Hands Full of Rocks

Sensory issues suck (warning, blood involved)

The only-perfect-food thing sucks, but we're dealing with that.

The all-clothing-and-shoes-feel-horrible thing sucks, but we're dealing with that, too.

Right now, the one that sucks rocks is the 'seeks-speed-without-regard-to-safety' thing.

Like, Miss M clotheslined herself at a full run, hard enough to throw her feet straight horizontal at neck height before she crashed backwards onto the driveway with the back of her head leading.

Granted, the 'I-must-use-my-fine-motor-skills-at-every-possible-opportunity' also sucks when it takes the form of tying ropes across the gate entrance, too. I had just seen that it had been done, and told Mr B to take it down, no, NOT later, NOW, when Miss M (who had carefully lifted it up and walked under it coming into the yard) gleefully took off running back out of the yard. Without ducking. Because speed is the only requirement. Safety isn't ever a concern.

Miss M had crashed and burned on the sidewalk, the driveway, and the yard about once an hour while she was outside (about four times, that is). Which, all in all, is a great ratio for her. It used to be once every 10-15 minutes.

Only, as her skill with running, jumping, and hopping (and leaping and racing and skidding and climbing) have increased, the severity of the crash-and-burns tend to get worse.

At least she didn't need stitches, that we can tell. And it doesn't seem like she cracked her skull, though I honestly don't know how that didn't happen. Hopefully, she didn't cause enough brain rattle to affect her reading skill (minor head trauma appears to be linked quite closely to dyslexia onset - you might need the genes for it first, but she may have those from me - and both me and my mom probably got our dyslexia following concussions).

Anyway, I did the protocol as required.

Check the injury. It was hard to see entirely, but it looked mainly like one scrape and one compression wound - red and bleeding but no gash per se - like a scrape, but through into the skin instead of across it. Small chunk of more-bleedy at the center, but not a gash. Not a stitches or staples situation. The smaller scrape below that (the driveway is root-heaved so it isn't a flat surface she hit) is completely minor in tissue damage, but had more swelling.

Rinse and ice. Rinsing meant wet cloths, and bloody water dripping onto the kitchen floor (she was horizontal in ep's arms, face down into his elbow, hair dripping on the floor). Ice meant screaming and more screaming - any pressure of course hurt like crazy, but ice is important, too. We kept it localized (one cube), because the weight of the entire bag of peas seemed to be worse.

Check for brain trauma/severity. Bilateral motion? Check. Coordinated movement in general? Check. Sleepy? Check. Yes, she was sleepy - but we've learned that sleepy is the normal physiological response (so is puking) to even quite minor head trauma (not that any is really 'minor'). It is if the sleepy continues past the 8 hour point that you really worry, or if they can't be woken. I also checked eye dilation (uniform response between the two), though I think I'd have known if it was bad enough to show up that way.

Manage the wound. Neosporin with pain relief gooping the hair up. Another pad on the top, held in place by ep.

Manage the mess. Hmm, staring at the bloody drips on the floor is probably not going to help the feeling of 'I'm okay'... clean those up. Attempt to clean the blood off my shirt. Failed on that one, but hey, the shirt is my gardening shirt, so it will just have a new badge of honor. Keep blood-tinged wet from dripping onto the dress (which Miss R had loaned her) - that was ep's thought, which was a good one.

Do the settle-in-and-observe vs ER-trip assessment. Everything checked out okay? Yes, then observe. Eight hour window of initial symptoms, signs should all be gone by the 8 hour point. She wanted to lie down, didn't want to eat. For about an hour. She didn't even actually fall asleep - just closed her eyes and fiddled with her fingers. Then she was hungry, and wanted dinner (raw broccoli, which she got more of than she is usually allowed, because, er, that is what she wanted - and her poop has been good lately, so she is getting more leeway on some things diet-wise); and then, um, dessert (sorbet), followed by dessert (ep made brownies). Yes, I'm a sucker when they're hurt, but I figure there's no reason to fight over it at that point. She wanted to sit up, but it made her head hurt. She wanted to walk around, but she was feeling a bit stiff and not-move-ey. She did consent to standing in the bathtub (didn't want to sit) and getting the blood rinsed out of her hair. Which started the wound seeping again. Sigh. More Neosporin, lie back down on the sofa. Her sense of humor was intact, she harassed her brothers and sister, she insisted that when she hurts her head, her brain really wants to watch tv. Really! Even if it is bedtime and we don't watch tv at bedtime. Innocent look. Yeah, honey, your brain seems to be juuuuuust fine.

And then, Manage the cause.

Ah, yes, managing the cause. Totally didn't handle that one too well. I think I said something like 'What were you THINKING, you could have KILLED HER! I told you to take that DOWN!' Woo, auto-mouth. Useful, huh?

Mr B hid under the table in the dining room, listening to Miss M scream and scream and scream (she pretty much screamed constantly while we were tending to the wound). Yeah, I think he probably got plenty of miserable I-suck feeling all by himself, I don't think he really needed any help from me on that one. When I went to go talk to him, to make sure he felt welcomed back into the family and not excluded, he screamed at me to leave him alone. Since he usually hates being alone, I knew that he was in total personality reversal (a sign of crisis mode - people's personalities tend to reverse strategically to handle a crisis, perhaps on the physiological 'assumption' that the usual mode didn't help, so try the alternate!). So I left him alone.

He then fled upstairs, and hid in his room while I went back to check on Miss M. Who screamed some more when I tried to get a better look at the wound site.

By bedtime, we'd managed to get a few things out in the open. I apologized for reacting so badly 'at' Mr B - one of the guys at my sister's school when I was a kid died from being clotheslined while riding a motorcycle, and that's set as an image very deep in my psyche. Not that I saw it, but my siblings being the age they were went into graphic discussion of the probable details (they didn't see it, either). So, clotheslined is kind of a bad visceral response for me. And so is the sound of a head hitting pavement. And so is being told to wait a minute when I've asked them to handle a safety issue. Okay, so I didn't even get a chance to say 'Safe' before Miss M hit the line, I was still taking breath to say that. Still, I was already into 'ex-cuse me?' compliance-first mode in my gut response. Anyway, I did explain where I was coming from. And asked Mr B to handle the issue with his sister - which he totally dodged. Avoidance frustrates me no end. ARGH. I know how bad he felt, but his sister doesn't. He pretty much didn't even look at her as he walked by where she was laid out on the sofa (resting).

As usual protocol (not even requiring any trauma - this is our current round with co-sleeping right now - faster, more sleep, eh), I slept on the mattress in their room. I started out alone, but then Miss M decided that sleeping where she was on the sofa wasn't good, and joined me. And then Mr B asked very meekly if he could come down out of his bed and join me, too. Two miserable kids, yeah, they're going to want to sleep next to someone. Not like they don't usually prefer to sleep next to mom or dad anyway. But, useful when there's been an injury. I know Miss M wasn't sleeping too hard - she woke about three times to rearrange herself into a more comfortable position. So, ouch, but not trauma.

