Sandra Tayler

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

By / April 17, 2013 / 1 Comment

As a kid I watched Sesame Street. Along with some really memorable songs and how to count in Spanish, the one thing has stuck with me was a type of segment where the screen was divided into four quarters and four things showed up in those quarters. The audience was invited to figure out which of these things was different from the other three. There was even a catchy tune to help everyone get in the mood to find sameness and differentness. No judgement was passed about better and worse, the differences were just noted. I was good at the game and playing it made me happy in a preschool way.

Now I’m all grown up and I have four kids, I still play that game all the time. The trouble is that depending on what parameter I pick, each kid has a chance to be the different one. This pleases the child in me who could always see how blue vs red was not the only available difference between the four fuzzy monsters on the screen. My kids are all similar and they are all different.

Homework Consequences

By / April 16, 2013 / 2 Comments

I’m sitting here typing on my laptop while my ten year old son is crying over his homework. This is not the sort of moment that gets immortalized in photos or regaled over Thanksgiving dinner. It is not a moment that makes me feel like a good mother, but it is exactly this sort of moment where I am one. My son is crying because the work he is doing is work that ought to have been done yesterday. Not only did he not do it yesterday, he implied to me that it was done. He didn’t outright lie, but through some verbal mumbling he managed to slide by without doing it. Then at school today he was not prepared and that was unpleasant. Then his teacher communicated with me and I had a talk with him about responsibility and paying attention in class. We talked about how all humans, me included, have a tendency to procrastinate and avoid work. We talked about how we have to curb that impulse in ourselves and learn to do the work anyway. We talked about carrots, sticks, and motivational plans. We decided on a point system and a reward structure. Then I declared that if any work is overdue, he is not allowed to play on a computer or video game until it is done. This last part was not news he wanted to hear. So now he is working and sniffling. I am watching, typing, and hoping that inside his head he is taking responsibility for his choices instead of ranting about how mean I am.

Snapshots of the Tayler Household Today

By / April 16, 2013 / 1 Comment

I sat on the couch next to Kiki, her legs draped across my lap as she told me about her friends. Kiki loves them and worries for them, but is not sure how to help them as they struggle. I listened to Kiki and tried to give her good advice, but mostly just to listen because the answers she finds for herself are better than any I can give. This is true for her friends too. They must find their own answers. But being the one who sees a good path, and has to wait for a loved one to stumble around blindly until they find it can be hard.

Link and Patch sat at computers side by side, Minecraft on the screens in front of them. Listening to them made little sense because the words seemed like random phrases punctuated with laughter, half the conversation was typed in text on the screens in front of them. Lately Link has been saddened by the fact that his gaming abilities far outstrip everyone else in the house. He wants to play with his little brother, but sometimes it is hard because of the skill disparity. On this day they’ve found a happy medium, a place where they can meet and have fun.

I sat with Gleek on the leather couch with the therapist across from us and we had no tales of meltdowns to share. I suppose it is good to be in that position, where most of the stress evaporates, but it does feel odd to have it happen just before the measures which were supposed to help have had a chance to affect anything. There are still things to work on, we’re not going to simply shrug and assume we were mistaken. On the other hand, the breathing space is very nice. Instead of discussing recent crisis, we talked about how it might be time for me to back off on managing Gleek’s homework. I went very hands-on while we were in the middle of the stress, it is time for me to back off again. Gleek didn’t like that idea much, she likes having a security blanket. This lets me know it is the right approach, because the point of all of this parental and therapeutic effort is to put Gleek in a position where she has the tools and strength to manage by herself. I expect it to take years, because really that is the entire developmental purpose of adolescence.

Last week Howard had diverticulitis which resolved fairly quickly with antibiotics. Unfortunately strong antibiotics have consequences of their own and these hit Howard hard yesterday. I can’t count the number of times when Howard and I have bemoaned how we just want to have an uneventful work week. Howard has a final push on the Privateer Press project, a final push on The Body Politic, and regular buffer work. We just need him to have several good work days in a row. For the moment, he’s sleeping late because, as he tweeted at 2am: “Exhaustion, dehydration, diarrhea, and insomnia: these are the four horsemen of my current apocalypse. They are very effective team players.”

