gratitude, bleeping bleeper.” Therapist Extraordinaire walked me up out of some of worst troughs of despair with my nightmare on coparenting street. He unfolded me from the contortions I was performing to try to achieve the insta-worthy separation and said I was allowed to pursue happiness instead.

One thing T.E. taught me years ago, a lesson I am still working on, is, “my silence will not protect me.” Lauren told me this morning, “you’ve held your breath and your voice for years afraid of being attacked only for this.” And it’s true. My silence doesn’t keep him from reaching and grasping for new ways to take from me.

When there are a small number of people in the world out there who know the whole backstory and still want to be my friend, it dampens each new atrocity into a buzzing mosquito. It siphons the survival surge out of my blood and reminds me I don’t need to fight or flee. Not anymore.

Some of you are friends and relatives of my coparent and I don’t want that to make anyone uncomfortable. He is nice to other people, just not to me. I can be around people who love him. One of the people I love most, my son, counts him among the people he loves most. I’ve never asked anyone to take sides. Reminder that the three dots/snooze option is available to all. Me holding silence for others’ comfort is not one of the available options.

I am grateful for good therapy. I am grateful for lessons that reverberate with new relevance after all these years. And I’m so thankful for the person behind the lessons.

 

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 2

11/2/22

Today I am grateful for all the sweet comments, messages, and encouragement on yesterday’s post. I want to reply to each one but that may be a weekend gig, so please just know each and every one made me smile and feel grateful for each and every one of you. I am grateful the sun came out today. I am also grateful for nachos tonight, for their supreme ease and deliciousness for tired people, and I’m not taking this class for a grade so it’s okay if I use nachos again in four days on their official holiday.

 

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 3

11/3/22

I am grateful for date night. When Rich got home from work, the pack of kittens who have come to live in our yard scampered up to the driveway to greet him, then ran away again toward their food bowl, then zoomed all around him while he poured their kibble. I am grateful for these kittens. And I am grateful for my husband who is the most indulgent kitty daddy. They do not just have a food bowl, oh no. He has built them a pirate ship structure out of pallets and a tarp. He has added boxes and kitty beds so the kittens can nestle in the lengthening cold darkness. They are attuned to the sound of his truck and they run up and down around his work boots in anticipation of his feedings. We hovered for a few last minutes of daylight and gave some attention to Fluffy who is experimenting with getting petted, and then we were off on our date night.

And he got us the yummy chicken tenders for an appetizer and asked me all about my day. And we ate the shepherd’s pie with the cheese and hot sauce because it’s cold outside and that’s when we crave it. And then he got us dessert, because this is the way he cares for not just his kittens but also his wife.

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ character building

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~5-23 to 6-23~

I feel like posting this one in journal format, the way I actually typed it into my word document… Each day in the life of a month in the life of a lifelong learner, day by day.

5-24

Quinn mowed their driveway and then said he spent “a long time” outside, picking dandelion greens for his guinea pigs. He said Squeaky will eat anything green, but Ms. B is a little more picky and her absolute favorite is dandelion greens. (Now that I am documenting this, after Ms. B’s passing, it stands out to me how particular his observations are of his guinea pigs’ eating habits and how attentive he is in tending to them.)

5-25

Quinn said he did not do any more mowing, but he did build a fire last night in the wood stove! He is also very into the electronics projects they have been doing, and is learning how to solder and connect up lots of detailed circuit board/resistors/connections. We are reading about Sam and Frodo traveling into Mordor, but then turning and passing through Ithilien with Gollum to go “the other way”.

Wednesday 5-27

Q seems rejuvenated somehow, rallying to end the school year strong, and showed up in a button down to our video call and stated a goal of getting all schoolwork done by the end of tomorrow. He is redoing where he needs to show work, etc.

He told me about how his factoring polynomials project (one he was procrastinating) “turned out to be my favorite assignment.” When I asked him to explain it to me (after having heard from his teacher about needing to redo and “show his work”), he said, out loud, without hesitation:

“To convert from x2 + bx + c to a(x+b)(x+c) find two numbers p and q where p+q=b and p times q equals c and those are going to be the b and c of your x2 + bx + c and p and q will be b and c in the a(x+b)(x+c)”

He just rattled that off verbally, that quote you just skimmed over because blah blah math blah, which leads me to believe he is able to grasp the concept and articulate it, whether he has showed his work or not.

But we did revisit the topic of showing one’s work, with the reasoning that the 99% of people who do not just see/know the answer, may appreciate him having the ability to walk them through/teach them the steps they should take (even if you don’t take them, Quinn!) Also, as he gets into more advanced math, he may at some point reach a threshold where he does actually need to put some of the math on paper to keep track, or be able to trade proofs among scholars.

Friday 5-29

Quinn is getting all caught up on school! He did two math assignments today. So proud of how hard he rallied. So grateful he will soon be done. But wow. DONE with seventh grade! He has been sending me photos of the electronics project. I have been hearing words such as “potentiometers, LED, PCB, circuit board, jacks, capacitors, resistors, transistors, diodes, switches….” during our chats.

5-31

On hangout with Quinn we began to read The Return of the King today. Our page numbers no longer match (his book 3 is from a different paperback edition) so we tried to do algebra to it, specifically to our page numbers to calculate the other’s page number based on whoever reads, where the reader left off, and where the listener should pick up next time.

6-3

We went to the Black Lives Matter protest and stood and marched.

painting by Hayden Sargent who some of my readers will know!

I am reminded of fourth grade Quinn with his peaceful protesting… just after Mrs. Schroeder assigned the MLK essay, and he would peacefully bring his drawing stuff even when I felt he should leave it home.

Lots of people turned out – marine science people, farmer’s market people, goldberry and family (she and Q waved at each other from a safe social distance) and so many young people. There was car honking and it felt good to be there…  I think he was glad to be there. His sign. His awesome sign.

6-4

Quinn had to do one more elective credit, and after talking it through with me he realized a really easy one would be the short presentation of “a new skill you’ve learned during quarantine” and he even had pictures of his electronics project ready to put into a presentation for it.

6-11

We watched a quetzalcoatlus you tube video Quinn found. Yay for paleontology!

6-14

Camp robber (gray jay named “Brad”) landed on Quinn’s hand!

6-16

Q set up a google meet to play D&D with Goldberry and Aragorn. Tonight at 5pm! Yesterday in our hangout he answered my question of what plans he had for the rest of Monday with “look forward to tomorrow!”

As we were planning our upcoming hike, I sent him photos of his last trip down to Drift Creek; snowman pants and river rock snowmen!

6-17

Hearing about how his D&D session went with friends. The electricity went out on him right in the middle! But it wasn’t out for long, and when he got back into the meet, the other two were there, and filled him in thoroughly on what had happened while he had been gone. There was a nearby town that a bunch of orcs had been attacking and there was “like a whole encampment of them,” so Goldberry’s character “went in and singlehandedly dealt with that, and then I came back in right as the boss orc came out. I was still level one because I missed all the experience points from that, so that only worked semi-well for me. So we defeated that orc, and then we went to the nearby town and hung out for a while, and apparently the blacksmith has a quest for us… that’s next time. Oh and I’m level two… and I also got my arm lopped off by the orc, but it’s growing back.”

“So when you say next time do you already have an idea when it will be?”

“Friday.”

6-18

Drift creek hike!

We had one conversation during our hike where Quinn shared some of his early memories. So much fun to hear what he remembers!

Draconis story details…

Our first egg, found in a rose bush, was glowing turquoise-green and looked like a seed, and we placed it in a nest of moss and hatched a Photosynthesim draconis we named Douglas Fircone. Doug for short. His power was absorbing sunlight and transmitting (through breathing green gas onto things) plant nutrition.

After we got to the river’s edge and started seeing crayfish, we found our next egg, a blue one that seemed like a fish egg, in a water erosion hole. This was an Aquarius draconis egg and it nested in river silt until hatching. We named this dragon Crayfish Ripple (Cray for short.)

Next, we found a bright red Volcanis draconis egg in a sinkhole, but the egg, which looked like it was made of obsidian, was not sinking. In a nest of oasis mud, we hatched Lavaspark Flameflow (nickname Lava).

Finally, we explosively hatched a never encountered dragon that could only be seen as a shadow or sometimes a bend in the light… We named the new species Lumenergescens draconis, and its name was Shimmer Shade.

