So last week the kids spent a decent amount of time while I was working “excavating” the back bedroom—getting everything out of the closet, unpacking every box they found, and generally distributing clothes and previously forgotten objects evenly across the furniture and carpet.

© Engraver / Dreamstime

In the last ten or twelve minutes before we left for Taekwondo, and after that mom’s house, they managed to bring most of their toys into the living room, and to open a few juice boxes and leave them lying around for good measure.

They also thought it would be nice to rearrange the shoes in the hallway from a nice row into a nice dispersal, partially on the stairs.

And they’d already had a particularly productive week of clothes-dirtying. For example, on a good day my daughter is able to go through three pairs of socks (she compulsively changes them), but on a really, really good day she can go through five.

So when I woke up yesterday morning, there was a decent amount of housework to do—but I needed to spend some time actually reading books for a change and actually making notes and doing some planning for a change, so nothing got seen to on Saturday.

— § —

Today, I spent the entire second half of the day cleaning and tidying. And I swear, I’ve just managed to beat things back to “cluttered” from “warzone.”

Every other weekend when the kids aren’t here, it’s the same story—hours and hours of cleaning and tidying to try to catch up. But I don’t ever quite catch up; I’m slowly losing ground. I’ve told the kids we’re going to have to do some “spring cleaning” a couple of weekends when they are here, putting in entire days tidying and cleaning.

It was a very popular idea. (I jest there.)

Basically, two kids, single dad who works from home, and large-ish (by the standards of my childhood at least) house just don’t add up. When I’m actually able to afford things again (say, next snowstorm in hell), I’m going to buy a small house in a far more central location. Someplace where it’s harder to make a giant mess and easier to get things to and from home.

— § —

Speaking of affording things, the boy may have to have his tonsils out. This is not a prospect that makes me happy.

• Surgery is invasive and hard, especially on a little kid.
• There is always some element of risk, and I’m tired of risk; I need to save all of my risk-taking guts for actual life, where despite my extreme accumulation of risk events over the last few years, I need to take more of them to actually gain any ground.
• There will be a nice, big bill involved, thanks to the health care plans on the ACA exchange getting worse and worse, year over year. (We have one of the best plans available in our state because my employer reimburses, but where the annual deductibles were $250/$500 the first year, they’re in the thousands now.)
• They cite a week of “not fun or easy” recovery time. This would have been a PITA before the divorce. Now it’s going to be a PITA, not to mention a minefield as well.

Every kid is high-maintenance in their own way. DD has never required much in the way of health care, but has a reasonably high-maintenance personality in terms of her rather critical fastidiousness, forceful character, and singular vision for, well, everything (this all drove my ex-wife absolutely nuts). DS is tremendously flexible and accepts whatever comes his way, but the saga of asthma that (as it turns out) may always have been sleep obstructive apnea thanks to gnarly-huge tonsils means that he has been tremendously expensive. Worth every penny, but a oh, what very healthy number of pennies.

Hopefully the de-tonsiling maneuver will mark the end of this particular series of issues once and for all.

— § —

Seeing your kids enjoying activities and in photos with other people when you’re not invited and will not have any collection to, or narrative of, the event in question is one of the strangest sensations on earth.

It’s not painful, exactly, but it is vaguely disconcerting, especially when it happens in real time (say, on Facebook) and they’re not around and won’t be for hours or days.

It’s like you are seeing someone else’s children that remind you of your own children that you’ve lost. That sounds worse than it is, because of course you haven’t actually suffered the loss—they’ll be back shortly—but they are not present, are not accessible, can not share with you the context of the photo, and won’t remember it when they return, because of course they’re kids.

I suppose this is what it must be like to have grown-up kids to some extent—you see that they have a life, and you see that they do things, but you’re not connected to, nor do you really understand, any of it. There’s an uncanny element of “strangerness” in it—you experience them as people that you don’t know.

