Hands Full of Rocks

Fall means charity

So, around here (that is, in our family), autumn is charity time.

I don't know how much it is a reflection of culture (harvest is in!), or logistics (ack! Have to get the charitable contributions in for taxes!), or other stuff, but fall seems to be our biggest chunk of attention to the charitable work.

Sunday I was part of the UU Fellowship service, talking about practicing our principles. The principles of being present, being in community, and taking action, in combination are a big part of what it means to be a UU. They're also a big part of our family process, on both sides (after all, those values are common to many other religions, such as the Quakers, being the other side of the family).

So Baba and I got up in church and talked about how we do this. How do we get the kids involved, how do we make it light them up?

How did we get kids to choose to do extra chores to pay for their public-radio membership?

How did we get kids out in the dirt, digging up history or planting trees?

How do we get them to send money to a girl's school in Afghanistan, or donate to Doctors Without Borders?

How do we get them to get excited about donating food to the food bank?

How do we get them involved in the research project for (hopefully) inoculating amphibians against the fungus that is killing them around the world?

We only had two minutes to talk, so I tried to make it short - but that meant we didn't really get to explain HOW in detail. More 'what' than 'how'.

A little on the how, though - like staying aware and open for the possibilities. Listen for the question that you can let them answer from their values. Like for public radio, explaining what a pledge drive is, but not asking them too much, or telling them, or lecturing, or bossing - just discussing, and asking what they think. Funny how they will come up with the idea that if they're listening, maybe they should support it, too. My kids are therefore the youngest contributors to the public radio classical music station they've ever had.

In coffee hour after the service, though, we got more questions. HOW do we do this? How do we get kids to want to help?

Following the kids is the core of it, for us. We don't make them do it, even if we set them up to do it. If I'm going to donate food to the food bank, I plan it to have the kids available to come along. But that's the cheap-ass version of the process. The deeper level is watching for what upsets them, and finding a way to answer that anger or hurt or fear or sorrow.

So, when my mom's house addition meant that some beloved trees were going to be taken down, my mom didn't just assuage their sorrow or tell them to deal or otherwise just answer that part of the problem, she promptly contacted the Nature Conservancy and asked if there were any tree-planting events going on that needed volunteers. So the kids in honor of the trees lost went and planted trees in a place where those trees had been lost long ago - and would now get to grow back in a protected and safe place.

It answered the pain with action.

And there's also the chance to follow someone else's passion that isn't mom-and-dad's. Like, my sister - aunts and uncles and friends are part of this. My sister has many passions, and is an expert on charities (it's part of her job). She found the amphibian research project that needed a push - they really needed to hire a grant writer, and she talked to them about funding that. And the kids donated specifically to that. She's also into the non-profit archaeology group that we dig with - she set that up, and got us psyched, got us started, and ... well, the kids got to light up on someone else's cool.

And then we celebrate that - the events are documented with more care than we give birthdays and holidays. Certificates of thanks are framed and put on their bedroom wall (at Baba's house, where there is more wall space, but where they see what they've done often). We talk about it with others, in front of them, show the pride we have in their willingness to help. We embed it in conversation with them, as well.

The opportunities are endless. We choose differently each year, but the point is to choose. Start, find something that lights them up. Whether it is a 'do-good' thing (Doctors Without Borders) or a 'fight for change in the world' thing (a girl's school in Afghanistan) or an arts thing (volunteering at the Art Museum) - it doesn't matter.

Starting matters. Practicing being aware of the community matters. Being open to the opportunity to create change matters. Doing it as a family matters. We do it all year long, but the peak is really in the fall, when we gather as a family-extended, and think about gratitude as part of Thanksgiving, and send our gratitude back out into the communities in which we see ourselves - local, regional, global. 

Christmas is so commercialized at this point, it is hard to fight back without undercutting the fun. 'Tis the season becomes too complicated, fraught, confusing.

For us, this is the season of giving.

Digging in the dirt

My kids have a passion for discovery (family trait, really). If they don't end up researchers and scientists, it won't be for lack of experience!

Saturday, my mom (Baba) took them on another of her 'enchantment' adventures.

For those who don't recall, after my mom and I had a little (er, huge) spat about where the parental boundaries were, we figured out some issues around roles and tasks, and I asked her to perform one very important task for us and our kids - provide them with enchantment. Make the world magical. I'm going to have to do decorum and education and health and all the boring stuff, and I don't want them to miss out on joy and wonder - I can do that, love doing that, but I will not get to have that be the only, core goal. I want it to be a big one, so delegating... well, it solved a lot of issues. Baba now has a place to put all her love and energy, and I have a lighter load. Plus I knew she'd rock at that.

Now, some of that 'enchantment' is mythology and fairies. But a lot of it is science, and some of it is social awareness, and some is history... whatever, she brings it from an angle guaranteed to enchant. Brilliant at it, actually. She finds ways to elicit the passion, delight, child-like glee, joy, wonder, however you want to describe it, with almost any topic. I don't know if she's tried math yet... but physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, sociology... yep, yep, yep, and yep.

So.

For my Brother-in-Law's birthday, Baba gave him a chance to share his great passion (Geology) with his nephews and niece (the elder grandkids).

They went off to a spot he knows where the fossils just lie around on the ground waiting to be picked up, especially after a good hard rain. A little digging doesn't hurt, but it actually isn't necessary. They're not valuable fossils (mainly squid parts and some shells), but they're real. And many. And oh, real is so fabulous. And many makes the reward constant.

Real is here, and now, and past all in one. Real is shocking in its ability to make us feel the flow of time.

Finding them yourself is so much real, it makes the kids vibrate. I know there are kids who are not into this kind of thing, but I just can't picture them at all. Even Miss R, who is much more socially oriented is still very much into what could be found in the dirt. See her at the archaeology dig, for example, thrilled to have found a bit of ancient coal - even though she really doesn't understand how old is old...

I expected Mr G to be into it. And Miss L, his cousin, also. She has a fire in her mind that lights up like a blowtorch on stuff like this.

