Death of Summer

Ugh this blog has accidentally turned into a biweekly update. I’ve gotten so busy this summer that I’ve lost track. We’re off to our last vacation of the summer and I’m pretty sad because this officially marks the end of summer.

Do any of you other parents ever freak out that anything you do might mess up your children? I get frustrated sometimes with things the kids do that Will later reminds me are totally trivial. (Let’s be honest it is not about the kids, it is all rage and frustration with the current political situation poorly channeled). Then I have to explain to the kids that I got frustrated and snappy when I should have instead taken some calming breaths.

Patricia unfortunately inherited my awful temper but times 100. I do think she is getting a bit better at controlling it, though she changes from happy to rage instantly so it’s really frustrating to deal with. 98% of the time she’s the sweetest, most thoughtful child, and then 2% of the time she’s a nasty, mean soul crushing train wreck that doesn’t care about consequences. It’s always at the worst possible time too, like when I’m late to picking Julius up, or when I’m taking her to gymnastics (fun fact she has done so many mean things to me when taking her to gymnastics, an activity that she wanted to do, that I refuse to take her anymore). Thank goodness she shows her sweet adorable nature the majority of the time or I would probably be legitimately losing my mind right now.

Since I think we all could use a bit of stillness I’ve been trying to teach the kids about meditation lately which seems to be helping somewhat. It might be helping more with going to sleep in a timely manner than calming down, but I’ll take what I can get. We’ve been doing just 2 minutes of meditation before bed but the kids have been asking me to do it which I love! I started off guiding but lately have just been letting them do it themselves. And the other day Patricia put on her noise cancelling earmuffs and meditated in the car (she also scolded us for being too loud while she was meditating but… progress).

So I made the kids this super simple craft before our trip to Michigan. They are mini geo boards. Both kids knew immediately what they were and said they love them. They spent quite a while making a bunch of shapes with them, so I’m pretty happy it was such a hit given it was low cost and a low time commitment!

I used a bunch of rainbow loom bands (Julius has a million) for the elastics which worked perfectly (but I threw in some bigger ones too). I was too exhausted to make my own templates, but I printed some out from this cool site! You have to provide your email and then they will send you the printables for free which is nice! As you know, I’m all about open source crafting, but I will say I’m not keen on AI corporations profiting off of my IP. As in, I think it should be illegal. Unfortunately that ship has sailed and (again with the concerns about our current politics) I doubt anything will be done (unless it involves wining and dining those who own the AI corporations.) Sorry I digress – let’s make one of these geoboards. It is crazy easy!