It’s hard to believe there’s only a week to go until Christmas. It has been a bit of a rough month, though not nearly so rough as, say, August.
J. has started up an English class at school in addition to his PE (and he’s scheduled to start two more classes in January). Though the extra time seems small to me (and to his siblings), I know from personal experience that even a couple of hours in a foreign language environment can be exhausting. Thus far he’s handling it very, very well.
Home is another story, though. At home we’ve continued to have flare-ups with some regularity. It’s not clear why that’s happening–perhaps because of the increased pressure in school, perhaps because of new things we’re trying (a movie night; going to a Chinese church in Boulder), perhaps because we’ve reintroduced limited screen time; perhaps because of holiday traditions J’s not used to; perhaps because we had out of town family visiting last week (It was sure nice to see Mary Kay and Gary); perhaps because Craig and I have been doing better about setting limits, and J is pushing back. Whatever the reason, home life has frequently been difficult, and all three kids (and both adults) are finding that hard.
Frequently B and K say that they want their “normal” life back–and I totally sympathize with that. Change is hard, and not all change is for the better. Hopefully, though, we’ll at some point get to a normal that we all (Craig, me, J, B and K) at least find tolerable.