Author name: Sandra Tayler

At The Therapist’s Office

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I sat in the waiting room of the therapist’s office while she escorted Gleek back to get set up. For a moment it was just me, a pair of couches, and a television which was off. The emptiness of the space felt peaceful to me, but in a moment the therapist would be back to ask me how things are going. She likes to check in with me before spending the bulk of the hour with Gleek. I wasn’t sure what to tell her because my head felt like a storage unit packed full of furniture. I knew there were thoughts about Gleek in there somewhere, but I was going to have to pull some other stuff out before I could get at them.

I ended up speaking a lot more about Link than about Gleek, because thoughts of Link were in the front of my brain. He was the one who’d just finished a really rough week. I know it could have been much worse, but I still felt a little heartsick and helpless at times. That is part of the experience of parenting. There are times when I want to help, but I can’t or I shouldn’t. Sometimes it takes all my strength to not interfere. I met with a school administrator about Link last week. She asked how he’s doing academically. Glancing at his grades, he’s fine, better than he has been in years. Only, I’m having to work really hard at making sure that he’s tracking all his things and I feel like I’m always telling him to do things he’d rather ignore. This too is part of parenting.

The therapist was kind and listened to all the things I had to say, which is her job. Some other trip I’ll have thoughts about Gleek to share. Right now we’re all still getting to know each other, the therapist and I. Perhaps listening to me talk about a different child is actually helpful for her to form a picture of how our family works. Even if it is not helpful to her, it was helpful to me. I could have rattled on for a lot longer. I didn’t though, because I felt wary of using up time that belonged to Gleek. These are her therapy sessions, not mine. Gleek likes this therapist. The office has a sand table and a room full of story props, so Gleek can tell stories. The therapist learns something from these stories, because after this session she sent Gleek home with some things to work on. Mostly being calmer and slower. Over time we’ll establish a familiarity with therapy and hopefully Gleek will gather tools she can use for the rest of her life.

The waiting room was empty while I waited for Gleek. No other clients came in while we were there, so I was spared from looking at some other child and pondering why this young one was so troubled as to need therapeutic intervention. There was no other parent there to look at my daughter and wonder the same thing. Years ago I wrote in a blog entry that I never wanted to be the reason that Gleek needed therapy. Now I drive her to her appointments. The fact that I’m not the right person to help her untangle some emotional things does not mean that I caused those things. It is not my fault even though Freud instilled the field of psychology with a strong impulse to look to the parents, particularly the mother, when a child is struggling. I tell myself these things, trying to make peace, trying to make all of this routine–just a thing we do. But the truth is that sometimes I blame me. Deep in my heart I count the things I could have done differently. I map the paths I maybe should have chosen. I know the things I feel I ought to have handled better. Taking my child to a therapist forces me to confront all of that and deal with it. Which is also a good thing. Good is not the same as easy.

Things are good right now, and they’re aimed at better.

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Troubleshooting Sibling Disharmony: Arguing over the Computer

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The Problem: We have one computer that the kids share. Every time one kid is on the machine and another asks for a turn, there is an argument. Usually this requires parental intervention. All of them are nit-picking over a limited resource and none of them are extending each other the benefit of the doubt.

Previous solutions which have not worked: Mediating individual arguments. Scolding kids and telling them to be nicer. Threatening to not let anyone use the computer if there is an argument about it changing hands.

New Plan and reasoning behind it:
1. I need to be better about limiting individual computer time. Kids tend to stay on the machine until someone tells them to get off, which leads to significant territorial behavior. No one wants to give up their turn because they know that getting back on will almost certainly require negotiation or argument. Limiting turns will make the computer seem more available. It will also force them to find other things to do, which will remind them that the world is full of fun things and not having the computer is not the end of the world.

2. On Sunday afternoons every person in the house is required to play a game with someone else who lives in our house. It can all be one big game, it can be a video game. The point is that we often disappear into our various electronic worlds and we need more times when we have fun together.

3. When we have family prayer the person who is doing the praying should take time to pray for something specific for each individual in our family. This means we’ll each have a turn being conscious of what the other people in our family need and what they are struggling with.

