Hands Full of Rocks

Well, that's been a while...

Phew, it has been ages since I posted anything!

Mainly, life has been full. Full of full.

But also, I think I tend to blog more about the challenges, the things I worked on and overcame. It's kind of boring to write about good news. Yeah, we work for our good news, but a lot of it is just who we got as kids.

But I do know that some of that easy-ish that we have now is payoff.

So, when I am laughing with Mr G at bedtime, and teasing him about something or other (maybe about growing a soul patch), and the banter gets around to 'But WHY would you want me to find you annoying, Mom?' it comes out that even if other kids relish complaining about their parents, he sees absolutely no reason to join in. I don't need to give him fodder for the teen angst, because he declines to need it. At least not yet. Because he thinks we're pretty darn fine parents.

And when Mr B is past the urg-I-don't-wanna boundary of changing from one task to another, he more and more often greets the new task with competence and clarity. We still have work to do on the transition skills, but boy does he have the concept of competency, will, and focus. Watching him ride, after nearly five years, is heart-bursting and humbling, because his dedication and love and will, even if not as speedy in development as other kids, is so steadfast. Feeding and tending that until it rooted in him to bedrock was all we did, it was him who grew. What used to be burning passion is now a steady glow of satisfaction. And while it was work to feed and tend that, not every child will grow it - it may not be their way, or it may just be not the right thing for them yet. It was luck that we found (and could feed) that which he could grow.

Miss R, now in school with her brothers (and sister), slowly bringing her ember burn to bear on new ways and things - which means she is rocketing in reading and writing, something she used to avoid. Once she fires up on something, it goes on a while. She's being a leader at school, and kind, and considerate to others. The skills we have worked on endlessly (and with great frustration at the apparent lack of success when it comes to her siblings - or us for that matter) have unfurled at school, the School Child version of her is Fantastic.

Miss M, likewise in school, fierce and sporty and always kind to others. Sporty was a surprise, a bit, though her determination to be friendly to everyone was not. She's become more thoughtfully protective of herself, choosing what she exposes of the things she cares about, keeping her passions out of the limelight where others might dim the shiny with a negative opinion. While I'm sad for the loss of her 'I don't care what YOU think, I like what I like' determination, I had been a little concerned that she lacked some social astuteness. No longer on that - she is balancing the load, allowing for the ways in which she is different without charging through everyone on that point (bringing her stuffed shark to school as her toy for her birthday week, and being happy to put up the photo of her at the shark tank in the aquarium, but not really talking about sharks all that much in social play, for example). 

Ep is immensely patient, which means he hangs on by the tattered edge of frazzle many days, when I'd have been long gone into Yelly Mommy mode. I suck at being the dad, but he's fantastic at being the mom. Pretty fine man, that one. I have a coworker who has taken to calling him Prince Charming. As in, "You'd consider taking a job like that one, huh? How could you manage the commute? Oh, wait, you're married to Prince Charming." Periodically I get in the habit of not talking about Ep, because he is so far beyond what most husbands do. He truly husbands. I'm incredibly lucky.

And me, work is WOW busy, and AAAHHHH! crazy, and fascinating, and energizing, and I love the people I work with still. The tasks engage every place in my brain, scramble my resources (in the scrambling jets kind of way, not eggs), and get me going... far too much.

On top of that, I am now at the age that my peers are starting to 'die young' - so another mother is gone with a child and husband (plus family and friends aplenty) left behind. It is at this age that I think we start to feel 'only the good die young' - it is so incredibly wrong to have these people dying. Unfair. Their loss is not redeemable. And at the same time, the things I learn from what happens and who connects and how we carry on is illuminating. I have made some deeper connections through these losses, too.

All of the good stuff is payoff for the work we have already done, and all the challenges are just opportunities to work on something else, which will in turn have its own payoff. Or not, as I'm sure there are dozens of things I've worked on and forgotten about since. But enough payoff to feel like the work is really starting to be worth it.

Mr G has done his Coming of Age. He's taken on a service project at church of his own will and intention. He and his cousin took over Christmas decorating at my mom's. He is gaining about an inch a month in height. The growing is showing, now. Before it was all tending, and now - look. Look at what they're becoming! It's just awe-inspiring.

It also takes up a lot of time. That plus work (where I'm doing a fair bit of growing, myself).

