She's not alone.

Maddie's not the only one with adjustment issues these days. I'm having issues myself.

I hesitate to blog about work because, well, duh, it's dumb to blog about work. Some of my coworkers occasionally read my blog, what I write is intended for public consumption, and I'm not anonymous, so caution is warranted. But I can say this much about work without it being too much: for the past month or so, work has been totally kicking my ASS. I've made a ton of dumb errors (and been called out on them by people as high up as the president of the college. Niiiiice.) I manage seven people, morale in the office is low, and I have not done a good job of helping to bring morale up. I haven't felt good at what I do in quite a while. I wake up at night and think about work, then when I'm actually at work, I'm distracted and distractable. It's just been hard.

I'm not a person who ties a whole lot up into my professional identity. That is to say, I don't feel like I define my success and worth through my job. That said, I spend 40 hours a week at work and it's wearing to feel like I'm spending that much of my time doing things poorly. Especially when I go home and deal with the fallout of adjustment to kindergarten and such.

Boo hoo blah blah. Instead of whining about it, I should be working on fixing it, right? Alas, my recent work-related mishaps are for the most part not a result of slacking off but rather a result of well, I'm not sure what. I'll think I've done a good job on something only to have mistakes pointed out to me by all kinds of people. I'll think I'm on top of something and then find out that I've overlooked something major.

Where is my brain, then? How can I get my head back in work? How can I do a better job of being empathetic to those I manage to help them to feel better about their work? How can I do all that and have empathy left for my children?

As Maddie and Riley get older (and their lives get more complex) and as my career grows longer in the tooth (and thus also more complex), I feel the squeeze of work/life balance more and more. Some might find that invigorating; I find it stressful, exhausting, and untenable. I think my recent mistakes at work are the result of simply not having the capacity to do all that I'm supposed to do. When forced to choose—work or family?—family wins, and work, which has needed a lot of attention of late, has not gotten all it needs.

There's no easy answer here. I'm doing the best that I can, just feeling frustrated and as though my best is falling short of the mark. We just wrapped up a big event at work, and this week is thus far all about figuring out just how many things got lost in the shuffle of event prep. With any luck, things will even out here on the work front in a couple of weeks, and on the school front, too. I've learned a lot about patience, at least as applies to situations, but patience with myself is a different matter entirely and getting practice in that area is just not very much fun.

Adjusting

"Mama, I don't like school," said Maddie to me as I kissed her goodnight tonight.

It's been clear to me since kindergarten started two-and-a-half weeks ago that the transition was hard on Maddie. She truly enjoys new experiences, but she also likes to know her place in the social structure, and she prefers that her place be on top. Kindergarten was a whole new ball game there. She has quickly picked up on the rhythms of the classroom, her Spanish is excellent, and generally "school" as a societal construct makes sense to her.

Her social world is, however, topsy-turvy. Her closest friends from preK are in her class, but so are a bunch of new kids, and there are a total of 28 small people in the room with only one responsible adult. Maddie wants to stick with what she knows—her friends from preK—and leave the newbies to the side, but it seems that last year's besties are testing their wings with the new kids. Riley is off with his friends, and Maddie is left feeling adrift.

Maddie's used to being the queen bee, so this is hitting her very, very hard. She's got a strong, some (ahem, her mother) might say bossy, personality, and it's hard for her to be so unsure of where she fits in, especially since where she fits in might not be as the leader. I'm sympathetic, but it's also made her a tyrant at home, with a need to control even more than usual and a need to try to control all kinds of things that are not reasonable. Like everything. There are threats and demands, there is yelling, and there are ultimatums. It's most unpleasant.

What I find most frustrating about it all is how hard it is to evaluate the information she gives me. Five year olds are charming storytellers, but notoriously unreliable narrators. Are her friends really deliberately excluding her on the playground all the time? Does she really have a toothache? What actually happens at school each day is a bit of a mystery to me. I can ask a seemingly straightforward question such as, "Did you go to the library today?" and get a yes from Maddie and a no from Riley. They're in the same class. "Well, maybe that was Friday," amends Riley, but the thing is there's no way for me to tell.

