Last Friday, J and I went with friends to see Suffragette. We thought the movie was great, but it was also stressful. With any historical film, there’s that spoiler called the rest of history, but even though we know that women can vote now, the film ended on a decidedly poignant note.
Then we went home and I turned on the news, which was clearly a mistake. Cute W and M were off at a soccer tournament, and J was in bed, and I was reading about Paris. Which, yes, I feel guilt that I wasn’t as upset about all the horrors happening everywhere else, too, but I spent a semester in Paris. It’s been a home for me, which makes it feel like a personal violation. So I was all by myself moping, and I tried to cheer myself up and fight the terrorists with kindness by updating this article on Local Adopt-a-Family Programs and Other Ways to Give Locally This Holiday Season. Also, I ate some chocolate. I’m still in a bit of a funk, actually, about world affairs in general, which has led me to writing some slightly rant-ish emails to politicians. I’m going to try to move on now.
Here at home, things are pretty good.
M is loving soccer. Like, loving-loving-loving soccer. She was really frustrated with her school season (which runs from the end of August through October), so we were all excited to switch to the year-round club soccer at Black Watch. She’s got new coaches for this year as well as a few new teammates, and it’s a love fest. She’ll arrive home from practice and I’ll ask how it went and she’ll beam and splutter about how fantastic and wonderful it is. It’s like she wants to marry soccer. Beyond that, school is good. She’s not loving math and recently came home outraged with her first-quarter participation grade in Spanish, and she finds it very annoying when I try to chat with her endlessly about how relevant her social studies homework is to today’s issues, but, whatever, it’s all good.
J is loving gymnastics, too, which is particularly awesome, because she seems to love it much more this year than in years passed. I’m not sure what’s prompted the increased joy. The biggest change is that she’s doing the “Xcel” program, which means that it is slightly less intense than what they did last year, and the gymnasts get a little bit of flexibility in their routines. Last year, I’d practically have to drag J into the car to go to gymnastics, and then we’d sit in traffic and I’d ask, “Are you sure you’re liking gymnastics, honey?” And she’d get annoyed and defensive: of course I do! I love gymnastics! And then she’d seem really quite happy at pick-up time, but then she wouldn’t do any gymnastics for fun and she’d moan when it was time to go again. But then I’d just have to keep my mouth shut, because it felt like I was yukking her yum, even though she didn’t seem to be loving it. This year, she’s skipping off to practice and demonstrating her floor exercise dance moves and waking up and saying, hooray, it’s a gymnastics day. So, hooray. That’s excellent. She’s also loving the trumpet and seems to be doing very well with it, although since I have no idea how to play a single instrument (stop judging me!!), I have no sense of whether she’s a prodigy or it’s just very easy to play. Maybe a little of both? I don’t know, but I’m psyched that an instrument finally seems to be sticking, and yes, I did just knock on wood.
And now I’d better stop procrastinating if I’m going to ever be remotely prepared for hosting Thanksgiving.
