He's mostly unclean, and now he's 13

 Dear G,

You are now in the greasy stage of your life. 

Thirteen years ago, you were in what I call the "wormy" stage of life when you just wiggled and slept and didn't do anything to make me think you were a vertebrate. 

You were a worm, but a cute and chubby one. 

Anyway, now at 13 (officially) your hair is literally so greasy that I refuse to hug you some days until or unless you take a bath and wash it. 

You are approximately 2 inches shorter than me now when barefooted and you are rock solid. I know this because when you sometimes come downstairs in the morning and sit on my lap, it is like a gigantic boulder of butt muscle has planted itself on my thighs.  I know this will only get worse the bigger and taller you get. 

But it will one day make for some hilarious photo recreations. 

You are more and more a young man. (With nice hair, I must say.)

Last week you got braces, which you wanted to go ahead and get done because as you said, "7th grade sucks anyway."

The older you get, the more like your dad you become.

Like the pandemic and online school has totally been NBD for you. You and your dad are both like, "What? Talk to people? Like....in real life?" Staying at home and playing video games is what you were born to do. 

The pandemic did put a huge kink in all the work you had done with your OCD therapy, but you are doing ok. The two of us went out to buy you new shoes last weekend and we finished in 30 minutes. And neither of us yelled or came out bloody. It was a miracle!

You also got new shorts and shirts (size men's small) this summer and have worn them without incident.

Sometimes you are a giant pain in the butt, but we realized at some point that without you in the family, we would have like zero memorable stories from vacations and stuff.

If it wasn't for you getting your hand stuck in the lobster statue in Edisto Island, we might not even remember that trip, for example.

If you hadn't thrown yourself dramatically on large rocks in the Rocky Mountains because we made you hike and you were overwhelmed (and also a drama queen), we'd have no hilarious pictures to look at now.  

And this summer you were the only one to catch a big-ass fish when we had our family vacation!

You have always, always forged your own unique path, which has been a lot of a headache and also funny, but usually only when we're past it. 

Except for this which always was and always will be hilarious. 

(Gangnam Style, yo)

Being your mom has made me learn a lot about patience and anxiety and the need to be chill since together we are both very low on chill. 

Being your mom has helped me be a better person, I think. 

I'm so proud of the young man you are becoming, and I hope I can guide you to be genuinely yourself in a world that likes to pigeonhole people. 

I love you, weirdo.

Momma

Captain's log: It's all meh

 It's day "Who Knows" here on the ship.

I'd like to tell the world and Mother Nature that me dealing with perimenopause is a TERRIBLE time to also have a worldwide pandemic meaning I have zero time alone in my house. 

Someone is always around...even if they aren't bothersome. And sometimes just being not bothersome but around is really, really annoying. 

Also sometimes the pre-teen comes upstairs near my former-dining-room-now-office with his headset on yapping at his friend, and it is all I can do not to strangle him because of all the dumb that is seeping out of his mouth and into the air. 

The kids are doing ok with online school. They like sleeping in. They like not being in a school building for 7+ hours. 

I'm ok with online school because it is giving some structure to their days. 

We're not setting the world on fire with genius over here, but we weren't before the pandemic either. 

I have actually been subbing 3 days a week for the past 3 weeks, which is ok. (Although I will not be sad when it is over because, whether it is online or not, it is still subbing. I don't do it for the joy; I do it for the regular paycheck.)

My left eye is red today which may be due to getting a flu shot yesterday, or it may be due to not sleeping well on Sunday night. Sometimes that happens, and it is annoying.

My dermatologist had to cut a spot off the back of my leg. She asked me if that was ok. I told I didn't want it to begin with and she could have it. 

My dad had a big ole cancerous spot cut out of his face last week and has been doing his best impression of an extra on The Pirates of the Caribbean movie (in terms of big slashy scars on the face). While the cancer hasn't spread to lymph nodes or beyond, his doctors want him to do chemo in addition to radiation. While we are happy it hasn't spread and things could be worse, the word chemo just feels heavy even if it is preventative. 

G becomes an actual full-fledged teenager in days, and he is all kinds of almost the same size as me. He is wearing a size 9 wide men's shoe now, which is trippy as heck. 

And N is talking playing field hockey in college which is only like minutes away.

Someone from a recruiting outfit called me and didn't seem to understand that "I don't like sports and haven't videotaped my kid play because that would interfere with the READING I do at her games." 

Yes, I totally said this to him. I'm pretty sure no one has ever said this to him based on his response.

I have a dentist appointment this week.

So life is not bad by a long shot but it feels so, so meh. 

Shit pot stirrer or the person who wants the shit out of the pot and cleaned?

It has occurred to me (and perhaps to some people who know me) that I might be thought of as a person who stirs the shit pot.

However, I don't seek out drama. The reason I have long been Beautification Chairperson at my kids' elementary school is that I hate drama, cliques, and discussing/debating things that aren't gonna matter 5 months from now (such as what kind of cheap Oriental Trading festival prizes to get). 

I am perfectly happy being not-in-the-middle of things.

