The Lucky One

Sometimes I think about what it must be like... just to walk away and have zero responsibility for a child you brought into the world.

All of the hard times and tears you've missed. All of the difficulties. You just live your life as if you never had a child. And maybe that hurts, but you're still protected. Protected from receiving the vitriol and anger. Protected from having to figure out what to try this time. Protected from hoping the next thing you try actually makes a difference.

You haven't invested thousands of dollars in care, in clothes, in food, in insurance, in medication. You haven't wrestled with how to love someone well who carries so much resentment toward you. You haven't had to watch your child struggle with needing and loving you when they so do not want to.

You live your life. You pursue what you will. You might have the occasional nagging thought of "what if..." but you never act on it. Not one time. You are your own world.

But I am the lucky one. I am the one who abides. All of the battles that child and I have fought, all of the words that have landed softly here and explosively there, the days of silence, the unexpected hugs... They're all mine.

You've missed so much, and I don't think you have the capability to care. I feel sorry for you.

A Novel's Perfect First Sentence...

"I was 50 years old when I finally got my nose pierced."

That's it. That's how the novel opens.

I don't actually know what happens after that, but the mind reels at the possibilities.

No cap, though, before James's and Mal's plane had landed in Seattle, I'd gotten a new tattoo (small rainbow on my neck; first one with color!) and my nose pierced. They're my birthday present to me.

See? It's super subtle!

I said "No cap" so you'll think I'm hip. I did the nose piercing because I freaking wanted to; they're so pretty and I've wanted one for a while. I'm a wimp, though, so it's not a septum piercing. I don't see how my Sapphic sisters do that. Also, cool thing about the hormonal whirlwind that might just be "the change," I am getting acne now. Good times. The day after my piercing, I developed a zit right above the site. Trying to manage that whilst also not really touching my nose in order to prevent an infection has been a lot of fun.

My birthday's in a couple of weeks, and James and Mal are on a short trip to see James's brother's family, including Luke the whippet. Seems like they're keeping busy and will probably both just crash out when they get home Monday night. Fortunately, James took Tuesday off to recover, and Mal's a kid so he doesn't really have much to do but catch up on rest when he gets here.

Since they've been gone, I've had lunch with my sister (her treat!), cleaned and organized James's office, done the permanent body modifications, had dinner with my friend Elana (her treat!) and our older kids, streamed a lot of television content while I was doing other stuff, swept and mopped all of the house where that's possible, cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, had dinner with D (my treat!), and am planning to enjoy a morning all alone tomorrow when D starts their new job. Oh, and I've kept up with my DuoLingo Spanish lessons.

James was remarking the other day that I don't just sit down and chill a lot. I've really not been doing too much of that since he and Mal have been gone, but I've been doing more of it than usual.

Another fun possibly-perimenopausal-hormone-related thing, I'm getting so much less sleep than I have for most of my life. I typically need a GOOD 8 hours to function, and I'm getting more like 6.5-7.25 hours per night. I think I'm doing okay, but just have to get used to the fact that I need less sleep. So far, I haven't been plagued by the insomnia that is often present in women of a certain age. Guess we'll see how that goes.

It's Sunday now, so it's D's work orientation. It might not be necessary, because D might have a short day, but I'm planning to pack a sack lunch just in case they need food.

Then I'm going to try to roll out the dough I made yesterday for some hopefully fun sugar cookies I'm putting together for our LGBT-friendly homeschool meet-up group we started exactly one year ago! We have a great little den of friends from that. They're awesome kids, and I feel like they would be the antidote to folks who want to avoid their own children knowing about queer folks to "protect their innocence." Our awesome kids are about as starry-eyed and wholesome as you'd want kids to be. There's not a bully or mean girl among them. They're not perfect, but they're all great people who care about and enjoy each other so much. I'm super lucky I've gotten to watch them grow together, work out issues between themselves, and really develop deep connections with each other.

One other kind of cool thing... When I had dinner with my friend the other day, she asked me to take a look at a memoir she's been helping a guy write for the past five years. She's asked me to read/edit some work before, but until now I haven't felt that Mal was mature enough for me to be able to try. I'm going to give it a go now, though. They should be finished in the next few months, and I'll see what I can do. 

It's almost light enough to go walk this morning, so I'm signing off for now!

