Light and Momentary

Seven Quick Takes: Feast Day Trifecta Edition

1. Happy beheading day!

That is probably a weird beginning after a three-week absence. But I love this series of feast days: St. Monica, patron of mothers and people who pray about something big for a long discouraging string of years; St. Augustine, of "our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee" fame; St. John the Baptist, my weight loss role model.

2. It would probably be TMI to tell you that one of my children got started on this date in 2001, so I won't tell you that. But when a pregnancy begins and ends on two different St. JtB feasts, a person feels sort of obligated to acknowledge the connection in naming the resulting baby.

3. I am two weeks into the semester and mostly very happy. I love my classes; I love my job. It's a lot of work, but I am grateful for it every day.

4. Work is doing a number on my workout schedule. I am trying to decide if it is too extravagant to join the campus fitness center. Would I really swim at lunchtime and finish my Monday work more quickly so I could go to open climb in the afternoon? Or would I fail to do those things and feel guilty about it? It is kind of weird to see my students at the fitness center, but perhaps the invisibility conferred by a swim cap and googles would help. Speaking of which: I must tell you more about swimming soon.

5. This is day 30 of the Whole30, and I am trying to figure out what comes next. I have not been following the don't-weigh-yourself rule, which is how I know that I had lost 11.6 pounds as of a few days ago. More importantly, though, my brain is working really well: my focus and equilibrium are better than they've been in...I don't know how long.

But a life with no legumes and no grains and no dairy and no sugar and no white potatoes and no alcohol and no sulfites and no for-Pete's-sake carageenan is a complicated life. My vegetarian son is SO over it.

6. Kids are doing well at school, although I had to scramble home from the office yesterday to take my kindergartner some fresh clothes. Someone jostled her off a wall outside and her nose bled all over her clothing. :-( No lasting harm done, though.

7. I feel much more confident about determining how much independence is the right amount of independence for younger kids than I do about figuring it out for teens. My oldest is in his second year of college classes and wants to hang out with his college friends a lot. A LOT.

I wonder if I will be better at these decisions by the time my kindergartner is a teenager, or if I will just be really tired.

More quick takes at Jen's.

Seven Quick Takes: Fading Amaryllis Edition

1. I am totally taken with this image of Our Lady with DPNs. (This version is available here.) Does anyone know anything about it? I first saw it labeled as the Annunciation, but isn't that Jesus with the book? Aren't the two of them kicking back at home, when some angels come with a crown of thorns and three nails? Even though she lived a thousand years before the invention of knitting, I bet Mary would have been a knitter if she'd had the opportunity.

2. I myself am also working on the yoke of a sweater. Isn't that the prettiest cable? (Mine needs blocking, but I have high hopes for it.) It's a Kate Davies design called Braid Hills. I should be able to seam the shoulders this weekend, and then I'll just have the sleeves and the neckband to go. Perhaps it is a little silly to feel impatient about finishing a wool sweater in August, but impatient I am nonetheless. I started this a year ago, and let it languish all winter. Time to get this puppy bound off.

3. My 14yo would prefer it if my knitting energy were channeled in a different direction. I am also working on this sock's mate (shown here with a map and itinerary from his trip to Philmont Scout Ranch, a highlight of his summer), but it is not calling to me this week.

4. Perhaps I should be thinking a bit less about knitting and a bit more about work, since this is the first day of my contract. I'm most of the way there on my work goals, though: I have a bit of work to do (a couple of hours' worth) before I resubmit my rejected manuscript, and I haven't started scheduling interviews for my new project. I haven't yet published my course websites, since I want to swoop through the syllabi once more. But I think (I hope!) I'm in reasonably good shape. (If you could spare a prayer: editors are making a decision on a manuscript I wrote last semester. I would SO LOVE for it to be in this journal.)

5. The high school boys (plural! a senior and a freshman!) are back in school, and the other kids return Monday. Last night at open house Stella said, "I'm so excited about this place!" and her soon-to-be kindergarten teacher said, "This is the most exciting place in the world." Of course, then we went to the fourth grade classroom, where my sweet 9yo learned that his best friends both have the teacher we wanted for him -- and he does not. But the other teacher is not bad, just new. Here's to a good year for both of them.

6. The kids have been troupers this summer, faithfully helping me clean out the basement in exchange for chocolate and the occasional lunch out. It's about 80% less disgusting down there, which feels like an accomplishment. A couple of key realizations: first, in an old house, where the mechanicals are scattered all across the basement instead of clustered in one spot, your beautification options are limited. But, second, even if "beautiful" feels overwhelming, "more functional" is within reach.

7. Have you heard of the Whole30? I am doing the Whole 30. It is a little crazy, but it is a doable kind of crazy. This is day 16, and I am feeling like a font of energy and focus. A sweet-tempered font of energy and focus, even. 

Happy feast day, y'all! Go read more quick takes at Jen's.

Sane Mom Revolution

Bearing is trying to get a #sanemomrevolution hashtag to go viral over on Twitter. If you have tales to tell of successful adventures in kid independence, take 'em to Twitter and hashtag away! 

I was trying to think about what to share, but no good tweets were springing to mind. I think my problem is that it doesn't really seem revolutionary to me to let my kids have some independence. I made a flow chart to illustrate my thinking (click to enlarge):

(The flowchart could be a problem if this hashtag actually goes viral. Y'all don't need me to tell you that the hail thing is a joke, but strangers on the internet get a little crazy sometimes.)

I was thinking about how our kids expect to get themselves to and from sports practices if it's feasible, and about how they're not afraid to take the city bus with a sibling, and about how my 9yo frets over polluting cars and prefers to walk, and about how I plan for the 9yo and the 5yo to walk to and from school this fall without my supervision.

But maybe my best argument today for a Sane Mom Revolution is this: my two teenagers, now 14 and 17, were slouching in front of screens this afternoon when I said, "Hey, did you guys want to see that Shakespeare tragedy? This matinee is your last chance. You'd have to go right now." I kid you not: they jumped up and put on their shoes. My oldest said, "What's the best way to walk to that building?" and then answered his own question. They marched over to the box office and bought their own tickets, and I have every confidence that they are sitting quietly through the performance right now.

It might not be Shakespeare for your family. (Okay, it probably won't be Shakespeare, because I know we are a little weird about Shakespeare. When we told the 5yo she was too small to go this summer she wailed, "But I loooove Shakespeare." Also, totally unrelated to the rest of this post but right on topic for this parenthetical comment, how cute is this picture?) Anyway-- maybe the leisure activity you hope your kids will enjoy as adults is running or biking or museum-ing or coffeehouse chess or something entirely different. Or maybe you just wish your kids could run down to CVS and pick up a new toothbrush while you cook dinner. Entertaining oneself in the real world, running errands capably alone-- these are important life skills that do not descend on kids like an anvil made of competent adult-ness. It used to be completely normal for kids to walk themselves to the ice cream store, allowance in hand.

Let's make it normal again.