The End of the End: Attack of the Four Foot Squirrels

–WARNING:– *Actual* Footage of the bros this last week of school

The squirrel is so real up in here this week. This is what they’ve been like in the afternoon/evening and I can only imagine what those poor teachers are going through. Teachers… I see you. I yelled at those bros last night. And you’d better yell at them at school, if for nothing else to make me feel better about yelling.

I mean, I full on opened the door and screamed at them (for the 3rd time) to come in for all the neighborhood to hear. Neighbors… you know the situation over here. Just go on chewing your steak and say a prayer for the crazy lady and her end-of-school year rodent demolition crew.

On a personal note, I’m finishing up a steroid regimen for my auto-immune disease. So you throw in end-of-school plus a steroids taper and mommy the rager is dragging her knuckles around the house ready to pounce on all the squirrels and eat them for dinner.

Overheard yesterday while breathing fire through my nose:

“Boys, play with your sister. Make her happy. If not, there won’t be any dinner.”

And at least 2/3 of the boys are motivated by their stomachs. Surprisingly enough, my third boy, though easily the thickest and strongest is much less food motivated. But he also has the strongest will. Bless him. What a little unicorn.

And God bless this year. And I do really mean that. Because He is with us in the hard times. And “good” and “hard” are not mutually exclusive.

I want to document the beginning of this year because I never EVER want to forget the pain and tied directly to that, how much God brought me though and our family through.

Those of us with school-aged kids were all spinning in our heads thinking about what the beginning of school was going to look like: computer work for tiny children. All day. Stuck at home. The school emails were assuring us it would be more organized than it was when everything shut down the year before.

That’s a nice sentiment and it was true. And I know those teachers and administrators worked so hard to get there.

But as a user interface designer, the process was rudimentary at best, even confusing for adults. I also understand that what was offered was the very best possible. We are not talking dumping millions of dollars to fund a software sprint for public schools to go fully online with slick apps and three years of QA. The already taxed taxpayers would laugh it off the ballot.

So the burden of proof fell on the shoulders of parents. I had a 3-month-old nursing infant who was still in the pre-nap stage of babyhood; A preschooler one-man circus and a kindergartner and first-grader who still lacked the fundamental coordination to be able to control a mouse.

Yikes.

And double yikes for my people who are the 2 working-full-time parents who have young kids the same age. They found themselves both now at home trying to juggle their work life and manage their kids’ school.

And triple yikes for the TEACHERS who may have had small kids at their house. How in the world did they do it? How did they teach their classrooms then try to manage teaching their own kids???

And it took a LOT of parent involvement. As a student of my kids’ moods and behaviors I noticed this: even though teachers recorded themselves teaching, I watched the boys zone out. It’s because of the lack of accountability. Accountability at any age is important, but young kids have very little self-motivation because that is the sort of thing that is built with time and maturity. With a glance of his/her eyes in the classroom, a teacher can pull a student back in.

So it was up to the parents to re-teach what was taught. We had to step in and become the engager. You can probably imagine that I rather enjoy teaching. But you can also imagine that there are a few VERY strong personalities going on in this house. My kids don’t take things at face value. And that’s our fault. We make a habit of teaching them how to lead a self-examined life. That and they are OUR children. Genes are powerful like permanent markers on your favorite pair of high heels.

So, I have a bunch of kids who need help clicking to the right locations and then needed to be motivated to do their work. And a breastfeeding baby who I typically breastfed while running back and forth to each computer trying to listen to what they teacher was saying when they were live. And the baby wasn’t napping. Or sleeping much at night. And I wasn’t doing either.

And TJ started going to preschool after the first few weeks. So we would load everyone up in the car precisely at 7:55. Sam would start his zoom call on the way to preschool. Then, I’d have to log him off and log Josh on when we got to preschool and Josh would start at 8:30. His would continue when we got home so I would transport him and the computer inside, disconnecting from my phone hotspot and connecting again to the home wifi.

And Sam would need to start the next one. So I’d throw him in the office. And on and on it went all day. Managing the work. Listening to the teachers. THANK GOODNESS it only lasted about 6 weeks for CCUSD. Dave would come in every night and I would collapse right after I fed everyone dinner. Getting up through the night to breastfeed, of course… and would do it again the next day. Supernatural strength. God was there. He saw my pain. He lifted my head after the shame of a bad day.

Fast forward 9 months and we reached the end of the school year. We all lived. They baby grew. She is now over a year old and so independent. The sharp pain of those early few months are fading, but I NEVER want to forget. Her early infancy was forged with a mom who was neck deep in the war room with two three other little generals- plotting a new chart each day to attack and make it to the next bunker. Leveling-up on the reg. Just like breast milk passes on the antibodies, I hope I passed along the warrior spirit to my little girl. In whatever she becomes in the this life, it will serve her well and God will use it to bring Glory to himself.

The boys and I worked through things together. We had arguments, I adjusted. They adjusted. We talked through how to better understand each other and when they needed mom to back down.

In terms of global crises… not a good year. In terms of relationship building in the Lin house…. a very good year.

It probably aged me 10 years in appearance, but that is so secondary it’s almost laughable.

I needed this perspective today. As the boys raced around and shrieked with laughter in the evenings (and grated on my burning nerves) I needed to remember how far we’ve come. And my beautiful boys have become more creative, more resilient. They’ve become more graceful toward me and the most loving big brothers toward their sister.

It has been a good year.

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