You know those weeks when there is palpable, anger-inciting tension between you and a family member? Or you have had a crushing misunderstanding with one of your friends? An incident that has had you mumbling obscenities under your breath or perhaps screaming at the top of your lungs?
As a result of some emotionally incendiary experience where you feel wronged, not valued, misunderstood, or crossed, you find yourself on one wild ride of emotions. Feelings spike to new highs, leaving you vibrating with anger, injustice and hurt at the maddening insensitivity, sheer stupidity, or blatant passivity. Suddenly you are careening down a roller coaster of painful feelings--swinging widely to the left, twisting up, crisscrossing to the right, up and down and zigzagging to a final, lurching stop. Just when you think it is safe, someone starts talking about it again and off you go, up, up and away in a fiery fury...
Sadly, there are multiple triggers, plural incidents. Some of them ancient history that haunt me in ghost-forms, patterns that I fall into without recognizing them, power struggles in places where there really isn't any conflict. The repeated abandonment and learned detachment puts me on a collision course with people who want to love me. Instead of feeling cared for, I am trapped by expectations that I care back in equal and expected ways.
Some of them are because I allowed myself to be railroaded. Instead of boundaries, I pretend I am flexible, tying my emotions into impossible knots and sandwiching myself between equally repulsive choices, neither of which results in a positive outcome and everyone ends up unhappy. I lack the emotional maturity to get off that high horse and to find common ground.
Some of them are fresh uncertainties as relationships around me shift and twist in sheer agony. Joyful events soiled by betrayal. Illusions give way to falsehoods and deceptions slice jagged lacerations into the soul. These do not necessarily have anything to do with *me*, but I feel the ache and am helpless to salve the hurts. Others are the direct result of my tough love stance, and while it is the truth, it isn't necessarily kind. I have been blind to the balance.
Some of them are internal miseries which I thrust out as excuses when they are really only compounding factors. Dythymia, hormones, insomnia, ghosts, repudiations. I have a circus of my very own issues that would perhaps fascinate a therapist if I weren't terrified of being restrained and locked away again. I might be able to commit myself in those shiny low spots, but mostly choose to roil in the imagined freedom of my own pain.
After building for weeks, the tsunami came crashing down last night...again. A three-way reflection became twisted in my ears. Grasping at spiteful and hateful retorts, I lashed out in front of everyone. Beloved and I rarely have screaming matches, but it descended to that base point. I am ashamed and embarrassed and at a lost for what reparations can be offered by any party. I have been round and round and round, and I am painfully spent. I am exhausted, drained, and totally depleted from the emotional highs and lows. All that is left is the crumbling, white-ashed embers of a fire gone dead.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
Twists and turns of my thoughts
I don't know quite who or when we started using tribe to describe what we have, but it seems appropriate to the "feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together," as Marina put it. We gather to celebrate, to work, to play, and to mourn. Shado labeled it "my tribe." I rejected this, and so he offered his reasoning, that the center of the kinship that ties it all together is me...pixie. It felt like a kick in the gut.
As a once-upon-a-time-student of anthropology, I remember that tribe is one of four major types of political organization; from least to most socially complex they are bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states. I went looking up more today.
Even before I was an anthropology student, I read a book by Chinua Achebe entitled, Things Fall Apart. It is about the clash of cultures and the destruction of a tribal world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. The title of the book came from a W.B. Yeats poem:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That thirty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
~ W.B. Yeats, 1919
All of this post STARTED because while I don't have the poem memorized, there are four lines that have been stuck in my mind since high school and I find them dreadfully applicable to my mood today:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
There are deep and intensely personal pieces of the puzzle that I cannot share, but I definitely feel that things are falling apart. I am a part of it...at the center of it...and I feel completely helpless to DO anything. I'm afraid my tribe is about to shatter. What will be let loose if it does?
As a once-upon-a-time-student of anthropology, I remember that tribe is one of four major types of political organization; from least to most socially complex they are bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states. I went looking up more today.
A tribe is of the order of a large collection of bands, but it is not simply a collection of bands. The ties that bind a tribe are more complicated than those of bands. Leadership is personal-charismatic-and for special purposes only in tribal society; there are no political offices containing real power, and a "chief" is merely a man of influence, a sort of adviser. The means of tribal consolidation for collective action are therefore not governmental.
