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-If I were doing gratitude things, my list this week would look like this:
1. Ibuprofen
2. Ibuprofen
3. Ibuprofen
...not that there aren't a host of other things I'm grateful for, but the signal for ibuprofen is swamping out everything else right now. I went last week around thinking that although I felt horrible at least it's not the flu! ...and then I started feeling even worse, and although I'm feeling a lot better than I was a couple of days ago, now I am thinking it's pretty likely it was indeed the flu.
-Due to her chronic conditions that have cropped up in the last two years, my sister feels like this, or actually probably worse than this, All The Time. Plus kid-related anxiety problems that aren't an issue for me, sick or not. Sigh. It's really frightening to think about.
-The other big time suck in my life (I mean, besides being sick) is that a couple of weeks ago I started running the Math Team at E's school (6-7 kids) in preparation for a local competition in May, which is great fun for me, and also really interesting to get a look at some of these kids E has been in math class with for years but whom I only know very vaguely, and whose math skills I know even more vaguely. The kids vary a lot, from the kid who is really good and knows it, to the kid who seems to have an extremely strong intuitive grasp but makes a lot of careless errors, to the kid who is probably quite good but doesn't know it because the first two kids suck up all the air in the room, to the kid who seems to be solid but slow, to the kid who seems to be missing a grasp on some fundamental math concepts. (Two of these are female, though perhaps not the ones you'd guess.) Hmm. Anyway, the competition they're training for is at the end of May, and we're behind the other schools in having just started training (and in experience of the person who's training them, lol). Soooo we'll see. I have high hopes that at least a couple of the kids will do well, though :)
-E has turned 10. She's pretty great right now in a lot of ways, and we are getting there with emotional regulation -- sometimes it seems like three steps forward two steps back, but if I think back even two years, it's sooooo much better now that it's kind of amazing. At church they did the Pinewood Derby this week -- previously this was a Boy Scout activity, but in the past couple of years they've opened it up to girls, and now this year, with our church/Scout ties now completely cut, it's become a joint activity, and about time too, we're only in 2020. Anyway she and D had a great time working on her wedge-shaped car, although next year we will try putting more weight on it (her car was only half of the allowable weight). She made the Switch to viola last year (after agitating for years; I'd told her that when she got to a certain point on violin I'd let her switch, and so it happened) and is loving it, although it's pretty clear to me now that she is not going to be musical in the same way my sister and I were. (Which is of course fine. Obviously also slightly disappointing to me, but also totally fine.) We usually try to do some sort of fun activity on Friday nights (this is following a long-held Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saint stricture called Family Home Evening, which is traditionally held on Mondays but I decided Fridays were much more likely to actually happen); tonight we made family valentines, and she made adorable ones for us. (I can't describe how amazing this is to me. When she was A's age I wasn't sure whether she would ever even understand the concept of giving someone else something.)
-A is going to be 5 soon. I was looking at his baby pics yesterday and he had exactly the same smile as a baby as he has now. It looks like this: :D He is still super sweet and snuggly and I'm just getting all the snuggles I possibly can because I know one day he won't want to give me All The Snuggles like he does now. He was unbelievably excited for Valentine's day (which until about two days ago he was pronouncing "Valentime's day... which makes sense!) -- he has been asking me since Jan 1 whether it's February yet and whether it was Valentime's day yet :D He has a lot of friends at preschool, which D and I just find hilarious and confusing, as we just have no frame of reference for this thing where he seems to be popular?? If either of my kids is musical he's going to be the one; he actually likes music, although his taste mostly runs towards orchestral. Because I'm the sort of tiger mom who has to start my kids on music early, he's playing violin, although he rather dislikes practicing, and I'm not sure violin is the best instrument for him.
-I still think about Emma a lot. It's sort of hard not to, as she was so lovely and generous and thoughtful that there are reminders of her all around: the quilts she made for the kids that are on their beds, the special heart shirt that she bought for Valentine's Day for Aaron last year and that he's been waiting to wear again this year; the stickers we got out tonight to put on the valentines. Maybe sometime I'll post more about her, but not tonight. <3
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Also, we miss you! Get well soon!
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But yes, I am hoping to be a little more present soon, though you guys seem to be doing all kinds of things left to your own devices :P :)
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I think the key to that was when we went from telling you things we already knew (I'm not going to waste her time or mine telling her things that she already knows 90% of, even if she finds the 10% interesting, because I can't guess which 10%, and I imagine she feels the same way about me), to talking about things we just discovered today and which each of us can be pretty sure the other doesn't know!
But we definitely look forward to having you back, because the alchemy is definitely different with you present and asking the questions you call dumb and I call extremely important! (Look, I didn't know who Lehndorff was either, and look at her calling his diary her best non-fiction find of the whole year!)
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Yes, I've noticed that shift too! It does make things a little harder for me to follow, lol :) And I definitely appreciate the pointing out of things that I should already know -- because I have also gotten to the point where I often feel a little shy of asking you guys about things that I know very well you've explained to me a couple of times already, even though I know you would be more than happy to explain them again :)
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Also, I realize that with the latest discussions I've started talking more to her than to you, so please, please, bring me back by asking all the questions about things you think you should know (as well as things you shouldn't). I want you to be able to follow along, you're an important part of our alchemy. But I (and I imagine selenak) can't always guess which parts I need to spell out for you. That used to be trivial: things we hadn't already said. But repetition is an indispensable part of learning, we're closing in on a million words, and nobody can hold all that in their head on one reading. Hell, I'm starting to forget things she's said, and I can see she's starting to forget things I've said--it's inevitable!
So please ask for clarification, like, every single time you need it, don't be shy. We have to stick to the successful alchemy formula if we want to keep producing gold. :D
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(...I... feel weirdly like the high school jock who is reliving glory days by coaching the local school team, only with math instead of sports. No one in my everyday life cares (as well they should not!) that I am pretty good at math multiple-choice tests, lol.)
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