Best Day Ever

(Any Spongebob fans singing that title to themselves? *virtual high five* -- It's the only safe way to do it, anyway, coughy.)

There was a span of a few weeks where Mal's constant refrain was, "I want to meet up with someone!" I hadn't really thought about it much, but if that had continued, it might have been very trying to keep him home and away from people for the weeks and likely months that we're going to have to do this.

But it didn't prevail. In fact, Malcolm has said, more than he's ever said in his life, "This is the best day ever!" It started the day we had to hole up in his room, then a couple of times after that. Tonight, he was sitting in front of the window waiting for his dad to get back from the gas station with dummies and remarked, "I love my life!"

That kid (feral as he is) is thriving under social distancing. He LOVES to be home (read the previous entry on our bluebonnets road trip). He LOVES that he has a near-constant audience with either James or me, as James is home taking breaks during the day and not commuting at night. (I actually love that, too!)

He's playing with his Mario toys, and his Sonic toys. He's running all over the front yard. He's making up games. He's playing his Switch and watching videos. This morning, the Sonic movie came out and he watched that before he even got out of bed. (Yay, an extra hour of sleep for me... except that he kept turning on the Prime X-Ray to ask me to read the names of actors.) He's mostly wearing just underwear, and I might forget to brush his hair every other day.

In the words of Sonic the Hedgehog, he's "living [his] best life on Earth."

And today he flew a kite himself for the first time!

Here are some pictures of Mal's play during social distancing. He's not complaining.

Social Distancing, Day 14

It was just two short weeks ago that James took Mal to burn off some steam at the mall play area, and here we are now... seventy-three years later. It was another time, friends. Do you remember it?

Mal is basically feral. I am doing laundry a lot these days, but typically none of it is his. He might change underwear every day or two, but not shirts and no shorts. He's just a half-naked wild child living his best life traveling everywhere within Mario Odyssey with zero true idea that the whole world is shut down. This is an advantage to having a relatively small life, I suppose. You just don't know what you're missing out on.

But, really, are we missing out on much?

We decided to follow Jimmy Kimmel's wife's idea and do Formal Friday two nights ago. Who knew that all it took was a global pandemic to give me the time to actually fix my hair again?

On my way to get our dinner! Dig my favorite earrings!

James and Mal both dressed up: James dressed way up for Austin, and Mal played dress-up. We're very fancy.

We got food from Longhorn Steakhouse and enjoyed our nightly dinner on the front patio. Afterward, James got to hang out for a while with his mom's side of the family (he's currently writing a blog post about that) online.

Yesterday, we decided to take a road trip to nowhere, since that's the only place we're supposed to go. We wanted to see the wildflowers before the grass overtakes them (which will likely happen later this week). The entire road between here and Marble Falls was an absolute dream. 

Mal and I had driven to Round Rock to meet my sister Friday morning, and 1431 was absolutely stunning. I'm convinced that nowhere is more beautiful than the Hill Country of Texas during the very early spring (which started in late February this year). I mean, Glacier National Park, probably. But, man, the wildflowers here are something else.

We didn't stop much on our drive, because it's a two-lane highway with no shoulder in most places. But we got to see so much beauty. Here are a few pictures from places we got out of the car...

We got lunch at Chick-fil-A, as did half the population of Marble Falls. We took it to a tiny air strip/museum in Burnet, and, keeping things honest, as we do, Mal was not happy. I took this picture of James that looks so peaceful.

  

But I took it from afar because Mal cried THE WHOLE TIME we were there, wanting to come home and eat a cake I'd made for him. I was trying to get him away from James, so at least James could enjoy his spicy chicken sandwich.

This was Mal's basic attitude whole time.

Maybe he was just in a foul mood because he had on the clothes of a human child? We still enjoyed the drive home. Once he was in the car and not having to walk, thus tiring out his knees (this child's knees hurt way too much for a little kid... then again, he could just be complaining; it's his favorite hobby), he was fine. 

And don't worry! Malcolm got his cake. 

