Two weeks down, 50 more to go until next year.
The first week of January was a pretty chill week – the kids went back to school, I started working on a new show. My mother was here, but then she got sick so we did not see as much of her as we would have liked.
And then this past week has been a rainy rainy one here. Maybe snow this weekend? The week has not gone as I thought it would – a lot of rain and water, including some water in the basement of my parents’ rental property, derailing some plans. We went over with towels and tools, to clean up the water and see if we could see where the water was coming from. The basement had flooded a couple weeks ago, and at that time we thought the water was coming from a clogged outside drain. We cleared the drain, pulled up the flooring and the carpet. Then the rains came again and we were wrong about the source of water, clearly. So more phone calls, more clean up. We were at Home Depot at 9:30pm buying a wet dry vac. Along with six or seven other people. But we are fortunate in that we have the time and money to deal with these problems. I read somewhere that if you have the money to deal with a problem, it is not a problem. I try to remember that.
And now I’m battling a cough and congestion, which is making me super dried out and negatively affecting my sleep. On the one hand, I’ve been so exhausted that I’ve gone to be before midnight most nights (which is early for me!), but on the other hand, I’ve been woken up by frequent bouts of coughing and a super dry mouth so even though I’ve been getting more sleep than I normally do, it hasn’t been really great sleep. But perhaps this is a good sign to myself that I can go to bed before midnight if I want to. It’s that thing bout priorities, right?
The schools closed early on Tuesday because of the rainy weather. The communication from the schools hit our inboxes at 8:30am, just as we were getting ready to head for the bus. Luckily the first part of the week was pretty flexible for me, so I was able to pick up the kids. I had intended to work from home after pick up, but my friend called and said that the voice teacher our kids saw had openings in the early afternoon, so we could move our evening lesson to the afternoon if that was better for us weather wise. So spent the afternoon shuttling the two girls to voice lessons. A bright spot was that we stopped for Boba on the way home, and I’ve discovered the joy of hot boba tea! As in Boba in hot tea. Brilliant and warm and cozy! Boba tea has always been a cold drink for warm weather so I never thought about having it hot.
The weekend before was a nice mix of kids’ activates and house projects.. We had the 11 year old’s first basketball game, then we decided to go get dumplings for lunch from our favorite dumpling house. The restaurant has been undergoing some renovations and the newest addition was a boba counter! Woot. They had a really tasty Mango Pomelo Sago Smoothie which was a nice blend of fruity beverage and and a variety of chewy toppings, with a bit of sour bite from the pomelo. The 11 year old ordered it but didn’t really care for it, so I got to enjoy it. Yay!
Since it was a rainy rainy day, I decided to spend some time purging our book collection. We have a linen closet that we filled with books since we have a linen closet in our bathroom and didn’t actually need another linen closet in the house. We jokingly call it our library. I’ve been determined to pare down our bookshelves, so I took everything out of the library and went through each and every book. It was hard! Ultimately, I only came up with one small box of books to be taken to the donation pile. I had had grand thoughts of bags and bags of books, but came well short. I made a pile of books that I still have yet to read, some of which I’ve been carrying around for almost 20 years. Making my way through some of these books is one of my goals this year. I managed to confine all my books to one shelf of our “library”, stacked three deep. (I do also have a small pile of books up in my room, in addition to the stack of books from the library by my chair in the living room. )
The book project took all weekend, while at the same time the Husband took down Christmas. Between the books everywhere and the storage boxes for the Christmas stuff, one had to tread carefully around the house.
Sunday we continued our book and de-Christmasing project, but we also had agility class for the 4 year old and then skating for the 4 and 6 year old. Since skating lessons also come with passes to open skate, we stayed after lessons to do some extra skating. I bought a book of skating passes for myself too so that I could go skating with the kids. It’s fun now that both kids can skate very independently – I can actually feel like I’m getting some active movement in when I skate with them since I don’t have a child clinging to me on the ice.
I might have overbooked us for kids’ activities for this first quarter, but since I’m light on work and can drive carpool, it seemed like a good opportunity to sign kids up for things that they wanted to do but which would be logistically hard for us to do when I’m working evenings and weekends. On the docket:
11 year old – piano, voice lessons (she’s been asking for a while so we started these last month), basket ball (rec league and skill development work out – she’s playing basketball 3-4 times a week right now.), swimming, and religious ed classes.
6 year old- piano, skating lessons, religious ed classes. He mentioned wanting to do coding class, and those are offered as an after school activity so we might do that. Also sewing classes next month. (I asked him what he wanted to learn to do and he said he wanted to learn to sew!)
