Author name: Sandra Tayler

As part of the new schedule, Howard and I decided to make exercise a priority. We’ve been intending to do that for years, but this time we studied the finances and decided to try joining a gym. It isn’t cheap, but if we get the results we want the money will be well spent. Howard and I have both belonged to gyms before. When Howard worked at Novell, he made regular use of the gym they had on site. I last bought a gym membership right after Patches was born. It was my sanity time to drop the kids into the childcare and have an hour when no one required anything of me. But then Howard quit Novell and money was incredibly tight, so I gave it up. A part of me has missed it ever since.

I walked in today and noticed all the changes the gym had made since I was there last. Some remodeling had been done and machines had been moved around. Things were different, and yet they weren’t. The place was still full of people focused on fitness. Some guys who seemed to drip testosterone. Some women who were toned and perfectly made up for their workouts. Some people who were obviously out of shape, but determined to change that. The gym does feel a little exposed. A couple of times I felt like guys were staring at me and I was suddenly aware that for young singles the gym is a place to meet prospective dates. It made me feel self conscious. Odds are they weren’t even looking at me anyway.

Always before the gym has been a solitary pursuit. It was a place I went to be alone. This time Howard and I are going together. That changes things. It is going to take us awhile to get comfortable with exercising together, but I think it will be good for both of us. We’ll be healthier and have more energy for the other things that we want to do.

I feel like the rest of the new schedule is beginning to settle in as well. It isn’t habit yet, but I’m liking the new patterns I can see beginning to form. Howard spent all day yesterday at home, then in the evening we had a scheduled hour where the focus was on doing something together as a family. It was really good for all of us. Bedtime is working much more smoothly. I’m still sitting in the hallway every night while kids fall asleep. I sit where both Patches and Gleek can see me as they fall asleep. This also positions me to guard against kids getting out of bed or playing in bed. I’m focusing the time on teaching the kids how to lie still long enough to fall asleep. So far so good. They have started falling asleep in their own beds and they’ve even started sleeping there all night long rather than climbing into bed with us. Even better, the nightmares that both Gleek and Patches were complaining about seem to have tapered off. A few more weeks of stability and I think they’ll be back to only happy dreams.

The more I look at the house and family stuff, the more I see that I was letting slide, and the more I am convinced that this shift in priorities/emphasis is the right thing for all of us.

Every year as we approach Thanksgiving, Kiki demands to know if we’ll be having turkey this year. Apparently she was permanently emotionally scarred by that one year that we chose to have a ham instead of a turkey. The ham Thanksgiving was 7 years ago now, but still she announces to visitors that we almost never have turkey for Thanksgiving. In the minds of my kids turkey is this amazing food that we almost never get to have. We did have turkey last Thanksgiving, but according to the kids, that didn’t count because we didn’t cook it at our house.

So in an effort to appease my children, and to create space in my freezer, I cooked a turkey dinner today. Since I was going to take the trouble to roast a 12 pound bird, I decided to go all out and do a full Thanksgiving style dinner complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and rolls. It was a lot of work, but the dinner was really yummy. This was my first effort at putting Sunday Dinner back on the schedule. It went well. It was nice to sit all of us down at the table with a table cloth and napkins. Next week we’ll see if we can get napkins onto laps and work on appropriate table conversation. Tonight’s dinner discussion included far too many bodily excretions to be considered polite.

Tomorrow I get to tackle Family Home Evening.

Gleek was over-the-top today. Every slight frustration was met with an ear-splitting shriek. Every argument was ready to be an all-out fight. And she spent a considerable amount of time being deliberately provoking to various people. I finally had to put my foot down. Link and Patches were playing a whiteboard game. Gleek kept using a finger to erase sections of what they had done. I asked her to stop twice. Then I told her that if she touched the board again, she would have a time out. She took a finger and touched the board in a clear space. It was a very deliberate act of testing the limits. She had done exactly what I told her not to do, but she was finally not damaging her brothers’ game.

Every time Gleek pushes at the limits I set, I have to decide whether or not to push back. Sometimes bending the limit a little results in a compromise that satisfies us both. Other times Gleek justs steps into the space and pushes against the limit again. and again. and again. Today she’d done a lot of the latter. I realized it was time to apply consequences. It is not that this particular limit was important, but the lesson that limits are to be respected is a very important one.

I picked up Gleek and carried her (yelling and writhing) to the kitchen. I sat her on a stool and announced that she had a one minute time out. She instantly hopped off the stool, but did not flee the kitchen. She is expert at just barely defying me so that I might let her get away with it. I put her back on the stool. She hopped back off (still yelling and crying.) I told her I was counting down from 10* and if she wasn’t on the stool when I finished, she had two minutes instead of one. She began to almost hop up onto the stool repeatedly. It was as if she was suddenly incapable of climbing onto the stool by herself. I got all the way to zero. Gleek had earned herself a second minute. I started counting down again. She tried her best to make me believe that she couldn’t get onto the stool. She earned a third minute that way before she actually got onto the stool. Then she turned all soft and small wanting nothing more than hugs from mom. I told her that hugs had to wait until the time out was over. Whereupon she filled the kitchen with top volume wailing.

