Right in this moment I feel physically yucky. I feel on the verge of puking. I ate a small bowl of soup for dinner and a slice of bread and I feel so full that I want to pop. For the entire rest of the day I ate a bowl of cereal, one pancake, and one piece of string cheese. I shouldn’t feel full.

My shoulders hate me for how I have been typing.

This baby is so active I feel like a live eel is going through my abdomen and whipping all my internal organs.

EC had her first chiropractic adjustment today because she landed wrong a bit ago when doing gymnastics play with her sibling. The chiropractor said that the way she is hyper-sensitive to most touch is an indication that she has nerve impingement and she probably should have been coming in for adjustments years ago. Sigh. She loved the adjustment and she walked out gasping about how much better her neck and back felt. She’s due to go back with me next week. Maybe I can prevent things from becoming entrenched problems for her?

My kids did not do their academics today how they should. Nor their chores. They just… went off the rails for the day. Today was exasperating. But the kids did get their own library cards (PAM. I FINALLY DID IT.) and they had a great time hanging out with the other children at the library. The other kids asked my kids to come back tomorrow afternoon so they could do homework together. This little girl gave EC a long lecture about how if she doesn’t take her academics more seriously she is going to grow up to be stupid and never get a good job. I was impressed by just how intense this girl was. She was only in the 3rd grade and she was convinced that any slacking today means your life is ruined. Tomorrow will be a work-all-day sort of time and that’s not going to be anyone’s favorite.

I asked a beloved friend to babysit this weekend. She’s been the only person to be consistently available since our babysitter moved away. It’s always weird asking her to babysit because I feel like I’m using her. But this is a great excuse to get her to my house for a 24 hour visit because I get to hang out with her before and after. That’s a real blessing. I appreciate our chats so much. This weekend her dog gets to enjoy the nice dog bed we got for her. We want them both to feel comfortable and happy here. Her dog is getting older and the hard floor isn’t very loving for her poor bones. A nice comfy bed will be a much better option.

She is babysitting so we can go to a party for Noah’s Japanese teacher. So I’m going to the second party in a 9 day period for Noah and his friends. I need to get over thinking that Noah bends over backwards for me and I do nothing for him. That’s bullshit. I support him all over the place.

And yet at this moment I don’t feel as sad and frantic as I have for a while. I don’t have the keening feeling deep in my chest.

Oh, and I accidentally let my kid see a flash of pornography. We were opening up my blog feed reader to go back and check Aunt Jenny’s journal and double check the birthdate of her second daughter and…. it turns out that all of my recent posts were from a friend who posts a lot of porn. I will never open feedly with my children in the room again. I will go find Aunt Jenny’s blog through G+ next time. Oh god. Oh god.

I’ve already emailed their shrink, of course. (The response was remarkably supportive and awesome. I’m so grateful for this shrink.) So far FMC (when will they become just MC? Will I wait until Lightening arrives?) says that they are very uncomfortable with having seen that. They have more than once mimed getting into doggy style and commenting loudly “He was like this and she was like this and I think his penis was going in her vagina!” Yes… You are right… that is what was happening. They are very certain that they shouldn’t have seen that. I agree. Sigh. That was my fuck up. God damnit. It was like a 2 second glimpse but that was too fucking much.

I tell them that feeling uncomfortable makes sense. That’s not something they should be seeing. It isn’t appropriate for a kid. I told them that it partially feels uncomfortable because sex is a private thing and seeing someone else have sex by surprise is a boundary violation and that should feel uncomfortable. I told them that by the time they hit puberty they will be more curious about seeing stuff like that and then they will know appropriate ways to seek out times and ways to learn about sex that don’t feel like boundary violations.

They asked me why people take pictures like that and why is it on the webpage where I was going to learn about their cousin’s birthday!?!?!?!?!?!?! I explained about a blog feed reader where lots of blogs are put in one place–I have all kinds of blogs I follow and they all get dumped on one front page. I said that people take pictures like that because sex is a complicated part of adult life and people like to look at it and talk about it and figure out different things about it. I said that I have many friends who are curious about sex and many friends who teach people about healthy sex so…. yeah I have sex stuff come up on my blog reader. But I’m an adult and all the people who participate in these conversations are adults and if we sometimes see a picture of sex we won’t be shocked or upset so it’s ok for us. It’s not ok for them (FMC) and I’m very sorry I let them see something they weren’t ready to see. That was a failure.

They are taking this in.

But you know what? I feel much more confident in my belief that my child has never been inappropriately touched. They are so confused by the topic of sex. I think of how practiced and casual I was at their age. I can stop and take a moment to feel really proud of myself that I have raised children who are this damn sheltered.

I did that. That feels so good.

Olympia looks interesting…. Thanks so much for that suggestion! We’ll have to learn more. I’m thrilled by how arts focused and LGBT+ friendly they are. And at 83% white it is… more diverse than a lot of the area. Sigh.

LGBT+ friendly is going to be pretty dang important after all.

It took more than nine years of parenting before I fucked up enough for a kid to have a 2 second glimpse of porn. I maybe feel better about that than I should? I will lock this down more over the next few years. I will stop looking at porn on my normal web browser and clear the cache. My kids deserve that much effort. Autofill on my browser is… uhhh… pretty obscene at the moment. I’ll get that done this week. Even though they don’t use my computer much. Doesn’t matter. Hygiene is important.

These children show me where my boundaries are muddy. Children need boundaries of solid brick. Best get on mending those chinks.

They are worth learning anything for.

Right this moment I feel like maybe I will learn how to be good enough for them. I’m not certain–definitely not cocky. But I see a hint of hope in the sky.

This brain of mine. It’s a roller coaster.