The best part is that these are only minor shifts. Granted, they will require an exertion of will, primarily from me, but they are small exertions. Even better, the only part of this plan likely to meet with resistance is the computer turn limiting. That one is going to be hard. I’m not good at remembering. Hopefully I’ll find a good software solution.

The experiment begins.

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Various Updates

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My attention has been fractured all week, which is to be expected during the first week of running a Kickstarter. I’m happy to report that the Strength of Wild Horses project is now over 36% funded. This is a solid start, but I’m going to need to put in sustained effort for the next several weeks to make sure that the project funds. The most surprising discovery of the week is how helpful it has been that I’ve had other projects and concerns at the same time as this Kickstarter. If the funding drive was the only thing I had going on, I would be a lot more stressed. Instead I keep needing to step away and focus on other things, which reminds me just how much more important some of those other things are. Once the important things are managed, I am able to come back with a fresh mind. At least some of the “other things” let me come back refreshed, others not so much. Have I mentioned lately that parenting is sometimes hard?

The other things:
The Schlock calendar is almost ready to print. It was made a little extra frustrating because I had to do some of the work twice. I accidentally saved an older version over a newer one. Now it is nearly done and very pretty. We’ll be opening pre-orders on that Monday.

I shipped things from the warehouse. The system works and is ready to handle the coming holiday shipping load. There are still some paperwork things to manage, inspections and such, which are a necessary part of setting up in a commercial location. Also I still need to go pull the last garbage out of the storage units. Maybe tomorrow.

On the parenting front, I’m accumulating a list of resources available for special needs kids: high school edition. My junior high kid is mostly using resources outside the school system, and my elementary kid seems pretty well, but I need to check with his teacher. The college kid has been busy and not communicating very much, which I take to mean that life is generally going well. All of the kids are headed in good directions, but that doesn’t mean it is easy.

Despite all of the things, life feels like a good place right now. This is a nice change over February-September. I’ll take it.

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Allowing Children to Venture Forth

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I remember the day when Kiki came home from kindergarten with the phone number of a friend I’d never met. She was so excited, she and NewFriend had big plans to go play at NewFriend’s house. I stared at that phone number and confronted the fact that, at some point, I had to let my child go out into the world among people I did not know. Sure I could say no in Kindergarten. I could probably say it through most of grade school, but eventually my child would defy me and go anyway. Also, she would enter her teen and adult years completely unprepared to discern which people were trustworthy and which she should avoid. I took a deep breath and we called NewFriend’s phone number. I went with her to NewFriend’s house. I met NewFriend’s parents. I looked around at their front room and yard, and I made a judgement call. Kiki got to stay and play with her friend. That Kindergarten friend was one of her best friends for the next five years. NewFriend’s mother is one of my friends to this day. I am very glad that I was willing to step into a new and scary world.

I approach my kid’s online lives the same way. Any time there is an online place that they want to go and play, I take a look. I evaluate. I express caution, but most of the time I let them play. Kiki found an online home at DeviantArt. Link is part of an online game community. Gleek and Patch are spending lots of time playing with others on game servers. They play and they know that I will wander by and look at what is on the screen. If I see anything of concern, I’ll point it out and talk it over. Or I’ll revoke computer privileges until we’ve had a thorough discussion and agreement about whatever it was. Gleek in particular has grown quite savvy. She has a particular server where she has played a lot. She’s been granted moderator powers there by the guy who owns the server. This responsibility is quite important to her. She makes sure that unpleasant people are bounced and that newbies are helped. In that online place, Gleek has respect and a job to do. I can see her growing from them. I listen to her talk about the adventures there and I realize that she is learning to be safer online through her interactions. Being online has been good for my kids and I’m carefully monitoring them and teaching them, just as I once taught them how to cross a parking lot safely.

The thing we’re working on most right now is life balance. The online games are very compelling and my kids would be happy to play them all day. I am the one who has to tap them on the shoulder and say “go do something else now.” This is important for several reasons. My kids need to have connections with friends that they can see in person. If they spend all their time online, the in-person friendships suffer. People who don’t have in-person friendships are more vulnerable online because the online interactions have a greater importance in their lives. The kids also benefit from fresh air, sunshine, and exercise, just like any other human being. It is also really important for my kids to have time to be bored. Boredom is where creativity comes from. Boredom drives people to learn new skills just to find something to do. I make sure that the kids spend time away from screens so that they remember that they love drawing, crafts, riding bikes, and a host of other activities.