Once the time out was over, I picked up Gleek. She clung to me with all her might. I sat with her on the couch and snuggled her close. With Gleek more than any of my other kids, I see how much children need and want their parents to set limits. She depends upon me to curb her behaviors when her impulses carry her away. I struggle to find ways to help her learn how to curb them herself. That’s why I wrote a story for her last year. I pulled it out again tonight and read it to her. She snuggled close and listened with rapt attention as I read how Amy gets carried away by her ideas and then learns to control them.
“Amy is like me mom.” Gleek said quietly halfway through. “I’m always in trouble too.”
I hugged her tighter, glad that she now has this story as a doorway to let us talk about these things. I’m even gladder that this book will finally get printed in the next few months. It’ll be nice to have a book to read to her rather than just loose pages. Hopefully the story will help her as she tries to curb her impulses that run wild.

*I always count down instead of up. If I start at one, the kids may not be sure if I’m headed for three, five, or ten. If I start from 10 and go down, they know exactly how much time is left.

Earlier this evening I was sitting here at my computer writing a bog entry. It was a whiny entry lamenting my inability to fit every single thing I want to do into every single day. Mid-sentence I was stopped abruptly by a strong wash of feeling. I needed to stop blogging and go downstairs to be with my kids. I did. It was not a major event. No disaster was averted, but I spent an hour sharing in an activity that they enjoy. I was there for them, completely present in the moment. Usually my brain is miles or days away thinking about other things.

I need to do more of this. I need to be centering myself here and now. I need to look around me, at the blessings I have, rather than constantly fretting over future possibilities. Happiness does not lie in the future. If I can not find happiness in my current circumstances (whatever they may be) then true happiness may forever elude me.

My life is full of wonderful things. Most of them are the same things that I intended to whine about in the earlier blog post. I need to step away from my computer and really see them rather than trying to see past them to something else.

Gleek was doing her usually ping-pong ball imitation, bouncing randomly around the kitchen, when she stopped and turned to Howard.

Gleek: “What if it was SOCK Mercenary instead of Schlock Mercenary?”

Howard answered without even pausing for thought: “Then it would have to put on its shoes to go outside.”

Gleek, grinning: “What if it was Sock SHOE Mercenary?”

Howard smiling back: “Then it could go outside.”

Gleek, grinning mischievously: “What if it was Sock Shoe COAT Mercenary?”

Howard laughed a little: “Then it could go outside in the winter.”

Gleek, begins laughing as she speaks: “What if it was Sock Shoe Coat PANTS UNDIES Mercenary?”

Howard began laughing so hard he didn’t answer.

I jerked awake to the sound of whispering children. “Let’s go see him!”
I called out “Let your uncle sleep!”
Gleek and Patches paused before continuing down the stairs. “He’s awake. There’s a light under his door.”
“Even if he’s awake, you need to leave him alone until he comes out. He’ll come out when he’s ready to play.”
Gleek sighed. “Okay. We can’t go in anyway. The door is locked. We’ll just watch.” And so the two of them went to set up their vigil on the door, ready to pounce on my brother the moment he emerges.

My brother has definitely earned this Desired Playmate status from my kids. I’ve never seen a man so patient and so willing to crawl around on the floor. Last night Gleek was teaching him how to play Monster in the Dark, which included howling and growling and my brother being used as a beast of burden. He played with a smile. I watched and remembered when this brother stayed with us for a month in 2004 while he was job hunting. Then it was Kiki and Link who set up a nigh daily vigil outside his door. Although their choices of games were probably more to my brother’s innate taste. They kept asking him to play chess.

I keep an eye on the play and sometimes I go rescue my brother. He does wear out, and with no kids of his own he’s not always sure how to make them understand that he is tired. He’ll escape upstairs tired and rumpled, but smiling. If anyone deserves to have kids, it’s this man. Unfortunately he first has to find a wife, which has been tricky for him. He’s a computer guy, very distractable and not very aggressive. And women between 30-45 who are geeky while sharing our religion can be hard to find, particularly in Florida where he lives. I wish he lived closer so I could help him network socially and meet more people.

At least this morning my brother has a door to retreat behind and lock. For most of the weekend he’s been sleeping on the family room floor because my parents had the guest bed in my office. Gleek and Patches assured me that they were not waking up my brother every morning by jumping on him. I knew they weren’t but I also know that a young child sitting nearby and trying to be quiet is one of the noisiest sounds in the world. Especially when “nearby” means “three inches away.”

My brother will be leaving today. He needs to travel to Idaho to visit my other brother before returning to Florida. My kids will be really sad to see him go.