Family

Wildlife at the park

By / September 30, 2010

We expected to find ducks at the park. I’d brought a spare loaf of bread for the purpose of feeding them. We did not expect the full fleet of ducks who converged upon the kids the moment bread was in evidence. Apparently this pond is a favored pit-stop for migratory ducks. The bread disappeared quickly and the children were lured to the table by pizza. However the realization was quickly made that pizza crusts are made of bread and so the children flocked back to the pond for another round of duck feeding.

The adults all sat at the table watching the children and the ducks. We also observed several large dragon flies dive-bombing clouds of midges. The aerial acrobatics were fairly impressive. All wildlife was forgotten for a time when the marshmallow blow guns and stomp rockets were brought out. There was a battle royale, although many of the smaller combatants were observed eating their ammunition.

The evening waned and the sun was retiring when the mice made their presence known. One scurried across the concrete pad and disappeared into a crack far too small to admit a living creature. We set out a small piece of pizza crust near the crack to see if he would emerge again. He did and we were all quite entertained to watch the tiny mouse pull the crust through a too-small hole. The rocks surrounding the duck pond proved to be alive with mice, and so some of the kids went hunting. Many mice were sighted but none were captured.

The mosquitoes made their appearance and that was the cue for the humans to leave. As we loaded the cars, pairs of ducks winged over head toward the sunset. They were headed for the lake to sleep. They’ll be back at the pond in the morning. We won’t be back tomorrow, but we’ll come again sometime soon. The evening was lovely and we need more lovely evenings.

Seeing Gleek clearly for the first time in weeks

By / September 30, 2010

Gleek entered the kitchen with a purposeful stalk. I worried that somehow the play with friends had gone wrong and she was angry.
“You okay?”

She looked at me, and her face transformed into calm interest. “Just thirsty.” She answered.

I watched her grab her cup and fill it with water. Her hair was windblown, but not rat’s nest tangled. Her clothes marked with the evidence of today’s play and stains from games past. Her calm and confident manner of drinking struck me.

In that moment it was as if a film was stripped from my eyes. My brain was stripped bare of all the speculations of how today’s behaviors will impact her future. All the parental responsibility and worry peeled off. With a sudden and clear sharpness, I suddenly saw Gleek not as a child who needs to be nurtured into an adult, but as a person with a whole personality and existence right now. I really saw her with her oval face and bright eyes startlingly dark compared to her light hair.

She finished her drink and turned to leave.

“Hey.” I said putting my hand out to forestall her departure.

She turned back. And I explained “I think I need a hug.” Gleek tipped her head to the side and then jumped into my arms to give me a Monkey hug with both arms and legs. I held her tight and breathed the scent of her. Then she jumped down and dashed back outside to her friends.

I trailed after and watched for a moment out the window. I tried to find words to encapsulate the wordless gestalt I had in that moment of clarity. My child’s worth is not measured by her future. She is priceless now. Had someone told me this, I would have nodded and said “of course.” It was quite different to have the wordless knowledge resonate through me. To know that I must fully love this person for who she is, despite my ongoing responsibility to help her grow. It is a hard thing. Because in the moment I love a child fully as they are, I am always struck by the knowledge that this person I love will be gone in a year. The nine year old Gleek will be replaced by a 10 year old who will be much the same, but also different. In my heart I hold a small measure of grief for the toddler Gleek who is forever gone.

And so I need to repeat and elaborate upon the statement I made before.

My child’s worth is not measured by her future or her past. It is separate from my hopes and fears. She is priceless just as she is.

I want to sear the words into my brain so that I will not forget. And I need to apply the same statement not only to all of my children, but to all people. My love should not be contingent or come with expectations attached. It is a frightening and beautiful thought. I shall endeavor to try.

Link’s Clothes

By / September 29, 2010

On Sunday morning Link’s pants did not fit. They were tight the week before, but this Sunday Link could not make them button. Not even remotely. A flurry of clothes testing determined that he’d outgrown all of his jeans as well. We didn’t notice because he wore shorts all week. This kind of growth is not unexpected in a 13 year old boy, but it presented something of a problem only 20 minutes before church. In the end wore a pair of Howard’s pants and a belt to cinch in the bagginess.

