Latest Chart: Where efficiency meets embarrassment

October 30, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

Parents of teens and tweens everywhere, congratulate me. I’ve managed to embarrass both of my children with a single act. And all it took was saying yes to an opportunity.

More than two years ago, a magazine started in our part of town that’s meant for the residents here. It’s not for the entire town, mind you. Nor does it go to the sister town that’s a stone’s throw away. It’s just meant for a couple of dozen neighborhoods as well as the apartment complexes around us.

The magazine shares news of our local library, my book reviews, and information about local events. The main feature article every month, though, is a family from around here. The family appears on the cover and on the multi-page spread inside. You get softball information like favorite hobbies and vacations taken as well as what jobs the main couple hold and where the kids go to school.

Since my book reviews have been appearing in the magazine for a while now, I have occasional contact with the main feature writer and the publisher. In the middle of the summer, the publisher and I chatted on the phone about a variety of topics related to the magazine: how to add varied content, for example. I have a master’s degree in magazine publishing, so for me this conversation was a natural fit.

And, truly, it was kind of like coming home. I’m deeply grateful for all the amazing writing/editing/publishing opportunities I’ve been given and continue to get through the years, but I miss working with a team on a longstanding imprint. There’s something inherently satisfying about putting together a publication that is well-edited, well-written, and engages its target audience, and doing it on a regular cycle.

We talked in broad terms about what kind of contributions I might be able to make to the magazine but left it open-ended for now. Then, at some point in that conversation, the publisher asked me if our family would like to be the feature family for an upcoming issue. I said yes without batting an eye. After all, the magazine, as I said, is strictly local, and it doesn’t even go to everyone here in the area.

My father-in-law is generally happy to go along with whatever the majority of the family does, but I knew the magazine story might be a little bit of a hard sell to my husband. He works hard and is proud of all he’s accomplished, but he doesn’t like a lot of attention for it. Twelve is exactly the same way. Despite the deep drive she possesses to work on her art, she’s ultimately conflicted about sharing it.

On an intellectual level, she loves the idea of people seeing what she’s created. Emotionally and psychologically—and, let’s be honest, physically—she squirms whenever she gets compliments for her art. It makes her visibly uncomfortable. Like any creative person, she wants to be recognized but she doesn’t want the applause or the overflow of compliments.

I’m still not sure how that squares away in real life, but in her brain it does.

I figured that Fourteen might be a little fidgety with it all, because her hair or outfit might not cooperate on the day of the photo shoot, and she seemed a little embarrassed that something we get in the mail regularly would now feature her and her family. Her embarrassment was the vague sort that most teens feel, though, so I didn’t pay it much mind. I thought the photo shoot itself would be enough to buoy her spirits.

On the day of the shoot, before the photographer arrived at our house, I heard plenty of groaning and complaining.

“Why do we have to do this again?”

“Why can’t I just wear what I’m wearing?”

“How long is this going to take?”

“It’s too windy out there; we’ll all blow away. Oh, well, I guess we can’t take the pictures!”

“We’re going to look dumb standing in front of our house getting our pictures taken.”

“I hope no one sees us out there when the photographer comes.”

“Why do we have to wear long sleeves? It’s so hot outside!”

(The easy answer to that one, by the way, is that magazines are always planning two to three issues out. The photographer was taking pictures of us at the end of the summer for the November issue; we had to look fall’ish to fit the other content in the magazine.)

“I have a headache.”

“My face looks terrible.”

And on and on.

The photographer surprised all of us by finishing her work in about 15 minutes. I was a little surprised, and worried, that the pictures wouldn’t turn out. Everyone else ran inside the house in glee, happy to be done with the whole thing.

When it came time to provide content for the story about our family, no one seemed interesting in answering the questions the writer sent me. I shrugged and answered them myself. Soon enough, the magazine story became “out of sight, out of mind.”

Weeks later (as in, earlier this month,) the publisher let me know the issues had been printed and volunteered to drop off copies. He came, and we chatted some more about the magazine. He also complimented me on the pictures, which made me even more eager to see them. They turned out incredibly well, and I knew our extended family would be excited.

The immediate family, however…

“We’re on the cover?” Twelve exclaimed when she came home from school.

“That’s the whole point of this,” I explained patiently.

Groans filled the air above us.

A day or so later, I sent the publisher an email to thank him for taking the time to come drop the magazine copies at our house. In his response he complimented me again on the pictures and story and mentioned the November issue would “drop” into mailboxes within a day or so.

I figured it was best not to say anything about that; while we were showing our copy to my family on FaceTime, I let slip that thousands of homes would be getting it. My parents and sister were delighted. The exclamations of everyone on this side of the screen could have made it crack.

That was all before our friends start getting the magazine, of course.

“People at the hospital have been texting me all day,” my husband said with mild chagrin the day after it came in the mail.

“I made the mistake of mentioning it to my friends on our chat, and now they’re going to go ask their parents about it,” Fourteen said, covering her face with a hand. “My outfit is amazing, but my expression is horrible.”

Twelve came home from school in a huff. “A sixth grader was complimenting me on how our house looks. You did this, Mamma. You.”

Yes, I did this. I’ve always prided myself on efficiency in my tasks, and I managed to embarrass almost everyone in the family in one fell swoop. I think I can say my job as mom of teen and tween is accomplished for this month.

It’s so nice when minimal effort yields maximum result.

Latest Chart: Beating the goblin (or maybe just learning to manage it)

September 25, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

Most people who have met me in my adult life might be surprised to find out that I’m what might be classified as Type A. As a competitive speller in junior high and high school and a good student, I used to maintain a focused edge. I enjoyed winning spelling bees, and—sorry, sis—even liked beating my younger sister at board games.

(Was there cheating involved? Maybe. Maybe not. Hey, look over there, cookies! What? Half your Monopoly money’s gone? I have no idea what happened.)

((But, seriously, half of the fun in cheating came in the fact that it was so easy. And it was my kid sister. She’d generally forgive me—mostly because she didn’t know I was doing it—because I was the big sister, and she loved me no matter what. When it came to my peers, I didn’t cheat. Really. Because I derived a great deal of pleasure in beating them fair and square.))

Once I had children of my own, I found a switch in my brain and turned off the Type A. When the kids were babies, I kept myself in check. I didn’t push them—much—when it came to school stuff. The fact that they’re both naturally gifted students who enjoy academia and had teachers who gave them healthy, positive challenges helped.

Now, however, Fourteen is in high school. In those moments in the dark, before I fall asleep, I find the little competitive goblin inside me creeping toward the switch. It looks over its shoulder while I try to ignore it, hoping it might just disappear.

But I think Type A might be coming back.

There are many factors at play here. Part of it might be cultural. Indian people often naturally push their kids when it comes to schoolwork and academic success. In a country of a billion-plus people, where resources are limited and “survival of the fittest” can apply to something as innocuous as purchasing a train ticket, it can be hard to stand out. So there’s always a drive to get better, to succeed, to perform at a 110 percent because you know the person standing beside you is already putting in a hundred.

