The past month has been the closest I’ve felt to ‘normal’ since March, and mostly, we have the weather to thank.
As I’ve written before, summer is amazing where we live, and this July and August have been no exception. We’ve been hiking and swimming and boating. Gardening and slip ‘n sliding and (masked) playgrounding. We’ve been eating dinner on the deck and running around the yard and we valiantly attempted to camp. It has all helped so, so much.
But staying in the present is not, I would say, one of my natural skills. I already need a lot of reminders not to let my mind spin out on trying to plan for a future I can’t predict or control. And now that we’re on the precipice of a lot of significant change—local school districts reopening, our large university bringing students back to campus and resuming in-person instruction, the imminent change of season—’spinning out’ is where my mind is landing a lot of the time.
We tried so hard to embrace a “no bad weather, only bad clothes!” mindset last winter, but it was not always easy or successful—and that was before the pandemic. When both winter weather and the strictest social distancing restrictions lasted well into May, we really struggled. Now that conditions seem poised for a huge resurgence in cases just as the season starts to turn, my brain’s favorite landing spot is, “what if last spring, but twice as long?”
I have no solution, other than trying to check my inner Stark. I don’t know what will happen in the next few months, and there’s nothing I can do about it anyway. I would love to hear about how you’re battening down the hatches as the pandemic rages on. Also, if you are a purveyor of any sort of indoor climbing/jumping structure, you will find a very easy mark just an email response away.
If you like reading Extra Credit, would you consider sharing it somewhere, or with someone? Parenting can be hard and isolating even in non-pandemic times, and lately…..well, you know. It helps to connect!
Ask A Teacher
I didn’t answer a letter in the column last week, but it was an interesting one! Teacher advice on how to respond to a racist administrator, concern over a school’s temporary shift to modular classrooms, missed developmental milestones, and worrying that pursuing a career at a cannabis dispensary will affect a teacher spouse.
Recommendations
A PSA: Netflix recently dropped an Octonauts movie with absolutely zero fanfare! I only discovered it because it popped up in our recommendations after repeating an episode of Octonauts the girls have already watched umpteen times, and no parents I’ve mentioned it to knew of its existence either! I have no idea what it’s about and I cannot attest to its quality. I can tell you that it is 72 minutes long and kept both girls engrossed while I sat on a work call. Amelia’s review: “it was good!”
One of my favorite feelings is the satisfaction of buying something that perfectly solves a small-but-annoying problem. Here are two of my latest triumphs in that domain:
This pop-up table is $20, the perfect height for making lunches outside/holding s’mores ingredients/sitting near the water, has two cupholders, and folds down into flat semi-circle with a handle on the carrying case. It is the MVP of our summer.
If you buy these $10 laundry sacks, you will thank yourself every single time you travel anywhere. They roll or fold up to take almost no space in your bag, but have a huge capacity once you start to accumulate dirty laundry, and it’s really convenient to stash everything that needs to be washed away from the clean stuff. Ours is waiting patiently in front of the washing machine, holding four beach towels and four days’ worth of clothes. (Also, they have amusingly changed the image on the bag from what I bought—WASH ME :) —to LAUNDRY TODAY OR NAKED TOMORROW.)
I just finished Amy Engel’s The Familiar Dark, a gritty, dark mystery about a mother in the Missouri Ozarks seeking vengeance after her twelve-year-old daughter is murdered. I recommend it with a caveat that the book opens with a description of Junie’s death, and the scene is very short, but devastating. Still, it’s a quick, suspenseful read, with a compelling portrait of Eve, the protagonist’s, grief and rage, and the lessons she inherited from her own hardened mother. I didn’t think the choice of culprit was especially crafty, but the writing in the final scenes was great.
Get in touch and share a mystery novel with a truly satisfying conclusion:
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Twitter: @carrie_AB_