Unfortunately I’ve never been good at enforcing time limits on kids computer time. When they’re on the computer the house is quiet, and quiet house is very helpful when I’m trying to accomplish a million projects. Fortunately someone pointed out to me that the parental settings let me set hours when my kids are allowed to log on. When they hit the time limit, they’re automatically logged off. No intervention from me necessary. Shortly after I implemented this setting, a magical thing happened. The kids started watching the clock so they could save and quit before the automatic log off. This feature only lets me block off hours. I wish there were a setting that would say “this account only gets two hours of logged in time today.” But I’ll take what I can get.

The online world is still scary. I’m constantly adjusting how we approach it, and my kids can tell you that my first reaction to any new online thing is to tell them no until I’ve had a chance to think it through from all angles. Then, because I’m busy, I often never get around to looking at things until they’ve pestered me for weeks. I tell myself that I’m measuring the importance of the new thing by waiting to see if it is important enough that they keep asking. Right now I think we’ve found a reasonable balance, though I still need to nudge it toward more offline time. In a few months the kids will change and there will be new internet things and I’ll have to figure it out all over again.

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Interviews with James Yee and Jim C. Hines

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My head is full of thoughts about warehouses, the joys of setting up shop in a commercial building, calendar design, monitoring kids’ online socializing, and whether I’m helping too much with homework. I intend to shape some of those thoughts into words later today. For now I give you two interviews.

Doing interviews is really interesting because the shapes of the questions give me a peek into other creators and their audiences. Yes interviewers are creators. It takes skill to craft a good interview. James Yee’s interviews speak to people who are really invested in Kickstarter and want to know details about how to use it as a tool to create things. His questions reflect that, and I had fun exploring that aspect of the project.

You can read my interview with James Yee over on Kickstarter Conversations.

Jim Hines has been a friend of mine for quite a while now. His blog writing won him a Hugo award for best fan writer. Jim often addresses issues of personal safety, equality, and acceptance, particularly as expressed in the Geek community. But usually when Jim and I are together we talk about parenting because we have kids with similar sorts of challenges. This interview was a lot like sitting down and chatting with my friend Jim, which made it lots of fun. I don’t get to visit with Jim nearly often enough.

You can find Jim Hines’ post over on the Jim C. Hines Blog. While you’re there, you might want to take a glance around. Jim talks about lots of important and interesting things.

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Strength of Wild Horses Kickstarter is Live

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This morning I pushed the launch button on the Strength of Wild Horses Kickstarter. You can see the project page by clicking on the link. I recommend doing that since the page has pretty pictures. You can also watch the video that I posted about last week. I hope that after you’re done marveling at how uncomfortable I am in front of a camera, you’ll consider kicking in some money to support the project. I love this book and really want to see it made real. If you don’t have a child in your life who needs a book, then perhaps you’ll pass the word along to people who do. Every bit helps, and in fact the most help is when a person, who is not the creator, says “Hey this book is worth looking at.”

This has been a fantastic day. Lots of people have helped spread the word on social media. Friends have been kind and helpful. I’ve got lots of fun interviews and guest posts lined up for the next week. They were really fun to write, having people read them will be fun too. As of this writing the project is 13% funded with 29 days to go. It is a strong start and I’m excited to see how things continue.

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Life Shift: Moving Into the Warehouse

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The night before the move I lay awake in bed cataloging the things I should have done to get ready, but didn’t. It was Schlock Warehouse moving day and I was not prepared. I know how to ship. I know how to run a shipping event. I know how to manage having inventory in storage units and the work station in my basement. But beyond broad strokes of knowing that I needed a truck and people, I didn’t really know how to proceed with moving. The truck was a source of stress, I’d never driven one before and the thought made me nervous. Once I survived driving the truck,I was going to have to provide instructions to a moving crew when I didn’t know the most efficient ways to work. I worried about these things the night before, or at least part of me did. The larger part was calm, because one thing that many shipping parties has taught me is that the Schlock volunteers are smart, helpful, and innovative. They solve problems when my brain is too tired to figure it out. This move was no exception.