Part of it is the fact that Fourteen is in high school now. These four years will help determine her academic future. Like it or not, universities use grades as a factor when evaluating possible students. Even more of a “like it or not” idea is this: the institution’s name on your degree matters. Getting a degree from Harvard or Stanford, even if you just scraped by, even if you majored in “Watching Grass Grow,” will open doors for people faster than a degree from “Backyard University”.

(Tagline: It’s close to home, so you don’t have to put in much effort!)

((Note to self: Stop trying to write taglines for fake universities; you’re not that great at it.))

Another part of it is also the reality that my time to go to high school and college is done. I’ve had my experiences, made my friends, celebrated my victories, cried (yes, sometimes) about my defeats. I’m doing other things now, grownup things, which are fun (sometimes stressful,) but I’m past the point of the discoveries that happen at those ages. Now I have the luxury of looking back on those years of my life and pinpointing places where I could have done better or even pulled back the intensity.

(You know, the Type A goblin.)

Maybe, in a subconscious way, I’m trying to fix my mistakes by helping Fourteen not make them in the first place.

Her English teacher announced the syllabus a couple of weeks ago. Among the more standard readings and analyses of poetry, short stories, and novels, the teacher stated that students would be required to enter regional/national writing contests throughout the year. He provided a long list of contests and said the kids could enter whichever ones they wanted, but they were required to do seven of them from now until the end of May.

Just the thought of anything to do with writing makes my heart happy. Fourteen loves to write—she’s been working on her own Harry Potter fan fiction for a couple of years now—so she was happy too. Reading and writing for classwork? She’d do it all day long if they let her.

When I saw the part specifically about the contests, it made me pause. I know that if I let the Type A goblin out, it’ll want to dismantle Fourteen’s stories (all in the name of “editing” and “helping you be a better writer.”) I’m fighting, instead, to be a supportive parent who uses personal experience and skills to teach my children while still giving them breathing room.

(Also, I know how entering a writing contest can fill a person with hope and excitement, only to have all of that dashed when the writer doesn’t win. I know the sinking feeling of getting a rejection that is clearly a form letter, how the phrases of “so many talented writers,” “really strong entries this year,” and “don’t give up” all chip away at my writer’s heart. I’ve gotten better at finding those chips and reforging them to my spirit, but in the early days? It’s crushing. And I want to protect my child from that sense of failure, even as I know I can’t. It’s just the nature of the publishing industry and the reality of trying to be a successful writer in this day and age.)

((Note to self number two: Stick to telling stories, especially if they’re about writing struggles. You’re much better at that.))

On Wednesday morning, as I drove Fourteen to her orthodontist appointment, we talked about the story she’s working on for the first contest she’s chosen to enter. She explained her idea, and I started asking questions. As I kept asking and she kept supplying answers with increasing reluctance, it became clear to me that her story idea needed a little work.

So I started playing my favorite writing game, “What if,” with her. She resisted some of the suggestions coming out of the game, especially since I was adding my own bits of advice with the suggestions. After several minutes, it became clear to me that she didn’t really like the idea of me tampering with her story at all.

On the one hand, I get it. As a young writer, I would have been miffed if someone told me that my plot and characters needed work. Almost all young writers do bristle, I think. Our imaginations run wild, but we don’t have the tools yet to harness them and we’re having too much fun to submit to any structure.

Yet on the other hand, I craved this sort of structure and instruction when I was a young writer. I wish I’d found a writing mentor back then who would have been willing to take some extra time to teach me how to write. Because it needs to be taught and learned just like playing an instrument or performing brain surgery.

It takes practice and grit and writing drills and determination and more practice. And perseverance. That above all else.

I gave up with Fourteen after a while but felt weird doing so. Was I being a bad mom by not pushing my child to listen to my advice? Did pulling back on the editorial feedback mean I wasn’t doing all I could to help others as I had pledged to do so on my 40^th birthday?

Was my child fated to spend her early writing years making the same mistakes I did?

Did the Type A goblin need to be reined in?

(See, that’s the problem. It’s hard, sometimes, to know where mothering ends and Type A begins.)

((Note to self number three: If the goblin has a name, does mothering get a name too?))

I let the uncomfortable weirdness follow me around during the day, even though I tried to ignore it, and eventually I got caught up enough in other things that it rubbed off. I thought Fourteen would shrug me off as teens are prone to do, so it surprised me when I saw the link to her story in my email.

Maybe, I thought, I was on to something. We didn’t say anything about the email or her writing after that. Then earlier this evening, Fourteen and I circled back to the topic of her story. We approached it in a roundabout kind of way.

“I need to think of a title for my story,” she said.

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I didn’t know if this was her broaching the subject or idle chit chat. I assumed the latter.

“I always have trouble with titles,” I said, explaining how they’re a challenge for me even after all these years of writing. We talked a little about titles in general, and then she circled a little closer.

“Do you know what my story’s called right now?”

“It’s ‘Title Wooooow’, right?”

She chuckled. “Yeah, but do you know how many Os it has?”

We joked about the number of Os, and then I couldn’t stop myself.

“Do you want feedback?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, surprise in her voice that I hadn’t given it already.

I went on to use the praise sandwich—positive things first, constructive criticism in the middle, end with another positive—and today she took it much better. Maybe it was because I kept my advice a little more vague on purpose this time. It was still relevant but more amenable to the teenage mental palate. And she took it exactly the way I intended it.

So maybe it is possible to tame the beast. Maybe I can control the Type A goblin yet. Maybe I should just keep it turned toward my own work and ambitions and let it advise the kids only when advice is solicited.

(Maybe that switch in my mind doesn’t have to be a strict on/off. It can be a dimmer.)

((Note to self number four: Metaphors also work really well. Stick with the metaphors.))

Latest Chart: Trying to be brave

August 28, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

And so it begins.

We’ve now been through a whole week of school. Like so many of you, my husband and I discussed what to do about sending the kids back. We watched the news. We read and reread the emails from our schools and tried to parse additional meaning from the lines on our screens.

In the end, after weighing all of the information on hand, we decided to send the kids to school in person.

I mentioned to my nephew a week or so ago that this was the hardest decision we’d ever had to make as parents. Some hard decisions you know will come: letting them drive; helping them through the teen years. Holding them up when someone breaks their hearts or they experience any kind of bias or they get passed over for an opportunity. Becoming a parent, as all of you who have children well know, flips on a switch the day we bring them home from the hospital. Some parts of our minds are constantly evaluating, weighing circumstances, and bringing information and opinions and emotions into place when the time for those decisions come.

No one, though, could have ever expected this: trying to decide whether going back to school—school, for goodness sakes; a basic human activity—would threaten our children in such an unbiased way. As we’ve heard time and again, the virus doesn’t discriminate between class, gender, ethnicity, location. It just invades your spaces and leaves you irrevocably changed.

