Detestable Daylight Savings

I can only speak for the majority of parents in the world, but since that's a fair number of folks, I will make this assertion: Daylight Savings is a horrible, beastly bane. 

I feel pretty certain that your children, like mine today, are out of their minds with irritability and what might even look like insanity and/or rage. It's likely that not only have they had entirely too much sugar since Halloween but also not nearly enough sleep what with the late night on Saturday and then that bitchy DS yesterday.

NO ONE needs an extra hour the day after Halloween. I myself do not feel I need an extra hour anytime except if I'm sleeping soundly in a building in which my children aren't OR on vacation alone or with my husband. Those are acceptable times to lengthen any given day.

The kids were up before 5 this morning. Of course they were because normally that would be just before six which, sucktastically enough, is the norm for Jack. Ol usually goes nuts and sleeps for an extra twenty.

There are some mornings I swear I'd consider giving Jack hormones to hasten the puberty onset because only then, do I hear, do boys reliably start sleeping like the lazy slugs mothers desperately need them to be. 

Especially when you must "fall back" in time.

I knew things looked rough when I picked the boys up from school. Clearly they had had good days but had largely used up all good will and positive energy whilst there. This is, of course, optimal; I'd rather them be saintly at school and give me shit instead of the reverse. But still. 

We got home and heinous mayhem ensued. In the meantime, Oliver donned the Padmé on Geonosis costume (you know, Padmé Amidala, Queen of Naboo; Star Wars) and so looked like some sort of androgynous ninja dressed in a skintight white jumpsuit. His Superman underwear showed through winningly. It was really quite a look.

This is not Oliver, should anyone be wondering. This is a model. We don't know her. Plus, she isn't wearing royal blue superman undies. 

Mercifully, our marvelous babysitter, K, soon arrived, and I left for the market as the boys were pummeling the carpet with Magna-tiles because, duh, they're bombs. Not expensive toys.

I walked back in less than an hour later to Padmé screaming at Jack for daring to come within one foot of the green foam armchair that had come downstairs for some reason. Jack was shirtless and red-faced and sweaty; clearly he'd done his share of screaming too.

Pads threw himself to the kitchen floor, wailing, crying and thrashing about. I wanted to say, "Honey, you're getting that white jumpsuit awfully dirty," but decided against it. Jack was snotting and huffing and I told him to take deep breaths and pick up the Magna-tiles calmly. K continued cooking their dinner. She is unflappable in the best way.

I sent Padmé upstairs and while I unloaded groceries, notes started flitting down from his office:

It loses some steam without the "e" doesn't it?! I told Padmé that I would not deliver such meanness and tore it up. After taking a picture, natch.

Thank god he dated this one. It's been an afternoon I'll NEVER want to forget. 

A third note flitted down: "Jack, Sre."

Well, I'm glad he apologized.

I am hiding in bed before my tennis lesson with Tom, and the heathens seem to have settled themselves for dinner. 

I'm sending all of you vibes of good sleep tonight and saving some for us.

Snapshots from life

Kids on a field trip, reaching for falling leaves. 

I love this! 

My guys

Satsumas; simply pretty

Happy cat, happy me

Puzzling

You might just know that I love puzzles. I always have. My favorite one during childhood was Verticalville II. Elia, my sister, and I must have completed it two dozen times.

A few years back, after the pneumonia-induced staycation that ushered in my renewed mania for puzzles, I managed to find on eBay, an unopened, original Verticalville II. I bought it immediately, ostensibly for the boys.

Oliver doesn't much care for puzzles, but Jack is a big fan, and though he and I prefer 1,000-piecers, we've done Verticalville II -a mere 500- twice or three times since I bought it. He loves it like I do, because it's challenging but not too much so and delightfully illustrated.

Nanny enjoyed puzzles before her hands and eyes failed her. She loved landscapes: fall foliage, say, or a Christmas scene. Those aren't my bag, but since she died, the kids, Mom and I have put a few of her old ones together during visits to Lake Charles, and I always feel so happy to do so. I miss her.

I used to puzzle in my basement, but after Nutmeg employed two box tops full of inside pieces as his litter box, I've moved upstairs, by a window in my front room. My one nice room, as the kids know. There sits a decent-enough card table and a much nicer folding chair that doubles as an extra dining seat when we have more than six for dinner. 

Last night, Jack and I wrapped up this one: Fancy Buttons or some such name, a 1,000-piece by Ravensburger. It was really a near-perfect puzzle. Tough but not like the one of the snowy owl that made you want to tear your hair out and pitch the endless white pieces into the nearest fireplace. Colorful and interesting enough to keep you engaged, even during the periods of slow progress.

That's one thing I like about puzzles. They don't mind waiting if I need to take a break from them. Nothing is urgent except, perhaps, for my desire to get back to the one at hand. 

Puzzles can take full concentration or allow me to feel mindfully absent. Sorting edge pieces, for example, takes little effort, but figuring out which of four identical green circles this or that piece fits into requires a great deal more focus.

While puzzles are both random and orderly, it is always true that many pieces comprise the whole, and absent the box-top photo, you're never completely sure about what the jig is going to look like until you slot the last piece in.

Isn't that rather like life? And parenting?

Clues litter the paths we can take. Colors, shapes, parts of words and phrases, experiences, mistakes. All guide us forward, clearly or not remotely so. Some days feel successful, some feel like trapdoors that push us back to the starting point. Sometimes puzzles, life, are frustrating. We throw up our hands and stalk off. But sometimes, we hit our strides, and our shoulders life with the sense of accomplishment.

We move forward, with blind faith, determination, youthful joy and even some trepidation about what might appear when we slot the next piece correctly. When we reach the next milestone, successfully teach or learn the next skill. 

While some puzzles are whimsical flights of fancy, not unlike a choose-your-next-step adventure book, others are lithographs of life, snapshots of time and place taking shape before your eyes.  

The obvious difference of course is that a puzzle, once done, can be broken apart and tucked away for later, left to gather dust on a shelf. A goal accomplished.

Life isn't so neat. Parenting isn't ever really done. But in both, the beautiful parts are essential to the whole, and I find that lovely indeed.