I just finished writing the previous entry “The battle of dinner.” It does a very good job of capturing my mood during the events described. In fact it does such a good job of capturing the mood, that it is all in the writing and none of it is left in my head. Now I can contemplate the marvelous things of today.
Howard being a patient mediator despite having an extremely painful abscess in his thumb.
Link demonstrating extreme thoughtfulness and social awareness by eating a muffin I made even though he really wanted to eat ramen instead, because he did not want to hurt my feelings.
How bright and loving my kids are to each other. We have plenty of squabbling and hurt feelings, but love and consideration are the norm.
Life is good even when we have a difficult day.
3 thoughts on “And this is why I write”
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It’s good to talk (to steal a phrase used to advertise telephones). In this specific case, you can sound off about whatever is frustrating or annoying without yelling at the people invovled, which is not always helpful. Too, you can get responses from others saying “oh yeah, man I know where you’re coming from, my son is just as bad” and know that it’s not just you, or Gleek.
In the recent thing about lunch – there are a raft of reasons why a child doesn’t want to sit and eat lunch – she could indeed not have been hungry – hunger isn’t as simple as not having eaten for n hours, she could have had something else she wanted to do, she could just have been in a mood…
I think you’re right to adjust your routines to make more-or-less fixed family mealtimes. Thinking back to my childhood, we mostly had meals at more or less fixed times, and of course in school you have lunch at a fixed time. Of course, for an independent spirit like I deduce that Gleek is, this could well be a problem in itself- she HAS to have lunch at lunchtime in school, and then here you come saying “it’s lunchtime, eat your food” on a day off. Once the dust has settled, if you can do so without further upset on yours or her part, it might be good to talk to her (you may have done this already) and see if you can find out WHY she kicked up over eating lunch – she may know, she may not, and maybe you can talk it over quietly (not, obviously, at lunchtime) and see if you can reach more of a mutual understanding. I’m sure she knows when she thinks about it that you’re trying to do the best things for her, but when we get angry or upset we don’t always think straight – we see the stubborn child, wilfully refusing to eat, or we see the tyrannical mother, demanding that we eat stuff even though we’re upset and as a result not hungry. We often don’t see beyond the outward impression and the immediate, to the reality beneath or beyond.
From my reading of your writing, Gleek is a good kid with a very strong will and spirit and this pushes her into being needlessly stubborn. I also reckon that you and she are much alike, and thus you can end up with a clash of wills which both of you know is not productive, yet neither can see a way to defuse it. I’m sure she knows when she’s pushed things too far, and I bet she’s genuinely sorry afterwards – and I bet you are, too. I dunno an easy solution, though, unfortunately.
I loved reading the dinner battle, Sandra. I know I’ll have my own dinner battles in the future! I love that your little one sat on your lap to finish her meal. They are so forgiving at that age. And good for you for offering. Very tender.
~Wendy
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You capture emotion well.
Ona