Today we will begin with a story from long ago, back when Carl and I were a new couple. I was an English major and was reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for one of my classes. Carl read a short summary that came with talking points. He sat down with me one day and asked me one of the questions from the talking points, under the pretense of having read the book. I was surprised and delighted. His ruse lasted perhaps one or two discussion questions further, until I asked him a question about the book. Unable to maintain his lie, he fessed up, and we had a huge laugh. As Carl says, this interaction is part of our origin story as a couple, always retold with fondness and laughter. Recently, we actually did read, or start to read, a book together. Since I grabbed Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises off of a shelf in a bookstore, feeling that I wanted to read the classics I haven’t yet read, we read it. Or rather, I read it, had many judgements about it and didn’t love it (to put it mildly). When Carl asked what I thought of it and if he should keep going, as he was already not enjoying it, I said he might as well just stop. But then, we wanted a new book to read together because we did enjoy being able to talk about a book. With a gleam in my eye, I suggested The Scarlet Letter, and so it came to pass. I loved it again, as much as I did the previous four times I read it, but I was also shocked by how much I had forgotten in the last 25 years. Carl enjoyed it and we had many good conversations about it, and about how different Hawthorne’s writing style is from Hemingway’s.
You might think that once the school year starts, that my kids are in school all day every week, but it’s actually a remarkably rare occurrence to have both girls in school for a full Monday through Friday. More often than not, one kid has a full week but the other has a half day or a day off or a virtual day. This past week, Amy had Monday and Tuesday as virtual days, but the teachers barely assigned any work, so she and I enjoyed getting brunch out and watching The Great British Baking Show. Then, just as Amy returned to school on Wednesday, Sarah had a virtual day. She also had minimal work and it was a struggle to get her to engage in it. It is always so much of a struggle that I think (and never remember to make it so) we should put it in her IEP that she not be given homework of any sort. Thursday both girls had full school days, but Friday I picked Amy up early for a checkup with her orthopedic doctor.
Friday night we went to a fundraiser party for Sarah’s acting class. Sarah had a great time, but Amy and I spent more of the time in the hallway where it was slightly quieter. At the end of the evening, as I drove us home, I didn’t feel like I could safely change lanes when I needed to in order to take our usual exit. That did not go over well with Sarah. When I took the next exit, I accidentally went the wrong way for a couple of miles. That also didn’t go over well with Sarah, and she began screaming. I didn’t handle it calmly because I was busy berating myself for not handling my driving choices differently. Amy was upset about Sarah’s screaming. I pulled over and parked to wait for the screaming to abate. Carl stayed calm and helped us all regroup, but that was not quite the end of the evening we had anticipated. This week I was not as calmly focused on Sarah as I sometimes am, and I think she felt it. Or maybe she just had some harder moments because sometimes people have harder moments. At any rate, it was a good reminder for me that if I can be more attentive to her and more loving in my interactions, then everything for everyone is better.
Yesterday Carl, Amy, and Sarah played Feed the Kitty. It’s a game involving wooden mice moving around the pretend food bowls of different players. Carl turned it into a water-drinking game too, so everyone was hydrated. This was all as I fixed lunch while timing myself. We have realized that Amy, Carl, and I often expect various tasks to take us a certain amount of time and we can be off by an extreme degree. Turning this in to a game too, we have started predicting how much time a thing will take, with everyone guessing ahead of time and then using a stopwatch to track the actual time. I guessed that it would take me 20 minutes to make lunch. Carl and Amy thought it would take me longer. It took me 26 minutes. So I was close, but it’s a good reminder that I usually underestimate my food prep timing.
As a follow-up to last week’s post, Sarah had a wonderful time at her overnight camp retreat!! She loved it. She didn’t get homesick. She did wake early and they said she had some nightmares, but she loved swimming and eagerly participated in all of the other activities too. For the talent show she sang along with “Shake It Off.” She wants to attend other retreats in the future. What a huge success, especially compared to her struggles over the summer when she attended the week of camp and had to switch to being a day camper, and when I sat in the parking lot to be able to take her home whenever she wanted to go.
Lots of love to you all.
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