4 year old – agility class, skating, and trampoline classes. The trampoline classes are mid afternoon, so I’m taking advantage of my lighter work schedule to get her to these. I have such mixed feelings about enrolling her in full on gymnastics – probably my own baggage from having done it before – I think she would be very good and enjoy it, but I have a lot of trepidation about gymnastics as a toxic environment and also it being a dangerous activity. Probably something I need to unpack for myself….
And then also for the grown ups – I’ve enrolled in watercolor classes and the Husband signed up for a semester of teaching ESL. I’m really excited that we’re both taking time to pursue something outside of the daily grind of kids and work. The rest of the year is looking to be really full for me work-wise, so I want to take this time to lean into the “life” part of work/life.
Also – speaking of activities – Summer camp registration has started and it is majorly stressing me out! I have a tentative work offer so I know when we need to have coverage. The summer camp provided by our after care was already full when I checked in the first week of January. That would have been the easy option since the 6 year old has lots of friends there and it’s not too expensive. So I guess we’ll be quilting together summer care for him – that’ll probably be a project for next week. The oldest will probably have a combination of theatre camp, basketball camp, and doing nothing around the house.
Random new skill learned. I figured out how to do a fishtail braid! Even though the fishtail braid had been explained to me before, I never could quite do it. A few weeks ago, the 11 year old borrowed a book on braids from the library and wanted me to do some of the braids from the book in her hair. So I gave the fishtail another try, and I think I got it! I love how tiny detailed it looks. It does take more time than a regular three strand braid, though. Yay for learning new things.
Two Podcasts at the right time for me:
This episode of Radical Candor: “Podcast Season 5, Episode 27: “Your ‘Nice’ Workplace Culture is Fraught With False Harmony” I’m newly in a position at work where it is now part of my job to have feedback sessions, and as someone who strives to provide a kind work environment, I want to be positive in feedback sessions – but is that useful? Where is the line between feedback on how one does something vs. micromanaging someone else’s style? This episode talks about how being nice can be counterproductive and even toxic, and it was good food for thought for me when thinking of how I want the culture of our stage management team to work.
This episode from The Puberty Podcast: Consequences and Discipline with Tina Payne Bryson. I’ve been struggling with how I react to the 11 year old (well, now 12 year old)’s moments of … well, tween-ness. I thought this episode was really great for reminding me that part of my work as a parent is to help my kids figure out how to “life”. Payne Bryson points out that the word discipline comes from the Latin word for “learning”. One thing I really love about the Puberty Podcast is that it gives me actual things to say, and one great phrase from this episode is: “I know that you know that X needs to happen. What’s your plan?” I love that the phrase allows the kid to realize that you know they can think for themselves. It’s a great episode.
Grateful for:
–The Return of my Rain coat. Back in November, I got home after the last performance of my fall show and realized that I had left my rain coat at the theatre. I was so frustrated! I had finally splurged and purchased a good quality raincoat and now I had gone and lost it. All December I had a replacement raincoat in my online shopping cart, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend another $130 on a raincoat, when I had been so stupid as to have lost my original one. Luckily I had a windbreaker that I could use, but it wasn’t long like my raincoat and it didn’t fit as well. Anyhow, my first day back at work after the new year, I walked into my office and there, outside my office was my raincoat! I guess the costume crew had found it when they were loading out of the theatre so they sent it back to the costume shop/rehearsal studio. Amazing! I felt so lucky – I got my coat back just in time for the rains to start.
–Past me for putting my keys in a safe place. I always put my office keys in the same pocket of my purse. I hadn’t been to my office in almost three weeks, and as I was walking up to the door, I reached into that pocket and pulled out my keys. It’s such a small thing, but I’m really glad that past me is so consistent about putting keys in the same spot so I can find them even after two weeks of not being in the office.
–Hand me down baby clothes. The Husband has a coworker who just adopted a baby so I gathered some baby clothes we still had laying around, and bundled them up to pass along. I have to e honest – I’ve been having a hard time getting rid of the baby clothes. We aren’t having any more kids, but I have so many cozy, sweet memories associated with the baby clothes that it’s been hard for me to let go. Anyhow, as I was pulling together clothes to give to my Husband’s coworker, I remembered how most of the clothes that we had when our kids were infants were hand me downs from friends and acquaintances. How lucky we were! It made me a little wistful to pass along the baby clothes, but I’m glad another little baby will get to wear them.