***

Given that my husband is a physician, we talk a lot about health in our house. The pandemic has given us a chance to talk even more about it than usual. It also lends a “tough it out” kind of tenor to conversations. Can’t go to the movies? Tough it out. Can’t see your friends closer than 6 feet? Tough it out.

And, up until this week, the same applied for school.

But we opted, yes, to send them in person. Whatever the consequences of that decision, we’ll bear them. We’ll answer questions. And we’ll be washing our hands a lot as we do so.

***

This small return to normalcy has helped the mood around the house, despite the “straight out of a movie” circumstances. Twelve can’t identify the new students in her grade because she doesn’t know what they look like due to the masks. Fourteen is in high school now and can’t easily identify anyone either; her school took a hybrid approach this week, doing three days online and two in person, so she got to see some faces. Not everyone turned their screens on for online school, so she knows voices. Even voices sound different behind masks, though.

And yet, the mood has improved around here. And my day has become as elastic as saltwater taffy. When everyone was home all the time, the days felt like they would stretch for hours longer than they actually did. We’d deal cards with a lackluster flip of our hands or stare at the TV with glassy eyes, our gazes drifting to the clocks and letting resignation settle in that we still had ample time before the next meal or bedtime.

Now that I have some semblance of a routine back, the days are stretching again except in the other direction. I sit down at my computer and get involved in a project then look at the clock. I’m always surprised by how much time has passed and even more surprised by what I accomplished. “What? It’s only 9:15? And I’ve still got the whole school day to go? I can turn on a video and work out and then get back to my desk!”

Time is definitely a bizarre thing. We talk about losing it and saving it, but it always fascinates me how we’re living in it, right now. We’re living through a pandemic and a return to something that looks like our regular lives in the same moments. We’re planning for the future and reminiscing about the past and wondering if our present will look like either.

***

If it isn’t obvious already, my thoughts are scattered from the first week of school.

I’d forgotten, almost, what morning pickups and afternoon drop-offs looked like, and now we’re back to two schools so that complicates the beginning and end of every school day for me. I worry when I see the kids approach the doors of their buildings and I see teachers, also in masks, thermometers in hand, using them like permission scanners to let kids walk through the doors behind them. I restrain from hugging my children right after they come home, forcing myself to wait until they change out of their clothes for the day, which is hard because I’m a believer in the positive emotional tsunami that is hugging.

We’re back to normal, and yet we’re not.

Parenting is about contradictions, and never is that more true than in our current age. We worried about gun violence and cyberbullying. Now we worry about COVID too. Our heads turn in sharp angles when we hear someone sniffling or a person mentions a headache. We watch the news and hear the stories about the families who have lost their children to this terrible virus, and we want to hold our own a little tighter even as they squirm to be free.

So we arm them with masks and hand sanitizer and yoga mats six feet long so they space out when they sit outside for lunch. We try to ignore that winter will come and send everyone indoors and that the flu might not be the flu, or it might, or it might not. We push away the guilt of wanting the kids to go back to school so we can return to what we were doing before the pandemic hit without wondering if our kids will lean on a table with an open hand and then contract this illness.

***

Parenting is also about bravery. Of arming our kids with the tools they need to live in the world and make their mark on it. It sounds nice enough to say, an inspirational meme to pass around on social media or to tack up on your computer. Often, though, we forget the definition of bravery until we’re forced to live it: being brave means that even when you’re terrified, you go ahead anyway.

So maybe this is an exercise in bravery, this sending them back to school. Maybe getting up every day and going through their routines and the extra effort of arming themselves with protection—“Don’t forget your mask.” “I won’t.” “Did you wash your hands?” “Yes, Mamma.”—will allow them to take deep breaths and move forward. Maybe it will reinforce for them, in a way much bigger than memes can, that our most immense challenges are the ones that sear courage into our souls and hearts.

Maybe, by the time all of this is over, we’ll be fireproof towards these types of challenges.

And so it begins.

Newest Chart: Moving the needle one hash mark at a time

July 31, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

Late last night, when the girls had brushed their teeth and were settling into their beds, I went to Twelve’s room to say good night. In the dark, she scooted to a sitting position.

“Mamma, I have an idea.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Sit down,” she said, patting her bed. “This might take a while.”

Earlier in the evening we’d watched President Obama’s eulogy at the funeral service of civil rights activist John Lewis. In his trademark style, President Obama inspired us and made us believe that we have it within us to be the change we want to see in the world. His challenge reminded us, too, that what we have right now is what we get. This life, this summer, this opportunity to be with one another.

I don’t know for sure if his speech spurred Twelve to her “idea.” Maybe it was the spirit of inclusion and togetherness that John Lewis fought so hard for every day of his life. Maybe it was, as she told us last night, just the boredom of summer break.

I suspect it was all of those things and more. Her idea boiled down to this: she was requesting that we spend one day a week unplugged. No phones; no devices; no computers. Minimal TV. Just our family spending time together.

Twelve’s assertion was that she spent part of her day bored. She didn’t know what to do with herself in her room if she wasn’t on her iPad talking to friends or reading borrowed books through our local library’s app. She thought we all spent too much time on our devices and wanted us to change that. It would take care of the boredom and bring us that much closer together.

The comment about her boredom caught me off guard at first. Before summer break, we drew up a list of academic tasks for the girls each week this summer, but we also made sure to keep the mood and pace light. When she made the comment about being bored in her room, my first instinct was to ask whether what we’d designed for her and Fourteen for “summer homework” wasn’t enough. Then, in my mind, I took a step back and thought about her tone and mood.

The pandemic has brought so much change to our lives. Much of it has been challenging and frustrating. So much of it has been confusing. But there have been a few slivers of daylight in this darkness we’re all fighting.

I’ve seen changes in Twelve; good changes. Back in the spring, almost a month into lockdown, my husband and I saw Twelve’s frustration level mount by leaps and bounds. For once, we couldn’t offer her any concrete answers about a life event. We’ve got scores of stories about people’s kindness or lack thereof, the challenges that come in school or college, or what it means to move from one job (or part of the country) to another.

But this? None of us have lived through a pandemic before. We were still trying to process what it meant for us as people. How on earth were we equipped to provide that information to others, particularly those most dependent on us?

The pandemic doesn’t care about race or creed or politics; it also doesn’t care about parenting challenges.

We decided to go back to a tried-and-tested method for Twelve. We asked her to pull out a notebook and start keeping a journal to record her feelings. Any time she felt sad or angry, she had to write about it. At the very minimum, she had to write in the journal two to three times a week.

At the time, we didn’t specify that she had to share the journal with us, but after we told her to start writing in it the notebook began appearing on our dresser with regularity. Now, as I leaf back through it, I can see the changes in glacial movements.