But Mr B is the one whose response charmed me most. And fascinated me.

Mr B took the time to go off with Uncle S, and sit down and learn how to look, what to look for, how to see the colors in the dirt that indicate 'this was a layer of sand' and 'this wasn't'. How to find where the best chance of fossil might be, to know and understand the layering of the earth, and let that tell him where the joy would be.

He told me later about how the rain moved the fossils over the terrain, and where that meant they would be found. And how the different soil types washed away, and what that looked like.

Joy and joy and joy, finding fossils. Not even just the easy 'laying around on the ground' version, but oh, the seeking, following their signs and cues, trying, and finding.

What an amazing way to spend an overcast September afternoon for an almost-8-year-old!

It's like archaeology, only faster. He loves that, too. He loves going to the dig, finding something, uncovering it, using his capacity for care and attending combined with his passion and openness to what comes - or does not come. Working on a team with essentially complete strangers (a friend or relative doesn't hurt, either), creating a unit working toward a common discovery. That's him all over.

And now he also has a grasp of one real-world application of geology. It's about getting down in the dirt, learning to look - or maybe learning to see. There's an intimacy there, a relationship between him and the earth, almost a conversation.

"Enchantment" definitely qualifies. What else would you call learning to hear the Earth whisper its secrets about the past?

More things take root

For years, Mr G has been periodically something of a pessimist - a little cautious, a little anxious, a little wary. Not a lot, but a little, and not always, but regularly.

I think natively, he's more of an optimist (he was as a little child), but he also is enough of an odd duck that he has developed some caution. And then maybe too much caution, for a while. At school, he had a series of conflicts that left him feeling a bit iffy last year, like he didn't have skills and he didn't have ability. He started stringing those together into a series of unfortunate events, and that made everything bad.

So we talked (because we're lecture-y like that), and talked. I proposed the research-based perspective that optimists get more good events in life in part because they are always on the watch for the good thing, they know it is coming but don't know from where, or when. Eyes open, watching, waiting, and see, there! and there, again! Research shows that it isn't that life is so different for optimists and pessimists, but that pessimists miss opportunities because they are not seeking them with quite the same constancy that optimists do.

That was last year. Lecture over, I left it alone. Mostly. But over the summer, ignored it, let other things be important.

And then today, ep tells me that Mr G is loving school, loving it loving it loving it. When he was asked for more information about what/how/why, Mr G said, "I decided that every day was going to be good."

Elaborating, he clarified that he had made the choice to see every day as promising good things, and so he is finding he is always noticing the good things that happen. He's learning stuff, he's doing well on tests, he has adventures and talks to friends and discovers something new. Every day is amazing.

And he's also aware that this was a choice. He chose to look for the good. And see, there it is!

Damn, if only I'd known before I was 12 that happiness could be a choice. Heck, before 20.

I didn't learn to be an optimist until late high school, and even then it wasn't something I thought was a choice. It coincided (probably not incidentally) with me growing 6 inches in one year (4 in the summer), and suddenly being taller than my peers. My confidence shot up with my height, and I went from being fairly introverted and shy (both) to being rather a lot bold. The bold I think is what confused the issue on Introvert vs. Extravert - certainly I was way more out there, and that's when I started being a lot more, er, friendly (dating a lot more, that is). And those successes rolled into a sense of being successful, and attractive, and powerful, and probably arrogant and annoying, too.

So here I am, now. I still choose to be happy, to see the opportunities, to look for the chances. It takes effort some days, but that's okay - it is a choice I'm willing to make.

And so is Mr G.

More adventures and then more...

We did Mr G's trip. It was a good adventure. We went shopping.

Yeah, okay, so we went shopping in a really cool town that has really funky and fun stores. Including a store that sells swords.

Plus a lot of jewelry and leather stores.

Mr G bought another ring. He lost two at summer camp, so he needed to do the fill-in, poor empty fingers!

The shopkeeper started out all 'I'll just keep surfing the Net here while your kid fingers the rings and then decides on something just to spend his money'...

But that never lasts. In about 15 minutes he was all 'I would LOVE to take your kid to India with me sometime. He's really cool. You do know how amazing he is, right?' (Not that he was actively offering, just could see himself actually enjoying the prospect instead of shuddering at it.)

Okay, so I don't mind my kids being praised by complete strangers. Maybe y'all noticed... heh.

Now, of course, out in public they're not as likely to be bickering and pushing, screaming at each other, wrestling inappropriately, ignoring each other totally as a way to get the other's goat, bossing each other (okay, sometimes they do that), etc. They save that mainly for us, lucky us.

Still, nice that they were on their good behavior in public. Granted, we set them up as much as possible for the vacation days to really work.

The day before, we watch their diets more carefully than usual, keep the sugar and fructose down as far as we can comfortably (without being unkind about it). Maximize the digestive function.

And bed on time, or at least expect to let them sleep in on the day of the trip, if possible at all. Maximize sleep.

On the actual day, we also did our usual 'trip expectations' thing. We stopped after we got out of the car but before the official start of the destination point, and said 'goals for today are:...'

Our goals were:

1) Mr G gets to see the stores he wants to see (it was his trip, after all) and enjoys himself
2) Everyone else has fun, too - including that we all have to watch out for each other, to see if there's someone not having fun, and we take action to make that better
3) 'Everyone else' includes all the other people on the street/in stores - we don't make them worry, fret, feel frustrated, angry, etc., by our behavior
4) Safe, Respectful, Kind

They all looked around at each other, nodded, and we carried on.

We still had a lot of effort on our part to make that work - watching for thirsty, hungry, frustrated. Managing the 'ooh, I wanna touch' in stores that were not for touching. Dealing with the tired legs. Dealing with the uppies demands. Suppressing whining (Miss M has become a champion whiner, we're working on that). Reminders, coaching, and guidance.

