I assure you I am most definitely adult-worthy if we’re referring to trips around the sun.

Lately, though, I realize that I’ve lost some skills in the ten-plus year span of birthing and raising children.

A lot has happened in ten years.

Currently, I’m attempting to make sense of some seemingly basic stuff that I used to know how to do. Things like managing money and filling out a city survey and calling someone to repair the washing machine.

Life skills that once were straight-forward for me have become difficult, and I’m not exactly sure what it’s all about.

I used to consider myself an informed citizen. I still consider myself relatively informed. I keep up with politics and major things going on in the world… but then I don’t.

I’ve been checked out for some time now. It was a gradual happening. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to bury my head in the sand.

Well, perhaps I did that a little in late 2016. A big event happened in the United States that made me along with plenty of others stop and go what in the actual wahoo?!

We elected a buffoon to lead our nation. This is where I want to say that many of us did not, and it’s yet to be determined if anything about that election was legit, but for now, the buffoon is still in office, and plenty of people voted for him. ***face palm***

For the damn love…but yes, it happened.

So whether I like it or not, and whether I like all the other loopy events that have happened over the past decade, I’m here. I’m an adult, and I need to pull my head out of my nethers.

As for the other – the repairs and money management – well, I think it’s the result of passing a lot of that to Gil while I was dealing with more urgent matters pertaining to the kids. It’s like my brain can’t do both at the same time, at least not in the efficient way that I prefer.

There has also been the technology issue. Mobile devices became mainstream during this ten year period, which has drastically altered how we communicate, even with basic things like customer service.

Overall, I’m a believer in advancing technology to ultimately make the world better, but it certainly doesn’t come without challenges at the same time. Case in point, I just called to make an appointment with my eye doctor, and the person answering the phone informed me that she’s not used to that.

“Most people book through our website.”

I didn’t tell her this, but the last time I booked an appointment via the website, I arrived and learned that my time-slot was double booked.

So what’s the solution here? We have all these ways of communicating, yet so much gets lost because we’re all communicating differently.

I’m not sure. Patience. A sense of humor. Figuring out what works best for us and then understanding that our method may not be the preference for everyone, so it’s always necessary to be able to adapt to a new way. I could go on for days on this topic alone.

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I haven’t been writing much.

I’ve been working on a couple of other projects that I’ll tell you about eventually.

This week, though, I’m nesting.

I’m cleaning out all the things.

This is a new beginning of sorts.

I’ve been tending to sons. Little boys who move and don’t sit well at school and who see the world in this different way that I’m never sure how to interpret. I’m sure as hell not sure how to properly guide them.

In my natural state, I’d say I’m a free-range-y kind of parent. A love and logic girl, if you will. A believer in natural consequences. Touch the stove; it will burn you.

When my boys were tiny people, I’d catch myself eyeing them exploring their world, so captivated by the simplest things. A leaf, the wheels on a wagon. They both wanted to figure out how everything worked. Concrete little people. They didn’t necessarily ask a lot of why questions; they just took everything apart.

And I rolled with that. I let them explore. It was good.

Then they went to school. And many many parts of that were good and wonderful and enriching.

But now I sit at my computer, a tired mother of a nearly eleven-year-old and another racing to join his brother in the land of double-digits, and I know what those parents meant when I had tiny people and they would say, “It doesn’t get easier; it gets different but not easier.”

Confirmed.

There’s less wiping of all the sticky and stinky parts. Mostly they take care of all that themselves, though not quite to my standards all the time. Whatev. They bathe.

Now, though, there’s all this monitoring and coordinating with the teachers and it is scary as hell.

I look at them some days and I have to ask myself, will they be able to adult? I mean, this adult thing is lurking.

Piers is in fifth grade and Wallace is in fourth, and I spend too many moments worrying that they’re not where they’re ‘supposed’ to be, and I HATE that!

I had a bit of a come-to-Jesus with myself last night. In the past week, I’ve been to multiple conferences with my kids’ teachers and various other support people at their school. The boys are in good hands (I think). We’re on the right path, I should say. I gotta calm calm down and trust.

*Release control and believe things will work out as they’re meant to.*

Both kids are at a new school this year. Wallace, who deals with some processing differences and very likely dyslexia, is finally getting the much-needed extra support that no one thought he needed at his old school.

Piers is hopefully learning to break projects down into smaller steps and tasks, and he’s preparing for life after elementary school. He’s not a baby anymore. But it’s hard because I know how much support he still needs, so I have to advocate for him as he learns to advocate for himself.

But it hit me yesterday that I am once again required to teach things I never learned, or rather, that I learned the hard way.

Wallace will need a lot of support this year, and I’m pretty sure that he’s going to get it. In other words, his issues have finally been recognized. He’s a sharp kid. Too sharp for his own good sometimes. He had a lot of people fooled. He did not have me fooled. I saw him memorizing audiobooks. I knew he was hiding in the bathroom during math to avoid being found out. I was not at all shocked when his standardized test results showed he was significantly lagging behind his classmates in math and reading, but the school was certainly up in arms about the situation. FYI, large public schools with lots of money running through the PTA clutch the pearls when kids bomb standardized tests. At least that’s what goes down around these parts.

Let’s just say, a lot has happened on my blogging break. A lot of it is simply that some of the stuff has been so hard that I can only get through it, and it’s impossible for me to write about stuff when I’m barely making it through.

But I’m feeling lighter now, and I will share more in time.

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My favorite book of the moment is Differently Wired, by Deborah Reber.

This awesomeness of this book is gonna need its own post for sure.

When I first got it, I did what I do with books. I binge read it first. Now I’m re-reading more slowly and carefully.

Hands down, this is the most helpful book I’ve read to date on parenting quirky, sometimes exasperating kids who learn differently and can try the nerves of every adult (and sometimes kids) in his or her path.

I just need the audiobook to be released so I can absorb all the info in all the ways.

In the meantime, the author hosts a phenomenal podcast that all parents should check out:

TILT Parenting 

I’d love to know your thoughts.

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I’m going to go back to cleaning my fridge and tidying our filthy garage, and all the other adult things that have taken a back seat for too long now like dental appointment and contact fittings, because the reality is that I am an adult and no one is gonna swoop in and do it for me. Truth be told, I would hate that anyway.

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What about you? What’s new? Hope you have a fabulous weekend!