Sandra Tayler

The battle of dinner

Gleek writhes on the kitchen chair, an abject bundle of misery. “But Mom! I’m just not hungry!”
I look down at her plate with its four neat little piles of food, two of which have been nibbled. I’ve been trying to get Gleek to eat dinner for 20 minutes now. All the other children have gone. I want to be gone too. I do not want to stand here and make my child miserable. I don’t like to see her cry. I also do not like watching my kids skip a healthy dinner only to come snacking on treat foods ten minutes later.

“There are four piles of food on your plate, just eat two of them. You can pick which two.” It is a bargain. I’ve slid from my position of requiring her to eat everything. The give in my position is due to the fact that part of me is aware that she truly might not feel hungry. I feel horribly mean and abusive. Part of me whispers that Gleek is going to remember this event, that years from now she will be bemoaning her abused childhood to some therapist. I can feel the therapist’s eyes staring through the years to scrutinize my actions. I don’t much care about the therapist’s opinion, but I never want to be the cause for Gleek to need one. And so I back away from my original declaration, trying to be fair, trying to make peace.

But Gleek does not accept the peace offering. She begins shaking her head, flipping her hair wildly. Some of it trails through the food. She’ll need a bath after this. “Just leave me alone Mom! Leave me alone! I’m not hungry!”

My patience has worn so thin that it is more holes than anything else. It is not just this battle of wills, but the unending stream of battles over small things all day long. Gleek has had a difficult day. As a result, so have I. For some reason all of her joys and frustrations have been magnified far out of proportion and I have had to reign them in, to make sure that her exuberant energy doesn’t cause her to wallop another child with her jump rope, to make sure that she doesn’t shove her brother because he won’t play her way. I am tired. And I am angry. I am mad at my daughter for being so out of control today. I want to be done fighting, but I am aware that she can not learn control if I let out-of-control behaviors go unchecked. If I let her win I’m just going to face more battles. Bigger battles.

Fortunately Howard comes to our rescue. He heard the shouting, both hers and mine. It was probably mine that summoned him, because she has been shouting all day. Howard brings Gleek under control far more thoroughly and effectively than I ever can. He is all sympathy with her in-control behavior and stern and scolding with the other. He does not back down on his position as I so often do. Within a matter of minutes, he has Gleek sitting quietly and eating her bites.

She is so small sitting there, eyes red, sniffling, chewing. Her every movement is contrite. I watch her and wonder what story she is telling herself about this event. Are we the big mean parents who made her eat when she wasn’t hungry? Or does she know that she was over the line? Is she telling herself how awful she is and that she is a bad girl? I don’t want her to believe any of those stories. I want her to see herself as I do. I want her to see the amazingly strong girl who is filled with huge impulses that she has to wrestle with every day. I want her to see how often she does curb and control herself. I want her to see how bright and glorious and intelligent she is. I want her to understand that we all lose control of ourselves sometimes and we just have to pick up and try to do better next time. I want her to see her choices that led to this battle. Then I want her to see my choices as well. Most of all I want us both to choose something else next time.

“Do you want to sit in my lap while you finish your bites?” It is a peace offering from me.

Gleek nods and I scoop her into my lap. She wiggles her shoulders so that one nestles under my arm. A sigh shivers her whole body. It is answered by one from me. We have reached the calm after the storm. My arms wrap around her, both of us relishing the comfort of touch. There are no words as she finishes eating her bites. I have a hundred things I want to make her understand, but there will be time for that later. For now words will only shatter the peace which still feels fragile.

When the required food has been eaten, Gleek hops off my lap and runs to go play. Within minutes she is giggling with her brothers. She is as happy as if the storm never existed. Not so for me. I still feel shipwrecked; left sorting through the wreckage on the beach; trying to figure out how to cobble something together that will let me sail the dangerous waters of bedtime. Fortunate for me, I am not alone. Howard’s ship is not smashed and, though the passage is tricky, we all survive the trip.

I am not perfect. Howard is not perfect. None of the kids are perfect. Sometimes all those imperfections crash into each other and we are left standing in the midst of wreckage that none of us intended to create. At such times the best we can do is pick up the mess and try to go on, try to be better, try not to err in the same way again. It comforts me this evening to repeat, as did Anne of Green Gables, that tomorrow is a fresh day with no mistakes in it.

Convention season begins

LTUE is this week. I thought I was only going to be able to attend on Friday afternoon/evening, but it is now looking like I’ll be able to be there Thursday until 1:30 or so. I may also be able to make some of Saturday afternoon and evening. Saturday is less certain though because I haven’t set up that babysitting yet.

