School for 7th and 4th grade started over 6 weeks ago now and it started off quite well! My girl was familiar w/ her school and the new middle school scheduling. My son seemed happy to head back to school and we quickly got into our rhythm. We'd wake around 7:00, my son's school starts first so he gets ready--mostly on his own. I don't have to nag much, just more reminders about brushing teeth. He's a big eater in the morning so I know he'll find himself something to eat, cereal, peanut butter toast, etc.. We leave for the bus at 7:35 AM (School starts at 8:10AM). It's kind of ridiculous, but I don't care that I drive him to the bus stop. I don't like the heat, bugs, and humidity....so we wait for the bus in the air conditioned car. So much better. Once he's off on the bus I'll head back home. My girl usually wakes up before we leave for the bus so I'll come back and find her laying on the sofa watching cartoons. She'll relax until 8-ish, then get herself ready. My only job is to make sure she's eaten something (not a morning eater), brushed her teeth, and fill her water bottle/snack if she wants one. Then, she was taking the bus in the morning too....her bus is supposed to come at 8:29AM, but it's consistently late. She no longer wants mom to go to the bus stop w her....apparently there is a bunch of kids there. So, I have her wear the apple watch and she leaves the house about 8:20AM. Once she's on the bus she scans her badge and I get a notice. Then it's just me.
For the first week I used that time to just decompress after the whirlwind summer. I started to think through what projects I want to do, and really how I want to spend my time. Do I want to go back to work? Do I want to finally do whatever renovation I had in mind?
So.............after the new windows got installed week of August 12th, I realized that paying a large sum of money wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. Once I wrote the checks and credit card swipes, the money left my account, and that was that. I didn't regret it. I didn't stew over it. My mom ALWAYS said growing up you can't take your money with you when you go. She was a very generous person, always donating to church, to the people ringing the bells at christmas time outside of stores, she always chose a child's name from a tree to donate a gift, etc.. She was much more generous than I am. It's the truth. I have always saved and saved, and I am quite frugal--because to me, money = freedom. It gives me choices, which gives me a lot of peace. And that's why I'm in the excellent financial situation I am in. I worked in corporate america for almost 20 years, I maxed out saving to my 401k from the get go every company I was with. I did several corporate relocations which are lucrative, I also had a side hustle (which at the time didn't realize that was the term) of real estate rentals and investment properties. I'm really proud of myself and always said my goal was to have enough to stop working when my son was going to kinder to be a stay at home mom if I wanted to. Goal accomplished. I'm really proud.
I've digressed here.
Anyway, all that to say it's hard for me to spend money. Small amounts, no problem, but large amounts brings me a lot of anxiety. So, after doing the windows and realizing it wasn't that bad........
I can't believe it but after two years of thinking and planning, I'm actually going to do the kitchen renovation! I stressed and hemmed and hawed and finally signed the contract early September.
You might think demo has already started but here's where I've surprised even myself. After talking w/ contractor and designer, I mentioned that I've always wanted more space i.e. turn the attic into a bonus room. In this phase of our lives, I feel like we just need more space. And, I don't want to move....I've come to that conclusion because I looked again a few months ago at real estate in Wisconsin where our extended family lives and got excited, thought about the possibilities of getting out of this heat, and then researched schooling. That's where it kind of crashed and burned. It's not the academics itself, it's the complete lack of diversity. And I mean complete. I looked through all the pictures at the middle and high school current staff. Maybe all but 2 appeared Caucasian. I have a huge problem with this. I love how much of a melting pot we live in. My son's best friend Aarav is Indian, Ata is Turkish, James is Japanese, my girl's good friend Selina is Asian/Brazilian. There's such a benefit, almost indescribable, to me about living in a place where you are surrounded by differences. There's learning in that, in and of itself. It's hard for me to imagine living somewhere that is 90+% white. It bothered me to my core.
So, I put thinking about moving on the backshelf....again.
