The Wins

Each week has ups and downs, but this week I’m choosing to focus on the ups, the wins. We had a few that I can celebrate and that I can acknowledge taught me somethings.

The plastic snack container and lidded trash can resulted in no stolen/hoarded food and no wrappers in Yappy’s lair. Thank you to commenters on last week’s post for that recommendation! Of course, Hope crushed, like, $30 worth of snacks in like 3 days. I will refill it today for the week, but oy, I’m hopeful that this will help us move past issues with her and food and the issue with Yappy.

Hope is majorly crushing on a boy I think might be actually worth the crush, and she is working really hard to break her pattern of chasing her crush down like a lion/gazelle interaction on the Serengeti. I’m proud of her restraint, especially since she’s really down on herself and what she thinks not having a boyfriend says about her. You really could *not* pay me to be a teenager again; it totally seems to suck arse.

Hope is starting to be able to better distinguish between friends and associates (aka—people you know and occasionally hang with who aren’t really friends). It’s a hard lesson, really painful, but she seems to be trying to develop an inner circle of real friends. Band is helping with this a lot. I pray that it sticks. The sooner she develops that inner circle and has a robust group of close friends, the sooner I can reconnect with some of my own friends. Some relationships have really began neglected.

And speaking of band, Hope’s fine band director (aka Band Bae) told me to call him by his first name. Yowza.v#HeyBooHey But, no worries, Elihu is still my bottom bae. I love he and believe him to be the yin to my yang! (But Band Bae makes this whole band lifestyle more….entertaining to watch at least.)

After complaining for nearly 4 weeks I finally took Hope to see about her bummed hip. A suspected stress fracture turned out to be just an absurdly overworked group of muscles.

The family physician and physician assistant both lectured Hope on the importance of exercise and the need to work on her flexibility. I humble bragged that I can put my hands flat on the floor without bending my knees because I’m petty and wanted to rub in my workout prowess. Truth is, that I look forward to working out with Hope when the muscles heal up.

My commitment to keeping my fitbit numbers up and trying to stay limber has resulted in my now fitting into a jumpsuit that was unzippable and, um, camel-toed (apologies for the imagery, but this is #realtalk), this spring. Just the motivation I needed to keep working out. I still eat and drink what I want, but the more I work out the better I tend to eat—don’t want to really undo all that work, right?? I’m about that self-care life. I also treated myself to a new Nalgene 32ox bottle and have been chugging water; now I’ve got skin on fleek, as the kiddos say.

After realizing that my afro was beginning to look a bit too much like Cornel West’s and that my barber had relocated, I hit YouTube and an hour later had a nice tidy shape up that made me proud. #Igotskillz

I love teachers, I do, but Hope’s teachers didn’t post info about their supply list before school, but have like $100 worth of stuff that they specifically want for their classes after school has started. This means that the notebook that was .75 last weekend is $3.99 this weekend. And why does the math teacher need a pack of AAA batteries??? And a new fancy ruler??? Really? Ohhh, and don’t forget the $160 graphing calculator!

I think I have found an English tutor for Hope! She missed so much school while moving around in foster care that she missed really foundational grammar and sentence structure stuff. I’ve been concerned that these gaps won’t be masked anymore while in 9^th grade honors English. Now, just trying to convince Hope that this is designed to help and is not a commentary on her intelligence. The former foster kid ego is so very fragile. Getting help for her can be such a challenge because she takes it so very personally. Sigh.

Participating in marching band makes Hope tired. I mean like exhausted. For the second week in a row, on a Friday night, she is ready to go to bed earlier than any other night all week. She is kissing me good night at 10pm or so. It’s shocking. It’s also blessedly merciful.

So, it was a good week for the first week back to school. I think that things will smooth over as time goes on. I’m hopeful for more wins.