Still, the new job's benefits (insurance, specifically) covers PT and OT work, and so I'm going to get the three of them in and assessed and doing some work - as the Connective Tissues Disorders clinic recommended. Hopefully they'll be able to find ways to effectively stimulate that sensory system enough that 'seeks activities without regard to safety' can be taken off the list of behaviors.

Yeah, that'd be good.

Mom is Mom

And she's doing well enough.

Being who she is, that means she's a bit on the demanding side (squeaky wheels and all that).

Being who she is, also, and on pain meds, she's herself only without social filters. Have I mentioned that my mom is an extrovert? Okay, so she actually tests as an introvert now, but all the underlayers are extrovert central. She pretty much was either drifting off into sleep, fighting down nausea from the anesthesia, or talking. Mostly talking.

Until I massaged her feet and hands, anyway. That brought her back to her full self, not just the raw version. Full self, with color in her face and her skin not all slack and vague-looking, eyes brighter, focus clear, and able to maintain herself without the constant seeping of words that was happening before I tracked down the lotion and got to work on her hands and feet.

Granted, I say that knowing that I'm more of an extrovert than she is... oh, yeah, I'm sure my sister remembers me talking to her non-freakin-stop when I had my wisdom teeth out. It was kinda funny, from my side. And even epeepunk gets chatty when he's loopy post-op, and he's no extrovert.

Anyway, we're managing, which means everyone is doing too much.

Surgery went well - and for a major change, hospital time didn't mean 'take all estimates and multiply by three' (they usually have something come up somewhere that means they're just not able to make it back around as planned), but instead, the surgeons were HOPPING, cranking through the 18 hip and knee replacements going through today. The first surgery was done ahead of schedule, and they just kept cycling through, so my mom was out of surgery an hour before I expected her to be, and by 11 people were barely getting themselves situated before they were getting called to say their loved one was already done.

Fast surgery, in this case, is also good. Though they still do the anesthesia expecting a longer go, so it can take a while to get out of the recovery area.

Anyway, she's moving her toes and doing her exercises and resting. We're not expecting tomorrow to be fun (first PT session at 1 PM), but we do expect it to be successful.

Carrying on... right off to bed, now that the extra two cups of coffee are starting to ease out of my system.

Days to not remember

So, there are days to remember, and days to kind of skip over entirely on recall.

Like, oh, day before yesterday.

Up early and grumpy, heat out downstairs, forgot my supplements, traffic bad on the way in (not worst case, but bad), too much pressure at work, 1 hour prepping slides, 2 hours on the phone making edits by web meeting followed by what was supposed to be lunch but turned into more revisions from someone else, followed by another phone revision set followed by the project manager joining me and the business analyst doing more revisions followed by desperately sending the copy off to the PM to circulate followed by him calling me to make more revisions and me sending him two more copies mid-revision followed by printing and copying the presentation for the review meeting meanwhile getting MORE revisions by PDF and printing those and grabbing printouts and driving to the other building and picking up junk lunch en-route (getting anxious because the line was slow) running up to the building in time to be ON TIME (phew) and then running the slides through with a lot of discussion and more revisions and notes and commentary and discussion and side-discussion with followup discussion and more notes and then driving back to the office and making revisions using the notes (mine) the other notes (the ba's), the other notes (pdf)... and we just put aside the other notes someone gave us during the meeting. Then grumpy call from ep who wasn't expecting 'no lunchtime call' and 'no evening call' and when am I coming home because he's sick and the kids are being pains and ...

AAAAAAHHHHHH!

Got home, mad and resentful and grumpier than I started. Pretty much snipped at everyone, when I wasn't outright yelling at them. Mood not helped by having forgotten to take my supplements, AND having eaten fast food (even though I was careful to keep the wheat content low)...  Mr B responds to yelling by refusing to move a single muscle until he feels completely better, and you'd better not walk away when he's in mid-adjust (which takes 20 minutes or so) or he'll freak out utterly and ... he's in a growth spurt, I know this. His hormones are all cattywompus, he's not sleeping well, and he's coming down with a cold. I know he can't bear yelling, and yes, I was definitely yelling. Even when I didn't think I was yelling, I was probably yelling. I think even my calm whisper was coming across yelly.

Deep breath.

Dinner was cold fries left over from what should have been lunch, plus a brownie, plus chocolate rice milk. Followed by dumping the kids on ep (okay, he relented and volunteered for that, but I still felt guilty), working until very late, getting up early again... and still grumpy.

Not one of the good days. Not one of the days to remember.

I wish I could choose for the kids which days to erase, and which to keep - or at least flag the ones I think would be good to keep. I know their experience of their lives is different than my experience of it, and what they keep and drop will create the framework of their expectations. I hope they keep more good stuff than bad stuff - I think there IS more good stuff than bad stuff (at least from this angle), but you just don't know what will stick. I complained once to my mom when I was a teen that we had lived a half-hour from Rocky Mountain National Park, and yet we'd gone there, what, twice in 10 years? Her jaw dropped. We went into the mountains quite often, and I'd merged all the memories into 'younger' and 'older' instances. We did quick trips up to fish or jump around on rocks, it was a regular (if not year-round) experience. They did it so much because it was cheap, easy, and fun. And I remembered only bits, jammed into two instances. Uh. Bad brain?

I periodically set up the video camera to record daily life as it is. Not just special events, but the daily rounds - weekend breakfasts (because not only do we not have time to set up a camera to capture getting everyone ready for school, even I don't want to remember too much of that mad scramble), dinner time, hanging out in the yard, the kids playing together. It's not frequent, but it is intentional. I want them to be able to look back and see things they didn't remember because they just were everyday life. Unspectacular, neither failures nor grand successes.

Some of the things I remember are just those things - everyday moments, not great ah-ha things. And yet I cannot go back to any day by choice. I don't have a photographic memory, just a long one in the normal mode. Since I can't just wave a magic wand and give them the memory capacity I have, I have to do something else.

Hopefully everyone else will eventually forget the days like that one, though, or blur them enough that they lump together into a singular instance instead of being a constant theme. Yeah, it would be nice for them to skip over that one entirely.

Only, I wrote it down, so I won't be able to entirely lose track of the reality that there are bad days to go with good, and that when I do too much and don't take care of myself or anyone else (except work), stuff goes wrong in bigger ways. It's a good message to keep.

I just don't want to remember the details.

***

p.s. The workshop went incredibly well, we got everything we needed to get from the participants plus extra that we didn't really think we'd get, and a project that looked bad is now looking pretty shiny. NOT all due to me, as was duly noted - I did get the surface communication straightened out, but if they hadn't been doing really quality work to start with, no amount of surface cleanup would have mattered.

Life does that

Miss M has a lovely pair of metal staples in her scalp, as of yesterday.

We've now had one set of hand stitching (Mr G), one glued-together (Mr B), and now one stapled. We're done, now, right? One of each? We've experienced the full set. I don't need any additional experience on that.