Technically, the tribe is a group of bands. The tribe is, of course, a larger society tied together by familiar bonds. Family structures known as lineages, clan, moieties, and phratries form the primary bonding mechanisms. The local groups that compose a traditional tribal society are communal and strongly social, with members linked by kinship ties.
Tribes have developed kin-based mechanisms to accommodate more sedentary life, to redistribute food, and to organize some communal services. Public opinion plays a major role in decision making.
Tribal people tend to think in certain ways. They tend to be egalitarian, think humans are part of nature itself, the world is composed of dualities that form a harmony, and life is designed to work for the good of the community - good of the whole. Tribal people also stress consensus in determing what is good for the whole. ~ Cultural Science Dept, Mesa Community College
Even before I was an anthropology student, I read a book by Chinua Achebe entitled, Things Fall Apart. It is about the clash of cultures and the destruction of a tribal world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. The title of the book came from a W.B. Yeats poem:
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That thirty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
~ W.B. Yeats, 1919
All of this post STARTED because while I don't have the poem memorized, there are four lines that have been stuck in my mind since high school and I find them dreadfully applicable to my mood today:
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
There are deep and intensely personal pieces of the puzzle that I cannot share, but I definitely feel that things are falling apart. I am a part of it...at the center of it...and I feel completely helpless to DO anything. I'm afraid my tribe is about to shatter. What will be let loose if it does?
Sunday, June 3, 2012
DOMA down!
On Thursday, May 31, 2012, the First Circuit Court ruled that the government's ban on gay marriage, called the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), violates the Constitution and should be struck down. It stopped short of arguing that gay people have a constitutionally protected right to legal marriage, saying that only the Supreme Court could navigate difficult and thorny precedents.
This is a HUGE win for LGBT rights, and DOMA encompasses about 1,000 federal laws tangentially related to marriage and affects 100,000 couples in this country.
The case maintains the rights of individual states to decide if gay couples can legal marry. Currently there are only six states that allow same-sex unions: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, plus Washington, D.C. and Oregon's Coquille and Washington state's Suquamish Indian tribes. Illinois is currently working on joining the list, with multiple suits being filed.
This is a HUGE win for LGBT rights, and DOMA encompasses about 1,000 federal laws tangentially related to marriage and affects 100,000 couples in this country.
"Many Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today," the First Circuit wrote. "One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest."
The case maintains the rights of individual states to decide if gay couples can legal marry. Currently there are only six states that allow same-sex unions: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, plus Washington, D.C. and Oregon's Coquille and Washington state's Suquamish Indian tribes. Illinois is currently working on joining the list, with multiple suits being filed.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
The Opposite of Loneliness
I had already written yesterday's post when I read the piece below. It was written by Marina Keegan, a member of Yale's 2012 class, and was distributed at the commencement exercises last week. I was moved by the piece, and have highlighted the bits that truly connected in my heart. The most poignant statement of the article is that Marina died in a car accident, just days after publishing this article. She was 22. We have all the time in the world...but make the most of every moment.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.
It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves...” “if I’d...” “wish I’d...”
Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.
We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.
For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that…
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.
We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.
It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves...” “if I’d...” “wish I’d...”
Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.
We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.
For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that…
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.
We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.
Friday, June 1, 2012
The Risk of Living
that there are very few who have
the enlightenment or courage to pay the price...
One has to abandon altogether
the search for security
and reach out to the risk of living with both arms.
One has to accept pain as a condition of existence.
One has to court doubt and darkness
as the cost of knowing.
One needs a will stubborn in conflict,
but opt always to total acceptance
of every consequence of living and dying.
-Morris West
Entering my thirty-sixth year, I find myself hoping that THIS year...*smiles* It's been rough, there is no denying that. Sometimes I long for security, or I cling to the little bit that I have. Sometimes I am surprised by the consequences. Sometimes I think I will drown in doubt.