–The 11 year old, who is now 12! Speaking of baby clothes… This week we celebrated another birthday – it’s hard to believe that we have been parents for 12 years. We celebrated by going to Indian Food and, as is tradition in our family, she got to choose a breakfast cereal (she chose Kellogg’s Smart Start). She’ll have a sleepover party next weekend, since I was working this weekend and didn’t think it fair to have the Husband solo parent a sleepover with 5 tweens. I’m so grateful for this big-hearted, kind, observant, sympathetic, creative person who loves to read, draw, play with her siblings, and make messes in the kitchen. She teaches me so much about patience and listening. I had made a cake for her, but I was lazy so I just oil and floured the pan, rather than lining with parchment as I usually do. So when I tried to turn the cake out of the pan, half of it stuck and it fell apart. Bummer. And then I had to go to work and didn’t have time to deal with it or try to patch it back with frosting. We ended up just eating it with whipped cream when we got home from the Indian restaurant, which was probably just as well since none of us likes frosting that much.
Looking Forward To:
– We’ve booked plane tickets to visit my brother in California for Spring Break! We haven’t been to California since pre-pandemic. I always feel bad that my brother comes to visit us at least once every 18 months or so. Of course he only has one kid, so it’s cheaper for him to come to us, but still…
-Speaking of travel – I finally sent off my passport for renewal. Yay. Looking forward to getting that. I really hope my grandfather in Taiwan stays healthy until I get my passport back.
-Getting through birthday season. I always think I should plan something social for January, but then I realize that two kids have birthdays so we have to plan those, and that is enough planning for me. We haven’t really figured out the logistics of the 6 year old’s party, so that might actually happen in February. He wanted a Chuck E. Cheese party again, but upon further probing, we realized that he just wants to play the games – the actual birthday yay! part with the person in the mouse costume actually freaks him out. So I think we’ll just take a couple friends to Chuck E. Cheese to play games and then take the out to our favorite dumpling for lunch. I think the idea is have him plan his perfect day and take some friends along too.
-Tech and performances of my current show. Another short project, but even still, short projects require a lot of the same amount of work as longer projects. But… balls get dropped (in life and in work.) Some might re-frame these dropped balls as prioritizing… It certainly is an exercise in that. Anyhow, on the docket for my free day to prep for tech week:
*boil eggs (so I have easy protein on hand)
*plan my outfits for the week
*meal plan – figure out which days I can prep dinner before I go to work and which the Husband can cook. Also think through what I can bring for dinner.
*re-schedule the 4 year old’s tumbling class
*stock up on fruits and veggies so I have healthy things to eat
*baking for quick breakfast options to grab on harried mornings.
What We Ate:
Monday (New Year’s Day): Pizza (take out) and Holiday Road (cute Hallmark movie.)
Tuesday: Chili, which the Husband made.
Wednesday: Broccoli Spoon Salad, (mostly) from the New York Times. This was a great salad – farro (the original recipe was for quinoa, but we had farro in the pantry), broccoli, pecans, apples, and cheddar. The original recipe also called for dried cranberries, but I didn’t have those. Mix up a Dijon mustard vinaigrette to go over it. I think they call it a spoon salad because it has all the good stuff you can eat it with a spoon, and it doesn’t have lettuce which requires a fork. Super easy and tasty recipe.
Thursday: Leftover Chili from Tuesday.
Friday: Lentil Soup – from the Good Housekeeping Instant Pot cook book. A quick and easy recipe before basketball practice. The family was definitley mixed on this recipe, but I told the kids that lentils were really good for your body and good for the environment and they decided that was an okay reason to eat it.
Saturday: Pizza (Take out) and Sing. I had forgotten what a good movie Sing was. Such a good movie!
Sunday: Leftover day. I had Brussel sprouts sauteed with kimchi. We had been gifted a huge stalk of Brussel sprouts last month and hadn’t touched it. Those things laaaaaaast, though. This week I started sautéing Brussel sprouts for breakfast because I was determined to finish the stalk. I think the rest of the family had leftover pizza from the night before.
Monday: Miso Mushroom Ragout from Hetty Liu McKinnon’s Tenderheart cookbook. Tasty, but it doesn’t actually make that much sauce so I added a bunch of extra mushrooms.
Tuesday: Roasted Salmon, Cesar Salad (from a bag), and Israeli couscous salad. This dinner came together surprisingly quickly given that the salmon was still mostly frozen when we started. The couscous salad was really tasty – full of feta cheese cucumbers, parsley.