“Today I feel pretty average,” she wrote as the opening line to her first entry in April. She concluded the entry with, “I miss [school]. I miss hugging my friends.”

Later in the month, she used the journal to vent. When a friend of a friend requested Twelve’s email (without any of us, including Twelve, knowing about it,) the child started emailing Twelve with enthusiasm. Twelve answered her notes with minimum patience, and at the end of April, she started her entry with the title: “4^th Graders: Why do they like ‘big kids?’” After spending several lines ranting about constant notifications, she ended the entry with, “Aside from being grumpy about [them,] I’m okay. Monday is a fresh start to a new week.”

She continued to write about tests and friends and missing out on playing soccer for the park district’s team. One continuous theme, however, was the boredom she felt. In all honesty, if I had to pick between a bored child and a perpetually angry one, I’d pick bored any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

In between the lines about being bored, though, Twelve’s tone started to change. She mentioned things she was excited about: her big sister’s birthday and getting to share animal facts with family members over Zoom. And the “I’m bored” comments have started to morph more into “Today was an okay day” kind of comments.

The needle has begun to move one hash mark at a time.

Last night, then, when she mentioned her new plan to combat boredom, she used the words in a completely different tone. Gone was the whining and the narrow-focused attitude that plagues tweens and teens. In its place was a matter-of-fact approach. She didn’t have anything to entertain her in her room, so she decided to find a solution.

From the time the girls were too young to understand the words, I’ve made them repeat a particular sentence after me: Smart girls find a way to fix the problem. As they got older, I forced them to parrot it back like a call-and-response—“Smart girls do what?” I’d demand, and one or both would roll their eyes and intone, with flat words, “Find a way to fix the problem,” the syllables words drawn out to indicate how utterly sick and tired they were of having to repeat the adage.

Maybe, though, all of that call-and-response, that drumming it into their heads is actually coming back to us. Maybe they’re starting to fix the problems, not just throw complaints at them. Twelve still has moments of getting worked up over something, but if she can find a way to fix problems during a pandemic then maybe—just maybe—we can say something good came out of it after all.

 

 

Newest Chart: I thought they stayed little forever…

June 26, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

I blinked and became a mother.

I blinked and became a mother again.

I blinked and am the mother of a 14-year-old.

Is it just me, or does 14 sound more grown up? Hear me out on this. I think there are age markers where the kids are no longer kids. When they’re 5, we think, “Oh, so sweet, s/he’s just in kindergarten.” But then 6 rolls around, and suddenly they’re in elementary school.

They hit 10, and we think, “Wow, s/he’s still a kid.” But suddenly they turn 12, and they’re on the verge of becoming a teenager.

And now that I’m the mother of a 14-year-old, it’s become glaringly obvious to me that in four years I’ll be the mother of a college freshman.

Okay, wait a second. Maybe I need to back up. I need to think of Fourteen as she is now and not that far into the future.

In many ways, she’s still a little girl. Already this summer I have had to give this child a hand to get out of bed, because she’d rather loll away her summer vacation instead of getting up at a decent hour in the morning. I’ve stood next to her, kissing her on the cheek several times in succession, calling her bluff every morning when she’s “sleeping” but not acting convincingly enough like it, and reaching under the comforter to pull her pajama shirt down in a gentle manner after it’s ridden up overnight.

I stroke her hair and sing stupid songs that I invent on the spot, and, when nothing else works, reach under the comforter again for her mile-long longs and swing them, again with the same gentleness I used when she was a baby, toward the floor. Her legs are so long that even this move doesn’t provide her body with upward momentum. Instead, she rubs her eyes and, after a few seconds, holds out her hands to me so I can pull her up. With a yawn, and suffering from extreme bedhead, she pads to the bathroom and shuts the door.

It’s when she shuts the door that I know she’s a teenager and not a little kid. Privacy, please, she’s saying with that one small gesture. I need a minute, and I need it alone.

I’ve seen these small shifts in other areas too. Although we bought Fourteen’s birthday cake (well, birthday brownies, but that’s beside the point,) she’s made it clear since the start of the summer that she’s going to bake her sister’s cake when it’s Eleven’s birthday. As a reward for pitching in to clean the house, we bought her a small succulent and a tiny cactus. A friend dropped off another succulent at our doorstep for her, and she’s keeping a close eye on all three plants in her room. She even went so far as to re-pot them herself when it became clear they needed it.

And she’s become quite savvy in her comebacks. Earlier today when she and Eleven and I were laughing our way through a game of Liar, she caught me lying about how many cards I’d put down.

“I know your tells,” she said.

“Really?” I asked. “What are they?”

“Wha—no. That’s not how this works. I’m not going to tell you, otherwise you’re going to try not to do them.”

She’s also become more tolerant and, in some ways, more lenient with her younger sister. On the days that aren’t too hot, the girls have taken to walking around the neighborhood for about 30 minutes. They use their alone time to dissect TV shows. I’m sure there’s also some complaining about “the parents” that goes on too. But I don’t mind. They’re bonding, and Fourteen leads the way in that.

“I’m a hoarder,” Eleven declares when I’m helping her clean out her closet, and I know she says and does this because her big sister has a strong connection with objects from various events and memorable dates. If either my husband or I tease Eleven about something, there’s a 50-50 shot she’ll get offended. If Fourteen jokes with Eleven, my younger daughter’s face cracks into a smile that then usually erupts in a laugh.

Fourteen doesn’t order her sister to leave her room; instead, the girls will fold their laundry together. And that game of Liar from earlier today? By the time I joined them, they’d already been playing for more than 30 minutes. The only reason I got in on the fun was because they were laughing so hard and getting so crazy that Fourteen, her eyes wide in dramatic fashion, begged me to join them.

“She’s crazy,” she stage-whispered of her younger sister, knowing and probably betting on the fact that Eleven was listening around the corner.

This older child of mine, bit by bit, is turning into a responsible young woman. She cares deeply for her friends, and she doesn’t hesitate to take the lead when asked. Most of the time, too, she’s in a sunny mood. None of that melodramatic teenage darkness for her, thank you, as she mocks teens who behave that way.

“[Eleven] is more of a teenager than I am,” she says with a roll of her eyes, and it’s true. On some days my younger child’s mood bounces like a ping pong ball, and it’s hard to predict when and where the bounce will go.

Of course, Fourteen is still a teenager. We have to remind her every week to clean her room. If a conversation doesn’t engage her directly, she’ll often drift off into her own thoughts and have to be brought back to Earth. If she’s got a plan for something on her own—painting her nails before a socially-distanced meeting with her friends—she’ll go after it without anyone reminding her, but try to get her to do the same for something we asked her to do and her face goes blank as she blinks once or twice.

“I forgot,” she’ll say; another one is, “I don’t know.”

That’s one of her tells, the classic “I don’t know” that translates to “I didn’t do it” or “I’m not interested and am annoyed you’re making me.”

