Geez, it's been 12 days since I've posted. Predictably, not much is happening right now, yet I feel quite overbusy nonetheless.
Work has continued to be crazy, which isn't helping as it creeps into my evenings here and there when I can't seem to string together enough focus during the day to get enough work done to meet deadlines. Jacob has been back to school for a couple weeks since their COVID-induced remote stint and seems to be doing well. He even made high honor roll! Carter is...Carter. On one hand he's been a bit better about getting his school work done, and on the other we got an unfortunate email from his music teacher talking about an incident at school. On one hand he's been managing rather well with significantly reduced access to devices this week, and on the other he's still trying to sneak off with one or complaining about wanting to get on one at inopportune times. My goal is to reduce his time enough that his brain slows down, which might help school and discipline issues, and remind him if he wants Santa to bring him toys, he should probably prove he actually remembers how to play with toys. The final straw for me was the endless arguing we were doing every time he had to get off the devices. He wouldn't listen, would delay ("I'm just finishing this"...15 minutes later), and generally tantrum every time we had to do bed, school, etc. Less time = less arguing, simple as that. Less successful sticking to it this weekend, but it's definitely easier on school days to track his time or use it strategically.
Both kids have been getting on each others' nerves a lot (and in turn ours, too), probably in part because the reduced use of electronics means that Carter is out in the rest of the house playing and generally wreaking havoc with his high energy. The current battle is that both boys have elaborate setups in the living room. Jacob's is mainly Lego, and Carter's is something out of Toy Story - a weird combination of army guys, Imaginext figures and forts, magnetic tiles, Playmobil, and whatever else. Carter likes to do sprints through the house and inadvertently steps on or knocks over Jacob's stuff, which causes Jacob to react by destroying something of Carter's. They go back and forth like this (and sometimes the "accidents" may be a bit more on purpose) and it turns into this giant battle. I'm pretty sure the UPS guy probably felt like he should call the cops the other day when he definitely heard us screaming through the window just as a more epic battle than usual broke out. Sigh. We can't even get peace in our living room, let alone peace on earth, this time of year.
One highlight was Craig's birthday last Sunday. Jacob and I had been looking forward to it a lot because I totally scored on a gift this year! For the longest time, Craig has been wanting The Office-themed version of the board game Clue. However, it was only available from one store and it was close to $50, which seemed a bit steep for a board game. But one day that store's ad popped up in my Facebook, and the game was on sale for well within what I would normally spend on a gift, so I couldn't grab my credit card fast enough! But then I had to sit with the sealed shipping box on the floor in our room for a month since I didn't want to risk opening it and having him even see the shape of a wrapped gift. Jacob and I had a "yay" moment the night before his birthday as we walked through a game store in the mall and another version of Clue prompted him mentioning The Office version again, and we knew we had a winner! I also stopped in Five Below the day before and heard someone raving about one of those ring lights, and since lighting has been an issue for Craig's video calls all this time, I figured that might be a fun bonus for just $10. Sure enough, he loved his gifts!
As usual, Christmas season is screaming right along, although this year is definitely different. No holiday parties, no school events, and much less shopping. There are a handful of gifts we don't need to buy because we're not doing extended family gatherings this year. That has made these last couple weeks a lot less stressful, but it's definitely not a good trade-off. I know it's important, though. I see people encouraging gathering because life is short and we shouldn't live in fear, but for me it comes down to this--I'd rather sacrifice this year and hope for next year, rather than find myself personally responsible for the lack of someone next year. I'd rather do what I think is right and safest, and if God forbid something happens to that person before next year, it wasn't meant to be. But I'd rather know I did what I could than know I put someone at risk. Of course, this theory has limits--I'd rather not leave my parents alone for Christmas, for example. But my aunts and uncles have other family to do that same thing for them--they don't need me to add to their risk. So we hope for next year.