Oy. It's a lot of work, some days. But the coaching also means they learn, and practice what they learn. The practice is what made it possible for Mr B, at all of almost 8 years old, to say, 'hey, I want to buy a wallet. I want one with leather that is sturdy enough to take some wear - I'd like it to last until I'm grown. I want one with some style that shows I'm into horses and riding. I'd like to look at the options and compare them, get a feel for them, and choose one that suits me. And I want it to be a good value, a better use of my remaining spending money than the other options that I could imagine.' (Okay, so not quite so many words, but he expressed all those things directly.) Practice allowed him to engage with the shopkeeper, focus on his task, take it seriously, and with due consideration make his choice.

He earned the shopkeeper's respect and admiration. She saw immediately that he was not just messing about, but on a mission. That he took it seriously. That he considered her products with care and consideration. He respected her time, effort, and attention. She started smiling back and forth from him to me, him to ep, him to his sibs, watching as we went through the process of examining, comparing, considering features and value and style, materials and craftsmanship, fitting that into budget and lifestyle and the image he has of himself in the future. At almost 8, he has the process pretty well settled. 

People look at us like somehow this is a magical gift our kids have. But really, it is mainly practice. Practice doing it over and over, from the dollar store to the grocery store, that enabled him to pull out those skills and use them. I coached him just a little, but more in response than in guidance. He said he wanted it to last, so I helped show him how to tell which leather was likely to hold up better over the long term. He had the question, but not a way to answer it - I only helped with the answer. He knew I would trust him to make a choice, and that he would have to live with it, but he would not be challenged on it needlessly later. He knows that I will mention quality if he he is buying junk, but I will not rub it in if the item breaks. I will commiserate ('yeah, that stuff does break easily'), and he remembers and thinks about it later. He may be embarrassed sometimes that he wants to buy cheap plastic crap, and sometimes that really IS what he wants. But he knows it, and registers that as a choice, and doesn't act surprised (though sometimes resigned) when it acts like cheap plastic crap.

So he has practice thinking about it. Practice being safe with the information (no belittling or sarcasm), practice trying again. We coach, and ask them to think about whether they want one CPC item now, or do they really want to save for something more lasting. We'll remind them of the things on their wish lists, but then step back out of the way and let them choose. The choice helps them think the next stage on the next item.

Between 7 and 8 was when my little brother (The Golden Child) started to notice that quality mattered. It was this age when he was crushed to be given a child's toy when I got a real necklace as a gift from the same out of town trip (parental). Things start to be real. The more they understand what real is, and the more comfortable they are with all that means for their choices, the more they can use that on the fly.

Granted, I suspect most people catch up - my kids will not be ahead of this game forever. But it is nice for them to feel confident of it now, to feel they have a sense of what is and is not quality, of what is worth their time and energy and allowance money. It makes the adventure more fun for them, too. They like to be able to impress (grownup) people with their manners, understanding, skill, and their willingness to take serious choices seriously. Their peers may not understand, but hey, they know they're weird kids, and that their peers don't 'get' them - that's not going to change. They'd be odd ducks (even if cool odd ducks) no matter what. At least they get some appreciation from the people they think matter - the ones who have expertise or skill or depth.

So, success. Mr G bought a ring he likes, and in so doing, gained the admiration of someone who knows a lot about jewelry. Mr B bought a wallet he likes, and in so doing gained the admiration of someone who knows leather.

And everyone else had a good time, we didn't create any problems for others on the street, everyone got fed when hungry, carried or strollered or rested on benches when tired, stuff to drink when thirsty, the chance to look at something cool or interesting to them, and consideration for their needs from the rest of the family.

Yeah, I'd call that a great adventure.

***

Meanwhile, my dad went back into surgery for a pacemaker. Sigh. But he's home now, and things are starting to settle in. He's feeling vulnerable, but grateful for family and life, and opportunities. Not so much grateful for the recovery period, but hey, I'll allow some grumping on that point.

More on the other adventures later...

The scary adventure starts today

My dad's heart surgery was scheduled for around noonish today, but he got bumped to first in line, so he's now already on his way to (if not actually at) the hospital.

I'm a third layer down the phone tree (wait, fourth), but given how many kids there are to keep connected, that's what works. It lets my step-mom have to only call one person with updates, which takes some of the burden off her. She's very good at taking care of dad, so I'm okay with her putting her energy there.

They have a lot of work to do in there - three different things amiss. And his innards aren't exactly typical (his circulatory system appears to be atypical, to say the least). Plus whatever they find while they're in there. At least cholesterol isn't an issue (his arteries are squeaky clean - low cholesterol runs in the family, his is actually 'too low', as is mine, though mine isn't quite as much too low).

He has a great team, experienced and practiced. He's very good at spotting good teams, probably a feature of having worked on creating good teams for so long. Plus he has something of an insiders view of medicine, despite that not being his career area - his mom was a hospital nurse, and didn't stint on passing on tips about how to make life better for yourself if you're in the hospital. She'd also spent a good chunk of time in a hospital as a patient (after her uterus ruptured with my dad's birth), so she had both sides of the view.

Anyway, the adventure continues today. I'm nervous, but not worried, if that makes sense. The odds of catastrophic failure are higher than for most surgeries, but they're still low enough given the team that's doing the job. It's a risk balanced against a risk - risk dying in a relatively known situation now in order to prevent the risk of dying unexpectedly later. Either way, there would be some odds against, and I'll take the 'professional team working on him' odds by preference over the 'how long will your heart continue to function with the combination of factors in decline' odds.

I wish we'd have been able to get together before the surgery, but it's really a matter of proximity (time-wise). The last time we were together over the summer was good. The kids enjoyed it, and the connections continue to grow. I have a lovely pic of dad talking with Mr G about Mr G's dreams and goals, sitting together on the porch swing. Having a visit more proximate to the surgery isn't necessary, it just feels that way.

Surgery may take up to 10 hours. Likely less than that, but that's the outer edge. And they'll keep him under for a while after that, so tomorrow before we know how he's actually 'doing' (rather than just how the surgery went).

I have mentioned before that I don't like waiting, right?

Sigh.

I love you, dad. You've got my prayers and positive energy. Next adventure underway...

