Caution: I'm gonna cuss. That was the kind of day I had. It was the first time I almost cussed at the kids. I've been horrible and mean in all sorts of ways, but I have never been tempted to swear before. I managed not to for them, but I'm gonna fucking let loose now, okay?
So over on the Family and Friends Blog, I should post about how we got our tree today, and how great it was, and how the kids also got their first ever candy canes, and how thrilled they were.
But here's where we keep it real. All of that is real, but today, the primary lesson was--I suck. It started at 8:05 this morning when Oak came into our bedroom all despondent because the tooth fairy didn't come last night. He had fucking ORAL SURGERY yesterday, and the dentist pulled SIX TEETH, and I forgot to tooth fairy him, because I suck.
So I was feeling guilty for awhile, but he was being all whiny, and somehow blaming his sister for the tooth fairy's failure to deliver, then blaming his dad, and I started getting annoyed. Next thing you know, I'm dragging him down the street in just sweatpants, because he refused to get dressed for a walk. I'm pretty sure the neighbors are going to call DHS on me, because I suck.
Hours later I was dragging him down the street in socks with no shoes, in miserable, wet weather, because he wouldn't put shoes on the first five times I told him to. He was weeping and begging me to go home, and I just kept dragging him, because I suck. I wanted to shout at all the neighbors, "He had five chances! And cold feet won't kill him! I'm going to let him take a hot bath when we get home! And c'mon, how will he ever learn I mean it if I cave now!"
That was the day. Oak being bratty, me overrreacting, and then us out in the rain going around the block in various states of walking/dragging/carrying. I've decided that two reasons why I favor "go for a walk" when things are really shitty are because a) I need the walk to calm MYSELF down and b) if I'm walking down the street, I probably won't slap him, or do anything that would really necessitate that DHS call. The neighbors on the second half of the block probably don't think I'm a maniac, because after we schlepp up the hill, we both lose some of our fire, and that's when we start communicating, and talking to each other about how we want our day to go, or sometimes about how cars leak oil, or the way pine trees grow new needles, and suddenly we're just a mother and son out on a walk, instead of a crazy lady and a brat having a fight in public. But our nearest neighbors know that I suck. And I hate that.
Tonight grandma came over and babysat, so the Winemaker and I could go to a big raucous holiday party with no kids and inappropriate White Elephant gifts. (We came home with a bottle of vodka and a pink purse for Linden. It was suggested to me that I trade the vodka for an additional present for the kids, and I was all, what, are you nuts? since I suck. At least I didn't get Bam! the 13 inch...marital aid, or the bag of medical marijuana.) The kids were assholes for grandma. But she was very zen about it, because she's cool like that. At the party, a friend of mine who's hung out with us a few times was super understanding. It amazes me when people who know what it's really like, what Oak really does, how Linden overdoes the cutsiness to get by, HOW MUCH I SUCK, forgive me, forgive them, give all of us a giant pass to fuck up and keep trying.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
This is not uplifting. It's pretty much just whining. Don't say I didn't warn you.
So, today. Today was crappy. I'm really glad it's over. We put the kids down early, which normally we are not able to do. I expected to put my young kids to bed at 8:00, maybe 8:30. Hee hee. During the summer we struggled to get them to bed by eleven freaking o'clock. ELEVEN! School and less daylight helped us make a shift, but I find that no matter what time I start the bedtime routine, they are climbing into bed between 9:05 and 9:15. This means Linden is asleep between 9:06 and 9:16, and Oak is asleep between 9:30 and 10:00. It may not help that I am an Over-Optimistic Time Estimator (say that in your head like it's a super hero's name being announced), so each night when I decide how many books we're going to read together, I give them too high of a number. And once the books are chosen, man, there's no going back. The order of reading has already been set, and it's a complicated algorithm of which stories are more peaceful and should go last, splitting up the multiple Olivia books, wrangling over who's books are ALWAYS first, so now it's YOUR turn to go first...
But I digress. Tonight Linden was asleep by 8:30 (well, the shrieking may have woken her, but she was in her bed with her eyes closed), and even Oak, who was the shrieker, and is always the master staller, was finally horizontal at 9:00. This tells me that they were as ready for today to be over as we were. And/or that exhaustion was playing into their behavior.
It started a half hour after they left the house with a phone call from school. The phone call itself started, "Now, she's okay, but..." This is not a good start. Nobody is going to say, "Now, she's okay, but we've decided to give her an attendance award," or even "Now, she's okay, but someone stole her coat." That "she's okay" means the opposite--it means she's NOT okay, but she's still alive. The "but" was that she had a contusion on the side of her face, a blue bruise, swelling before their very eyes, and while they were not comfortable telling me to come get her and take her to the doctor, that's the subtext they were hoping I was getting.
Oh, and the injury? Came when her brother slammed her into the gym floor. That's what they said, not "tripped" or "pushed" but "slammed."
The injury was obvious from across the room. In the midst of all of it, I treasured the way Linden leaned into me and took comfort from me. The assistant principal was politely horrified by the whole thing. She said they would follow my lead in how to respond to the incident. I asked if he would normally be suspended, and she said yes, but...with it being his sister...she knows how siblings fight...and she wasn't sure it would be good for me to have him home if Linden needed my attention.
I was afraid that if I saw him, I would hurt him, and I don't mean with my words. So I agreed that my priority was to take Linden to a doctor, and I'd deal with Oak when he got home. For the four day weekend. Lots of time for...thinking things over.
I called our doctor, and got an appointment two hours out. I needed to drop the Winemaker's paycheck off at the bank so we can pay our house taxes, so we swung by the drive-through ATM on our way home. I rolled down the window, and my phone rang--the Winemaker checking in. I rolled up the window, because it was cold, and updated him. Linden wanted to talk to Papa, so I handed her my phone and rolled the window down again to make the deposit. The ATM spit the check back out and told me to talk to my financial institution. I sighed and went to pull forward so I could go park.
The car wouldn't start.
All that window-rolling had drained the battery. Yes, our car borders on being a piece of crap, but it's also a Honda, so it has it's awesome side as well, like getting 34 MPG and being reliable. Or not. Whatever. We're not getting a new car, okay? It was lowered when we bought it and we had it raised. We're committed to this car.
I put it in neutral and let it roll forward. This let another person pull in behind me, but I didn't have enough oomph to actually get out of her way and let her leave. Two more cars pulled up behind her. I was trying to explain to Linden what was going on, trying to ask the Winemaker for advice, trying to decide if it was worth putting things in the trunk before going into the bank to ask for help. The lady in the car behind us, who was 55 if she was a day, said something about needing to push it further forward. Then suddenly she was leaning on the back of my car. "Take the hand brake off!" she hollered at me, so I did, and she rolled me far enough that her car could now get by. Teach ME to judge the AARP crowd.
Moving right along...I went into the bank and two guys came out to help me move it to a better location. But then it started, so we all cheered, (one guy actually said, "What?!" like the young folk do), and I went back in and deposited the damn check. When I let the Winemaker know, he said he'd already gotten the day off, so he would still come home and see how Linden was. According to the doctor, she was fine. Well, yeah, swollen and bruised, but not concussed or otherwise brain damaged. I bought her a princess ice pack, and a princess purse for good measure, then I took her to See's Chocolates, because we were having a bad day, dammit, and Mama needed some chocolate.
