Sandra Tayler

Words do not come easily for Link. This represents a constant challenge; he is surrounded by a family full of very articulate people. Because of this I’ve become very aware of the fact that if I don’t listen when Link feels like talking, then I’ll never know what goes on in his head. This afternoon he came and crawled into my lap for a snuggle. His stated excuse for this was that he was sad because he’d had to come home from a friend’s house in the middle of an interesting game. (Zelda four swords) It soon became clear though that he needed to express frustration with his friend. Link wanted to complete the level in this co-operative game, but the friend just wanted to goof around smashing pots. After a lengthy discussion of the game I decided to grab the chance to talk about the upcoming onset of a new school year.

Link did not respond positively to the introduction of this new topic. Link faces school with mixed feelings. It is the place of recess, and computers, and soccer and reading, but it is also the place of writing and work pages and peers. At least this year I’ve got him on the earlier schedule that he wanted. Then out of the blue Link started told me “Olivia lies.” Since the topic was school, I made the connection that this must have been a classmate from last year. I was informed that not only does Olivia lie, but everyone knows that she does and she liked Link and Link did NOT want to marry her. He was extremely relieved when I told him that he could pick his own wife when he was ready and he wouldn’t have to marry anyone if he didn’t want to. Link then formed a plan that when he is grown up he’ll take his wife for a walk and Olivia will come up, and Link will say “Sorry! I already have a wife!”

In another sharp mental turn Link then informed me that after his birthday he wants to always stay 8 years old. He then huddled close and hugged me tight. “I don’t want you to die mom.” This declaration and the tears in his eyes demonstrated a whole new level in Link’s thinking. He really comprehended death and feared it. Unfortunately I cannot in all honesty promise that I will not die before he does. I did promise that I would take good care of myself and try to avoid death for as long as possible. I was also able to discuss with him my beliefs about death and afterlife. They weren’t as comforting to him as I would have liked. Mostly I just held onto him and loved him while he faced his scary thoughts.

This deeply important conversation was held with Gleek and Patches in the room. They had no comprehension of how important the conversation was. All they saw was that Link was monopolizing the prime real estate of Mommy’s Lap. So we were continually bounced on while trying to discuss death. Howard wandered in at about this time, I think he heard the sadness. It was good because he was able to participate in the conversation which ended with dragging out a photo album which contained pictures of Howard’s deceased parents.

There are whole worlds in my kid’s heads that I know nothing about. I didn’t even know Olivia existed, or that my son was already having to fend off would-be girlfriends. I had no idea that Link was thinking about death and afraid of it. Only by talking to them do I get these glimpses into their worlds. No, not talking. I talk to them all the time. It’s by LISTENING that I find out who these people are that I call my children.

I realized something about myself today. Ever since I can remember I’ve always said that if I ever owned a dog, it would be a large dog. This opinion was derived from the beauty of certain large dog breeds such as german shepherds and irish setters. It could also be from the fact that the family dog during my childhood was medium-large. I know that I consciously belived that a large dog would be a better home guardian than a small one. Also somehow in my brain small dog = yappy & annoying. Somehow I believed that small dogs were for people who carried them around everywhere, dyed them pink, and named them Froo-froo. I managed to continue in this assumption despite the fact that I know many owners of small dogs who are nothing at all like that.

Today my assumptions have shifted because I finally recognized something about my own behavior. When I am confronted with a dog, I am reluctant to touch it. I’ve always told myself that this reaction is due to my animal hair allergies. But the fact is that it is only large dogs I am reluctant to touch. I’ll imediately pet, scratch, pick-up, and snoogle a small dog with no concern for allergies at all. This finally clicked in my head today when Gleek found a pair of cat-sized poodle-mixes in our front yard. I scratched them and found a stray hope in my head that their owners would not be found so I could keep them because they were so cute. That stray thought was despite the fact that I have no intention of taking on the responsibility of a dog right now. We found the owner visiting next door and returned the dogs. But now I’m left to ponder that maybe I’m not a large dog person and maybe I never have been. The insight is fairly moot since I don’t intend to acquire an animal right now, but it is fascinating to notice how I’ve been fooling myself for years.

I applied for reduced-prices school lunch today. I have mixed feelings about it. Anything that lets me spend less money is a good thing. But I much prefer being a contributor than a dependent. For years I’ve willingly paid taxes knowing that some of that money would get spent in welfare programs like school lunch. I always knew that some people take advantage of the system without real need. I never expected to benefit from the programs directly. Defining “real need” is hard. If I look at things one way, we’re rich. We have a house, we have cars, we have food, we’re in no danger of losing those things. On the other hand our income is low. It isn’t permanently low. But we are currently making ends meet by a steady depletion of assets.