What I did over summer vacation (1)

When I was a kid, summer meant I ran around and climbed in the mountains and went fishing, and for the big deal we went to California to visit my relatives.

Mr G, Mr B, Miss M, and Miss R get to do something that I would have just rolled over and died for.

They're helping on an archeological dig. It's not hugely historically significant, just local history.

But.

Mr G and Mr B helped find and uncover the foundation wall of the greenhouse on the site we're working. (That's him working it there, next to the string used to mark the site.)

Mr G, being young and sturdy, got to be down in the hole, digging out the wall along its length, pulling out chunks of glazing from the greenhouse windows that had fallen to the ground.

He's actually disappointed that the next dig date he'll be at sleep-away camp. He's super excited about sleep-away camp, but ... he's gonna miss a dig. Dang.

And Mr B?

Likewise electrified by finding history in the dirt. He was working the surface of the wall, clearing it out so we could find out how far it went.
Speculating on where the corner would end, how big the building was, and then following the brick line to see where it actually ended, testing his theory.

Down on his knees, every bit of his attention focused on scraping down to get the top layer of dirt off, then sweeping it away to expose the shape of it.

No complaints. Trying to tear them away even to go get food in them was a challenge.

The experienced adults on the dig were skeptical that the joy of being on a dig would stick - they get a lot of kids, but they grow up a bit and then are too busy with other things to come back. I hope that my kids stick around for the rest of it. Granted, my kids are huge into history, too, so that should help. And it will be okay if they decide they have more important things to do.

They'll still have had a chance to do it, discover history they can touch, learn about how the process of recovering the past works.

Miss M and Miss R were less mentally engaged, even if they were totally there physically - they're not sure what we're doing other than digging up stuff, picking wormies out of the dirt going into the screens for sifting, or looking for chunks of coal or pottery shards.

But that's okay. They're 4. They're good at picking worms out and looking for coal and pottery shards (Miss R is working the screen, fishing out rocks, worms, and roots and searching for pottery shards and coal).

Miss M is even good at loading the dirt from the trench into the screen (which is what she'd doing here - she's in the long-sleeve purple shirt, bringing a trowel-load over).

And before anyone says 'wow, what cool parents to get their kids into something like this' - I take no credit for the experience. When I gave my mom the job of adding enchantment to their lives, she took it seriously. Part of that is the joy in discovery of the world that exploring presents. She'd have been on this fast...

But this isn't even my mom's range. This, in particular, is my sister's gift. My eldest sister does a lot of charitable work, and particularly enjoys getting physically involved with some of it. In this case, she learned about this dig (which is run by a non-profit), and thought it was a perfect situation for the kids to get involved. She's a contributing member to the non-profit. And we provide strong backs and not-so-weak minds to shovel and clear, dig, sift, and collect.

Mostly, we cleared the site and started two small new areas of digging for the dig season. That one trench managed to hit the greenhouse wall was cool. But for the most part, we found nothing  interesting - a few pottery shards, some glass (period glass - turn of the century), a lot of coal. It's grubby, manual effort, with just a few moments of glee sprinkled about. It's also family time, working with mom and dad, aunties and Baba, and making friends across generations with others who came to dig. Mr G and Mr B worked mostly with a couple of older gentlemen - one probably easily in his 70's, the other nearer his 50's. We didn't supervise that, just let them get to work. More management was required for the girls, no shock.

Very satisfactory. I end up so grateful for family willing to engage my kids in their passions. Even if my kids never come back to the dig again, hopefully they'll remember, and have the roots of their lives forever tapped into digging in the dirt, and finding that history is something they can touch.

Tired + red dye + disregulation stage = AHHHHHHHHHH!

So, that was not fun, and I wasn't even there.

My mom took my brother and his wife and son, plus all my kids, to the museum rounds. Now, usually they're pretty decent in museums. They're a little too familiar, perhaps, and tend to treat them with a bit of a casual air - these are their museums, the ones they go to often, the ones they know and love, and they tend to be a bit more confident of themselves than most kids.

Usually still respectful, though.

Only, unbeknownst to all involved, Mr B had some candy with red dye right before they headed off. He'd checked it with ep, ep thought that the purple candy had purple dye (not red plus blue - hey, there's purple dye for clothing that is just purple all by itself...), so he gave the go-ahead.

As usual, the effects weren't immediate. It takes a little while for the process to cause a reaction, but it does. Maybe not every kid reacts (the other three certainly don't have a huge crisis reaction), but oh, holy pete, does Mr B react.

He becomes demanding. rude. inflexible. weepy. angry. volatile. super-sensitive to anything that might be at all unfair (read: selfish). demanding, did I say demanding? pushy. obnoxious. unsafe, disrespectful, unkind.

My mom was mortified, because he yelled at another family when they came near something he was doing, told them they couldn't come over there. It was a black family. He doesn't care what ethnicity or race they are, he just wanted to do it By Himself. But my mom cared that they might think that race was the issue, and she was trying to wrangle the other kids so couldn't go apologize before that family left, with unhappy looks shot in my mom's direction. The idea that another family had their day marred by Mr B is a seriously unhappy thought for me.

Mom is used to us being so on top of the dye and food (fructose malabsorption) stuff that if an error occurs - which it does now and then - we know and can warn her. Or we hold Mr B out of the mix, if it is likely to be a bad one.

And the reaction is usually even worse on the disregulation stage. He's just enough out of kilter to start with, that he can't get back on top of his behavior. Usually in the regulation side of the year, he can manage himself back down to just a constant grumble and periodic bouts of whining. Not stomping, yelling, and shoving. Certainly not in public. Being unkind is unlike him, too. That's usually his greatest strength.

Crapola.

Booger, booger, crap.

Add in that he's had several days of overstimulation and not enough sleep (yay, cousin D is here! play play play play PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY), and ... holy ouch.