Friday at 6pm both Howard and I will be on a panel about publishing fiction on the internet.

Friday at 7pm I will be on a panel about publishing with a small press.

Howard will be on a lot more panels than that, but he’ll publish that information on his own blog in the next couple of days.

In between panels, Howard and I are most likely to be found in the registration area where we’ll be selling Schlock books. We’ll also have the brand new Schlock shirts. Internet pre-orders will open on these tomorrow, but at LTUE we’ll have actual shirts that you can walk away wearing. Quantity and sizes will be somewhat limited though. Also Howard has also created some new posters for this event. They’ll probably be available online later, but if you come to LTUE you can get them first and you won’t have to pay for shipping. We’ll also have a copy of Hold on to Your Horses available for perusing and a sign up list for people who want to pre order. So don’t miss stopping by the Tayler table.

LTUE marks the beginning of our hectic 2008 convention season. Let the insane busy-ness begin.

Tired and scattered

This evening I am tired, but I feel pretty good about it since it is an earned tired. Yesterday I was a trifle manic. I wrote four blog posts, a dozen emails, put together promotional material for Hold Horses (bookmarks mostly,) took care of the kids, and then stayed up late talking with Howard. I say “talking,” but it was more like Howard listening to me while I babbled at length about the million thoughts bumping around in my head. All day long my brain was fizzing with ideas and energy. Today has been more sluggish, I still got stuff done, but not at yesterday’s furious pace. And tonight I don’t have an endless stream of conversation pouring from my brain. Instead I sit dumbly, knowing that there was something I wanted to talk about, but not sure exactly what it was. I’m not worried about it though. I got enough stuff done today and I’ll think more clearly when I’ve caught up on my sleep.

Being busy and handling email

Sometime last year I wrote a post in which I realized out loud that I’d changed from a Stay-at-home-mom into a Work-from-home-mom. This is now the post where I realize out loud that work has changed from a part time job into a full time one. I used to spend 10-20 hours per week. Now I spend about 30 hours per week with occasional dips into 20 hours or spikes into 40 or more hours. This change happened with the shipping of Tub of Happiness, but I did not realize it at the time. Because I did not recognize the increase in my work load, I did not shift the schedule to account for it. This January I did shift the schedule, but I didn’t fully realize why I had to do it until I realized that all the intended spaces in the new schedule were already filled with things.

A good example of this is my email box. It used to be that I’d get 0-3 emails on any given day. Because I’m compulsive about checking my email, I would catch them as they arrived and reply to them within hours. Then we started shipping books. Suddenly I started getting daily statements about credit card receipts for the day. I’d let those collect in my box until accounting day when I’d enter them all into my financial tracking software. I did the same with electronic receipts for orders placed online. Customer service emails began to show up in my box. Those needed quick responses. So that the emails that needed responses did not get lost in the clutter, I’d click the star icon next to it. This worked well and so I did it for every email that I couldn’t respond to right away, but needed to respond to.

Lately the system has stopped working so well. My mailbox gets buried under 20 or 30 emails and many of them have stars next to them. Right now I have a dozen emails that need responses of one kind or another. It weighs on my mind and makes me feel behind to have so many messages waiting for a response from me. And yet I’m afraid of throwing things into a filing system until after I’ve responded. If I don’t have the reminder right in front of my face, I’ll forget to respond at all. I have started pulling the receipt emails out of my inbox. They just create too much clutter. Unfortunately comments to this blog also get caught in this task mess. I’ll read a comment and want to respond, but don’t have the brainspace right that moment. So I tag it for later. Sometimes I actually get back to comment responses. Other times I just have to let it go without responding. I just don’t have enough time to track everything.

I like being involved. I like that I am necessary enough that I’m constantly getting email. I could do without the increasing amount of spam. But I need to pay attention to my handling of email to see if I can manage it better. It frustrates me when I discover an email that has been waiting three days for a response from me. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

Cub scouts and Link

Lately I’ve been feeling burdened and not enthusiastic about my role as a cub scout webelos den leader. Yesterday I remembered why it is worth doing. I’ve got 6 boys in my den. They all show up to the meetings bright eyed and happy to be there. Only once in more than a year did I have a boy who wanted to be somewhere else. Because I am the mother of one of the boys, I know that the boys may moan and groan about having to go. They kick up a fuss about having to leave their games or their friends. But once they arrive, the are glad to be at cub scouts. They are excited to be in a place where a pair of adults have planned an activity or project just for them. Some of the projects are less exciting than others, but we try to make sure that we don’t trip their homework alarms even when using worksheets.