So that was the morning. Things were going okay. We came up with a plan, which is essentially that Oak does all his own chores and all of Linden's for the next three days. When he gets home from school and sees her face, he apologizes, and when we tell him the plan, he quietly agrees. He offers to give her some of his Halloween candy, and we say that will not be necessary. He does a VERY typical, "But what do I get?" when he sees her new purse, but quickly swallows it. The Winemaker takes him on an errand, and I sit down to put together a plan for the evening, focusing on the restorative justice of chores.
At first it seems to be going okay. We watch several pieces of a video our therapist gave us, "Model Me Kids," which offers scenarios of normal social interaction. We learn that you should turn your body towards someone when you apologize to them, and that we shouldn't push or hit on the playground. I sit with Oak and write up an "incident report," asking him about the before, during, and after, then talking both about what his other options were when he got mad at her, and how he'd respond if someone else did that to her, as well as how other parents would feel if he did that to their kid. We do a little roleplaying of responding to your sibling when they annoy you. The Winemaker had them draw some picture cooperatively. I started making dinner.
Linden had a melt-down. I don't really blame her--even with the stress of the car fake-dying, her day was worse than mine, because she was in pain all day long. But it was loud, and long, and annoying. She was still whimpering a little when we sat down to eat. Food seemed to cure her woes. When dinner conversation got a little cranky, The Winemaker had us go around the table saying things we appreciated about someone. First we went to the left. Then to the right. Then across the table, which forced them to say nice things about each other. Oak said he likes playing tag and hide-and-seek with his sister. Linden wanted to say the same thing, but eventually came up with the fact that her brother usually shares with her. Things felt good there for a few minutes.
Oak, who'd been a bit amped up throughout certain parts of our before dinner activities, started veering out of control. When he threw a wet washrag at me, the Winemaker took him out for a walk. I did the dishes we were supposed to have done together, so when he came back, I assigned him a new job.
Blah blah blah. He kept being a jerk, I took him on another walk, he seemed to calm down and be rational, we tried again. Here's where it ended: after the traditional five minute's agonizing, he'd chosen the piece of Halloween candy he wanted for dessert--in this case a small bag of mini gobstoppers. I was showing him how to clean the spots off the kitchen floor. He said, "You want to see, Mama?" grabbed the rag out of my hand, turned himself bottom into my face and...let er rip. And in case you're wondering, it was not unfortunate timing. Trust me on this.
I sighed and said, "10 pushups," then as he started, said, "You know what? Never mind." He'd been given pushups in increments of five and ten all evening, and these would put him at maybe 50 or 60, or possibly 6,000. CLEARLY pushups were not improving anything. "Let's just go to bed," I said, taking the bag of candy and putting it up.
And that's when he went beserk.
You would have thought I'd taken his puppy to the pound. Seriously. Tears. Copious. Sobbing. Wailing. I know he has some food issues, but I did not see this one coming. He pulled out all the stops to get me to either give him his candy back or freak out and lose my temper. He got closer to B than to A, but I did okay. Better than I would have a few months ago, or even a few weeks ago.
I think we need to do a few days with no dessert, because sugar should not trigger that much rage and grief.
I also think I'm a horrible human being who should have just let the poor kid eat his stupid candy. No, I really don't, because one of my struggles is with consistency, and once I said, "Not tonight, but it's still yours and you can have it tomorrow," I absolutely should not have backed down. But maybe the no dessert idea is more about punishing than teaching. I'll have to discuss with the Winemaker.
In retrospect, although it was so, so very crappy, I think he went from rage and misery to bargaining (Can I have some Goldfish? Can I sleep in your bed?) to typical avoiding bedtime behaviors (I'm thirsty!) to settling down to sleep in about 40 minutes. And that's about how long it usually takes us to get him to bed anyway. Of course, today we skipped stories and brushing teeth (oops). But considering how freaking worked up he was, it sure could have been worse.
But I digress. Tonight Linden was asleep by 8:30 (well, the shrieking may have woken her, but she was in her bed with her eyes closed), and even Oak, who was the shrieker, and is always the master staller, was finally horizontal at 9:00. This tells me that they were as ready for today to be over as we were. And/or that exhaustion was playing into their behavior.
It started a half hour after they left the house with a phone call from school. The phone call itself started, "Now, she's okay, but..." This is not a good start. Nobody is going to say, "Now, she's okay, but we've decided to give her an attendance award," or even "Now, she's okay, but someone stole her coat." That "she's okay" means the opposite--it means she's NOT okay, but she's still alive. The "but" was that she had a contusion on the side of her face, a blue bruise, swelling before their very eyes, and while they were not comfortable telling me to come get her and take her to the doctor, that's the subtext they were hoping I was getting.
Oh, and the injury? Came when her brother slammed her into the gym floor. That's what they said, not "tripped" or "pushed" but "slammed."
The injury was obvious from across the room. In the midst of all of it, I treasured the way Linden leaned into me and took comfort from me. The assistant principal was politely horrified by the whole thing. She said they would follow my lead in how to respond to the incident. I asked if he would normally be suspended, and she said yes, but...with it being his sister...she knows how siblings fight...and she wasn't sure it would be good for me to have him home if Linden needed my attention.
I was afraid that if I saw him, I would hurt him, and I don't mean with my words. So I agreed that my priority was to take Linden to a doctor, and I'd deal with Oak when he got home. For the four day weekend. Lots of time for...thinking things over.
I called our doctor, and got an appointment two hours out. I needed to drop the Winemaker's paycheck off at the bank so we can pay our house taxes, so we swung by the drive-through ATM on our way home. I rolled down the window, and my phone rang--the Winemaker checking in. I rolled up the window, because it was cold, and updated him. Linden wanted to talk to Papa, so I handed her my phone and rolled the window down again to make the deposit. The ATM spit the check back out and told me to talk to my financial institution. I sighed and went to pull forward so I could go park.
The car wouldn't start.
All that window-rolling had drained the battery. Yes, our car borders on being a piece of crap, but it's also a Honda, so it has it's awesome side as well, like getting 34 MPG and being reliable. Or not. Whatever. We're not getting a new car, okay? It was lowered when we bought it and we had it raised. We're committed to this car.
I put it in neutral and let it roll forward. This let another person pull in behind me, but I didn't have enough oomph to actually get out of her way and let her leave. Two more cars pulled up behind her. I was trying to explain to Linden what was going on, trying to ask the Winemaker for advice, trying to decide if it was worth putting things in the trunk before going into the bank to ask for help. The lady in the car behind us, who was 55 if she was a day, said something about needing to push it further forward. Then suddenly she was leaning on the back of my car. "Take the hand brake off!" she hollered at me, so I did, and she rolled me far enough that her car could now get by. Teach ME to judge the AARP crowd.
Moving right along...I went into the bank and two guys came out to help me move it to a better location. But then it started, so we all cheered, (one guy actually said, "What?!" like the young folk do), and I went back in and deposited the damn check. When I let the Winemaker know, he said he'd already gotten the day off, so he would still come home and see how Linden was. According to the doctor, she was fine. Well, yeah, swollen and bruised, but not concussed or otherwise brain damaged. I bought her a princess ice pack, and a princess purse for good measure, then I took her to See's Chocolates, because we were having a bad day, dammit, and Mama needed some chocolate.