Now, Mr G didn't help. He'd 'just' had the tired and overwhelmed and maybe a little disregulation (though he's still not following the old pattern, that I can see - definitely more disregulated in little bursts as the testosterone hits his bloodstream in that kind of random pattern of a few days on and a week or so off). Mr G's introversion had him in snapping turtle mode - either trying to hide in his shell, or snapping at people who made him come out. Which then cycled into it seeming more okay for everyone else to be snappish and rude and dismissive of the rules of behavior, which then modeled downwards to the other kids, who then cycled further out of control.

Lordy. What fun. Nephew was in tears several times. They usually do a decent job of figuring out who will sit in the front seat of the shuttle around the outside of the museum, but this time the driver had to tell them to behave. There was that yelling-at-the-other-family incident. And a lot of begging, whining, pushing the other younger cousin, screaming, crying, and shouting.

Well, that was a fun outing. Yeah.

And then there was me talking to ep on the phone from work, and that sinking feeling of dread before I gear up to handle the issue. Then talking to my mom (who I think was a little overstating how my brother and SIL felt about it, because she really doesn't want them to vanish and not come back here, and was interpreting their statement that it would be a long time before they came back as 'because of today, it will be a long time before we come back, and I don't blame them' - but my brother had already said to me that they didn't expect to come back for at least a few years - there are family reunions every two years, so this is essentially an extra trip for them, and the next reuinion is at their place, next summer). But mom was still hurting and angry and horribly embarassed by their behavior - mortified, I think would be about right. My brother and SIL had forgiven the kids long since, because they are kids - they're imperfect, and they really don't see how the kids USUALLY behave, so this wasn't a long fall from usual, it was just 'kids messing around and not listening'. Cousin D had also already forgotten about the problems, and was on to the next thing. Phew.

Still, we expect the kids to handle the problems they create, and build the skills of saying sorry and managing their relationships. That takes practice, so we'll hold them to it. Not unkindly, but hold them to it, no letting them off the hook.

So then there was talking to the kids, on the phone (still at my cube, with the coworkers suddenly going quiet in the middle of the conversation, but me too stuck in it with Mr G to pause and take my cell phone and go elsewhere, and besides, despite the fact that the kids behaved badly, I don't mind people knowing that I'll enforce that they do have to manage the problem and make amends, mend fences and tend to their relationships - it's not FUN, but it's okay. I just won't tell the kids that there were about eight people very quietly listening over the cube walls, because for them it should be a private conversation - it isn't like they'll meet these people. The acoustics in there are amazing - I can hear everyone's conversations about three cubes down and four across - and I'm in the corner, so that's a big space.) Sigh.

Mr G is so much his type that he had a hard time picturing that anyone else's perspective of the situation could be at all accurate. He was quite disturbed and offended and hurt that anyone might think he had been stubborn, rude, or disrespectful. He didn't read his choice to not speak and just stand there and stare at the others (and at Baba) in response to their questions as 'rude' - he tends to think that people know what he's thinking, because HE knows what he's thinking. Uh. Just thinking respectful thoughts doesn't constitute being respectful. Sigh.

Mr B was really not much 'there' on the phone, he was vague and wandery, which made me a little suspicious way back in the back of my head. But it wasn't until much later (after we got home from saying goodbye and mending fences with my brother and family - for extra fun, this happened on their last night here) that he asked for another of the same candy item he'd eaten before he left for the museum trip. Uh. You ate THAT? BINGO, we have a winner. That'd set him off on the best of days. Crud.

He was still locked up even then (rocked and twisted back and forth, saying that it was the only thing he wanted, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, cried, rocked back and forth some more, insisted that he couldn't change his mind, it had to be that, it had to be that, it had to be that - it's the weird repetition of the same same same same that is the most obvious cue that something is amiss in his brain chemistry - he gets stuck in a loop and can't get out, it's like a panic attack plus OCD). But he does tend to get a better grip when he understands that it isn't HIM driving this desperate need reaction, it is the chemical reaction in his body that's doing it (a sudden drop in tryptophan levels creates a change in serotonin in the brain, and the result, according to research, is a much more severe reaction to the idea of 'unfair' - much more stubborn and emotionally locked up and resistant to the idea of giving in or letting things proceed even if they're imperfect). He was at that point willing to be comforted, climbed on my lap (oof, he's getting big for that - he's still small for his age, but he's seven...), cuddled in, rocked a bit more, and then said that there was still nothing else he wanted, but if I'd get him the ones like that candy that were the right color (and there were some, only they ended up going home with another child instead of Mr B at Easter), then he would be okay.

And then later he locked up on needing more dinner instead, after everyone else was done and headed to bed. Sigh. But I got him more dinner, because the additional food might help keep the reaction moving through (maybe, it just seemed to make sense - provide more sources of tryptophan, maybe it will help), and then off to bed for us all.

Whee.

It did generate some good conversations, though. Mr G and I discussed the idea that there is more than just the reality that is one's own perspective - that the outer observation of others was as valid as the inner observation of self - different, but valid. Neither may be entirely accurate, too - Mr G tends not to notice the time span he spends thinking, so he can't see that he's standing there for a long time not moving or doing anything, in response to others. For him, that's immediate. For others, it's WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR????? Oh. Really? Huh. We talked about introverts and extroverts, and how annoying it is to have a mom who is an extrovert (that'd be me), but that at the same time, it will mean he's going to have some skills around handling extroverts that his dad didn't learn as a kid (his entire family is introverts).

Mr B also was easier about letting Mr G alone, because we could explain that his need to be-with (mr EXTROVERT) was not any more valid than Mr G's need to be alone, and so he didn't get to force Mr G to play with him - Mr G was done, he really needed some down time, please respect that. And he did, easily - it made sense, and more importantly, it was Not Personal. It wasn't a rejection, because it was about Mr G, not about their relationship.

My mom also ended up explaining Mr G's type to another of the cousins, and talked about the strengths and weaknesses of each type with her. I think explaining that to someone else also cements the idea that this is a skills issue, and not personal. It was not fun, but it wasn't a failure so much as a problem. Talking types allowed it to take that form, and we went from 'they were awful' to 'they need to do some skills building around this - and it's going to take a long time, because these are complex skills'.