Right now my den is working on an athlete badge. This means that we go into the gym and take measurements of how many push-ups they can do, how far they can jump, how fast they can run. We’ll repeat these measurements for the next few weeks tracking progress. The boys loved it. They had a chance to run around for an hour and show us what they can do. I was a little worried about this badge because my Link is measurably not as good at these physical activities as some of his peers. We had one boy do 50 sit-ups. Link did 4. But not once did any boy make a disparaging comment to any other boy. All the emphasis was on each individual seeing what they could do and improving.

The emphasis on physical activity is going to be good for Link. Being stronger would be good for him, make him more confident, and now is a good time to push for it. Link continues to be fascinated with jumping rope. He brought it with him to scouts and was better at it than the other boys. That was a big boost for him. The only drawback is that he jumped around so much yesterday that he is very sore today. He hobbled and winced his way through getting dressed. I hope that he doesn’t let the pain of muscle soreness put him off of jumping rope.

Gleek fools me twice

On Monday morning Gleek complained that she didn’t feel well. However in between complaints she bounced around cheerfully, so I sent her to school anyway. All seemed well, but after returning from school Gleek curled up on the couch and stayed there. I looked at her and could tell that I’d misjudged. She was sick and shouldn’t have gone to school that day. Sure enough she spiked a fever and had a restless night.

Tuesday morning there was no question about sending Gleek to school. She spent all day curled up watching movies, eating nothing, and sleeping lots. By evening she had perked up some, so I had hopes that she would be better in the morning. I didn’t want her to be sick on Wednesday and miss her beloved tumbling class.

Wednesday morning Gleek said she felt a little bit sick, but upon realizing that it was the day of her class, she insisted that she was plenty well enough to go to school. She cheerfully got herself ready and I dropped her off. When I picked her up from school she was happily climbing snow piles and tightrope walking along the top of the bike rack. She went to her class happily. Unbeknownst to me, Gleek was acting healthy through sheer force of will. The fiction unravelled during the last ten minutes of her class when Gleek simply had no energy left. She curled herself up into a little ball with the softest object she could find in the gym. It happened to be a martial arts punching mitt. This was all reported to me by my neighbor who was running the carpool for the class. All I witnesses was that Gleek arrived back home tearful and ready to be snuggled. I took one look at her wan little face and could tell that she was still sick and should not have been at school or at the class.

This reassesment was further cinched at bedtime. Gleek said I should let her stay up later because she’d had a nap. I countered that she couldn’t possibly have had a nap because she’d been at school all day. This was when Gleek told me that at lunch time she had crawled under the table and fallen asleep. She only woke up when the bell rang and she ran back to class. I can totally picture the chaotic lunch room full of kids and lunch helpers, all of whom are so busy that they don’t notice the little pink-coated bundle sleeping under the table. The thought makes me want to snuggle her up and keep her safe for a week. She is so brave and such a trooper.

Gleek is home from school today. She may be home from school tomorrow too. She’s fooled me twice already this week and I want to make sure she is really and truly healthy before I send her back to school again. I want her naps to be on comfy couches instead of curled up under lunchroom tables. And I need to remember that unlike my other kids who will languish from a runny nose, Gleek will continue to seem healthy until she is nigh death. The other three need me to teach them how to keep going in the face of mild discomfort. Gleek needs me to teach her how to slow down and let her body heal itself.

A pile of happy things

Today I have an abundance of things to be happy about.

A friend and I finally managed to have a long talk where we cleared the air and figured out why we have been accidentally hurting each other’s feelings repeatedly for several months now. I’m so glad to be able to talk to her again and leave the conversation feeling happy and more at peace with myself and the world as a whole.

I got a call from the teacher of the class where Kiki was teased for caring about grades. The teacher and I had a pleasant conversation where I made clear what has been going on with Kiki and how Kiki no longer wants to go to school. Teacher was very distressed by this and had some solid suggestions for steps we can take to remedy things. Teacher also promised to look out for Kiki and try to prevent similar incidents. I am so happy that once again I find wonderful allies in the teachers and administrators at my child’s school.

I put together a sheet of promotional bookmarks for Hold on to Your Horses. I wasn’t sure they were good enough, but Howard looked at them and liked them a lot.

The layout for Hold on to Your Horses is so close to done that I’ll probably be shipping files to the printer within a week. I’m so happy to be so close to finished. (I’m also terrified because what if I’ve done something wrong in the file preparation or what if I’ve miscommunicated with the printer? BUT, this is a happy post. I’ll save the angsty stuff for a different day. Besides. I’m happy right now and I don’t want to spoil it by dwelling on stuff I can’t change tonight anyway.)