Pants shopping was imperative. Link had been wanting new clothes anyway. He has decided that the most appropriated attire for junior high school is a red shirt and blue jeans. He declared that I should get him ten pairs of jean shorts, ten pairs of jeans, and ten red shirts. As it was he was wearing the same red shirt and jean shorts a bit too often. I declined to promise clothes in that quantity, but planned a shopping trip.

Most of my kids clothing growing up has been hand-me-down or purchased by me when they were not present. I just don’t like taking kids into stores when I need to browse and ponder. It gives them too much time to want things that I don’t want to pay for. Link’s new-found interest in what he wears meant that it was time to begin involving him in the purchase decisions about his clothing. In the process of walking him through the aisles to select clothes, I realized how overdue his education in clothes shopping has become. He was fascinated and a little confused to realize that I expected him to try on the clothes before we bought anything. After the first set of ill-fitting clothes he could see the importance.

We emerged triumphant. Two pair of jeans, 1 jean short, 2 church pants, and 3 red shirts. It is a far cry from his original plan, but has a chance of actually fitting into his drawers. I love that he is growing up and developing an understanding of the social nuances of clothing and personal hygiene. And we bought the pants a touch long, because then next thing he’ll do is grow two inches when my back is turned.

Getting the hang of Saturdays

By / September 26, 2010

Nearly the first thing I did yesterday morning was to jot down some notes for a blog entry about how I’m having trouble getting the hang of Saturdays. But the day proceeded and I never had time to write it out. In fact I got all my stuff done in time for Howard and I to escape the house and have dinner with some other local writers. It was a wonderful event full of laughter and good conversation. As a result I wrote nothing at all and left a semi-discouraged note up for a whole extra day even though the day itself turned out quite well. Oops.

Since the analysis contained in my notes about getting the hang of Saturdays is still valid and interesting to me, I am going to do a write up from the notes anyway.

The first problem with Saturday morning is that I want to sleep late. I actually need the extra sleep since I tend to run on a sleep deficit during the rest of the week. My desires to sleep hit the first snag when the iPod alarms go off with their wake-up play lists. The one in our room is not much of a problem because we have a remote. However I’ve also set one on the iPod in the kitchen. On school days the play list helps the kids time their mornings so that they’re on schedule. In theory we can turn these off, but I always forget to. I think part of my brain is afraid that if I turn them off on Saturday, I’ll forget to reset them for Monday.

The morning music is the least of the troubles. I want to sleep in, but I want the kids to wake up on their regular schedule. If the younger two sleep late, it is harder to get them to go to bed that night. I’ve worked really hard to get their bio rhythms adjusted and I don’t want to send it askew. So in theory I should just get up at the same time as I do all week so that our schedule remains intact. But I love the sleep in. In the end the kids usually wake up about an hour later than normal and then they go play video games while I sleep longer.

This pattern does not generally include breakfast except what the kids decide to feed to themselves. Usually they do a pretty good job, no one goes hungry, but without an official breakfast no one has a marker for the beginning of the day. The kids don’t have a set point for when they should do their chores. When I groggily wander down stairs half the morning is gone and the kids are all fully engaged in activities where they will object to being interrupted. Chores are easier to swallow if you don’t have to stop doing something fun in order to do them. At this point I usually decide not to interrupt happily playing children to fight over chores. Instead I wander into my office to do a “little bit of work.”

Then suddenly it is noon, I’m still in my pajamas, and kids’ friends are knocking on the door to ask if my kids can play. (Their parents got them up, fed them breakfast, and focused their mornings so their chores are all done.) I look at the kid on my front step and I have a bare moment to decide whether to just let my kids go or to enforce chores first. The easy path is so easy. It really is. But I feel a vague guilt as I look at my not-so-clean house and worry that I’m not teaching them the housekeeping habits they will need.

I look at my Saturdays and feel that I ought to plan something better, more structured. Then I turn it all upside down and look at it again. The weeks are made of structure. Every day (except Saturday) I know exactly when to get them up in the morning. I have songs to measure out when breakfast should be, when Kiki leaves, when Link leaves, when Gleek and Patch leave. Even while they’re gone I’ve planned my days and run them by task list. Then they come home at we all hit schedule marks for play, homework, dinner, and evening stuff. Saturdays are all squishy and free-form. And maybe we need that.

My day contained all of these things

By / September 23, 2010

Building a chronology of my day from the following list is not recommended. I wrote in the order that things fell out of my brain.

