It’s Fine! We’re Fine! Everything’s Fine!

How are things, you ask? Everything’s fine! You know, a little rocky here and there with the kids and all, but fine. It’s fine. It’ll all be fine!

So, Charlotte had a little bit of a rough start in kindergarten, but it’s totally fine — we’re working with the teacher and things are getting back on track.

Yeah, I guess during snack one day she opened up a portal to hell in the classroom. I know, right? Demons everywhere, kids being smitten, the whole shebang. The teacher asked her to close it up but her head started spinning so she ended up getting a “strike” for not doing that “whole body classroom listening” thing they do, and of course then she was super mad so refused to close it up. It’s a bit of a debacle since one of her little buddies ended up getting sucked in. Yeah, it was her reading partner so she’s been having to do reading time by herself, which she’s less than thrilled about. It sounds like the custodian stuck his head in and saw the little guy in a tattered old loincloth ferrying souls across the river Styx, accompanied by a three-headed dog.

It’ll be fine. It’s just a little crazy right now. You know how it goes. But other than that, she’s loving kindergarten, which is great. So that’s all fine.

Bobby? He’s fine — we just got to the other side of a major “monster truck” phase, which was pretty intense but so typical, right? Yeah, now he’s really into cocktails. I found him in the liquor cabinet one day and was like, “Whoa, dude, what are you doing?” ‘Cause he had some old colostrum containers out and was using them to measure out bourbon to make a Manhattan. He was standing up on a stepstool and really struggling with the big bottle — it was cute. I mean, I know it’s not the best thing for a 3-year-old to be into, but it’s fine. You know how kids are with phases.

We had to start taking the spark plugs out of the cars at night, which is a little annoying but totally fine, because he was sneaking out and driving down to the local bar to hang out with these other preschoolers who I guess are also really into cocktails. Well, they’re not really preschoolers — I think they’re like in their 50s. But the car thing? I mean, the kid’s gonna be an engineer, am I right? It’s so neat to watch their little personalities develop. So he’s fine.

The baby? Well, she’s not a baby anymore! She’s 18 months now and really big on asserting her independence, which is totally fine and expected. Yeah, she actually started crawling out of her crib and went out to join the family of raccoons that live in the big hollowed out oak tree on our side hill. I get a little nervous about her sleeping 40 feet up in the air, of course, but it’s fine. The mother raccoon seems really responsible so I’m sure they’ve got a system in place up there to make sure she doesn’t fall. She’s got some new brothers and sisters now, and it looks like they have a lot of fun. I mean, I see the trash scattered all over the driveway in the mornings, so I know she’s eating well and getting exercise.

Now that she’s nocturnal I am up all day with the older two and then she comes to visit when the diurnal ones are asleep, so I’m really only sleeping, like, 25-30 minutes a night, which isn’t a ton, but it’s fine. I thought the sleep deprivation was supposed to end once they’re not newborns anymore, right? Ha! HAHA! RIGHT?!?! I wasn’t sure how it was going to work with winter coming but I’ve noticed she’s starting to grow a thick gray and black pelt, which has a nice downy underlayer and is kind of oily to keep the rain off. So she’s fine.

Me? Oh, ya know — same old, same old. I’m working a little more than I’d like — probably around a hundred or so hours a week. I mean, they want me to work more but I’m like, “No.” I draw the line at 110 hours. Like, that’s it. I’m on this project where I have to push this giant rock up a hill, and every time I get close to the top it rolls back down. Like, by design. I don’t know who scoped this thing. It’s fine, but whenever I ask the project manager what the end date is she bellows, “This is your eternity,” in this really low, spooky voice, which is totally not helpful.

So beyond that, it’s just kid stuff, activities, some volunteering, you know. Charlotte’s in soccer, dance, Scouts, she takes piano, Spanish, Russian Math, art, fencing, heating and air conditioning repair, and this really neat club where every Thursday for about six hours I just drive her around town for no reason and with no particular destination, picking up and dropping off random kids back and forth at opposite ends of town, giving them juice boxes. Then Friday for another six hours I go back through the route dropping off all the things all the kids left in the car and scrubbing sticky juice stains off my upholstery. It’s hectic, but it’s all fine.

I had Bobby in a few things, but he really only wants to hang out at the bar. And I’d love to put the baby in something, but they don’t have a lot of kids’ classes at 2 a.m., so nothing is really working with her new schedule. We’ll get there, but for now it’s just fine how it is.

So, we’re fine. How about you?

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