Plans for the day yesterday of course were set and solid. I had a MUST DO meeting at work, that was crucial enough to keep me from going to the parent-teacher conference for Mr B (epeepunk was going, so we were covered). And of course, that's what epeepunk had planned (plus some other important things for finding work and keeping on top of the house and finances - he makes a better wife than I do).

Toss in one child with croup (Miss R), and things got a wee bit more complicated. Backup plan one launched - Baba to take Miss R during the conference. Okay.

Then I get the dreaded call at 12:30 (meeting is at 2) - Miss M fell, hit her head, after falling down was sitting (back up again), then toppled backwards into a pole and is now bleeding. Ep was en-route to get her, he'd call to let me know what the next step was.

Whee. Lurch goes the innards. That crunching sound was the sound of my priorities shifting into gear without a clutch. Kids first.

Now, ep can handle a hospital trip. He's not super comfy with the stitches stuff, but at least he knows now to not look directly at the wound while they're working on it (experience is a good teacher, there). But head trauma can have some issues, and we'd also like someone to make the parent-teacher conference (did she just feel dizzy? or was it a loss of consciousness? and that last time she lost consciousness after a minor head-bump, now that's creating a pattern! It sounds like she went shocky for a moment, had a blood pressure drop, and ... I'll have to ask the doctors.) And then there's the stitches, which might be more of a problem for him than for me, and I also have the entire mental file for medical stuff in my brain (the wet brain, not the electronic one) ...

Yeah, I scarpered. Called my project manager en route to the children's hospital (which happens to be about 15 minutes from work) to let him know that I was not going to be available for that meeting. Got there just as ep was walking in. Did the hand-off at the registration desk, and carried on.

I have had some issues with the local children's hospital - they were the ones who didn't diagnose the Fructose Malabsorption with Mr B. But that was just the GI doc that was at issue, really. The other docs were great. And the ER is much better than the others around - granted, it's just for kids, so they know what to do with little people who don't have a deep understanding of how this works.

We did have a lot of waiting, but it was broken up in bits - 15 minutes here, 20 there, another 20 after this person saw us, then 15 before the next person came in, etc. Usual hospital time rules apply - take any estimate, multiply by 3, be happy if they come in before that. They were spot-on for things they estimated directly - when they said 30 minutes, they were there in 27 minutes. Extra sharp, since they were also busy - besides walk-ins, they were getting a lot of ambulances in. The morning had been unusually slow, they said. But it was rainy and cold out, and that means later-day accidents, both auto and general roughhousing from being cooped up too long. 

Miss M did a perfect job of being a patient. It's funny - having had trouble with the anxiety issue in the past, we've managed to find a ton of coping mechanisms for her, so now she's much more competent with anxiety-provoking situations than one would expect of the average child. She kept her hands off the injury (just tried to keep the bandage on, which kept slipping around on her silky hair). She observed the people going by, and we talked about how hospitals work (that's one of the mechanisms - give her something to explore and understand). I coached her on what to expect, she asked questions about what might happen next, I answered her questions with range-based options (I don't know, maybe they'll do this, or maybe that; The said they'll be back in X minutes, but there are also other people here who need their help, so they might not be able to come back right away), and I helped her find interesting distractions (the coloring pages, the tv). And I kept myself from cycling into anxiety as well - granted, her behavior kept me from worrying, too.

She had no identifiable mental deficit - she was cheery, engaged, silly, emotionally responsive, a little flirty, a little shy, and spent a lot of time counting things. She got a bit more sucked into the tv than usual, but she also doesn't usually get to watch spongebob. We had to turn off the tv so she would answer questions. Oh, and since she had been very good on the diet lately as well, she had a very low anxiety pre-set (the fermentation sets up anxiety for her). Double bonus. Actually, triple bonus, because I got to explain to the resident that Fructose Malabsorption can lead to anxiety behavior. Educating people everywhere I go...

Miss M also answered questions, laughed when the docs and nurses were silly, and cooperated with having her head wrapped even though they had to wrap under her chin and she said it was choking her (not badly, just uncomfortable). She didn't complain about being papoosed to keep her hands out of the way and her body still while they were cleaning and stapling. She also didn't totally shut down - she was very quietly making fish faces at the nurse, then suppressing smiles when the nurse finally noticed. Everyone kept saying how helpful she was, how calm, how easy a patient, and (something Miss M noted) that when a kid is calm, they can finish up faster than if they're really upset and screaming or fighting.

They have a child development specialist whose job is to go from room to room to entertain and distract the kids, especially during procedures that might be troublesome. She came in during one of the wait periods, and got Miss M started on some puzzles and a necklace kit. Miss M finished the necklace while the woman was out of the room looking for more puzzles, and then she didn't make it back even for the procedure - which had the nurses kind of jumpy, since most kids do NOT want to sit still - even papoosed - for having their body stapled back together. But... no problem. The nurse just chatted with her about animals she liked, and I asked Miss M if she remembered when I used to wrap her up like that as a baby, so she could sleep, and she made fish faces any time the chatter lagged.

She was happy to leave, of course. But mainly because she wanted to go back to school and show them the necklace she'd made. She was totally pissed off that I said no, because I had to pick up Miss R from mom's and then get the boys and go home and all that. NOOOOOOooooooo! She griped about that while I was talking to my mom about how she'd done, and we had a moment's chuckle about how exactly FINE she was.

She did get a little sleepy sooner than bedtime. But the ER docs said that this was normal and expected for the first 8 hours or so. The concern is when the sleepiness extends past 8 hours, and/or gets worse, and/or develops into difficulty to rouse from sleep. They also said that any vomiting in the first 8 hours is also totally normal and not a sign of additional danger - it is just a neurological reset response. I'd heard that somewhere else (I think from someone on Ask Moxie?), so it was more a reminder that this is the new expectation. Head injury will have sleepiness and vomiting as normal symptoms, but if they continue past 8 hours or start after 8 hours, you've got a bigger problem (fluid or a bleed or something). 

She's happy that the staples mean no hair brushing for a few days. She's kind of interested in the idea that the doctor will have to take out the staples later. She quite logically decided that even though she doesn't like pain medicine, it hurt enough that she would take some before bed. Her left brain seems to have completed a major bit of development recently, which was quite clear all around - you could almost hear the therefore's and I deduce's in her conversation. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

The parent-teacher conference went fabulously, too. Mr B is a joy to have in class, he's never a problem, he's engaged and interested, the whole bucket of praise. The teacher has never seen a rage lockup occur, and can't even imagine him ever having one (we've been pretty good on the diet, so he hasn't had significant fructose fermentation episodes except on the odd weekend or holiday excess), and he's doing a good job of keeping the school child at school, and the home child at home (that is, he behaves in the manner appropriate to school at school, and lets out any frustrations or upsets after he's home - which means we get the brunt of it, but it allows him to focus on his schoolwork during school - not that he's been particularly challenging at all, really - he's even not doing too bad on being 7). Easy conference.

