Stable Steady Ships Sail Smooth Seas Surprisingly

A drawing I discovered on my work desk :D

I'm taking this time to reflect. And drink my coffee. Then I'm going to clean my house in super power cleaning mode and get as much as I can done while I'm all amped up on coffee. That's my plan. Then the girls have dance classes. And then maybe, just maybe, the neighbor will fix my garbage disposal later! Busy fun day! I've got a stack of research to withdraw my notes from! Tomorrow I will produce another stack!

Today was the first morning I really contemplated if I did the right thing by sending my child to school so young. I could have kept her home for another year, home to play and learn and grow, but I felt she would do well in school, thrive with her peers, excel. I thought she would enjoy it, she seemed excited enough. She's really having a tough time adjusting.

It started off the week before last with the call I received from her teacher. Her reading skills aren't where they would like them to be, which I get, which is fine, which I've already hashed out.

But then the follow up call I had the other day with her teacher was very disheartening.

Marilyn is not comfortable in her new environment. She doesn't like kindergarten. Her teacher is nice and the other kids are okay, most of them are bigger and older than she is, and she doesn't care for the girls at her table. As far as what she is learning, she doesn't care for writing (she flips out at home when it is time for her to do her homework) and she didn't say a word about math or the numbers stuff. She did tell me that she does like to learn about manners (that's my girl!) and that's about it.

From how it sounds, without going into too much detail, she is not comfortable being at school. She has a lot of anxiety when she is there and she is handling it in her own ways.

I never thought about the challenges that would lie before me with my children. I never imagined that they would post any issues. It's not that I was being naive, I just truly wasn't thinking. Although I am a planner and I am constantly thinking and dreaming and piecing together what I strive towards, there are many things that I do not think about. My child has already posed her own unique set of challenges and

I don't know. To be honest, I'm struggling even putting this into words.

I suppose if you know, you know all about it already, right? How something little can turn out to be something so big. How easily things can be misconstrued and blown out of proportion.  I am on guard and to be perfectly honest, scared as shit. I know how this all goes already.

I have to step it up and keep it together even better than I have been. I have to. My life and my situation is not ever going to get any easier, just more difficult, and I have done well in the past with pulling myself together to be an upstanding responsible adult. I am. But I need to be even more so.

It kind of dawned on me the other day, that if I took the time I feel would be appropriately allotted to me and had the meltdown that I should be entitled to, if I lost my shit for even a little bit, I would lose it all. That's not even a question, it's a fact. I know he would take the girls in a heartbeat if I even thought that I couldn't take care of them. Would he ever give them back after that? Probably not. He fights mean and dirty. Would they be taken care of and loved? Absolutely. Would they have a radically different life than the one I have created for them? Yes. They are city/country children already, they would become country girls 100%. It's not an option I consider for any reason, but it is something I have to know is an option if ever need be. And I know that he wants them. I want them too.

I am not a rowboat anymore. I am not a sporty motorboat. Oh no no. I am an ocean liner transporting oil and civilians in what I feel is treacherous waters. It's always something. I am the captain of this ship though and if I dare take my hand off the wheel for even a moment, we will crash with disastrous effects reaching a wide radius. But that is even more reason to work hard and thrive. And that's what I'm doing.


I am doing what I need to be doing but things take time. Things always take time. I just need to be patient. Patience is something I have been learning, working on, striving for.

Another drawing from my girl

I also need perspective.

Everything will work out. Marilyn will be just fine, but I don't know what the path will be looking ahead. She is a very intelligent and bright little girl and she has strengths is some areas and weaknesses or undeveloped skills in other areas. I will question my decision for formal public education until she adapts and thrives, and if that doesn't happen, I will have to pursue other avenues for her education. And that is what I must do. In the meantime, I had to start a chart (OMG OMG OMG I've become a mom, one of THOSE moms, I have a seriously skewed self view or something because I don't necessarily see myself totally as this dynamic mother character which I am, I know I am, but my perspective hasn't caught up with my development and progression yet)  and it seems to be working.

I need to be creative and dynamic and adaptive all around, especially with my children, because I am their prime example and model for behaviors in life, and life is a creative and dynamic thing that is constantly changing, except now I have to provide the stable ground on which they will root and grow.