We tried to take our 14 month old camping yesterday. We found a lovely state-run campground in the most middle of nowhere possible area and he had an awesome day hanging around camp and the beach on the nice little lake (I’m used to the Great Lakes so every other “lake” feels more like a pond). Dinner went well - he ate soup from my Stanley thermos.

But when we went to bed it all went south. He was at first totally confused, but even once he accepted it and tried to go to sleep, he clearly just couldn’t get comfortable. The ground being sloped was the biggest problem, I think. So after 90 minutes of trying without luck to get him to sleep, we loaded up and drove home through Appalachia in the dark and he slept in his own bed.

So Texas is a hellhole and my school district cut $4million to try and balance out a 140mil budget deficit. And I just want to say: any warm body, or preferably a communist, could run on a policy of school funding, bus routes, and free pre- and post-school daycare for the low low price of a 100-200$ increase in taxes and goddamn we could run the state.

Kiddo2 got his tubes in this week. He’s woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night just unconsolable. Tylenol seems to be the only thing that calms him down. Going to call the pediatrician tomorrow to see of that’s normal…

He’s fine all day long, just in the middle of the night.

Also he’s been doing a lot of mimicking which is so cute. He’s been doing more baby sign language too. Big moves for the little guy.

I’m just going to vent for a little. My kids’ elementary/middle school needs a middle school science teacher. School starts in two days and they still haven’t found one. They’re planning on just having an ed tech police the kids while a qualified teacher talks to them on a computer screen or something. I have almost ten years of experience teaching in all kinds of contexts—but almost all the experience is overseas. I don’t have the certifications because I think they’re a waste of time and money—however, I always offer to get them after I’ve been hired. Some schools are desperate enough to hire teachers under these circumstances. I’m happy to do so, especially because this job looks awesome, it pays a ton, I know the kids because I’ve subbed there many times (pre-pandemic), and I think I would be great at this job. I applied a week ago and haven’t heard a word back from them. It’s possible that things are just chaotic there (some school districts can take weeks to get back to candidates they’re interested in), but I suspect that they’re just ignoring me because of my lack of certifications, my communist politics (which I think people around here generally know about), and the fact that I mask and my kids also mask. It’s just so frustrating because, if I didn’t mention this before, the job pays a ton and the kids are great. It would be such an easy, great job. I wouldn’t even try to brainwash the kids (too much). I would only bring up Dialectics of Nature if it came up naturally in class discussions, for instance. Or I would just use dialectical materialist ideas without using Marxist language. Anyway, they also can’t find anyone to work there because local landlords have stolen every fucking house around here and either turned it into an AirBnB or made it totally unaffordable—even if you’re bringing home more than $70,000 per year from just this one job. I have to commute so much (several hours a day) for my current dirty blue collar job, and this teaching job is less than fifteen minutes from my house. It’s sooooo frustrating.

My kid is already an adult, although very young still. I suppose this is about the helplessness that I have felt as a mom of an adult lately.

Last week he broke up with his gf of three years who is also like family to us at this point. They had just adopted two cats, lived together a little over a year and my kid had a bday just days before this got dropped on him. The gf had been contemplating this for weeks, said she feels they have grown apart. She has become a lot more outgoing after her mh has improved in the past years and now feels my introverted kid is no longer someone she sees herself with. Fair enough.

It was a constructive and peaceful breakup, with frienship and connection maintained, but oh man it broke my heart. And it made me very worried for my neurodivergent kid living alone. I worry he gets depressed by this or stops taking care of himself, his adhd is pretty disabling to him as it is. He has never lived alone, they moved in together when both left their homes. At the same time I am so proud of how constructive, smart, mature and non-dramatic they both have been during this. Lots of tears of course, but no bad stuff. Us gen X parents did this stuff in a far more volatile way back in the day.

But I was suprised by the pain. This is different to when he fell on a bike when he was little and I could just pick him up and cuddle it better. Now he is alone in the world and while I can give him a hug and tell him that I and his dad are always there for him and he is always welcome to come back home, it isn’t the same. I can’t make it better for him anymore.

This alignes with my other worries for him in a way too. He is a very proud and out commie who walks around with his Mao bag and commie patches in a country with increasing fascism and hostility to communists. He wears his heart in his sleeve and although I’ve tried to teach him about the violent history and what was done to commies here he doesn’t think this is a real threat.

We are currently sick with covid and he went to the pharmacy for us and brought the meds to our door in his commie gear. We live next to a full blown fash reactionary. I found myself fretting over him coming and going from here alone and the fash next door noticing him. Not sure if I am being ridiculous and an “over-worrier” about this. I love his passion, but wish he was a bit more cautious about it out in the world. I worry he will eventually get beaten up or something.

I also worry about the current warmongering and my kid ending up as cannon fodder if my country goes to war, we have a draft. He has chosen civil service, but if it ever came to that the people who chose that would be the ones least important and first to die, just like last time. I have already considered ways to get him out of the country or ways of hiding him if this ever happens.

So yeah, these are some of my current parenting vibes. I have the best most based kid in the world, I need him to be safe and ok.

6 month old (as of tomorrow) still waking every hour and a half to 2 hours overnight for small feeds (~60ml). 😩

Toddler, not even 3 years old, didn’t fall asleep til 2am… Just woke up at 9:30 hahahahahaaaa

i take care of my two nephews 4 and 7 and its hard because they have very different capabilities in swimming biking, basketball etc. but I am by myself taking care of them both what can I do?