This year, I guess I'm feeling a little...numb. At times I'm just plain sad, but then I remind myself that we're so blessed to have so much family to be with most years, and as of now, everyone is still healthy. We have a beautiful new tree that I love, the rest of the house is cozily decorated, and we truly have more than we could ever need. We can be sad to not see family this year since it really is the heart of the holiday for both of us, but we really shouldn't wallow there because it's just temporary. We have daily reminders that hundreds of thousands of families are experiencing more permanent loss this year, so our sacrifice seems small. Despite these challenges, we still have the ability to have a lovely Christmas. The kids will still do plenty well, and we'll still have some limited immediate family time, even if it's masked.
The other night I had to pick up some online order gifts for Carter at Target and took the opportunity to shop for two single mom families we adopted through work. I was buying one gift per kid--settling on Mega Bloks for one kid who wanted building blocks and this awesome LeapFrog laptop/tablet thing for the kid who wanted a light-up toy. Both moms are struggling with income this year (one is on bedrest for pregnancy and one has reduced work hours due to the pandemic), and it felt like such a responsibility to give these kids wonderful gifts since a shiny, bright Christmas isn't a given for them. I can't imagine knowing as a parent that I can't afford to make Christmas feel magical for my kids. I never realized until I was a parent how challenging the Santa thing can be, between trying to keep your kids' expectations in check (because Santa can do anything) and trying to carefully explain how Santa brings such a wide range of gifts to different kids (and in some cases barely anything) without giving away the secret. I really hope we can do wonderful things for these kids, and bring relief to their moms. When you have perspective like that, it's hard to feel sad about any part of our holiday.
Like I said, numb is the best way to describe my mood. Normally by now I feel like I'd be getting into the holiday excitement (stress aside), but without events and other contextual clues, the build-up just feels different. Christmas music and movies only do so much, and I guess without the extra deep thinking that normally goes into the extra gift buying we're not doing, certain pieces are just missing. The Christmas lights around town have been much appreciated, but we haven't had much snow so it still feels a little "fake". But aside from the sadness over the loss of family time, I guess I'm just devoid of other emotion. I'm just sort of going through the motions, getting stuff done, and and hoping spirit strikes soon. I'm better than I was a couple weeks ago, for sure, but definitely not where I usually am. I think part of it is that we've had such a challenging year overall that I've either already exhausted my emotional reserves or am just guarding myself against getting too high or too low. Since we already know it's going to be a non-standard holiday, I'm just mentally preparing for that. There's still a chance things could go even further downhill if someone gets sick, so I'm just trying to manage that sadness and worry, and keep any excitement in check so my expectations don't make reality any worse. It's not that there isn't a hint of excitement or anticipation here or there, but it's just not making it to the surface as easily.
Of course, the problem with all of this is that it's just adding one more thing to the "incompletes" I've mentioned previously - all of the events that didn't happen, the summer without vacations, the gatherings we skipped, all of the traditions that usually make the seasons what they are. Because so much of that never happened, our perception of time and "life completeness" is just totally off-kilter. This will just add to it. If we don't see our extended families, did Christmas really happen? As it is this whole year feels like a weird waste, or at the very least a long delay on really "living". I think about how it's pushing back the vacations we really want to do--Disney (which feels harder this week since Craig and I were there 13 years ago right now--today was Animal Kingdom day!), visiting my brother out in Portland, our eventual dream to go to Germany and Poland before Craig turns 50--and so many other smaller things that just couldn't happen this year. It's just not safe to do that stuff right now, no matter how badly we want to, and I worry about how it will impact our schedules to make things up moving forward.
Incidentally, I realized this week that I think my money philosophies have shifted a bit in the midst of this. I haven't figured out which factors are contributing the most:
- If it's a touch of depression and not caring
- If it's a "you only get one life" thing and feeling a touch of regret we didn't do more while we could
- If it's less worry over money because we saved a bunch on gas and child care
- If it's resignation that house things are important because we're here all the time
- If it's just grasping at straws by filling the empty places with whatever might bring joy
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