So that was the morning. Things were going okay. We came up with a plan, which is essentially that Oak does all his own chores and all of Linden's for the next three days. When he gets home from school and sees her face, he apologizes, and when we tell him the plan, he quietly agrees. He offers to give her some of his Halloween candy, and we say that will not be necessary. He does a VERY typical, "But what do I get?" when he sees her new purse, but quickly swallows it. The Winemaker takes him on an errand, and I sit down to put together a plan for the evening, focusing on the restorative justice of chores.
At first it seems to be going okay. We watch several pieces of a video our therapist gave us, "Model Me Kids," which offers scenarios of normal social interaction. We learn that you should turn your body towards someone when you apologize to them, and that we shouldn't push or hit on the playground. I sit with Oak and write up an "incident report," asking him about the before, during, and after, then talking both about what his other options were when he got mad at her, and how he'd respond if someone else did that to her, as well as how other parents would feel if he did that to their kid. We do a little roleplaying of responding to your sibling when they annoy you. The Winemaker had them draw some picture cooperatively. I started making dinner.
Linden had a melt-down. I don't really blame her--even with the stress of the car fake-dying, her day was worse than mine, because she was in pain all day long. But it was loud, and long, and annoying. She was still whimpering a little when we sat down to eat. Food seemed to cure her woes. When dinner conversation got a little cranky, The Winemaker had us go around the table saying things we appreciated about someone. First we went to the left. Then to the right. Then across the table, which forced them to say nice things about each other. Oak said he likes playing tag and hide-and-seek with his sister. Linden wanted to say the same thing, but eventually came up with the fact that her brother usually shares with her. Things felt good there for a few minutes.
Oak, who'd been a bit amped up throughout certain parts of our before dinner activities, started veering out of control. When he threw a wet washrag at me, the Winemaker took him out for a walk. I did the dishes we were supposed to have done together, so when he came back, I assigned him a new job.
Blah blah blah. He kept being a jerk, I took him on another walk, he seemed to calm down and be rational, we tried again. Here's where it ended: after the traditional five minute's agonizing, he'd chosen the piece of Halloween candy he wanted for dessert--in this case a small bag of mini gobstoppers. I was showing him how to clean the spots off the kitchen floor. He said, "You want to see, Mama?" grabbed the rag out of my hand, turned himself bottom into my face and...let er rip. And in case you're wondering, it was not unfortunate timing. Trust me on this.
I sighed and said, "10 pushups," then as he started, said, "You know what? Never mind." He'd been given pushups in increments of five and ten all evening, and these would put him at maybe 50 or 60, or possibly 6,000. CLEARLY pushups were not improving anything. "Let's just go to bed," I said, taking the bag of candy and putting it up.
And that's when he went beserk.
You would have thought I'd taken his puppy to the pound. Seriously. Tears. Copious. Sobbing. Wailing. I know he has some food issues, but I did not see this one coming. He pulled out all the stops to get me to either give him his candy back or freak out and lose my temper. He got closer to B than to A, but I did okay. Better than I would have a few months ago, or even a few weeks ago.
I think we need to do a few days with no dessert, because sugar should not trigger that much rage and grief.
I also think I'm a horrible human being who should have just let the poor kid eat his stupid candy. No, I really don't, because one of my struggles is with consistency, and once I said, "Not tonight, but it's still yours and you can have it tomorrow," I absolutely should not have backed down. But maybe the no dessert idea is more about punishing than teaching. I'll have to discuss with the Winemaker.
In retrospect, although it was so, so very crappy, I think he went from rage and misery to bargaining (Can I have some Goldfish? Can I sleep in your bed?) to typical avoiding bedtime behaviors (I'm thirsty!) to settling down to sleep in about 40 minutes. And that's about how long it usually takes us to get him to bed anyway. Of course, today we skipped stories and brushing teeth (oops). But considering how freaking worked up he was, it sure could have been worse.
A little lost comment, wandering alone and friendless
So, I read this great blog post on this great blog, and wrote a really over-long comment, and it won't let me post.
This happened to me last week, on the same blog. I don't know if Rage Against the Minivan hates me, or if comments are supposed to be, you know, short (but there were other long ones on there, I swear!) or if this is just one of the little jokes my laptop likes to play. Last year, when I was doing Weight Watchers, it wouldn't load their website. It was freaky. So I'm going with the "My laptop doesn't actually hate me, but it has kind of a mean sense of humor" theory.
Here's my "comment." Check her blog for the amazing post that unleashed my flood.
I was raised Episcopalean (but I think I just spelled it wrong), and didn't realize until my 30s that anyone would find "liberal Christian" some sort of oxymoron. Sure, I knew there were more conservative denominations--"Footloose" indicated that Baptists were against dancing--but I thought those were just fringe extremists. Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians (e.g. most of my church-going school friends) all seemed to support the same values my family had. It was somewhat of a shock over the past 15 years to realize that WE are the outliers.
I no longer attend church (which makes my comments irrelevant to some of you, I fear), but I feel strongly that the values I have--kindness, charity, sacrifice, love--are deeply rooted in the faith I was raised in. "Love thy Lord God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy might. This is the first, and greatest commandment, and the second is like unto it: Love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law, and the prophets." You follow the first commandment by following the second. And that whole Good Samaritan parable? It's not about naming hospitals. It's about how your neighbor is EVERYONE, even the people you don't actually like. Even the groups you disapprove of. That's why being anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-people on welfare seems distinctly anti-Jesus to me.
That being said, the administrations of Reagan, Bush, and the other Bush did not ruin my life. Some of the best times of my life occurred while they were in office. I hope those who passionately oppose Obama have the same experience.
Because while politics are important, other things (family, work, learning, chocolate and red wine all come to mind) are far more important.
This happened to me last week, on the same blog. I don't know if Rage Against the Minivan hates me, or if comments are supposed to be, you know, short (but there were other long ones on there, I swear!) or if this is just one of the little jokes my laptop likes to play. Last year, when I was doing Weight Watchers, it wouldn't load their website. It was freaky. So I'm going with the "My laptop doesn't actually hate me, but it has kind of a mean sense of humor" theory.
Here's my "comment." Check her blog for the amazing post that unleashed my flood.
I was raised Episcopalean (but I think I just spelled it wrong), and didn't realize until my 30s that anyone would find "liberal Christian" some sort of oxymoron. Sure, I knew there were more conservative denominations--"Footloose" indicated that Baptists were against dancing--but I thought those were just fringe extremists. Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians (e.g. most of my church-going school friends) all seemed to support the same values my family had. It was somewhat of a shock over the past 15 years to realize that WE are the outliers.
I no longer attend church (which makes my comments irrelevant to some of you, I fear), but I feel strongly that the values I have--kindness, charity, sacrifice, love--are deeply rooted in the faith I was raised in. "Love thy Lord God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy might. This is the first, and greatest commandment, and the second is like unto it: Love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law, and the prophets." You follow the first commandment by following the second. And that whole Good Samaritan parable? It's not about naming hospitals. It's about how your neighbor is EVERYONE, even the people you don't actually like. Even the groups you disapprove of. That's why being anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-people on welfare seems distinctly anti-Jesus to me.
That being said, the administrations of Reagan, Bush, and the other Bush did not ruin my life. Some of the best times of my life occurred while they were in office. I hope those who passionately oppose Obama have the same experience.
Because while politics are important, other things (family, work, learning, chocolate and red wine all come to mind) are far more important.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
We had a crappy morning. But I did awesome. You may applaud.