Wednesday: White beans in the Instant Pot (New York Times recipe), served with toast and gochujang Brussel Sprouts (again from Tenderheart) with rice. The Brussel Sprouts used up the last of the stalk. I kept some brussel sprouts without the spicy glaze for the kids. Their loss – it was really good. toast and rice seems redundant, but the 6 year old wanted to rice to go with his Brussel Sprouts, so there you go.
Thursday: Indian food take-out.
Friday: pizza (take out) and Stargate SG-1. The oldest came back pretty late from basketball and there wasn’t time for a full movie, so I looked up good tv shows to watch with kids and Stargate SG-1 came up. The kids have been really into the Mandalorian, so I thought another sci-fi show might be up their alley. I though the story telling was really good, but the show is definitely dated. At one point, the oldest turned to me and said, “Why are there so many white people on this show?” And there’s all sorts of sexist stuff going on. I’m mildly interested in seeing the rest of the series (and there are something like 10 seasons), I don’t quite feel that invested quite yet.
Saturday: Parmesan mint pasta – a Mark Bittman recipe from the NYTimes.
(I wrote most of the above t this morning, but didn’t publish before having to run kids to all their activities. The day ended up being sunny on one horizon and grey on another, with rain in the forecast. I had planned to go for a run while the kids were at skating lessons and decided to chance it, even though it seemed like we were minutes from rain. I hadn’t run in a while and I didn’t know if I would be able to fit in a run this week since I would be at the theatre, so I wanted to get one in. I dropped the kids at skating then took off outside. I got a few steps into my run and I heard rather than felt something start pelting down and I thought, somewhat peevishly “Oh man, my one chance to run and it’s going to rain on me!” But then I realized – it wasn’t raining, it was snowing! Big fluffy flakes. “I can run in snow!” I thought. Snow isn’t as wet as rain – it floats down and kind of just dissipates, as opposed to rain that just drenches and gets into my bones. So I just kept running and breathed the cold, fresh air and watched the flakes come down fast and sideways. It was actually pretty cold – in the mid 40s – so I didn’t run too long – just 20 mins with a 5 minute walk. Nonetheless, I’m so glad I decided to stick it out. It turns out there’s a lovely trail next to the skating arena, so fitting in a run while the kids skate might not be a bad way to get my run in.
Hope everyone is staying cozy and safe!
We’ve also had A LOT of rain so far this winter, and so. much. wind. Thankfully we haven’t lost power yet, but I find the high winds (and rain) very unsettling!
That is such a wonderful outcome about finding your beloved raincoat again. Yay!
Tweens are quite the stage. I feel like The Emotional Lives of Teenagers really helped me see that THEY ARE DOING THEIR JOB. Whatever they’re doing that is driving me crazy is basically their job. Sometimes they do it veryyyy well, but this is what they’re supposed to do – the sighing, the rolled eyes. Having that mentality has really felt like an important shift for me lately. Before I thought I was doing something wrong, but no…my job is to put realistic boundaries in place and create a sense of security. Her job is to push toward independence but then also sometimes need deep affirmation and comfort. All the best! We officially enter teen territory in two months. Where did those 13 years go?
And how sweet you’re able to pass along infant clothes for a new little one <3
I should read The Emotional Lives.. next! I’m reading Untangled right now and it also has some really boundary holding scripts.
Argh! I know that feeling of “What am I doing wrong?” when interacting with my tween. I don’t think I can do *anything* right, which kind of also makes it so that I can’t do anything wrong, in a weird way…
You always write such thoughtful posts and my notes just end up being random bullet points. Oh, well. You are thoughtful and I am an outline writer.
You should move Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi up to the front of you reading queue. It’s so good!
I feel like summer camps are the bane of my friends with children’s existences. I feel like you need to start planning immediately after they end the previous summer to get a spot!
Your family doesn’t like frosting? I…do not get this and suspect you are seriously all monsters.
Brussels sprouts are disgusting and no one will change my mind about this.
Awww… I’m always flattered that you find my brain dump musings so interesting! Thanks for continuing to do so.
Alright I will move Homegoing next after Lucy Barton. I actually forgot I had that for a while because it was on the Husband’s bookshelf.
I will swap you frosting for Brussel sprouts any day!
Hey Diane! Thanks for the update. What NGS above had said.. A few thoughts…
The rainbow umbrella and the grey sky, amazing.
My name is Lucy Barton- loved that book.