Still a teen. Still at home for four more years. Always mine.

I love this kid.

 

Latest Chart: Stealing a little hope from graduation

June 12, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

“The year is 2040,” said M., and with that he was off and running on his wonderful, memorable graduation speech. We got to see it live, because M. is one of Thirteen’s classmates. Last night, our school gave the 8^th graders the opportunity to celebrate the end of their middle school years in person.

A few months ago, when it became obvious that COVID-19 was going to shutter celebrations of pretty much all kinds, the school started having conversations with the 8^th graders about what they wanted from their graduation. What did they think about holding it online, like so many other schools did? What about faculty visiting the kids at their homes and presenting diplomas one on one? What about holding a celebration in the school’s parking lot where the kids and their families did a drive-by graduation?

After two conversations on Zoom for all 8^th grade families and students, one thing became apparent. The kids wanted an in-person graduation. We talked about what that might mean, particularly when it came to how long they’d have to wait for a live event.

The students all said the same thing: it didn’t matter. End of summer. Into the fall. Even at next year’s graduation, although none of them really liked that idea. But if it meant safety for all of the families and getting to celebrate in person—even if they couldn’t hug one another senseless afterward; even if they couldn’t high five each other or stand in tight knots and joke around like they usually do—they were willing to wait.

In some ways, now that I think about it, it was almost like the kids were saying to the coronavirus, in that way only idealistic young teens can, that they knew it was horrible, but they were going to hunker down and let it run its course because they had more of everything to outlast it.

COVID-19 is still a problem. It’s still a health disaster. A pandemic. People are still getting sick. Cases are still going up. There’s still cause for grave concern.

One positive thing, though, is that we have more information now on what to expect. We also have the passage of time on our side. Our incredible head of school, after weighing all the options and the facts from scientists and other health experts, determined that if we held the graduation with certain precautions and many restrictions, we could do it in person.

That list of precautions and restrictions was pretty long. I don’t envy Ms. Y.’s task. She had to take into account what was occurring in the national conversation, the state’s conversation, the local conversation, and, most importantly, what our own 8^th grade families thought and felt. Even amongst us, there were varying degrees of comfort with the idea of meeting in person.

Our school normally makes the 8^th grade graduation an event open to all family and friends of the school. The event would take place before school ended, and the gym would be packed as the graduates sat on the stage together. There would be cake afterward, and a lot of milling around with that end-of-school-year rush fueling everyone’s excitement.

For this graduation to work, though, the event would be held outdoors. We had a rain date, of course, but barring any precipitation we’d be sitting behind the school in its expansive lawn. The most obvious weather factor would be a hot day, but here in Central Illinois we also deal regularly with windy days that blow hair all around and even somewhat heavy objects across a field.

Then there was the seating arrangement. We’d be sitting a minimum of eight feet apart, and we’d have to provide our own chairs or a picnic blanket. The school has chairs, of course, but the reasoning was that some people might feel better using their own chairs from their own homes.

Next, the 8^th graders wouldn’t be sitting together. They’d sit with their families. And they wouldn’t shake the hands of any faculty. No hugs of encouragement or excitement, with teachers or one another. No fist bumps as they introduced one another for their speeches, and when it was their turn to speak they’d have to wait for their classmates to leave the platform completely and for a masked, gloved teacher to change the cover of the microphone before they went up to share their last thoughts and memories from school. Then they’d pluck their microphone cover off and leave the platform right away.

The biggest restriction, though, came in the guest list. First, only the students’ advisors, or homeroom teachers, would attend. No other teachers, even if they’d known the kids from kindergarten or elementary school could come. As for the families, the guest list allowed parents and siblings only. No family friends and no one else, even if that meant family who lived with the 8^th graders.

With all of these stipulations, Ms. Y. asked, would we be willing to hold an in-person graduation in the second week of June?

The students gave a resounding Yes. The parents also said yes with a little more caution and wariness. After all, we’re parents. We’ll fight tooth and nail to protect our kids, and these days it feels like the easiest way to do that is to keep them at home. Even if they’re driving us nuts while we do so.

At least the weather has improved enough so we can let the monkeys out of the cage into the back yard occasionally.

That means rainy days are looooong days.

Last night, though, it didn’t rain, and we had a beautiful 80’ish degrees around 7 p.m. when graduation was set to start. It was windy, sure, but we’re used to that. We just clutched that much tighter to the programs (and, for the girls and women, our dresses.)

The wind couldn’t blow away our optimism. Because to see the other families, from our family spots that were set at least 15 feet apart, to wave to them and call out congratulations…it was heartening. Encouraging. And a reminder that, yes, maybe that idealism our kids displayed in waiting out the virus is somewhat warranted.

The kids gave their speeches, and Thirteen spoke with confidence and humor about her time at the school. She shared favorite memories and complimented her classmates. She talked about her anxiety regarding high school but couched it with knowing several of her friends will be walking those same halls in the fall (even if that means virtually.)

I didn’t tear up. I was too happy, too excited, to see everyone come together to celebrate these wonderful young people. I also enjoyed so many of the other speeches and the memories shared by the teachers, whether in person or via video. It made me think of my own high school graduation, a cherished memory because of my years at my own school (15 of them!) and the wonderful friendships from my senior class that continue to this day.

And when Thirteen’s classmate, M., got up and started his speech with, “The year is 2040,” it made me smile. Like these kids, I’m encouraged to wait out these challenging times. With the humor, the compassion, and the kindness they showed last night, it proves that our future is brighter than maybe we realize when we’re cloaked with desperation about current events.

“Plan for the worst and hope for the best,” the saying goes. Many times we focus on the first half of that statement: the worst. But last night showed me that we need to do just as much of the second half as well. We need to be willing to look to the future.

We need to be willing to hope.

Newest Chart: Joy and Sadness (or shelter-in-place Weeks 8 through 11)

May 29, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

We’ve been doing this for 11 weeks now.

Eleven.

I had to look at my calendar to confirm that number, and when I did I realized two things: first, how I’ve slightly neglected Growth Chart. I felt a stab of guilt, because in the weeks I was supposed to post I thought of it with the best of intentions. Then another task would get in the way, or I would let it get in the way, or…something. Parenting is hard at the best of times. During a pandemic, it’s the equivalent of climbing Everest.

I promise to do better.

On a broader level, 11 weeks is almost three months. Am I the only one who still finds that number hard to believe? I mean, we’ve been staying at home, going to school at home, not meeting with friends, not arranging get togethers for almost three months.

I feel like the language around these topics is changing too. Thirteen finished 8^th grade yesterday (and, believe me, I will definitely be posting in the coming weeks about what it means to be the mother of a high schooler now.) Earlier this week my husband asked if we should do something to celebrate her graduation from middle school.