My father likes to tell about a time when I was sixteen years old. I had earned an invitation to spend two weeks in China. A trip that involved 17 other kids, and not one of them a buddy I hung out, with to a country on the other side of the planet, where I didn't know the language, where I would be a complete foreigner. I was so very excited by the adventure! However, part of the paperwork required a vaccine update. I don't remember which one it was, but DAMN if I waffled because of that one needle. I *hate* needles. I *hate* medical procedures in general. It was awful, being a teen and sitting in my baby sister's pediatric office where everything was three sizes too small. The doctor used a tiny little butterfly-wing needle and managed to get through the injection without my kicking or decking her. When it was over, my dad asked if skipping the shot was really worth giving up China, but the truth is I very nearly gave up a life experience for the scrap of pain avoidance. Embarrassment still shows in my wry smile when I think about it.
Two decades later, how often do I do that very thing...pass up the opportunity to LIVE? More often than I care to admit. "I feel like it took me a long time to recognize it is possible to merge something that something that you love with something that's important to you," says Mary Chapin Carpenter. I think it is possible, but I'm not quite sure how to DO IT yet. I am afraid to limit myself to loving one thing. I'm still clinging to familiar security or imagined safety. For me, being a stay-at-home mom is about as much fun as Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday afternoon; it is noisy, chaotic, messy. Yet, I hesitate and even balk when Beloved suggests I take real steps...that I stop daydreaming and begin LIVING again. At least my present is known. Limited.
The thing that catches me about Mister West's thought is the bit about "total acceptance." It makes an interesting addition to my thoughts about submission. We have free will to make our own way. We choose a path...deliberately or by default... and then we must face the consequences of the choice until the next one comes along. How many times a day do we have a choice to smile at a stranger...not a wan shy thing, but the real McCoy? That small gesture is one many people lack the courage to do. What amazing people will we miss out on meeting today because it is too risky to be friendly? Really? How sad.
Living IS a risk. No matter how small and quiet your life, some day you are going to die. If you take the risk of living, there are worse things than death that await you. There are no guarantees that anything you do will be rewarded...or punished. We all face the same option, now, today. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. It's a long enough life to be living...why walk when you can fly?
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Second Day of Summer
Boy oh Boy oh Boy. Please, I don't want to kill you, but if you keep this up...
Before going to work, Beloved left me a little note:
It coaxed a small smile out of me, but I gotta tell ya, I'm close to tears. Is Summer Vacation over yet?!?
Day 2 of Summer Vacation started with another rude surprise. For several weeks, I have been disturbed by how much the kids' laundry reeked. It really was bothering my Momma sense. Turns out my Momma sense should be trusted a little more.
After a very bad night and waking up from an ugly dream, I walked into the kids' room. Boy was sitting on his bunk with headphones, Girl curled up in her nest of blankets. I asked him to take off his headphones and explained that we had some adventures planned for the day, but first he had to take a bath to wash off the arrows. He balked, and I explained that the blue was all smudged and it didn't look good anymore (instead of "Because I said so"). He agreed, and started to climb down.
"Hey Mom, there's a big mystery! The dirty clothes are all wet, but it didn't rain last night."
Crap. I just DID laundry, so there wasn't much, but it was enough to be an irritation. However, the kids both have water cups, and although they are lidded, if it fell from the bed, I could see it popping open on impact.
"And it's not water...there are no cups!"
Double crap. I start adding things up. Even without coffee or decent sleep, the math was pretty clear. I stepped around to look at the laundry pile. Splatters, as if coming from a height. The side of the bunk beds and the window sill also have drips running off the edges. I eye Boy warily. His amused grin was the answer, but I put my finger in a drip and sniffed.
Urine.
From the top of the bunk beds where a five year old Boy sleeps.
And I have been wondering about the laundry for *how long*???
Triple, double-dog CRAP!
*breathe* Did you pee off the bunk bed?
"No, I'm telling the truth," with the grin only slightly fading.
I didn't wait. I grabbed his arm and swatted him. Do NOT lie to me! You are going to clean all of this up! Start by taking the basket all the way to the basement. Come back upstairs with a bucket.
I had to repeat the directions a few times while I got the Murphy's Oil and some rags. He got an inch of water and a dollop of oil and was put to task washing the bed, the window, the wall, the floor. Beloved took down the curtain for him and (bless Him!) explained that if this ever happened again, Boy would be wearing diapers for a week like his baby sister. (I hadn't gotten past the outrage to be clever about a future punishment.)