Hours after the couch conversation with Kiki, just before bed, she came to my room and gave me a hug. She’d prayed for her friends and felt strongly that they would be fine. “Mom, I don’t know how anyone survives without prayer and inspiration.” I don’t know either. I know people who seek peace from other sources. I’ve seen those sources work for them, but I have to say that I’m glad to see my children choosing prayer and inspiration in times of stress. They are choosing resources that are familiar to me which means I am able to help them as they seek. It is really hard to not understand (and thus now understand how to help) someone you love when they are in pain.

I bought Talenti Sea Salt and Caramel gelato. It sits in my freezer waiting for the days when I write 1000 words of which 500 are fiction, a small treat to encourage me to write. It’s presence in my freezer demonstrates that the writing portions of my brain are ready to unfold again. The fact that it has been opened and the first serving removed is a triumph. I’ve tasted writing success for the first time in two months. It tastes of caramel.

“Can you send me some pictures of Kiki for the stylist?” the text said. So Kiki and I took some quick shots with my phone while giggling because neither of us ever pictured her getting to have the services of a stylist. Yet this is part of the package deal that comes along with getting to borrow an amazing dress for prom. The dress is being tailored to Kiki and she agrees to pose for a fashion photo shoot while wearing the dress. The dress designer has the satisfaction of seeing the dress worn more than just for a runway, the stylist has the chance to practice her art, the photographer also practices, and all of the professionals walk away with photos they can add to their portfolios. Kiki gets a dream come true experience and owes a few drawings to the dress designer. This is one of the things I love about being part of a creative community, people coming together to create something amazing just because everyone loves the idea of it.

“Gleek’s focus for the history project is not yet approved. She has some fascinating facts about East Germany, but she needs to show a specific turning point and how it changed the world.” It was not news Gleek wanted to hear, but she did not melt into a puddle of stress. Instead she and I talked through how to present various escapes over the Berlin Wall as turning points in the history of Germany. It is the escapes that fascinate her, the bravery and ingenuity of people who risked everything to change their lives, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Once her project is approved, we’ll have a diorama to make. I’m certain that before this project is complete, Gleek will have ample opportunities to feel anxiety and manage it. So far so good.

It was time for me to drive Link to school and I heard conflict downstairs by the computers: Link’s angry voice and Patch crying. Link had gotten up from the computer to leave and Patch sat down and logged in. Using Link’s profile and password. Which Patch had memorized. It was a thing Patch had done dozens of times before, Link has been happy to share his Minecraft profile with everyone, however at that moment Link realized that he’d lost control of the profile. Patch was using it without asking. All. The. Time. Fortunately it is an easy fix. Link is right that he ought to get to control the profile he purchased with his own money. Patch is right that he needs to be able to log in without having to bother Link to type the password. After school we’ll sort it out and all will be happy in Minecraft again.

My house needs to be organized. Every room has piles in the corners. They aren’t big piles and mostly they’re full of things that sort-of belong in that room anyway, but it is cluttery. I’ve been too distracted to require chores and too tired to do it all myself. Yet on Saturday I tackled the front room. Looking around now, I’m really not sure what exactly we removed, but it is a nice place to be again. I hope in the next two weeks I can give other rooms the same treatment before the coins start to arrive and shipping begins in earnest. That will make a mess all over the house until it is done.