Miss M slept pretty well and is eager to show off the necklace she made (and the staples in her head - I've never seen them before, so I was surprised at how very much they look like staples - funny, that), Miss R still has a fever and croup, ep has his entire to-do list from yesterday to complete (plus today's items, minus two items from yesterday), and I will have a lot of extra editing work to do today.

Ah, well. Life does that.

Anxiety and Risk Management by Playing "What If"

Mr G is self-driven. He runs on internal motivation, period. He chooses, he does. He is also a generous, thoughtful, and considerate person who genuinely cares about others, so internal motivation isn't necessarily a problem. He started out pretty outwardly concerned, overly concerned with safety and approval, and we gently and carefully guided him towards challenging himself, allowing himself, choosing for himself, thinking for himself.

We had kind of blown it a few times (um, the first couple of years, straight through) regarding catastrophizing. That is, we greeted every possible conceivable risk with the worst-case result. Don't climb on that, you'll fall off and break your neck. Don't run in the street, you'll get hit by a car and die. Don't run so fast, you'll fall. Don't spin around in the living room, you'll fall and hit your head and have to go to the hospital for stitches.

It didn't help that the last two on the list actually happened.

We set up the world to be a place where the slightest error on anyone's part meant certain disaster. No surprise then that he was trending toward perfectionism (if I am not perfect, the world will implode, everyone will hate me, my friends will make fun of me, the teachers will not pay attention to me, nobody will love me), and anxiety (I can't try, it's too dangerous; I can't start, what if I can't stop?; I must always be on the alert for danger and threats).

Oops.

We did finally figure out that something was wrong with the picture, and started working through two book - Helping Your Anxious Child: A Step-By-Step Guide for Parents and Your Anxious Child: How Parents and Teachers Can Relieve Anxiety in Children. The first of those was also recommended by a child psychologist for Miss M's anxiety. So, two scores for that one.

Both books were worth the effort, though I discovered quickly that the main issue was not him, but us. Ouch.

Taking our cue from the books, we did two main things.

1. Stopped making every possible mishap into the worst-case.
2. Started talking about the range of real possible outcomes. And unreal ones, too.

The first item was remarkably difficult. I am prone to PPA (postpartum anxiety), so in my mind every risk kept bringing up just what I said - worst case. I could see the crisis coming, for every instance. This, however, isn't a useful way to live. I didn't even know about PPA at the time, but I did know I wasn't nearly so anxious before I had a child (I assumed this was normal, though it was just a bit on the outer edge of normal). Choosing to just state my worst fear to my child meant I was injecting those fears into him, rather than dealing with them as my own fears. I had to start relying more on allowing myself to be afraid, and to state that I was afraid. Teacher-friends noted that it is more useful to say, 'I'm scared that you'll get hurt' than to say 'you will get hurt' - because they WILL try it out to test your hypothesis, and they can prove that they didn't get hurt (that time), and so 'you will' is therefore suspect for all future cases, and may be discarded out of hand. Total ignore. That's just grownups being boring old grownups. But 'I'm scared'? Well, you know, that's not disproven. Every time we do something like this, and the teacher (or other adult) says, 'I'm scared', they actually look scared (or at least upset, and sometimes angry). Case is proven true, this is a statement that can be attended to. And kids are remarkably unhappy about making others unhappy, all things considered. More so when they have an honest statement to work from. It was still hard to do. Hard to say out loud, 'I am afraid.' Hard to accept that the child is not afraid of the things that scare me. Hard even for me to remember the sheer joy of meeting a challenge, climbing to the top of the slide, learning to hang upside down from a tree limb. Fear had no place there (okay, just a bit at the top of the really TALL slide, but having my big sister climb up behind me, and slide down with me between her legs, and pick me up with a laugh and a quick dust-off from where I'd flown into the dirt at the bottom, and then with a twinkle in her eye ask if I wanted to do it again... fear? yeah, for a moment. But oh, speed, and oh, height, and oh, the astonishment of the world blurring into a smear of color and light with the warmth of slide under me and the strength of sister behind me, and the sudden solidifying of all experience as I jarred to earth again... fear? what fear?). Even remembering that, hard to speak to my own fear, and not to try to make it theirs by force.

And the second item. Making the range of possibles a range of possibles is healthy. It is safer, and saner, and a better way to live. Refer to Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane). Addressing reality in a real way is a great safeguard. Knowing that there is a range of risk, and that one can choose one's actions to modify that risk is important. That, actually, was much easier, once I got past the emotions about my emotions (meta-emotion, 'feeling about feelings' - fear of being afraid, or anger or fear about people expressing anger, etc.), I was much more able on this front.

We started with playing 'What If' - whenever Mr G would bring up an anxiety, we'd open up the world to the many possible outcomes, not limit it to just one, and that one catastrophic. One I recall in particular was about 'what if a bear got into our house?'

Now, we live in a small town, but not in bear country. The odds? Vanishingly small. But minimizing the fear ('that won't happen' or 'that's a silly idea' or 'heavens, what made you think that was possible?') just makes people think they're not being taken seriously, and leaves them with the fear plus feeling alone, which is worse.

So, play what if? "What if a bear did get into our house? What do you think would happen?"

Mr G's response was that it would eat us all, we'd all die. I could then choose to minimize again - tell him his fear was misplaced, or silly, or not relevant because a bear would not ever do that. And again, that would just leave him still afraid and still alone. Instead, I went with the game - come up with another answer. ANY answer, and keep going coming up with answers until you are getting into the absurd so far that you have left the anxiety behind, and have presented as many possible realistic scenarios as you can think up, too. The kid will come up with all the scary ones for you, so you don't even have to go there, but you can allow them to be part of the range of possible. That allows the fear to be okay, but also places it in perspective.

I came up with, "as the bear comes in the back door, we all run out the front door, slam the door, run around the house and close the other door, call the police who come take the bear away. Now, what else? What else would happen if a bear got in?"

Mr G, full of his anxiety, was willing to let it out - more scary scenarios came out with each of the next few turns for him. But I took the ball and ran with it, too.

"The bear would stand up, ask us if we have any peanut butter, we'd say yes, give it a jar of peanut butter and it would say thanks, and then leave."

"We'd ask the bear if it wanted to stay for tea, and we'd serve tea and crumpets with blueberry jam, and the bear would be our friend forever."

Well, it didn't take long on that to get the imagination going, and Mr G ended up merrily deciding that the bear was actually an alien in disguise and it turned our house into a space ship and took us on a flight around the galaxy and we got to meet all sorts of aliens and see all the planets and...

And anxiety gone. The range of possible included (yes) the scary options. People DO get hurt by bears. And it included the sane ones. And it included the impossible but fun-to-imagine ones.

This game takes full advantage of the imagination that is involved in anxiety. One of the books (I can't recall which one) suggests that anxiety is often the result of an untrained imagination - or rather, one that has been trained in only one way, to picture the worst case. Modeling by parents makes that even more potent.

Now, Mr G is still a little cautious sometimes. But mainly, he considers the world to be an adventure with some risks and a lot of great possibilities.

