focusing on the right thing or the wrong thing only time will tell

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Five for Friday

1. For the month of September, I have been waking up at 5:41 and getting out of bed at 6:00. This past week, I’ve been pushing it back a teeny bit; my alarm goes off at 5:21 and I get out of bed at 5:45. The cat has been extremely accommodating in terms of hopping into bed and purring loudly at me at about 4:20. My question is, how freaking early do I need to get up to be able to DO things? 

    Things I’d like to do: Lie in bed for 15 minutes to do the Wordle and Connections and possibly read a blog or two. Make some tea. Take care of the cat. Unload the dishwasher. Write a blog post. Spend 10 minutes watching cat videos with Carla. Get dressed. Eat something. Get out the door on time (7:15). In an ideal world, I would also be able to exercise and shower before we leave for school, but that seems much too ambitious. It’s still something I’d LIKE to do, though.

    Things I have been able to do: Lie in bed to do my word games. Make tea. Take care of the cat. Spend 5-10 minutes watching cat videos with Carla. Get dressed. Eat something (sometimes). We haven’t been out the door on time since the first week of school. Admittedly, this isn’t always my issue. But lately I have been scrambling to be moderately presentable and still be 15 minutes late. 

    Possibly I can squeak back my out-of-bed time to 5:00; but even then, I don’t know if I’d be able to get in a blog post. Definitely not exercise, too. If you exercise before work or school, HOW????

    One of the reasons I want to work exercise into my morning routine is because it’s often the first thing I jettison if the day doesn’t proceed as planned. For the past two days, I didn’t exercise as planned because my days got thrown out of whack. It’s not the end of the world, or anything; I don’t set exercise goals, so I can’t fail, take that perfectionism – and I did at least manage a decent walk on Wednesday – but it’s frustrating when I’m trying to prioritise exercise for my mental, physical, and future health. (The British/Canadian spelling was accidental but I’m keeping it. I think Ses are much prettier than Zs.) Plus, “exercise” is a catch-all term that includes showering, putting on clothing an actual reasonable person might wear, and possibly even doing my hair and/or makeup. Even if I do a shorter workout, and even if I take a ten-minute shower, and even if I throw my wet hair up in a claw clip instead of drying it, the Exercise Plus Shower Plus Getting Ready routine takes about an hour. I have no earthly idea where I’d get a whole extra hour in the morning. I can’t go to bed earlier than nine; Carla’s bedtime is 8:30 and I read to her for thirty minutes. And if I went to bed promptly at nine, I would never see my husband, which is an unacceptable tradeoff for exercise. Listen, I know I don’t really have anything to complain about here. My schedule is very flexible, for the most part. I guess I just keep on working in a workout where I can, sometimes sacrificing it to the whims of life.

    2. I had a baking success and a baking flop this week. The flop was the apple honey cake I made in a nod to Rosh Hashanah. It looked lovely – although I had expected the apple-covered portion to be much darker and more caramelized; not sure why, the photo on the recipe page is not dark and caramelized – and it was fine. But it wasn’t my favorite. The crumb was too big; I think it compares in crumb size, if not exact texture, to cornbread (although my husband disagrees). And the cake had, to my tongue, no flavor. Also, the apples weren’t caramelized enough. The other thing I baked were brownies. Since I was making them for a loved one who’d just had surgery, and since this person is trying to avoid excess sugar and carbs, I decided to try a sugar-free (ish), flourless brownie. The brownies are flavored with dark chocolate, dates, and vanilla, and get their fluffiness from eggs and baking soda. I was skeptical, since I really am not a fan of dates. But they turned out SO well. They are fluffy and soft, rich and chocolatey, and perfectly satisfying. The only real difference I noted between these brownies and “regular brownies” is that they have a slight coconutty flavor (because they are made with coconut oil). Carla loved them; the person I intended them for loved them; I loved them. My husband’s reaction was “these are weird.” Next time, I might try them with butter instead of coconut oil, although I didn’t mind the coconut essence. I am definitely making them again. I like how I didn’t have to chop up the dates; I just let my food processor do all the work. 