In the end I signed up because my kids like getting school lunch with treats we can’t afford at home. I’ll pinch pennies somewhere that the kids won’t feel the pinch.

I have an extremely sophisticated subconscious Kitchen-work avoidance system. It seems that every time I walked into the kitchen today I intended to do dishes. I have very a very clear memory of deciding that the very next thing I needed to do with my day was dishes. In fact I have at least four memories of deciding that. I have zero memories of deciding to do something instead of dishes. It worked something like this:

Okay time to do dishes. But then I heard the dryer buzzer. If I switch the laundry loads they can be washing while I’m doing dishes. It’s like multitasking, I’m saving time. So I go switch the laundry loads. Then my office door is right there, so I check email “really quick.” Then I’d post in a forum. Then I’d break up a quarrel… hours later I’d end up back in the kitchen and remember Oh, that’s right I was doing dishes. Once again ready to start, I’d remember that the mail really needed to be in the mailbox before the mailman arrived. Then the garbage cans needed to come in. Then Patches needed a diaper change. Then laundry needed to be switched again. Then I was hungry and ended up back in the kitchen. Oh. Dishes. But I decided they’d be easier to do if I got my energy up by eating first. So I sat down with lunch and a book. Then I wandered out of the kitchen with my book. Then I went to make the squabbling kids play outside for awhile. Then I helped Link ride his newly training wheel-less bike. Then we all needed drinks and went back to the kitchen. Dishes. Determined to actually get them done I consciously decided against picking up my book again. I consciously decided against switching just one more load of laundry. I actually opened the dishwasher. This time I was determined to do absolutely nothing else until I’d unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. Then Gleek and her friend had a meltdown which included biting. So I had to haul Gleek home and help her write an apology note. And Gleeks hair was a mess, so we gave her a haircut. Then she needed help finding the dress-up she wanted. And Patches was having issues with a computer game. And Kiki and Link were arguing over the television. It was time to put them all to bed. So I did bedtime. After bedtime is my moment of solitude and sanity. I get a few moments to unwind, to be by myself. I walked from the kids’ rooms into the kitchen. Yup, still dishes. But I need just a minute first, so I came downstairs and checked email. Then I checked forums. And now here I am writing this journal. Guess what I’m not doing?

I cut off 6-7 inches of Gleek’s hair today. She wanted short hair like her friend’s hair. Howard agreed with her because it would be easier to keep tangle free. (And he is right.) I did the cutting and Gleek seems delighted with her new hair. But I’m sad. Her long hair was beautiful when it was combed and styled. I know it got combed & styled only about 1 day in 3, but I still loved it. sigh.

I spent a good part of yesterday morning with Kiki shopping for school clothes. In this case that meant pulling boxes out of storage and sorting through to figure out what fits and what she likes. Over the past 10 months I’d accumulated quite a lot from garage sales and as hand-me-downs from friends & family. It was really fun to have a huge pile of clothes for her to try on. I had more clothes than she needed which meant that if she didn’t like something she didn’t have to keep it. She liked almost everything. She would try on an item and rather than just saying “I like it.” she would describe exactly what it was about the item that she liked. “this shirt is so soft!” or “I like the way it flares on the sleeves!” or “This one has a really good pattern on it, I don’t have one like this.” It was almost as if she felt like she had to talk me into letting her keep the clothes. She was even able to give me a reason why she wanted to keep two identical sweaters even though she already had more than would fit into her drawer. Going school shopping with my mom and trying on piles of clothes is something I remember fondly. I’m so glad I managed to provide that for Kiki this year. Now I just need to figure out how to keep her from wearing all her clothes before school starts.

I can buy videos at garage sales for $1. I can resell them at the Movie Trading Co for about $.50. This means that I can watch older movies for cheap if I can find them at garage sales. I found Armageddon a few weeks ago. Tonight Howard and I re-watched it. The science in that movie is astoundingly bad. Every time I saw the two shuttles flying in formation like jet fighters I had to laugh. There were fires burning in airless environments. Characters in space suits were warned of events because they somehow managed to hear them through vacuum. The shuttle landed on the asteroid by hitting multiple stalagmites and yet still successfully landed on earth with undamaged heat sheilding. In all Armageddon would be a fantastic movie to gather science people together and have an MST 3K party. Or not, maybe the science would just be too painful.