Trials and Pushing Through

By / April 14, 2013 / 2 Comments

In church we had a lesson on enduring trials. The topic was introduced with an explanation that hard things are an expected part of life and they come to all of us, but that there is purpose to the difficulties we face. They help us grow. I believe this is true, but there are times I don’t like it much. I’ve heard lessons similar to this one before. When I’m in a calm space, I can appreciate them and understand the plan and purpose behind difficult things. This particular week has been a calm after a storm. At least I hope it is after the storm rather than a calm in the eye of it. It meant that I listened to the lesson with caution, not sure when I would become upset or irrationally irritated by something that was said. I’m still sorting through decisions made and seeking for peace with the plan for going forward. There were a few moments when a part of my brain supplied an unkind interpretation to something that was said, fortunately I had enough emotional space to know that my thoughts were the result of my current level of sensitivity, not because of what the speaker intended.

During the past few weeks while I’ve been worn and scrambling, Kiki has been dealing with a flavor of artistic crisis. She keeps getting 3/4 of the way done with a piece and then to use her words “It dies.” Somehow the life has gone out of it for her and completing it feels like complete drudgery. Among all the other things going on, I watched as the array of incomplete art began to accumulate on the piano. In my eyes they were all beautiful, worthy. I wanted to see all of them done, but Kiki couldn’t do it. This made her very upset. She doubted her chosen life path of illustration art as a career. She doubted herself. Mostly she struggled with this solo because she new how busy Howard and I were. This morning in church she got up and shared a story that made it clear how this particular struggle is going to result in her improving as an artist. There were times when I wanted to lecture her about pushing through, telling her that she can’t learn the lessons she needs unless she finishes what she started. I suspect she was able to see the shape of that lecture in the things I was carefully not saying. She probably gave that lecture to herself. This is one of the things I am trying to do as a parent, step back and let my almost-adult daughter find her own way. And she will, because she is amazing. Also, I think most of my frustration is just a selfish desire to see the beautiful pictures complete. Hopefully she too has come to the end of the struggling part.

Maybe we’re done struggling, maybe we’re not. Either way the answer is to keep going, keep starting over when things go wrong, keep finding ways through, and have faith that we’ll get to have smooth travels again.

Picturing Family Change

By / April 13, 2013 / 2 Comments

Sometimes Kiki brings home friends who are guys. They are people she likes to spend time with and sometimes who she likes in a way that is different than the way she likes her female friends. Some have made more appearances at my house than others and thus far I’ve liked all of them. I’m also glad that Kiki’s first impulse is to bring home the guys she wants to spend time with. One of the things that is fascinating to me is watching the three younger kids interact with Kiki’s guy friends. Thus far all of these guys have been very kind to the younger siblings, playing with them, teasing them, talking to them. I watch Link, Gleek, and Patch blossom under this friendly attention. They like Kiki’s friends and so do I.

Someday Kiki will bring home a guy who will be part of our lives for more than an afternoon and I can now picture that being a happy thing for all of us. Thinking even further, I can picture how other spouses will join our family and the shape of the family patterns will change to make space for new people. The next ten years are going to change our family pretty dramatically. It is nice to be able to visualize that change as a good thing.

Vehicular Repair and Convenient Inconveniences

By / April 13, 2013 / 7 Comments

I suppose I should count it as a blessing when inconvenient things happen in the most convenient way possible. As an example, our Chevy Venture broke down this morning. Howard and I were on a run to Sam’s club together to confer about patio furniture. We stopped for gas, but when Howard turned the key to restart the car, nothing happened. The same nothing continued to happen the next twenty times as both Howard and I kept trying. We ended up pushing the car into a parking space and calling a neighbor to come retrieve us so that Howard could get back to work while we considered what to do.

In the end the car was towed to an automotive place within walking distance of our house. They determined the starter motor had died. An hour and $525 later, we have a functioning vehicle again. It was inconvenient, and more expensive than I wanted it to be. It also underlined clearly that our van is pushing twelve years old and 100,000 miles. It is show its age and moving out of the realm of quirky and into being unreliable. So I’m contemplating the further expense of replacing it. Not something I really wanted to do this year. But it didn’t break down in Goblin Valley last week, when we were 150 miles from the nearest tow truck and automotive repair shop. It didn’t leave my seventeen year old daughter stranded and in need of rescue. It didn’t fail on a day when I needed to rush down to a school to help with a child emergency. It even failed early enough in the day that I was able to arrange alternate rides for my kids after school, and I had the car back before the time that Patch and I picked for his special Mother son outing. The inconvenient thing happened as conveniently as possible.