    3. After your extremely helpful comments last week, Carla and I (and the cat) tackled her bedroom on Tuesday. We got rid of so much stuff. My strategy was to tell her that I would clean her room for her, she just had to tell me what to do. She had complete control over what stayed and what went into the donation pile (or the trash). I was so ready to get a handle on the mess that I only faltered once, when I saw a beautiful sweater I bought her just last year in the donation bag. But she’s the one who has to wear the clothes. If she’s not going to wear it, it shouldn’t be in her closet. We also got rid of tons of old socks and underthings that are way too small, and I placed a big order for replacements. Even though I said I would do all the work, Carla ended up doing a ton of stuff herself. She organized all her dresser drawers, for instance. AND she did all of her own laundry. She even said it was fun. While I don’t expect that will last, I feel so much relief that her laundry is now HER problem. Her clothing selection is much more manageable and her room looks so much better. 

    Oh hello there, you can’t seriously think this drawer would be better suited to T-shirts, can you?

    4. This weekend, a friend I haven’t seen for years is bringing her daughters to stay with us. I am so excited to see her! And her children, whom I anticipate I will hardly recognize, it’s been so long. One thing I’m trying very hard to do is to resist the little voice in my head that keeps saying, “She’s going to think you got so fat.” My friend, though it should not matter in the least except in terms of the pride I feel for her, is a tiny person to begin with. But she’s also extremely fit – like, she literally has two World records in the fitness arena. My little inner voice, which apparently ignores what a nice and non-judgy person my friend is, thinks she will judge me for being large and soft. 

    Here are my coping thoughts: When I went to my twentieth college reunion a few years ago, I was shocked by how OLD some of my classmates seemed. Some of them were balding, or had grey hair, or looked like – gasp! – middle-aged moms. It was especially shocking to see these aging people next to my dear friends, who looked exactly the same as they’d looked twenty years before. Obviously, it wasn’t that my close friends remained unchanged while people I didn’t know well had aged poorly. It was that my love imbued the people dear to me with youth and beauty that transcends time. I experienced this phenomenon more recently, when I got to see a college friend perform with his college band. The bar was packed with a bunch of half-drunk middle-aged farts. But my friend and his band were exactly as they were back in college. Love is transformative in so many ways, and I think it can allow you to see your people in their best light. The way I look at my husband, a distinguished, respected physician who brings hope and relief to so many patients, and see only the cute charming finance major I met nearly a quarter century ago. Anyway, I am trying with all my heart to believe that my fit friend is going to arrive and see past my frumpy, overweight, perimenopausal self to her dear friend of many years.

    5. I have two recent purchases to recommend. One is a fidget toy. Carla apparently saw that a classmate had one, and she wanted one, too. So I caved and got it for her. It’s not silent, per se, but it’s very quiet – just makes a soft shuck when it changes shape. And it is very cool; the shape shifting is mesmerizing. Even the cat likes it. Speaking of the cat, we bought him yet another cat toy. (The poor cat is once again hiding under the bed; it’s been a traumatic week, and he does not do well with loud sounds. This time, the loud sound was me putting ice cubes in the dryer to de-wrinkle my duvet cover. He has never scratched me before, but I have three large gashes to commemorate this particular trauma.) Anyway: this toy is perfect for him. It has a little butterfly dangler on the top, it has a couple of balls on a track that he can push around, and it has a little fringey thing who pokes his fringey face out of hidey holes at random around the circumference of the base. This toy is electronic (uses batteries or a charger) and it has several settings. With one, just the fringey guy hides and appears. Another setting turns the butterfly dangler on, so that it spins, stops, and spins the opposite way. Another setting has both things happen either at once or one after another, I haven’t figured it out yet. It will turn itself off after a few minutes if the cat ignores it for awhile, and then it turns back on as soon as he touches it. Leo LOVES this thing. I put it up on top of a cabinet when he’s not using it (so he doesn’t get bored with it – cats get bored so easily) and he will walk over to the cabinet and look longingly at it and meow until I fetch it down for him. 

    Keeping this butterfly thing AND the little fringey guy in line is a very serious endeavor.
    by

    Phone Etiquette in the Age of Texting

    I am looking for information/ideas about how to teach my child phone etiquette. Is that even the right term? What I mean is, how to have a phone conversation with another human.

    Do I remember learning how to use the phone? No, I do not. I am guessing that I learned it through emulating my parents. You answered the phone a certain way, you handled the call a certain way, you closed the call a certain way. Those were all things I probably absorbed just from living in my house.

    But… How do you teach a child how to use the phone when you can’t teach by example?

    My house as an adult is nearly phone free. AS I PREFER, of course. We have no landline. My husband and I each have a cell phone, but we both actively avoid phone calls. I talk to maybe three people on the phone on a regular basis. I call my mom once or twice a week. I call my best friend from back home once or twice a month. And then there’s a mom from school who is a Phone Fan and who calls me, on average, once a week or so.

