Pumpkin patch and middle schools

We had a lovely meet up with the donor sibling sisters at our old pumpkin patch last weekend after two years off. It’s fun to see how the girls have grown and changed. For sure one of the girls is more like Theo and the other is more like Bobby. It’s interesting to theorize about, but I think most likely it has to do with siblings playing off of each other - “you be the introvert, I’ll be the extrovert”. We narrowly avoided a disaster as apparently you have to buy advance tickets to this place now - yet another post-pandemic change in policy I was unprepared for - but one of the moms rescued me by getting online to get us some as we were in an area with barely any cell service. I have to remind myself to double check everything I used to do in 2019 - everything has changed. 

It’s delightful to see kids still invested in child-like things - despite this pumpkin patch really being more oriented towards littler kids, they were all really into it, playing on the wooden trains and tractors and loving picking out pumpkins. They of course insisted on carving them right away and as of today they are completely rotten and in the bin. 

I think it’s easier for kids to be kids longer these days. When I was a kid everyone was in such a rush to grow up - dressing like adults, smoking, being too cool for school. I’m sure some kids are like that today, but with the rise of nerd culture, it’s also perfectly acceptable to be into stuffed animals and cosplay and comics much later in life; I’m hoping this will be the case for my kids. I mean, why not? When I was fourteen I was still playing with dolls. You have your whole life to be an adult. “When you grow up, your heart dies.” 

Middle school madness has begun - I went on a tour yesterday, and attended a zoom last night. In a couple of weeks I tour the eagle rock school I have my eyes on. I felt better after a zoom chat with that school’s magnet advisor - I asked for tips on getting into their gifted magnet and it looks like we’re on track for a good chance at admission. This year I applied for both Bobby and Theo. I hope I still like the school after I tour it. Pros are: gifted program, big school so lots to offer, international baccalaureate program, highly rated, grades 7-12 so kids can be together longer. Cons are pretty much only the downsides of being in a giant school. We’ll see what I think when I go there. But as I’ve been told and as I told a new couple on the tour yesterday - you really can’t go wrong with any of these schools. They’re all good. But with both kids having tested as gifted (yay) it would behoove me to get them into an actual gifted program I think. 

The H has finally taken the big step of telling his boss he needs to hire someone to do the catching up work he’s been doing so he can focus on his own printing work. It won’t show immediate results - it may be a while before someone is hired and trained - but the fact that he has made that decision, mostly from pure exhaustion, is huge. It could mean big changes for our family. There have been times this year when he’s worked 40-50 days straight, most often until 2 AM every night. It’s ridiculous. He takes time off for weekend getaways and things, but then has to work until 2 AM every night for two weeks just to make up for taking a Saturday and Sunday off. This is not sustainable for any of us. So I’m hoping this means things will finally change. 

This weekend we head out to the desert to stay in our place and I’m beyond excited. Goals are to set up a basic kitchen (build the rolling cart I bought) and hopefully put in one window. And then leave most of our stuff out there for future visits. If we can have all the kitchen stuff and blow up beds, then all we’d need to bring for each visit is bedding and clothes and batteries. I’m looking forward to maybe heading up to Amboy for their chili dog cookout. There’s something so charming about a lone business in the middle of absolutely nothing.