Mal's Birthdays

For those of you keeping score, you'll know that Mal is turning 9 next month! I took this picture of him yesterday, wearing his 8th birthday shirt and we're going to have to retire the shirt soon!

A couple of weeks ago, Mal said that for his tenth birthday (yes, in 2024; he has had party themes lined up for almost a decade since he was 5), he wants to go to California. The things he specifically requested were: Super Nintendo World, Disneyland, and Hollywood.

I really had to think for a while about what he wants with "Hollywood," because I'm not sure what that means to him. When we lived in Las Vegas, we went to LA at least once a year, and during those times, we toured the NBC studios, where we saw sets from some of the shows we usually watched. We went to live tapings of "Home Improvement" twice (thanks, Dad!). We drove past the houses where they shot exteriors for Beverly Hills 90210 and Brady Bunch. We went to a small, quaint amusement park called Universal Studios Hollywood (which was only 30 years old at the time... and when we go with Mal, it will be 60 years old... which means that I AM OLD) where we got to see props and set pieces from familiar movies.

The thing is, Mal watches YouTube, cartoons, and a few live-action shows that James and I choose (oh, and every Star Wars show, which we all agree on). He doesn't have the "everyone has seen this" experience that I did when television was three channels plus PBS, and most of the movies we see now have sets courtesy of CGI rather than huge, sprawling creations like the Psycho hotel (which apparently is STILL there, even though we're probably two generations removed from being able to assume that anyone has viewed that particular pelicula).

However, after some time, I had worked out a perfectly-crafted trip incorporating things I felt Mal would consider iconic, as well as moving into some more of that nature that California is famous for so that James and I would feel equally catered to.

Then a couple of days ago, Mal decided that we HAVE to go to LEGOland. HAVE to. Before he turns 13. Because you can only drive the little cars where you get a LEGOland driver's license if you're under 13. 

We'd planned to hit LEGOland first thing for our planned (and paid for ) April 2020 trip. In case you don't remember what happened in that far-away time, I'll refresh your memory: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2. Remember that thing? 

Mal would have been 5 for that trip, and even then, I thought we were reaching the end of the part of his childhood when he would find LEGOland interesting. One thing might be that he does NOT like thrill rides, so everything here will be his speed. But also, LEGOs. Or, more correctly, LEGO bricks. I know that's the proper way to say it, but it's so awkward. "Yay! Let's play with LEGO bricks!" Sorry, LEGO. It's just "LEGOs."

Anyhoo, I explained to him that I'd already planned a perfect trip that did not go that far south, and that trying to get that far south would mess everything else up. You might be thinking, as he did, "Why not just take one day and do it?" Well, if you're thinking that, then you're not the kind of trip planner that I am, and I'm not sure that I can make you understand.

But I'll try.

1) Have you ever heard of "crowd planner" websites? They're great. They let you know how busy theme parks will be on any given day, in general, your mileage may vary. I use them because I enjoy being able to have the most fun while avoiding the busiest days, thus making my big bucks that I spend on a trip go further. Because of those sites (my favorite is TouringPlans.com, and I'll join up just as soon as we're within a year of the trip so that I can get my personalized plan!), I know that in September, Disneyland has its Halloween party several times a week. On those days, if you don't have a ticket to the party, you have to leave the park at 5 PM. We did the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World in 2018 and it was fun, but I don't think we're interested in this one. SO that means that we need to hit either Magic Kingdom or California Adventure on either Monday or Wednesday. Those are the only two days of the week that we will want to be in a Disneyland park in September.

2) We don't want to go to ANY theme park on a weekend.

3) We don't want to take any flights on Friday-Monday.

4) We don't want to visit a state or national park on the weekend.

5) Some hotels in high-demand places have 2-night minimums during weekends or certain times of the year (like if it's a college town and you happen to want to stay there on parents' weekend, which I've only learned because I PLAN EARLY).

6) Since we're going to be bopping around so much, we will need to wash our clothes a couple of times on the trip (wash AND dry, because we'll have to pack them every or every other day), so I need to know that we'll have access to a guest laundry or nearby laundromat.

7. We're planning one night in a very popular national park that opens up reservations 366 days in advance, and they often sell out. Once I lock that reservation in, my ability to move things will be extremely restricted.

