burying my turtles

(and hoping to dig them up again)

oh hey friends.

I saw a tiktok last year of this woman who was holding up a spade in her backyard and she looked at the camera and said, “Time to dig up the turtles!!” I was horrified, of course. I thought she was digging up dead turtles, but as it turns out, you can bury your very much alive turtles in the backyard for hibernation and dig them out in the Spring, still very much alive. It’s truly disturbing.

I watched her dig up her turtles again this year and while I’m still equally horrified by the whole thing, I process my life in metaphor and when I saw her dig away the dirt and the turtle starting moving his little head around, I thought, Ok. I can do this. I can bury my turtles.

We are on day 16 of dysregulation with our twin two year olds. It has never been this intense for this long. We have had - quite literally - zero days off. Actually, I take that back. There was one day when I did occupational therapy activities with them from the time they woke up until they went to bed that night and that was a good. But I did absolutely nothing else that day. So we’re in a tough place. And there’s nothing anyone can do. It just is what it is.

A few days ago, after we finally got them settled in bed, I sat on the couch next to Zach and said, “I know what we have to do.”