What to Watch: Inside Out 2

Grab your older, grade-school kid and head to the theaters because Inside Out 2 is fire. Disney does some heavy lifting to start conversations about anxiety, envy, and my favorite addition to the emotions crew - Ennui - or boredom. 

Crosby has been more or less receptive to talking about emotions through our Tuesday journaling sessions with Big Life Journal. 

Per usual, bubble tea or ice cream during or after journaling is a good motivator. The nice thing about watching Inside Out 2 is it was Crosby's idea. It was the perfect post illness, "big kid" adventure to go on while Paul is in California with the littles for the next ten days.

Hugo before leaving says to me: "I'm going to miss you more than you are going to miss me." I don't know about that statement based on the photos.

My big goal this week is to get some new coping strategies for my (self-diagnosed) but very obviously inherited-from-my-mom ADHD. Was it the holy spirit, or my ADHD brain, that reminded me two weeks ago, "You know; ADHD symptoms look different for women than men?" The first article I found on google stated, "Your desk at work is piled high with papers." 

Figuring out my ADHD has been like watching one of those confusing movies - that I typically try to avoid - like Fight Club, the Sixth Sense, or Momento. There's a big reveal where all the confounding parts start to make sense.  No wonder as a child I did all the sports all the time and bored easily of TV, board games, and reading. No wonder I've misplaced all my important things - keys, glasses, etc - for my entire life. No wonder a year ago I thought I was depressed - it was really just that my life got too complicated for my ADHD brain. 

I'll be working my way through this book:

I'll also try to catch-up on sleep this week. These rascals can't have all the fun.

Kitareise: Preschool Overnight Camp

Look who's back from overnight camp?

No fashion police on the farm meant the freedom of socks and sandals for this lady.

My readers across the Atlantic are like...Wait? Your four year-old went to overnight camp? Yes - four nights away with seven other kids from her Kita and a dozen more from the sister Mafalda Kitas. Four saints teachers keep the rascals safe at a guesthouse somewhere an hour-and-a-half drive from Berlin. She was so excited to get on the bus that she didn't even say goodbye.

Hugo went to camp last year and famously sent home the following postcard:

"Can I please never go to a Kita trip again."

We honored his request. He stayed home with Crosby. In his words, "The Kita trip was a little fun. But between a little fun, and not seeing your parents… I mean, of course you want to see your parents.”

The Kita will send a document with photos telling what they did while they were away. The details I got over lunch pertained to some drama involving a stuffed animal and laughing when she wasn't supposed to. As such, the official letter will fill in some gaps. Carmen's been doing this for the last hour-and-a-half:

I'd say it was a successful trip. 

Book Report: Blessing of a B-

As my adoring blog readers know, I'm straight killing it at parenting. Jokes. That's why we're adding one more kid to the mix this fall. Robin, whose self portrait is featured prominently on our dining room "art wall", will come stay with us for September and October.

We're doing some of the usual prep to get our house ready for another person. Thankfully the Dodim significantly upped our living/dining room Feng Shui:

Wait wait, I meant to post this: 

Yes, yes our living-room always looks like this.

I also just happened to finish this book on parenting teens. 

Wendy Mogel's Blessing of a Skinned Knee is helpful for the preschool/gradeschool years and the Blessing of a B- is a great guide for what follows. She touches on the big topics - sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, etc. The one thing I am currently implementing is accepting "kicking the dog".

Most kids generally hold it together for a whole day of following directions at school, dealing with annoying quotidian stressors, being polite with authority figures, etc. They come home and their energy is spent. They are grumpy and want to "kick the dog". The dog, in this case, is me. 

Why would I allow this rude behavior? Isn't that just allowing teens to be disrespectful? Mogel says that if a kid is respectful in other public spheres then parents shouldn't be worried. If I constantly do the "don't talk to me in that tone" routine, then said kid just stops talking. Being the "dog" is another part of parenting where I am asked to be a bigger and better person than I would like to be.

Mogel also writes that parents should model dressing appropriately and enjoying life. Here I am doing both:

Appropriate karaoke outfit. Check. Winning a bet to wear my wetsuit all day long at the church retreat. Check.

Mercifully Blessing of a B- (or 3- in the German grading system) doesn't mention anything about toning down adult embarrassing behavior. That, dear readers, would be much more of a style cramper.