SO.

I happened to wake up at 4:30 Saturday morning, and my brain was telling me to get up and figure out how to squeeze LEGOland in. I worked out first, and then got to work. Two hours later, I had added, cut, and rearranged until I had another beautiful (if more road-heavy) trip worked out.

The night before, Mal had literally been sobbing about not being able to drive those cars before he turned 13. I try to treat my son as a fully-formed human with feelings that are worth of care, because he is and they are. But his crying about a still-pretty-hypothetical trip a year away (our last CA trip was canceled within 4 weeks of when we were supposed to go*) was a little much for me to absorb.

However, I felt he'd be so relieved to know that his good old mom made a way! So when I told him the next morning, he said, "Oh, okay." I was like, "WHAT? You were IN TEARS last night!" He said, "Huh? I don't remember that."

And that is why I'm not having any more kids.

Also, as aforementioned, I am old.

But also, he DID remember; he just thought I was saying that he cried in his sleep, and he didn't remember that.

But but also also, my early morning strategy session was greatly under-appreciated so I'm telling you in order to have my glorious accomplishment in writing forever, or at least as long as the internet lasts.

*Something interesting: James's brother's family had a trip to California, and LEGOland specifically, planned earlier this year. They got to the airport and soon after, Delta canceled their flight. They were able to find a flight 2 days later, but then Delta was unwilling to change their return flight without charging them, so they just got full refunds and bummed around their home state for a week. We decided that this might mean that California doesn't want anyone in our family there -- and specifically LEGOland, which wouldn't be in play if my original plan still stood. Are we cursed? Will we actually get to California? Set your reminders to check back in 15 months and we'll see!

It's Staying Hot Out Therre

 At the risk of sounding like a sad old person: Can we talk about the weather?

We've had about a month of this, and it sucks. Las Vegas was hot, sure, but it WAS a dry heat. Here, it feels more dangerous. It's difficult to get outside to do anything but swim, though we are walking to the library and back for our weekly group meet-ups.

I look back and see pictures of us at the former-lake park year-round, including right now, and I am not sure whether it was significantly cooler or whether Mal was just small enough that he wasn't deterred by extreme heat.

Taken at the park in July 2019

Taken in August 2020 (see the water?!)

Between the politics here, and the increasingly uninhabitable climate, we might soon take refuge somewhere else. Mal has so many friends and my side of the family is all here... but good grief. 

What do you guys think? Any hope regarding environmental changes that you want to share so I don't keep looking at rentals in Delaware?

Did I Tell You About the Car?

A couple of months ago, we said goodbye to our white Fiat 500L. It had been mal- or non-functioning for months, and in the shop for several weeks prior to that. We decided at the time to see how we'd do with just one car, since James is still able to work from home and D doesn't have a job yet.

So far, it hasn't been too bad.

James has had to carpool with us on Sunday mornings, adding a little complication to his formerly carefree Sunday brunches. He just drops us off at the McDonald's where Mal meets his friend to play every week, then picks us up. Mal's friend went to California for a few weeks last month, so James got to relive his carefree dual car days. 

We've taken a Lyft at least once (Mal hates it; he says he doesn't trust the drivers). D has needed to get somewhere last-minute when James was out buying groceries. Besides that, though, it hasn't been bad.

Plus, when we added D to our insurance, the premium doubled! I thought it might not be as bad since D was 21 instead of 16. However, when we took the second car off, the price halved, so we're back to our "normal" premium.

A few weeks ago, I had the idea to try to get to my parents' house using public transit to get to the Amtrak station. We'd need my folks to get us the last few miles, but it seemed like fun to try.

When I mentioned this plan to others, two different friends offered to drive us to the Austin train station. That was nice, but would the purpose of testing out our local transit.

So Thursday morning we left our house pretty early to be at the local bus stop by 7:05 AM to catch the commuter bus out of our neighborhood.

We got to the Lakeline Park and Ride in plenty of time to catch the 7:50 bus that would deposit us downtown at 5th and Bowie, which is only a few blocks from the train station.

We took a detour into Whole Foods to get train snacks. Mal picked some gorgeous fruit from their prepared food bar, and I got a multi-pack of chocolate bars.