These were the two storage units. They were thirty feet deep and each of those cardboard boxes represents 40lbs. We haven’t done the exact math because there are a lot of boxes and we were all pretty tired by the end, but our ballpark guess is that we schlepped 8-10 tons of things. Those are literal tons, meaning 16,000-20,000 pounds of stuff. On the first load we had to pull some boxes back off of the truck because it was riding too low. I wish we’d gotten a picture of that. Not a good thing when the wheel well is touching the top of the wheel.

This is the space we had to move into.

I measured it. It is larger than the combined space in both our storage units. The office space is larger than my office and shipping room in my basement. Yet at 1am the night before I was convinced that it was not all going to fit. That fear lingered through the day, mostly because all day long I had to make decisions about where things would be put. The decisions felt crucial and irrevocable because we were so tired that I could not picture rearranging things later. I felt like I had to get it right, which I didn’t really. I just had to get all the things into one place so that I could begin to see how it all works. This is one of the reason I’m so very grateful for the helpers we had. They were my auxiliary brains and thus able to tell me everything was just fine.

The first merchandise moved into the warehouse prior to moving day, thus demonstrating that we are able to receive deliveries.

This same truck driver has delivered to our house on more than one occasion. He was pleased to see our new facility and admired our giant roll up door.
I love the great big door. We could back the truck all the way inside.

The other reason I need helpers for these big Schlock events is because they make me laugh. We loaded the truck with the musical theme from Tetris playing on some speakers while making jokes about things fitting. Later there was the Angry Birds theme with matching jokes. My helpers are always glad to come and I always owe them far more than I ever feel able to pay back. They come, and because of them I can do work that I would never be able to accomplish by myself. They make what we do possible and they keep me sane when my brain wants to tell me that I’m ruining everything.

We emptied the storage units. There is left over garbage in them that I need to clean out.

Then I’ll need to sweep and go inform the office that they’re available again. It feels strange to see them empty like that. This morning I saw the matching padlocks sitting on my kitchen counter and I had a moment of panic “Oh no, I forgot to lock up the storage units!” But then realized that I would never lock up those units again. We’re done with that part and moved on to the next.

Even more strange was walking into my downstairs shipping room which is now half empty. We ran out of time with the truck before we completely cleared the shipping room. Which was fine, we were out of energy too. What is left are odds and ends that I can move at my leisure. Except it won’t be at my leisure, because I had a moment of panic standing in that half empty room.

I went to Howard and cried “I broke it. I broke the system I’ve used for shipping for the last seven years and I’m terrified that this will destroy everything.” Of course it won’t. The new set up will, obviously, create new problems especially at first, but it will be better in a hundred ways. The biggest is one that became clear after Howard commented.
“At least now the light will be off in that room. You always left the light on in your shipping room. I never understood that.”

It took a few moments of thought for me to figure out why I did that. On the occasions where I walked out of the room knowing I wouldn’t be back for awhile, I turned off the light. That was rare. Usually I stepped out for a moment, or got called away, or paused what I was doing and intended to come back. The light stayed on because I was always about to ship, in the middle of shipping, or not quite done shipping. That was the problem. I was never done and the shipping/convention prep work spilled all over the living spaces. It won’t be able to do that anymore. I’ll have to decide to go work and decide to lock up to come home. This is good. I am looking forward to it. However, it represents a fundamental shift in my life and a part of me is terrified that I’ve broken everything and we’re all doomed as a result. That part of my brain wanted me to jump in the car and drive to go check on the warehouse at 10pm last night. Just to make sure everything was okay.

Everything is fine.
All the merchandise fits.
I didn’t crash the truck.
The helpers were amazing.
And I’m not nearly as sore as I expected to be today.

That last part is good because I’ve really only begun working. There is still stuff to move out of my house and there is lots to organize over at the warehouse. Some of the organization need to happen pretty quickly because there are packages to mail.