Oh, boy! Girls have noticed The Boyo... (again/still)

So, Mr G has a wee problem.

He's cute.

Oh, such a problem to have, but given the 12-year-old-girl-hormones-thing, and his tendency to think in terms of 'I am an island unto myself', we have something of a challenge on our hands!

Ah, but the fun, too!

Maybe not so much for him, as he finds it disturbing (though also gratifying by the smile he couldn't quite suppress) to have girls come up and just stand there watching him on the playground. Or talking to him about his hair. Or hearing from his friends that so-and-so likes him.

When he says 'likes me' the sound has italics. 

LIKES. Like, uh, 'that kind of like'. AHHHHH! he says, run away!

He's confounded.

Not sure what to do.

Flattered.

Weirded out.

A bit overwhelmed.

All of that.

And he's Mr G. So he didn't at first buy it - were girls really that hot over him?

So he tested the theory. He went and sat by himself on the playground. Looked pensive, and thoughtful, and solitary. Girls kind of wandered nearer and waved and smiled. The way he said it sounded like they giggled, too, though he didn't say so.

He was freaked a bit by it.

So I told him he had a simple solution - stop sitting by himself looking pensive.

Heh. Kind of like saying 'if it hurts, stop doing it'.

He didn't find that so funny. Darn.

Anyway, we've been talking the last few days as a result, about the Girl Thing. And the Girlfriend Thing.

He was thrilled with the idea that he could use us Parents as a stick to beat them back with. Mr G, if a girl starts getting to the 'would you go out with me/be my boyfriend' level of conversation, you have my direct permission to say, 'Sorry, my parents won't let me have a girlfriend until I'm (whatever age he chooses to say, I suggested 14 was a fair start).'

They might argue or pout or count him out as too reliant on his parents, but hey, still problem solved.

And in the meantime? We talked about how to be friends with a girl. Talked about asking her questions, being nice but not encouraging excess, and allowing her to just be friends. Giving her room and time to chill out a bit, calm down, get to know him for real instead of just watching him on the playground and admiring his hair and his fabo new teeth (braces off!).

I asked him if he thought any of the girls he knew were cute.

I got The Look.

The OhPleezeYouMustBeKidding look. The look had italics, too.

Still, I thought it a fair question. And he gave it a fair thought, but couldn't come up with how to answer.

Me being me, I gave him a multiple choice answer to select from. He picked (very paraphrased as I was rather direct with my comments): "I'm not really interested in prepubescent/near-pubescent girls, thanks."

Okay, so he already has a preference for high school-to-college-age women, with their, er, physiological maturity in evidence. So to speak.

But he's also handling that aspect well - he thinks dating a girl who is not physically demonstrating a greater maturity is kind of freaky. Ew! Girls that age are not ready to date.

He likewise has a strong preference for waiting himself - he thinks both he and his peers should be much more grown up first.

Which isn't to say he won't be looking at the older girls. He already does. He'll admire the older girls/women, but he really does not want to act on it.

Fine by me, all around.

Still, the start of some new conversations. About learning about girls from girls, and understanding that they are different from each other as well as different from him, and being okay with that. I want him to be able to hold to the statement he made when he was seven: that girls are just people, and there's nothing wrong with being friends with them.

It's kind of the Acceptant Loving Faithful thing, starting up for real. A new set of filters to bring in focus - remember that they are themselves, accept that even when you don't understand it, act kindly and with affection toward your friends, and act faithfully toward them and yourself.

Starting with Acceptant for now.

He seems okay with that perspective. Considering it. Taking it seriously. We'll talk strategies for conversations that don't go to heck immediately, and how to set a boundary (and how annoying it is to have to set it repeatedly, but also how very hard it is to fight hormones so some compassion and patience required in the process).

Is it weird that I think it is really really FUN to get to where we're talking sex, and dating, and pornography, and the implications of being too friendly, STDs, social risk, and heartbreak? I am thrilled that he went to Ep first, told him what was going on that was bothering him (Girl. Likes me. Help!!).

I'm also glad he then came to me after talking to his dad, and asked if dad had filled me in (Nope, he hadn't had time, but it was nice to not have shared it yet, on this go, as that set the tone and required he fill me in on the whole deal). And then that he went ahead and told me. Just let the conversation roll.