There's that thing floating around about how we all feel like crap because we're comparing our lives to other people's higlight reels.
And I find myself more inspired to write when I am excited and have something positive to say, which makes me feel bad for contributing to that cycle.
Here's the thing though. "Positive" in this context is not all that pretty. It's just that the bad stuff is so bad that I don't want to admit it or document it. Note that I haven't written here all month. And this is the blog where I use psuedonyms, and only about four people, none of whom know me, have ever read what I say. And I STILL don't want to write about how stuff is going.
It's not that the kids are doing badly. Considering their lives to date, they are amazing. It's my own behavior that shames me. After four months of almost weekly therapy, it's finally starting to sink in that the goal is not to change the kids' behavior so parenting them will be easier. The goal is to change my behavior, so that when parenting them is hard, I don't do stuff that:
a) adds to their trauma
b) makes me hate myself
Just to clarify, I don't beat them or swear at them (out loud/in their presence) or waterboard them. As a teacher, I'm a mandatory reporter for child abuse, and I make damn sure I don't have to call CHS on myself. Butyou I can be awfully mean and scary without legally crossing that line.
So here's my positive story:
This morning I woke up early so I could get all the breakfast/lunch making done before I had to get the kids up, since I figured they might need a little more support than usual, what with it being the day after their first Halloween. (Which was freakin' fantastic, but I'll save THAT cuteness for the family/friends blog.)
When I went in to wake them at 7:03, I discovered that Oak had wet his bed because he had firmly rejected my request that he pee before going to sleep last night, and then the Winemaker had turned out the hall light in an effort to save energy, forgetting that Oak is so afraid of the dark that he'd rather pee the bed than get up in the dark. So that threw me off a little, as I started stripping the bedsheets. But I remained calm and cheerful, and Linden was getting up a little quicker than usual, so I thought we were under control. Then Oak couldn't find his belt. This would be because he spent yesterday afternoon in the principal's office after taking off his belt and waving it around like a whip, so the belt got carried home instead of worn home, and none of us could remember where we'd put it. He sat on his bare bed in his underpants calling out suggestions, while I hunted around downstairs. In the meantime, Linden apparantly sat on the heating vent in her room and waited for me to come tell her what to do next, which sort of removed all the benefits of her getting out of bed so easily.
Oak finally decided to work on getting the elastic band inside his pants pulled up to its tightest level (little boys' pants have this system with elastic and buttons that is incredibly clever, especially when you have a little boy with a waist as big as your forearm), and Linden pulled on a t-shirt and short skirt that will leave her freezing and wet all day long, possibly as a way of informing me that she NEEDS me to tell her what to do in the morning. We got to the table and started eating. They wanted to know how many bites they should take. This is a new bit of nonsense, started yesterday when they were both "not hungry" at breakfast, so I told them they had to take three bites. Once they started eating, they both decided to finish it. But now apparantly I'm going to need to assign them their bites each morning to get them to start. Oak finished at 7:29, and I sent him up to brush his teeth.
Some backstory here. Two weekends ago, Oak got a haircut, and the stylist spiked up his bangs at the end. He LOVED it, and asked if he could wear it like that every day. Knowing that transitions out of the house are always hard for him, I said that every day he could be ready to go--dressed, packed, breakfast eaten, place cleared, and teeth brushed--by 7:30, we'd spike his hair.
You see where this is going? And you remember this is my version of a positive story?
At 7:32, Oak asked me to spike his hair. And I refused. Linden was taking her dish out to the kitchen, and I was trying to get her into at least some warm socks, and the Winemaker was just sitting down to eat, and by God it was after 7:30, and I was not going back on my word.
Tears. Wailing. Begging. Shouting. But mostly tears and begging, which was smart of him, because I am pretty tenderhearted. But I held firm. And I did two things, or rather, I didn't do two things. I didn't give in. And I didn't freak out.
I made it clear that if he missed the bus, we'd walk to school. (This from an earlier policy decision that screwing around all morning would not be a way to get a ride to school.) He was beyond caring about that. The Winemaker took Linden to the bus stop. I washed up dishes and told Oak I couldn't listen to him when he whined. He actually took a deep breath and said in a normal voice, "Please Mama, can you to do to my hair?" (sic) I was proud of him, but I still held firm.
"Sweetie, tomorrow morning I know you'll be ready by 7:30, and I'll do your hair then."
"Mama! All the kids smile at my hair!"
"Honey, nobody is going to laugh at your hair. It looks just like it did the first seven weeks of school."
"Mama, please!" in a whiney wail.
"I can't listen to you when you talk like that."
Etc. Lots of etc. At 7:55 I was getting worried. I really didn't want him to learn that if he stages a fit in the morning, he can miss some school. But I also didn't want to mess with my wonderful "non freaking out" vibe by stuffing him in his shoes and literally dragging him down the street. I've DONE THAT and it results in that self-hatred thing.
At 7:57 he said, "Mama, could I have a little piece of my candy?"
And with all apologies to his teacher, I said, "If you go get your shoes on right now, I will put a piece of your candy in my pocket, and you can eat it when we get to the parking lot at school."
We walked the 1.1 mile to school. It was raining, what we in the northwest call a drizzle. That means that when he rejected both raincoat and umbrella, I didn't overrule it, and although his hair got wet, he didn't get soaked through his coat. We noticed which trees sheltered us from the rain, and which dumped down extra big drops, as if they were rain magnifiers. We stopped and looked at some blackberry bushes growing up a grapevine, and noticed one tree that was completely, 100% bare of leaves already. He pushed the button for the walk signal at the intersection. We chuckled at the ducks bobbing and dipping in the marshy waters behind a housing development. When we reached the edge of the school property, he had his bite-sized piece of candy. When we entered the building, kids were still straggling down the hall, so we didn't check in tardy, but went straight to class. Two classmates greeted him with smiles in the library, and I thought--maybe he's not The Weird Kid to them, at least not yet. I let the teacher know about his morning and his fears, and he gave her the bookmark he'd made her yesterday as an apology for the belt-whipping incident. He confessed that he'd snuck a second piece of candy into his pocket, and his teacher, overhearing but playing it cool, announced to the class, "If you brought candy for a snack today, you can just leave it in your backpack, because I am not letting you eat it in school." Then, like a good teacher of non-native English teachers, she clarified, "No candy in my class." I assured him that I would put it right back in his trick-or-treat bag, and praised him for telling me the truth about it. I gave him a kiss and his (wonderful, wonderful) teacher a smile, and headed back into the wet.
Full of energy. Full of cheer. Knowing that even though the morning didn't go smoothly, not at all, I had handled it without losing my sh*t. I didn't add to his trauma. I don't have to spend the rest of the day hating myself. His behavior? Well, it will go up and down, although I suspect he'll be ready by 7:30 every single day until the thrill of gelling his bangs wears off. But my behavior? That I can change. And THAT is what will make me feel successful.
And I find myself more inspired to write when I am excited and have something positive to say, which makes me feel bad for contributing to that cycle.
Here's the thing though. "Positive" in this context is not all that pretty. It's just that the bad stuff is so bad that I don't want to admit it or document it. Note that I haven't written here all month. And this is the blog where I use psuedonyms, and only about four people, none of whom know me, have ever read what I say. And I STILL don't want to write about how stuff is going.
