Life Lately

It kind of feels like the rest of the country has gone back to school while we’re stuck in some sort of cruel eternal summer. It began on March 13th with the first day of Spring Break and won’t end until September 14th, when Nolan goes back to preschool, and September 15th, when Caden and Brooklyn do. So actually that makes this the longest spring break ever? Either way, I’m out.

The end of August is always a beast. The five of us are over each other. The activities have all ended. It’s too hot. Except this year there never were any activities, it’s still too hot, and we’re extra over each other. The kids were doing remarkably well this summer with listening and helping and playing together. Then, a couple week ago, we hit a wall. Hard. We hit a similar wall at the end of May/early June after a few months of distance learning and no activities and a stay-at-home order, when all novelty of this so-called “novel” coronavirus wore off and we were all. over. it. So. I guess we were due for another one.

We did receive some long-awaited school information this week. Caden and Brooklyn will be attending a hybrid schedule that has them distance learning Monday-Wednesday and attending in-person on Thursdays and Fridays. Nolan, miracle of miracles, has few enough kids enrolled in his preschool class that he will be attending his regularly scheduled Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. I could walk you through the week I spent of agonized debate over whether to commit to hybrid or pull them out for full distance learning, but I’ll spare you the anxiety. It’s nothing you don’t already know. If you’re a parent of young children, you’ve had this same debate yourself. Suffice to say, we felt this was the least shitty of shitty options for the time being. (Side note: we also have the ability to opt-in to full distance learning at any time, so if we ever feel truly unsafe we have that as our back-up option.)

All I know is that every parent, even once they’ve made their decisions, even for my friends who’ve already sent (or “sent”) kids back to school, are still agonizing over their decisions. Whether distance, hybrid, in-person, or homeschooling, every parent I know is still asking themselves if they’ve made the right choice. The only ones I know who are confident in their decisions were either already homeschoolers or have kids who are immunocompromised, making the choice of staying home obvious.

Despite the amount of brain space it’s been taking up in my head, school still feels like this bizarre far-off ghost of an idea. Here in MN, we’ve got a few weeks to go. We don’t yet have supply lists or official distance learning schedules. The pool is out and we’re wearing swimsuits and eating ice cream while it lasts. Walls and all.

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Take Action

My heart is breaking for Kenosha. I feel like our summer has been bookended by police violence: first with George Floyd and now with Jacob Blake.

I subscribed to the Anti-Racism Daily newsletter by Nicole Cardoza last month. Each day includes education and action items covering a different topic related to racism in the US (and around the world). I highly recommend signing up. There is also an option to receive a Saturday-only newsletter which highlights the topics discussed all week.

I’ve appreciated the way this newsletter has grown my awareness, activism, and education around these issues. This week, I highly recommend looking at the issue dedicated to Jacob Blake and taking some of the action steps listed.

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Around the Internet

• How QAnon has infiltrated the corners of the Internet I frequent. Corners that to a certain extent felt safe.

• The most playful layout and fascinating read on sweatpants and the collapse of the fashion industry.

• On sourdough and what it means now.

• On being a mother and how “America just can’t really be bothered".

• A beautiful essay on the first day of school.

• And this is the biggest laugh I’ve had all week.

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Eating

Ugh it’s hot and I don’t want to cook or eat anything, said everyone everywhere in August. Still. We have to eat. Here’s what keeps popping up on my table:

• Not exactly summery, but this chickpea tikka masala has been on repeat. The sauce is everything.

• These chicken kabobs. Wrapped up in a pita with yogurt. So good.

• And while I think frying fish is kind of a pain, these fish tacos are 100% worth it. (Please just fry your fish, throw them in some good corn tortillas, and pull out your store-bought slaw and pico and call it good.)

• Also continuing our Friday night tradition of takeout, including our new favorite Mexican spot. Queso FTW.

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Fun Things

Have you heard that the house dress is back? This might be the best thing to come out of 2020. I’ve been living in this tank one and this midi tee one.