Not my best work, but still a tasty cake. It's my new go-to cake recipe for sure!

Today, we've mostly hung out around the house. For dinner, I made Caribbean beans with not-rice. It was supposed to be brown rice, but I thought freekeh sounded better. It was DELICIOUS, even though my dried beans hadn't softened quite enough (also, in the recipe I have, it said to add 1 Tablespoon of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the rice, which I recommend). We ate on the front porch, then went to Andy's Frozen Custard for dessert.

Mal really wanted to eat outside on their patio, but there are signs at places like that and Sonic asking people not to sit to eat on-site. So we drove across to Walmart, where there's a weird sunken island in the parking lot. I'm assuming it's for drainage. 

There are three picnic tables there, and no signs telling us not to sit there, so we still had our custard picnic... until it started raining.

Now it's 64 degrees and I can still hear water dripping from the trees. We have our windows open, and Mal and James are playing "find the bad guy."

It's easy to forget that the world is a mess right now. At least for a few minutes.

No, he's not napping. He's pretending to nap. Sigh.

Some Observations from Social Distancing

Yeah, I know. We're all doing it. So let's compare notes, shall we? (Plus, when people view this blog in 20 years, it will all be very quaint and interesting to them, I'm sure.)

THINGS WE'RE DOING MORE OF

Laundry

Dishes

Losing money in the stock market

Talking to each other

Talking on the actual phone

Paying active attention to Mal*

Trying to find places to buy things we need

Staying up and sleeping later

Trying to find things for James to eat for breakfast/lunch

Going on walks

Eating on the front patio

Seeing neighbors walking by, driving by on golf carts, or and sitting or piddling in their front yards

THINGS WE'RE DOING LESS OF

Showering/bathing

Paying tolls

Travel planning

Much of ANY planning more than a couple of days into the future, actually

Spending money on leisure activities

Checking the stock market

Make-up (but only me; James is using the same amount of make-up as before)

THINGS THAT HAVEN'T REALLY CHANGED

Homeschooling

Cooking/baking

News consumption

Internet use/movie- and television-watching

Taking pictures

Also, everything kind of has a weird-feeling overlay, and the other day I used spray deodorant on my hair instead of dry shampoo. Could be worse.

I'm also doing some more intensive baking projects than I'm usually wont to do, like making homemade Oreos and gnocchi. That's been fun. There's nowhere we have to go in the middle of those things to interrupt the rhythm of the process.

As I've written this, I've seen three families walk by at 10:00 AM on a Wednesday. That's not "normal," but I really do like it! Hopefully this will lead to more families walking around the neighborhood and saying, "Hi."

*James pointed out that Mal is being a lot more affectionate with him since he's working from home.

Social Distancing, Day 8? I think?

It's been an interesting week, maybe the first in dozens... or even hundreds? Yikes. Let's take this one day at a time.

First of all, my family is largely introverted, and this social distancing thing isn't as horrible as it could be. Also, we mostly all like each other mostly all of the time, so that's definitely making things easier. Furthermore, we're not as stressed about finances as I know many people are (even though we've lost A LOT of our 401(k) equity) because James is able to work from home. 

Next up: We had an unpleasant surprise last week when I realized that the brand-spanking-new heat pump we had installed a month or so ago was leaking. I ascertained that from looking at the spreading rust-colored stain and dent in my kitchen ceiling. The company who installed it was so responsive. He came out and brought a bunch of fans and a dehumidifier (which pulled about 2 gallons of water from our ambiance every 24 hours) and is having a contractor replace the sheetrock.

Mal has, as you may know, has a weird hearing thing where certain sounds are "too loud" for him, even if they're not objectively LOUD. Like, he wants his headphones at Urban Air because of the fan that keeps one of the inflatable areas full. The fan isn't actually loud, and Mal can handle much louder noises if it's something like driving down the road with the window open, or blasting a song he likes. 