This topic actually started back in January. My parents came to visit, and my mom teased Thirteen about throwing a full-blown desi, or Indian, party. Think lots of food, lots of adults standing/sitting around talking about the food, getting all dressed up, and little kids running around the house. All with the soundtrack of Bollywood’s latest hits or the evergreen ones, depending on who’s controlling the music at the moment.

I grew up attending parties like this one and even had a semi-desi party for my high school graduation. I remember that night with a lot of fondness. It was filled with music and singing, a big cake, me coming down the stairs with another family friend, who was also graduating, in our caps and gowns (at my parents’ insistence, even if I felt a little silly,) and my mother crying while I was cutting the cake as if I was going off to war.

I’m a parent myself now, so I get the emotion she felt, but still. I was going to college. Not the front lines. 😀

In any case, it was easy to throw a party. No doubt Mom probably spent days planning the menu and the flow of the evening. But my parents didn’t hesitate. They didn’t wonder, “What if…” or have to contend with the government about whether it made sense to hold a celebratory event.

That night, when my husband asked about the graduation, I hesitated. What could we possibly do? How could we possibly “celebrate” when the most important part of that concept—sharing the joy with other people—wasn’t allowed anymore?

I still don’t have an answer to that question. At the time, I just said we’d think about it, spend some time brainstorming. Come up with some sort of idea.

Our worlds have contracted to those immediately around us in our dwellings. While “family time” is great, the inability to bring others into our lives for good occasions and bad has become almost stifling. The opportunities that arise—attending an author event in a bookstore almost 250 miles away via Zoom—are something of a solace, but they can’t replace person-to-person interaction.

Even as I write that, I know my family is incredibly fortunate to be healthy and safe. There are so many across our country and the world who have had to fight this out alone, either due to personal life choices or being sick and in quarantine or getting stuck in a location due to travel that got upended by COVID-19. It’s hard enough to come to terms with the fact that our world has been like this for 11 weeks now. I can’t even begin to imagine fighting this out with no one else or in unsafe conditions.

In a philosophical way, it almost seems silly or childish—or maybe even selfish—to ask for the opportunity to share exciting moments like graduation from middle school with others. I’m amazed at Thirteen’s poise and good humor during this entire time. She’s disappointed, yes, and she wishes more than ever that she could have finished out the school year with friends, dispensing hugs, slamming locker doors for the “end-of-the-year locker slam” their school does.

Yet, she doesn’t let her intense wish for normalcy sully the good things: weekly Zoom meetings with a dear theater friend. A surprise gift from a classmate who, due to social distancing, didn’t linger long enough to talk, just dropped the gift on our doorstep and then texted from her mom’s car that she’d left something. The plans for a poster to hang on the van, as well as other items to decorate it, for the parade we’ll drive through later today at the school, the first time any of the students have converged on the parking lot en masse since mid-March.

Through the last few weeks, I’ve thought of that moment toward the end of Pixar’s Inside Out when Joy learns that Sadness actually helped create one of Riley’s favorite memories. One of her happiest memories. And, of course, we’ve had conversations about perspective, about keeping our eye on the bigger things, the important things. Safety and health.

Eleven, admittedly, has struggled with this entire concept and situation more, but that’s because she processes emotions and expresses them to a different degree than her big sister. Yet, she, too has found moments to laugh and get involved and make jokes about being stuck at home. Maybe it’s from having a sister who handles herself with poise, consciously and subconsciously, all the time. Maybe it’s because she understands that her sister has had to give up more, as an 8^th grader, than she does in 6^th grade.

Maybe Joy and Sadness can, and do, work together, so that when we turn the orbs of our memories one way, we experience one side of the event and when we turn them the other way we can appreciate the other side.

Maybe it’s time to get brainstorming in earnest.

Stay-at-home, Weeks 5 through 7

May 1, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

We’re wrapping up Week 7 of shelter-in-place…I think? Yes, I’m sure that’s right. I just had to squint at the screen, as much to convince myself it’s right as to get over the fact that it’s Week 7.

In the three weeks since I’ve posted, we’ve done a lot of what many of you have done. We’ve watched TV. We’ve ventured outside the house and around the neighborhood. We’ve baked.

Oh my, how we’ve baked. Many of you will remember the cookie experiment. Thirteen has gotten better about reading recipes and evaluating them. Well, okay about reading recipes more than once and then asking my opinion. Maybe. Sort of. She did ask me what I thought of one recipe, of the directions and portion size.

Sorry, I keep getting sidetracked. Has anyone else felt like this recently? You’re in the middle of one task, but you keep getting sidetracked by something else. I promise, I’ll try to stay on topic. For now, anyway.

So, yes, baking. We started out quarantine with the 12 dozen+ cookies. Then we went to brownies that tasted really great, even if they weren’t perfectly smooth and even in shape. Those of you who follow me in Instagram saw the lemon scones. That was actually the second batch of two that got made.

Oh my gosh, they’re yummy. And buttery. And just… (sigh)

Baking. Right. Last weekend it was red velvet cake that didn’t turn red because there wasn’t enough food dye. It didn’t matter. It tasted phenomenal. I think we could just ditch the red and call it velvet cake, it was that good.

Tonight on the menu we have garlic knots. Thirteen really wanted to do something sweet again, but the general consensus in the house was that we need to try something savory for a change. After all, variety is good.

(And I’m still trying to lose some of the baby weight. I know, I know, they’re nowhere near being babies anymore. Now who’s getting distracted?)

In the last few weeks, we’ve seen other interesting developments:

 

**The girls’ school decided, in the interest of the health of the kids, to go to a four-day school week until the end of the year. Unlike many kids who are watching pre-recorded videos and working through packets in independent study, Thirteen and Eleven are in live Zoom classes from 8 to 3. It has its advantages—namely, that they’re occupied and see their friends every day. Of course, there are those times when the internet decides to spaz out, and then I run around doing everything I can to fix it. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened in such a dramatic way after the Great Internet Crash of April 1.

Thirteen cheered when she heard about one less day of school. She is a teen, after all. But Eleven complained a little bit about it. Not much—she’s old enough and smart enough to know why the administration made the decision—but she’s found herself challenged by all the changes in routine since shelter-in-place took effect, and this was just something else upending her routine. Remarkably, she’s transitioned fairly well to the new week. I think, because her body is much more sensitive to fatigue than her older sister’s, she saw the benefit pretty quickly of having a day where she isn’t required to be online all the time.

 

**Eleven’s somewhat easy transition to a four-day week is a huge relief. Around Week 5, she was really starting to get agitated about the entire situation. Who isn’t, after all? We all feel an undercurrent of worry, anxiety, stress, or some combination of the three.

In that week, though, Eleven let out a burst of energy that warranted a punishment.

Here in Central Illinois, spring swings between, well, spring temperatures and winter ones. It can be 72 degrees one day and 45 the next. On one of the more temperate days, everyone was in the back yard in the evening while I made dinner. My husband was trying to get Eleven to kick the soccer ball around with him. Thirteen got up and gave the ball a little tap with one foot, making a self-deprecating joke about her soccer “skills.” She and her dad tried to include Eleven in the joke, but my younger child wasn’t having it.