Similarly, we’ve incurred quite a few extra expenses this month. The process of evaluating Gleek has not been covered by health insurance, nor will her therapy appointments be. Howard’s visits with a psychiatrist for depression have also not been covered. Link and Kiki both had minor medical issues requiring visits and lab work which are somewhat covered. Gleek got braces. The car needed repair. Our vacuum cleaner died. Sometime in the next month or two Kiki’s college is going to start asking for payments against her tuition and dorm registration. Yet, we have the money to cover all of this. It arrived before all of this did, in a completely unexpected level of success during the challenge coin kickstarter. My ballpark mental math says that even with all the unexpected expenses, we’ll be in better financial shape than we were before the kickstarter. Though I will be happier when the flow of bills and money has settled down enough for me to really see what is going on.

Patch and I were able to go on our planned date this evening. It was a special outing that we’ve been planning for a week because he needed it. So we went to see The Croods, which we’d both seen before, and out to sushi. It was a lovely time that I’m extremely grateful I did not have to reschedule at the last minute. Now I have to start shopping around and considering options for a replacement vehicle. I’m not looking forward to having payments again.

Calm

By / April 11, 2013

After storm, wind, and rain, the sun comes out to warm the world. At first the memory of the storm is strong and evidence of it abounds, but then things dry out and the air is so calm it becomes hard to believe that it used to thrash about. In the midst of calm, the storm is hard to believe, in the midst of storm, calm is what seems unbelievable.

This week has been calm. Finally. I’ve been busy all week, my days full of things, but it has all felt calm, which is a huge difference. And I find myself musing that I must have been blowing all the stress out of proportion. Mostly though, I’m just accepting the calm. It may be a gift of the vacation. It may be that all the steps we’ve taken have begun to have an effect. Maybe we would have hit this period of calm even without all my running around trying to make things better.

I’ll take it.

Small Changes in Parenting Tactics

By / April 10, 2013 / 3 Comments

It often doesn’t take a very large parenting shift to make a big difference in a family dynamic. Some recent examples:

In mid-February Link was feeling neglected and unloved at home. He saw all the things we were doing for other kids, but wasn’t recognizing things we did for him. This was in part because we weren’t doing those things in ways that made him feel loved. Howard, Link, and I sat down and had a conversation where we cleared the air on this. Afterward both Howard and I made an extra effort to give Link hugs, to tell him out loud that we love him, to listen when he talked. It was half a dozen small adjustments, but Link no longer doubts that we love him.

Patch sometimes has meltdowns when faced with homework, particularly if the quantity or difficulty is unexpected in some way. These meltdowns have been garnering him lots of attention, which he craves, even though some of the attention is negative. When the homework stress hit, he would take actions to amp-up the meltdown and stress rather than attempting to take power and manage it. To address this I made sure he was getting positive attention and love elsewhere, mostly during a sacrosanct bedtime when I snuggle and listen. Then I stopped responding to his meltdowns. I’d tell him calmly that I was happy to help if he requested it with words rather than distressed noises. I also tried to place a reward on the far side of homework, such as a piece of chocolate. Then I told him he has the power to reach for the reward. As long as he was trying, I would be happy to help. When he gave up then I’d find something else to do until he was ready to try. The process was not fun, but it gave power and responsibility to Patch. Eventually he took both and finished the work. The next homework time was drama free.