It's not that the kids are doing badly. Considering their lives to date, they are amazing. It's my own behavior that shames me. After four months of almost weekly therapy, it's finally starting to sink in that the goal is not to change the kids' behavior so parenting them will be easier. The goal is to change my behavior, so that when parenting them is hard, I don't do stuff that:
a) adds to their trauma
b) makes me hate myself
Just to clarify, I don't beat them or swear at them (out loud/in their presence) or waterboard them. As a teacher, I'm a mandatory reporter for child abuse, and I make damn sure I don't have to call CHS on myself. But
So here's my positive story:
This morning I woke up early so I could get all the breakfast/lunch making done before I had to get the kids up, since I figured they might need a little more support than usual, what with it being the day after their first Halloween. (Which was freakin' fantastic, but I'll save THAT cuteness for the family/friends blog.)
When I went in to wake them at 7:03, I discovered that Oak had wet his bed because he had firmly rejected my request that he pee before going to sleep last night, and then the Winemaker had turned out the hall light in an effort to save energy, forgetting that Oak is so afraid of the dark that he'd rather pee the bed than get up in the dark. So that threw me off a little, as I started stripping the bedsheets. But I remained calm and cheerful, and Linden was getting up a little quicker than usual, so I thought we were under control. Then Oak couldn't find his belt. This would be because he spent yesterday afternoon in the principal's office after taking off his belt and waving it around like a whip, so the belt got carried home instead of worn home, and none of us could remember where we'd put it. He sat on his bare bed in his underpants calling out suggestions, while I hunted around downstairs. In the meantime, Linden apparantly sat on the heating vent in her room and waited for me to come tell her what to do next, which sort of removed all the benefits of her getting out of bed so easily.
Oak finally decided to work on getting the elastic band inside his pants pulled up to its tightest level (little boys' pants have this system with elastic and buttons that is incredibly clever, especially when you have a little boy with a waist as big as your forearm), and Linden pulled on a t-shirt and short skirt that will leave her freezing and wet all day long, possibly as a way of informing me that she NEEDS me to tell her what to do in the morning. We got to the table and started eating. They wanted to know how many bites they should take. This is a new bit of nonsense, started yesterday when they were both "not hungry" at breakfast, so I told them they had to take three bites. Once they started eating, they both decided to finish it. But now apparantly I'm going to need to assign them their bites each morning to get them to start. Oak finished at 7:29, and I sent him up to brush his teeth.
Some backstory here. Two weekends ago, Oak got a haircut, and the stylist spiked up his bangs at the end. He LOVED it, and asked if he could wear it like that every day. Knowing that transitions out of the house are always hard for him, I said that every day he could be ready to go--dressed, packed, breakfast eaten, place cleared, and teeth brushed--by 7:30, we'd spike his hair.
You see where this is going? And you remember this is my version of a positive story?
At 7:32, Oak asked me to spike his hair. And I refused. Linden was taking her dish out to the kitchen, and I was trying to get her into at least some warm socks, and the Winemaker was just sitting down to eat, and by God it was after 7:30, and I was not going back on my word.
Tears. Wailing. Begging. Shouting. But mostly tears and begging, which was smart of him, because I am pretty tenderhearted. But I held firm. And I did two things, or rather, I didn't do two things. I didn't give in. And I didn't freak out.
I made it clear that if he missed the bus, we'd walk to school. (This from an earlier policy decision that screwing around all morning would not be a way to get a ride to school.) He was beyond caring about that. The Winemaker took Linden to the bus stop. I washed up dishes and told Oak I couldn't listen to him when he whined. He actually took a deep breath and said in a normal voice, "Please Mama, can you to do to my hair?" (sic) I was proud of him, but I still held firm.
"Sweetie, tomorrow morning I know you'll be ready by 7:30, and I'll do your hair then."
"Mama! All the kids smile at my hair!"
"Honey, nobody is going to laugh at your hair. It looks just like it did the first seven weeks of school."
"Mama, please!" in a whiney wail.
"I can't listen to you when you talk like that."
Etc. Lots of etc. At 7:55 I was getting worried. I really didn't want him to learn that if he stages a fit in the morning, he can miss some school. But I also didn't want to mess with my wonderful "non freaking out" vibe by stuffing him in his shoes and literally dragging him down the street. I've DONE THAT and it results in that self-hatred thing.
At 7:57 he said, "Mama, could I have a little piece of my candy?"
And with all apologies to his teacher, I said, "If you go get your shoes on right now, I will put a piece of your candy in my pocket, and you can eat it when we get to the parking lot at school."
We walked the 1.1 mile to school. It was raining, what we in the northwest call a drizzle. That means that when he rejected both raincoat and umbrella, I didn't overrule it, and although his hair got wet, he didn't get soaked through his coat. We noticed which trees sheltered us from the rain, and which dumped down extra big drops, as if they were rain magnifiers. We stopped and looked at some blackberry bushes growing up a grapevine, and noticed one tree that was completely, 100% bare of leaves already. He pushed the button for the walk signal at the intersection. We chuckled at the ducks bobbing and dipping in the marshy waters behind a housing development. When we reached the edge of the school property, he had his bite-sized piece of candy. When we entered the building, kids were still straggling down the hall, so we didn't check in tardy, but went straight to class. Two classmates greeted him with smiles in the library, and I thought--maybe he's not The Weird Kid to them, at least not yet. I let the teacher know about his morning and his fears, and he gave her the bookmark he'd made her yesterday as an apology for the belt-whipping incident. He confessed that he'd snuck a second piece of candy into his pocket, and his teacher, overhearing but playing it cool, announced to the class, "If you brought candy for a snack today, you can just leave it in your backpack, because I am not letting you eat it in school." Then, like a good teacher of non-native English teachers, she clarified, "No candy in my class." I assured him that I would put it right back in his trick-or-treat bag, and praised him for telling me the truth about it. I gave him a kiss and his (wonderful, wonderful) teacher a smile, and headed back into the wet.
Full of energy. Full of cheer. Knowing that even though the morning didn't go smoothly, not at all, I had handled it without losing my sh*t. I didn't add to his trauma. I don't have to spend the rest of the day hating myself. His behavior? Well, it will go up and down, although I suspect he'll be ready by 7:30 every single day until the thrill of gelling his bangs wears off. But my behavior? That I can change. And THAT is what will make me feel successful.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Half full.
Too many blog posts have been written only in my head. I need to take time when I can, and get what I can written down, instead of waiting to have time to craft something that is as close as I am capable of to the magnificent writing of the blogs I love to read.
When we first met our therapist, we were describing the incidences of our first few weeks with the kids, especially our trip home and the first 16 hours here, which had me on the phone in tears that second day, trying to GET A THERAPY APPOINTMENT NOW, NOT NEXT WEEK. I said, "But it's not as bad as some of what I've read. I mean, there have been some weird peeing things, but they haven't spread feces on the living room walls or anything like that." She gave a little bark of laughter and said, "You're an optimist, aren't you?" At first I thought she was saying I was being overly optimistic and that brown walls were guaranteed in our future. Then I realized she was saying that anyone who can say, "Yay, no sh*t on the walls!" is in the "Glass is half full" camp.
And she's right. I tend to think things can get better. Don't get me wrong-- I can be sad and miserable with the best of them, and I know that life is NOT always fair, that sometimes it DOES give you more than you can handle, and that even beyond the sadness and struggle of the lives around me, there is despair and hardship beyond measure in places far away. But on a level of my that's beyond my conscious control, I seek silver linings, and I celebrate progress.