She charged toward the ball and kicked it extra hard without stopping to consider where it might go. That was right at father’s head. If he hadn’t been facing in her general direction, he said, he wouldn’t have ducked in time.

Eleven apologized profusely, but we decided it wasn’t enough. For the next week, we said, in addition to extra chores, she would have to keep a journal about her feelings. It didn’t matter what she wrote about. She could even complain in the journal that she was bored or that she thought it was silly to write about everything. She agreed, and we came up with a schedule of three writing days a week.

The chores lasted just the one week, but the journal has continued. “Hearing” her written voice is a treat. And the longer she’s kept the journal, I think the more she’s seeing it as an outlet to entertain us. She writes her entry for the day and leaves it on our dressing table for us to read when we can, so the writing definitely tends to lean toward that of entertainment.

The biggest benefit, other than having her own COVID diary, is that her attitude has become more positive. Things that would normally set her off for hours at a time now just bug her for a few minutes. Sometimes they don’t bug her at all.

It’s definitely not a magic tonic, but at least we see progress. That’s worth more than anything.

 

** The other day as I went out for my weekly grocery run, driving to all the places in one afternoon that I would normally spread over the week, I started thinking about summer. Originally, we’d signed up the girls for all sorts of camps. Now, with the exception of one, everything has been canceled.

I wondered what the kids might do during the long, languid days of break. Almost every summer since moving to Illinois, they’ve attended camps of some sort. It’s hard to remember a time when they didn’t have anything lined up for vacation time.

I always stood firm on the fact that the camps would only be half days, and sometimes we’d have gaps of a week between them. The last two summers, the girls went to South Carolina to be with their grandparents and aunt, so that would often take out almost all of August. So, really, the whole idea of summer camp was more summer leisure time. Except we’ve all been stuck in a warped version of “leisure time” since late March.

This made me think of the years we lived in Texas. When we moved there, Thirteen was just about 2, and I was expecting Eleven. We lived there for three years, on a tight budget and trying to come to grips with the punishing Texas heat. That combination led me to create Playroom Summer Camp—basically games and crafts I did with the kids for a couple of hours in the playroom.

We didn’t exactly do particle physics, and when I think of those weeks I can still feel the underlying anxiety that plagued me as the mother of two toddlers. I always felt like I was doing something wrong or was about to do something wrong or that everything would blow up. Occasionally, when I read old Growth Charts from those years, I smile. For some of them, I remember sharing some things but not others, and I can feel the essence of that anxiety in the undertone of my words.

This summer? I don’t know. I’m toying with the idea of making the girls cook with me every day instead of once a week. As for other possible activities, I’ve asked them what they might like to do. That tension, that sensation that everything’s going to blow up, has disappeared. For the most part.

After all, the summer is for them. Well, that, and to keep them occupied. Like how they stay occupied during school. Or while they’re baking scones.

(So yummy…)

 

 

 

 

Latest Chart: Weeks 3 and 4 of sheltering in place

April 10, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

And we’re one month into shelter-in-place!

Okay, so I know that statement doesn’t warrant an exclamation mark, but, really what else can we all do? I think we should hand out exclamation marks and buckets of glitter to everyone. Go to town, parent friends!

(I know what you’re thinking: you’ll never get the glitter off the floor. Seriously, I think along with finding a vaccine for the coronavirus, we should ask a small team of dedicated scientists to discover the secret behind the way glitter gets into everything. Into. Everything.)

If it sounds like I’m a little punchy, maybe I am. We’ve now spent a month sheltering in place, doing our part toward the greater good of society to help our first responders, healthcare teams, and essential employees work as hard as possible on stopping the spread of COVID-19. Teachers have rewritten lesson plans, restaurants have offered curbside options, and parents have discovered a new facet to the meaning of “parenting.”

Things are no different around our house. The kids have had their highs and their lows during Weeks 3 and 4 of staying at home. Thirteen and Eleven have shown a tremendous amount of resourcefulness and also their ages. Some days I’ve been able to deflect bad moods by distracting them with a joke or redirecting them to a new task. Some days I’ve shared memes or funny videos. A few days I’ve retreated to the writing studio to shed a few tears because I’m a little overwhelmed myself, only to hear someone asking whether I can help with a craft project or science experiment.

In the past two weeks:

*We’ve played Checkers (where Thirteen beat me in four or five games, and I had to muster every brain cell—really—to beat her in two games.) This girl is really, really good at this game.

*We’ve accidentally baked sugar cookies to deliver to six homes (which happens when you don’t read the recipe ahead of time and realize it makes more than 12 dozen—yes, really—bite-sized cookies.) When we ended up with so many, we went the homes of some good friends, put the bags of cookies on their doorsteps, and backed away by about 10 or 15 feet, chatting with friends and their parents from that distance, grateful to see them at all.

*We’ve watched old Bollywood films (much to our children’s chagrin, but much to the delight of all the adults in the house) and watched newer Bollywood films that make us laugh even though we’ve seen our favorite parts too many times to count. Ooh, Ranvir Singh. How we love the way you point out that butter knife in “Dil Dhadakne Do.”

One instance stands out, though, from these past two weeks that shows the paradox that is our current times.

School online has worked almost seamlessly. While we’ve experienced a few tech issues, like most of you, we haven’t had any issues. Not really.

Until Wednesday, April 1.

The night before, I’d stayed up late reading, so I woke up later than I normally do these days. By the time I got up, the kids were tucked into their rooms and there was little sound, so I assumed they were well into their school days already. I went downstairs, made my tea, and brought it back up to the studio to write my book review.

Not long after, Eleven stomped into the studio. She told me the internet had been patchy at best since she first tried to sign into Zoom that morning. The home network kept failing, kicking her out of her classes. Her face showed frustration, embarrassment, and anxiety. Eleven has always worried about what others think of her, and she didn’t want to look bad in front of the teachers and her friends.

I looked at the digital clock on the wall. It was just past 9 a.m. With a sigh, I left the book review on my screen and started trying every DIY trick I knew to get the internet running again.

For almost three hours, I kept at it. I shut down the router, turned it back on again, tried to get a hot spot on my phone so the kids could connect their iPads to it, found the internet running almost reliably on my desktop and tried to do an online chat with Comcast. They just kept rerouting me to the website. When the internet was working on my computer at all, that is.

I had no idea what was wrong, and the way the girls’ anxiety started to level up with each passing half-hour didn’t help.

I managed to email one of the teachers and explain the situation; he emailed back with a kind, patient note saying he understood. I racked my brain. What could I do, what could I try that I hadn’t already?

Then I heard it: ukulele music.

