Parenting is Hard

August is trembling on the brink of existence, and with it comes the end of summer. The Little Man goes to high school, the Junior Mad Scientist is already planning her curriculum for her senior year of homeschool, and the Ginja Ninja is working like a fiend to save up and move out. The First Reader and I are already contemplating the winter's cold that will drive us inside off the porch where it is so nice to sit in the early mornings and have a few moments to chat.

Life is like this. It flashes past you faster than you can take it in, most days. The Little Man and I had a conversation again just the other day about his nom de blog. "I don't care," he told me, "It's not like I read it." I knew that, but I pointed out to him that someday he might, or someone might try to embarrass him with it. "I think it would be funny," He grinned at me, looking away from the computer for the first time. "To put up a picture of you and I, captioned Little Man, where I was looking down at the top of your head." Which... isn't quite possible yet. But it will be in a year or less.

I'm still trying to decide what I should do with my walking and hiking. It's been wonderful, this summer, to get out there and exercise by partaking in one of my favorite pastimes of rambling through the woods. The weight loss, in spite of my continued restricted caloric intake, and trying to exercise routinely, has plateaued and stopped. My body is quite happy at this level, it seems. I'd love for it to be a straight math exercise of less food in, more energy out equals shedding the pounds, but it's not. On the other hand I do feel the benefits of the exercise, above and beyond indulging in my taxonomic urges. So I'm trying not to be discouraged, and I do want to find a way to exercise through the winter that doesn't bore me silly.

And most of all, I'm writing. I stopped doing the art daily, so I could write daily. I still have too much on my plate, but this much I can manage. I think. At least for now. This weekend is, blissfully, unscheduled. So I plan to clean out the garage. Yeahaw. Can you hear my enthusiasm? But it must be done, and as the kids say, adulting is hard. Wouldn't it be so nice not to adult? But then who would pay the bills, clean, drive kids all over the face of the earth, and make sure the dog and cats get fed? I don't know, if not me. And I do have help. I couldn't do this alone. Well, I could, but it would look and feel a lot different. So I appreciate all my helps, big and small. Even the helps that require me to come along later and redo them. They are trying, and learning, and it is a long, slow process. It's such a long game that I likely will not reap the benefits of the lessons I'm trying to teach. Their spouses and children will. At least, that's what I hope for.

It's like planting trees. You know you might never see the potential with your eyes, but you can see it already in your heart. That's what keeps me going even on days I don't want to adult, much less parent.

(oh, yeah, the header image? Dude in the center is my Little Man. Right behind him is his grandfather. They were competing to see who could pick up the most trash at the beach)