I posted on a writer’s forum asking for marketing advice and several people expressed interest in the book and had some fantastic suggestions for how to let people know it exists.

My kitchen is clean even though I made dinner. I cleaned up after the mess.

Link has a new found fascination with jumping rope. It is because of an American Heart Association program at his school. But Link has been jumping so much that I think his legs are going to be sore tomorrow. I need to hit the dollar store and pick up a couple more jump ropes so the kids can stop arguing over Link’s.

Gleek and Kiki have not had a major row in days despite the fact that Kiki has been extra grumpy because of unpleasantness at her school.

The next Doctor Who disc arrived in the mail.

I have a hyacinth blooming in my house.

The schedule is sufficiently ingrained that even on a highly distracted day such as today I still made dinner, supervised homework, and got the kids into bed on time.

The doctor re-checked Patches ears this morning and they are no longer filled with fluid. Hooray for the curative powers of daily gum chewing!

There are more, but I have to stop the list somewhere. It has been a good day.

Still learning

Kiki just came storming in after her second miserable school day in a row. This is the second time in two days she’s been required to do group work with kids who don’t care about getting good grades and who tease her because she does care. I now have to figure out how to walk the delicate line between letting Kiki solve her own problems and going to bat for her. The first step is to gather more information. I’ve left messages with the teachers. Hopefully they’ll get back to me soon. Mostly this is just a reprise of the ongoing disconnect between Kiki and her age-peers who don’t often share her interests and are not her intellectual peers. I know so much that would help Kiki deal with this stuff, but I can’t give her my experience. She has to muddle through and learn her own lessons. Much in the same way that I am still muddling through and learning lessons.

Growing

For the first night in what feels like forever I feel like I’ve managed the day well. It did not start out well at all. It started with three kids running late and a big argument between Kiki and Gleek. Howard and I waded into the middle of it and there was much sadness all around. By the time I got the kids dropped at school (late) my head was so full of stuff that I couldn’t sit down and work. Instead Patches and I tromped through the yard to visit my backyard neighbor. She kindly let me sit in her kitchen for 90 minutes and rant about the minute details of things that have been bugging me. Some of them were big things some of them were little things, but the accumulation was overwhelming me. It is possible that the problem with January was that I never stopped to allow myself time to rant before moving on to solve problems. Sometimes we just need to whine a little, stomp our feet and shout about unfairness even if we know that no one ever promised fairness.

My friend had many valuable insights and thoughts for me, but the one that jumped out at me was a sentence in the middle of a story about something that she has been dealing with lately. It was “You just don’t recover from that in a couple of months.” I’ve made major shifts in our rhythm of living. These shifts are correcting long-term problems and I’ve already seen improvements, but I was feeling like a failure because it wasn’t all fixed yet. This morning I realized that I haven’t given things enough time to heal. I haven’t given time for everyone to grow and develop into the new structure. Three weeks may make a habit, but it is still a shiny new habit still worn uncomfortably. The path is right, I just need to stay on it and the rewards I want will come. The healing and new confidence I hope for in my kids will come. Patches will feel more comfortable and stop fighting sleeping by himself. Kiki and Gleek will begin to love and understand and respect each other. Link will learn to ease his own transitions and keep himself on task. I’ve made the structure, but I have to give the kids time to grow into it. I have to give myself time to grow into it.

I came home with my head clear and proceeded to amaze myself with how much stuff I got done. All the shipping, all the accounting, made dinner, snuggled and tended Gleek who proved herself to be sick by crawling into bed and staying there, hugged and listened to Kiki who had a truly horrible day at school, helped Kiki to practice her hated clarinet despite the bad day, helped Link with homework, had a snuggly reading time with Patches. It was all good. I finally feel like I did all the things with my day that I’m supposed to do. But of all the pieces, the one that makes me most happy was mediating an agreement between Kiki and Gleek that hopefully will raise the civility level between them. Gleek is going to try to answer words with words instead of objecting squeals or hand motions (both of which drive Kiki to fury.) Kiki is going to try to make sure that she starts every interaction nicely thus giving Gleek the chance to answer Kiki’s nice requests with words and open a negotiation rather than both sides instantly opening fire. I’m going to have to be on hand to mediate this for quite some time, but at least I’ve got both of them admitting that they don’t like the way things have been and being willing to change a little to make things better. It is progress.

And as I wrote this entry I remembered that sometimes the process of fixing something first makes a bigger mess. But the mess is necessary so that things can be better. Growing is often messy and painful.