Day: July 9, 2006

Another gift of last weekend’s family reunion were some insights into my children their personalities and behaviors.

Kiki left the reunion early to attend a 5 day educational camp, so I didn’t expect to learn about her. However watching the two female cousins who bracket her in age and how those cousins interacted with their mothers taught me a lot about typical pre-teen behaviors. It was so nice to see my 12 year old niece whining at her mother over hairbrushing, because I’ve had the exact same arguement with Kiki more than once. In particular I noticed a tendency for these pre-teen girls to try to make anything that doesn’t go exactly right into the mother’s fault. So when today Kiki tried to tell me that it was my fault that she still struggles with typing because I should have made her learn it two years ago, I was able to identify it as normal pre-teen behavior and keep my cool. Kiki didn’t much like my counter argument that I was forcing her to do it now so that in two years we won’t be having this same conversation. She may not like it, but she will be practicing typing this summer. And I will be keeping my cool because I’ll be able to recognize pre-teen behaviors instead of being baffled by the changes in my daughter.

My insight into Link came in one of the moments I was ducking responsibility. Other adults were in the kitchen busily chopping food for a dutch oven cookout, I wandered out back to where Link was jumping on the trampoline. I watched him for a moment, thought about my resolution to swim through life rather than just wading, then I climbed on the trampoline to jump with him. Link was delighted. We spent some time jumping and then we just sat together on the trampoline. Link grinned at me and snuggled into my lap. I asked what he was enjoying about the reunion and my boy of the monosyllabic replies began to babble to me about all the things he’d enjoyed. Among other things he told about making his box car for the derby using spraypaint. He informed me that it wasn’t a car at all, it was a tank. The paper plates that I’d assumed were poorly placed wheels, were in fact armor. The single cup on the front was not a cyclops headlight, but a cannon. None of this information had been told to anyone before, not even when Link was asked on camera to describe his car before the races began. I think the sum total of his on-camera description was “This is my car. I made it.” Link’s head is full of amazing thoughts and ideas, but he needs a quiet space and a calm moment for those thoughts to shape themselves into words. I need to create more quiet moments to talk to him.

Gleek is a strong willed person. I’ve known this ever since she was first able to run away from me. Lately this has manifested in refusing to obey instructions until I’ve repeated them mutiple times, repeated them angrily multiple times, and finally begin moving to bodily apply consequences and require compliance. I had a conversation with several siblings about the pattern which resulted in me deciding that I need to skip some of those steps. I need to request once or twice then move directly to applying consequences. Gleek loves the trampoline at my brother’s house. She never wants to get off of it. With 11 kids around, turn taking was a must, but Gleek steadfastly refused to exit the trampoline. I was inside the house and someone came to appeal to me to make Gleek behave. I figured she’d already been asked nicely, so I didn’t say anything at all. I was going to simply climb onto the trampoline and remove her to the house where we would discuss being obedient to house rules. Unfortunately I tripped climbing on the trampoline and ended up with one leg down through the springs. I persevered though and as soon as the pain lessened enough to let me know I was only bruised not broken, I grabbed a wide-eyed appologetic Gleek and carried her into the house. This event made a distinct impression on Gleek. Thereafter I only had to walk towards her looking intent and she would hop right off that trampoline. She wouldn’t do it for anyone else though, just me, although threats of fetching me did seem to have some effect. With Gleek limits need to simply be limits, not starting points for negotiation.

During the course of the reunion I realized that Patches does not like crowds. He was fine the first couple of days, but by the third day he’d reached a sort of overload. He wanted a quiet place to play by himself and there were simply none available. Unfortunately I didn’t recognize the extra crankiness and clinginess for what they were until we had a complete breakdown. The tantrum began at a picnic dinner, continued through the ride home, paused when he fell asleep on a couch, then started up again after 20 minutes of sleep. Patches was very very angry with me. When he woke crying, I went to see what was wrong, and the first thing he did was try to hit me. This is completely atypical behavior for easy going Patches. Fortunately he wound down enough that a judicious application of ice cream resolved the tantrum. I was very careful for the rest of the reunion to make sure that Patches got quiet time when he needed it. I watched and he definitely avoided the crowds whenever possible. When he couldn’t avoid the crowds he was much crankier than usual. This is an important personality trait for me to understand about him and I’m glad to know it.