Unfortunately his assessment of risk is still somewhat at the 10-year-old level, and so we spent four hours or so at the emergency room on Saturday, because he'd chosen to try to move some large panels of plexiglass while barefoot, and dropped one on his foot. It doesn't seem to be fractured (the foot - the panel is fine, much to their relief since it is going to be part of their bedroom decor), but he's still in a large black robotic-looking walking boot, and I still have to call the orthopedic department at the children's hospital to find out whether we need to do something more. I did manage to keep my emotions to myself (mostly), and instead of asking him why he didn't THINK and why he didn't ask himself if this was safe, and why he didn't... everything, I just asked if he thought he had new information about what he could and could not do safely, and what kind of safety equipment might be good before trying to move heavy objects, and whether the thought he should check in with someone with more experience with the task to help assess risks. (not all those questions at once, either - I spread them out.) And he ruefully said shoes would have been good, and asking an adult for help would have been good, and now he was going to have quite the story to tell his kids about choosing safely, and he's thinking he'll save the boot so he can show them what it looked like.

Okay, maybe that's a bit much, but at least his imagination is still working! I just wish sometimes the 'what if' was played out in his head, first, instead of on his body.

Well, I hurt today

Again, sorry for the slow posting.

I've finished the paperwork and sent it in.

And we've also swapped bedrooms.

The latter is why I'm sore. It sounds like a simple operation - take all the stuff in our room, move it to their room, and vice versa. And yet. It's never really that easy, is it?

First, we're not just moving rooms, but kind of blending them. The girls have been in our room since birth. So it was really our and their room. Two queen sized beds, built in, with padded headboards on three sides (also built in, with shelving behind to make up for lack of bedside table. So, rip-out and patching required.

And then there's the castle problem. See, a year or so ago, we redid the boys' room to look like the inside of a castle. It worked really well.
Photos of old room below:

We got lucky - my sister-in-law spotted a home fabrics store that was going out of business, so I was able to buy the coolest castle-y-est fabrics. The curtains are velvet in a rich Arabian-style carpet pattern, for example. And huge tassels! Tassels for 45 cents... yeah, that's in my budget!
But. Now we're swapping rooms. Different number of windows. Other room painted, um, yellow.
So, rip out, patch, repaint, install new fixtures.
And add another bunk bed. And put in a new door. And try to get enough bureaus in. And sew new curtains. And then try to convince everyone to actually sleep there, since our room now has just ONE queen sized bed. We did tuck the other queen mattress under the one bunkbed, sticking out (the long way) so there's a nice place for a grownup to sleep in their room if needed (curled up, but comfy). Otherwise, it's seating.

It looks great. I'm better at the faux stone. We installed the IKEA kids lights that look like torches and flicker, too. Cool all over - because really, if we're going to try to ease them into their own space (they've really been sleeping 'apart' in our bed for a while, and sleep in their own beds at my mom's house), a carrot is better than a stick. Underneath that, though, is the sense that a child's room should be magical, somehow - special, or private, or funny, or eclectic, but special. This is the 'special' that I know how to do. It's a matter of Respect and Kindness to make their room as lovely as possible, since that's what they enjoy.

But today I'm sore. Ep is upstairs soaking in the tub - he did more of the heavy lifting and assembly (with help yesterday from his dad), so he's been working the muscles that were more accustomed to sitting at a desk or doing site surveys - not sedentary entirely, but definitely not light construction.

And we still have more to go. There is stuff that will need to be donated (amazing how much amasses and just sits there!), and stuff to be put back, and ... sigh. Good thing we have a weekend ahead... (and weeks of evenings sorting out).

Draining the Quake Lake

I don't know how much attention other people put on the earthquake in Sichuan, China. I pretty much searched the news compulsively, as I'd spent three weeks there when I was 19. I knew that someone I remembered, someone I had developed a fondness for, was almost certain to be hurting. So many children died, so many families shattered, one whole village swallowed by mountains that moved closer together... The disruption of quake after quake, aftershocks measuring into the serious quake numbers, hundreds and hundreds of them...

One of the non-tragic stories was the forming (by earthquake) and draining (by strategic use of anti-aircraft weapons, I think) of a 'quake lake' - a lake formed by the blockage of a river because of rock and mudslides. The water flow out of the lake when they finally broke through the dam of rock and debris and mud was powerful, but a controlled release, and one that did not put hundreds of thousands of people downstream at risk. Hooray all around!

Last night, we had our own version of this.

I've been working at using the respectful communication, as I've noted. I'm focusing on the non-violent communication method, because it details exactly how to phrase what is a need, what is a choice, what is a feeling, what is a desire/want, etc. And it details how NOT to... rather mortifying to realize that I've been following the how NOT to, almost to the letter! And funny, when I read that saying, 'I feel that ...', is a cue that the following words will be thoughts or analysis and not feelings, I flashed back to probably hundreds of disagreements between me and epeepunk where I was sure I was communicating well and cleanly, and yet he felt blamed, guilted, or otherwise angry despite this, um, fact. I could hear me saying 'I feel that ...' over and over and over and over. Oops seems too small a word, here. (Fortunately he took my apology with only a little gleeful rejoicing that he was indeed right that I wasn't sticking to my side of the problem, even if he hadn't been able to identify why it seemed that way.)

Properly chastened, I started up again, working on doing it 'properly'  - which sounds awkward at times, but seems to work, so... effective, prudent, true. Going to use it, even if it seems odd for now.

And then last night, on the heels of this understanding, I was alerted to a problem. Mr B was screaming at the top of his register, the scream of hurt and fury and retaliation, the scream that is meant to cause pain.

I found Mr G lying on the floor, and Mr B screaming and holding the side of his head. I (um) demanded to know what happened, and (crud) ordered them to tell me (argh!) whose fault it was. Can I start any worse than that without hitting them? Oh, and don't forget the intense expression and loud voice - not quite yelling, but close enough.

And of course, having done so, I set off another round - Mr B said that Mr G had thrown him into the sofa, and he'd hit his ear, and it wasn't his FAULT. I snapped my attention to Mr G, who then went straight into wounded fury.

It turned out that Mr G had built a small lego creation, and Mr B had accidentally knocked it off the stool and shattered it. Mr G had glowered at Mr B, who had wailed, 'I didn't MEAN to,' and when this was not met by instantaneous forgiveness (continued glower), Mr B leapt at Mr G, attacking him in fury. Mr G then pushed him off, where he then fell and hit his ear.

Oy.

I apologized to Mr G, and followed him into his room (where he'd fled in despair and rage). And started over.

Listened. Asked for the emotion. Worked on identifying the need under the emotion. Coached him through it. And again. At first he didn't quite understand, but when he got that I needed to hear the real, deep, intense, NEED under the pain, and not just have him reiterate the pain alone...

Well, a surface-to-air missile was a close approximation to the impact.

His pain poured out in floods.

He poured out pain he's carried for years.

Pain of feeling supplanted by younger siblings, and needing to be valued.

Pain of feeling lonely and lacking friends, and needing to have community.

