Parenting Frustration - November 2023

This is contemporaneous record of a power struggle that really got my goat. (As I read it now, I think I've had worse. But it reflects the great dilemma of how to handle disobedient children.) I wrote it down because I think some of the frustrating parenting moments should be documented so that I don't forget that it's hard and tell my kids I don't understand why their kids aren't perfect, as mine were.  

In sacrament meeting today (11/5/23), I tried to give some lip balm to Bear because her lips were so dry. She didn't like the kind I gave her and refused to put it on and just sat there holding it. Ever asked her for it. Wren wouldn't give it to Ever "because she would make it even more disgusting," and she wouldn't give it back to me. I told her it didn't matter if Ever made it more disgusting because she wasn't using it anyway, and either use it and give it to Ever or just give it to Ever or me. She wouldn't give it to anyone. She wouldn't let me take it out of her hand. She just had to win the battle. It made me so irate that I moved away from her, down past Tiny and Jim on the pew. I want my kids to listen to me. I think they should obey me because I am the parent. In the olden days, parents just beat their kids. Now it's all about "gentle parenting," and I just can't figure it out. 

The Rest of October 2023

At the park across the park from Miss Amber's house, the girls did some more high climbing after piano lessons.

Tiny gave me a sweet birthday present. I tried to reject her money, but she made me take it. She's so sweet and generous. Front:

Back:

Wrenzy also gave me a beautiful card and candy. 

Ever had to take pictures of her assignments and e-mail them to her teachers before turning them in the next day. I did not understand this ridiculous requirement, but it means I have photographic evidence of the fancy way she insisted on doing every assignment. Note the title "Homework" in block letters with cursive over it, and then the fancy shading of "Notes" and "Work" in this first specimen. I could not convince her to stop spending time making her work pretty. So much extra time.

Tiny got a medal for being nominated by her coach (Dad) as a soccer all-star. (So did Wren, but I don't have a picture of her.)

Wrenzy's classmate, Fiora, had a birthday party at Sky Zone Glow, followed by Legally Blonde (totally inappropriate for nine-year-olds) and a slumber party. I took Wren to Fiora's house for the latter part of the pre-Sky Zone festivities; we were late because Wren had to go straight from her all-star thing. When we pulled up outside Fiora's house, the girls ran out screaming "Wren!" and hugged her and were so excited. It was really nice. 

Because I am mean (slash the only mom around who has any clue or concern about the sort of entertainment my children ingest) and would not allow Wren to watch Legally Blonde or sleep over, I picked her up from Sky Zone at 9:00. She seemed OK to be missing the rest of the party. (Also those girls were going to be up all night long.)

I took pictures of the girls for their skiing season passes.

Tiny arranged her clean undies and jammies on drawer handles during her bath. 

Then she got an armful of bubble. I don't know how. One huge bubble film.

I found a list of goals by Bear. What an aspirational third-grader. 

Tiny went on a campout with her Girl Scout troop. I took her straight from all-star soccer tryouts. (They do all-star recognition day, which is when everyone who is nominated tries out for all-stars and gets a medal. That was the day of Fiora's birthday party. Then they do this "pool play" thing, when all the all-stars play so the coaches can figure out how to arrange the teams. Tiny had to go very late to the campout, straight from the pool play.) So Tiny was not clean upon arrival, but she was sweet and happy. 

The next day, they did crafts and spent some time by the river. 

Girl Scouts has not been ideal for Tiny because she goes to a different school and doesn't know any of the girls, and they haven't done a great job of integrating her. But after this campout, she told me she made a friend, whose name she didn't know. I was happy to see these pictures of the two of them together. I have since learned that the girl's name is Madison, and she seems to be a big Tiny fan. Who wouldn't be? 

I stumbled upon original song lyrics (I think?) by Bear.

I chaperoned Bear's class on a field trip to the gallery by the Dove Library in Carlsbad.