I still plan to have Boy do the laundry...I will tell him what to do, but HE will do it, all the way through the cycles. Combining that with the diaper threat, and maybe this won't be an issue again...
It's 9:30 am. How much worse CAN it be?
Before going to work, Beloved left me a little note:
It coaxed a small smile out of me, but I gotta tell ya, I'm close to tears. Is Summer Vacation over yet?!?
Day 2 of Summer Vacation started with another rude surprise. For several weeks, I have been disturbed by how much the kids' laundry reeked. It really was bothering my Momma sense. Turns out my Momma sense should be trusted a little more.
After a very bad night and waking up from an ugly dream, I walked into the kids' room. Boy was sitting on his bunk with headphones, Girl curled up in her nest of blankets. I asked him to take off his headphones and explained that we had some adventures planned for the day, but first he had to take a bath to wash off the arrows. He balked, and I explained that the blue was all smudged and it didn't look good anymore (instead of "Because I said so"). He agreed, and started to climb down.
"Hey Mom, there's a big mystery! The dirty clothes are all wet, but it didn't rain last night."
Crap. I just DID laundry, so there wasn't much, but it was enough to be an irritation. However, the kids both have water cups, and although they are lidded, if it fell from the bed, I could see it popping open on impact.
"And it's not water...there are no cups!"
Double crap. I start adding things up. Even without coffee or decent sleep, the math was pretty clear. I stepped around to look at the laundry pile. Splatters, as if coming from a height. The side of the bunk beds and the window sill also have drips running off the edges. I eye Boy warily. His amused grin was the answer, but I put my finger in a drip and sniffed.
Urine.
From the top of the bunk beds where a five year old Boy sleeps.
And I have been wondering about the laundry for *how long*???
Triple, double-dog CRAP!
*breathe* Did you pee off the bunk bed?
"No, I'm telling the truth," with the grin only slightly fading.
I didn't wait. I grabbed his arm and swatted him. Do NOT lie to me! You are going to clean all of this up! Start by taking the basket all the way to the basement. Come back upstairs with a bucket.
I had to repeat the directions a few times while I got the Murphy's Oil and some rags. He got an inch of water and a dollop of oil and was put to task washing the bed, the window, the wall, the floor. Beloved took down the curtain for him and (bless Him!) explained that if this ever happened again, Boy would be wearing diapers for a week like his baby sister. (I hadn't gotten past the outrage to be clever about a future punishment.)
I still plan to have Boy do the laundry...I will tell him what to do, but HE will do it, all the way through the cycles. Combining that with the diaper threat, and maybe this won't be an issue again...
It's 9:30 am. How much worse CAN it be?
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
First Day of Summer Vacation
Yesterday...Tuesday...was the first day of Boy's summer vacation. Thank all the gods that we only have to get through the rest of this week!!!! Oiy.
Start off with it was a crazy weekend for the kids as well as the grown-ups. Friday-Monday, they slept in 3 different places, played and swam all day, and were generally run as much as I was running. Now, on Tuesday...Dada goes to work (like usual), and Boy is home with "Mean ol' Momma" who hasn't really prepared for this.
Oh, I have elaborate plans for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week...but ONE DAY AT HOME didn't seem like too much to ask for. I still have all the laundry and household chores to keep up with, after all.
Unfortunately, by 10am, it WAS too much to ask for. The kids had watched a show and were in the Great Room playing while I unloaded the dishwasher. Boy came running into the kitchen, "Look Mom! I'm the Avatar!"
The first thing I saw was the bright blue arrow he had very carefully managed on his forehead. Okay, washable marker. *breathe* Washable marker. Hey kiddo, that's pretty cool! His hair looked a little funny, though. Pushed back so more of the arrow was visible. He asked for some help with drawing arrows on his hands and feet so he could look more like Aang. Sure, lemme finish the dishes...
I drew out the arrows, but something was bugging me. Something was not right. I walked into the Great Room and saw Girl was following her brother's example and had also drawn lines up and down her forearms and forehead. *breathe* It's washable, it's washable.
