March 4

I am finally finally finally better. I still need to rest a little more often than usual and I am letting myself do so when maybe normally I would push past my tiredness. My headaches are definitely back, but so far they are still manageable. 

Sarah’s bus situation continued to be irregular, sometimes a little late, sometimes so on time it seemed early, but then yesterday went beyond the pale. The bus was extremely prompt (6:58 am) so it was good that I continue to have Sarah ready by 6:50 even when the bus usually doesn’t come until 7:20. I felt excited that maybe things were finally getting on track. When I got back from taking Amy to school I received a call from Sarah’s teacher saying that the bus hadn’t yet arrived at school. This was over an hour after it should have arrived. The bus company had not called the school. I called the bus company and got no answer. I left a message for the public school transportation person. I called the bus company again and got no answer. After 15 minutes of freaking out that my child was lost or that the van had been in an accident, I called the bus company for the third time and got through. The person excused the lack of a phone call to the school with the fact that she is the only person working the phones. That is NO EXCUSE. You make time to make such a call. Evidently the bus had run out of fuel and someone was sent to help and it would get to the school shortly. It did arrive safely and Sarah’s teacher called to let me know she was there. Still, in my book there is no excuse for letting so much time pass and not contacting the school when people will be worrying about where the children are. No excuse for behavior that could result in a mama bear panicking over the life of her cub. To round out the day, when the van came to return Sarah it drove rather fast down our street, faster than I think it should have no matter what, and passed my house without stopping. If I had been able to pause and think calmly I might have realized that of course it would slow down and back up and drop Sarah off. But my mama bear self immediately ran out of the house and was running down the middle of the street waving my arms and yelling “STOP.” The driver (true, he had only been the driver for a week) claimed that he normally came from the other end of the street. This is not true. That does not excuse the speed no matter what. The tricky thing with this whole situation is that I have a handful of afternoons when I am scheduled to teach and that requires Sarah to be able to take the bus home and have a sitter meet her. And yet this bus ridiculousness is untenable long term. The good news is that apparently the public school transportation person is looking for a new bus company. I hope this is true. If it is not or in the meantime, I may decide to take Sarah every morning just to have a bit more reliability in my day, although this is also not ideal given how much Sarah loves riding on the van. 

Sometimes I feel like feeding my children is like trying to go on a diet where you make resolves and it all seems easy and achievable until some moment feels hard emotionally. I often resolve to cut back on the number of disposable fruit/veggie pouches I give the kids given that they aren’t great for the environment. I resolve that I will make more healthy options from scratch. Then a difficult day or moment rolls around and I’m right back to “Here, have another pouch.”  I’m trying to hold all of the food stuff gently given that it was only within the week that I have gotten back in the groove for making juice and yogurt, etc. Those things aren’t difficult but none of these things really are. It is just that when you take 20 things that are small, quick, and easy, added together it isn’t so small, quick, or easy. (And sometimes I just want to sit and read a book).

I have been realizing that the dinner portions I provide are too small because after the girls polish off dinner and their treat then they have been eating a full yogurt after that. These are growing girls!

I still struggle with how often I yell at the kids, especially at Sarah. Every time I resolve never to do so again then I seem to rebound with even more yelling. Perhaps the first step is to stop resolving not to yell. 

I’ve been generally appreciating Sarah’s language skills lately. There are still many times when she loses her clarity due to excitement, but overall she is putting together beautiful full and clear sentences that are grammatically correct and have 7-9 words. I count sometimes when a particular gem comes out of her mouth. Yesterday she had her 10 year well-visit, and after the doctor looked in her ears Sarah said, “Dr. ____, that tickled my ears a little bit!” So clear, connected, spontaneous, and beautiful.

I have also been appreciating how socially comfortable Amy is when I take her to school. With each classmate that she sees on the way she says “hi ___” and waves. I don’t recall my ever having that confidence or ease in elementary school (if ever). 

Lots of love to all of you.