Bear, James, and Fiora

Mrs. Shimizu always has us kill the rest of a field trip day at the park; she seems to have some aversion to going back to school and doing any schoolwork after an outing. So we spent a really long time at the park lunching and playing and waiting for it to be late enough that we could go back to school for pickup time. It was incredibly cold, and I was so sad to be wearing slippers. My feet were freezing for hours. One of the moms made all of us plus Mrs. Shimizu pose for a photo.

We did a Friday Sky Zone play date with Tiny, Maya, and Kaia (and Kaia's big sister Stella.) I thoroughly enjoy Courtney Johnson, Kaia's mom, so it's always a pleasure to chat while the girls play. (Melissa, Maya's mom, works on Fridays.) Before we left, Courtney suggested a picture. 

Stella Johnson, Tiny, Maya Phillips, and Kaia Johnson

Ever got a special invitation to participate in the Rondos' extended-family Halloween gathering. She and Ella made very pretty cats (courtesy of Kristi, who made them up).

We carved pumpkins a couple days before Halloween. The girls added fun leaf-and-flower wreaths to their jack-o'-lanterns.

I am the least festive mother, and I have rubbed off on my children. No effort goes into costumes. This year they were all witches, using costumes we already had. Dreamy for me. I took a bunch of pictures before we left for trick-or-treating, but I didn't get a single one where they were all looking at the camera with a normal expression. Tiny, in particular, likes to be a real weirdy in pictures.

We collected the Cikaneks and headed out. 

I got an e-mail from Ever about her student-led conference. Those conferences sound like a good idea in theory, but they are a total waste of time. This irks me extra because we live so far from the school, so extra trips down there are not my fave. Anyway, I enjoyed Ever's personalized addendum.

Ever says "I love you" more than any child in the history of the planet, I bet. This may be jumping ahead because I am writing this in February 2025, and I know how Ever is now and has been in recent months but don't totally remember October 2023. But she never leaves the house or gets off the phone with me without saying, "Love you." I was in the shower recently, and she came into the bathroom to ask me something. I answered the question, and then instead of saying, "K, thanks," she said, "K, love you" and left. We probably say we love each other 100 times a day. It's very sweet.

Attempted Abduction at Agua Hedionda - October 2023

On Sunday afternoon, October 1, 2023, we went on a walk in Carlsbad. We ended up on a little trail by the Agua Hedionda lagoon off the end of a cul de sac. There was an interesting man raking sand by the lagoon. He told us he had taken it upon himself to maintain the place. He was not the most interesting character we would encounter that day. 

We made some awkward attempts on the lopsided rope swing. 

Then we went back up the trail to the neighborhood. Tiny was walking with Jim and me in front, and as we started down the cul de sac, we saw a guy walking down the road toward us. I realized quickly that he was intellectually disabled in some way. He passed us as he headed toward the lagoon. After he passed, Tiny, Jim and I stopped and turned around to see where Ever and Wren were, as they were seriously lagging (as always). They had come out of the trail area and gotten to the sidewalk. The guy walked diagonally across the cul de sac, heading straight toward them. We stood and watched from a ways off. Ever and Wren started looking a little freaked out and confused about where to walk. Jim began walking back to them. Then the guy rushed the girls. He just ran at them. Jim started running, passed the guy, said "Stay away from my girls," put his arm around Ever and Wren, and ushered them back to Tiny and me. They said that as he approached them, the guy was saying, "You're so lucky, you get to hang out with me tonight. I deserve to hang out with you, and you deserve to hang out with me. You get to hang out with me tonight." He was just repeating that. They were terrified. Ever doesn't scare very easily, and she and Wren were both seriously rattled. We talked about how if he had gotten to them, they should scream and fight and hurt him, and the neighbors would have come out to help. For a while after that, Ever and Wren walked with their arms around each other, whispering about the traumatic event. As we were discussing it all, Jim referred to the would-be abductor as the "gentleman." We got a couple of blocks away, and Jim asked the girls if they would want to live in that area (because he's scoping out places to which we could move to get Ever into a Carlsbad high school). Ever said, "NO. I am not living here." I said, "Because of the gentleman or because you don't like this area?" She responded, "Mom, I think it's a stretch to call him a gentleman.'" It was really funny. But they were asking how far we were from home and if the guy could get to our house in Oceanside. Then we were walking up a main street, and a totally normal-looking guy with ear buds in his ears was walking toward us. Wrenzy hurried up close to me and took my hand (and she never takes my hand) because she was afraid of him. They were so freaked.