Binary hand counting on the trail.

6-19

Reading Return of the King, he stopped me mid-paragraph to do the math on “a month of Mondays” and we realized a month of weeks is the same as a week of months, or 210 days, given that there are 30 days per month in the Shire calendar.

We stayed on our call for an extra half hour. I was a bit tearful, discussing how it’s the first day after a nice long day with him, and not knowing when it will happen again, it feels long. And I miss him.

But we also talked about how this time is shaping us and changing us, but that doesn’t have to be bad, in fact in our case, having to think about heavy things and having to make difficult choices is character building (Quinn laughed and referenced Calvin and Hobbes; “character building is painful”).

Which reminded me that I should add some Calvin to his next care package, as it is such comfort reading for him. I think we have two copies of one of the books anyway…

We ended our call on that note; holding onto the thought of using the energy of this time to become better humans. More strength, more empathy.

6-20

On Thursday I sent a 2-bag care package home with quinn including lots of food (white chocolate chip cookies, pancakes, chocolate covered acai snacks aka “deer poops”, popcorn made by his stepdad aka best popcorn ever, seaweed snacks, almonds, pasta, goldfish), a hexaflexagon I decorated for him with fractals and mathy art, some books (calvin, Born a Crime by Trevor Noah and Stamped by Ibram X. Kendi, as well as his D and D player’s handbook and a book of Oregon Fossils, and with my version of “Sam’s gardening box” that has so enamored him as we have read about it, and his set of rubik’s cubes and instruction book for solving. He got the 4 by 4 solved today for the first time and also found instructions in the book he hadn’t seen before about how to solve the orientation of the emblem, which had caused him much consternation with his 3 by 3 cube.

6-22

Sam’s gardening box is unleashed and brings renewal and abundance to the Shire during our reading and Quinn is content with this outcome.

6-23

The gardening box has been planted in a pot!

We realized Q is 13.333 repeating today when we signed off an evening call (we had not been able to do a noon call because his electricity was being worked on, but it was back on and he CALLED me on the phone and we had a bonus half hour to read and have some time together.

~summer shorts~ wilderness wandering

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“It lives in my imagination strongly that the black oak is pleased to be a black oak. I mean of all them, but in particular one tree that is as shapely as a flower, that I have often hugged and put my lips to. Maybe it is a hundred years old. And who knows what it dreamed of in the first springs of its life, escaping the cottontail’s teeth and everything dangerous else? Who knows when supreme patience took hold, and the wind’s wandering among its leaves was enough of motion, of travel?”

~Mary Oliver

The day is hot and lazy, and my mind wades around the meandering bend of the river I sat on the bank of with Quinn just a few days ago, gazing at the leaf boats of that singular day as they begin to drift towards the horizon of memory. Downstream around a few more bends, more memories swirl around an eddy on the edge of consciousness, and I just catch a glimpse of him with pinchable cheeks, stacking river rocks into “snowmen” to match the snowman pajama pants he wore. The size of him in my backpack on this same riverbank stands back-to-back in contrast with how he has drawn up even in height with his dad.

(still life with sippy cup, May, 2009)

His voice then was a giddy gurgling over the river rocks, while his voice now glugs into a much deeper gully. I can hear this in person in a way I cannot hear it through the screen of our pandemic parenting paradigm.

We hike all the way down the switchbacks to the river. Beside a grove of giant cedar trees, we perch on separate rocks, and do not come close enough for me to smell the top of his head, to see if his scalp still carries the scent of a pinch of cinnamon. What does reach me is the zest of the tangerine he is peeling with his large, capable hands, and this scent, too, tethers me to him briefly, remembering how I ate my pregnant body weight in clementines in my third trimester, the memory only eclipsed by the thought that I should not tell him I can smell his lunch, or he will suggest we sit farther apart.

The hands get me, they have changed so much since he grappled with stacking those stones, when the river had swallowed less rain, on a different lazy summer day over a decade ago. I think about those hands, the way they would still reach for mine on the way up to the school building in fifth grade, the way they slid over slippery gray clay making a pinch pot in second grade, the glazed surface of which now preserves the texture only a six-year-old’s fingers could produce. The necklace my Mom gave to me and I wore for my wedding shines in a silver puddle in its shallow cavity. The destiny of many a child’s pinch pot is to perfectly contain treasures as precious as themselves.

Wandering in a wilderness area together all day is unlike our hour-long video calls in all ways, but most acutely in that I am positioned beside the waterfall of his imagination like I have not been in months. The story comes spilling forth of a pod of whimsical dragons hatched out of colorful eggs, each with powerful attributes perfectly complementing those of their teammates. Once we found our first wild rose, we found many. It was in a rose bush that I found my first dragon egg, of the species Photosynthesim draconis. Once we spotted our first crayfish, we found many, and this time a water dragon was hatched. Once we found one dragon egg, we found more, as it is with many wild things for which one wasn’t even necessarily looking. All day, the tale flows in between the huge trunks of the trees we pass by, a comfortable third companion on the journey. Unlooked for, it simply appears like a rainbow where the sunlight refracts in the droplets splashing over the rapids, though the sun and the water never touch.

The last time we hiked all the way to this river, Quinn napped on my back most of the way. Before we built rock snowmen, we threw rocks in the water (splash) for a long time (the name of the activity was throw-rocks-in-the-water-splash!). At one point he looked up at me and said, “I love the water! I love the water!!!” He was just barely two, but he wove a story through the trees that day, too. “I am going to grow big and tall. And when I get older and big, I’ll drive my garbage truck and come and pick up the garbage cans and dump them into the truck!”

I told him, “When you are big and drive your garbage truck to come pick up my garbage, I will come out to watch you dump the garbage cans into the truck, and I will clap for you!” (Luckily some bff emails get hastily etched into the mud beside the riverbank for me to find again years later.)

He has grown so big and tall. The wilderness within him is green and lush as ever, also having grown, expanded in all the ways a teen’s mind does.

Our video calls are now routine, comfortably structured around a game and a book. The book helps us remember wild places, but it isn’t the same as being in one together, with dragons for company. Like the night wakings I didn’t realize I was missing until a stray one reoccurred after months of unbroken sleep, this reintroduction to the storytelling magic of his mind in unstructured moments after months apart catches me off guard. What is this pang of guilt? I had not been grieving the lack of back stage access to his imagination until I got a fresh taste. It tastes like chocolate, mostly sweetness to savor but with an edge of bitter brevity and longing for it to last.

Back near the trailhead, he finds me a butterfly, and beckons me to pause and take photos. We both know his dad is probably waiting, but we stop anyway, not ready to be done. The black-speckled orange wings flit among buttercups and daisies, our eyes dazzled by its color, adjusting to the bright sunlight out from under the old growth canopy. We smile behind our masks at each other; him at the knowledge that his mama is pleased to see butterflies, me at the idea that this could be one of the silverspot butterflies I had read about, and even just the potential of finding something uncommonly rare and endemic to this place helps me alight on the flower of this moment a bit longer, not fly off just yet to what it will feel like to ache for him again for another unknown length of time.

A day lingering among the biggest trees I can find seems a good way to study their supreme patience which I have by no means acquired, even as this wandering quenches the thirst for motion, for travel, for a day set apart from the many days with just the wilderness within to wander. I breathe a prayer on the breeze in the branches, the light on the droplets, the eddies on the edges, for a measure of that patience, that this day may be enough for me and for him of what we have been lacking. Enough of a glimpse at something rare, beautiful, endemic to this place.

 

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ parsimony

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~2-23 to 3-23~

One afternoon just after his birthday I fed Quinn a mountain of food. A bowl of hard-boiled eggs (dragon eggs) had been the only snack the kids hadn’t eaten at the D&D party, so I suggested one for snack. “You made eggs for the party?” They were sitting right there in front of him the whole time. He ate two, then said he’d eat “the rest” for dinner (+5) but I convinced him to let Rich and I have two for our Caesar salad. And he did proceed to eat three more for dinner! And chicken, and veggies and the raspberries he needed at the co-op… oh my goodness.