Anyway, he thought the fan and dehumidifier that were in the kitchen were "too loud," so we spent Friday shut into his room. He vacillated between watching TV, playing Sonic the Hedgehog and/or Lego Minecraft (like with toys), and playing Mario Odyssey on his Switch. Saturday, I shut down the fans to give us a little break. I love hanging out with Mal, but his kid-sized table and chairs weren't doing my back any favors, and I wanted to do some stuff in the common area of the house.

I left the trundle out but down, and Mal enjoyed the seat. We were eating breakfast at his mini-table.

Saturday afternoon, Mal asked, "Can we turn the fans back on? I want to go into my room and have another best day ever."

He is basically thriving right now. I don't have to change things up on him, and transitions are often hard. He doesn't want to leave the house, then once we go, he doesn't want to come back, etc. So this is probably very calming for him.

The fans are gone now, and today it was nice out for the first time in a couple of days. Mal and I are going on walks almost every day (we didn't Saturday or Sunday because of cold drizzle) and today saw three different neighbors we've never seen before. Two were out just sitting on their porches, watching the world go by. I'm sure it's because they're bored out of their skulls, but it was nice to meet them, anyway. The other was planting wild sunflowers in her yard, and she gave us three to plant for ourselves.

We also saw Mal's friend's grandma, and chatted with her from a healthy distance (minimum 6 feet), and Darrell, the neighbor who gave us our irises.

This is the second time he's walked as Mario. Whatever gets him out and moving, right?

We have decided to eat out on the front porch whenever the weather is amicable (and until the mosquitoes put the kibosh on our al fresco dining). Mal got to run around and we had a nice meal, so everybody wins!

#turquoisetable

D's banjo lessons are being held online, and so far that's not something D is comfortable with. I hope we can make it work since we don't know how long it will be before they can do in-person classes again.

We've been able to find almost everything we need at the stores, but that's only because we've taken probably 4 trips to the stores in the past 10 days, and because we have a subscription from Charmin Forever Roll. We haven't been able to find flour, but have about a pound left. A neighbor has offered us a 5 pound bag, so hopefully I can go get that from him soon.

The mayor announced, along with many other "urban" Texas mayors, a "shelter-in-place" order that goes into effect tomorrow. We've been mostly doing what it mandates, except maybe walking down to the lake. I think, as long as we kept moving, it could fall under the "outdoors exercise" category, but probably playing on the playground would be a no-no. Again, *so far* this is not being a huge issue for Mal. let's hope that trend holds fast.

Nothing very interesting is going on in our little neck of the woods, otherwise. So far, the family is thriving from this mandated down time. Hoping everyone else stays healthy and safe out there.

Social Distancing, Day 1

Yestereve, my husband did take our younger child to the shopping emporium where he might indulge in playtime activities with other youths. It would appear that this should be the last time in at least a fortnight that the youngster should have such an opportunity, as the leaders of our municipalities, yay, even our country itself, have mandated that the populace should go into quarantine to slow the further spread of this novel coronavirus, SARS CoV-2, or Covid-19.

We shall therefore attempt to remain isolated, an effort aided by the fact that places of hospitality and respite have altered operations to provide sustenance for their clientele, but insist that it be consumed off-premises. Additionally, many amusements have been temporarily shuttered. It is my firm belief that all public pastimes, including the cinema, which has been greatly reduced in capacity, shall soon be entirely off-limits as we wait for this plague to run its course.

This day has been spent in domestic pursuits, including baking pastries for the morrow's St. Patrick's holiday; electronic gaming; fresh air disport; board games; and familial joviality. What will the spring bring? How long will this lack of social interaction endure? I shall, of course, update you as the situation progresses. I remain,

Ever Yours

Small-Town Excitement

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, I was up writing a blog post.

I got distracted by a helicopter flying around outside.

It circled for a long time. It was loud enough that I'm amazed (but pleased, because she needs all the sleep she can get) that it didn't wake Laura up.

Eventually, I got out and filmed about 10 minutes worth of video. It turned out almost all black, though there are places you can make out some sorts of bright spots (from something that looked like either an ambulance or fire truck).. But you can hear the chopper.