Tomorrow is Howard and my aniversary. We’ll be celebrating as we usually do, by continuing to be happily married and occasionally pausing to hug and say “I’m glad I married you.” We’ve never made a big deal out of aniversaries. I mean we completely missed our first one because we were too busy painting the exterior of our first house. I think we attempted to make a big deal out of aniversary 5 by spending the night at a hotel. At the time Howard was working customer support and was on call via pager 24-7, not a good mix with “romantic getaway.” The big effort at year 10 was that Howard stayed home from Novell and bought me a mcgriddle. Howard even wrote about it in an Open Letter. The funniest part of that for me was all the people who came to me quietly trying to figure out whether I was upset that my only aniversary present to celebrate 10 years of marriage was a mcgriddle. I wasn’t, I was delighted. I love mcgriddles.

Aniversaries are only important as reminders to us to stop and appreciate what we have. I would by far rather have a joyful life with Howard where he shows his love in little ways every day than have a huge effort at proof-of-love only on “special days” 3 or 4 times a year. In this I am lucky because I share my life with a wonderful person who believes the same as I do. We share life, love, religion, children, Schlock, and a host of other things. It may seem cliche to say “My husband is my best friend”, but cliche or not, it is true. When he isn’t around I save up things to talk to him about. Anytime the children delight or frustrate me, or I see an interesting news article, or have an interesting idea, Howard is the one I want to tell it to. When Howard is away I feel unbalanced. He keeps me centered, helps me clean when I don’t want to, takes over when I’ve lost my cool with the kids. After 12 years we can still keep each other up until 2 am because we’re having too much fun talking to go to sleep. I love him deeply, even the things he doesn’t like about himself. I love him bearded & beardless. I’m a better, smarter, stronger person because I have been married to him. I could ramble on for pages and still not be able to cover all the ways that I am grateful to have him in my life. I love the life we have built together and I’m looking forward to continuing to share it.

About a month ago we had a series of thunderstorms roll through. One storm hit with a bang while the kids were out in the backyard. Or maybe I should say BOOOOM, because it rattled the house. I was in the kitchen and it made me jump. Then I heard the sound of Patches terrified screams dopplering toward me as he fled for the safety of his mommy. This event made a deep impression in his mind. We have frequent conversations about Thunder Monsters even on sunny days.

We live close enough to Hill Air Force Base that we get fairly frequent fly overs by military aircraft. One thing about military craft is that you don’t hear them coming. In fact they deliberately design them so that people won’t hear them coming, but you always hear them leaving. I don’t know what it was that flew over our house this evening. It was really high, and really loud for a very long time. The rumble hit suddenly and slowly tapered away over the course of several minutes. Patches was outside when the first wave of sound rolled over. Again I heard the terrified screams dopplering to the house. He was so scared that he tripped on the deck thus acquiring a scrape and splinters.

Patches is extremely verbal and he always has to talk through an upsetting event. It seems to be part of the way he sorts his experiences and makes sense of them. He had this to say: “The funder monster came and pooped on me! Maked me splinter! Funder monster in sky! And airplane was loud. Funder monster is scawy.” Our conversation reiterated all these points several times, but most upsetting to him was his complete conviction that the thunder monsters pooped on him. My best guess is that there was a physical sensation associated with the onset of the airplane noise, possibly a sonic boom.

At least he knows where to run when he’s scared.

Back in April I wrote about Kiki and Gleek. (Here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/sandratayler/2005/04/10/)

The measures did a really good job of improving their relationship. Things were better for almost two months. Then school got out and I stopped working so hard at helping them like each other. Gradually incidents and resentments have piled up until yesterday when I realized that I really need to be paying attention to this again.

The measure that worked best last time around was #3, requiring Kiki to write down 50 things she likes about Gleek. She just has to come up with one thing per day until she has 50. If she can come up with more, great, but she has to find at least one thing. This means that Kiki has to pay attention to the positive aspects of Gleek’s personality. I re-instituted this requirement. I’ll also work some with all the other measures that I listed, particularly making sure that Kiki gets Gleek-free time.

In addition to the things I did last time around I’ve realized that I need to change the way I talk about Gleek to Kiki. Instead of saying “I have trouble with her too.” I need to say “I love it when Gleek…” Thinking positively about people always improves relationships.

School starts in just over two weeks. That is going to shift life around here significantly and I think I can make sure that the shifts are positive. At least I hope to.