Having said that, if we are going to stay in this house.....then I just want to make it functional for this stage of our lives. So, after discussions w/ contractor/designer....if I'm going to do a bonus room, it doesn't make sense to finish a complete kitchen/flooring/painting reno, then disturb everything we just did to make a bonus room. I agree. The current thinking after last week is to do it all at the same time. The architect and designer are discussing a new drawing/plan to include the bonus room, so the contractor can then get me a cost estimate. It will be outrageously expensive, I think. But man would I love to be able to let the kids go upstairs when their friends come over (which is all the time), have more storage, etc, etc..
I went from doing nothing for a few years, to now wanting to do everything. I'm excited, actually...from a real estate perspective you can't go wrong (usually) w/ adding square footage......and then sometimes think what the heck am I doing. I'll wait to see the numbers about the bonus room and go from there. I've already signed the contract to do the kitchen, etc. so I know I will at least do that part. Once we decide on bonus room, then everything will get started.
Our nice school schedule was going well for the first week and then.....the head PE coach at the middle school had a group of 7th grade girls together and "encouraged" them if they were going to try out for basketball, then they really should sign up for cross country now. WHAT? My daughter texted me from school that day, with the coach standing there, asking if she could sign up. What was I going to say? I asked if she really wanted to, and she said yes. So, I said yes. She talked about maybe doing it before school started, then decided no. Well, when you have an adult saying you should do it, pressuring you into it....the coach was there telling kids what to text their parents....of course she'd bend to the coach. Really disappointed in how the coach handled it. So, we started cross country's 7 week season on August 19th.
It was a shock to all of our systems....getting up at 6AM Monday-Friday leaving at 6:30AM. Traveling to the school, practice starting at 7AM, then her going to school after that-School starts at 8:55 for her, and not getting home from the bus until almost 5PM. My girl's friend Selina was in that group also and her mom texted me if we could carpool, YES! So I end up driving the girls Mon/Tue, she drives Thurs/Fri and we trade wednesdays. The first meet was on Sept 5th at 5:30 pm, thankfully they do not have practice on the days of meets. The meets are once a week for 5 weeks at different schools and are all designed for the kids to run in grades/genders...7th grade girls go first, then 7th boys, etc..and are a mile and a half long. We were SO lucky the first meet it rained because....well, we live in the south. It is SO unbearably hot still. The next meet the feels like temp was in 90's-100's. By the third meet it was in the 100's, and after running my girl just about collapsed afterwards....we can leave as soon as her group is done, but riding home she took a half an hour to calm down, restore her breathing, and cool off. Once we got home she just laid out on the floor under the ceiling fan for another half an hour. It was brutal. She decided not to run the 4th meet last week due to such high temps, but it's not like she just came home, she just went to theater rehearsal instead (theater has started up or her too and a few days every week she gets up at 6, practices, school, then theater 4-6, I pick her up and home at 6:30. And theater on Saturdays from 10-4 or 10-1 also.) That's more than a 12 hour day for a 12 year old--It's just too much.
I can't be more proud of her, though, because she's stuck with it. She's exhausted but has kept pushing and didn't quit. I wouldn't have been upset if she did. But, this week is the last week for practices (today/tomorrow, then districts 5th meet on Wednesday). That will finish out the season. How did she do? With her long legs, I thought running would be a breeze for her, but it's not. It's hard....distance running is tough. She was so upset after the first meet with her time because she was one of the last to finish from our school of 7th grade girls. But, the next meet her time improved a ton and she was thrilled, and then the third meet it was brutally hot and she had to walk some during, which slowed her down. It's been challenging for her. She's hard on herself about how she performs but I have to keep reminding her, this is her FIRST time doing the sport, her FIRST time ever running distance.....she's competing against kids where this is what they do. I've done my best to pump her up this season because she didn't give up, she's worked incredibly hard....and I'm amazed at her resilience. Yes girl. I tell her I'm proud all the time to make sure she hears it. She's really gotten fit w/ building muscle, etc. which means I've been doing lots of muscle massage. Since an early age she's liked muscle massage, I used to do it to help calm her a lot....She'd have me do her legs/calves and shoulders every night if I would.