I speculated a bit about what it might have been. It circled around for far too long to be a Flight For Life. I didn't see anything like search lights. We live pretty close to a tiny airstrip that houses a lot of personal and experimental flying vehicles, but it was way too late to be someone random just joy-riding.

 As I'm writing this (in the wee hours of Sunday morning), it's back.

I don't have any idea what's going on out there now.

Somehow or other, Laura found out about it after the fact. She took Mal somewhere on Saturday morning. (Sidenote: I think that one of home-schooling's other benefits is that it makes you immune to viruses). Maybe people there were talking about it. She mentioned seeing posts asking about it on nextdoor.com, so maybe that's where she picked it up.

However she ran across the information, she eventually tracked down the basic story:

For some reason, police chased someone down 1431. Whoever it was took a left at our wide spot in the road. They wound up at our lakeside park. They spun around to try to get back out, but cops had already blocked both exits.

So whoever it was made the only possible rational decision: they drove the car into the lake, then swam across.

The helicopter was the cops continuing the pursuit.

Apparently, whoever it was got away clean. But they did pull the vehicle out of the lake this afternoon. So maybe they'll get some clues there.

Maybe whoever it was did something really and truly awful. Until I find out why the chase started in the first place, I'm rooting for the escapee.

Soooo.... #Covid19

Dear Diary,

I am not good at waiting.

Scratch that: I'm okay at waiting. As long as I know what is coming. And I'm in control of it.

I am very sad about the people who have gotten ill from the novel coronavirus that started making the rounds at the end of last year. I hope Tom Hanks and Katie Couric and all of the basketball players will get better, but I hope everyone will get better. I'm sure the effect in China is like 9/11 was here, only in slow motion: If you weren't affected, you know someone who was affected; it touches everyone.

Here in our house, we're mostly social distancing. James is working from home, which is his preference, anyway. D is typically home, except for banjo lessons. And this is spring break, so Monday would be a stay day, anyway. Our church has gone online for the time being. I'm still taking Mal to the park, and to Urban Air and the movies and other outings... but we're never around too many people.

Except for two weeks ago today, when we went to a birthday party and then to a community park and restaurant in Belton and THEN to the Round Rock Outlet Mall, where I'm guessing there were 7000 people... but the incubation period for that is over with, and we all seem a-ok.

I'm not worried or even concerned that we'll get Covid-19. I'm not worried about my family. I'm hopeful that the medical systems won't be overwhelmed and that the ill can get the help that they need. I understand why people are slowing down and backing out. I get it.

I don't get why people are hoarding toilet paper, but, let's face it. People are weird. And so far, there haven't been any documented cases in Travis/Williamson counties. Then again, there haven't been any tests available, so it's possible we ALL have it.

But here's the deal: We were supposed to go on vacation in a couple of weeks. I know, boo hoo. A lot of people have had vacation disruptions. Heck... I hadn't told anyone about this except my travel agent, but I'd booked us a Disney Merrytime Bahamain cruise for Christmas (oh, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to get that pun), leaving from Galveston and stopping at the ACTUAL Happiest Place on Earth: Castaway Cay. But we've lost more than the price of the cruise in the stock market in the past two weeks, so I canceled that. It's entirely possible we could rebound a rebook, but it doesn't make sense at the moment.

LIES. ALL LIES.

No, the hard part is the not knowing. Two of the places we'd planned to go on our immediately-upcoming vacation are closed through the end of the month. It seems unlikely they'll be open at the beginning of April, or even during the week we're to be in California. But will they refund us our money? I've reached out via email, but I'm trying to be patient since I know there are people already there who are scrambling to get out before the doors lock.

And even if THEY refund us what we've spent, will AA refund our airfare? Not allow us to rebook with no charge, but refund the tickets with no $200 per ticket fee? If they won't, there is somewhere we can go that will be great... assuming that places to eat are open. But who can tell what to expect so many yet so few weeks from now?

