This moment in time

S - She's 12 and still very interested in candy. She's become a semi-vegetarian and the pickiest eater. She's studying for her bat mitzvah. She wants to and has watched shows that I think are inappropriate like Pretty Little Liars and Stranger Things. She's basically becoming a teenager. Always on her phone and plotting to get more slime. She goes around the house playing and poking with the smelly stuff and doing unhygenic things like microwaving it and wetting it repeatedly. Just yesterday, she hurt her eye by dripping some of the run off slime water. Still, she pesters both of us, mostly J for more of it and has cried that it is all the meaning that her life has. She is also interested in clothes that are "not babyish", basically trendy and sort of revealing. Recently we caved and let her buy a sweater with cutouts in the shoulders.
D - She's 10 and cranky and stubborn all the time. As soon as she gets home from school, she goes into her room, sometimes slamming the door. Recently J has been able to get her do some challenge math problems with him. She is a voracious reader, her favorite genre is fantasy. We had an argument last night about who was a better author, Rick Riordian or JK Rowling. I pointed to some facts about the appeal of each author and how many books each has sold, but she is convinced that RR is vastly superior due to the unpredictable plots. She said Harry Potter was so predictable and gave an example from a RR book that she's reading - the main character dies in the beginning! How's that for unpredictability? I asked her how could that be possible because if the main character dies off what does the author write about. She triumphantly replies, his afterlife! She has a job! Last year, she enrolled in a chess class and developed a rapport with the teacher. So now she helps him teach the beginner class once a week for a whole $5!
D - Almost 8, the age that Frank forboded when your children stop giving you pleasure. He still comes into our bed at night and likes to hold hands. He doesn't have confidence in reading and I'm sad that he doesn't enjoy the activity that was a big part of my childhood and the girls'. He is a great little helper. Whether it's cooking, cleaning or fixing things around the house, you can always count on him to want to help. He is also prone to fits of violence. He is very sensitive to insults. He doesn't generally start the fights but if you make him feel lesser in any way, he will go insane. He isn't involved in any activities right now, except for Hebrew school. In the past, he had been on the swim team, gymnastics and chess. Right now, all he wants to do is go on electronics. I think addiction to electronics is a national crisis for kids and adults.
J- J has been in his job for a few years and the schedule that he has is unbelieveable. He doesn't have to go in super early or stay super late so we get to spend a lot of family time together. In July, he can practically take the whole month off! His hobbies are still ordering random things from the internet, fixing things and baking bread. He is competitive about the bread making. The children say that Frank's bread tastes better and this might actually bother him a little. Although logically, it doesn't make too much sense since Frank puts so much more time and energy into it than J. But I guess he is used to being superior regardless of effort.
Me - I am still stay at home. I'm still make too large quantities of food. In the past few months I've been able to stick to a regular workout stchedule of 4-5 days a week. Swimming and a form of circuit training that I invented where you go to the next muscle group with no rest in between. This way, you can maximize your workout time. But the biggest news here is that I've given up shopping. After a few decades of accumulating, I've come to realize that I have enough stuff for too many lifetimes. Since it used to take up so much of my time and give me so much pleasure, I have to look for another hobby...one of the reasons, I'm trying out going back to blogging.