It's really exciting to me to watch him hit this stage, to see the teen inside the boy peek out, to watch the suppressed satisfaction of being attractive to someone leak out around the edges, but at the same time see the will to make sane choices remain.

I love that we get to have these talks. That he trusts us with it. I don't fool myself that all the kids will be that way with us - they're each so different. But I'm glad I get to have this child for my first run at it. I'm sure I'll make some mistakes, but hopefully nothing too catastrophic.

And meanwhile, I'll let him carry on working on learning how to be friends with girls. Hormonal preteen/tween girls.

Provided they don't go all weird on him, anyway.

Acceptant, Loving, and Faithful in action

My mom has taken my older two kids (Mr G and Mr B) off on a two week jaunt around the US Southwest and West. They're due back on Tuesday night.

It has been interesting as a parent to follow my mental track along this process.

At first, I was very fretful - were they going to be okay, would there be enough that B could eat on his diet, would there be enough that G would like enough to eat. Would they get along with their cousin L, or create friction? Would they be helpful? Safe, Respectful, Kind? Would their choices be Effective, Prudent, True?

I fretted most about food and medicine - health and wellbeing being so core to what a mom's job is.

And then I heaved sighs and winced over behavior. Hormones! Mr G playing it cool, a little too disengaged at times, a little too testosterone poisoned at others. Decorum, please? Show that you understand the rules of society, at least a bit (but still find ways to have real let-down-the-hair fun).

I tracked their routes daily, doing flyovers of what they were seeing on Google Earth. I wrote up notes on Facebook for family and friends, hunted up good photos, thought about what they were doing.

And then...

I let go.

Took me a bit over a week. Which I suppose isn't too bad, given that they're 12 and 8, but maybe a bit long given they're with my mom. It isn't like she'll let them fall through a crack, starve, or make stupid choices. She will let them make mistakes, but just enough room to feel the ouch, and not enough room to cause damage.

The whole point of this trip is that it is a coming of age journey. Being out in the world among strangers, seeing the vastness of our nation, touching down on the things that were our family experience as children (since we grew up in Colorado and spent a lot of summers driving similar routes). They're doing daily journals, and sketching what they see, and tending to their spirits (my mom being the retired minister). They brought an altar cloth made just for this trip, and a chalice to light each day, and things to think about that are beyond just 'wow that's pretty, what's next?'

It's a growing up opportunity for them, and for me.

Acceptant hasn't been too hard for me with my kids - they have always been insistent on being who they are. Any time I don't accept that, humbly, the ouch resides only with me. Authenticity is in their blood, and we have supported that all along, with school choices and activities, discussions over dinner, and listening to the emotional earthquakes they weather through the normal course of life.

Loving, either. Fierce wolf mama, here, but also that easy watching of them with the smile and that sense of being flooded with love, immersed beyond anything that ever was before they were in my life. It permeates every cell and fiber.

Faithful is the harder one for me, so far. Granted, I'm dealing with children, still. I am their backstop, the safety net, and the responsible party. Along with others, of course, but for me this is a deeply held process. My mom was the teacher of competence, primarily. She was the one who taught me how to shop, not by doing it with me, but by talking me through the thinking process, and then sending me off to do it on my own, then discussing the results. She's also the one who stood there looking so loving and sad, as I stood there in her bedroom doorway, and told me that she could not make my choices for me, it was up to me to choose my own way, and that the hardest thing she ever did as a parent was to watch her child struggle and do nothing. It was also the most important. I remember turning away from her doorway, still sobbing in my teenage misery, but feeling stronger somehow, more able, trusted. She had faith that even if I made the wrong choice I could right it again, find my way through. It isn't that she didn't talk with me about stuff, it was just that the decision was mine, when it came to my own life.

Some areas of faithful I have no trouble with, but the totally letting go, having this process be outside my life and control, took a few days.

My mom has only called a few times, and none of those times have I spoken with my children. She's given a little feedback, asked some questions, told the upper level stories of her own experience (having fun, most days).

She called again this morning, and this time talked with epeepunk. He listened, laughed, talked about funds for a couple of additional purchases in Navajo Country. And then hung up.

I expected my gut to go HEY, I NEEDED TO TALK TO HER! I expected to need to be that one step closer in the link between me and them, tighter in the information chain.