Pain of living far from the people he likes best, and needing to have choice and power in meeting his need to spend time with them.

Pain of being promised, and having the promise forgotten (that one TWO YEARS OLD, but still there, from a single event).

Need to be valued and treated as integral to the family at mealtimes, need to be valued by his cousin and not feel like a target for her own unhappiness about not having choice over where she spends her time in the summer (nothing drastic, just little niggling irritations constantly - he feels a lack of skill for handling this, too.).

Need to have choice over so many areas that really, he SHOULD have choice over, and often by the nature of life in a large family, he doesn't.

Need to be accompanied, to be in community, while working.

He feels alone and isolated in his own family.

It was pretty painful - for me. Hearing it and being open to the pain of all our errors, and the pain of all the circumstances beyond our control, of all the situations we chose and would not go back on but that come with uncomfortable edges or aspects... where we chose to live, how many kids we have, what we're doing for summer care, and so forth... hard work not snapping back into lecture, lecture, react, knee-jerk, hurt-back, and more lecture.

But, I did it.

I rode the wave. Kind of a crashing bumpy ride, like kayaking the surge out of the quake lake. Dangerous, in that tipping too far in any direction, losing the balance and flow of the outpouring, was likely to cause a lot of damage. Painful, like the amount of muscle strain working to stay upright while riding the flood would be. And, at the same time, exhilarating, powerful, awe-inspiring, humbling. Staying in balance through that flood left me feeling whole, competent, and true to myself, as well as aching with knowing how much my beloved son had been hurting without speaking.

It finally drained down to the steady pour of release, past the rage and sobbing, past the face flushed and body rigid, past the blame and anger and lashing out. Lake not empty, but now low enough to release over time (provided the spillway remains open), gently, steadily.

Then we could talk about my feelings and needs - with me asking if he could hear them, first. He agreed, and we discovered that his need for fun attention was intersecting badly with my need to maintain house, bodies, property. His resentment came out in the form of 'how come you care about perfect neat and tidy, and not US?' - um, perfect neat and tidy? Hello, that is so NOT what I care about! I care about usable space, some room to work, far from perfect! But to him, my need to put away clothes instead of sitting with him while he takes a bath, means 'put away' is more important than being with him. OUCH. YET, when I expressed my need to have a maintained space, property, and health, not perfect, and that I was working with many tasks that needed to be completed and limited time, he immediately understood that by helping more with the maintenance, he could free up more time and energy from me for fun stuff. He agreed that he would be willing to work out strategies for how he could help make that time for us. Openly, and looking more mature and thoughtful than I've ever seen. (Whoa.) I caught a glimpse of the young-adult in his face. Love those moments.

We also talked about strategies for solving the long laundry list of issues. He thought a family meeting might work (which always seemed like a really challenging concept to me - granted, two 3 1/2 year olds and anything related to serious discussions is challenging... we've tried them, but they haven't stuck. Maybe we didn't express well enough what they were for, how they'd help meet the kids' needs?).

Meanwhile, having left Mr B to his own devices, he spent the time I was talking with Mr G writing out, very carefully (two separate times), I'm sorry, I lied. About what? About it being your fault that you hurt me, and not my fault that I caused it.

Again, WHOA. He expressed it humbly, openly, and with sincerity. He then rebuilt Mr G's broken lego creation (in his own way). Which also brought up that we've been celebrating Mr B's talent with lego, but not Mr G's talent - smaller talent, but not insignificant, and really, we TRY (sigh) to celebrate their JOY with lego, their creations no matter what size or drama need to be valued. I don't want him to start declining to play lego because he can't compete... RIGHT smack back to the Siblings Without Rivalry book. Time for a re-read on that one, too.

Nobody had eaten, the girls were rambunctious (seeking attention for themselves), and it was getting late.

When I asked Mr G what he wanted for dinner, he didn't answer. (ARGH) I asked if he wanted pizza. He said yes. I made pizza. That wasn't what he wanted.

But instead of being grumpy at each other, I noted the facts of what happened. He realized he'd mis-heard me (thinking I'd asked him if he wanted to eat something with us), I'd therefore gotten the wrong message, and had acted on it. He winced ruefully, holding eye contact, and said, okay, he'd eat pizza then. Thanks.

Again, whoa. No grumping. Just acceptance. He wanted to have waffles along with pizza, too... I wasn't comfortable with this, and (woo, practice helps!) expressed it clearly as a concern (though still imperfectly overall - skipped the need to preserve our resources by not wasting food), and he shrugged, and said okay, he'd eat as much pizza as felt good, and then if he still wanted waffles, we'd go from there. He decided he didn't want waffles, half-way through the pizza. Again, no resistance, no internal pressure. The flood gates were already open.

I ended the day regretting deeply that I hadn't realized I wasn't using the method properly from the start. I was exhausted, though still feeling good, and despite the realization of soooo many mistakes on my part, not defeated. Still, exhausted is exhausted. I fear that I'm going to have to blast open a few more quake lakes before we're down to just the regular checking of the channels to make sure they're clear.

At the same time, I don't have any fear about the 'downstream' effects in the future - the flood of pain has been averted, it will not be able to build up to that extent again (I hope).

And many of my own needs (including to just have time to have fun) may find their way to being met. With willing assistance.

Cool.

Messing up and trying again

Long weekend. (No need for (much) sympathy here, or instruction, or guidance. Just offering up the example of 'what we say' (both the good and the bad), for examples.)

Much of the fallout from the fox pee has been handled or addressed - we're still working out the exact resolution(s), but it is proceeding. The whole chastened thing seems to have settled in for Mr G on being somewhat more aware of the fact that (GASP!) Mom has Needs of Her Own.

Like, Mom cares about her garden - not just 'oh, how nice, some flowers' cares, but really cares. I've caught him noticing that, now - mentioning to me things he sees or notices that affect the garden, and holding his eyes on me for the response. That's now on his radar.

We've been working a bit more on the respectful communication issue, as well - just in general. Because it works. And it works for each child. Well, for each.

And I suck at it some days. Or rather, I suck at remembering to do it.

Like, oh, bath time the other night. Two girls in the tub. I look up to find Mr G glowering over my head through the open door. Thunderclouds must be hiding their heads in shame, by comparison.

Mr G: M------!

Me: What's up? (Miss M meanwhile ignores him because it's WATER, and WATER, and um, WATER! Splash splash stomp pour WATER!)

Mr G: She. Took. My. Money. And she hid it. And I can't find it all! There were... there were.. (tearing up) there were FOUR dollars and she took them, and now I can only find ... I can only find... THREE. ( holds out the three dollars, fanned, complete with a dramatic pause - obviously this is of major importance?)

Me: (responding the hyperbole in the wrong way...) So, you're missing ... a dollar?

Mr G: YES! And it is MINE and she... she took it and she hid them everywhere and now I can't ... I found THREE, but I can't ... FIND. IT.