***
Link sat up straight in his chair facing the teacher across the table. They were both smiling at the joke Link just made. It was the third teacher we’d spoken to in the chaos of junior high parent teacher conferences. I watched my son with his confident gaze and smirkish grin, startled to see him so obviously in his element. The time I spent worrying that he would be socially awkward felt wasted. We saw all of his teachers before we were done. This was at Link’s request. It was all good news. He’s getting good grades, he’s putting in the work. There are a couple of minor course corrections to make, but the shape of this year is perfect to allow him to grow in the ways that he needs most.

***

Kiki sat on the front porch reading with a cat asleep in her lap. She’d spent the prior hour playing with the neighbor’s dogs. I did not interrupt her, but thought how different this contented person was from the overwhelmed, emotional girl she was two weeks ago. The changes we made are working and her life is good again.

***

The phone rang and it was my visiting teaching partner. I’d missed the appointment we made with the new woman in our ward. I apologized profusely and felt really bad because I’d been looking forward to the visit. I was just hyper-focused on work and forgot.

***

The orders from Australia were waiting in my mailbox first thing this morning. I had a busy hour sending invoices, answering questions, and giving shipment instructions. The money from these sales push the Australia trip into the profitable zone.

***

I once again emailed Gleek’s teacher. We’re communicating about twice per week right now. The teacher is fantastic. This is good. I need to use this school year wisely.

***

My cell phone rang and it was Patch. I’d just dropped him by the house so I could retrieve Kiki from school.
“Mom. I have a picture for you.”
“Okay. Just leave it on the counter. I’ll be home in a few minutes.”
“No. I’ll just wait and give it to you.”
And he did. It was a lovely water color picture of yesterday’s thunderstorm.

***

Gleek sat a the kitchen table, shrieking in fury. What she was furious about changed from minute to minute, but she refused to give in on any of the points we requested, like “please stop yelling.” In the end there was stomping, slamming, and enforced alone time. Sometimes when there is an argument I feel bad because I see what I could have done differently or better. This one came out of the blue and shocked us all, Gleek included.

***

Link declared that he wanted to go to bed early so that he will be more rested for school. He did, but only after taking a shower and putting his clothes into the laundry.

***

The sunshine was warm and the air was just a touch cool. I stood barefoot on the warm pavement and closed my eyes to savor for just a moment.

***

Gleek and I sat at the kitchen counter while I read to her from a book about ADHD. The book is aimed at girls approximately her age. We read the descriptions of girls with ADHD and talked about how she is similar and different. The book is a first step toward finding solutions for her and, more importantly, involving her in the process. I don’t want quick fixes. I want habits and patterns that she can use throughout her life so that she can achieve the things she wants to achieve.

***

Howard and I stood in the kitchen while I listened to him hammer out the plot to wrap up the current Schlock Mercenary book. Only six weeks left and there are at least three days in a row where the outline says simply “Mayhem.”

***

I napped.

***

I’m once again loving the layout process for Schlock Mercenary books. It is fun for me to see the old story lines as I place them on the page. So far I’ve clocked 3 1/2 hours and I’m about half done with the first pass. This will give us a page count and let Howard know how big the bonus story needs to be.

***

Link got out of bed because falling asleep early is not so simple as getting into bed early.

***

Gleek went to bed late because claimed that laying still was impossible. She had cookies for snack. I’m thinking that further adjustment needs to be made to our lower sugar regimen. Bed time snack needs to not be high sugar or chocolate.

***

I finished my re-read of Palace Beautiful and loved it again.

***

I don’t have much day left and sleep needs to come next.

Perspectives on the storm

By / September 9, 2010

The difference between 15 and 37 is that when rock-bottom emotional meltdown is achieved the 37 year old knows it is temporary and survivable. At 37 I often hear myself say “I can’t do this.” but some part of me knows that it is a lie. I can deal with it. I will deal with it. Because I am stronger than whatever life can throw at me. But that strength and knowledge came to me as a result of actually surviving through some nasty stuff. A fifteen year old can’t say to herself “I’ve survived worse” because she hasn’t yet. She does not know on a visceral level that she has the power to make her misery finite. This is the true danger of the teen years, when people who have near adult comprehension of challenges, and who must ride the tumultuous waves of hormonal shifts, and who are still trying to figure out who they are, do not yet have the perspective to know that pain is survivable. This is when 37 must stare into the eyes of 15 and promise her that it will get better. And then 37 feels enormous relief when the teenager nods and believes for just a moment even though she can not see it herself.