One of the big events of the reunion was a boxcar derby. Each of the kids selected a box and was turned loose with spray paint, regular paint, duct tape, paper plates, and any other materials they could cage from their aunt & uncle. They were to each make a car with a hole cut for legs to go through so they could run while wearing the car. All of the grandchildren adopted this project delightedly. They painted and created with fervor. Patches carefully painted his entire box bright blue and I helped him duct tape on some paper plate wheels. Gleek began painting her box orange, but got tired of merely painting before the job was done. She made multiple scratch off shapes, but none of them actually adorned the car. We put paper plates on for wheels, but before the event she requested that they be removed so that she could have a flying car. Link created his own car using green spray paint. The paper plate wheels were taped to the middle of the sides with an additonal wheel on the back for no apparent reason. On the front he had a single plastic cup as some sort of cyclops headlight. Boycousin1 went minimalist with just painting his box black. Girlcousin1 ended up with a car labelled “Supper” because she misspelled “super.” Girlcousin2 achieved a swirl of colors that would have been right at home in the 60’s. Boycousin2 carefully constructed a battle car. Boycousin3 created wings for his car. My brother the engineer actually stayed up until 1 am creating a multibox tow truck complete with towing hook in the back. So creativity was rampant and everyone was paint speckled and pleased.

Then came the racing. The cars raced around the track three times and had to make a pit stop each time. The first pit stop was to put on and take off a pair of socks. The second was to get faces sprayed and wiped. The third was to drink two cups full of water. All the kids ran delightedly although the race of little ones kind of petered out rather than actually finishing. Even the infant Girlcousin4 attached a car to her stroller and raced. We had a cameraman’s race where all the dads and uncles had to run. Keeping in mind my decision to swim rather than wade, I joined one race. During the race I alternated between carrying Patches-in-a-car and Gleek-in-a-car. The extra pounds and inches that Gleek has really made a difference there.

In the end everyone got a candy prize and all the kids were parked in their cars for a drive-in movie while we ordered pizza. Fun was had by all.

My brother has a four bedroom house. Last weekend that house contained 11 adults and 11 children. The four married couples each got a bedroom while my two bachelor brothers got couches, my sister-in-law’s brother slept in the storage room, and the kids all slept out back in a trailer. It was pretty packed. This kind of crunch isn’t unusual for my family. We keep saying that we need to rent cabins or something, but not actually doing it. In years past my main focus during reunions has been managment of my kids. I had to make sure that little ones got necessary naps and other sundry mothering tasks. Shortly after my arrival I realized that for the first time in 5 years my kids weren’t the youngest around. Not having to fend for an infant or toddler freed me up enormously. I switched myself into a ‘facilitator’ mode and quietly tried to do all I could to make the reunion go smoothly. I folded laundry, washed dishes, wiped tables, prepared some meals, and hauled stuff to and from vehicles. It sounds like I spent the whole weekend working, but there were also times where I lazed around because other people had those tasks well in hand.

Sunday night Howard and Kiki departed so that he could drive her to a camp the next day. Later that night one of my sisters was due to arrive with her husband and toddler. I realized that they had more need of the bedroom than I did, and so I cheerfully vacated and went to sleep out in the trailer with the kids. For 5 years I’ve been the one who had special consideration because my kids were youngest and because I often attended these events sans Howard. (He was too busy with Novell travel.) This year I got to give special consideration to someone else because they needed it and I didn’t. It felt so good to be in a position to give.

Church starts at 11 am. It has started at that time since January 1st. And yet for the last couple of days I’ve been confused into believing that Church starts at 9 am. I don’t know how it happened. But I repeatedly informed my visiting parents that church began at 9. This morning I set my alarm and got up at 7:30 so I could make breakfast and get everyone ready for church on time. I did that despite having insomnia that kept me awake until 1:30 am. I hauled everyone out of bed, fed them breakfast, and hustled to get them all ready for church. At 8:50 I had everyone, including my parents ready to head out the door. I went looking for Howard and found him wearing jeans, completely unready for church. That’s when it all unravelled.

Church starts at 11.

I just wish I’d realized it before I got up too early this morning.

I’m going to nap now.