I'm trying to pretend that my brain is smoking pot and chilling out. But I need answers.

I realize this is a grade-A pain-in-the-ass problem. Like, people are dying. I'm a jerk. I get that. I wish I were different. I'm working on it.

In other news, 365 by Whole Foods was cleaned out when I went today. I did not panic buy anything, and we're not hoarding. It's funny that I subscribed to Charmin's Never-Ending Roll a few months ago. It's really been easy and mindless and great! Toilet paper is on the way! WHY ARE PEOPLE HOARDING IT?!

Anyway, my refusal to panic-buy meant that today, when I realized we were low on eggs and almost out of lactose-free milk for D, that there was none to be found. We bought about $100 worth of snack stuff to supplement our eMeals (I have ingredients for 3 or 4 more meals on our menu). But then I used the last of the eggs on lunch. So...

I decided to check out H-Mart. It's a bit of a drive, and I thought I'd hit the gas station first. I mean, their eggs might taste like cigarettes, but if they have them, they have them, right? THEN I thought of Dollar General. Guess what?

YAY!

So we're set on cereal, milk, eggs, and toilet paper has been shipped from the giant TP factory in the sky.

And NOW, at about 9:00 PM, we're getting ready to have our Papa Murphy's Pi Day special pizza for dinner. Our days just get later and later. But that's cool, man. Real cool. (See? I'm trying to be chill.)

Misgendering

Recently, Laura wrote a post that's really about child gendering.

I tried to add this comment, but blogger is broken and won't allow it:

Personally, I think it's hilarious when strangers assume I'm female based on my hair from behind. The look on their faces when I turn back, and they see my scruffy facial hair, and I got to say something vapid like "Oh, never mind little old me" in the deepest bass I can manage is priceless.

I thought a bit more about it while I ranted and raved and bounced off the walls about the technical issue that keeps me from commenting on that post.

It dredged up a lot of old, painful memories.

Mom never wanted me to grow my hair out.

The way I remember it, I decided that I did, shortly after my parents decided to divorce. Dad took me to the barbershop where I'd gotten my hair cut my entire life.

I vividly remember the place. Two guys ran it: Mac and Leroy. I don't know why, but I always preferred Leroy.

Going there was a treat. I'd hang out and play with stuff while I waited in line. They always had cool toys for this purpose. This was where I learned to solve that puzzle with the horse shoes, chains, and rings (TODO: find an image/gif link, assuming kids these days don't know what I mean).

Recycling was starting to be a thing back then. We'd buy a bottle of, say, Coca-Cola. We'd also buy some peanuts to dribble into the neck and make it extra-delicious. And then we'd spend an extra $0.10 to take the bottle home.

Then we'd get a $0.10 refund to bring it back intact.

As a huge bonus, we could also get $0.10 for every other bottle we found on the side of the road and also brought back.

I never delved into the details of what actually counted for a refund. I didn't have a clue about numbers and money back then. Much less ideas about what counted as an "intact bottle." It was just something obvious that everyone knew.

A few years later, I had a civics teacher (I've forgotten his name, which makes me sad) who spent his nights as a security guard at the Planters peanut plant. If a glass jar of peanuts fell off the pallet, they couldn't sell the things. So they just gave them away to whichever employees might want them.

He always had a jars of peanuts available to share with anyone who might be interested.

I think that, in that day and age, none of us considered the basic fact that Planters couldn't sell those peanuts because of the possibility that glass shards had fragmented into the inside.

Or maybe that was just those of us who considered ourselves poor and desperate for food.

Now I have a flashback that's even more vivid.

You drove out of our neighborhood and took a right onto this road that led to my elementary school. When I was 8 (or maybe 9 or 10), I decided that I was old enough to ride my bike to school.

It was probably a mile. Maybe a mile and a half. I remember being super-embarrassed because my dad assembled my bike incorrectly, so the goose-neck leading to the handlebars was backwards. To this day, I don't know whether he or the designer was wrong.

On the way home, I missed the left turn back into our neighborhood.