Before the shelter-in-place order, Eleven had brought home a ukulele from school as part of her upcoming music unit for arts this quarter. I went to her room and then to Thirteen’s room and found the two of them playing and singing an original song. They were writing lyrics about the coronavirus, how awful it was, and how it was ruining their day.

And they were laughing.

As much as the sarcasm of the song bugged me, I decided not to fight that battle. They were in better spirits, and that counted more. A last-ditch attempt to find the hotspot on my phone actually worked, so I ran it to Thirteen’s room, plugged it into the wall, and left it there for the rest of the school day. Neither of the girls complained about me interrupting their ukulele concert for two.

I managed to call another expert for help, someone here in town, and he was also very patient as he explained how I needed to fix the internet. Since the hotspot kept working, I decided not to touch anything until the end of the school day. As soon as 3 p.m. came around, I trotted down to the basement and followed the instructions the expert gave me. The internet came back, stronger than ever and steady ever since.

So. If you’re finding yourself in need of a laugh—even if it’s at your own expense—try a ukulele. I have proof it works.

Latest Chart: Weeks 1 and 2 of Shelter-in-Place

March 27, 2020

By Ekta R. Garg

As I sit here writing this, my kids are in school.

No, not that kind of school. The kind where they get to wear regular shirts but pajama bottoms. The kind where they see their teachers’ homes, because everyone’s in a different location but in the same place online.

The kind that separates the majority of the population due to COVID-19.

Last week Thirteen and Eleven were on spring break, but it was a vacation out of the Twilight Zone. On the Friday before their break started, the school had announced it would go exclusively online once we came back from our days off. By then the governor of Illinois, too, had asked everyone to shelter in place.

So that’s what we did last week. And this week. And, now, for the foreseeable future.

Now, mind you, we didn’t have grand spring break plans before all this even started. Our family had no travel plans. I was supposed to go to Louisiana for a wedding, but other than that were going to stay home. Catch up on our sleep. Watch movies. The girls both need hair trims, so I’d earmarked that for vacation. The middle school dance was supposed to be in April, and we’d discussed dress shopping.

We did catch up on sleep and watch movies, but that was the only thing that felt normal.

We didn’t leave the house. On the second or third day, Thirteen received word from some of her classmates of an online chat in Google Hangouts. She spent hours every day talking to her friends, all of them teasing one another and comparing notes on their experiences at home.

Eleven moped a bit when she heard her big sister’s voice ring through the house with excitement. I encouraged her several times to email her friends and video chat with them. They’d all be home, I reasoned, so she had a pretty good chance of catching someone.

Although she did talk to some of them, by the end of the week she’d hit her limit for the whole situation. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief when school started Monday online. Sure, it was weird not making the short drive to the school building, but it was closer to “normal” than last week.

On Monday, at the end of the school day, Eleven came downstairs sparkling with energy. She and Thirteen talked about how organized everything was. Her face exuded relief and gratitude to see her teachers and to follow the same routine she does during the normal school day.

That’s due solely to our amazing administration and teachers; they worked hard all during spring break to make this transition as smooth as possible.

By last night, however, the energy and optimism had diminished. Like the rest of us—like the rest of the world—Eleven is not just tired but weary. She wants to do normal things, and here the definition of normal, as all of you know, is incredibly basic.

Last night during dinner, without even thinking about it, I said, “I was supposed to be in Madison today.”

Madison as in Wisconsin where I go every year for my favorite writers’ conference; I was supposed to be there this week.

And just like that, like a series of blocks tumbling to the ground, we started mentioning in short bursts all the things we were supposed to be doing this week. Eleven took it the hardest. I suppose that’s my fault; I shouldn’t have made the comment about Madison or that Eleven was supposed to be starting her soccer season this week or that both she and Thirteen were supposed to have their school’s quarterly arts showcase last night.

Yeah, now that I’m thinking about it, it definitely was not my finest parenting moment.

“Coach was going to start me as forward,” she said, disappointment in her face and voice. “We were going to send off [all the senior players]. This was going to be their last season.”

The more she let all these things out, the more stunned she looked. It was as if she hadn’t gotten around to counting exactly how many life events had skewed to “abnormal” during this time. I tried to salvage the situation at one point.

“Just yesterday…or was it the day before?” I interrupted myself. “Anyway, I filled out a survey from the park district in which they asked if you could play in May or June or, if they made the season longer in the fall, if you could play. I said yes to everything.”

She seemed a little mollified by that, but not by much, and even as I said the words I knew how hollow the promise sounded.

Thirteen has her share of disappointments too. For the school’s Maker Faire (in which kids learn a new skill or improve an existing one and then do something creative with it,) she was building a dragon. Originally all Maker Faire projects were being completed at school, but when the shelter-in-place order ramped up I brought the dragon’s head home.

But this was no ordinary dragon. He was going to be a major prop in the eighth grade play that the school produces every single year. And Thirteen, our improv-loving actress, was committing her lines and the music to memory as if she were premiering on Broadway.

There was also the middle school dance, her last at this school before she moved on to high school, and the talent show. Not to mention her dance recital has now been postponed indefinitely. In some ways she, should have been more dejected.

Last night, though, she didn’t speak up, and she didn’t seem overly upset by anything. Instead it was Eleven who needed an encouraging word, and we offered many. I could see in my younger child’s face the same questions we’ve all been asking: how long is this going to last? Are we ever going to be able to see our friends face to face again?

When does life go back to being “normal”?

None of us know, of course, but my husband and I reassured Eleven as best we could. He’s got his entire medical career to back him up. I’m a mom, and a former cheerleader to boot, so I have optimism and encouragement in spades. Acknowledging for Eleven that we’re just as worried and anxious as she is for life to go back to normal made her steel herself against what she knew might happen next: the dreaded parent hug.

She finished sweeping the kitchen, which is her chore every night after dinner, and escaped to the solitude of her room. Thirteen finished wiping down the counters and strolled upstairs after her. I washed the dishes and went up to say good night to them both.

Eleven had already fallen asleep, but Thirteen was still awake and I asked her how she was doing.

“Fine,” she said.

“We talked a lot about how [Eleven] is feeling about all this, but we didn’t really talk about what you’re thinking. If you need someone to talk to, you can always come to me.”

“I know,” she said in that quick way teens use to get their parents to stop bugging them.

“Hey, it’s either Daddy or me,” I joked, “and you know what you’re going to get there.”

“Yeah,” she said with a chuckle, “I know.”

This time I heard the sincerity in her voice. She and both Eleven know they can talk to us at any time, about anything. After all, in this time of shelter-in-place, that’s what we have, right? Each other. Time. And, within the confines of our homes, space to talk.

All of us, I know, are eager for this to pass, to get back to life at its regular speed. I’ve had a few moments this week where it’s all overwhelmed me, like it did Eleven. But I’ve also gained a lot of comfort from the fact that when we say “we’re all in this together,” this is one of the few times in history that the “all” is literal.

So let’s stay strong. For each other. For the kids. For the everyone.