One of my oldest friends found out, about 18 months ago, that her husband had molested her daughter.
After my mom's death, my dad's mental and physical health deteriorated so rapidly that we had to put him in an adult foster care home--after taking him to the doctor and letting the doctor explain why he couldn't legally or morally help him kill himself.
My two children have gone through things I have trouble even thinking about, and we all have years of hard work ahead to help them heal from that.
Life can suck.
But my friend and her girls are carrying on, with grace and strength and love. My friend, always a strong survivor, found depths in herself even she didn't suspect, and her circle of family and friends, already a support to her, came through in ways she never would have imagined.
My father has regained his enthusiasm for life as he enters his 80s. Just last weekend he participated in an Open Studio tour, and sold several of the photos he has taken in the last year from his wheelchair. He used to travel the world getting pictures of exotic locales, fascinating people, and wild animals. Now his focus (ha!) is the cats at his living place, or flowers we bring him. His art still shines through, and his pride is coming back.
And my kids? So much has been taken from them, so much has been done to them. We are so far from the parents we want to be for them. But we are dedicated to learning and doing better, to supporting them as they learn and grow. We will give them all we can of ourselves. They haven't had that before. Now they do. It's hard, for all of us, and it's not going to get easy for a long time. But we're all here together now. Things will work out.
Yes, I'm an optimist.
When we first met our therapist, we were describing the incidences of our first few weeks with the kids, especially our trip home and the first 16 hours here, which had me on the phone in tears that second day, trying to GET A THERAPY APPOINTMENT NOW, NOT NEXT WEEK. I said, "But it's not as bad as some of what I've read. I mean, there have been some weird peeing things, but they haven't spread feces on the living room walls or anything like that." She gave a little bark of laughter and said, "You're an optimist, aren't you?" At first I thought she was saying I was being overly optimistic and that brown walls were guaranteed in our future. Then I realized she was saying that anyone who can say, "Yay, no sh*t on the walls!" is in the "Glass is half full" camp.
And she's right. I tend to think things can get better. Don't get me wrong-- I can be sad and miserable with the best of them, and I know that life is NOT always fair, that sometimes it DOES give you more than you can handle, and that even beyond the sadness and struggle of the lives around me, there is despair and hardship beyond measure in places far away. But on a level of my that's beyond my conscious control, I seek silver linings, and I celebrate progress.
One of my oldest friends found out, about 18 months ago, that her husband had molested her daughter.
After my mom's death, my dad's mental and physical health deteriorated so rapidly that we had to put him in an adult foster care home--after taking him to the doctor and letting the doctor explain why he couldn't legally or morally help him kill himself.
My two children have gone through things I have trouble even thinking about, and we all have years of hard work ahead to help them heal from that.
Life can suck.
But my friend and her girls are carrying on, with grace and strength and love. My friend, always a strong survivor, found depths in herself even she didn't suspect, and her circle of family and friends, already a support to her, came through in ways she never would have imagined.
My father has regained his enthusiasm for life as he enters his 80s. Just last weekend he participated in an Open Studio tour, and sold several of the photos he has taken in the last year from his wheelchair. He used to travel the world getting pictures of exotic locales, fascinating people, and wild animals. Now his focus (ha!) is the cats at his living place, or flowers we bring him. His art still shines through, and his pride is coming back.
And my kids? So much has been taken from them, so much has been done to them. We are so far from the parents we want to be for them. But we are dedicated to learning and doing better, to supporting them as they learn and grow. We will give them all we can of ourselves. They haven't had that before. Now they do. It's hard, for all of us, and it's not going to get easy for a long time. But we're all here together now. Things will work out.
Yes, I'm an optimist.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Not Knowing, or Why I Will Be Giving Up 45 Precious Minutes per Day of Vegging Out on the Computer
When the kindergarten ESL bus pulled up today, the driver leaned over and called out, "She says she has a headache and her tummy hurts." Linden dragged herself off the bus and walked up and leaned her head into me. The Winemaker asked her when her tummy started to hurt, and a soft but fervent stammering began, mixing English and her native language. I couldn't hear her so close to the busy road, but I did hear her say she wants us to start picking her up after school. As we walked home, the listlesness eased a bit, and she picked up a stick and showed me it was shaped like an L. Once home, she sat down to take her shoes off, then scooted over on her bottom and wrapped herself around my slippered foot. She told us again that her tummy started hurting on the bus, and that she wants us to start picking her up again. We exchanged glances over her head.
Linden gets carsick. A few minutes into any trip, she announces the headache. On our first longer trip, she puked almost exactly an hour into the trip. Since then, we've give her half a children's dramamine before any longer trip, and she always has a plastic bag near her, just in case. I've read up on it a bit, and found that this is fairly common in kids under 10--a combination of factors including being too short to really focus out the window as well as more complex physiological factors. So I tried to not get too worked up about it.
The first two weeks of school, she wasn't on the afternoon bus route yet, since she was new to the ESL program, which has its own bus 90 minutes after the regular morning kindergarteners go home. She was itching to ride the afternoon bus, and came home pissed off a few times because she kept getting it into her head that she should be ON THAT BUS, not getting picked up by mom and dad. When they finally added her to the route, she was added as the last stop--45 minutes to get 1.1 miles. I told her it would be a really long ride, and she insisted it was fine. We asked again about it once she started riding, and she insisted that she loved the bus, it was fine, she felt great. I'll be honest here--I figured this was 45 more minutes for me to get stuff done at home, and let it go.
Yesterday she and I were at the zoo. We left when everyone else did, at closing. The traffic in the parking lot was, um, like a parking lot Or possibly like a zoo. The temperature was pleasant--not hot, not cold. She wasn't hungry or overfull. We had only driven the car long enough to get out of our parking spot, then we were stuck in such a jam that I just killed the engine.
"Mama, I have a headache," she announced.
This struck me as decidedly odd. We weren't moving. We hadn't been moving. We were pretty much just sitting in a parked car with a pleasant breeze coming in partially opened windows. When I say the traffic was bad, it was bad in a very well-mannered "I just took my family to the zoo!" way, with no honking or aggression on display, and not enough idling time to create noticable fumes. How could this create motion sickness?
What happened to her in a car? I wonder. What could her body be remembering that makes her hurt all over? It could be nothing. She might just be super sensitive to motion. Or she could have been molested in a car. Or she subconsciously might associate cars with being removed from her home. The thing is, I don't know. This is one area where the "Welcome to Parenthood!" people, the ones who think that my kids are just like their kids, are way off base. If you've raised a child from birth, you know what's happened to them. You know their trauma, if any, and you sure as hell know their triggers, am I right? But I DO NOT KNOW.
This is why I will probably be giving up those 45 minutes and picking her up again. We have to spend a lot of time in the car. We are, after all, suburban Americans. But given the ridiculousness of that 45 minutes trip to cover a walkable distance anyway, I don't feel that I can justify forcing her to take the bus.
Not knowing. It complicates things. I can't let it rule our lives, but I can't pretend that every time we don't know, the least harmful possibility is the reality.
Linden gets carsick. A few minutes into any trip, she announces the headache. On our first longer trip, she puked almost exactly an hour into the trip. Since then, we've give her half a children's dramamine before any longer trip, and she always has a plastic bag near her, just in case. I've read up on it a bit, and found that this is fairly common in kids under 10--a combination of factors including being too short to really focus out the window as well as more complex physiological factors. So I tried to not get too worked up about it.
