Boring Back Story: August 22, 2010

My new MacBook and my workspace, aka the kitchen table

Right now I am sitting at the kitchen table and the house is quiet, except for the ceiling fan that wobbles and swishes as it turns.  There are so many other things I should be doing right now, but this is important.  I realized a while ago that this upcoming (school) year is going to be a very momentous,milestone sort of time for my three children.  Zoey, who turned 17 in June, will be a high school senior.  Aidan, who turns 13 in September, will be a 7th grader and Griffin, who turns 6 in September, is starting kindergarten tomorrow.  I want to remember this year and I know I won't be able to recall much of it without words and maybe a few pictures to help me out.  Already having a blog, this seemed like the best way to keep a verbal scrapbook.

It feels like we are always living our lives in a state of low-grade chaos, planning and re-planning, arranging and rearranging our lives to fit in everyone's needs.  One of the biggest reasons for this (besides the gaping age differences between all three kids and the fact that Bill is a high school teacher who works full time and I am a bookseller who works almost full time) is because Zoey and Aidan attend a private school about 30 miles from our home.  On school days, they wake before 6:00 am, are out the door at 6:30 and on a school bus at 6:45, arriving at school an hour later.  They get home at 4:00 pm, 5:30 if they have after school sports, music or theater and are riding the late bus.  Usually, things run pretty smoothly.  When Bill and I need to be at school, however, things get messy.  Mostly, this is because of Griffin.  He was born the year Zoey started at LJCDS and he has been the reason that Bill and I tag-team parent.  One of us, usually me, the more socially inept of the two, stays home with the baby while the other one drives the kids around, interacts with the parents of other students, administrators and educators and watches the performances/games/etc.

Zoey got her driver's license in December of 2009 and a few months later was driving herself all over the county.  We live at the north, inland edge of San Diego county and Zoey has had a job for two years now working in Balboa Park at the SD Natural History Museum as an assistant to Ms. Frizzle (Magic School bus) who does two science themed shows every Sunday at the museum.  The first year, we drove her to work, using it as a good reason to get out of the house and go to the zoo, museum, park, beach, aquarium, etc.  This spring, we let Zoey drive herself to work and other commitments and social outings with friends and she has proven herself to be a good driver, although I still make her text or call every time she drive somewhere.  The other great thing is that Bill likes to ride his bike and, when conflict arises he can usually resolve it by riding to work. Usually, though, that leaves someone else hanging, whether it's Griffin at school or Aidan at the bus, there is always a loose thread.

A great example of this is last Friday. I worked from 9 - 5 and Bill from 7 - 3 and Zoey and Aidan had to be places and do things.  Although the school year hasn't started, Zoey had a Peer Counselor meeting and wanted to visit with a friend who lives nearby afterwards so they could rehearse a song to perform at the talent show at the Senior Retreat a few nights later.  Aidan needed to be at school to audition for the school musical (Once Upon a Mattress) in the morning and agreed to hang out with Zoey at her friend's house after.  We were all slapping ourselves on the back in congratulation for working this out so well when I realized that we didn't have anywhere for Griffin to go, anyone to take care of him.  I scrambled, found a friend he could stay with for a few hours and Bill said he could be at school with him during his prep period, so it all worked out in the end.  Until I got a phone call at work at 4pm from Bill telling me that the car wouldn't start and he was driving to La Jolla to help the kids...  Seems that Aidan, who, as it turns out, didn't have auditions, spent a couple of hours sitting in the car with the air conditioning on waiting for Zoey to finish up.  When she arrived, the battery was dead.  Bill was heading down to jump the car, but a friend on campus helped out (with a self-jumping device that Zoey now thinks we should invest in) and Bill never had to leave Escondido.  That is a perfect example of how things come together, fall apart and come together again in our lives on an almost daily basis.

I know that the year ahead will mean a lot of time away from home for Zoey, between school, madrigals, water polo, voice lessons, work and friends.  Although she complained of boredom at first, that is pretty much how her summer went and we saw very little of her.  I was thinking about this as I was driving to my therapy session a few weeks back and I started crying because I realized that 18 years is not enough time with Zoey - she is such a wonderful, loving, interesting person who is changing every day and I don't want to miss those changes.  But, ROOTS AND WINGS.  ROOTS AND WINGS.  I know she will go to school on the East Coast, or Chicago, for sure and I will only see her on holidays, and that makes the ache of this year a bit more achy.