It was the craziest thing. I have no idea what would have happened if we hadn't been there. 

September 2023 - Just Life and the Heart Rock Trail

Our goings-on, by the photos, in September 2023:

The class Ever had the most homework in was art. It drove me crazy.

I probably took this picture because the girls were cute playing a game together, but also - the mess. Always, the mess. 

We ran into the Gustafsons and the Longs at Annie's Canyon.  

The defrost in the new Chrysler Pacifica doesn't work. Over and over again, it fogged up, and I could not get it unfogged. But the dealership couldn't find anything wrong with it (being unable to test it when it was actually foggy, of course) and seemed to think I just don't understand how defrosting works and didn't give it enough time or something. I took a picture at one point to try to prove to them that it wasn't working. 

I gave up trying to get it fixed, though. It has occasionally worked since. 

My sweet Bear, inexplicably sleeping in sunglasses. 

Lucy and Lola Bowen (friends of Ever and Wren, respectively, from school) came over for a bake-off play date. Lucy and Ever went head-to-head with Wren and Lola on cupcakes with Nutella frosting. Tiny was the judge - a job she relished. 

I found one of our Girls Who Choose God books like this on the living room floor, and I loved that someone was reading it in her spare time.  

Ever's soccer team went for burgers at In-N-Out, and the Littles killed time being funny together.

Tiny had a chocolate chip pancake in her lunch box for some reason and ate it after she got home from school. She picked out all the chocolate chips and placed them around the lunchbox to eat at the end. 

We took a quick Thursday/Friday trip to Big Bear and took Ella Rondo with us. We had wanted to go for general conference weekend, but Saturday soccer games required an early return. We hiked the Heart Rock Trail (just 1.8 miles) near Crestline on the way up. Fun Daddy decided to crawl through a hollow tree. It proved much more difficult and painful that one would imagine. 

Smaller people fared a lot better. 

This graffitied pipe was very fun to cross. Tiny inched her way across. 

Berry crawled. 

And then walked.

So Tiny walked. 

Then Ella and Ever wanted to recreate The Beatles' Abbey Road photo. Ever felt that the Littles underperformed. 

Jim climbed this tree, and then the girls took it over and refused to leave. 

Ella and Ever took the tree climbing to another level when they climbed this thing. 

It got a little frightening; a fall wouldn't have been pretty. 

Finally we pulled the children out of the trees and completed the hike to the heart rock. 

Jim showed some leg as he tested the waters.

There was a little more tree climbing on our way out. 

Ever and Ella were supposed to do some sort of service (a YW challenge), so the girls picked up a bunch of garbage as we hiked back. 

We ate lunch at a Mexican place in Lake Arrowhead I had heard was good. It wasn't amazing.  

At the cabin, Tiny disappeared for a while. I found her here.

I love neighborhood walks in the Bear. The children do not. But we got one in. 

Pic of Tiny's class, with Tiny looking mischievous in the back. 

Another pic of Tiny with classmates.

L to R: Kaia Johnson, Ryan D., Tiny, and Savannah

Tiny at her Girl Scout troop's bridging ceremony.

Tiny had a glorious time at a playdate at Maya's house.

Playing at the park at the end of a field trip:

L to R: Ryan D., Vanessa, Kaia Johnson, and Tiny (who is, truly, tinier than everyone)

The stake hosted a manners night for the youth. Our girls' video won a prize.