My kids are so smart and yet they couldn't give half a shit about much of anything beyond instagram in the one case, and the history of video gaming in the other. sigh.

That seems really, really normal. I've had the exact same issues with my kids.

I do wish I knew the trick to raising motivated children who have focus and interests that they genuinely want to pursue, and who do things like homework without massive crying jags, etc.

Pretty sure,my dad wishes he did, too. Mom always said to herself that Ansel Adams and John Muir looked like they had no idea what they were doing well into their 30s

All I asked from tonight's swim was that it faster than yesterday's rather bad one.

I posted times that I haven't seen in about 2 years. Slowest lap was faster than the averages I've been managing lately. IDEK. I'll take it, but random. Hope I can maintain it.

I'm lying on the carpet in my empty living room trying to convince myself to get up and go to Target. I will be happier when I have a pillow for sleeping and a coffee maker for the morning.

I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow's furniture delivery because I desperately need a couch to flop on.

Yay carpet! Pillows and coffee makers are of the good.

I just had the most complicated/adorable passport applicants. Two one month old girls, not twins, born a day apart to (I think) different gestational surrogates, with Swedish same sex couple dads. And one grandma was there, too.

Aww, that does sound complex and adorable!

I do wish I knew the trick to raising motivated children who have focus and interests that they genuinely want to pursue, and who do things like homework without massive crying jags, etc.

Hahahah, I don't believe it exists. Even moreso than ROUSes. Unless by interests you mean like "obsessed with video games" or "can't put down a book to say hello" or "really really thinks horses are so cool and wants to have a pony but hasn't ever actually met a horse" or something. Those are possible.

shrift, gotta say, I'm impressed with the speed in which you pulled this off. I know it was an endless slog for you, but you pulled it off!

I'm sorry about your parents' friends, msbelle. That's hard , in one week like that.

The complicated/adorable not!twins sure make a great story!

I'm so excited there will be a wee Teacup tomorrow! ::hugs sj::

Welcome to SF, shrift! If only Target delivered the way a pizza place does ...

I do wish I knew the trick to raising motivated children who have focus and interests that they genuinely want to pursue, and who do things like homework without massive crying jags, etc.

I don't think anyone could have been prepared for the difference today's tech has on kids. When I was Sara's age, I did nothing but read, but there was nothing else to do for a kid who didn't love sports and wasn't in dance, etc. I read, I listened to albums in my room, I made collages, and wrote letters to friends who had moved away.

Sara has so much input all the time -- TV, the internet, even her friends, via text and SnapChat and all that. So one day she's *obsessed* with fashion, the next she's going to study chimpanzees in the wild, etc. They just don't get that same downtime to sit and daydream unless parents really police their tech, and I know I'm not disciplined enough to do it very well.

Which was a very long-winded way of saying, "Not your fault."

I know mac is a bit older, but the only thing ONLY one that has worked is to take myself out of it and have the consequences be clear, unwavering, and that they be taking away the thing he loves most.

If he is failing any class on Friday, I get a text message and he loses all electronics until he is passing all classes. I will not check the grade portal, so he either waits until the next Friday or he checks the portal and brings me the webpage to show me passing grades in all his classes. If I hear from a teacher that he flat out did not do an assignment at all, he loses electronics until it is turned in.

That policy did not start until the end of last year and it had been almost 2 solid years of near constant nag and yell and check a million places all the time and contact teachers and yell more.

electronics = computer, internet on phone, camera on phone, instagram, video game consoles, and TV (unless it is news worthy or educational and watched with me).