But I didn't. I just felt that rush of love, golden flooding through my veins, joy at their joy, humbled again by their presence in my life. Acceptant of their them-ness, Loving as an act of letting them go outside my reach without trying to catch them back at every juncture, and Faithful that they will grow into themselves beautifully along the way, do well, thrive, and where they struggle, find resources and new paths and new strengths and skills. They'll figure it out, not without the net, but without having the net create a single path for them to take.

I miss them, but not terribly. Even the missing them is Acceptant, Loving, and Faithful, now. I think that's good practice for later. Coming of age isn't just for the child, but for the rest of the family to remember that this person is not always going to be a child.

What a fabulous gift for them all.

And now for some research that rocks: drinking

Okay, so work is a little crazy, and summer is here, which means new schedules and trying to stay on top of a lot of different thing.

Summer nanny is FABO, though - so that part is fine. :)

My usual 'break' time is reading research. I have two items that are totally unrelated, but important.

First is thanks to a reader sending it my way (thanks!).

According to this study, which breaks out types of drinking by teens, parenting style definitely does affect how heavily a teen will drink. Best case is scoring high on both warmth and accountability (knowing where your kids are, with whom, that whole 'I need to know where in space my child is, and with whom, even if not exactly what is happening' reaction, applied).

Parents who don't know where their kids are or with whom (but are high on warmth) fall in the hole that happens all the time - hugely higher rates of binge drinking. (almost triple the rate) And the strict but uncaring type still double the rate.

Knowing the metaparenting-related research, that fits in with a lot of other research. High expectations plus warmth tends to create positive behavior. High demand on the content of the relationship (that 'knowing who you are with/where' part, but also expecting communication and not letting things drop just because they're challenging to get through or face resistance) tends to combine well with a positive relationship to improve overall functional maturity.

This ties in a little with the research that shows that even thinking about someone who has good self-control improves one's self-control. (and vice-versa) Being in relationship with someone who is accountable and asks for accountability means you're more likely to respond with accountable/accountability oriented behavior. The modeling comes in at the neurological level.

Granted, peers who are accountability oriented is a big help, too.

There is other research that shows that with twins, the higher their sense of mutual dependence, the lower their risky sexual and alcohol behaviors. It's not just about them when they act, it is about how it affects the people they're bonded with. Feeling accountable is a two-way street, and a sense of being permanently embedded in that web of interaction, not just 'loved' but 'cared about', has a deep impact on the behaviors that result. 

They're not all like that

So, I've been talking about the anxiety thing lately.

Also at home and around others. Miss M doesn't look like a kid with anxiety most of the time. It shows if you know what you're looking for, and certainly under some conditions it is quite clear. But mostly it looks like normal shy.

Miss R, however, has these little freakouts over new things (people, events, etc.) that made us realize that we've coached so much for Miss M, and not at all for Miss R, and now Miss R's skills are a bit behind.

Leap forward to earlier this week, when Miss R had an extraction at the dentist. She got her mommy's tooth eruption pattern, and her front adult teeth come in behind her baby teeth instead of under, so they just hang out being in the way and risking cavities in the adult teeth. Lovely?

When I was a kid, they just left the other teeth in until they fell out on their own. As a consequence, I had very deep gumline (exposing a bit of root) on my lower front teeth for several years until the gumline decided to adjust. Maybe not the best plan.

So, modern approach is to extract if the adult tooth is well erupted but the primary hasn't loosened up much.

Miss R, understandably, was Not Impressed with the plan.

Okay, so let's Coach! Talk through what is going to happen, give her strategies for handling it...

Uh, or not.

Because as soon as I started talking about what was going to happen, she started to freak out worse. Cried, threw things, insisted she wasn't going to cooperate, that she HATED the dentist, she was going to just stay home. Uh. Fail?

So I changed to strategies for coping. Worse! Even just asking her for ideas about what she could do was a fail. Her only strategy was 'refuse to play'.

I quit while I was only about a mile behind where we started.

Sigh.

And then I remembered. (D'oh!)

They're not all the same.