Sifu gave him a birthday present- it is a grocery bag FULL of snacks; he knows what’s up!!! One of the carrot slices I served was a “snowman” from a mutant 3-prong carrot and he was putting off eating it and I encouraged him to just take a picture and eat the thing. He wanted to use my good camera, but since I had it on manual setting, it took a dark photo. I explained why and showed him how to change the shutter speed one step slower, take another photo, over and over until he got one he liked. Then I had him keep going to slower shutter speeds so he could see how it can make the image more blurry. He tried a 1″ and a 30″ shutter speed so he could see just how blurry (30 seconds is max on my camera). Then he finally ate the carrot.

Going to bed sometimes takes a few minutes. One night at 9:30 I was ready to be done but he needed to sit on my lap for a snug. Then he asked me to sit on him to see how that felt, and I did. I read him the part of the blog post from when he was three (into the heathers of the waters!) when he got in my jacket and told me when he got big he’d put me in his jacket… and then asked me to sing him a quiet song about the indigo girls. (He really got a kick out of hearing that he told me, “that means so much to you!” and now he will insert it into conversations and giggle.) I do not have documentation of which indigo girls song I chose to sing him back then, but I think it might have been power of two. Thirteen year old Quinn asked me to sing one now, so I sang Galileo. “Galileo’s head was on the block, the crime was lookin’ up the truth…” Which resulted in him reading the wikipedia article on Galileo Galilei.

I finally got him to go to bed, but his brain was just on. He was talking about a billion brainy things. We got on the subject of Occam’s razor (he brought it up – it was mentioned in ender’s game series but I am not sure why it came up as I was delirious by this time) and he gave a great example of a scenario to illustrate Occam’s razor (I threw down the word parsimonious for him and that was new, unschool at bedtime is how we roll). He said, “if you have a school of fish, and then you look at the place they were and they are gone, and you decide there are three possible conclusions to get you to this outcome

  1. they swam away
  2. a big fish came and ate them all
  3. a man in a boat came with a grenade and exploded it in the water and killed them all

and you have no other evidence to work with, you should definitely not conclude 3, because that’s very contrived and involves a whole bunch of unrelated pieces to the puzzle that don’t even really fit (why was a man there? why did he have a grenade? why did he detonate it in the water??) so the best, most parsimonious choice is 1 that they swam away, because it doesn’t require any extra agents (without evidence of them occurring) to be involved in the scenario. (But maybe we can’t rule out 2 because it also “fits” in ways that 3 does not.)”

Okay Quinn, perfect example, make your brain go to sleep now!

After we talked about the indigo girls I played their CDs in the car driving to and from school.

In science class this month, Quinn enjoyed the ecosystem modeling lesson because it involved an interactive computer simulation.

Lesson

Simulator

The simulation enabled the student to control the linkages in the ecosystem between primary producers, herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores, and then ran over time based on some built-in parameters that would result either in an equilibrium balance point where population levels reached a point where they stabilized, but in some cases depending on how you set up the links, you might cause the extinction of some of the players and one or a few species might take over the whole system.

Quinn related it back to dinosaurs. I was stealth recording audio at the time anyway, because of how excitedly he was talking about the simulation, and caught this:

“Time for a lesson on the Cretaceous Paleogene extinction real quick. The reason that all the dinosaurs died during that is because, so basically a meteor hits the earth. All of earth, even at the opposite end of the planet, the sky is just covered in solid dust for centuries and millenia. And the reason that earth’s life survived at all was because mammals at that time were incredibly diverse creatures in what they could eat. The thing is there’s dust everywhere so the herbs, the plants, the producers have nothing, no sun at all. They all died. Except the ones that didn’t need any sun in the first place. The plants in the polar ice caps survived, they never get any sun so they’re used to it. All those places that never have any sun anyway, they survive, but all the other plants are gone. So all the herbivorous dinosaurs are finished. All the herbivorous dinosaurs die because all the plants are gone so they have no food and it continues up the food chain so then the omnivores have nothing to eat – all the producers and herbivores are gone. The omnivores can’t eat the top predators because they’ll get eaten themselves, but once the omnivores are dead the top predators don’t have anything to eat so they die. So it went all the way up the food chain. Not to mention that half of them were suffocating from dust from the meteor (and all the ones in the immediate area of the meteor got blasted to bits).”

I asked, “How come the mammals didn’t go extinct?”

“Because we were diverse. Basically we could eat pretty much anything at that time period.”

“Okay. When you say ‘we’ you’re basically talking about rodents?”

“Yeah. But we can eat pretty much anything so we have no limits on specific things to eat. We can eat the dead trees and the fungus growing on the dead trees… All the death around us doesn’t affect us. Like we can eat the dead stuff, and we flourished because we were the only class of species that could. We were the only ones left who were able to like not have nothing at all to eat. And so what happened here (back to simulation) was the bunnies were eating one thing. Grass. The snails ate two – grass and ferns. So the snails are like the mammals in this scenario, and the bunnies are the dinos. Everything except the grass here is trying to get the grass gone. Even if that’s inadvertent and they need the grass. The bunnies need the grass, it’s the only reason they’re alive. But it’s not able to have balance. So they have no backup plan because the grass just got eliminated by bunnies, snails, ferns and trees. So bunnies have nothing to eat so they basically just groundrocketed….”

We talked more about ecological modeling, which I know only with a passing familiarity, and mentioned how it’s even more fun when you can control more of the parameters behind the scenes. Sometimes I point out when other areas of learning point back to dinosaurs, or when they involve skills that could be applied to his future paleontology career. Other times, I don’t need to point anything out. This time, he immediately transitioned to designing his own simulation in Scratch, and though he didn’t get far with it yet, I think it inspired him to delve back into computer programming.

In other news…

During a Minecraft Monday before his cousins arrived in the sandbox, Quinn discovered that cousin Luigi had left a giant taco floating in midair. He decided to populate the levitating taco with cats, each of which he named, obviously, Tacocat. (Q loves palindromes, and knows his cousins love cats as much as he does or maybe even more in Mario’s case.) I love that they leave little easter eggs of “Cousin was here” for each other to find in their shared world.

helping out with mini-karate one time when we were there for open mat

This month marked the beginning of our coronavirus reality; schools closed, we had the last swim and karate classes we will have for a while, and Quinn’s trip to Italy was postponed.

I shamelessly click on my own blog posts “other posts you may enjoy” and this one felt good to read at that time. My favorite part was seeing how Rich is still that same positive, solid guy who gets stuff done. Well that, and Quinn in a seal suit. It is fun to reflect on how Q is taller but still into math and in-depth characters.

Quinn and I started doing video calls and sharing our time together in various ways: reading books aloud or playing taboo or sharing a screen to watch vi hart’s pi day 2020 video or wellington the penguin touring the shedd aquarium. During one of the first visits he held his guinea pigs up for me to see and snuggled one in his lap for a while. Another time he talked me through solving his 2×2 rubiks cube after I scrambled it. He really blew me away with how he could visualize what I needed to do based on what I was looking at and then tell me how to orient and twist the cube to solve it again. He does not have an analogous cube at his dad’s to reference.

We talked about him directing some home learning for himself (with me as consultant sharing ideas of things to put on his list or not based on his choice and then to be accountability person when he does do things he can report back to me) and he went right to work on a schedule. Computer programming, drums, and electronics feature prominently.

He read Ready Player One this month, after he finished a Neil Gaiman book called Norse Mythology and was inspired to subsequently speed-re-read Magnus Chase.

I sent him picture of quokkas (they have a permanent smile and are an Australian marsupial starting with the letter Q so… duh) and he hadn’t seen my text so he googled it on a new tab while hangout was going, then screen shared with me so I could see what he was seeing. Digital telecommunications skills, check. Treat yourself to a quick google image search, you will not be disappointed.

Quinn and I took a social distance hike at Ona beach. We looked at textural details of drift logs and he came up with a new plan to create his own Jurassic park but without carnivores. He instructed me to take images of the various dinosaur skin texture inspirations on the driftlogs.

On the last day of this month of lifelong learning, we began our Risk game, and he was already well on his way to taking over the world by the end of session one.

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ existence

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Christmas was just the three of us. We were sick so I called off plans and visitors. There was something sweet about it, and though we missed our family we know we will see them soon. For me it resembled Rew Christmases of days of yore; we took turns opening presents and took time to express our thanks. We sank into the slow simplicity, Quinn explored his gifts and learned some html on the side; learning extra as he does when he has a break from school. Speaking of school, this fall has been pretty laid back; comparing in retrospect to sixth grade, seventh grade has been a breeze.