The details of the situation are in some ways unimportant. If Maddie is feeling hurt, left out, and nervous about how to fit in, then those feelings need to be addressed. As an adult, I find coming up with a strategy for addressing those feelings challenging without understanding the nuances of where those feelings are coming from. I can hug and love and reassure, but I'm empty-handed and silent when it comes to ideas for what to do during a lonely recess. She's been packing a lovey in her pocket, a small bear, which has helped. It might be that time is all that can help, and we've talked about how periods of adjustment and transition can take a while to feel settled.

It's just hard to watch your child struggle with big feelings. Little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems, or so I've heard it said. She's still pretty little in many ways, but things are starting to feel big. In a few weeks, I'm doing something for the first time: taking each of the twins on an individual, overnight trip with me. My mom and stepdad will keep one of them and I'll take the other over to the Oregon coast for a night. I'm super excited to do this for a whole bunch of reasons. With Maddie, I hope that while we're away, we can really talk about what's bothering her, uninterrupted and with focus. Even if the talking doesn't lead us to any solutions, I think the attention will help her. Riley will love the attention, too, but Maddie really needs right now. Small(ish) girl, problems getting bigger.

Back to School Night

I loathe back to school night. Loathe it. Last year, my loathing caught me by surprise; I was quite excited by seeing the classroom and going to the book fair and being courted by the PTA. Seriously! I was! But then I went and it was mayhem. No place to sit for dinner; crowds and lines and stuffy libraries; crazy activities; utter and complete chaos. I do not say this to fault anyone involved in organizing the event as that was all done well. This was the usual chaos of an elementary school, and it's the kind of thing that makes me totally nuts.

This year, I felt like I went in with the right attitude, but I was still snarly by just after dinner. Really snarly. Like, I'm-the-mom-who-yells-in-public kind of snarly. Maddie got separated from me and Riley on our way to the book fair, which made her sob (who can blame her?), but she found an adult who helped her find me and what do I do? Neglect to thank the adult and lay into Maddie about how she needs to stay with me.

Really. I did that.

Then, as we crossed the playground to the kids' classroom, Riley turned sharply and without warning directly in front of me, causing the both of us to flail our arms, teeter unsteadily, and regain footing (me) or do a face-plant (Riley). Here's what I said, in this order:

"Riley! Don't walk in front of me like that! It's crazymaking!"
"Are your new books OK?"
"Wait, are you OK?"

Once at their classroom, I was irritated by the relatively small number of conference appointments available at hours that work for working families, then realized that we're out of town the week of conferences anyway. Got that worked out with the teacher, who was very accommodating. But don't even get me started on how generally working-parent unfriendly public school is. Wow. I mean, I know there are lots of issues to fix in the U.S. educational system and this is not a top priority, but it is a problem.

After my rant regarding conferences, I managed to calm down. The chaos in the classroom was at a manageable level, and I enjoyed being shown around the room by Maddie and Riley and meeting the other parents. We had fun reading the new book club books before bed, and it all turned around. But there were some moments there when I was about to lose my mind.

I'm rarely bothered by being a single parent anymore. Oh, sure, for a bunch of reasons, I'd like to have a partner. But it used to be extremely hard for me to attend events where two-parent households were the clear majority. That's much easier for me now. But somehow, tonight, with two kids talking nonstop and parents talking to me, too, and only one me to take it all in, I felt overwhelmed. It doesn't help that work has been utter insanity. Sigh.

But my best friend will be here soon and we shall have mojitos and debrief, and a big event that has been consuming much of my time and energy at work will take place tomorrow night and then it's OVER and work can go back to normal levels of crazy, and we have fun stuff planned for the weekend.

It feels so wrong to feel so bad about back to school night. I've got lots of years for it to get better, I guess. I hope.

A Strange Little Story

My friend Alayna is driving and I'm in the passenger seat. We're two blocks from her house, on a side street. We both see something in the road, something dark, maybe a box, not quite in the middle of the road, but definitely not on the shoulder.