Gleek has trouble with transitions. When I need her to stop what she is doing to do something else, like go to bed, she will ignore me, say “just a sec,” or request to do one more thing first. After the additional time or one more thing, she will repeat the request. Each request seems tiny, reasonable. But it is very common to discover that she has reasonable requested her way into an extra hour. If I get in her face and insist, then she reacts as if I am the being unfair, why on earth did I get so mad? She was totally doing what I asked. Except she did not actually move to close the book or quit the game until after I got in her face. To combat this I’m going to have to be really strict for awhile. Step on was to explain to her in a conversation that this is a problem and why it is a problem. Then I picked two small areas: quitting a computer game and closing a book. When I say it is time to be done, she has one minute to comply. If she does not, then she loses that book or computer game for about half a day. I don’t like being the parent who insists my kids must do what I say Or Else, but Gleek has been taking advantage of me. She knows it and I know it. We had a whole conversation during which she admitted as much. Day one of this new plan went well. There are battles coming, I’m certain. I’m not looking forward to them. However this is a small shift we can make which will decrease my daily frustration with her. Decreasing draws on my emotional reserves is pretty important because I’ve been tapped out lately.

Bedtime for the youngest two kids has a predictable routine. First comes snack. This is when the kids are supposed to make sure that they have a last bit of food so that they don’t feel hungry in bed. Then they read in bed. Then it is lights out. Many times I have lectured that they must do all their eating at snack time, because it is very frustrating when I get to lights out and have a kid tell me “I’m hungry.” Lately Patch has been the one doing this. He’ll assure me that he is full. Twice. Then he’ll read in bed for thirty minutes only to realize, ten minutes after lights out, that he really is hungry and he’d only skipped through snack because he wanted to read his book. Some of it is a play for additional attention. Patch doesn’t outright ask for permission to get out of bed and eat, he throws sadness at me: sad eyes, big sighs, etc. He knows I have trouble sending kids to bed hungry. I finally figured out how to turn the responsibility for this over to Patch. If he needs to get up after lights out to go eat, he can choose that, but he’ll owe me an extra chore. Having kids out of bed after bedtime impacts my ability to do other things with the evening, so if he needs to get out of bed, he needs to do something to increase my ability to do other things. That extra chore will happen before school the next day and will thus cut into his free time during that hour. Instead of me being the hero that lets Patch eat, or the villain who makes him stay in bed, I become a bystander while Patch makes his own decision.

Small changes such as these seem so unimportant, particularly when faced with large crises, but I’ve found that solutions applied to small problem spots have large ripple effects. Often it is the same emotional dynamic and need that is driving the larger, more problematic behaviors. Without intending to tackle the big issues, I end up generalizing the new strategies and the kids begin generalizing their adjustments. Sometimes a small shift is all it takes to renovate an entire system.

Rejoicing in Mundanity

By / April 8, 2013

This morning I sent my kids out the door to school and none of the schools called me during the day. I turned off my parenting thoughts until time to pick them up. During those non-parenting hours I tackled email, accounting, and some layout work. I need another dozen non-parenting hours to catch up on all the work, but at least today showed me that such hours can actually exist. I’d begun to doubt.

In the afternoon Link arrived home from school wet because he chose to ride his bike today. Upon arriving home he created a motivational money-earning chart so that he and Patch can earn money to buy a Luigi’s Mansion game for the 3DS. Patch ran off to play with friends. Kiki napped longer than she meant to because the cat was quite determined to snuggle. Gleek signed up for Pottermore because all her friends said it was cool. I finally succeeded in buying fried chicken at the local grocery story. The last four times I’ve arrived just after someone else bought enough chicken for 10 people and they ran out.

In the evening we piled into the car to spend the evening with our Tayler cousins. Howard’s three siblings all live close now and we’ve begun gathering once per month. It is something we all enjoy.

There was nothing glorious or outstanding about today except the fact that it was all so very normal, and normal has felt in very short supply lately.

Normality, Denial, and Parenting

By / April 6, 2013 / 4 Comments

Humans are inherently social creatures, even those of us who are happiest when we have significant quantities of time alone. Some people are checking around to make sure they fit in, others are checking to make sure that they stand out, but we’re all looking around to see where we stand in relation to others even if we’re trying to adhere to our principles rather than be swayed by popular opinion. Unfortunately this tendency does not really help us establish a true normal, because it is impossible for one person to truly check with all people everywhere. Even more so because there are regional, cultural, and familial variations on what is normal.

