Mo' Years, Mo' Problems

I have contemplated starting a new blog. To have a feeling of a fresh beginning, clean slate, new day....but let's be honest, all the baggage laid out in this blog from year's past is really a foundation of where I am today. My thoughts have graduated from keeping babies alive the best way I know how to now navigating in a very foreign territory: 6/9yr old feelings, elementary school relationships, tiffs and all sorts of things I don't have the succinct memory experiencing.

If I close my eyes real tight and think about my first elementary school memory it was 3rd grade. I remember a boy ran the playground touting the tooth fairy wasn't real. That spurred the question about all the other fairies, bunnies AND good ol' St. Nicholas. I remember being devastated. Aside from that conversation, I'm blank until 4th/5th grade. My elementary school bestie is in that memory bank from Kinder but that's still spotty of our early years but our class pictures together tells me so.

I do recall those memories being happy though. Not too many cares in the world: wake up, school, ballet, homework, play, dinner, bedtime, repeat. I remember it being easy enough. I imagine there were friendship tiffs & real life 9 year old problems but nothing a little shake it off tomorrow will be okay sort of thing.

My/Our new elementary reality is so much greater than this though. How can I school my girls when I haven't the faintest idea how I did it then? My words of encouragement now are bullshit to them. I question every bit of advice because, let's be honest, when two 9 year besties are fighting, the problems are petty.

Fallon:
"She didn't pick me as her bus partner for the field trip! She said she was going to but she picked our other friend instead! She must hate me! I don't think we're friends anymore." Imagine this conversation carried on for weeks.

My mothering reaction has been all wrong, case in point:
-Are you kidding me?
-Suck it up kid, the bus ride was 10 minutes.  You sat in front of her and ended at the same destination, right?
-If you're not friends, then why did you ask for that playdate Saturday?

(I'm an asshole) and I'm also wrong.

It's been over a month since the field trip and she's still holding a grudge over the damned bus ride. I don't think I have it in me to discuss it one more time, my head just might blow off my shoulders. Something must be deeper rooter than this, right? There has to be.

So this is me, trying to find some sort of sanity; juggling every after school practice, homework lesson, (my terrible)'therapy' pep-talks & every other running daily to-do list in my head. I have been meaning to start journaling again to get it out, so I'm returning to this corner of the internet. Somedays it's pretty, somedays it's a bloody disaster & somedays it's the happiest I've ever known. These girls are my lifeline and dammit I'm going to continue to try to be the best support I can to them. They deserve it.

Lastly, since they aren't 4 and 2 anymore, here's a recent from our trip to Hawaii. Here's to hoping I'll make it back sooner than 2019.