    I do have phone meetings with clients, as well. But those are infrequent and tend to cluster.

    All of these phone calls take place, almost without exception, when Carla is in school. Sure, sometimes I am still talking with my mom when I pick up Carla from school. Sometimes the mom friend calls when I am at home with Carla. But those instances are rare. The VAST MAJORITY of all of my human interactions take place via text or in person.

    (This is the third time I’ve used the word human in this post; I deleted one of the instances, so you are only seeing two of them. Well, now three since I used it again just a second ago. What is the deal? Am I subconsciously worried that you might think I’m spending time talking to… cats? Birds? The deer in my yard?)

    Back to the subject at hand: I wish I could just wiggle dismissive fingers at the whole idea of talking on the phone. By the time Carla’s old enough to want to communicate with her friends outside of school, she will probably want to text them or snapchat them or whatever it is young people do these days.

    Be that as it may, being able to talk on the phone is a SKILL. A dying one, perhaps. But one that could come in handy in Carla’s future professional life and at the very least is useful now when talking to her very patient grandparents. (I have a full-body cringe thinking about my poor mom saying, cheerfully, “Hello? Carla? Are you still there?” when Carla has CALLED HER and then given up on the call halfway through, with no heads-up to my mother.)

    My parents wind up being the guinea pigs for phone calls, by the way. And I am sure that the conversations are as frustrating on their end as they are on my end (where I am gesturing to Carla to pay attention and stop doing a backbend off the couch and answer the question your grandfather just asked you). But how does a child get better at talking on the phone without talking on the phone?

    I have googled, of course. The majority of articles seem to be mainly about… when to talk on the phone (as in, appropriate situations for phone conversation), rather than how to hold a conversation. And maybe THAT’S where I need to start. With conversations.

    Because part of learning the phone skill, I think, is learning how to hold a regular old in-person conversation. A conversation is a conversation, after all, no matter what medium you use to hold it. And I definitely could do some additional coaching in that regard. My husband and I try to teach Carla, in our own conversations, with each other and with her, not to interrupt, to pay attention, to ask questions and show interest in what the other person is saying, to take turns, etc. etc. But I admit that we aren’t perfect about it. It’s easy, when there are only three of you, to be a little bit lenient on the interruption front. And when we are all chatting around the dinner table, requiring Carla to look us in the eyes just isn’t super important. Plus, my husband and I both need to be better about putting our phones down when we are talking to one another and to Carla because THAT is certainly giving Carla the wrong idea about what’s appropriate. And it’s easy enough to have a conversation with your parents, or with people you see all the time. It’s a whole other thing to have a conversation with a stranger, or someone you see infrequently. When I am on top of things, I can remind Carla to smile when she says hello, to look the person in the eyes, to do that little “hi how are you fine how are you” exchange that humans do. But I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, most conversations are sort of impromptu, rendering preparation impossible.

    Another part of learning how to talk on the phone is, I think, understanding how different it is from in-person conversation. There are no visual cues. You have to convey everything with your words.

    And part of it is… a lot of intangible stuff about social cues and social expectations that Carla is still learning. Like… if one grandparent asks if you want to talk to the other grandparent, you say YES, even if it is not technically true. And… as I mentioned above, it is polite to ask how someone is doing, even if you don’t technically care. And… long silences are not a good sign, on a phone call. And… it is totally okay to end the call if you’ve run out of things to discuss, but you need to do it in a polite way, rather than just setting the phone down somewhere and wandering into a different room to build something with LEGOs.

    Carla is six-and-a-half. I feel like… this should be something she’s working on, if not something she’s already mastered. But I have no frame of reference. Are other little kids having full conversations via phone? Are other parents working on this skill every weekend? Are we failing our child because we, ourselves, are so phone (and human) averse?

    Do I need to start having Carla call one of her friends on the phone, to practice? Should I try to incorporate phone calls into our pretend play? Should I stop stressing out about this and remember that Carla is learning a TON of things right now and this probably doesn’t need to be a top priority?

    Probably the latter. But it is really hard to notice gaps in your child’s knowledge and have no real idea how to fill them in.

    Sort of how I feel when I remember that she is already six-and-a-half and we have only read half of the Ramona books and NONE of the Little House books and are the Winnie the Pooh years already in the rear-view, because we have yet to read that book all the way through. I get panicky, thinking of ALL THE THINGS I want her to experience and ALL THE THINGS I want her to learn (and read). And yet we only have so many hours in the day.