Update from the Trenches

​Jory and I now hide the remote. And police our kitchen.
 
According to his pediatrician, our 7-year old son has joined the 42.4% of Americans who are considered obese.
 
My friend Mary made the connection: Like many in his generation, Tyler is on an unending quest for a hit of dopamine. If he’s not cruising for sugar, he wants to be on a screen. When not on a screen, he is HUNGRY!! (I have banned the word starving from our home…I’m working on a Holocaust project and it’s all relative!). He lacks the ability to entertain himself, finding most things that are not food or screens BORING. This unending pleasure/dopamine quest is quite common in his age group. Regular activities can't compare. 
Therefore, I have reworked my schedule: when he is home, I engage him. Sometimes we play that we are a cleaning company, hired to do xx (wash dishes, clean the walls – pretty clever, huh?). When that is “boring”, we play games, or read. It is a tremendous time commitment, but in the long run, more enjoyable than fighting over addictive screens and food.
 
Oh, but this morning was a trip of another kind. On the way to school, while racing back home to pick up math homework that she said she doesn’t care about, my middle daughter told me she hates me. Having already lost my mother, I told her to save it for my funeral. This paradoxically made our neighbor’s day, as from her place in the back seat, she was ever so slightly smiling, musing over how our family makes hers look really really good. At least I could make someone’s day.
 
The above daughter, the child formerly known as Ali, is now Lexi.
 
Last year, when we filled out applications for new Middle Schools, Alexandra told me to write Lexi. Then she spent the whole summer correcting us, “I’m NOT ALI!! I’M LEXI!!!” In light of the many kids in her generation who change genders, I figure we’re getting off easy.  Still, it’s an adjustment. (If anyone wants “A” wall hangings/jewelry, LMK).
 
Unfortunately, Lexi’s Executive Functioning Skills aren’t any better than Ali’s were. In the month she’s been at school, Lexi has lost two water bottles, two lunch boxes, a French binder and a script. Not to mention forgotten homework (most recently, this morning). I actually went to the Lost and Found a few hours ago and recovered 1/3 of the loot…I now write “ROSEN” in black sharpie on everything - which she hates because it’s so uncool - but at this point, we’re hemorrhaging cash we don’t have on items she no longer has.  
 
Surprisingly, for someone who has the guts to rebrand themselves, she is desperate to fit in. She was cast as a random “friend of Jasmine’s” in the play Aladdin at summer camp, only to audition six weeks later – same play – same director – and yes! - be cast as a random “friend of Jasmine’s”. The director claims that being in this play will improve literacy, strengthen vocal skills, gain problem-solving skills, but since he cast her in exactly the same silent background position only weeks later, it is clear that the improvement/strengthening/gain she was supposed to achieve got lost in the dark recesses of Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders, or maybe it’s with her water bottles. So we are pulling the plug on hours and hours and hours of her rehearsing the forgettable background role that she just performed, and from which she clearly didn’t improve/gain/strengthen. This, too, was lost on Lexi. “But I want to fit in!!” Lexi sobs. Be careful what you wish for, kid.  
 
Meanwhile, in only four days of being an actual teenager, Lillie Grace, 13, has already perfected the eye roll and the snark reply. Unfortunately, she tends to be a type A perfectionist, so when I mean perfected, it’s actually an understatement. She is also having 8 friends to our home for a party this weekend, 7 of whom are sleeping over. If this is my last blog for awhile, send chocolate.
 
On the nonverbal front, our two dogs are sweet, until they are not. In the last few days, they peed on our bedroom carpet, ate Prince Harry’s book from the library (apparently, THEY loved it) and chewed holes in our new duvet. We exercise them religiously and yet…
 
Jory continues the job search. In June, a local law firm in town conducted four interviews with him – two in person, one with the head of firm. He thought everything went really well. He was excited. Then, they asked for his college transcript (?), which he ordered from NYU. Then, they asked for his high school transcript (??). His high school, like said law firm, is here in town. However, the high school don’t have any transcripts before 1996. And so the law firm GHOSTED him. Like, he’s never heard from them again. Ever. Not even a rejection.
 
Then in July, a firm in LA that sells gold and silver *contacted HIM* on our cruise to let him know they were hiring him to work full time, remotely. Excited, he purchased the $$$ $hip internet package, and they said they would discuss details when he was home.  After which, yes, they GHOSTED him. WTF? He’s back job hunting.
 
As for me, I am trying to keep it all together – the dopamine-addled obese child, the financial worries, the preteen angst, the teen attitude, the destructive dogs - with as much humor and grace as I can muster. It’s like herding cats on an ice rink in the rain in tap shoes. I blast songs from the  Pumpkins and Jane's Addiction alone in the car. One of my best friends Michele just came out with her mom over Lillie’s 13th birthday. Having her here was a blast of sunshine. Their departure showcased some lonely valleys.
 
As mentioned above, I’m writing a fascinating Jewish family’s story set in Paris in World War II. That’s about as dark as it can get, but paradoxically it gives me tremendous perspective and strength to keep juggling the above. Before Tyler gets home, I spend hours every day reading primary documents, getting lost in suffering and the will to overcome it. It truly is a gift to get to do research and write something so meaningful. 
 
I close, with a revelation I ready yesterday from Victor Frankl, which he had in the darkest time of his life: “The salvation of man is through love and in love.”
 
I’ve seen how short life is. Every day is a quest: we must rediscover love.