Nolan got this Mario LEGO set and I am stan-ing it hard. It combines two of his favorite things (LEGOs + Mario) and is so well-designed. You need to download an app for the building instructions, which at first had me all, “Seriously? Can we not do anything without technology?” but then I ate my words. Nolan usually has the technical ability to build LEGO sets but not the attention span. It’s like dredging the bottom of the ocean to get him to do the next thing. It’s constant prompting. “What piece do you need next? How many? Okay, where does it go? Are you sure? Okay. Turn the page. Now what do you need?” etc. on repeat forever. The digital instructions + videos were so well done and engaging and he was zero percent distracted by the fact that they were on a tablet. I did nothing but sit there and watch in amazement. The Mario figure itself is ingenious. Everything is so meticulously well-designed and thought out. 10/10 highly recommend.

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I’m currently typing this as the kids…I don’t know. There’s lots of (happy) yelling and running and banging going on. We tried going outside but it’s too hot (like immediately-break-into-a-fine-layer-of-sweat-when-you-step-outside kind of hot) so that didn’t last long. I couldn’t stand their noise so I walked upstairs. They’re not exactly being naughty, just….we’ve hit that wall. They’re loud. I don’t want to hear them. I don’t know what they’re doing. As long as no one is bleeding or on fire or standing over me saying “Mommy” on repeat, I just. don’t. care. This is called self-preservation. Am now wondering what would happen if I simply…didn’t emerge again. Until tomorrow morning. Except for the fact that I’m hungry. (On the menu tonight: BLTs , watermelon, and chips because: hot and summer and also EASY.)

September is coming, and while I have no illusions that it will be easier in any sense of the word, (besides in the wardrobe department because we could all use some cozy sweaters up in here), a new routine will probably shake us all up for the better. At the very least, I’ll have an entire 2.75 hours to myself every single week, and while that sounds pitiful, that’s also more time than I’ve had since March 13th. God bless us, every one.

When the Rest Falls Away

Rest. What a thing to try to find right now. With no school. No childcare. With three kids who are very much here—in a way they haven’t been for a year or two now. With chores and tasks and to-dos piling up, one on top of another. With a pandemic. With my sleep either coming in a blackout sort of way, hard and heavy and without dreams—or in a restless way, with worries and imaginings intermingling all night, resembling anything but rest.

There are only pockets of rest left. Little pieces in the day that often aren’t very consistent. Though I try to make them be with routines and rhythms sprinkled throughout the day. But that brings me back to those children. Rest isn’t found in long stretches or in the ways I’d like to find it: through pedicures and lengthy brunches with friends, with kids off on overnights with grandparents, consistent date nights, by doing literally anything at all without the threat of an actual global crisis lingering over my head. The heaviness so often seems to win. Until it doesn’t. Until I remember there is something uplifting in my morning cup of coffee, in sunshine, in the kids’ uncontrollable giggles. As Glennon Doyle writes in her book Carry On, Warrior:

“You have been offered ‘the gift of crisis’…the Greek root of the word crisis is ‘to sift’, as in, to shake out the excesses and leave only what's important. That's what crises do. They shake things up until we are forced to hold on to only what matters most. The rest falls away.”

When so much else has fallen away, here are the things, the pockets of rest, I’ve been holding onto.

Giggles at breakfast time.

Iced coffee shaken up with heavy cream and vanilla syrup.

Morning bike rides when everything feels fresh and new.

Quiet (or, more often, “quiet”) reading time.

Walking laps around the park while the kids play.

Sitting and sipping more coffee while he figures out a new LEGO set.

Tacos for lunch is its own kind of spiritual ministry.

Sitting here with the window open every afternoon from 12:30-2:00. And every Saturday morning for as long as I need.

When she asks to do a virtual baking class. So we do.

Folding laundry. I know. I kind of love it. It feels calming and therapeutic. * insert shrug emoji here *

Reading on the front porch.

Or lounging on the deck.