We were at the train station by 8:50, which was 10 minutes before the station itself opens. When we could get in and sit in the air conditioning, Mal ate a bunch of strawberries, we used the restroom, and the bus pulled in at about 9:20.

We boarded and were on the final let of our trip just a little late, but made the time up at the only stop between here and Temple.

Door to door, this trip was almost 4 hours longer than it would have been if we'd just driven. However, we had lots of walking and breaks built in, and I got to really visit with Mal without having to focus on the act of driving.

Plus, the $30ish I spent on train and bus tickets (Mal was free as a companion to my fares) was more than gas one way would have cost me, but a lot less than the insurance and other amortized costs of owning a vehicle for the past two months would have been (several hundred dollars).

We'll eventually have two cars again, most likely. A lot depends on if D goes to the community college (which is easily accessible by the first bus Mal and I took; that bus is actually an express bus to the school), if/where they get a job, and if James ends up with a different job that requires him to commute.

For now, we're skipping along just fine. When it's so cost-effective to do so, we can deal with a little inconvenience, for sure.

PS I asked James about this and he says he vacillates on whether or not it's worth it, mostly on Sunday mornings when his custom is to go alone to brunch. I guess he doesn't love being tied to the fact that we're out and dependent on him. How rude. 

Flags of the World! (a thing about unschooling... but maybe not what you're thinking)

I posted several weeks ago about Mal's obsession with flags.

Since then, he's stayed pretty consistently interested. He's constantly saying things like, "Did you know that Chad and Romania have the EXACT SAME FLAG?" And the answer is always that no, I did not know that. 

I've actually learned a lot from Mal's interest in flags, as well. I've always loved maps and globes, and since he's into that now. In fact, after having bought Mal a beach ball globe a couple of years ago because we didn't want to shell out $50+ on a passing interest, I did buckle down and buy him one that will arrive tomorrow.

But I digress... One thing I've learned is that South Africa has three capitols because its executive, legislative, and judicial branches are in separate cities. That's pretty cool.

One thing we did get him recently was a foam map puzzle with a bunch of flags. He knew a lot of the flags, anyway, but since having put it together a couple of times, he knows all of them flawlessly. It's kind of a bummer because they didn't include any of the Central American or Caribbean countries (save Cuba), so we'll have to pick those up somewhere else. I did show him the Haiti flag immediately upon seeing it was snubbed.

Anyhoo, all of this exciting stuff to get around to my main point here.

One of my friends mentioned recently that unschooling never worked with her kids because they didn't take to "academic" stuff like what Mal is doing right now.

Now that I think about that statement, I see how a big idea in body liberation melds perfectly with the unschooling philosophy vis-à-vis the moral neutrality of most stuff in life. I believe it is Ragen Chastain who says something to the extent of "Running a marathon and having a Netflix marathon on your couch are moral equivalents." The world at large might celebrate running a marathon as the summit to a virtuous endeavor, but why? Vegging out, being lazy, and listening to your body when it says that you need a break is awesome. Running, if you like it, is awesome. Choosing to do one of those things over the other doesn't make you a better/worse person. It's just different people doing different things.

Getting back to unschooling and Mal: He has always taken a deep dive in the things he's interested in. His earliest obsession was probably the Disney Cars franchise. After we'd watched the movies once or twice, he could listen to the score and tell you what scene a piece of music was played. He knew the names of ALL of the characters, even background ones that might be shows once for three seconds in one of the three films. He collected hundreds of cars, he played with them almost every day, talked about it all of the time, found Cars shorts on the Disney Channel app on his own, noticed that some music was featured both in the movies and in the cartoons. It was two years of that.

He's also fixated on Unspeakable (which he still watches but not like when he was 5 or 6), Henry Stickman, NumberBlocks, Super Mario... and last year, Encanto. We actually have the play sets out on the kitchen table right now. He does bring them out to play and make scenes with occasionally. When the movie came out, though, he literally studied the songs until he knew all of the lyrics. In fact, his friend filmed him for almost half an hour once (she's a better audience than I am!)

When Mal finds something he likes, he has the space to take the time he wants to pursue it. With NumberBlocks, he learned a lot about how numbers work together. Since he got over that obsession, he's lost some of the multiplication tables, but I know that since he learned those things at 5 and 6 years old, he can remember and/or relearn them again in the future. He's learning a lot of geography and kind of civics with flags. Many times he'll act out a superficial version of relations between, say, Russia and Ukraine or North and South Korea using their flags as almost action figures. He'll probably forget a lot of this when he moves on to his next big interest.

