American ??? day 32

9,746 steps 

3 trips to the mulch place for a total of 9 cubic yards. We've spread half of it so far. I'm tired! 

Inga had a soccer game in town. She requested Ada Hegerberg's hairstlye: a sideways French braid across the front, swept into a pony tail in the back. (Her team won 6-0, with Inga scoring 2 goals.) 

Ivy requested a "crown braid with roses." She's copying a hairstyle of 4-year-old Zari at my older sister's wedding. 

Our new neighbors (family with 5 kids, replacing the family with 7 kids) came over to play capture the flag. They discovered a well-camouflaged toad sitting on the fairy house's ladder. 

I woke up in the middle of the night with an out-of-the blue panic attack. (Long back story...but I started having panic attacks back in 2018 when Eric and I were apart for an entire semester. Apart, as in I had the 4 kids in France and he was teaching in the States. I haven't had any panic attacks for 2 years until last night.) It wasn't very intense as panic attacks go, but I didn't sleep much after. 

If you've ever dealt with panic attacks, you'll know what I'm talking about. I've learned it's useless trying to figure out why and just to accept them. But still...why? I'm going through these past few weeks and can't point to anything exceptionally stressful. 

Dio has been really withdrawn lately. I think he's suffering the worst from the social isolation but doesn't have the self-awareness to understand why he's feeling that way. Instead of joining the other kids when they're playing, he often stays in his room, staring at his computer. 

I insist that he can only play games once he's done with his school work and reading, so in *theory* he's working on school...but mostly he's staring at the screen despondently as it's really hard to figure out what to do for school. Even I have difficulty navigating all of his classes and assignments and passwords. And sometimes he just watches inane videos even though he's not supposed to. We've had several talks about it this past week.