That light while I water the plants in the evening.

And clay facemasks FTW.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Rest -- A Photo Essay".

Getting Used to Things We Hadn't Expected

This summer, we learned how to relax.

I’m sleeping past 7:00 most days. It is glorious. I haven’t slept later than 6:30 for most of the past six years. The kids still wake up stupid early but they don’t need me now like they did when they were little and really had to be supervised every single waking hour. The ages of four and six are vastly different from one and three. Sometimes they grab their own bananas or blueberries to kick off breakfast without me. Mostly, they wake up and play together. Pokemon or LEGOs or Barbies or some combination of all three. They play so well together that I’m terrified to announce it here on the internet for fear I’ve now jinxed it all by putting it out into the universe. Like the universe is pricking up its ears now and going, “Oh yeah. Those Williams kids have been good for too long. Let’s throw in some early-morning mischief and screaming.” (Please, no.)

We used to wake up and go somewhere. Anywhere. Lots of wheres. Every day. Every morning. For almost the entirety of the past six and a half years. I was proud of it. “Don’t you just want to stay home?” I’ve been asked. But I didn’t. I really didn’t. And neither did they. They got bored at home. So did I. Sometimes I would try to stay home but by about 10:00 we’d all be going crazy. We’d usually eat breakfast and get ready and pack up and be out of the house by 9:00. If we left at 9:30 it felt like we were running behind. And it was good. They would go to a camp or we’d go to the zoo or a park or the library or meet up with friends or run errands. Every day. We’d come back for lunch and hang out at home in the backyard all afternoon. And that’s been summer (and fall, and winter, and spring) for most of the past six years.

This summer, we don’t do that. Like, ever. Today I tried to get us to leave the house at 9:00 to go to the nature center and we couldn’t, like literally could not, make it into the car until about 9:18. The kids are hardly ever in the car anymore and it seems to create confusion about things that used to be routine, like “Oh, hi. Remember how you need to wear these things called shoes?” and “No, you do not need to bring three stuffed animals, a LEGO minifigure, an assorted variety of plastic crap, and two suckers along on our eight-minute car ride.” We’re also re-learning the use of these things called “seatbelts”.

Most days now, we don’t eat breakfast until 8:00 or so. I cannot stress enough how late this is for us. It’s unprecedented. I roll out of bed and make coffee and butter toast. Still in glasses and an unwashed face and sweatpants I picked up off the floor. Then we clean up and get ready (I’ll save you the many motivational techniques I’ve used in the past six months for the whole “it’s get-ready-for-the-day-time”) and I shove everyone out the door for a bike ride. Though it’s not so forced anymore. They used to whine but now it’s just routine. And after our bike ride we’re just...home. I have a loose morning schedule with things like silent reading and some math or art and iPad time but we’re just...here. At our house.

I thought I would be going crazy by this point, by mid-August, after it felt like we’d already lived through the entirety of summer by the first week of June, but I’m not. I mean, I am. But not as bad as I thought. (Because for real if I stop to think about *everything* too hard, well, then I start to lose my mind.) It’s like this quote I saw recently, though the source of the quote was “unknown” and I’m always skeptical of those. But this one stuck in my head:

“Life is for most of us the continuous process of getting used to things we hadn't expected.”

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I still run our house by routines. My mind and body naturally seem to fall into these patterns, even when I’m not trying to.

We have a morning “school” routine. This is me when I’m trying to create routine. There’s a sign on the wall that’s numbered and color-coded. It starts with our bike ride and ends with iPad time. Though it’s not so strict. We can ditch it if we run into some neighborhood friends playing at the park.

I realized my whole day has been set up with these routines. Not consciously. Though according to a recent EnneaThought for the Day, I “cope with problems by striving to be competent.” Which reminded me of something Nadia Bolz-Weber wrote once, about being in a group where they went around and told each other the worst adjective someone could use to describe them. The people in her story said things like “stupid” and “boring”. I didn’t have to stop and think for a second what mine was. The word that jumped immediately to mind was “incompetent”.