Though I suppose when they’re older, they’ll be able to narrate some of it for you. Of course, they won’t, because while with age the capability is no longer an obstacle, necessary individuation will become one.

— § —

When I was younger, I was very much against judgment. Tolerance, tolerance for all! Embrace everything, etc.

You have kids, and this changes. If you are going to be a parent to your children, if you are going to protect them and care for them and do right by them, you quickly realize that you must judge. You must separate the good from the bad, the safe from the unsafe, the good influences from the wayward ones. Tolerance is for singles. Parents are judges, and their judgments are draconian.

They say that parenthood changes you. I can vouch for this.

— § —

I know spring isn’t for another few days, but based on weather and the general feeling in the air, I declare springtime to be here nonetheless.

© sveta / Fotolia

I probably won’t take this course because right now in life, post-divorce, who’s got $195 to throw out speculatively?

At the same time, I have to say that Penelope Trunk’s marketing copy here (regardless of whoever actually wrote it) is compelling and hilarious to me as an INTP, because it rings so true.

“INTPs are known for their brilliant theories and unrelenting logic—in fact, they are considered the most logically precise of all the personality types. This means you need to be able to recognize illogical types before they can get near you… This session will also help you target the people who will enhance your life. Who will be fun to debate? Who will be a good sounding board… Look, you’re not going to ever have enough information to make a decision. Which is fine with you, of course, because closure is not your sweet spot. Fortunately, decision makers love you because you help them make better decisions.”

And also:

“Did you know people think you’re crazy? Yes. They do. They think you don’t understand how the world works even as you ask more questions than anyone to understand how the world works.”

(I don’t know if there has ever been a better summary of life as an INTP. Everyone thinks you don’t understand anything, that you’re confused and emotional, that you are making difficulties, even as you know empirically that they actually don’t understand 10 percent of what you do about a situation, that actually it’s they who are confused and emotional, and that their lack of mental discipline and and detailed knowledge is why they can’t see the difficulties and quite literally don’t understand and are misconstruing, due to ignorance and sloppy thinking, everything you’re saying.)

And also:

“Most creative thinkers have irregular career trajectories. INTPs are extreme versions of this.”

And from the INTP summary page that doesn’t seem familiar, so may not actually be cribbed from one of the innumerable other MBTI pages:

“INTPs are skilled at analysis, seeing differences and developing categories. As strategists, they map out all feasible events well in advance. They adapt and improvise as means to an end. They solve complex problems, enigmas, and riddles.”

And also:

“Expect INTPs to be skeptical of anything and everything—and yet always willing to explore and improve on whatever exists. While they are open to new ideas, they are skeptical of their validity until logically proven otherwise.”

And also:

“INTPs will not fit snugly into a typical structure. They value independence of thought and action. They need their space—to think, to be free from other people—to work in short bursts of energy… The simple and obvious bores them, and anything they see as trivial or unimportant will be pushed away.”

And also:

“In times of low energy or moments of single-minded concentration, INTPs are aloof and detached in a way that might even offend more relational or extraverted individuals. Emotions tend to be slightly outside their own life space… Strong emotional impulses, which they do not understand, can cause problems for INTPs… INTPs are relatively easygoing, quiet, and amenable to most anything until something violates their principles.”

And also:

“They have great judgement, discretion, and hard-headedness. They also see—and are happy to point out—the downside… INTPs need those around them to be proactive and keep from coming to them with questions. They like arguments and actions to be well thought through and will excel at ensuring this is the case. They value independence of thought and action.”

Gosh, maybe I will take the course. Not sure. Need to make some notes about this and come to a decision. Though, as pointed out above, it’s hard to accumulate “enough information to make a decision… because closure is not sweet spot.”

I know that this is just Trunk cribbing from MBTI, probably with the assistance of copywriters and contractors. But still, this is why I read her website. Nuts as she is, she communicates well and the content that she oversees has a way of cutting to the quick—quickly.