The first two weeks of school, she wasn't on the afternoon bus route yet, since she was new to the ESL program, which has its own bus 90 minutes after the regular morning kindergarteners go home. She was itching to ride the afternoon bus, and came home pissed off a few times because she kept getting it into her head that she should be ON THAT BUS, not getting picked up by mom and dad. When they finally added her to the route, she was added as the last stop--45 minutes to get 1.1 miles. I told her it would be a really long ride, and she insisted it was fine. We asked again about it once she started riding, and she insisted that she loved the bus, it was fine, she felt great. I'll be honest here--I figured this was 45 more minutes for me to get stuff done at home, and let it go.
Yesterday she and I were at the zoo. We left when everyone else did, at closing. The traffic in the parking lot was, um, like a parking lot Or possibly like a zoo. The temperature was pleasant--not hot, not cold. She wasn't hungry or overfull. We had only driven the car long enough to get out of our parking spot, then we were stuck in such a jam that I just killed the engine.
"Mama, I have a headache," she announced.
This struck me as decidedly odd. We weren't moving. We hadn't been moving. We were pretty much just sitting in a parked car with a pleasant breeze coming in partially opened windows. When I say the traffic was bad, it was bad in a very well-mannered "I just took my family to the zoo!" way, with no honking or aggression on display, and not enough idling time to create noticable fumes. How could this create motion sickness?
What happened to her in a car? I wonder. What could her body be remembering that makes her hurt all over? It could be nothing. She might just be super sensitive to motion. Or she could have been molested in a car. Or she subconsciously might associate cars with being removed from her home. The thing is, I don't know. This is one area where the "Welcome to Parenthood!" people, the ones who think that my kids are just like their kids, are way off base. If you've raised a child from birth, you know what's happened to them. You know their trauma, if any, and you sure as hell know their triggers, am I right? But I DO NOT KNOW.
This is why I will probably be giving up those 45 minutes and picking her up again. We have to spend a lot of time in the car. We are, after all, suburban Americans. But given the ridiculousness of that 45 minutes trip to cover a walkable distance anyway, I don't feel that I can justify forcing her to take the bus.
Not knowing. It complicates things. I can't let it rule our lives, but I can't pretend that every time we don't know, the least harmful possibility is the reality.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Not perfect, just better.
School starts tomorrow. That's the first thing to know.
Oak spent major portions of today stringing dental floss around his room and trying to rig it so things would slide and pulley and ratchet and up and generally DO STUFF if you opened the door. He also decided he was going to build a helicopter. Linden came in from where her brother was working on the back lawn and announced in the half horrified, half delighted tones of a veteran tattle taler, "Oak is building a helicopter and is going to fly back to Baltia!" (Do I really need to gloss over their specific country of birth? The thing is, just a handful of people adopt from that part of the world, so I feel like if I don't keep it vague, I'm being overly public.) This means the helicopter will be slightly bigger than I had imagined. Or that he was bullshitting his sister.
Tonight we were heading to bed a bit earlier than usual. It seems 11 pm on a school night is frowned upon by the PTO. We'd had baths, and there were sprinkles on their ice cream, and new clothes were laid out, and we'd given them the (shh) dollar watches we bought last week on the sly, which I'd hastily wrapped in their construction paper. We thought we had done a nice job of "Yay, isn't getting ready for school FUN?"
Linden and I were heading into her bedroom with a book (Hey, what a coincidence! It was about how much fun the first day of school is!), and the Winemaker and Oak were in Oak's bedroom already. In the tones of a man who has already said this three times, I heard the Winemaker say, "Time to turn out the light and go to bed."
"One minute! One minute!" muttered Oak, as he hunkered down to work on yet another section of trip wire.
"Do you want me to just turn out the light?" I asked. I got the go ahead, and did so, then went next door and started reading to Linden.
I'd only gotten up to the third child's wish for what would happen at school this year (chocolate in the water fountain), when the Winemaker called, "Could you come help? He's having some trouble." Usually I'm the one hollering for backup, as I'm the one whose temper flares out of control too quickly. I set Linden down with her book on her bed and walked back to Oak's room. He was flailing and wailing. I told him he could keep working on his project tomorrow afternoon, and he threw himself onto the floor and started pounding on it. I scooped him up, and he twisted away from me and ran.
Here is where EVERY SINGLE OTHER TIME it's been like this, I would have lost my shit entirely. I would have dragged him out of the house on a forced walk, and when he resisted, as he would have, I would have picked him up, choosing a position that couldn't possibly be taken as comfortable and nurturing, and schlupped him along until he wailed to be put down, then I would have plunked him down and snapped, "Then WALK!" and he would have sat down and refused, and so on.
But tonight I remembered that one little detail. School starts tomorrow. He was described to us as a poor student during his first grade year last year. Now we're sending him away from our 24/7 care, to people he doesn't know, who use a language he doesn't speak, to navigate a system he's unfamiliar with. So instead of marching him straight out the door, I took him into our bedroom, and tried to hold him in my arms. I wanted to cradle him like a baby, with his butt in my lap, and my arms supporting his shoulders and knees.
Have you ever tried cradling an 8 year old who wants to lay face down on the bed and kick and pound it? It was like holding a flopping fish. He kept twisting around to lay face down instead, and I kept gamely flipping him back over. Although it was basically a wrestling match, I kept my voice level and sweet. When I got him into position, I asked him to look at me, and he couldn't. He made crazy faces and laughed hysterically and tried to flip over again. When I wouldn't let him, he swung at my face--not actually trying to hurt, just to make me let go, give up, lose my literal and figurative grip. I grabbed his wrists, which sort of killed the gentle nurturing aspect of what I was trying to do, but I KEPT MY COOL. You have no idea what an accomplishment this is. I CONTINUED TO SPEAK KINDLY AND GENTLY as I grimly hung on. When he howled that it hurt, I made myself mentally check what I was doing--was my tension making itself felt in how I held him? Nope, I still had my self control, and all I was doing was restraining flailing hands and legs, not squashing, twisting, or otherwise doing anything that would hurt. I told him so, and that I would let his arms go when he calmed himself. He yanked one hand away and smacked at me--again, not hard, not to hurt, just to enrage. I grabbed the hand back and kept telling him, "I know this is hard," a stock phrase I read on a blog or in a book. All the while he was hysterically insisting that he be allowed to keep working on his room, and that it was all messed up now because he'd knocked against a line in the dark, that he would never be able to fix it all, that we'd ruined it.
Finally he eased up a bit, and I announced, "Now we're ready for a walk." He wailed and sobbed, but I GENTLY carried him downstairs, and handed him his sandals. Weeks ago he would have broke and run, sneering and laughing, or thrown the shoes at me, or kicked me when I tried to put them on. He still complained, but let me get the shoes on and gave me his hand so we could walk outside together. It was a lovely night (good thing, as I was in pajama bottoms and a tank top), and I pointed out the stars. "I don't like 'em," he snarled, so I stopped verbalizing my cheeriness and just walked. We were just two houses down the street when he broke the silence. "I don't want to go to school," he plaintively said.
I scooped him up to ride on my hip, and we started talking. I couldn't comfort all his fears of course; only positive experiences will convince him school is a good place. But at least we could talk about it, and I could give him some specific information, and I could let him know that I get it, that this is a huge task we are giving him, that it is completely natural that he is scared, but we have at least some plans of how we can help him.
