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Judgement and progress report

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Why do I have such an intense horror of being judgmental? I don’t fully understand that horror in myself. I’ve been judging intensely lately. I backed out of an online social community because of one person. Because I judge her like fuck and I can’t be part of a group that tolerates that kind of behavior. In this case she spends a lot of time being a judgy bitch and bragging about all that she does for other people… but in reality she sits in her apartment with her cats on the internet most of the time doing nothing. I don’t think I would care so much about her bullshit only she spends a tremendous amount of time talking about how much she does for her niblings, who are in a highly abusive situation in another country. Only when she has the opportunity to do something for them… she picks her holidays to Asia (and the Olympics!) and tickets to Hamilton over staying with the kids and helping them deal with nightmarishly hard problems. Now she wants lots of sympathy because Hamilton and the Olympics were cancelled and it isn’t fair that she doesn’t get to go. Oh and she wants to be told how sad it is for her that the kids call her crying because they wish she was there helping them.

I can’t say a single nice thing to her so… I’m saying nothing at all anywhere that she hangs out.

She was the last person to tell me that I am fucking up my kids. Her reasoning? Because I don’t guilt trip them enough for normal kid behavior so they are going to have terrible lives and it will be all my fault.

Every single person who has told me that I am going to fuck up my kids, wreck their lives, or retard them has been spectacularly unqualified to evaluate such a metric and the people who are qualified to evaluate children think my kids are having a charmed, fabulous life.

It’s not just that my friends tell me what I want to hear. Professionals who spend their lives evaluating children think my kids are doing well. Judgy non-professionals who don’t know what they are talking about like to tell me how shitty I’m doing. Awesome.

Is that about me or them?

The school started off telling me that my kids weren’t doing so hot academically. Then it turned out that they have shitty handwriting but they are otherwise doing well. Do they handle other children hitting them well? No, they don’t. I’m not sure that is a bad sign about them. I cannot count how many people are traumatized by the school experience. It’s not that my kids suck. It’s that schools are brutal and unhelpful about bullying.

The home education movement here in Scotland is growing by leaps and bounds. The two primary reasons people pull their kids out of school: the schools won’t help children with special needs or bullying. It’s not just my family thank you very much.

But sure, the problem is that I’m wrecking my kids by not just putting them in school and telling them to figure it out on their own.

K.

Yesterday the kids and I walked in the woods for three hours. It was really cool. The only downside? We should be wearing fucking hiking boots, not Wellies.

Oh! Yesterday was a milestone day! The cats were outside for a long time. The cat who is very people-attached was very scared and did not stay out long. The cat who is less people-attached had a great time and was out for hours and hours. I don’t think she went farther than our garden but it was cute watching her out the window.

The kids made cupcakes on their own. They also made a pretty good ganache to go on top.

I have gained 20 lbs since arriving in Scotland. That was not the direction I intended to go with that. Hahahaha. Even with all this exercise. I am now well above my previous lifetime maximum, even while pregnant. I think maybe I could do with less sugar. Maybe it is the calories from alcohol. Who knows.

My alcohol consumption still feels high to me and it still falls well below the line where my doctor would be concerned. Perspective is a funny thing.

My kids now think 17 degrees is oppressively hot. That’s 62F. We have acclimated.

Still not sleeping well.

Today’s garden task is apparently to work on constructing the stairs up to the front garden area next to the driveway. The kids are feeling a wee bit bored of working on digging the pond. I’ve started a bunch of seeds, we’ll see how they go. I should probably take stuff from the house to the polytunnel. At this point I think the tunnel is hotter than the house. I have high hopes for my tomatoes.

I think my watch has charged enough. I am out of excuses for sitting still. Blurgh. I’m sore. I’m tired. I don’t really want to be productive. But I want these things done and if I don’t move… no one else in the house will. Sigh. I feel like I am the motor.

Hanging sadness

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I don’t think I am alone. I suspect this feeling is one of the most common feelings in the entire world right now. I am sad. I am scared. So many families are hurting and my heart aches for them.

I am not keeping as current with the news. I am not trying to track what is going on locally. I am putting my head down leaning into the storm. I haven’t responded to emails in a while. I have several from early March I haven’t been able to bring myself to answer and many more from more recently.

I’m spending almost all of my attention on the kids. In their memory this will probably be a bittersweet time. Every day is tinged with anxiety and sadness–people are dying en masse all over the world from one illness. But we are turned inward and we are loving on each other as much as we can.

Yesterday we went on a hike for the first time in a while. We got all the way into the woods and we got off the hiking trail for a while and clambered over moss covered logs and observed still pools hiding under rocks. It was like visiting a fairy story only the kids said, “Now I feel at home.” To complement the day we had some Maruchan at one meal and white chocolate mousse tea with another meal. It was a day brimming with home feeling.

The unit project is going along swimmingly. I am glad I didn’t already put an end date on it because this is going to take us a long time. The kids are learning so much about how complicated and expensive life is. Eldest Child thought her family budget was complete if she knew about the mortgage payment and grocery costs and gardening expenses. Then I explained about all the other things that must be paid for every month. And your household has six children! (Four parents in the house.) What about clothing and school expenses and toys and…

They are learning a lot about insurance and saving and what things have to be part of owning a car. Middle Child thought it would be perfectly reasonable to expect the twenty year old eldest child in her family to perform full time childcare for the three youngest children in the family for Aus$100 every month. Ha ha, no. That’s pretty much slavery, kiddo. This is quite an education for all concerned.

We are learning tons of skills and how our expectations for the future will have to shift.

We are cooking so very much. I am cooking more than usual. A buddy said, “What are you cooking? You only know how to make stuff like macaroni and cheese, right?” I wanted to smack her. And call her names. And stick my tongue out at her.

This week I made braised red cabbage with apples and broad beans and leeks and carrots and onions. There was a soup with beets and turnips and carrots and leeks and venison sausage. I made a rhubarb crumble with dairy free custard. An Eton mess cake. A sweet potato puree with carrots. A few curries including a saag with paneer and red cabbage. The veg box is somewhat overwhelming in the intensity of veg it requires us to eat. Youngest Child is nearly on a veg strike. It’s normal but gosh it’s getting old. Our meat consumption is going down and our veg consumption is going up.

I’m really glad we got the cats. Stormy tolerates me and prefers cuddling with the kids. Fluffy is my shoulder kitty. As in she rides around on my shoulders while I do things. I read about that in books but I have never before seen it in real life. It’s quite an experience. She’s bigger than Puff ever was and she is likely to keep growing. We think they will be a year old in July. These are going to be giant cats. Fluffy sleeps with me most of the night and she snuggles me during the day. I feel very lucky that she likes me so much.

And now I need to get up to start the day.