I wound up in a little cul de sac packed with mobile homes and a lot of African-American faces.

I shamefully remember a feeling of terror. I felt all these people looking at me, and I felt their hatred.

In retrospect, I suspect I probably just felt their fear. "What's that chubby white kid doing here on that shiny bike?" comes to mind.

This was somewhere around 1980, so racism was alive and well in America. The KKK was still doing just fine when I graduated high school 10 years (ish) later.

I don't remember anything that I'd ever experienced up to that point that would have given me any reason to think that darker-skinned people are different.

But my father, at least, had some pretty seriously racist opinions.

And my mother's family...well, I'm not sure what I learned from them. I know that my mother gloated a little bit when one of my cousins had a kid with an African-American father. But then she told me that she knows they don't like Mexicans when I half-jokingly asked her what Arizonans know about them.

All this has wandered very far afield.

This post isn't really about racism. If I had an editor, this part would all get filtered into a different post.

It's about genderism.

Shortly after I decided to start letting my hair grow out, which was shortly after my parents' decision to divorce, my dad took me back to Mac and Leroy's barbershop.

I just had another vivid memory. They had these big handles on their chairs, kind of like you have on the side if old recliners. It let them raise and lower the chairs, and spin them around. It was usually a big treat when they'd spin the chair around and stick a mirror in front of your face, and let you see what they'd done to the back of your head in the other mirror.

I will never forget the way my soul collapsed when Leroy showed me the way he'd trimmed my hair exactly the same way he'd done it my entire life.

I had decided to change my hairstyle months before that. I told him so, and that I was just starting.

I strongly suspect that my father told him "No, just keep it business as usual, and get rid of that extra fuzz that's started to grow in since I ditched his mom."

But I'll never know.

My hair was just starting to look scruffy, and he chopped it off.

When Leroy died of cancer, and that barbershop closed, I'm ashamed to admit that I was glad.

I mean, really, I'm horrified now that that was my reaction. This is probably the moment that prepared me, emotionally, for shaving it all off again when I got into boot camp. And I'm sad now that people die.

But, at the time?

It's been 35 or 40 years, and I'm still angry about this!

All this has been a fun (?) trip down nostalgia lane. But I didn't want to write about me.

I'm a full-grown man. It doesn't challenge my masculinity if someone else mistakes me for a woman from behind.

Does it challenge Mal's?

Will it make a long-term difference if it does?

When we're out in public, he regularly corrects people who assume he's female due to his hair. Sometimes, we will also.

Are we ruining his life by not playing into stereotypes?

Laura already noted that it would be "easy" to chop his hair off and make him "look like a boy."

Would we make his life easier if we did?

Better question: would we make his life better?

Important detail: we offer to just chop all his hair off every time we have to comb through its tangles.

Which is awful.

He isn't ready.

I haven't been around for any of his hair trims. The last one sounds like it was awful enough that I'm terribly sad I wasn't there.

Rebel Eaters, Episode 2 Journaling Prompt

This week's writing prompt was basically: What rules would you like to impose on the people in your life regarding food and your body?

I have this pin on my purse. I bought it about two years ago from Fat Girl Flow, but I don't see it on her merch site anymore.

Since I bought it, I haven't heard anyone talking negatively about food in my presence. That's fairly amazing.

I am extraordinarily fortunate in that I live in a house with people who eat unapologetically and live in bodies without shame. I don't have to set boundaries about diet and exercise talk, because no one around here goes in for that kind of thing.

That has not always been the case.

 It took years to divest from the mentality of "good" and "bad" foods, or from feeling like I had to earn the right to eat by making sure I'd gone through the paces of a rigorous -- and boring as all get-out -- exercise regimen.

One of the reason I'm likely so devoid of the chatter of Diet Culture is that I don't work in an office anymore. I remember food and portions and workouts being prevalent topics of conversation when I was in the corporate world.

When I worked at a newspaper just out of college, I remember a lady counting the calories in each potato chip as a male co-worker ate a bag of them in at lunch. I was ear-deep in disordered eating and exercise at the time, but even I wouldn't have done that to another person.