This is one of the reasons I have trouble figuring out whether my emotional responses to the stresses of the past month are over reactions or if what I’ve experienced is actually hard. I scroll through facebook and see friends whose kids are battling cancer, traumatic brain injuries, and severe mental illness. Compared to them, my lot is easy. On the other hand I also see friends whose biggest problem is the inability to find a close parking space at the mall. My concerns are weightier than that. So am I justified, or making a fuss over nothing? I can’t make a definitive decision. Instead I have to accept that whether or not my emotions are merited, they exist. I must work through them, which I have for the most part. It is a relief to be coming out the other side where I can look back and figure out what was going on. I can think again. Of course next week will bring new challenges (thus justifying my reactions) or it won’t (thus lending credence to the belief that I was making a mountain out of a molehill.) Either way I’ll deal with it.

One of the fascinating things about this experience with parental grief and guilt has been watching the power of denial. Over and over again I’ve watched as my mind reclassified events or suppressed them in support of the “I’m making this all up” theory. Then I’ll look back at journal entries or be reminded by a friend about the particulars of a conflict. Then I remember how hard it was. In order to avoid painful emotions, my brain wanted to suppress information. I know that repression and denial are important survival strategies. There were some days where they were my bestest friends because they let me keep functioning. But it made sorting things out difficult because facts and emotions were all tangled up together. I needed to keep the facts in front of me and I so very much wanted to bury, deny, repress, avoid all the emotions.

The facts are, Gleek’s anxiety is strong enough that it is disrupting her education and creating challenges for the school. Most of the concerns that the school and I have for her are because the trend line of this anxiety could lead to some very dark places for her. But that is not going to happen because we’re going to use therapy and parenting shifts to re-direct that trend line. Gleek is a cooperative partner in this process. All indicators point toward things being fine again within a couple of months, a which point Gleek will be a stronger person with a well stocked tool box. Stripped of all the emotion, these facts are promising, good news even. After all, she could have had her anxiety crisis after she’d entered the teenage push for independence from parents, or at college without anyone to guide her.

I’ve known all these facts since the beginning of March, yet I’ve been a mess for a month. I’ve cried because my daughter flailed away in stress rather than just sitting down and doing the work. Hypocrisy thy name is mother, or Sandra. I’ll grant that much of the emotional mess was due to simple schedule disruption, lack of sleep, and mental fatigue. There was a lot to process. However, the majority of my emotional chaos was–and is–because this particular crisis manages to hit many of my pockets of parental fear and guilt. I’m left with the contents of my emotional baggage strewn all over the house. The therapeutic solutions are going to require disconnecting some long-standing parent child feedback loops between Gleek and I. They were strategies which saved us when she was a toddler, preschooler, and grade school kid. Now they are like an outgrown pen trapping us both. We need a guide in this restructuring process, hence the therapist. The hardest part for me will be learning when to stand back, trust her good judgement, and not help. I always help more than I should, or maybe I don’t.

Which brings me back around to wondering if the way that I parent is right, good, or normal. I know many people who are both more structured and less structured than I am. I pay attention to the parents around me, watching for useful strategies to apply or for behaviors I want to avoid. I see people with happy and well adjusted families who do things very differently that I ever would. It is tempting to shut my eyes tight and find my own way, except how else can I learn this crazy mothering job except by observing others?

All the pondering aside, I have a plan of action for the next week. It starts with going upstairs and helping Gleek watch a documentary about the Berlin Wall for her history day project. Then I’ll help her plow through all her other work to give her the best chance possible to feel prepared for school on Monday. I may be over helping, which may interfere with her ability to learn how to handle stress, but for now I want to keep it below the level of crisis and this seems the best course of action. Truthfully, all the best parents are just muddling through.