Quinn made me a trio of origami dolphin ornaments, which I adore and will treasure for years to come.

 

Quinn is rocking the texting this week! I heard from him tonight and the last few days and he’s been gone over a week so this is a big deal. getting closer to italy so the timing is perfect of course. putting in his paleontology camp application tomorrow for the first round deadline, and some of the texting was about getting letter of rec from his teacher and he texted me back “i did it” and I’m just feeling proud of the kiddo.

Quinn had a tearful moment writing his letter of intent for his paleontology camp application. He was bogging down and asking for wording suggestions… a wall went up when I suggested he not only say why he felt the camp would be fun for him, but also why he would be a good candidate for the camp – why they should invite him, why he would be a great addition to the group. It took some time to see behind the wall, but ultimately what was bugging him was trying to say he was any better than any other kid. At first he was phrasing it that he didn’t want to “make the decision for them” with his letter, and then I explained all kids applying would be writing similar letters, and the admissions people would have to make a tough decision if more than enough kids applied… well, he was just hating all of this information, but it was presenting more like anger or just simply aversion to “having to” write the letter but I didn’t go there… and then I finally got it. “Are you picturing the kids who don’t get to make it into the camp?” and the tears spilled over. Oh, not stubbornness, resistance, or aversion. Just empathy. Just intensity of emotions. That’s my kid. I finally got him convinced that most kids got in, that if there were kids who would cause problems, they’d figure it out from their teacher letters or things like that and maybe not invite those kids, and that worst case scenario, worthy kids who didn’t get in this time around get put on waiting list and get in next year. He still had scenarios he needed to cover, “what if this year would have been their only chance?”

“You mean if they’re a senior in high school?”

“Yeah.” We talked through all the scenarios, and how the instructors want for all the kids to go, and that’s why they have been expanding these camps (there are a whole panel of new ones this year- more fossil prep, one on illustration, etc.). I had been giving him words like “positive attitude” and “making contributions to group work” and he hadn’t been able to start typing yet but then I said let’s think of a time at last year’s camp when you showed these qualities… and tell it that way, like a story (finally a good idea) and he ended up using the story of last year’s camp having rainy weather and how he maintained a positive attitude and they still found fossils, and even pitched in to redo their instructor’s tent that flooded.

Since last time he was here, we have been playing lots of double nine dominoes (the game called chicken foot that Aunt Margie taught my brothers and I as kids). I guess I got a set of dominoes at the thrift store a while back and forgot about it, but they have been so fun. Funny when all the new Christmas toys are sitting here and we’re playing the 50 cent game. Hid play with his new stuff too, but playing games together might be his love language.

All the dinners last night. I made pizza for third dinner for everyone. He ate lots of pieces while playing dominoes. I am bragging about winning at point accumulation (which means I’m losing). I had market today, and while I was gone, he ate breakfast and more pizza, and by the time I got home he was back in bed asleep! He never does that. He slept for a couple hours and I woke him up at 4:30 to play more dominoes and eat more pizza.

We giggled a lot about contranyms.

As we played dominoes I would ask him one of his spelling words (on our list from words he had been misspelling that I gathered from his homework) every so often. One was field (he was writing feild). I told him about i before except after c, and then showed him, “except when your foreign neighbor Keith receives eight beige counterfeit sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters.” because that also made him giggle.

He wasn’t ready to sleep last night at 10pm because of his nap, so I left him with headlamp and magic cards (his dinosaur themed deck needed some rearrangement to add in his new rampaging brontodon card from his christmas stocking) and went to bed.

I did a free two week trial of the headspace meditation app. Originally it was to help me kick off my new meditation habit, but it ended up being a help to Quinn in a few difficult moments. One afternoon, overwhelmed about his homework piling up from not being up front with his dad about how much work he had, I encouraged him to take a break and listen to his favorite song. When seven nation army didn’t do the trick and he still wasn’t feeling able to get started, I asked him to come do a five-minute meditation with me. He was still grumpy after that but no longer flopping around refusing to even start, and was able to make some headway on his work. At bedtime I told him that headspace has sleep meditations and he said, “yes!!!” with both arms thrown up in celebration. I let him choose from the options, one of which is “sleepcast” which is “storytelling in a range of soothing voices” and he scrolled through and found one with an owl icon called “sleeper mountain” and he fell asleep that night listening to a 45 minute sleep story about the mountain and meditating with crickets and forest sounds.

In thinking over what to do about Quinn’s homework stress at his dad’s, I do think something will need to be said, but I think it’s going to have to come from Quinn. I am trying to keep my eye on the long term goal of Quinn self-advocating, even with his dad. The short term fix of me bringing it up to coparent could risk a blow up and I already told Quinn I wouldn’t. I’m having an ongoing conversation with Quinn about how preventing his dad’s anxiety attacks is not his job, and that it is causing his own anxiety to increase when it gets in the way of him getting his homework done for a week at a time.

He was doing better a few nights later… mostly caught up, and in pretty good spirits.

I have always sort of figured I should be able to meditate yet I have never done it. On the other hand, I realize I actually do it all the time, just not for very long. I quiet my thoughts, focus on my breath, when I’m feeling like I need to re-center. I also do it with Quinn, so he’s quite familiar. Another morning I gave him another 5 minute headspace one and he just sat on the couch with it and it’s a beautiful thing to see him sitting with his eyes closed just breathing. What do I want for him in life? That. Being ok in there.

Q asked me for a snuggle today after school and he had me sit on couch and laid himself on my lap with two fuzzy blankets over him (he was basically in egg configuration but didn’t play the egg game just then) and then Lisa kitty came right over and climbed up on top of him and curled up and we sat that way for ten minutes. I kind of want to brag on facebook about my kid, but not necessarily that he is in bed reading statistics right now, but, “my son, age twelve years ten and a half months, five foot eight inches tall, still asks to get on my lap.” It’s mildly painful but it is so sweet at the same time.

He is writing something but I don’t know what, and when I asked he wouldn’t tell me but said, “when I’m done you can read it.” I told him I totally get that, I am the same way! The apple doesn’t fall far.

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ not so little drummer boy

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~11-23 to 12-23-19~

Quinn spent a ton of time playing with his Turing Tumble set the weekend he got home for Thanksgiving. He told me his math teacher has posters up in her room and one of them is a quote by Albert Einstein that says, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” And he said he really could relate to that. He had me sit with him a lot while he worked on the puzzles he is working on – they are getting insanely complicated, and I am almost no help at all, except I am also willing to sit with it longer, with him. So he has gotten a lot of the algorithms solved (such an amazing game/toy/puzzle/brain stretcher/birthday present) and he feels really great when he achieves one, (I think he is about halfway through the 65 activities) but often there is a period of “I’ll never get this one” just before he cracks the code. He is starting to see that pattern, too, so it makes it easier to trust he will be able to solve it if he stays with it. I love how it is encouraging him to persevere.

While he was sitting with one of the algorithms, he was telling me how it was “just a variation” on the puzzle before, because it was based on registers and counting in binary. You know, like (and he started counting on his fingers… in binary.) My jaw dropped, and he said, “I learned that from Vi.” Of course! (I was not sure how to do justice in words to the amazingness I was witnessing, so I made him do it again on video!)

 

 

We had W pancake among family members who came for Thanksgiving, and I just love how she appointed Quinn as her agent. She would need someone to transport something from her hand over to her mom, and she would just glance at Quinn and gesture, and he would jump to do her silent bidding. She crawls over to sit on his lap, completely assured he is one of her people. It reminds me of the way Quinn was sure about Rich’s daughter wanting to color dinosaurs with him when he was five and she was in college.

He was telling someone that all the 7th graders are drinking coffee “these days” and they say it’s what they need to wake up in the morning. He said he thinks because his mom and dad both like it so much, he may like it one day, too, but for now he doesn’t want to drink any. It came up again when we were at home, and it spawned a great conversation about different wiring. He said “caffeine makes people all wired and hyper,” at one point, and I said well, that’s mostly true, but one way you can tell if a person has ADHD is if you feed them caffeine and they calm down – it has the opposite effect on them, because of their brain wiring. So he thought that was fascinating, and it launched a whole other conversation about misunderstandings or misconceptions of what peoples’ learning differences are, and how people think “talented and gifted” means a person should easily have all A grades, and how they don’t realize that there are some things that are really a struggle for him even though he is talented and gifted. I thought it was interesting to hear him identify that way!