So yesterday was a hard day. And today will be better. And if today is not better, we will pummel something until it is. Because the key to surviving is to take charge and make plans rather than cower while the storm rages. And the plans need to include building a better shelter to weather the next storm so that next time we won’t end up all wet.

A phone call illustrates change

By / September 1, 2010

“Hi Mrs. Tayler, this is Gleek’s Teacher.”

My heart sank. “Hi. How can I help you.”

“Oh don’t worry this is a good call.”

I swallowed. “Really?”

“Yes. I just wanted to tell you that Gleek and I made an agreement that she would get some writing done by Thursday and she finished it today. I also wanted to let you know that she’s been doing great in class. We’ve had no real problems. Well, when I had to take something away from her she got mad, but she calmed herself down and we were fine.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s really good to hear.” My eyes watered. This teacher was not on the clean up crew after last year’s teacher confiscated a toy from Gleek, Gleek began screaming, and was sent to the LRR (time out room). I listen as this year’s teacher continues to talk and realize that she has never seen any of the behaviors that had me approaching this year like a person expecting to survive in the wilderness with only the resources she can carry. And yet Teacher called me just to tell me that things are going well because she knows I’m worried.

When Teacher was done singing Gleek’s praises, I hung up the phone. It could be Teacher, it could be the dietary changes, it could be a more relaxed social situation in class, it could be regular meals and bedtimes, it could be that Gleek just turned a developmental corner, whatever the reason, I need to keep doing all of my pieces of the above because I’m seeing the same calmer happier Gleek at home too.

I feel like dancing for joy.

Schedule as puzzle

By / August 22, 2010

The first step to assembling a jigsaw puzzle is to spread the pieces out on the table and turn them over so I can see the shapes and colors. At that point the table is covered and it looks like there is no way for all the pieces to be assembled into a coherent picture. This is exactly where I am in planning the family schedule for Fall. I have all of these things which need to fit in somewhere, but I can’t see how. It is a bit overwhelming. And so I apply the same method I use when faced with 1000 loose puzzle pieces. I find the edge pieces and build the frame. In our lives the frame is structured around getting kids to school, meals, and bedtime. The markers which delineate space for everything else. They dictate rising in the morning and sleeping at night. Next I find a cluster of pieces which obviously fit together. I figure them out and then take the larger piece and place it within the frame. This is like the grouping snack, reading, tooth brushing, prayers, and laying down all together as parts of “bedtime.” Last I look at the spaces left and try to fill in the remaining pieces. Sometimes where they go becomes obvious after the big shapes are in place.

This week will be a frame week with a little bit of clustering. Next week will probably be the same. By the third and fourth week of school I’ll know how to fit in all the loose bits. Or I’ll know which loose bits are simply not going to fit for awhile. That’s the hard part. Some of the pieces I would like to fit into our lives simply don’t belong right now. I wish I knew which ones so I could let them go.

Experimenting with sugar and alternative medicine

By / August 21, 2010

In Terry Pratchett’s books the witch Granny Weatherwax uses Headology to help people more than she uses magic. Headology uses both psychology and trickery to adjust people’s behaviors. In the case of a man with chest pains, Granny told him that he’d been bewitched by nymphs who lived in a waterfall. All he had to do was hike to that waterfall, bow three times, sing a song, and leave a small offering once per day and the nymphs would leave him alone. Or something like that. My memory of the scene in the book is a little fuzzy, and I could not find the specific reference. The point is that Granny knew that the only beneficial thing in her instructions was the hike. The man was too sedentary, so she told him a story that would make him be more active.

I took Gleek to a practitioner of alternative medicine. A friend, whom I respect, says that many of her son’s behavioral issues have been greatly alleviated by this practitioner. Since I plan to do some aggressive diagnostics and behavior modification for Gleek this Fall, I decided that alternative medicine would be a low impact and low cost place to start. We went. We followed the instructions for 24 hours until the instructions ran out. My after-the-fact conclusion is that bodies are complex and there are things I don’t understand. I am not ready to dismiss the idea that alternative phenomena can significantly alter someone’s well being. Mind/body connections are very powerful. However I’ve also come out of the experience feeling like I did a lot of dancing around and singing when the only thing that mattered was the walk.