I am perfectly happy to extend grace to others. 

I don't complain to the manager. I don't leave bad Yelp reviews. 

However, if I see crap going on that is consistently corrupt, unjust, inconsistent, poorly managed, or thoughtless, I may say and/or do something IF such things are likely to matter 5 months from now. 

Unfortunately, I think that for some people, a requirement for being a "team player" means being the type of person who blindly goes along with anyone without thinking and/or making necessary changes. 

I am not a wet-carpet, sure-go-ahead-and-walk-all-over-me type of person. 

Last week, I nominated myself for the SBDM at N's high school. 

If I am elected, great. Maybe I can help make good things better and bad things ok.

If I am not elected, great. Then I don't have to listen in on meetings that will almost certainly go on longer than I think is necessary and/or fruitful. 

Last week, I also went to tryouts to help "monitor" the mask-wearing by the girls on the field hockey team. 

I don't actually care if they have a season. 

I have zero  (-200) interest in sports. 

Sure, I would console with N about any sadness/disappointment she would have if the season didn't happen or ends early, but I also think about people during civil wars who give up EVERYTHING for years, and I think a lost season due to a pandemic is relatively small beans. 

I called out some girls who kept pulling down their masks, which I'm sure they didn't appreciate. 

Some people might think this was stirring a shit pot. I look at it as trying to keep the pot COVID-free so these girls can have a season that they (but not I) care about. 

Another way in which I might be considered a shit-pot-stirrer is that I don't do things because someone somewhere decided that this is what a person "should" do. I like to do some actual thinking about why I'm doing whatever I'm doing or not doing. 

If I'm being paid to do or not do something, I consider that. 

If it is illegal to do or not do something, I consider that. 

If it harms or potentially harms another person's body or feelings, I consider that. 

But if it doesn't meet any of those criteria, I may very likely decide I'm gonna do what I want. 

For example, last night at N's game before which the national anthem instrumental was played, I remained seated. 

I wasn't getting paid. I didn't break the law. And I didn't harm anyone. 

I personally think playing the national anthem should be like telling someone you love them. It should be something special, meaningful, carefully selected, and meant when it is done. It makes a little sense for the exception for the national anthem to be played for national leagues (NBA, NFL). I have no problem with the national anthem at special government events/functions. Olympics games....go for it.

But average Tom, Dick, and Harry elementary, middle school, high school, college sporting event? 

C'mon. 

Did my not standing hurt someone's feelings? (And yes, I have thought about that.)

It may have hurt someone's sensibilities, but those are not the same as feelings. 

If all of this aforementioned stuff means I'm a shit-pot stirrer, well, I guess I'll accept the title. 

But I respectfully disagree with that assessment. 

Adjustment to online school during COVID (and what school is and isn't)

Before the district made the decision to go to full online school, I had asked N how she felt about the possibility of going to school in-person.

As the oldest and most social of my children, I felt like she would be the one most impacted by being at home. 

Her response surprised me.

She said she didn't trust fellow students to make smart choices for themselves and others and that going to school in person would cause her anxiety.

I had determined that if the district went back in person I was going to have my kids do online work and resign as a sub. 

Things for these first days have been somewhere between alright and crappy, depending on the moment, which I think sums up the entirety of 2020. 

It's not fantastic; it's not knocking anyone's socks off, but we're hanging in. 

If nothing else, the kids have a routine again.

And there ARE positives to this online school thing, such as not having middle and high school students wake up at 5:30 in the morning in order to be at school by 7:20. 

I'm enjoying not driving all over creation all the time.

I'm glad my kids are not having to do the reams of waiting that is just part of in-school school. Waiting in the gym before they can go to their classes in the morning. Waiting for announcements to begin. Waiting to line up and then waiting in line for the doofuses to get in line or stop talking. Waiting in line at the bathroom. Waiting in line in the cafeteria. Waiting at the end of the day after they've gotten their stuff ready. (I don't think most parents have any clue how much time in school is spent not doing "learning" as they envision it.)

And that's not all the waiting. There is also the waiting that kids do whether they pick up things quickly, in which case they finish up and are told to "read to themselves" which is also known as "waiting." The kids who don't pick up things quickly have to wait for the teacher to move on from another student that needs individual attention.

I'm not saying this to suggest in-school school is bad. What I'm saying is in-school school is imperfect. And just like when someone is deceased (which in a way is what COVID has done to in-person school), many people are making in-person school out to be the GOAT. We've now endowed sainthood on something that really didn't deserve it; we only act this way because we don't have it now. 

I have modified some of my expectations about things I want my kids to know and do mostly because I'm becoming very good at asking the question, "WHO DECIDED?"

Like "Who decided that it is the failing of civilization if kids don't learn cursive, and why am I allowing myself to think this is the case?"

So I'm having the boys practice their full legal names because, really, this is all they will ever need to sign in most cases. 

And if they decide to become scholars of primary source material they will be motivated on their own to figure it out. 

I think COVID can be an opportunity to parents, students, and really, anyone, to have the opportunity to ask "Who decided?" about a lot of things.