Some kids (and adults) really do function better if they don't think too much about it beforehand, just go in and carry on. We can talk around observing what else is happening at the time (how do others handle it, would that work for me, what are the pros/cons of that approach In The Moment, what else could I try), but talking beforehand? Lightly, seldom, and not directed at pre-planning the strategy, but at pre-planning the meta-strategy (how to figure out your strategy on the fly, rather than figuring out your strategy now).

In the end, the extraction was a success, and had quite the teachable content there, too. She said she wasn't brave, because she cried. Daddy, seeing that moment, caught it and talked about bravery being not the same as not being scared, and that she did it (knowing it was the right thing to do but not wanting to) was evidence of courage on her part.

Learning all around. I re (re re re re) learned that Miss R is Not Like The Others (just as they're all Not Like The Others, only she's Not in different ways than the others...). She learned that she is brave. Even if she doesn't always feel it.

Which, in the end, is rather a lot like the others.

Working 'step two'

Miss M used to have severe anxiety. A big part of that was the diet - a side effect of eating the wrong diet when you have Fructose Malabsorption is that tryptophan isn't absorbed well. No tryptophan, body can't effectively make serotonin. Imbalance in serotonin = mood issues (depression/anxiety/rage).

So she had a pretty bad case of it, tilted toward anxiety. Turned into a little zombie when people talked to her. It was so bad that at the early intervention assessment, she couldn't even close her hand on a toy. Just sat on my lap staring straight ahead. Kinda scary, actually. The home visit with the psychologist was no better. Sat on my lap, couldn't speak, couldn't move. Wah!

But the diet change helped tremendously. Funny that! In four days, she was a new person. But she still had a baseline anxiety issue.

The psychologist was great - not the least being great with the parental side of things.

She asked (seeing M all catatonic) if we took her out places. No, really, we'd cut back on all activities that caused her to shut down.

Good job, mom. You guys have done a fantastic job at step one of the process - protecting your child from harmful situations.

And now, step two. Step two is giving her the skills to safely and comfortably participate in life, including situations that she 'naturally' finds stressful. Time to give her the skills to participate in and enjoy the things that right now are 'too scary'.

It was nice to hear that we'd done so well at step one, even though I knew we'd pretty much skipped step two at that point. Didn't even realize there was a step two!

I think a lot of parents don't think about step two. We're so media trained to worry about safety, to fret for the dangers, to be wary, that we don't even think about coaching the skills for enjoying uncomfortable and 'scary' situations. Sure, we coach for survival (what to do if a stranger approaches you inappropriately), but what about just 'nervous'? What about just being around strangers with your parents? What about all the other skills for handling unknown or uncomfortable situations?

Once we knew there was a 'step two', we kicked into gear on coaching, prepping, practicing, giving alternatives to try, and being backstop/safety net. Told her where we were going, what we'd do there, who would be there. Reminded her of her skills for talking, playing, and asking for help when she needed it. Let her bring her big stuffed shark to church (where it could add a layer between her and 'people'). Explained the rules for parties, set expectations, talked about events before they happened, gave her a job or role for the event...

And it has worked. Still works, and we still use it. Birthday parties are now fun, and nobody knows she has that much baseline anxiety. Most people would guess it is Miss R who had the big scary fear of people and events. Miss M? She's off into the puppy pile, racing ahead, in charge of herself, certain of what she's doing, knows how to handle the emotional discomfort.

She's becoming an old hand at working step two.

New signs of being older

Mr B last night calmly opted to take a loss of TV privileges rather than take a bath. Okay, not entirely calmly, but with distinct preference for that, and no screaming or crying - just grumbling.

Hum.

I let him, because in the end the intention is to have him bathed, and he's taking the bath this morning, before school. What I wanted was for him to just comply with my schedule, because baths in the morning are a pain in the rear. He opted not to, recognized that opting out was a problem for me but decided that opting out was still that important to him. So he took the hit.

Okay, then. Now what?

It used to be that the sign that I was parenting a child who was no longer there (that is, that they'd outgrown my techniques) was that I was getting all the way to yelling and still not getting a response in the direction I wanted. Now, it is that I'm getting to negotiated consequences that don't entirely make sense.

Really, if he was a grownup and preferred a morning shower to an evening one, it would be a minor annoyance at worst. I would certainly be able to find a way to accommodate. He has done the morning bath once before, on time and properly with only a little 'please stay upstairs while I bathe' annoyance. I'm skeptical that one success means always success, but I don't have reason to think it will be terrible... so two days of no TV for an inconvenience? Bzzt. Methinks that's the wrong answer.

