The kids had spirit week at school - a ritual that typically involves things we don’t have, like “wear your favorite hat” (they have no hats) or “wear your favorite sports jersey” (we have no jerseys). But Bobby did manage to put this together on his own for “dress like a teacher day” which I thought was hilarious:
He also created this Igloo cat, which he left on my nightstand and which I later strategically moved to his bed:
Today the boys had pajama day at school which somehow always results in them coming home filthy. I had to stand Theo in the bathtub and scrub his legs down with a kitchen sponge. I’ve also had to scrub their hands with a scrub brush nearly every day because they’re black with dirt from playing after school. I guess this is what happens when the principal decrees no more using school devices to watch YouTube during afterschool play time (yay). Honestly I’ll take dirty hands over kids sneaking inappropriate videos at school any day.
I ordered Bobby’s kid watch (free with the addition of a new line) and it arrived a few days ago. I hope it does what we want it to do - many of the reviews said it just didn’t work, which I suspect is a connectivity issue, which, being on “the mountain”, could totally happen to us, too. We won’t know until we test it out up at the school. I figure sometime around their birthdays, and after daylight savings, I’ll take a week of walking up to school to pick them up and show them how to walk down to the house. I remember my mother doing this with me when I was B’s age - throwing a trench coat over her pajamas and walking me across Manhattan to my middle school until I could do it myself. Recently as part of a FB post about walking to school, I Google mapped my route in NYC from my old addresses which I still have memorized to my schools - my route to Jr high was .7 miles; to High School, 2.2. No wonder I was skinny.
I booked the boys’ trampoline birthday party today. It’s weird to think they were last there in 2019, turning 5 and 7, and I invited the entire world, and they showed up. I’ve become alienated from so many of these people now because of the pandemic. As I’ve mentioned, I feel insecure about inviting large groups to things anymore because of this, so I set the party up so each boy can invite four friends and that’s it. My hope is, barring any timing conflicts, the boys my kids select will actually want to come. I’m still anxious about it, though. The idea of nobody coming to my kids’ party scares the crap out of me. Social rejection has not been a thing for two years; I’m ill equipped to handle it anymore. I don’t think I’m alone in this. Social skills - especially those involving groups of acquaintances - are like any other muscle; they need to be exercised. And they’ve been atrophying since March 2020.
This week I tackled my various projects slowly and deliberately. For my coming tax appointment, I was able to find last year’s profit & loss statement and add in this year’s numbers; I’d like to thank 2021 me for setting up a folder just for all my tax documents, something I never did before because I always only kept paper receipts. Now it’s all online. Just today I took the plunge and ordered a shipping container for use as storage and our bathroom in the desert - it should be shipped in two weeks. The new contractor is ready for it. I’m weirded out by all of it - I’ve put the cabin so in the back of my mind that I’m having a hard time digging it out again. The former contractor sent us a payback agreement for a fraction of what he owes, but it’s something. I won’t hold my breath. But the new guy leaves in April and is ready to start probably early in March, so I think a lot’s going to happen very quickly and suddenly. Six weeks from now I could have an actual functioning cabin, finally, a year after I bought it. I’m afraid to get excited about it after all this drama. But I’m still going to the rose bowl flea market Sunday to spend money I don’t have on things I don’t need (and will probably get stolen) for the cabin. It’s time to have fun with this again.
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