Then I saw the scissors. I looked again at Boy's forehead. Oh crap.
Sure enough, it wasn't water that had slicked back his hair...he had CUT IT OFF. Oh my god, I'm going to kill you....
Hey you, come here... Yeah, the patch was not going to be easily fixed. Double crap. I can't tell you what I said...I was trying too hard to control the tone and keep calm...but I did get him naked and in the bathtub so that I could *try* to fix it. Within two minutes, I confirmed it was hopeless and Boy was sobbing because I was taking too much off and his friends would laugh at him. Not good.
I'll make you a deal...we will turn on the shower and wash off the arrows. Then we will get dressed and walk over to the shop and have them fix your hair. Momma just can't do it right. I promise that when we come home, I will help you make all of your arrows again.
It worked. In fifteen minutes, I was sitting in the busy neighborhood barber shop with a little boy who desperately needed hair fixing and a little girl who was dancing in circles and covered in multi-colored marker. I felt like I qualified for the Worst Mom of the Year Award. Beloved texted me, guaranteeing that every mom had moments like this. *sigh*
Seven dollars and forty-five minutes later, Boy is grinning about his prickly hair and we walked home. It took a couple of hours, but he did come around and ask about the arrows. I didn't blink. A promise is a promise.
Mostly I hope that he will remember the glee of the afternoon as the Air Bender, and not have too much regret or resentment because "Mean ol' Momma" got his head shaved. I am also very glad that summer camp starts next week!
Start off with it was a crazy weekend for the kids as well as the grown-ups. Friday-Monday, they slept in 3 different places, played and swam all day, and were generally run as much as I was running. Now, on Tuesday...Dada goes to work (like usual), and Boy is home with "Mean ol' Momma" who hasn't really prepared for this.
Oh, I have elaborate plans for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week...but ONE DAY AT HOME didn't seem like too much to ask for. I still have all the laundry and household chores to keep up with, after all.
Unfortunately, by 10am, it WAS too much to ask for. The kids had watched a show and were in the Great Room playing while I unloaded the dishwasher. Boy came running into the kitchen, "Look Mom! I'm the Avatar!"
The first thing I saw was the bright blue arrow he had very carefully managed on his forehead. Okay, washable marker. *breathe* Washable marker. Hey kiddo, that's pretty cool! His hair looked a little funny, though. Pushed back so more of the arrow was visible. He asked for some help with drawing arrows on his hands and feet so he could look more like Aang. Sure, lemme finish the dishes...
I drew out the arrows, but something was bugging me. Something was not right. I walked into the Great Room and saw Girl was following her brother's example and had also drawn lines up and down her forearms and forehead. *breathe* It's washable, it's washable.
Then I saw the scissors. I looked again at Boy's forehead. Oh crap.
Sure enough, it wasn't water that had slicked back his hair...he had CUT IT OFF. Oh my god, I'm going to kill you....
Hey you, come here... Yeah, the patch was not going to be easily fixed. Double crap. I can't tell you what I said...I was trying too hard to control the tone and keep calm...but I did get him naked and in the bathtub so that I could *try* to fix it. Within two minutes, I confirmed it was hopeless and Boy was sobbing because I was taking too much off and his friends would laugh at him. Not good.
I'll make you a deal...we will turn on the shower and wash off the arrows. Then we will get dressed and walk over to the shop and have them fix your hair. Momma just can't do it right. I promise that when we come home, I will help you make all of your arrows again.
It worked. In fifteen minutes, I was sitting in the busy neighborhood barber shop with a little boy who desperately needed hair fixing and a little girl who was dancing in circles and covered in multi-colored marker. I felt like I qualified for the Worst Mom of the Year Award. Beloved texted me, guaranteeing that every mom had moments like this. *sigh*
Seven dollars and forty-five minutes later, Boy is grinning about his prickly hair and we walked home. It took a couple of hours, but he did come around and ask about the arrows. I didn't blink. A promise is a promise.
Mostly I hope that he will remember the glee of the afternoon as the Air Bender, and not have too much regret or resentment because "Mean ol' Momma" got his head shaved. I am also very glad that summer camp starts next week!
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