When I was pregnant, prenatal vitamins made me ill, and I was trying to be extremely vigilant about making sure I got all of the nutrients I needed to provide for a baby. I was sitting in the break room with a packet of baby carrots when my supervisor came in to get a bag of peanuts out of the vending machine, looked at me on the way, and asked, "Do you know how many carbs are in a carrot?"

I don't miss that, and I wouldn't put up with it. I wish I'd just said, "I do not care about that on any level, thanks. I'm trying to enjoy my snack."

It's actually difficult for me not to lecture in the other direction these days. When someone seems apologetic about what they're eating, I try to encourage them with, "Your body knows what it wants. It's fine!" I could actually talk about it for three hours, but that's no better than the Diet Culture evangelists, so I shut my trap.

I Don't Think This is Going to Work Out

Have you ever met someone and known almost immediately that you weren't going to be able to have a meaningful relationship with them?

Today we went to the park to meet a couple of homeschooling families. One, we've hung out with before. The other, it was our first time meeting them.

The child we've played with before had upset Mal by screaming in his vicinity, which is a cardinal sin Malcolm cannot forgive. The girl's mom was talking to her, and the child referred to Mal as "she." The mom reminded her, "No, he's a boy. Remember? He just has long hair." The little girl tried to make sense of it, looking at the new mom's baby and saying, "That baby is a boy, too."

The baby's mom said, "No, she's a girl. See? She's wearing a bow on her head."

Well, dang. That... doesn't really help.

If you've been around for any amount of time, you know my feelings on the arbitrary and useless binary gender traits we assign to people. I think boys should be able to wear bows if they want (Mal certainly did when his bangs were growing out to "not bangs," because I couldn't find many hair clips that were... uh... manly??). And paint their nails. And have long hair. And girls should be able to -- well, here's one area in which girls actually have more freedom than boys. But they should be able to wear overalls and stay dirty and belch proudly, I guess. If that's what they want.

However, beyond that, even if you tend to be more "recent Western traditional," I want for you to think about something else for a minute. Here goes:

Strict binary gender expectations hurt EVERYONE.

If we assume that "female" = "feminine" and that it looks or acts like a certain thing, it has the potential to hurt people who cannot fit into that category, despite wanting it desperately and trying their best. Maybe a girl is too fat or too poor or maybe a woman has worked hard in a rough profession all of her life.

Virgie Tovar talks about being very confused about her gender growing up (and she's a SUPER "girly-girl") because the store didn't sell cute clothes in her size. I remember feeling like the clothes I had to buy were boy clothes because I was bigger, too. My choices were boy clothes or adult clothes, which were way too mature/business-casual for my 13-year-old self.

So if we insist that "feminine" means a dainty little thing with an adorable sundress, but then we only make sundresses up to a certain size, then it necessarily excludes big girls who might REALLY want a cute sundress to wear on their fat bodies.

If we insist that "feminine" means long hair (a nearby private Christian school dress code states that girls must have hair longer than their ears), then we heap shame and fear of rejection on girls who might have alopecia or trichotillimania or medically-caused hair loss. Or who might just want a Mohawk.

When I was a kid, I wasn't scared of bugs and I wasn't ticklish. Apparently, that's what girls did -- run screaming from boys with bugs, and shriek in delight at boys' poking their armpits -- and I felt VERY "other" because I wouldn't fake it. In my elementary-school brain, it clicked as that I was just too big and too hearty to be an actual girl. Boys didn't like me "like that." I wasn't "girly" enough.

Recently, there were some pictures in the media of a famous family whose older child has recently changed her name and gender identity. One comment I saw was, "He doesn't look even remotely like a girl. He's not fooling anyone."

Maybe you agree with this kind of thing?

But how can we demand that a person look exactly like the "norm" we have taught ourselves to expect or else be rejected? Can you see that when we impose those expectations on people whose gender identity doesn't match up with their biological sex, it ALSO harms then people who are cisgender and maybe just don't live up to those characteristics, either? Even if that's what they desperately want?