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Projects in Process

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The trouble with a recorded interview is that I then have hours and weeks to think up better answers than the ones I gave. I do the same thing after conventions, important conversations, or presentations. This is one of the reasons I like writing, I can revise and tweak my words until I’m certain I have them correct. The podcast interview was one of several I worked on today in preparation for launching my Kickstarter next week. This weekend I’ll be writing up some guest posts as well. I’m finding this process fascinating as I talk about different aspects of the Strength of Wild Horses project and about how I’m running my Kickstarter.

But I can’t just focus on that, because tomorrow is the day we move into the warehouse. There are organizational things I was supposed to be doing at a steady pace over the past couple of days. Instead I’ll be doing them tonight if I can develop some forward momentum. It is a real challenge because Friday night is generally work-resistant. The good news is that after tomorrow the heavy lifting will be done (literally) for the warehouse project and I can start focusing on the next thing.

The next thing will be the launch of the Kickstarter and opening pre-orders for the 2014 calendar. Both of those will hit next week. Further out we’ve got the shipping of all the calendars and the final push to get LOTA ready for print. On the family front we’ll be prepping a space for Kiki to inhabit when she comes home for the holidays. I’m not going to run out of projects any time soon, which is fine. I like having projects.

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Halloween Costumes

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When I was little, Halloween was magical. Around the time my age hit double digits it started to be…complicated. I believe this is a common experience as children begin to be self conscious. In my case I was frustrated because no one ever knew what my costumes were, and I found them hard to explain. This is because I never chose to be a commonly known character. Instead I would create a character based on half a dozen worlds that I’d read and synthesized. Why could no one see that my long blue dress and cloak obviously meant that I was an empath who rode a winged horse? They would ask “what are you?” in a confused tone of voice and I wouldn’t know how to summarize, but I knew they didn’t want to hear the whole back story. When I was a kid among other kids, they understood that costumes had stories. But by junior high, they stood there in a yellow crayon outfit and stared at me like I was the weirdo. That was a difficult year and it put me off costumes for the rest of junior high.

Halloween became a big deal again after I met Howard and got married. It started small with just some stage make-up. But the seeds of the next year’s costume were planted until the pinnacle years when we had a group of six people and our toddler all dressed up like post-apocalyptic cyborg survivors. And then like medieval warriors with a preschool dragon and a baby dragon. We got professional photographs that year and had a great time. Then our Halloween loving friends moved away and somehow our Halloween efforts dwindled. The creative energy that we used to spend on costumes got spent on other things instead. I’m not going to complain because I like Schlock and I’m not sure it would have begun if we’d had a full-blown costuming hobby in place.

Today I went to our church Halloween carnival and for the I-don’t-know-how-many-th year in a row, I was boring. I didn’t wear a costume at all. I think I started being Halloween boring when Gleek was a toddler. I had three kids and it was challenging enough to keep track of them without adding complicated clothing. I always ended up toting their discarded props and trying to juggle all of their things plus a heavy cloak or a long dress stopped being any kind of fun at all. I used to make jokes about being dressed up as the storage closet because of all the things I ended up carrying around. Not only that, but there was never time to think up something to wear when I was so completely occupied with supplying four outfits to the exacting specifications of my children. I still enjoyed Halloween, but from a spectator role.

A few weeks ago I ready this Hyperbole and Half piece about a dinosaur costume. Not only was it really funny, but it made me think about identity. I have come full circle to a place where I am again friends with people who love costuming. I admire their brilliance at conventions and yet have never planned to don a costume “That’s not me” I thought. “I’m not a costume person. I am a writer person.” Yet I used to be a costume person. I used to be willing to put on a different identity for the span of a day just so that I could play. True, I was always a little awkward with it, unwilling to fully own an outfit, but at least I put the outfit on. The tale of a little girl and her dinosaur costume made me re-consider the power of costume and how being something else for a while might teach me something about who I am when I’m wearing my regular clothes.

Also, I’m tired of feeling boring on Halloween. I can’t guarantee I’ll follow through on anything. My life is full of projects and any costuming project is pretty far down the list, but when Howard dons his steampunk clothes I’d kind of like to have an outfit that matches. Perhaps this next year I’ll learn how to play dress up again. And maybe I’ll learn a better answer to the question “who are you?” or perhaps I’ll be the beneficiary of a world that is more open to adults in creative costumes.

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