I'm still particularly unhappy about the other family whose day was dinged - and possibly badly so - by Mr B. There's no way for me to make amends on that one. All I can do is make sure Mr B understands that even though he really doesn't care what ethnicity or race someone is, other people may think he does, and his only choice is to accord everyone equal kindness and regard, because the equal misery and disrespect will translate differently to others. It's like the whole 'all happy families are happy in the same way, all dysfunctional families are dysfunctional in their own ways' thing - people respond reasonably similarly to positive interactions, and uniquely (based on their own wounds) to negative ones.

So much to teach. So much understanding of the world, of people, and of how to relate to others to pass on, coach, and model. It's a good thing I still have a few years left to do it in. (nobody remind me that Mr G will be off to college in about 8 years, okay?)

Kids and their adventures... plus the gender wars start up

So, my brother is in town from the other coast. Also his wife, and their son, who was born the same year as Miss M and Miss R.

The week has been full of activity. Last night we had a professional photographer come over to my mom's and take pictures of the full set of grand-kids (nephew is the only one not local), and of the family groups here (a few of my generation sibs were not here - two on the other coast, one on this coast but not local enough for an evening drive-up during the week). That was, uh, loud. Very, very loud. All the cousins together at once, in the evening, after a rainy day, before dinner. Woo! But there are some good pics out of it. Same photographer our family (small family) usually uses, she's got a great eye.

Anyway, that was last night's adventure (followed by driving all over the place to find the post office that is open for mailing tax forms - we did most online, but paying still means mailing if we want to choose that timing. Sigh.).

Tuesday's adventure was ep taking all four kids to DC for the day. Which means driving a long way, followed by taking the metro a good long way, too. Met up with brother and family at the National Building Museum, plus sister (local there), for lunch, then went to the Natural History museum on the mall (more metro). They saw all sorts of things. I missed it. Waaah.

One of the guys at work asked if ep brought home the same number of kids he left with. Yes. And the right ones, too.

But it was more successful than that, even. Miss M and Miss R were lit up with joy and delight when they got home and saw me.

Miss R: Mommy, Mommy! We rode on a train! FIVE trains! And three elevators!

Miss M: And that stair thing that goes up! And FIVE TRAINS!

heh. Museum, what museum? There were TRAINS. And ELEVATORS! And ESCALATORS! YAY!

And ...

Miss M: Mommy, Mommy! I held D's mommy's hand! On the esca... escavator!

Miss M: Mommy, Mommy! I bought something in the store! I got a two monsters piggy bank, and I can paint it and... I want to paint it NOW. NOW!

Followed by collapse in despair over it being to late to start an art project. Ah, well.

And then we had the first hard light of the 5-year-old gender-is-everything show up from Miss R.

Mr B was showing me what he bought (a fossil skeleton model), and Miss R said, 'I don't like that, I wouldn't buy that, it's (made gross pukey face)! I bought a baby blanket, it's pretty.'

Mr B was really hurt. He did use really great words saying it, though. He said, 'I don't like it when you say that. I don't say mean things about your toys. That wasn't nice. It was mean.' (and then he looked down at his toy like she'd stolen some of the fun from it - freenacin* drain, oh, no!)

Before Miss R could launch into more 'I bought girl stuff, boy stuff is YUCKY, that's BOY STUFF' (I've seen this before from the other gender side, so it's a recognized pattern for the age), I told Mr B how much I'd have loved that toy when I was a kid, how I memorized the dinosaur cards we had, and how my sister and one brother fought over those cards. Yeah, that toy is cool.

Miss R watched me like a hawk (I was watching her out of the corner of my eye). I watched her redefine 'fossil dinosaur/dinosaurs' as 'girl-friendly'. And sure enough, right after Mr B trotted off with his toy, fully mollified that it was precious and cool and a good choice, Miss R restated her position, new version:

I really LIKE that skeleton toy. It's COOOOOL. It's really cool. That is a good toy.

And I watched her watching me for signs of approval over this newly defined reality. And yeah, I smiled, and thanked her for saying nice things about his toy, and left a beat in there before asking her about the baby blankie she bought, and the things she liked. They don't have to be the same. From the other room, Mr B also thanked her, so she got double strokes on that shift in expression. Good job on moving to Respectful and Kind.

The whole hard-line gender definition thing is one of my least-fun parts of this upcoming age. Girls can do this, boys can do that, girls CAN'T do this, boys CAN'T do that. Ugh. I know it will shift outwards again after they mature into their sense of gender and friendship and roles and all that. It's just really annoying for the moment. I automatically broaden the definition at every turn. The range that is all-boy and all-girl is sooooo minuscule, in my mind. There are definitely some things most girls can't do, and some things most boys can't do, and some things that are biologically or physically not possible for each (within the standard definitions, anyway). I'd rather not even define a range by gender at all, but I know that's part of this age - who am I as a girl (or boy), what does that mean, how do I know where I fit, am I normal, am I like the others, all that.

So, whee. But at least I saw it, and got a chance to remind Miss R that what is cool is not just what her friends think are boy things and girl things, but what is interesting to any individual. This is extra important because Miss M is so interested in biology and rocks and science and dirt and trucks. They spend unsupervised time together, and I don't want Miss R badgering Miss M about not being a real girl, or not playing 'right' for a girl, etc. She's applied that pressure before (long ago), and she's prone to wanting to apply it to everyone (ESFJ, or ENFJ, I think - likes to control the social world, including being right up in everyone else's business). Miss R likes everyone to play by the rules and roles that feel safe and comfortable to her. Miss M, not so much. Miss R is more pushy about it, and more extroverted (all over Miss M). Learning to navigate that without hurting each other is going to be a life-long task. Right now, first priority is allowing Miss M to feel like herself and also see herself as a normal girl. First is also allowing Miss R to feel comfortable in her own likes, and to give herself and others enough room to be, without making it too big an idea to find comfortable. That side is actually going to be more tricky, because Miss R likes to wrap herself in a cocoon of rules and structure and roles - that's what feels good to her.