Hence the routines, I guess. Which are illustrated most overtly by that schedule hanging in our dining room but also by the way I have of slipping my headphones on with a podcast at 2:00 every day while the kids have their mid-afternoon dose of screentime. It’s when I go outside to water the plants and check the mail. The way that’s also when I sit and fold laundry or organize the mudroom and clean up the kitchen, a gentle re-entry to the world after I’ve spent the past hour or so working. Or the way I unload the dishwasher every morning, first thing, while getting the kids their breakfast. Just these rhythms set up so I can move about my day, get things done. So I can be competent.

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The routine leads us to our backyard every afternoon around 2:30. We eat a snack on the deck and sometimes I read to them and they peel off, one-by-one as they finish their crackers and applesauce pouches to play on the playset or dig in the sandbox or see how big a splash they can make in the pool.

It’s here that I sit, because though I have a small burst of energy around 2:00, I’m almost always useless by mid-afternoon. 

We’ve learned to rest, the kids and I. Because of the pandemic. Because of these routines. Or maybe in spite of them. They play (mostly) contentedly in the backyard. And while our summers always involve a lot of backyard time, it’s like this year they’ve rediscoverd it. I sit on the deck and read (or *ahem* scroll Instagram). And it sounds idyllic but also I’m interrupted every 2.3 minutes to bring someone a towel or their goggles or their shoes (because there’s always at least one kid refusing to wear shoes). 

We literally have nowhere to be. Except exactly right where we are. And, most days, that feels more freeing than I ever would have expected.

A Place to Fail

I recently went through a week where I made a new-to-me recipe every single night. I didn’t realize I’d done this in my meal plan until about Wednesday, when I noticed I was continually looking at my phone for reference, as opposed to all the recipes that have become standard in my rotation over the years which I’ve memorized and adapted. 

It could have been a case of my subconscious telling me, via meal plan, that it was sick of our days all looking so very much the same. Or maybe all the foodie people I follow on Instagram posted especially good recipes that week. It was probably just a fluke. I don’t know. I guess I needed something different in the routine of the day. I cooked my way through a Thai chicken curry and a simple Mexican chicken and rice skillet and a black bean soup which we ate with a generous amount of tortilla chips. (The kids preferred the tortilla chips solo.) 

It occurred to me while making one of these meals how easy this came to me. I like cooking. I regularly pour over books about food, follow a ridiculous amount of those aforementioned food-related accounts on Instagram, tend to enjoy meal planning, and spend a good amount of time each day thinking about food. I’ve made dinner almost every night of the week since my husband and I were newlyweds. Then, it was because we didn’t have much money for eating out. Most nights I found a way to turn chicken breasts and onions and bell peppers into stir fries or fajitas or rice bowls or pasta.

Fridays were, and still are, the exception. I almost always take a day off each week. “I don’t think I’ve ever cooked on a Friday night,” I heard my grandma say once when she was well into her 80s. That sounded to me like a pretty good #lifegoal. Before we had children, or really before we had our third and were outnumbered by children, we used to go out on Friday nights. 

When our twins were born, they followed us along to Friday night dinners. We ate at 4:30 or 5:00, in near-empty restaurants, before we needed to be home for the bedtime chaos to begin. We’d request a booth and they’d rest next to us in their carseats. As they grew older they sat with us — their tiny-for-their-age bodies swallowed by cavernous high chairs, held up by the blankets we brought with to stuff around them. I’d order grilled chicken and broccoli, which we chopped up small, and they ate by the tiny fistful.

Now we don’t usually eat out on Fridays. Instead, we order takeout after the kids are in bed. (At home date nights: highly recommended. Mostly because you can eat Thai food in your sweatpants and have no need for mascara.)

The point being that Friday nights aside, the vast majority of evenings find me in the kitchen.

Read the rest about finding a safe space to fail over on the Twin Cities Mom Collective.