Me: (blandly) But it's just a dollar that's missing. (not getting that it was the violation of taking-and-hiding, not the amount that matters)

Mr G: She TOOK it and she HID it. (classic example of him trying to point me in the right direction, though I'm not getting it... yay retrospect, sigh)

Me: She's three. She does that. (and because there's nothing hurts so much that it can't be made worse by guilt...) And the real problem here is that you didn't put your money where it belongs, somewhere she can't reach ...

Mr G: (interrupting, face turning purple) I KNOW THAT. Daddy already SAID that. (breath) She TOOK it, and now there's a dollar missing, and I can't find it, and I've LOOKED. She ... she ... she HID it.

Me: (dimly noticing that I'm totally blowing a great opportunity here) So you know what to do with your money now. And it's just a dollar missing, we can fix that.

Mr G: (turns and stomps off, then calls from the other room) I want you to take her OUT of the bath, and hold her and make her LOOK at me, so I can tell her ... make her tell me where she put it!

Me: Um. (gears starting to turn, finally, but still only 10% in the right direction) Wait. You want her to get angry? ( aaaand crunch go the gears, grinding right back to lecture mode) Because that's what will happen if I take her out, she'll get angry, and then she'll ... you know, when people are angry, they have a hard time hearing what you're saying. She won't pay any attention to what you say if you make her angry first. (It's painful to write that part because it's so obviously related to how Mr G was acting and feeling, and yet I completely ignored that part regarding him! AHHHH!)

Mr G: I WANT her to be angry. I want her to feel angry.

Me: (Finally getting moving in the right direction) You want her to feel as angry as you feel.

Mr G: Yes! Yes! I want her to feel angry, and hurt, and ...

Me: You want her to really know how you feel.

Mr G: Yes. (more calmly, steps back into the bathroom) I want her to feel bad for hiding my money.

Me: Hmm. So you want a solution that makes her a bit unhappy or uncomfortable. You want her to know how it feels.

Mr G: Yes. Exactly. (totally calm... pause) Like what?

Me: Well, it's just a dollar. (this time said without any emotional loading - just stated as a fact) I could have her help me with chores, and then give the money to you instead of her.

Mr G: (slight vindictive bite to his tone) I want to sit there and watch her while she works. too.

Me: You really want to be able to see a bit of your pain reflected in her life.

Mr G: Yes. (Sigh, breathing normally, color normal now, turns and leaves)

Later, he comes back just to glower at Miss M again.

Me: What's up? Oh. Still feeling angry?

Mr G: Yes. (turns and heads off again, but face has relaxed)

The rest of the evening was pretty much a mangle. Mr G was clearly feeling wounded and sensitive and in need of some tenderness, and I was pretty much 'oh, you're here for your bath, okay, I'm out of the bathroom, you wash' and he wanted me to stay and hang out while I wanted to go put away clothes, and I snapped right back into lecture mode instead of acknowledging his needs and stating my own and problem solving...  and he looked crestfallen and not-at-all-mollified by the whole 'when they're 10 I won't sit with them, either' crap... because, really, is it about them, or about his need to reconnect after the fight? Topped off by me losing my temper at Mr G during his bath because I found someone had dumped his white uniform shirts on the floor AGAIN (fourth time) and he'd been walking on them without picking them up AGAIN, and I'd already TOLD him that this was a problem for me and I'd ASKED him to be careful and pay attention, and I'd REMINDED him that these shirts are to be passed down to his brother and I'd REITERATED that they needed to be in good condition to be reused and WHAT did I need to say for him to remember, and I don't UNDERSTAND why this doesn't get through, and I didn't want to see these on the floor AGAIN, and he was going to have to PICK UP EVERY ITEM ... lecture lecture berate shame guilt lecture lecture tell demand.

Damn.

I think I skipped over 'what is WRONG with you? are you BLIND?' and 'you're driving me INSANE, I'm going to have to move OUT' and 'What did I do to deserve THIS?' or 'What am I, your SERVANT?' Hey, can I count it a score in the plus column that I skipped those ones? (wince)

Yeah, let me see... script from my childhood, where my messes caused disturbances in my parents' marriage (step-dad), set off issues for step-dad a lot, which set off issues for mom, which came out badly (and at the age when mom was dealing with a lot of her own work, and had minimal energy for figuring out - plus little skill in the whole 'how to teach children to clean up' world at all - I understand where the script came from, and why, and have long since forgiven it... but it utterly sucks to realize I'm passing on that pain without even seeing it go by...). So, my script, word for word, or nearly (I was terrible about dumping my clothes on the floor until, oh, well into marriage. Still not great about it, but better... funny, this method didn't work for me, yet here I am expecting it to work for someone else?). Booger.

It was one of those days that I ended up going to bed thinking 'tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day, tomorrow is another day, in which to try again'.

And of course, the next day started with a fight between Miss M and Miss R. But I was still working hard on remembering the stop, observe (facts only, no assessment), reflect empathetically (their feelings out loud - my feelings to myself), and let them figure it out. And hey, in about 30 seconds from me starting to do it 'right' (flubbed the start, but got back on track sooner), they went from screaming and trying to push each other off the favored object to calmly discussing how to switch turns, who had which turn first at this point (and generously offering it to each other), and how long the turn(s) should be ('three' seems to be a favorite duration - three pushes of a button in this case, though it could be three anythings), and then generously making room for each other in the transition from who was up to who was down, followed by going off to play cooperatively together, followed by asking clearly for what they needed (time with me, reading a story), followed by me feeling able to calmly state my own needs regarding getting to work, but recognizing their needs remained, and suggesting a short-term option followed by a possible alternative, both of which were happily accepted... I left for work with them all smiles and cuddles sharing the remainder of a story with our nanny. The day was easy, calm, and cooperative, with creative problem-solving and good efforts all around (per our nanny).

It works, and it works, and it magnifies the good as it goes, and it is STILL hard to remember to do it. The urge to lecture, to berate, to remind, to guilt... so powerful. And so useless, too. The data available in the lecture is valuable, in some ways. If they ask. And even then, often they ask because they need to figure it out for themselves and need the opportunity to do so... and ... lecture still leaves them no room to find out for themselves. Sigh. Crud.

Safe.

Respectful.

Kind.

Effective.

Prudent.

True.

Bzzzt. I think I maybe passed on Safe. Woo.

Ah, well. Tomorrow is another day. And I'll try again.

It's not easy being (insert age here)

responding to Cathy's comment...

I was actually going to say exactly this - that I am not sure what age-appropriate for 42 is, and that it isn't easy being 42.

Case in point, me losing my cool utterly yesterday (okay, not screaming and throwing things, but NOT in control of my feelings and their expression) when I found out the elder kids (including niece) had used up an entire LARGE container of fox pee (to keep the woodchuck out of the yard)... a container that cost a good chunk of change (there goes my budget for next year's bedding plants, chopped in half!), and that normally lasts me more than a year. In one go, gone.