It would be so much easier for EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON EARTH if we'd agree to dispose of the superficial gender "clues" that so often steer us wrong.

We've come a long way toward this in my lifetime, but the fact that my son has to explain almost every single day of his life that he's a boy indicates that we have a long way to go.

And I think it would be extraordinarily challenging to have a friendship with someone who was dedicated to propping up the stereotype of "bow = girl."

Second Chances on Used Clothes

I decided to give Poshmark another chance. This time, I needed jeans. I mean needed. One of our stupid cats (the stupidest) had managed to snag a hole in my old jeans, which means it's just a matter of time until an unsightly run would start and... oh, what? I could just darn the hole? No. Because these were actually Pajama Jeans, and once they're compromised, it's all over.

Anyhoo. Jeans.

I had a strategy this time: I'd sort by cheapest first. Doing this, I purchased 2 pair of jeans at about $7 each, plus the $7ish shipping; so they were each around $15. That didn't seem too awful for a pair of gently used jeans that I kept from going into a landfill. Also, they weren't jeggings. They were jeans. I mean, they are jeans. I bought them in the past, but they still exist. Forgive my grammar.

Cut to today. Nope. Cut back to when the jeans arrived in the mail.

I took them out of the packaging to make sure I'd gotten what I ordered, and that they were in good shape. They were, so I put them in the closet. I kind of held them up to me, but they looked kind of small. They were in the size I think I wear, but Pajama Jeans only come in letter sizes and I don't trust the Woman Within sizes, as most of their stuff is super flowy and I'm on the small size of their "double-sized" sizes. That was a lot of the use of the word "size," but our lawn guy is weed-whacking and the washing machine is running and I can barely think, much less write.

SO.

I think I was nervous. What if I don't wear the size I think I wear? What if I've gained so much weight, I've moved up in sizes? That's not actually a problem (though it's likely something I should have sussed out before I purchased new trousers), but would be a thing I'd have to process. I've worn a size up before. I've worn a couple of sizes up.

And I left the jeans in the closet for a good week.

Last night, Mal and I went up to visit my parents and to spend the night. James is working from home right now (all of his company is #covid19) and started some training today, so I'm trying to keep Mal occupied for the next few days. We happened to get home right as James was finishing up a lab this evening.

When packing our overnight stuff, I decided to take one pair of those new jeans. Without trying them on. I figured that if they didn't fit... I'd just feel stupid and wear what I'd worn down there.

Guess what? They fit fine. They looked cute and were comfortable. And now it's too hot to wear jeans anymore. Hope they fit next season!

Will I Ever Figure It Out?

This last week, I had my parenting style laid bare by my older kid, and it was not the style I'd want people to think I have. But I don't doubt that was the impact, regardless of my intent.

It sucks to try as hard as you know how, to lose so much sleep and untold years in worry, only to find out that you still messed up and your kid suffers for it.

The only way out is up, though, so here we go...

In regards to the other child - This weekend, our library hosted a "teddy bear picnic." It was supposed to be at a park (not the one with the playground) but there were clouds in the sky so they decided to take it into the conference room at the library. It wasn't nearly as festive. It was a lot more boxed-in, but it was still cute. A lady known as Mother Nature told a story about bears and honey, then there was a craft. The kids could have "juice" (Capri Sun not-juice) and cookies. They gave out teddy bears.

There was an ice cream truck that was to arrive at noon, but at 11:44, after having been in the building for all of about 25 minutes, Mal said he was ready to go to the park (the one with the playground). He didn't care that there would be ice cream. He had to get out of that building with all of the kids and activity and noise.

It made me wonder: If we were planning to send him to kindergarten next fall, could he even handle it?

He can't stand prolonged, intense-focus activities that he did not originate. You would literally have to break his will to force it, and I wouldn't want to do that.

I don't have the answer, but, again, we soldier on in this never-ending adventure that is parenting...