Aidan, who is actually home right now, opting to have some of his beloved computer time rather than accompany Bill and Griffin to Balboa Park or the beach as they take Zoey to work and Griffin gets some needed one-on-one time with a parent.  Also, in an hour or so, I have to take him out to buy some new tennis shoes and then drop him at a friend's, with whom he will attend a play at the Old Globe.  The friend lives about 25 miles away.  I hate to drive anywhere more than 15 miles away.  It takes too long, it's boring.  I would rather be reading a book or reviewing a book.  But, we have to make sacrifices for our kids to have social lives, Aidan especially since he can be a bit of a homebody.  He is probably my least challenging child right now, and the most like me personality-wise.  I feel a bit like he has been on my journey with me and gets where I'm coming from and really wants to meet me at least half way.  I've struggled with anger and intimacy issues and have not been very guarded about it around the kids.  Bill and I have gotten in some pretty loud fights with good regularity over the last 4 - 6 years and, even though we know it upsets Zoey especially, we have not tried to hide it form the kids.  But, Bill has been in therapy, we have gone together and I have been going on my own intensively and things really are getting better.  Aidan is always there to listen and ponder along with me when I share an insight or tool learned in therapy or elsewhere.  He is the philosophical one who is interested in why people do what they do and tries to respect everyone's needs and express gratitude - which is a big deal for him since he was quite shy and quiet for many years.  Zoey calls him Mumbles.  When he started at LJCDS in the 3rd grade, working with him to get him to speak up was the biggest challenge for his teacher.  Also, he has probably had to make the most adjustments since Griffin was born.  He's had to share his room, his books, his toys, his interests, his TV and computer time with Griffin.  Aidan has always been crafty, making boats, houses, tanks, etc out of popsicle sticks, and has had to learn to clean up after himself so Griff doesn't get into his stuff.  This year, Aidan will get braces, start wearing glasses (for distance) and, finally, we are letting him get a gaming console.  He spends so much time playing his military-civilization-strategy games on the computer that it seemed like he was most likely to divide his time, rather than increase it, if we let him get an Xbox.  So, come September 20, we will be letting the beast into our home - something we always prided ourselves (probably erroneously) on.

Griffin.  Poor Griffin.  I hate writing that, but it's the truth.  I think that he loses out the most in this family and, unfortunately has developed some really negative coping mechanisms to deal with the lack of attention, or lack of consistent, uninterrupted attention that he gets from any of us.  In many ways he is like an only child growing up in a house with 4 adults.  By the time he was old enough to be aware of what's going on in the world, Aidan had out grown playing with toys.  Of course, that doesn't mean we don't have a ton of toys.  And we keep buying more - Playmobil and Lego, mostly.  But, Griff has never been great at playing on his own for extended times - which is what we all would really like him to do so we can pursue our own interests...  I didn't work as much when Zoey and Aidan were little and each of them only attended a year of preschool before starting kindergarten.  Griffin started preschool when he was 3 and 1/2 and, last year he was up to three full days a week.  I know that I don't do the crafty, artistic, adventurous, playful things that I did with the other two when they were little and I regret that. But, that's just not where I am at this point in my life and I have to find other ways to give myself and my time to Griffin, which is hard.  I started a blog two years ago reviewing kids books and it is going really well - I have made many new friends - parents, authors, literary agents, publishers - and I get a ton of free books to review.  But, it takes up a lot of my free time when I am not at work. I really, really love my job, but I may have to cut back this year so that I have more time for Griffin, Aidan and Zoey. I feel like this year I really need to be them.  So, as a way to get attention or cope with not getting quality attention, Griffin is boisterous, demanding, angry, sometimes throws stuff around and destroys stuff and cries and cries.  At least one or two nights a week, this happens at dinner time, which is when all four of us are most often otherwise engaged.  He also, understandably, responds very badly

to the end of attention.  Zoey, and mostly Aidan, will play with him when I ask, but whenever they are done and want to move on Griff has a fit. So, besides starting kindergarten, which isn't really a big deal, I want this year to be about meeting Griffin's needs, finding a balance between his needs and our needs and finding a way to help him be ok with it all.  I know school, even though it is only 2 1/2 hours a day, will help balance him out a bit.  He is in afternoon kindergarten and will have to be in day care before and after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I childcare swap with a friend who will have him on Fridays.  I think, in October, I may drop down to working only 3 days a week so I can have more time for him.

So, there it is.  The boring backstory.  The snapshot of my life today.  What do I want out of this year?  I want to be present for my kids, I want to be part of their lives, be connected to them and really be there for them - dividing myself between work, home and my needs as little or maybe as smoothly as possible. And, I want to have a better relationship with Bill.  We have never really modeled a healthy, positive, loving, supportive, nurturing relationship for Zoey and I am beginning to see how we have failed her. I know that we hurt her with our fighting and inability to be loving and affectionate with each other and I know that in a year she is going out into the world and will have a boyfriend and I won't be there for the ups and the downs, the joys and the sorrows, and I want to send her out into the world of relationships with the best foundation possible. And, hopefully, on top of all of that, I can begin to send out feelers and find a new career for myself in the world of kid's books...