Happy New Year! It was a pretty slow holiday week here as a whole. I'd love to include photos in this post, but...I didn't really take any. I feel like I spent a lot of time in my spot on the couch, be it sleeping, blogging, on my phone, or watching whatever the boys were watching. We barely went anywhere aside from Jacob's games and a few errands.
Despite that, I somehow picked up a bit of a cold. I've been fighting it back with Zicam and I'm really hoping that continues to do the trick because I have somewhere to go this weekend! I'm supposed to visit my oldest, dearest friend and my godson. It's pretty important for me to figure out how to make this weekend
happen because Heather is having surgery shortly after and we need to
get in some quality time beforehand, both because we're overdue (I still
don't know where last year went) and because I think the diversion
might be helpful to ward off nerves for a bit! My godson is like a totally different kid since I
last saw him at our weirdly-warm-weather New Year's Eve Eve zoo trip a year ago. So, hopefully my hardcore zinc intake keeps working and the weather goes south, literally, because there's a storm headed for the Northeast, and Binghamton is currently just in the worst ring of it. Of course it is. It's the first time I've tried to go there in more than a year, NYC hasn't gotten more than an inch in something like two years, and we've had next to nothing all season, but now the weather needs to get funky just as I want to travel. Arg. Based on current forecasts I think I can pull it off, but I'm keeping a close eye.
As a result of the impending visit, I have been spending the last couple weeks (on and off, as the holidays and our usual laundry allowed) getting hand-me-downs together. It's been a crazy process this time around because of how things got packed away across multiple sizes and seasons--I was still finding 3T shorts in the 5/6 bins because Carter was so skinny! But it will be good to pass more along. I also bagged up three bags of clothing donations and gave away some things via our local Buy Nothing page the week before Christmas. I didn't get to drop off the donations until yesterday because I was busy, forgot, and then arrived 30 minutes after their new donation cut-off time on my last off-day. I also gave away our car booster seats over the last couple days, so that's two more things out of the crawl space. It's a good feeling to get rid of stuff we don't need, and part of me wants to do more of it, but the other part of me hates "wasting" things, or giving things up that we could use, or dealing with the nostalgia involved, so I'm torn. Even going through clothes we have zero use for was harder than it should have been. I had a whole bag of 2T stuff that snuck into bigger size bins, and is now too small for my godson, and it broke my heart a little to see some of the sentimental favorites I'll be passing along to a random stranger. I know they'll go to good use, but it's emotional. We have a lot of work to do with Carter's toys and books coming up (although I have a plan I'm pondering for our basement that might ease up some of the mess in both the living room and basement), so I'm trying to keep some momentum.
The only downside to being away this weekend is that our Christmas stuff will likely be stuck up through mid-January. Usually that's not a big issue for me, but this year I feel a bit more torn. I usually do get a little antsy to get back to normal, get that huge task done, and go back to a more minimalist home, but this year I'm also still looking at the decorations and appreciating them. I feel a little weird for doing so, mind you--I wish I could put away half of it so I don't seem to be irrationally clinging to Christmas quite so hard--but it's such a game of Tetris fitting everything in bins that I have to do it all at once. On the bright side, MLK Day will provide a long weekend for me to finally do it if the trip does as planned.
Speaking of time off, being at home for the better part of a week and a half was interesting. Jacob has still been spending a lot of time with basketball between practices and training, so I guess there's been a little less solid togetherness than usual, plus Craig had a road trip. But I will say that I think--for the most part--things have been a lot more functional around here than they used to be. In past years it was like a constant battle. Now the boys can actually be functional around one another sometimes. They bond over Fortnite or other Xbox games, although inevitably someone kills or beats someone in the game and they argue for a bit, but for the most part things have been much more peaceful. I can't even explain what a relief that is after so many years of constant friction. It finally feels more like a real family around here than it maybe ever has. That statement made me a little sad to admit, but it's true. Sometimes it's felt like we're parents parenting two only children very separately, but a lot of the time now it feels like we can do things as a family and not have everyone end up frustrated.
Carter is still spending too much time on screens but he did try to play with his Treasure X gift over the last couple weeks and did build a couple magnetic tile forts. He actually asked for more tiles for his birthday because he runs out of squares with his giant creations! I'm still pondering that request, but I don't have many ideas so it's worth considering. He's definitely my biggest challenge for figuring out how to manage his ADHD. The biggest battle with Jacob is just generally keeping things picked up--mostly clothes in his room and all the dishes and snacks around his couch spot. He loses or forgets things sometimes but mostly has a pretty good grasp on where his things are--or should be. Carter, on the other hand, is all over the place. I can barely function myself sometimes--as I've mentioned, I suspect I have a touch of ADHD as well--so to keep him organized has been more overwhelming to me in recent years. He leaves pieces of everything everywhere. His dresser is just piles of items discarded there the second his thoughts shifted--books, toys, papers, etc. His school desk and backpack are black holes. I desperately want to get his things organized so he can see what toys and things he has and easily access them. He also has some cool things to display. That's the only way to get him to use things he has because he doesn't have the patience to dig through things or think about his options when he can't clearly see them. I want to get him a storage desk to make homework easier and get him back to zero with the clutter. Maybe next school break!