We're going slowly, and as we get closer, we see that it's a cat. Alayna has to swing wide to go around it; that cat was not getting out of the way for a car, no sir.

We stop just past the cat. We're concerned. Maybe it's hurt. It was clearly alive, its head lifted and its luminous eyes staring at us as we drove past. I hop out to see what's going on.

I approach cautiously with my hand outstretched. The cat does not get up, but reaches its head out, sniffing. I pet it. It purrs. It's wearing a collar and seems well cared for. I pick it up to move it to the sidewalk.

"HEY. Please don't steal my cat."

A guy gets out of a car parked on the side of the road. Young-ish guy, no collar, but well kept, just like the cat.

"I'm not going to take your cat. I was just worried about it. It was laying in the street, and it didn't move when we drove by."
"Oh, he's like that. He likes to wander around. Swerve at him and he'll get out of the way."

I was totally unsure what to say about that. Who would suggest that you swerve at a live cat in the road? I put the cat down on the sidewalk.

"He seems like a nice cat." I guess that was a reasonable response. Noncommital, positive. Like I owe the guy something; he just suggested I aim a car at his cat. "Good night," I added.

I got back in the car, and we drove the last half block to Alayna's, my mind filled with unanswered questions.

Kindergarten

Tomorrow is Maddie and Riley's first day of kindergarten.

I feel like I'm less nostalgic about it all than most parents. I have many fond memories of early grade school, and I've always loved order and routine, so even when the teacher wasn't great or I struggled with the lessons, I remember feeling comforted by the routine of it all. I often find as a parent that it's hard for me to move past my own memories and expectations, so now, as Maddie and Riley prepare for this new adventure, my instinct is to assume that they are eager for it to begin, as I was. They give no sign to the contrary; frankly, the seem completely ambivalent.

It's true that they are going to the same school they went to last year, but now for a full day instead of a half. Still, I think going to a familiar place with some familiar faces makes the idea much less novel. We met their teacher on Tuesday; she is all business. To her factual statement and no-nonsense delivery of, "I have 28 kids in this class and no teacher's aide. I need parent helpers." all I could reply was, "I'm a single working mom; it's impossible for me to commit to a regular volunteer schedule, but I'd be happy to help with any kinds of tasks that can be done at home." I felt guilty, that working mom guilt, but it passed pretty quickly.

The working mom guilt is strange. I find that my guilt relates less to not being with Maddie and Riley, who have been blessed with excellent caretakers and seem to take my working in stride. My guilt comes when I think of all the parents that are in the classroom once a week, twice a week, maybe more; the parents who run the PTA and teach after-school classes; the parents who host Maddie and Riley for playdates. There is a vast array of unpaid, underappreciated volunteers who have a significant impact on Maddie and Riley's daily life and learning. I take full advantage of that—not in the sense of abusing it, but in the sense of benefiting from it—and yet I rarely give anything back to that system. This is not something I can change right now, and my guilt is overwhelmed by my immense gratitude that others can pick up that slack mixed with frustration about our school system and the fact that there is so very much slack to pick up. Alas.

I remember when Maddie and Riley were babies, when John was so sick and then shortly after he died. I remember thinking how very far away this day was, this day when Maddie and Riley would be in school full time. It was impossible to imagine. I won't say that the time has flown. In some ways it has, but in others, not at all. I think the difficulty of the first two to three years of our lives together makes it easier for me to be less nostalgic about this rite of passage that so keenly marks the end of baby, toddler, and very early childhood into this age of the school years. That is not to say that these years will be easy, or even easier. But it feels significant to say goodbye to a period of Maddie and Riley's life during which it was often hard for me to appreciate all that we had together, and when I was often sad and frustrated and feeling alone despite their presence.

Tomorrow morning the kids are allowed to wake me up at 6:30 a.m. There will be baths and showers and new clothes. There will be a choice of lunch to pack or buying lunch at school. My mom and stepdad will come, and we will all walk to school together. Pictures will be taken, the milestone noted and celebrated. Kindergarten. Dios mio.