We did a lot of logic puzzles this week. We do them a lot while we eat. Sometimes the clues are roundabout and you have to go over them a bunch of times as you accumulate new information in order to make sense of them. And other times a clue will just say “the person who ate toast is not Janet” and you can rule something out directly. Quinn said of one of these clues, “well that was explict” pronounced like I just typed it: “explikt” and I knew he meant explicit so I said explicit, and he said, “it’s not explict?” And I wrote it down so he could see the second i, and he said, “oh, well, in plants vs. zombies, they left out the second i. (Note to self, he learns words from video games! Not just books.)

He is SO LARGE. He needed hugs and snuggles this week, and I do my best but it is hard to actually let him on my lap… I still do, but I basically give him a very short countdown from ten. We invented a “snug” which is a cross between hug and snuggle, it’s not standing, it’s sitting on me, but it’s very, very brief. When we have time, we do longer snuggles on the couch with either his legs or torso draped over me, but not both.

I am reading the self-driven child, a good book recommended on the tilt parenting podcast. This week I was getting to the chapter on radical down time, and how important it is for learning and general well-being, and how we need to stop jam packing our children’s schedules and managing their downtime like, “shouldn’t you be doing SAT test prep if you don’t have something to do right now?” Instead we should say, “let’s snug.”

I just love watching his biweekly swim lesson. He is the absolute most awkward swimmer the world has ever seen and is so earnest and so into working on improving! This was the first time she attempted to teach him backstroke! He has been working on front crawl for a few lessons now, and he is impressively gangly at it so far, but she figured she’d try backstroke. The first attempt on his back, his arms were still going forward so he just folded in half and sank to the bottom. The next attempts were comically awkward too, but he improved each time. He would get his arms kind of going, but then lean his head too far back and reverse somersault and go under. He would get his arms kind of going but get stuck and you could see his arm pause mid stroke so he could think what his other arm needed to do… long pauses. He’d sometimes roll onto his side or go under again, because of whatever he ended up doing with whichever arm. He was working on the hands so his elbow would be bent at a 90 degree angle, or he’d work on the arms but just get stuck in the middle. His teacher is so good with him. And he just kept going back and starting again.

When he woke up Friday to do his math review he made it out of bed over to the couch and laid back down. He needed extra rest more than math review. Radical down time. So I encouraged him to not stress the math if he felt he could handle doing it over the weekend and he said he could. It crossed my mind he had seemed extra emotional and hungry all week, so I had him get up to the measuring station and put a new mark on the wall – sure enough, he is growing.

Friday was going to be committed cubs day, the second one of the year, and he missed the first one and sorely wanted to be included in it this time. He had a few assignments he needed to have teachers sign off on, and he did a lot to chip away at it over the course of the week, but got home Thursday night and was down because he had forgotten his one last signature, which he could have gotten during class because the assignment was finished. I let him problem solve, and he decided there was still a chance he could do it in the morning, and while that did not guarantee he could do CC day, he wanted to still try. He told me Mrs. F had said they would be free reading in class Friday so people could finish up assignments, and so his plan was to ask her right away to go see Mr B to get his last signature. He even put a post-it note in his book (Ender – speaker for the dead) right with the bookmark, so he would remember to do it even if he went to start doing his free reading. When he came out of school on Friday, he was so pleased because, “I made it in!”

Speaking of Ender, Quinn loved the concept of paired beings from the books. In the story, piggies are paired with trees as an adaptation to protect them from a planet-wide plague. Quinn stretched the concept to a human-star pairing.

I had encouraged him to speak his idea into a google doc so he could harness the way his brain is able to articulate ideas verbally much more quickly than he can get those ideas to come out of his typing fingers. I had been talking to him about the speech-to-text options on numerous occasions, but had not gotten him to try it yet, and this was the perfect opportunity. Here is my transcript of an audio recording I took as a backup while he was speaking into a doc:

“…And then once the star gets even stronger it would start smashing carbon into oxygen and once it gets to its strongest point which is usually right before it supernovas, it starts smashing oxygen into iron and I was thinking, well, if you created some sort of, like, could a man, could human beings create a man made star that could smash together stuff to create like an atom with a whole bunch of stuff like a whole bunch of protons and electrons and neutrons and then harness that… and this would be a star that’s the size of like a chrome book, it would be a really small star… like you could fit it in a fish tank… or in a drum. But then the star would create something like fermium atoms or something like that and the fermium atoms would then be used in like a nuclear laboratory or something like that and you would split the fermium atom into like a whole bunch of neutrons and protons and electrons, and you would use those neutrons and protons and electrons to basically make a whole bunch of atoms out of those separated piles of neutrons and protons and electrons. And then if the theory went right then it would become like speaker for the dead where all the animals on Lusitania are paired with a plant and they basically just coexist so it would be something like each human would create like their own star, their own personal little star the size of their chromebook, or their drum, if they have one, and then use their star to like get some fermium atoms, which they would split up, and then use those atom pieces to make more atoms to get the star bigger, and then like once the human dies of old age, the star should then be approximately the size of a human, and at that point the star would then use its power of making atoms to create another human, like create a new human child, at which point it would supernova and then that human child would grow up with its own personal star and so on and you could pair humans and stars… with like a weird biological bond but yeah… and then… yeah….”

“So that’s what you wanted to get out of your brain onto the page! Isn’t that awesome, look…”

“And I typed several paragraphs!”

“And so adams are going to have to change spelling so do this cool trick ready? Go up to edit on the bar, and go to the find and replace, find all “adam” and replace with “atom”. So if you said a word 50 times and it did them all the wrong way you can just replace.”

“You can replace all adams. And ‘madams’ haha.”

“’When sister gets even stronger’… I think it’s supposed to be ‘when the star’…..”

I wanted to capture a raw version of what it’s like trying to hang in there with this kid who is mashing up Ender’s game and the periodic table, contemplating the synthetic elements of the actinides series and seeing what he can do with them to advance the genre of science fiction! I’m trying to provide him some tools, fitting those in edgewise, trying to keep my head above the current as the absolutely torrential flood of imagination comes pouring out. This is a pretty great example of what it’s like.

This month had some sadness; Quinn’s friend Pippin is moving away.

His voice has lowered dramatically the past month or two. I am not hearing a lot of cracking, but what I have noticed is that his laugh remains a few octaves above his speaking voice. I do not know if he will keep that long term, but hearing him reminds me so much of my older brother’s voice and laugh right now, the way he speaks in a mellow tenor but his laugh reaches up to tickle the rafters. My brother’s laugh is one of my very favorite laughs in the world, and one of my very favorite things about him, and it would not be a disappointment if Quinn inherited this trait. Even if it is for a temporary period, I’m thoroughly enjoying the way his laughs ring in the air, jingling like the bells at the upper reach of his mallets, perhaps because they contrast so with his new low speaking register in the timpani section.

At his band concert, his teacher made a brief intro of the first song, little drummer boy, saying they did have one of those (M is very small), and also a not-so-little drummer boy, and a drummer girl. Mine is the not-so-little one! He was on the snare drum for all three songs! And he was absolutely wonderful! He played both with and without the snares engaged (the beginning of little drummer boy starts out with it disengaged and sounding like a tom). He played some pretty complicated parts! Triplets, rolls, lots of variations. He did so well! He was holding so still for the first song I wasn’t convinced he was drumming, but then on the several measures he was not playing but counting, he bopped around just like he used to when he was playing sleigh bells last year. I think the rhythms he was playing were seriously challenging, enough to really keep him on his toes!

Last weekend was Turing tumble, this weekend was Rubik’s cube!

 

He worked on his cube for the entire day Saturday while I was at farmer’s market, and solved it. By the time I got home, he was a pro. If you watch that very long video, you can see him solve it again, and if you notice he is not pleased, it is because he “figured out” that there are “multiple solves” to the cube, based on the orientation of the Rubik’s emblem on the white face of the cube; there is a solution where it is right side up, and if you have it in the stand you can see red, yellow, blue. Apparently, he spent a good part of the day after solving it his first time, trying to get it solved to that solution, and it was thwarting him. Because perfectionism. But also because of staying with the problem longer.