But it is a nice signpost. Pointing right at 'hello, he's older than your parenting.' Now I get to learn how to parent this new age for him. It won't be the same as parenting his brother at this age - so very different in needs, style, personality, direction... but there are some places I understand, number one being the need to sit down and get to the heart of a matter together and listening to what he wants first, rather than just choosing for him and trying to convince him I know better. Not that this isn't true for younger ages, too, but it becomes THE method, instead of being situational.

Granted, some days he isn't older than the 'mommy knows best' parenting (yes, you WILL get in trouble going to school looking like that). He's in that range of disregulation where he's swinging wildly back and forth between years younger than he 'is' and much older. Needy and emotionally hungry and fragile one moment, mature and self-contained another. One minute he's figuring out a solution with his brother, the next he's making faces at him and poking him with a toy.

Nine is coming up soon. NINE, how did he get to be 'going on nine'? But nine is a good year, so far as I know. I only have the one experience with nine, but I liked it rather a lot. I've never been much of one for nostalgia about my kids when they were younger, fortunately. I think I'm just surprised that they aren't always the same age, whatever age that is now.

Or rather, whatever age it is that I already know how to parent.

Research that rocks: Two different kinds of parents = good

This research is biased toward 'male/female' traditional parenting, but supports other research I've read showing that having two parents who function somewhat differently is ideal for development. (Or at least 'two types of parenting' - single parents play both roles, and often have other caregivers doing both as well.)

Other research has found that the most emotional resilience comes from having parents that are:

a) both warm

b) have different degrees of 'in there' responses to stressful or challenging experiences

Having two parents who leap to help/comfort/encourage/rescue/etc. ends up creating emotionally fragile children - the 'attachment' orientation at that level should be tilted more strongly toward one parent. Kids need both to know they have someone who will back them up promptly, and someone who trusts them to figure it out and carry on. The 'oh-you-poor-thing/let-me-help!' and the 'shake-it-off/you-can-do-it' are both part of what we need.

Just like modern attachment research is showing that the strongest attachment function doesn't have to be the mom - or even female - (can be a sibling, dad, grandparent, other caregiver), I suspect that this 'dad/male=gives space to explore' thing will eventually be shown to not be dad/male dependent. Certainly ep and I trade back and forth on who is in there and who is 'buck-up' on any situation, and for the different kids.

For example, Miss R is a daddy's girl. She usually doesn't even want me to be the in-there parent, comforting and fixing boo-boos. She wants daddy to do that. Which daddy does. So, for her, I'm more the 'rah-rah/good job/try again/you can do it!' parent. But if daddy is not around, then I take both roles.

I wonder also how the Montessori process feeds into this, as it encourages warm and affectionate interactions, but leaves plenty of space for the kids to explore on their own in a way that feeds into both accepting challenges, and understanding the process of overstepping one's skills and reassessing/trying again (American Montessori allows kids to take out work out of sequence, so they discover the concept of assessing where their skill boundaries are, and pushing those appropriately rather than jumping too far ahead - the sequences are built very carefully to support that process). 

I like the balance in the theories. We don't just need one thing. We evolved with different kinds of relationships with different kinds of people caring for us.

Interestingly, in different cultures, the same concepts apply differently - both parents start out much more 'in there' in many Asian cultures, but with age they both step back a little more and then a little more - but also expect to function differently in adulthood, as well, so the pattern 'fits' with the larger relationship pattern over time as well. Where the resilience may be technically lower on the individual scale (by having had two very 'in there' parents), the long-term impact is not necessarily negative, because there is the expectation that of course you don't have to handle life's challenges on your own, that's what family is for! So while this research is valid for American culture, it is likely to not be applicable 'directly' across cultures. Extrapolation, yes, direct application, no.

Teaching my girls to dance

Some of you are probably aware of my Scottish dancing activity - been doing that for a long time.

But I have been doing Middle Eastern Dance far longer - since I was about 9 years old. Yes, that's 'belly dancing' for the Americans. Technically I probably fall under American Fusion, because I have a lot of different influences, including Hula, Lebanese, Turkish, Egyptian, and probably some Tai Chi lands in there, too. I prefer Turkish and Lebanese music, overall, but anything with a beat will do. I taught for a few years (maybe around 10), too. But then kids, and kids who freaked out when I danced, and life, and not much dancing for a while.