Jacob is a bit of a mixed bag these days, as most teenagers are. Sometimes I get these glimpses of the cool young adult he's becoming, where we can talk and he's completely pleasant and even amusing. We still get the anxiety spikes, though, where he ruminates on things and can't let them go. He's frustrated with school again. Last year he was annoyed with his classmates' immaturity, and this year it's much the same, just the inner city version rather than the sheltered kid version. He gets annoyed that his classmates are actively doing things to go nowhere in life and screw up their own paths. He's essentially in a city school and despite thinking a charter school might handle things better, that's not the case and he's very upset by what he sees on a day-to-day basis, both with the kids' behavior and the lack of repercussions from the staff. He just isn't comfortable making friends with most of the kids, and something we thought could have a positive impact on his social awareness (learning about different kids from different social/cultural backgrounds) has probably only reinforced a lot of negative stereotypes because he doesn't understand so many things. Like why do they treat the teachers like crap? Why do they never show up to school, or how could they have parents that sometimes refuse to drive them to school? Why do they have super expensive things when they likely don't have a lot of money? He's honestly starting to agree with the conservatives to some degree (yikes) because he sees an entitlement attitude and a victim mentality, and it frustrates him. I can see why, since he's striving to do his best. If he sticks around this school, he'd have a legitimate shot at valedictorian, which is actually a little crazy. His grades are good, but the thought he could rank super high without much of an effort is a little sad. But truth be told, in his brain this was only supposed to be a year or two stop before prep school or something better, so I don't think he really thought it through, despite us reminding him of some of the downsides. He was so frustrated in his old school and we didn't have a lot of options, so we did what we had to, and now he's back to the "grass is greener" philosophy. He often makes his old school sound like a dream compared to now, which is honestly sort of exhausting for us as we're constantly reminding him how miserable he was. Sure, it's possible he's more miserable now, BUT that is also a reminder that something you think is bad may not be that bad, so you need to be a bit more careful about writing something off because the next thing could be worse. At this point he's angling to move to Buffalo because he decided he doesn't really want to do prep school and doesn't have a lot of options left here. But then he says he wants to go to U of R to play basketball and live at home, so apparently he just wants us to move all over for the next few years. Good times. He's also still dealing with a lot of frustration over his basketball/life balance because his practices are long and late and he's not allowed to leave school for more than 90 minutes despite practice being at 6pm because some of his teammates had issues making it back earlier in the season. He's missing time at home, dinners at home, and any time to decompress. And then his coach wants him to come to open gym at 6am some days, despite not getting home until 9:30, then having to eat and get some downtime, which means he's getting to bed way too late. It's not ideal but Craig and Jacob are hesitant to push back, even though Jacob is risking more overuse injuries. But he's playing well and averaging close to 10 points a game, so we're very proud of him for that.
Of course, because he's been frustrated, he's defaulting to his preferred escapist fantasy, which is going back to Disney. Part of me is happy he has enjoyed our time there so much that he wants to go back, and part of me is just rolling my eyes and shaking my head because we very clearly said we'd take a year off (unless Craig's parents wanted to go with us sooner, then we'd talk). He knows that, but he's still pretty stuck on it. He spent a lot of his time home over break watching Disney YouTube videos. He has a couple people whose videos he really likes and he will gladly watch their resort reviews or ride rankings. I feel like we will be really well prepared by the time we go back! He also watches abandoned place videos and some other random stuff, but the Disney stuff makes him happiest for sure. It's cute in a way, I suppose, for a kid who's so focused on basketball and seems probably a bit oddly mature compared to some kids to be somewhat obsessed with Disney. But his desire to run off there every time he gets frustrated is probably not the healthiest. I did tell him he should keep an eye on Spirit flights as that might be about the only way to get there sooner for a shorter trip, but apparently Spirit is beneath him. Ha.
As for myself, I really did try to find the balance between work and rest over the time I had off. I still have sleepy episodes that I swear are long COVID or something, so it was nice to just be able to give in to those sometimes. In addition to the hand-me-down project, I tried to clean and reorganize where I could, even if it was just getting my next round of to-dos in order. The house is still a mess from Christmas and being fully lived in for a solid ten days, but the kitchen floor did get a long-awaited full scrubbing, so at least there's that. That is one of those tasks that epitomizes why I think I have ADHD - it just got overwhelming and paralyzing after a while and I really needed to push myself to do it while I had the time and mental space. To be clear, I vacuum and clean the floor with a Wet Swiffer whenever there is noticeable mess, so it's not like it goes untouched for months. The floor actually hides dirt brilliantly because it's all shades of gray, but eventually I notice that the grooves in the textured surface start looking darker, and that's my cue that scrubbing might be needed. Despite going an embarrassingly long time without doing it, the water wasn't nearly as dirty as I feared, so I guess holding off wasn't terrible. It definitely made it easier to tell when I had scrubbed enough because those grooves were clean again. Getting it done was a huge victory. The whole donation thing was also a big win because that pile had taken over our spare room for months. I still have more to get rid of, but it's progress. Oh, and because the hand-me-downs are going, I have more free bins to pack away toys when we cross that bridge.
Now that we've been off the couch and back at normal life for a few days (minus me not being at work until today because of my cold), we're strapping in for January. Basketball will go a long way toward getting us through before we know it. I did my yearly wall calendar last night and when I hung it up I was shocked at the number of things on it for January, between Jacob's games, Craig's games, and Carter's upcoming basketball practices and games, plus a concert. We have a "social" bulletin board at work and the upcoming theme is surviving winter, and I think my submission might be "Have a kid who plays winter sports and a kid who has a winter birthday" as those both make this tough part of winter go by more quickly. I'm grateful for it, I must say, even if in my next breath I'll say that time is going by too quickly! The eternal conundrum of parenthood, I guess!
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