New Year's Day Funk

I had made it seem too hard to go outside.

I'd finished my run, Adam was on his bike ride. It was 11 am and time for the kids to go outside.

"I'll take you to the airplane park!" I said.

"Noooooo. There's too much sand there!" Noah whined.

"I'll take you to the pirate park." I said.

"No." said Noah.

"I'll take you to the castle park or the trampoline park with that zip line or you can play outside at our playground." I said.

"No! It's toooooooo coooooooold!" said Noah.

"It's not too cold and once you get moving you won't be cold at all." I said. Noah, of all people, knows this. His coat is off within minutes of playing outside no matter how cold it is and sometimes he forgoes a shirt underneath at all. He is always hot.

"Well," steeling myself, knowing I'm about to say something that I won't want to stick to but must, "you can't have any screen time until you go outside."

Whines, groans, and anger. I don't know where Sienna is in all of this. But Noah is steeling himself, too. Against the mandate to go.the hell.outside.

I make pancakes. This keeps them happy for awhile. A couple hours and some light cleaning later, we do lunch. I serve leftover mac & cheese and smoothies, one strawberry, one mango. I have no energy to make the other one have strawberry or the other one have mango. This is unwise parenting. And I do not care.

With lunch secured, I know we have a long afternoon still ahead. Can I do it? Can I stick to my guns and make them go outside? This is about the time we start quiet time, aka screen time. But I don't want to give in. They, too, don't want to budge. Pajamas and bed head still intact, they seem duel ready.

I hole up in my room, reading my book. The kids seem to do better, over all, when I remove myself. I realized this yesterday when I was holed up in my room. They bicker and fight still, but they get into their playing groove better, too.

I want to finish my book today. Living the Secular Life by Phil Zuckerman. It's an uncomfortable read but it feels important to me. I want to know how people without religion navigate their lives. It is fascinating. And I'm almost done. Next up: Going Clear by Lawrence Wright, about Scientology. A friend told me it was a juicy read. I need that right now.

Adam's back and has joined me in our room, ready also to live the holed-up-life-with-a-book. I turned on Lion King soundtrack in the living room a couple hours ago and the kids are still happy with it. However they start banging on the piano, and I am too lazy to go stop them. Hoping to distract them, I quietly switch it to The Little Mermaid. Noah storms into my room.

"Why did you change the music?!" he demands.

I try to explain but nothing helps. It's getting closer to our moment of reckoning.

Adam has put down his book, pulled his blanket half over his head and burrowed down to nap mode.

"Oh no. I'm losing you. Don't leave me. I can't do this on my own." I tell him, my hand on his arm.

"Zzzzzzz," he acknowledges.

This is the moment. This is the time when heroes are made and cowards are beaten. Can I do it?

"Alright kids. Time to go outside." I said. Then, without wanting to even one tiny shred, I said, "I'll go with you." Since they'd pooh-poohed all the fancy parks that required driving, I was ready to make them go alone to our really tiny, boring next door playground. But I knew they just wouldn't. It's been dusk-level gloomy all day with no chance of brightening. I just knew they couldn't pull it together without a physical presence to guide them to completion.

"Okay, Noah, here are your clothes." I don't know how my body is doing this. I don't want to do this at all.

"Here's your stuff, Sienna." She comes over to examine it.

"But you didn't get me a shirt!" she complains.

"You can get your own dang shirt, I am not your slave." I said. But I am. I am right now, I'm doing everything for them right now, and I hate it.

I help floppy-body-Noah into his clothes. He looooooooves pretending he does not have any idea how to move his own body. I think sometimes it is his favorite past time.

Sienna does get her own dang shirt and it's a raggety thing. It's basically like she didn't change out of her pajamas after all. I force myself not to care. I manage to do their hair. This is truly a feat. Clothes on AND hair done? I am moving mountains today.

Last night when I went to bed, I knew I didn't have a plan for today. We'd had a jam-packed Christmas week and since then had enjoyed some days at home. I'd worn them out at the pool yesterday. But I knew today we'd all be restless. Nothing open, everyone in town nursing hangovers. We'd fallen asleep to the sound of fireworks at 11 pm. We were awakened by the sound of even more fireworks at midnight. I stomped out to the balcony behind Adam to see what our neighbors were doing. They were shooting off the real kind, the good ones that burst all the way up in the sky. Even our elderly neighbors were dressed up fancy, with guests over, enjoying the fireworks on their balcony. Sienna woke up crying because she thought she heard gun shots.

I really do not care for New Year's Eve.

So what to do with the next day, really? I always remember it being kind of a ho-hum day. People make bean soup and resolve to turn over a new leaf. I like a good list of goals myself, but this year I can't come up with much. I'm really happy with my place in this universe. I'm content and that feels good. My only real goal is to learn French. I don't want to but I need to. The rest of my life? I'm happy to have it stay the same.

Anyway, the kids and I push out the unnecessarily heavy front doors of our apartment complex. I've brought sidewalk chalk and a ball for kicking. Sienna and I get to it right away on the courtyard, kicking the ball back and forth. Noah huffs in front of the doorway.

"See?! It IS too cold outside!" he said. I am worried he won't ever be broken of this funk today, but I try to push that thought out of my mind. A child in a stubborn funk punishes the whole family mercilessly. If all else fails, I can usually tickle him. But with me in a funk, I am in no mood to tickle. Mom in a funk is much worse than child in a funk!

A few minutes later, he emerges with a cunning smile, coming to make our twosome into a triangle. We kick the ball for awhile and they get better at it with my coaching. Adam waves from his bedroom window, still in his bathrobe. I wave and do not smile.

I try not to check my watch; I just need to be happy that we made it outside at all. We manage to stay out 30 minutes. Better than nothing, I have to concede.

Back inside, the kids are ready for their screens. We are happy to oblige. We can all do what we want to do for awhile, which is hole up and space out.

"I did it," I tell Adam as I come back into our room to veg. He nods, still reading his book, but I know he's proud of me. He couldn't do it himself.

Going outside was just too hard.