Yeah, this is going to be quite an adventure.

***********************

*Freenacin is a made-up nutrient my family uses to explain that sense of happy, fun, or joyful that comes and goes under different conditions. Like, new car smell, and new toys, and how when a toy breaks all the freenacin leaks out and even when fixed it isn't the same... but if your grandmother fixes it for you special, then it has extra freenacin added back in, and so forth. Lack of freenacin creates low-grade depression and restlessness. A freenacin drain is any time the fun goes out of something. It's nice to be able to say 'ugh, I need some freenacin' because it doesn't sound like 'how come you aren't making me happy' or 'I need some more fun, you're not any fun'. It makes it just a problem to be solved, like 'I need a snack' - and not a loaded statement. VERY useful. 

Fragility of life

Nobody I knew well died, first off.

Sorry for the non-posting, second-off.

Life has been touching on the fragile stuff lately, though, and I've had a hard time expressing it - three posts started, all unfinished because they just didn't get to the heart of what I was feeling.

Multiple layers of intersection on the fragility of human life, though, in the last month.

A friend of mine lost a dear friend to cancer.

My mom is going in for a hip replacement tomorrow (I have medical power of attorney, along with my brother).

A dear friend from forever was diagnosed with cancer. His wife is pregnant with their first child.

Another dear friend from forever has been diagnosed with multiple joint osteoarthritis (she's younger than me).

My dad was hospitalized with a bad asthma attack.

I spent part of yesterday worried about Mr B, who was having intense abdominal pain. He recovered like nothing had happened, but it set me to thinking.

Our bodies are fragile. Sturdy in some ways, but strikingly fragile in others. I am usually quite okay with this - it's part of what makes life precious and beautiful.

But some days, it's leaning a lot harder on the 'this sucks' side than the 'hold to the joy' side. And I'm sure that as I continue to tread my way past 40, more and more of my family and friends will pass their warranty end date, and the aches and pains that are starting to show will transition to more disorder and disease than just aches and pains. More treatments, more medications, more surgeries, more things to prop our health up, remove the difficult stuff, and try to reassemble us in some kind of useful order.

My great-aunt once told me that one of the worst parts of getting old is that you have to avoid stresses of all sorts - you just can't handle stress anymore, it makes you sick. Oh, and by the way, she added, being old is stressful. You can't escape that loop.

It was funny at the time, in a sardonic kind of way. But it is less funny now that I am nearer that, and not 14 years old anymore. There was no advice there, only warning (I did - unintentionally - take her advice to marry a younger man, since she said that it is also more stressful to be old alone, and men die sooner - I didn't quite get to her advice of marrying someone six years younger than me, though).

So, in the face of the fragility of human life, what do we do?

I've had pregnancy losses, but not many other losses close in, so I can only take my lessons from where I've had them. And the lesson has always been to allow myself to be reminded of the pure intensity of being alive.

Loss always brings me to that rawness, the too-painful awareness that I am a physical, living being. I can feel my entire body, each breath, each heartbeat. In the depth of it, each heartbeat is agonizingly real, each breath is an in-rushing and expulsion at a cosmic scale, like the universe is breathing through me. The layers of insensitivity I've padded my skin with melt away, and here I am, naked to reality, fully and intensely alive. It isn't a joyfulness of living, but it is a pure state nonetheless.

From there, I can make my way back to the bittersweet passion of knowing I'm alive, and that life is complex and searing and gentle and overwhelming and wide open. It isn't the narrow confines of the view I've set with my own blinders. It is only what it is, and that is ... well, everything. And from there I find the joy again, and the fierceness of living, and the willingness to hurt because pain is part of life.

So, again, here I am. Working my way through to the place where I can be my mother's shoulder, instead of her being mine, changing from adult-child to adult-child-caregiver.

It was easier to leap immediately to the aid of my friends, the one with the newly diagnosed cancer and his wife - I'd taken that role before with them, ages ago when he had heart surgery. I didn't expect to take it again so soon, but ... it would be unthinkable to not step into the gap, to not start weaving a net for them. (Any of my dancing friends who read this blog, I'm talking about the residents of Kiloran - email me and I'll add you to the yahoo group I've set up for supporting them.)

I think I notice this stuff particularly because I've lived without being alive before, protected from pain and fear by layers of refusal and denial and dissociation. But I took down those walls a ways back.

I like it better when life is real. Real, painful, scary, joyful, fragile, intense, passionate, precious. It takes me by surprise, sometimes, how deeply I can be affected by a moment, how strongly I can feel being alive.

At the same time, it can suprise me how very much being alive is an everyday thing. Strange, how knowing I'm truly alive does not make the laundry go away. The dishes will still pile up, and the trash will still need to be taken out.

So, tomorrow morning, I'll do the quotidian tasks, shower, dress, get ready for work, and then I will drive my mother to the hospital, and sit with her, and remind her to do her hypnotherapy work pre-op, and tell her that I love her, and wait for my brother to come tag in, then go off and work while I wait for news that her hip has been replaced by a metal stand-in. Wait knowing that sometimes things go perfectly, and sometimes they do not, and that there is no choice in this beyond the choices we have already made - finding the best center, the best doctor, the best care, making the best preparations we can.

We can set things up only so far.

After that, it is letting go of the death-grip on life, opening hands cupped around the butterfly-wing fragility of the people we hold dear, and then stepping forward freely into today's reality, in whatever form it takes.

Tweaking Christmas

We're tweaking Christmas again this year.

Some things are completely worked out, and are now settling into a nice tradition.

Like, we know that Dad-and-Shelle's Christmas will be the week before or after the official day, on the weekend (or so), on a date mutually agreed by the majority of his kids - it maximizes the overlap of family. That one is a Pollyanna between the grandkids. The core of that one is that we get together, as many as possible.

We know also that we'll do first Christmas in the morning at our house (one gift from Santa, one from parents), second Christmas at Baba's (my mom's) for breakfast and stockings and gifts with that sibling set (of those local enough to attend, which includes some overlap). There, a heavy emphasis on gifts to leave at Baba's house for the kids to enjoy (since they spend so much time there).