It still took awhile to get him settled enough to go to sleep, and then when I went to bed I had to give Linden her own pep talk, which included a lot of "I know you keep having to do things without getting any choice," and even got to the "When you grow up, you can decide what country you want to live in, and I will love you whether you live here or there," with the occasional detour to "Yes, I will show your kindergarten teacher how to use Google Translate if he doesn't already know."
I have high hopes that she will love school, and that he will wind up liking certain portions of it. If they can get the boy building and creating, he'll be in heaven. But of course, none of us know for sure how tomorrow will go for them, how all the years of formal education will go. Some of us are slow learners. I've had these children in my care for nearly 12 weeks, and it was the first time I didn't let my reaction overshadow the cause of his behavior. It was one of the few times my reaction wasn't actually WORSE than the behavior that was pissing me off. I am GUARANTEED to continue fucking up, and there were elements of tonight that I'm sure would horrify people who know more about therapeutic parenting than I do, since all know is a) it exists and b) we should be doing it. But it feels SO GOOD to not be consumed with guilt right now, and I hope that feeling will help me remember to be better. Not perfect, just better.
Oak spent major portions of today stringing dental floss around his room and trying to rig it so things would slide and pulley and ratchet and up and generally DO STUFF if you opened the door. He also decided he was going to build a helicopter. Linden came in from where her brother was working on the back lawn and announced in the half horrified, half delighted tones of a veteran tattle taler, "Oak is building a helicopter and is going to fly back to Baltia!" (Do I really need to gloss over their specific country of birth? The thing is, just a handful of people adopt from that part of the world, so I feel like if I don't keep it vague, I'm being overly public.) This means the helicopter will be slightly bigger than I had imagined. Or that he was bullshitting his sister.
Tonight we were heading to bed a bit earlier than usual. It seems 11 pm on a school night is frowned upon by the PTO. We'd had baths, and there were sprinkles on their ice cream, and new clothes were laid out, and we'd given them the (shh) dollar watches we bought last week on the sly, which I'd hastily wrapped in their construction paper. We thought we had done a nice job of "Yay, isn't getting ready for school FUN?"
Linden and I were heading into her bedroom with a book (Hey, what a coincidence! It was about how much fun the first day of school is!), and the Winemaker and Oak were in Oak's bedroom already. In the tones of a man who has already said this three times, I heard the Winemaker say, "Time to turn out the light and go to bed."
"One minute! One minute!" muttered Oak, as he hunkered down to work on yet another section of trip wire.
"Do you want me to just turn out the light?" I asked. I got the go ahead, and did so, then went next door and started reading to Linden.
I'd only gotten up to the third child's wish for what would happen at school this year (chocolate in the water fountain), when the Winemaker called, "Could you come help? He's having some trouble." Usually I'm the one hollering for backup, as I'm the one whose temper flares out of control too quickly. I set Linden down with her book on her bed and walked back to Oak's room. He was flailing and wailing. I told him he could keep working on his project tomorrow afternoon, and he threw himself onto the floor and started pounding on it. I scooped him up, and he twisted away from me and ran.
Here is where EVERY SINGLE OTHER TIME it's been like this, I would have lost my shit entirely. I would have dragged him out of the house on a forced walk, and when he resisted, as he would have, I would have picked him up, choosing a position that couldn't possibly be taken as comfortable and nurturing, and schlupped him along until he wailed to be put down, then I would have plunked him down and snapped, "Then WALK!" and he would have sat down and refused, and so on.
But tonight I remembered that one little detail. School starts tomorrow. He was described to us as a poor student during his first grade year last year. Now we're sending him away from our 24/7 care, to people he doesn't know, who use a language he doesn't speak, to navigate a system he's unfamiliar with. So instead of marching him straight out the door, I took him into our bedroom, and tried to hold him in my arms. I wanted to cradle him like a baby, with his butt in my lap, and my arms supporting his shoulders and knees.
Have you ever tried cradling an 8 year old who wants to lay face down on the bed and kick and pound it? It was like holding a flopping fish. He kept twisting around to lay face down instead, and I kept gamely flipping him back over. Although it was basically a wrestling match, I kept my voice level and sweet. When I got him into position, I asked him to look at me, and he couldn't. He made crazy faces and laughed hysterically and tried to flip over again. When I wouldn't let him, he swung at my face--not actually trying to hurt, just to make me let go, give up, lose my literal and figurative grip. I grabbed his wrists, which sort of killed the gentle nurturing aspect of what I was trying to do, but I KEPT MY COOL. You have no idea what an accomplishment this is. I CONTINUED TO SPEAK KINDLY AND GENTLY as I grimly hung on. When he howled that it hurt, I made myself mentally check what I was doing--was my tension making itself felt in how I held him? Nope, I still had my self control, and all I was doing was restraining flailing hands and legs, not squashing, twisting, or otherwise doing anything that would hurt. I told him so, and that I would let his arms go when he calmed himself. He yanked one hand away and smacked at me--again, not hard, not to hurt, just to enrage. I grabbed the hand back and kept telling him, "I know this is hard," a stock phrase I read on a blog or in a book. All the while he was hysterically insisting that he be allowed to keep working on his room, and that it was all messed up now because he'd knocked against a line in the dark, that he would never be able to fix it all, that we'd ruined it.
Finally he eased up a bit, and I announced, "Now we're ready for a walk." He wailed and sobbed, but I GENTLY carried him downstairs, and handed him his sandals. Weeks ago he would have broke and run, sneering and laughing, or thrown the shoes at me, or kicked me when I tried to put them on. He still complained, but let me get the shoes on and gave me his hand so we could walk outside together. It was a lovely night (good thing, as I was in pajama bottoms and a tank top), and I pointed out the stars. "I don't like 'em," he snarled, so I stopped verbalizing my cheeriness and just walked. We were just two houses down the street when he broke the silence. "I don't want to go to school," he plaintively said.
I scooped him up to ride on my hip, and we started talking. I couldn't comfort all his fears of course; only positive experiences will convince him school is a good place. But at least we could talk about it, and I could give him some specific information, and I could let him know that I get it, that this is a huge task we are giving him, that it is completely natural that he is scared, but we have at least some plans of how we can help him.
It still took awhile to get him settled enough to go to sleep, and then when I went to bed I had to give Linden her own pep talk, which included a lot of "I know you keep having to do things without getting any choice," and even got to the "When you grow up, you can decide what country you want to live in, and I will love you whether you live here or there," with the occasional detour to "Yes, I will show your kindergarten teacher how to use Google Translate if he doesn't already know."
I have high hopes that she will love school, and that he will wind up liking certain portions of it. If they can get the boy building and creating, he'll be in heaven. But of course, none of us know for sure how tomorrow will go for them, how all the years of formal education will go. Some of us are slow learners. I've had these children in my care for nearly 12 weeks, and it was the first time I didn't let my reaction overshadow the cause of his behavior. It was one of the few times my reaction wasn't actually WORSE than the behavior that was pissing me off. I am GUARANTEED to continue fucking up, and there were elements of tonight that I'm sure would horrify people who know more about therapeutic parenting than I do, since all know is a) it exists and b) we should be doing it. But it feels SO GOOD to not be consumed with guilt right now, and I hope that feeling will help me remember to be better. Not perfect, just better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)