After farmer’s market we went to get a Christmas tree. After we chose our tree and the helper had set it into our truck, Rich went to pay, but Quinn noticed the tree wasn’t all the way tucked in so the tailgate would close. Quinn jumped up and angled the trunk where it needed to go in the one corner so the top would go in the opposite corner and not stick out the back. I love it when I see him take initiative to fix something or do a job that needs doing, without being asked or having it pointed out at all.

When we got home I asked him to work on cleaning up his room a little bit so that his Turing tumble could move from the living room back to his room to make room for the tree. He just jumped right to it, no complaints, and organized some of his Jurassic park legos that he had out on the floor into a lego box, and put the instruction booklets into the right section of the accordion file, etc., again without me having to point out or assist with these steps.

In his video production elective, he learned about a fun music making module in chrome. For science he had to make a poster about an element in the periodic table, so he picked boron. He really liked the boron entry in his elements book.

He worked on cubing quite a bit more, and he also sent me a bunch of texts about wanting to collect all the different ones. He has the standard 3×3 one, but wants to get 2×2 next, then 4×4, 5×5 etc up to 11×11. Then and only then does he want to get the triangle and other shape ones.

Handmade solstice present for his dad.

I feel grateful for having gone through what we did when Quinn was little, and approaching learning in a self-driven way from the start, because he ended up knowing the difference between school and learning, and still knows it. Otherwise I doubt he would spend weekends doing hard puzzles, or light up like a Christmas tree this morning when I said “I’ve heard you can program robots to solve Rubik’s cubes” as we drove to school. The boy has a lego robotics kit coming to him for Christmas, so I know future weekends will be occupied with such things.

Finally, for the grand finale this month, Quinn rocked his Half green belt test!

~a month in the life of a lifelong learner~ null gravity

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I’m playing catch up on some lifelong learner posts… I had put this process on pause during the early stages of the pandemic when it still felt too raw to look at such normal memories full of things that felt certain (like going to school); now it feels like more of a comfort to remember these moments, so the time is right. Also, we remain lifelong learners; time marches on and more lifelong learner posts are always in the making… can’t let the backlog get too out of hand. Sending love to all the home learners, whether it’s what you’ve always done, or a new path laid out before you.

~10-23 through 11-23-19~

This was the first Halloween in quite a few years that I got to see Quinn! It takes all the fingers of one of my hands to count the years I sewed Pokemon costumes (Spheal, Kyogre, Bulbasaur, Charizard, and Rowlet) and sent them off with him to wear while his dad took him trick-or-treating, or didn’t. This year, Quinn advocated for himself and made his own Halloween plans, and I was lucky enough to be involved (and with no big sewing requirements of me). Although Halloween fell on a Thursday (the day before he would come back to me from his Dad’s), he asked me to pick him up from school that afternoon and take him to the dojo to have a cookie contest with Sifu and another karate kid, each of whom baked their own batch for a cookie-bake-off. Since Quinn was going to be at his dad’s the night he needed to do his baking, he measured out his ingredients in a tupperware to bring to his dad’s, and made a plan to bake them in the toaster oven there. He baked his jam thumbprints and he brought them to the dojo! Then he participated in the final Haunted House of the year.

Quinn is navigating his homework journey with the added component of coparent’s tension on the subject. He seems to be keeping his dad in the dark about some of his assignments in order to protect against added anxiety and stress in that household. We had some serious talk about that, and about how kids aren’t supposed to have to take care of their parents on an emotional level, but he was very matter of fact. “It’s in my own best interest,” he explained, and I acknowledged his point, but also asked if he could think of any areas where he had to handle me and my emotions that way so they didn’t overflow onto him. “Nope!” He seemed relieved I wasn’t going to be an informant, but I just nod and smile when coparent tells me Quinn is all caught up, because Quinn lets me know the real work load when we get home. He is going to have more work to do in this area so he doesn’t fall behind each week he is at his other parent’s house, but I think he is already developing those strategies by metering how much communication he is doing about homework at all. I have encouraged him that he can just get to work without saying much at all, and that “less is more” can sometimes be a good communication policy on topics that can cause stress. He is also developing some capabilities such as finishing an assignment during another class (!) which, while it is less ideal than doing it at home, is an executive function skill to be sure, and one I wasn’t sure I would ever see him do.

When I got home from farmer’s market on Saturday he made a plan for the evening. He is rocking this – I give him some parameters like, it’s 3pm now, and you have until 8:30 when you get ready for bed, and you can fill in that time however you think would work well. Please fit in dinner somewhere. Then he sets his timer and sticks to the plan. No nagging! In two different sessions of one hour he got his binder completely organized. On Sunday he made an all-day plan (we had 12-2 blocked out for going to the Fill-your-pantry market to pick up our 4 gallons of honey, and I asked him to fit in meals and a shower). He stuck to the plan, opted to shower in the earlier of the two possible shower time slots, doesn’t need twenty-seven reminders and assists with showers anymore, it’s really crazy how development is just speeding along right now. That day he completed two math assignments, a couple pages of math notes, a social studies current event, a science assignment, and a language arts essay!!!!! It was five hours of homework but he wasn’t judging it because “things take me longer.” Much of it was past due work but the current event was turned in early.

That was what I meant when I said he was majestically rising to the occasion.

We had some details to work out about the holiday calendar, and Quinn got to practice letting his dad have his feelings, then deciding to do what he wants to do (take his belt test, even though it would take place on their evening of solstice). I asked if he felt caught in middle and he said it was more like he felt like all alone, like he alone could settle and decide things. I think he is noticing that he is growing into a lot of decision power and it’s good, but hard.

We got home one Friday and food was administered, but around 5:30 I recalled that last year’s day two or three gratitude had been about the middle school dance, and I had been thinking there must be one coming up soon… sure enough, it was that night. We’re still working on the two-way communication while he is at his Dad’s… But he showered and changed and I took him back to the dance, since he knew some of his friend group would be there and wanted to go. When he got outside after the dance, he looked like he was a little bummed out. When I asked what was up he said, “the friend group might break up,” and explained about two unrequited crushes, and if they both find out their crushes don’t like them, it could really destabilize the whole group and he worried that it would break. He was very upset, and I tried to tell him I thought as friends they would still have their friendships, even if it was uncomfortable to hang as a group for a time. I thought maybe it was going to be ok because maybe they wouldn’t all break each others’ hearts all at once, and maybe there is more we don’t know that can happen. I said if the group did split up, he’d still be friends with each person, and if there were brokenhearted friends, he could look around and see which friend needed him most and be a good friend to them. By the time we got home he seemed to feel better. These car ride conversations. There have been others lately with high emotions and deep topics, he and his friends being at an age where the various dimensions of their identity are really being explored.

I noticed this week I can see his Adam’s apple. and his voice has gotten one level deeper.

One night he fell asleep upside down in bed on top of his covers before he brushed teeth or said good night.

The next morning, he ate a stack of pancakes then decided he would also have the biscuits and sausage gravy that rich and I were having. I always make Quinn a biscuit, but he used to say the gravy was too spicy. This morning he just gobbled it up for second breakfast (which was eaten while he was still sitting at first breakfast.)

Quinn finished reading Ender’s Game… he loved it. That series is one of those that I’ve been waiting all his life until he would be ready for it. I recently took his hoopla (library app) off of kids mode, because I feel like it’s time for him to not have his literature censored… he may come across something more graphic, but he also is getting old enough that I think he needs more unfiltered access to the world, where he decides on the filtering out… and can come to me with questions of what he encounters, etc. I still have google on safe search – that’s still letting a lot through, but keeping out the most obscene things, and I haven’t lifted the you tube safe mode controls yet either (again…. still a lot available with that filter in place).

He got another booster shot, this time for MMRV (measles mumps rubella and varicella aka chicken pox).