And yet - they were totally considered and thoughtful about where they put it. They attended to the important plants, the beds of flowers, their gardens, the places where the bugger might get into the yard. They put extra around the burrow entrances (two, both in our yard), including doing a good job of getting at the one that isn't easily accessed by an adult. They put it exactly where I'd have put it, plus some places that probably didn't need it but I could tell that they'd thought it through anyway.

They just used too much. And it still really hurt to know they hadn't looked at the price tag (nice and big on the front - but did they know to? no). And it hurt that I will end up paying the consequences for their enthusiasm (but they didn't know that, either). And I wanted them to have read the instructions (3800 linear feet... do we even have that much space in our yard? and would they know what a few ounces is?), or to have called me if they weren't sure - but they thought they WERE sure how to proceed, so how could they have understood they were not? I also wish that as each of them cycled through a little discomfort about the plan, they'd pulled back the reins on each other, checked in with an adult...

And all that is still age appropriate for them. What I wish most is that I'd not assumed that they grasped the 'how', and had given clear instructions, rather than saying 'you can put some on the plants' and pointed to one area (thinking 'these plants, here' but not saying it). It comes down to my own damn fault, primarily. A mistake, with good intentions all around. And we all know what they say about good intentions, not to mention assumptions. 

And beyond that, I wish I'd been more age-appropriate myself...  what is age-appropriate at 42? And yes, it's hard being 42, too. 

Skills

Skills. I definitely need skills.

Though I also need to re-read our parenting manifesto more often. Because the skills for staying calm (while I'm dealing with the depth of despair in my child) is right there - 'it will all be different 2 weeks or a year from now'... that combined with not letting even the slightest subtext change my tracks... those subtexts are MINE, and I need to own them and not let them rule the intersection between me and my child as if they belonged to my child. It's a different kind of staying present - observing the inner voice, then not acting on it yet - letting it cry out and then seeing where the hole in me resides, so that I can heal that wound instead of inflicting it on another.

All that stuff about not passing on the pain, you know. Which is valid.

As a child, I definitely was controlled in public with a sense of shame and fear - not harshly or intentionally, but ... well, that was the era, and especially parents who were not doing things 'by the book' were under the microscope socially, being scrutinized for how they were screwing up their kids. Single parent, divorced parent, working mother, GASP! Won't you think of your children? What will become of them? As much as my mom was good at putting off the pressure to conform, placing it back on them, she also leaked a little of the pressure around the edges. And I was sensitive to that.

Beyond that, the shameless commentary and glances from others if I misbehaved also was a method of getting my compliance. As much as we bemoan that we lack the connections with our community to have us responsible to each other - to neighbors and social peers - there was no way to control their skill or ability in how they applied those rules, either. Often enough it was shame, anger, guilt, and fear. I'll tell your father. I saw you being bad. You should know better. I thought better of someone raised by your parents. I expect more decorum from a girl. Not exactly messages my mom was trying to impart... but pressure applied nonetheless, outside her bounds.

So here I am, leaking out the pressure to make my kids into the ideal cultural norms - not bowing to the pressure at all, but leaking from the internal wound there. I was an observer. Noted as one, a social anthropologist before I could walk, I would happily sit in one place and watch how people behaved at a party, watch their interplay, their honesty and lies, their methods. I learned probably too much, too soon.

So, I conclude that it isn't the crying ALONE that gets me. It is that when it keeps going I end up interpreting from it. I get to where I'm thinking 'what if she acts like this in public' or 'she's learning to be selfish and greedy and I need her to NOT grow up like that' or 'if my SIL saw me right now, I'd get one of those looks that I know she doesn't mean as judgment in the slightest but that I feel as proof of my unworthiness...' ... I get the social commentary from my own childhood coming in and nibbling at my psyche.

It comes in as any variation of 'I'm failing to be a good mother to them' plus 'anyone looking on will *know* I'm failing'.

So it goes back to that same shame, fear, anger, and guilt. The big four of the codependency issues. They cry. I get afraid, guilty, and ashamed, and then I get angry.

Of course their crying isn't anything to do with any of those feelings. Their feelings are their feelings. Again, with the manifesto - keep myself separate. And know that I'm keeping myself separate. Because part of the problem was that I thought I was reacting to them, but no, I was really reacting to ME. I'm almost never aware of the flicker of inner voice - I'm such a raging extrovert that I rarely know what I'm going to say until I hear it - which would be after I said it. So, the subterranean mutter of 'you can't do this' and 'you're failing' and 'anyone looking at your child right now would think you are failing - even if you don't believe it, they WILL, and they'll all turn and look and shake their heads and talk behind their hands and throw disapproving glances...'

Makes me want to scrub my brain with a vegetable brush. But like cockroaches, those thoughts will just flee, and still be there. They have to be engaged, not wiped away. I have some practice eliminating guilt, shame, fear, and rage in other areas of my life. I know that the only way to deal with them is to name them. Name them, welcome them, hold them up for everyone to see (myself included), and ... and they dissolve, dissipate like mist, evaporate. Not even a shriveled rind remains when I do that - and it only takes a few cycles to make it work.

Hmm.

Interesting, that I started out thinking that the skills I needed were for the external process - the spotting the distress earlier (in both me and my child), working my way through the process without getting to the distress in the first place. BUT, there will always be times when we misfire. So... so, still need a method for then. And even once I got to that thought, I was thinking the wrong process. It is the little voice thing that I need to deal with, not my child's voice. Or even my voice.

Consciously, I mainly don't care what other people think of my parenting. But below that level, I do care. I want to be good at this. As an extrovert, I don't quite believe (or trust) that I'm good at something until or unless someone else says I am, until I get the public praise or the award to put on my desk. The process has to come in my ears and eyes to know it is true - the internal process requires external validation. Complicating that, I find that trying to trust myself too much on it makes me prone to coasting. Instead of demanding an award (seriously, no awards in parenting), I've chosen instead to just not be totally sure of myself. I'm okay with not being 100% positive that I know what I'm doing. I in fact, am far more comfortable with knowing that I'm making it up as I go along. I might be good at making it up, but I'm making it up.

and another tangle... Thinking that I have a really good grasp on this - in the moment - is hubris. And pride comes before a parental face-plant. (The 'we rock' post was right before the 'face plant' one, no?). at the same time (again, the back and forth of the see saw of observations), it is all back and forth - I've got it, no I don't, yes I do, no I don't. For every up, a down. Parenthood is a constant flow of qi, rotating from black to white, never ending in the ebb and flow of success-and-rest and fail-and-scramble, and always with just a little 'crud' in the 'WOO!' and a little 'I'm not totally sucky' in the 'wow, I blew that one'.

Now what?

Now, I go back to my methods, and draw the line between me and thee. Extract the internal voice, recognize it as my own, and deal with it separately from the kids.

So, yeah, definitely a weak point there.

Which means more work to tease out the injury, and more to figure out how to recover the strength that should have been, and then time, and practice, and more time, and more practice.

And in the meantime, remembering to look for the behaviors that set me off, cue to when my internal pressure goes up.

One thing at a time, though. I'll start with listening for the inner voice, and just observing what I'm feeling, thinking, believing... before I lock up.