I was initially worried about how all of the extra curricular activities would affect her academics. It started off a bit rough in math as they are now doing algebra. She came home just devastated about her first math test and failing it. I'm thankful that her friend Parker's mom is a math whiz and offered to tutor her a bit. Well, something 'clicked' after that first session and she's done so much better....for the first 6 weeks she got all A's, even in Math. This kid has really shined. I keep using the word resilient. It's a heavy load for such a young kid and she's managed. And thrived. Just YES! And she's physically growing as well....she's getting close to 5'5" already....and just beautiful.
All that to say, I've done a ton of driving around since school started. My son also started soccer with practices on Tuesdays and Fridays, and games on Saturdays. Thankfully there are 2 other boys on the team we carpool with so that is helpful. He then decided he needed to work on his endurance/stamina for running, so joined the school's running club which is Thursdays AM at 7:30.
So, I'm either running TO or FROM somewhere....taking/dropping off/picking up/going in circles. My calendar is full with all of their activities, not to mention my girl likes going to church w/ Parker, the sleep overs, the play dates. This is full time mom stuff!
My son's 4th soccer game this past Saturday was extra special. I mentioned in the past that we've loved his coaches Aaron and Michael. They've been his soccer coaches for 4-5 seasons 2-3 years, and they are just solid men. Patient, positive, encouraging, smart. We got so lucky. Anyway, their two boys have now moved to club, but Aaron/Michael reached out about when my son's games are so they can come watch. Sure enough, Aaron, his wife, and son that now plays club came this past Saturday to watch the boys....there are 4 of them on my son's current team that used to play together for Aaron/Michael. Our team won the game and my son even scored a goal. It was just awesome to see that after the game when my son came over to the audience and finally saw coach Aaron---he got this massive smile on his face and went and hugged him. OMG that was just so cool.
Something else I remembered that I don't think I wrote about is how much emotion my son can have. When my kiddos went to Amy's this summer we planned for about max 2 weeks. I had a feeling 14 days would be too long and I think it ended up being about 10 days. We usually each drive and meet in the middle about 3 hours and then the kids switch cars/stuff. This time when we were driving to pick each other up I really became emotional. I missed them and my heart just was sad......I got to the pick up location first and was just waiting for them. When I saw Amy's car come over the hill I just bursted with emotion and started crying. I'm waving frantically at them when I see them and couldn't wait to get out of the car.
Once they pulled up, it was like in a movie.......I jumped out of the car and as soon as my son stopped he got out of the car and we both had tears streaming down our faces.....running towards each other.....arms stretched out.....and finally embraced in the deepest hug possible. Later on he said "Mom, as soon as I saw your car I just started crying and couldn't stop"......I literally have tears now remembering it. It was so special, so touching, so soul-filling.....I just love them so much. We both were embraced saying how much we missed each other. I'll never forget it.
It took a pretty funny turn as well because.....as my son and I were bawling/hugging....my daughter walks up straight-faced and says, "uhhhh, am I supposed to be crying too?"
LOL.
Along with the intense happy emotions, he also has intense irritable/temper emotions. Lately it's been a struggle when he gets tired, sick, irritable, he lashes out by shouting a lot at me or his sister. This is obviously not ok, but I've been at a loss as to how to manage. He learned that from me, unfortunately. I can stay calm for quite awhile, but when I'm pushed past, I do yell. Now, to be fair it takes a lot for me to get there..... and he's getting there almost every night, and it's really been a lot lately. I've had several conversations with him to say it's okay to have emotions and be angry, it's not ok to yell at someone. I for sure don't want his sister being yelled at nightly. I tell him she does not deserve that. On the flip side, I've had to talk w/ her about recognizing when he's at the edge to not provoke him. She'll see it and still do one more thing, say one more comment and he just explodes. It happening almost nightly lately. I've researched what to do about kids with tempers, shouting, etc and some of the advice is terrible....tell them to go do cartwheels, or draw. Ummm, when I'm angry that's the last thing I want to do. So, I try the--hey, take some time by yourself, breathe, etc..and come back when you are ready. I have to be firm that emotions are ok....yelling is not. And work on modeling that myself. Maybe it's just a phase he's in...he's about to be 10. He has to somehow get those emotions out, but in a more constructive way. Sigh.
So, lots going on...my kids are busy which means I am busy....I am about to embark on a remodel of some scope...big, or bigger, we shall see.
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