And then there's third Christmas - in the afternoon at ep's parents' place, where there is again much family and a lot more of the gifts-to-take-home, though recently an emphasis on things that solve a real problem for someone, or feed into a craft or hobby. There's a lot of looking at sketches and waving hands and talking about materials, oohing over office supplies for the sib with his own business, and grandkids ranging from 4, to adult-and-home-from-Basic-Training being enormously silly with their cousins. Emphasis is on family helping out family, crossing energy from one to the other, interweaving ourselves more intentionally at this point.

So, that seems pretty much worked out. We've managed to work through the huge issues, like working out the whole swapping every year between who got Christmas eve and afternoon, and who got the (obviously more special) early morning. That was miserable - my mom does a formal breakfast, his family does dinner, every-other year we swapped the order, and therefore got neither breakfast nor dinner. I think we did that four times, all before we had kids. Not the most fun.

And we've got the message through about how to balance the gift-giving on all sides. Not so that my family balances with his, but that we all feel comfortable at each event with the amounts we and others give. This year it was quite clear that nobody wanted to overflow our house with more clutter (hint, having the grandparents come help with the house helps make clear how much the clutter damages our lives, rather than enhancing our lives). That makes the whole deal easier. The kids will get things they're interested in with minimum storage requirements - the emphasis on things like learning how to tie knots and make a fire with firewood and cook and build stuff is higher. We haven't had much issue with CPC (cheap-plastic-crap), ever, but even fabulous toys with parts end up drifting into heaps when there are too many of them (hence the toy library, which is unfortunately also now a heap, since I haven't been able to sort it out properly for months).

Actually, having kids made it easier to balance what we want to celebrate, and where. We wanted our own morning. Then it was 'mid-morning to early afternoon' vs 'afternoon to evening'. That was easier to work out, since one wasn't weighted to specialness and sleepy kids and all the joy of discovery.

But we still have some stuff to work out, tweak and tweak again to make it fit comfortably. It's only been 11 years of tweaking.

Now, I know we're extraordinarily lucky that we have all our parents nearby. Maximum distance is about 45 minutes, and my mom is a mile away. It does make it hard to figure out where to spend the time, and when, and there's more expectation that we will spend it. Bonus, we enjoy our various local relatives, even if there are frictions at times. We work it out. 

So, it looks like one more of the minor issues is settling into a standard pattern. Our tree goes up Christmas eve eve (second day before Christmas). This is mainly because with all the family around, we're putting up my mom's tree, and my IL's tree, and the kids are decorating those, and then the time goes away to do it sooner. Since we (still) do live trees, we can't put it up at Thanksgiving and have it make it, so it ends up after everyone else's. We keep it up until at least Epiphany (edited, thanks GB) (Jan 6), and often the week after. So, that one is settling in. It's not my ideal, but it is an accommodation that works for the kids, the grandparents, and us, well enough to be fine. And it is what the kids are growing up with, so it feels normal to them.

But there's still the pesky Christmas Eve thing.

For a long time we alternated between the Quaker side (evening sing at the Friends Meeting) and my side ... that was initially going to the high Episcopal Christmas Eve service for the 'smells and bells' - insence and bell choir and candles and liturgy ... as much UU as we are on my side, my step-dad was Episcopalian in origin, and he tended to split time between the two churches, this time being one of them. I didn't even need to learn to love that service - I also love the Catholic services, and could place myself within their realm as a reverent guest and accept their blessing without any personal conflict, the same way I could do at a Buddhist temple in China. The Universalist in me, I suppose.

Anyway, we slowly drifted off from that due to the kids, among other issues (including ones to do with the direction of that particular church), and shifted focus to the Christmas Eve family traditions. My mom does a range of Eve things that are kid-friendly, and have kind of become kid-mandatory.

Hence the problem that needs tweaking. Last year, it was a rush to complete all the things lined up for the kids to do before we left to do the evening sing at the Quaker Meeting. It was Not Fun. Hurry, go put the apples in the wooden shoes for the reindeer, hang the stockings, now sit down and one of you read The Night Before Christmas, now pack up let's GO we're going to be late!

Er.

I don't think that's the Christmas Eve to remember.

Sigh.

So, more tweaking. We're in discussions now about what we want to do, and how we want to do it. The kids are old enough to join the conversation. Then it is scheduling it all. Like, today.

Discussing it will mean talking about what is fun, and what is important (like maintaining the Quaker connection), and where those fit, and how to make them work. Doing that without strong-arming anyone when there are six potential opinions is interesting.

But we know it doesn't have to be perfect this year. Celebrations evolve. They're responsive, not rigid. So what happens will shift, and settle, and shift again. If there's a major upheaval at some point (like a loss of a grandparent), we'll shift again, find more stable ground, carry with us the things that are most important of what remains undamaged, more able to see in the clear light of loss what is and is not essential.

Meanwhile there's still tree-up and decorating for us. We haven't the money (let alone space) to do what I really want to do, which is to have a forest of small trees - six of them, one for each - that we each decorate the way we choose out of our collection of ornaments. Right now we have settled to my theme and a kids theme, with the 'window tree' (an artificial tree designed to hang on a wall that we hang in the window) being for the kids, and the 'big tree' aiming for a tree that looks like it was decorated by Mother Nature, Winter form, in an expansive mood. Ice crystals and snowflakes and some birds, but fairly frosted with them.

Poor ep, he likes a more sparse tree... I grew up on Victorian Excess for Christmas decorating, he grew up with something much closer to Quaker simplicity. Hence me wanting six trees, equal size, so we can each express our sentiment and aesthetic purely and clearly, to share with the others and allow them to glimpse our individual Truth. Another of the Quaker expressions from me, though it crosses over with the Universalist again - each expressing their understanding of celebration fully, and the forest together being the collective vision, in both contrast and symphony.

Sigh. We'll tweak that one later, if we get the chance.