I've been getting back into it lately. Good for keeping in shape!

I have also been teaching the girls (Misses M and R) to dance. Mainly just by dancing with them. When I'm working in the kitchen, I put on a CD, and we dance.

Lately, this has taken root. The girls are 5 1/2, and are very into the concept that 'girls do things that girls do' - dancing being one of them (boys dancing makes them wince - but that will come with time, too).

A month or so ago, I had the music on, and left the room to do something. When I came back, Miss M was in the kitchen, dancing alone, trying out her arm movements, swinging her hips. I backed out of the kitchen so as not to embarrass her (she hates being noticed when she's focused inward). Came back later. Didn't comment.

A few weeks ago, Miss R shifted from being all over-done hips and silliness and stiff arms to really getting snake arms and the fluidity of the hands.

She was showing Miss M in the car on the way to school yesterday. See, like THIS! (rolls her elbow outward, wrist following, fingers rolling after...)

Miss M was frustrated, and was certain she could NOT. Nope, not even going to try.

Miss R was puzzled by her sister's discouragement. She paused a moment, and then said something I thought was absolutely brilliant.

'You can. It is inside of you, you just have to find it. Then it comes out!'

Exactly! All these movements are inside of us. They come out from the inside. Especially if we have watched others dancing, especially at these ages. It helps to have seen it, over and over. Even when teaching adults, the key (I find) is having the movement come from the energy inside. It looks different when you do it that way, too.

Miss M hasn't found the inside snake arms yet. But she has found many of the other moves.

I will continue to dance with them as long as they'll tolerate it. It may go away at some point, but I really like the idea that they will grow up with these bouncing, swinging, long, fluid, curving movements 'inside of them'. 

Growing up

This morning, there was sunlight and warmth and seeds to plant, so the girls and I went outside to play in the springtime-ness of the day.

A large stick was found, and dragged about with the same kind of glee one expects of puppies - or really, 5-and-a-half year olds in spring.

Then ooch, the disaster. Miss M had put the stick down. Miss R had made to walk over it, one foot across... Miss M then decided to grab the stick and run with it, which meant she picked it up while Miss R was still in mid-step-over.

One ouchy scrape later, Miss M is racing down the sidewalk (not even having noticed that she injured her sister), and Miss R is standing there clutching her leg and peering at the white scraped up bits of skin and crying...

I paged Miss M to come back and handle the problem.

And she did.

She came back, apologized, looked appropriately stricken, ran inside to get an ice pack while MIss R limped to the steps to sit in the sun... When Miss R declined the ice pack in a snit (too small for the boo-boo), Miss M didn't take it personally, and just ran back inside to get another ice pack (bigger one).

She asked if she could do anything to help. When that was NO, she stepped back out of the way and let Miss R have her time tending herself. But she didn't vanish, and kept her attention around her sister, peripherally aware and waiting.

And then as Miss R came up for air from her extended stay in 'woe is me' (she takes longer with her feelings than Miss M), Miss M was right there, offering to play ball with the Wounded One, cheerfully rolling a ball to her (ball is huge), laughing and encouraging her to kick it harder.

A small break in play had them standing together for a moment, and I heard Miss M say she was really sorry, and she'll try not to scratch her sister with a stick ever again. A peripheral glance over showed Miss R giving a nod and then a big hug back to her sister, and then they were back to the ball rolling game.

And all I had to do was get Miss M's attention in the first place. No other coaching! Uh. Whoa? Growing up!

Meanwhile, this morning, Mr G asked if he could use 15 minutes of his 30 minutes of computer game time. We only just announced that we wanted to limit the game time to 30 minutes a day... like, maybe two days back? We did explain why. And he listened and frowned with considered thought as I went through the issues and concerns with extended game play time. But he just rolled into it like it was no biggie, just 'okay, new limits, no problem'...

More growing up. So so so so so so so cool.

These little people are amazing. The more they grow, the more I really GET my mom's statement that it isn't the kid rearing that is the coolest part, it is the adult they grow into being. Yeah. These are going to be some very cool adults.