The question is: Are those subjects superior to the strong relationships he formed with Cars and Encanto or a YouTube channel or a video game? Or all they all valuable pursuits for the pursuits' sake? Is the only reason I or others see unschooling as justified because Mal is learning something that some educational decision-makers out there who have never met him have decided is "important"?

I would argue that this cycle of finding something enjoyable and then wanting to know more and delve into it more is worthy in and of itself. It's what makes life worth living. My sister likes plants. My dad likes trains. My mom likes to read. Some day James and I will have time to figure out what we like again, I'm sure of it.

But my point is that, as adults, we get the option of pursuing interests without the baggage of "but what use is it in life?" My dad can watch Virtual RailFan and plan vacations around trains without people accusing him of "playing" and suggesting that he reads more books, like my mom does. We get to like what we like.

I'm enjoying this geographical path we're on right now, but I loved Cars and Encanto, too (he was on his own with Unspeakable). Mal is who he is and he's becoming the person he will be. Without anyone telling him what is really important and what he SHOULD be spending all of his time on. I love that for him.

Yet another installment of Things Mal Said

My sister texted me yesterday as she was watching "Shiny Happy People," a docuseries about the Duggars  specifically and the IBLP more broadly. Although we didn't choose to homeschool because of the reason a lot of super conservative Christians did, I was certainly adjacent to the Quiverfull movement and swam in the waters of top-down authority (like God, Father, Mother, kids; or God, male church leadership, female church leadership, members, etc.). And although I might have paid lip service to authoritarianism both as a parent and within the patriarchy, I always chafed against it and was pretty bad at submitting myself to basically anyone.

In honor of this most recent exposure of Bill Gothard and this whole establishment (I'm not linking because, honestly, let's not give them any more eyeballs), I wanted to share two things that Mal said this weekend that these people would consider a failure due to my parenting. Have I ever been more proud? It's hard to say.

Friday, we were at Urban Air with some friends. The kids pick a table where they can enjoy snacks and hanging out when they're taking a break, and the parents sit together at a different table. Mal had been jumping and come back with one of his friends for a drink. An 11-year-old girl was sitting where Mal had been sitting earlier, and he asked her if she could get up so he could sit down. She moved to a different table alone, and he just plopped down at the edge of the booth. 

I said, "Mal, will you scoot over so that Abby can sit back down?" He just looked at me like I'd asked him to stab himself, and turned back around. I said, "Malcolm, you need to move over so Abby can have her seat back." Mal announced, "Mom, I'm not listening to you." I said, "Hopefully you'll start listening to me soon or you're not going to have any friends because you're being a jerk." He said, "Mom, I've listened to you my whole life, and today I'm just not going to do it."

After he left, the mom of the girl he had asked to move said, "I know it's not funny, but it's also so funny."

The next day, we went to see Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse (so good!) and at one point, I thought I saw something fly in the air in front of the screen. A couple of minutes later, I noticed it again and it was just a moment after Mal had gotten a piece of popcorn. I realized he was eating around the kernel then just tossing the kernel into the row in front of us (where someone was sitting!) I said, “Mal, you can’t throw stuff like that.” He looked at me pointedly and said, “You’re not supposed to talk during a movie.” I said, “DO NOT THROW ANYTHING over there. If you have a kernel, just drop it in the floor and they’ll sweep it up after. Okay?” He just blinked and said, “You. Are. Not. Supposed to talk during the movie.”

I'm almost certain that I would have gotten a spanking for responding either way to my parents when I was Mal's age. It just never would have occurred to me. And I guess some people might say he's being disrespectful and shouldn't talk to me like that. But for me, the problem behaviors were the ones I was addressing, and I don't want to take focus from those by insisting on a perfect response to me, at the expense of having him think about what I was actually telling him. In the case of the movie, anyway, he didn't throw any more popcorn. 

Plus, I don't always respond to people in a completely measured way, and I don't actually have a problem with his being frustrated with me and expressing it. So I guess I'm failing as a mom, but it feels right. I'm going to keep doing it.