He had some major fear/anxiety this time, leading up to the appointment. It was like stages of grief. he shed tears, he bargained, he did denial… I just sort of let him process. We had same nurse who was great last time (lets him watch the needle like I’m sure zero other children besides poppies). The room had dinosaur stickers on the wall but they were cartoonish and we laughed about the triceratops with four horns. Then we were talking about Ender’s Game now that he is reading the second book (Speaker For the Dead), and he was reminding me of all the cool null gravity combat details and why Ender was so good at it. Quinn really loves the use of three-dimensional space and x-y-z coordinates in the book. Ender’s trick of designating the enemy’s gate as “down” was a big deal, and once he said it, I remembered it from when I’ve read the series myself. When I told him that I have been waiting for him to be ready to read that series, he said, “and I finally am reading it, and now I’m like obsessed with null gravity combat!”

After the shot, the nurse asked him, “so how much did that hurt?” He said, “not much!” I said, “can I get that recorded?” and we all laughed. When we went out to the car Quinn actually did record a video selfie to his future self about how the fear is worse than the shot itself, and that he should not worry about the pain and just be calm.

On the ride home, we  discussed the way Ender travels between planets that are x number of light years away and how it only takes him a week or so to get 22 light years away and meanwhile his brother had been the ruler of Earth after he and his sister left, but 3000 years have passed on Earth while Ender is only a few years older. Relativity space-time stuff. “It’s kind of like wrinkling, I think,” he said.

His current math unit is the Pythagorean theorem, and he loves that, but especially that besides a2 + b2 = c2 there is also a2 + b2 + c2 = d2 to handle the third dimension. He is all about x-y-z coordinates and null gravity combat right now so math and literature are really syncing up nicely for him at the moment.

~thankful thursday~ chronologically beset

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this post comes with a camp boss tea warning!

~timeline~

Saturday 3-21 Market day was long but sunny. I considered a walk on the beach before going home, but then when I drove towards it cars were swarming like a summer day, it appears we’re hosting everyone who wanted to get out of Portland, Washington, or California and not cancel their spring break plans. Our stores are already emptied out and our hospitals definitely don’t have enough capacity. Anger.

Came home, stripped and left my clothes by washer, showered, got on hangouts with Quinn to play more Taboo. I need to come up with more games… he wants to try Risk. I had sent him a picture of quokkas from Australia (they have a permanent smile and are an Australian marsupial starting with the letter Q so… duh) and he hadn’t received the text so he googled it on a new tab while our hangout was going, then screen shared with me so I could see what he was seeing. I had tried to screen share the other day and failed but of course, he already has it down.

I made Rich and I green smoothies for dinner and Rich serenaded me with the radio when Dolly and Kenny Rogers sang islands in the stream and we made lovey faces and we went on a star date, “because,” he said, “I haven’t seen a lot of you today” and held my hand and we pointed out stars to each other and hugged in the dark back yard.

~meme of the day~

The meme wondering when we will be assigned our hunger games districts tied for meme of the day with “Kenny Rogers dippin’ out in the middle of the apocalypse is the most ‘know when to fold ‘em’ thing ever.”

~timeline~

Sunday 3-22 I met Quinn at Ona beach and we walked for over an hour, played pooh sticks, hiked along the creek, looked at textural details of drift logs and he came up with a new plan to create his own jurassic park but without carnivores. We pantomimed hugging from 6-10 feet apart. I didn’t cry a lot when we got back in our cars, only a little.

zoom lens got me artificially closer than 6 feet.

Watching from a distance as husband person and his son play fire monsters in the trampoline with the girls, conflicted about their visit, their trip to visit friends the night before, their horseplay, and yet reveling in their energy, soaking in the sunlight.

County commissioner exhorts non-locals to leave, to please come back and visit when this is all over, we will welcome your business then. Not now. State parks, whose campgrounds have been full all weekend with spring break tourists, announce they will close the following day.

~Meme of the day~

Hands down, the explanation of Tot waffles.

~3-22 gratitude~

Once I absorbed enough of the sun’s energy, I took a bayou walk and called my mom. As I was sitting in the leaf litter at the base of the bayou trail with the hood of my purple hoodie pulled up, switching the phone between hands to warm the other hand in my pocket, hearing my mom talk reassuringly about her household’s efforts at isolation, a hummingbird (anna’s, male with red violet crown) visited one trout lily, then two, then three. Then this one little bird hovered before me, looked me right in the eye (maybe thinking I might be a large purple trout lily) and told me, “every little thing is gonna be alright.”

Don’t worry about a thing.

I am blessed with the ability to keep earning my paycheck from home and feel so grateful for this. I plan to spread the abundance around my neighborhood and keep supporting those who may not have as much assurance in their upcoming paychecks as I have – thinking of local artists, my dojo, and so many small businesses providing local food.

Rich and I are celebrating our 99th monthaversary today. Back before we got engaged, we used to say we’d stay together for 99 years and then at that point, we’d reassess. Since then we have upgraded to forever, but 99 is still a number that feels meaningful. I feel grateful to have gotten to spend 99 months loving such a good human.

~timeline~

3-23 Monday I read a long explanation of the differences in virus response to mitigation vs suppression, and how what we are doing in the US is only mitigation and is going to spell a lot longer time of living in this situation. Then an essay by a group of Harvard medical doctors affirming the seriousness is exactly as I understood, got chills as I scrolled down through the list of hundreds of names of MDs.

Grocery run with a serious, organized list. Customers all look traumatized, but kind, maintaining distance, taking turns, smiling politely. A lot of customers for 7am, but not that bad of a crowd if it had been after school. Certainly better than the weekend of tourists, but the empty shelves told of the weekend rush. First time ever I felt the pros of self-checkout outweighed the cons.

Smell of purell may be a future anxiety trigger, feel of rain shower exiting the store a welcome relief, air entering my lungs realizing I had been shallow breathing the whole time in the store, tears and raindrops mingling. Mild anxiety still surfacing in the form of breath holding and tears. Applied the hand sanitizer before closing the car door, touching steering wheel or gear shift. The only thing I didn’t find a replacement for was toilet paper, but am trying a random odd rice brand and got bison instead of ground beef. No pepper jack, but we can easily live with medium cheddar for our nachos for the time being. Got extra cheese, coffee, half and half, a box of my favorite tea (no echinacea to be found), comforts. Came home, shed outer layer of clothes, scrubbed in, sanitized my way back out: doorknobs and car handles, steering wheel and gear shift, then carried in groceries and washed hands about five times, a solid twenty seconds each time, while unloading and putting them away.

Finally felt ready to reheat second cup of coffee, add half and half, cuddle with Bart and type words into this growing journal of COVID-19 living.

Risk with Quinn in hangouts from 12-1:30 was a sweet oasis in my mid-day. Bart kept sprawling across the board on my side, but no cats were messing it up on Quinn’s end. We paused the game but he already has almost all of Asia as usual.

Executive order issued by Governor Kate Brown to shelter in place; defines essential and non-essential and the precautions that must be taken by essential workers.

The Olympics are postponed.

~3-23 gratitude~

Rich and I took a mailbox date and bayou walk when he got home. While we were standing and gazing out on the bayou lookout, it started to hail, but then a rainbow stretched over the whole vista.

Went into my office/Quinn’s room when the living room felt too crowded and arranged my office nature photos around the desk to look at. Eagle flying one unbroken line photo to remind me to write and defragment as apparently anxiety fragments me as much as depression. Butterfly – I am not taking this class for a grade. Dolphins – lithe and free and graceful and strong and purposeful and empowered. Hummingbird; joy. Web; we are all connected. Urchins and anemones; grounded in the ocean.

I think it’s nachos for dinner.

~timeline~

Tuesday 3-24 I had two morning tantrums, at least internally. One was due to thinking I would need to go out to the store again and the anticipatory anxiety it brought (until Rich gently corrected that misunderstanding), and one while taking out trash bags and feeling overwhelmed at the many hand washings required throughout that process.

Read “hold the line” essay by a “lowly epidemiologist” which re-explains why we need to stay home and some of the biology, psychology, and reality of all this. How “seemingly small social chains get large and complex with alarming speed. If your son visits his girlfriend, and you later sneak over for coffee with a neighbor, your neighbor is now connected to the infected office worker that your son’s girlfriend’s mother shook hands with…. conversely, any break in that chain breaks disease transmission along that chain.” The psychology of having to know we will feel like we can relax when we see the curve flattening, but that it will not be time to relax yet, not for a long time.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about glove wearing and hand-washing at my lab job, and have perfected what I call the Michael Jackson method of protecting myself with a glove on the hand that is holding the chemicals, but protecting everyone else by turning the doorknobs with my other ungloved hand. It is reaching a new level of overthinking where details like not bringing my phone to the store with me or anything extra at all are all occurring to me… lots of overthinking of all the steps and points of contact.

