Tired

I love and hate the structurelessness of these summer days, because I like seeing the patterns that emerge when they’re not imposed from outside. There are things that I am not exactly rigid about, but that are pretty much essential components of a complete day: writing in the morning, practicing with each of the three music students, time on the elliptical listening to my favorite podcasts, reading out loud to them before they go to bed…

In my determination to make blogging a habit I find it works to set aside time after I get the kids in bed, though it is easy to spend way too much time playing onFacebook, reading other blogs, looking for a perfect sleeper sofa to go in my studio (in gleeful anticipation of October’s visit from my goddaughter and her amazing mother). But maybe it’s the longer northern summer days, endless daylight, my children go to bed at a shameful hour, even when we’re not at Harry Potter pre-release parties, I stay up later to get non-childed time for reading and writing, and, undersleeping, I function less efficiently morning, dragging out the morning pages for hours around the interruptions of another cup of coffee and wiping up spilled cereal, negotiating peace or at least dulling the roar, and the other thousand urgent things that punctuate thought around here. I suspect I could achieve more efficiency by really being with the kids when I am with them, really applying myself single-mindedly to other things when I am not, but that is not likely to happen, and I am so much happier when I relax about all of the shoulds creeping back into my thinking.

Rather than relying on previous schemes of setting strict limits on the kids’ screen time of whatever sort I informed them at the beginning of the summer I wasn’t interested in being the screen police, and that they could watch tv or use the computer or play video games so long as I didn’t start perceiving it as a problem. That is, I expected not to have to hear fighting about any of those things, not to worry that they are becoming unbalanced and forgetting to play in other ways, to read, to help out around the house. And, surprisingly, it’s worked, though I suspect the older boys sort of nudge the younger ones, we’d better go do something else for a while so mom doesn’t take this away.

I am overjoyed to trust a babysitter, to have her coming over tomorrow night for the third time in two weeks — this time, so we can go to a fundraiser hosted by my husband’s tea-shop owning friend for a non-profit promoting the teaching of ecology and environmental science in elementary schools. It feels so healthy to practice being an out-without-kids grown-up, as much as I have always believed in having lives that included and involved them.

Anyway, not a lot of deep reflection today… stayed up writing past 1:30 last night, and got up at 7:30 so I could write two pages before taking a child to a 9:30 violin lesson, but, as a result was rather gentle in my expectations of myself today. Though we went to a Harry Potter party, the older boys and I, it was mostly to let them relish the experience of dressing up and going out late at night and being among other diehard fans, we have not yet bought a copy, though I expect they should be plentiful tomorrow with no line-standing… we will read it aloud, a chapter or two, or maybe three, a night, until it is done, doing our best not to read anything about it elsewhere. Funny, knowing how many families will buy more than one copy so that it can be read by several people simultaneously… I like the pacing of reading out loud, the hearing my kids get excited and speculate, their anticipation and enjoyment improving the experience tremendously, and in a sign of unprecedented maturity, suspect that wanting to know what happens is outweighed by the not wanting it to be over.