Am jealous of all the activities your kids are doing. My kids (4 and 6) are not really interested. They are only in gymnastics as of right now. I want to sign them up for skate lessons! I am Russian, after all 😉
Food. How do you remember what you ate for the two weeks? I can’t even recall what we ate two days ago lol
Summer camp… I’m off in the summer so I am not stressed about it. A friend of mine instead of giving her camp $4000 per month for camp, is renting a house in Oaxaca Mexico for a month and spending time with her son there. Granted she works remote. For a month, the house is 2K! Now that’s immersion for ya.
oh hah! I track our dinners in my journal – that way if there is something we really like, I can make a note and make it again.
I LOVE that idea of taking summer camp money and just renting a house somewhere. I don’t think I could ever do it because if I don’t really have a remote job, though. I used to work in Colorado every summer and that was FANTASTIC. Well, being in Colorado was, the company itself could be … challenging. Maybe I just need an opera company in Mexico to hire me for the summer.
We once took lessons at a rink in our area (not the one closest to us, but the next closest), and it seemed like all the parents of the kids in those lessons were Russian or Eastern European – I thought it was such an interesting demographic note. Skating lessons are great! Our four year old started when she was three, so …. it’s not too early!
My Name Is Lucy Barton is one of my favourite books ever. Elizabeth Strout is so gifted.
Oh nooooo about all the rain and the water in the basement. That’s such a pain. I just heard yesterday someone say “the answer to the problem is money” and yes, that’s a good thing to remember. But still, ugh.
The fishtail braid looks so good, I have never mastered that myself!
With regards to gymnastics…I know what you mean. I hope that it is less toxic than it used to be, with everything we know about body image and growing bodies. I totally get your hesitation!
I love frosting but my husband doesn’t, so he always scrapes a lot of it off his piece of cake and I’m always tempted to just eat it off his plate. I don’t though, but I WANT TO.
I wonder if I’m being unfair towards gymnastics? We’ll see how the tumbling class goes- it’ll be a good way to dip our toes in.
I do like a really buttery buttercream frosting, but I haven’t found a good recipe for that yet.
I love that reframing of “it’s not a problem if we have the money to fix it.” That can really make a big inconvenience feel much more doable!
HOORAY for finding your raincoat! That must have been such a huge relief. I always hate when I lose something that’s not cheap to replace.
Homegoing is one of my all-time faves so I concur with Engie’s opinion to move it up your list. So good!
Okay- Homegoing is going on my 2024 list then! I think I had just read the Vanishing Half when I got Homegoing and it seemed really similar so I didn’t start it right away.
I’ll 3rd the recommendation for moving Homegoing up the list. I hope we aren’t overselling it but it is an amazing book!
I need to cull our kids books. Taco just turned 3 so he is sort of outgrowing his board books. We moved the board books out of our older son’s room when Taco was born as he was getting more interested in picture books at that time (Paul was just shy of 3 when Taco was born). I think Taco would like some of the picture books in Paul’s room. But I don’t want to push him out of board books. I am certainly overthinking this, though.
I’m sorry to hear about the water problems, though! What a hassle! And yes it is better when you have money to throw at a problem but it also requires time and you guys are busy!
I feel like gymnastics studios can be so different from place to place. Our boys went to gymnastics classes for a year+ but it was more about gross motor development? So probably more similar to My Gym. The studio was split in 2 with one side being for preschoolers and younger and then the other side looking more like a traditional gymnastics studio. The boys enjoyed the classes, but we canceled our membership in November because Paul wasn’t LOVING going, he didn’t have much in the way of natural ability/wasn’t progressing, and I was very tired of hearding Taco through the parent/tot class (which I described as taking a cat to gymnastics class). So now Taco doesn’t have any activities, which is fine, and Paul is in karate and swimming lessons. I would like to find a chess club for him. I found a free one at a library so we might check that out this winter/spring. But I’m trying to toe the line and not put him in TOO many things.
Ugh, lining up summer care can be so hard! Paul started going to our public school program last year and I am so glad he loved it because it is so easy to sign him up and we are basically guaranteed a spot since we use their before/after care programs. I had looked at doing some camps last summer and it was so overwhelming – and so competitive! And a lot of the programs started at, like 9 or 10am… So they aren’t designed for households like mine where both parents have to be at work at 7:45 ideally… So it is kind of nice that I only have to sign him up for the summer care program at his school. They do a great job entertaining them with weekly field trips and such.
I love seeing the pictures of Paul at swim lessons on your posts! I really want to get my two younger kids into swim lessons too, but it is so hard to get a slot at our county pool and I haven’t had the bandwidth to look into other programs. It is so important, though!
I agree that summer camp really isn’t meant for kids of parents who need full time child care coverage. A lot of programs here have before and/or after care, but you have to make sure to look for it. The simplest summer camp option is often the best, especially for younger elementary school age kids.