The specific treatment applied was intended to reduce Gleek’s sensitivity to sugar.
In the category of dancing around:
Taping a small vial of sugar-infused water to Gleek’s arm for 24 hours, so that her body could balance to the sugars. I’m particularly skeptical since the vial was created by putting a blank vial into the same machine as another vial for a few seconds. Also when I accidentally dropped and broke the vial at the end, it was filled with something that smelled like rubbing alcohol.

In the category of hiking:
The strict list of things she was not to eat for 24 hours. She was totally off sugar during that time, which allowed me to observe the strength of her sugar cravings and to observe behavior changes. She got cranky, then tired, then sick. The sick shortly proved itself to be stomach flu that she caught from her brother. Having sickness strike mid-experiment mucks up the results quite a lot. However I have definitely proven to myself that more experimentation with her sugar intake is called for. She became jittery and wiggly within two minutes of eating sugary things again.

Having a vial taped to her arm was a very effective physical reminder to both Gleek and I that we were to be careful about what she ate.

In the category of Might be Dancing, Might be Hiking:
The diagnostic method of putting a vial into Gleek’s hand and then pressing down on her arm to see if she could hold strong. I’ve seen this effect many times before. I’ve had it done to me. But I don’t know that I buy the explanations about why it happens. I’m not sure why glass vials containing supposedly different liquids would cause the body to react differently. I’d think the body would react to the glass, if anything. But sometimes Gleek’s arm was strong and sometimes it was not. The practitioner identified her as sensitive to exactly the things which I would have expected. However I also know that magicians and con men can be very good about extracting information and telling people what they want to hear. It could have been a trick.

Making Gleek lay down every two hours so that I could apply a small massager to pressure points in her arms and feet. I don’t know whether the clockwise motion really did help balance her energies, or help her body accept the sugar. I am certain that laying down for a meditative few minutes every couple hours was a good thing for her. Also the vibrating massager was soothing on her skin. She liked that part.

The most important piece of the experiment is that by the end of it Gleek was bemoaning the fact that we had tried it. She was ready to blame her stomach flu on the experiment. I had to explain in detail why that was unlikely. She focused her frustration on the vial, and I would have to talk hard and fast to get her to agree to do it again. I don’t want to do that. Instead we’ll take the useful information and build new experiments to see if we can help her be a calmer, happier person. These new experiments will have less dancing around and more scientific method, because that is much more comfortable for us.

Kiki on the road

By / August 19, 2010

There are many times in a parent’s life when she wonders what on earth she was thinking when she agreed to a particular endeavor. I’ve felt that way about lessons, birthday parties, games, toys, and treats. Today’s revisitation of the feeling was the moment when I sat in my van with Kiki at the wheel. She rounded the corner with a little running dialog.
“and now I slow… and turn signal… all is clear… so gas.” Then her voice raised an octave “Not clear! Not clear!” I watched the car coming our direction far down the street as our van drifted diagonally across the road, blocking all lanes.

“Break Kiki!” I said loud and firm while my right foot reached for a break pedal which was not in front of me. She stopped the van, which really had been in no danger of hitting anything more dangerous than a curb. The other driver, a familiar neighbor, had stopped to allow Kiki to sort herself out.

“Okay, now back up, and pull over to the right this time.” I said.

Kiki laughed nervously. “That was scary.”

I suppressed a smile. “No giggling while you’re driving.”

Kiki sorted the car out so that our neighbor could pass. He pulled up beside us and rolled down his window. It took Kiki a moment to find the window controls on the driver’s side, particularly with the level of flustered she was currently sporting.

“No worries.” The man smiled. “I used to be a driving instructor.”

I smiled back knowing that his amusement also encompassed me, sitting in the passenger seat and wishing for a brake pedal. He has two licensed sons with three kids yet to go. His amusement and sympathy ran deep.

We stuck to quiet residential streets and practiced parking in an empty church parking lot. The parking needs quite a bit of work, but all the stopping, reversing, and putting the car into drive became increasingly smooth. Kiki is beginning to train her hands, brain, and feet into the instincts they will need to drive safely. Hopefully the “Brake When In Doubt” instinct will be an early acquisition. We’ll gradually step up to traffic lights and multi-lane roads. Eventually there will be freeways.

Thirty minutes was plenty of time on the road for both of us. She was tired from concentrating and so was I. Steering a car through voice activation of an inexperienced driver is kind of tiring.