~meme of the day~

“Be like this little piggy” with arrow pointing to the second toe on a baby’s foot.

~timeline~

Risk part two at lunch. Mama plays defense, Quinn still looking like he will dominate, to be continued tomorrow.

Transition two minutes later to All Hands webex with NWFSC, and then another two minutes came in a third call from D clarifying today’s lab methods for her heavy workload. Explaining about flash freezing larval arctic cod samples in liquid nitrogen, and how it is important to remove water from the tube before doing so, that too much water would result in the tube exploding upon coming back out of the liquid nitrogen, but also acknowledging that removing the water was a very difficult thing to do. Made my best attempt at explaining how to get as little water in the tube as possible in the first place, and looking to my right at a pile of legos in my “office,” settled on, “If your tube contents are about the depth of one lego or less, you should be good. But wear your safety goggles.”

Text check-in around 4pm with my girl D:

MB: how’s your ten-hour day going?

D: oh best believe it’s lit. my fail from earlier pictured above lol (picture of tube of larvae with extra water)

MB: so lit! ok so a little taller than a lego… did it explode?

D: i got it way lower than that. no i didn’t have any explode!

MB: ok great job!! You’re killing it!

D: thanks for the encouragement (laugh emojis) sos

MB: while you are doing these the next few rounds, if you take any awesome pictures of the process or successful sub-lego results, we can add them to that SOP.

D: successful sub-lego results has me DYING lol. haha just lab things.

MB: (laugh emojis) your sos calls are making me feel marginally useful in my new lego-encrusted office.

Husband person got us more pizza for dinner, and I was in the middle of making a salad for the grownups when D called one more time, our fourth and final work call for the day, and we laughed about the absurdity of her long hours as we supposedly shut things down. She is rising to the occasion beautifully and I called her wonder woman.

Our county commissioner Kaety has been on the radio so the stay home, save lives measures are being broadcast loud and clear.

The girls asked us to play Uno last night. I played, but cringed as I was handed a yellow four that had just spent time in someone’s mouth. The observation that kids, and adults, don’t like being told what to do.

~gratitude 3-24~

Grateful for Mom’s homemade soap, the lilac bar at my kitchen sink is really getting a workout, but it is lasting through so many hand washings, continuing to foam majestically, not drying my hands out too much, and comforting me with the scent of spring lilac blossoms on the way and the thought of the dear  hands that made it.

~timeline~

Wednesday 3-25 Ani DiFranco shared an article concerning how pandemics amplify the inequalities already present in society. It has already been on my mind how the current situation is terrible for families of alcoholics, families with abuse dynamics, families with domestic violence. Being stuck at home with so many things that can trigger addict/abuse behavior is a nightmare. And then there’s the more first world problems presented by income inequality; the choices a majority of families will make of who works, who takes care of the kids, become a return to the 1950s, even if two-income household partners get along and don’t have abuse stress.

One favorite uplifting post today was Dr. Elvis L. Francois from Mayo Clinic singing Imagine with one of his colleagues Dr. William Robinson on piano.

The cats are loving the bed as my alternate work venue. Bart is on my lap and Lisa at my feet. My “desk chair” at Quinn’s desk is not exactly ergonomically appropriate for me, but it will only be a temporary office situation for me.

Started a 21-day abundance meditation challenge. Though I don’t need any additional challenges, and I will not take that class for a grade, it came my way passively when I was already doing daily meditation and seems like a good way to practice mindfulness.

PPE donations are being requested by our local hospital and I am trying to encourage my lab peers to do the right thing.

Rich came home at 10:00 as planned and although I had thought I would be in a meeting then, I was not. I do have a meeting at 10am, but it’s on Thursday, and today is Wednesday. I am one of the lucky people still working, leaning more heavily on google calendar than ever before, and even so, I am a day off already.

Today’s Risk session was number three, and there is still no end in sight on this game. I kept joking to Quinn, “now it’s really going to take me a while to get back Asia.” I had most of Asia, briefly, at the beginning of the game, and now he has it with a pile of troops on every territory. I really do stink at Risk, but it’s making him happy and therefore it is making me happy. It’s a good way for us to connect while we’re doing this insane tele-parenting thing.

I’m a lot more even keeled than last week, but I still feel like an agitated bundle of jangled nerves, not quite getting the hang of new routine nor a handle on a meal plan yet. Rich is dealing with me and my angst so well.

Now it is night and I am boiling water for a cup of calm tea.

Thursday 3-26 My connection got cut off about seven or eight times during lab meeting. Someone wanted to share pets at the end so I showed off Bart.

I have been staring at the same data set for two days and finally feel like I have it correct and a template to move forward with (and actually a map of the template, because this data is complicated.) This template is the equivalent of building the playdough fun factory that I can now press the rest of the canisters of data playdough through to extrude it into the star-shaped tubes (or whatever shape) it is meant to be. I have spent a lot of the two days with my legs under the covers and with at least one if not two cats, my coworkers, on the bed with me.

In Risk, Quinn is back to owning all the continents except the Americas, but I have a pretty good pile of troops in Alaska, Venezuela, and Greenland, so we may be playing for 40 days and 40 nights.

The family visit has ended and I am so relieved. I love them but this was really a struggle for me, the dissonant collection of personal realities under one roof.

A Stir Crazy friend compares notes with an Essential Employee friend; Essential points out that some would gladly trade places with Stir Crazy, but Stir Crazy is feeling regret for the first time about living all alone. I think everyone has their own challenges with all of this. Nobody is off the hook. I think it is giving people an opportunity to find some empathy.

Breweries and distilleries are making hand sanitizer. Factories are retooling to make face shields. Gap, Nike, sports gear companies are making masks, scrubs, gowns. Tesla is making ventilators.

~Meme of the day~

“For those who have lost track, today is blursday the fortyteenth of maprilay.”

~timeline~

Friday 3-27 A return to better ergonomic teleworking conditions and “sanitized sanity” a phrase coined by Lauren; wrapping up a productive week, all things considered.

Commented to Rich this has really helped me break my hangnail chewing habit. My hands look great despite being a little dry from so much washing.

~3-27 gratitude~

I am feeling grateful that I can isolate now, other than Rich going to work, but he works outside on a boat with welding/cutting torches so nobody gets close. (He is my definition of hot, in case you were wondering.)

Quinn is staying with coparent for now. I am pleased I can start counting days, though I am not exactly sure how many I am counting to. It still feels better to be on day one than not even counting yet. Perhaps in 14 days, Quinn will come home. I don’t need to work outside the house at all now, including for the farm. They are down to just veggie box pickup format.

Rich and I got takeout from our favorite local Italian place last night and lit candles and had date night at home. Trying to maintain some sense of our normal routine. Trying to help see our local businesses through this crazy time. I am buying a painting for Rich’s birthday from a local artist friend who normally sells at farmers market but can’t do that for now… since I can work (grateful to have that going for me) I feel like these are ways I can spread the love around. But this is our community and they give it right back… the food last night is four nights worth of dinners… plus soup, salad and 2 pints of gelato for dessert!

Alberta’s last stand

Two sessions of Risk with Quinn, because it’s Friday. During the first one, he took over South America, and during the second one, he whittled me down to just 15 troops left in Alberta. The second session took a while because he was eating handfuls of the goldfish I had sent home with him after our hike last Saturday, and would pause for long intervals in between dice rolls, just to drive me bonkers. His dad says the game sessions are doing a lot of good for Quinn, that he looks forward to them every day, and I can say the same is true for me. During one turn, a goldfish cracker had fallen on the board and since my troops were the matching yellow ones, Quinn said my territory was having its troops augmented by “the Navy.” Then between goldfish eating and processing speed, when I asked him at one point if he was attacking the next territory, he said no, he had not gotten that far yet, that he was “chronologically beset.”

I don’t believe I’ve ever one time in my life used the word beset in a sentence and here he is, thirteen. And what a turn of phrase to utter at no idea o’clock on a blursday in Maprilay. We are all indeed chronologically beset. I freaking love my son and I am so grateful for him, for the technology that is keeping us connected, and for his expansive vocabulary that makes me laugh so hard.