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Until today I had completely manage to avoid the over-stressed, suppressed-panic that made the last two book mailings such a grueling experience for us all. Today as I was processing some special handling orders and correlating with Howard, I discovered some minor errors. (wrong postage amounts printed for a couple orders and a much slimmer margin on the sketched editions than I expected.) Logically I can see that it is probably all going to be fine. But there is a voice screaming in the back of my head saying that since I got these things wrong, I might have gotten something else wrong and that “something else” might be disastrous.

So now I’m wound up tighter than a watch spring and I’m afraid I won’t be able to uncoil until after I hear back from people who received their books in good order.

Unfortunately my tension does not lead to good parenting decisions. Gleek and Patches were having a minor squabble and I over reacted at a level fit to be measured by local seismographs. I don’t like myself when I do that. I don’t like it when my need for them to obey is more important than their emotional security and development. I feel so out of control during those moments, yet they aren’t scared of me at all. I’m scared of me, but they aren’t, and so they argue. Which is exactly what I need them to not do. Again my needs before their needs. There is a huge difference between saying “Mommy needs some alone time” and “Get out!” On the up side, their lack of fear is an indicator that even though I feel out of control, I’m actually not. I feel out of control because I’m drawing close to a line I should not cross, not because I’m halfway across the field on the other side of the line.

Fortunately food came next and that calmed everyone down. Kiki asked where Daddy was. She notices too that Mom is less likely to lose it when Dad is here. I responded that Howard was at the Keep drawing. Kiki sighed because she misses him. It’s nice that the kids miss him when he disappears for a week. Then Kiki turned on my “Sanity Song” playlist for me. Which helped me get a better grip on myself. Kiki is so smart. She knew I was losing it and she quietly sought for ways to give it back to me. I’m very lucky to have her.

So now I need to just breathe, and trust in the work I’ve done, and trust that it will all go fine. I need to uncoil, because being under tension does not help at all.

This week all of my energy has turned inward. I’ve spent lots of it on preparing for book mailing, but the rest of it has been focused on replenishing my reserves and meeting the needs of my family. I skipped out on my writer’s group, cub scout pack meeting, and a dinner hosted by my church women’s group. They are all events that I look forward to, but this past week I needed to focus all my energy into keeping things well managed at home so that Howard’s marathon week of book signing was as easy as possible. I also needed to really connect with the kids last week, because this week I’ll be handing them off to others and when I am home, I’ll be too tired.

It is strange to feel this turning inward. I’m not calling people or reaching out. I look forward to finishing the book mailing so that I don’t have to conserve myself so vigorously. I miss reaching out.

Today Patches came up to me and handed me a tiny little square of paper. He had cut it out himself. It was so small that when I held the paper between my thumb and forefinger, only the edges were visible. Patches very seriously informed me that it was a ticket. I thanked him, put it to one side of me, and went back to my work. A minute later Patches was at my elbow again with another ticket. Or rather, the same ticket because he had quietly collected the one he’d already given me. “Who stole my ticket?” I gasped. Patches giggled. And for a few minutes he gave me tickets from his little pile and then stole them back from me when I turned away. After a few minutes I suggested that Patches might want to give a ticket to his Daddy. Patches trotted off downstairs. Then wandered off to play something else.

Later Howard came upstairs, preparing to leave for Dragon’s Keep. Howard asked Patches for a hug. Patches tipped his head to the side, ready to launch into one of his explanations about how the hugs-for-mommy were in front of the hugs-for-daddy and that daddy would have to wait. This negotiation is a frequent one. Patches loves being in control of a commodity that his parents desire. At that moment I had an inspiration. I turned to Howard and asked where his ticket was. Howard and Patches both lit up. Howard went and retrieved his ticket. Patches accepted it seriously and then gave an enormous hug. Patches ran off to play, pleased that there was now a purpose for his little tickets. Howard says he fully intends to hoard tickets.

Gleek accompanied me on some of my mailing-prep errands today. We ended up sitting in Alphagrapics for about 30 minutes waiting for a print job. This kind of stop is potentially miserable for us both. Gleek is not a child who gets bored. Whenever boredom threatens, she will find something to do. Therein lies the problem, Gleek’s “somethings” are frequently active, loud, or otherwise disruptive to those around her. This time she acquired the calculator from the counter and began to play with it. But just pushing buttons on the calculator was not interesting enough, so she did it while spinning in circles. I was in a mood to be amused rather than irritated, so I watched her.

She was a ragamuffin with her tangly in-her-face hair and mismatched clothes. She even wore her brother’s boots (sans socks) because that was most handy when time came to go. Several times other customers looked at her, but I judged that she was cause for amusement not annoyance, so I did not ask her to stop. She was very good to stay in the open space in the middle where she would not disturb others. Every so often she would stop to wiggle her loose tooth. I hope she looses it before Christmas. Then she’ll have both top teeth missing and I’ll teach her how to sing “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.” As I watched her spin, I marveled once again at the energy levels she maintains. And I marveled even more at how well she has learned to curb her own impulses. If ever a child had the tendency to go feral, it would be Gleek, but she has not because she works so hard to please. Once the print job was done I began the process of coaxing Gleek into her coat. In the end I had to hold the coat out while she danced across the room and into it. We did it twice because it didn’t work right the first time. Then she danced into the car and we went home.

At bedtime tonight I carried each of the three younger ones to bed. Patches was scooped up as a sleepy puppy. He curled his whole body up on his pillow, assuring me that this is the way that puppies sleep. With much coaxing I convinced him to only put his head on the pillow and put the rest of him under the covers where he will be warm. Patches gave me a big hug and say with absolute confidence “You love my hugs.” I assured him that I did. Link was next. I couldn’t scoop him, but I did carry him. I groaned as I trudged up the stairs that he was getting so big he was going to have to carry me to bed next time. Link grinned from ear to ear. He loves the idea that someday he’ll be bigger than Mom. Gleek’s scooping was a little less smooth. Usually on the nights that Patches is a sleepy puppy, Gleek is content to be a sleepy kitty. Tonight she just wanted to stay up with Daddy. I carried her to bed anyway and tucked her in. Tonight she did not need extra talking. Some nights she needs me to just talk and listen to her. At bedtime, in the dark, she is finally able to focus on connecting and talking. There are few moments during the day when motion is not distracting from conversation. So I’ll spend a few extra minutes talking about “feelings and stuff.” At the end of it, she feels safe and loved and ready to let me leave.

The arrival of books has completely altered my week, but for the kids it hardly even registers as an event. I think that means I’ve worked things right.

Kiki and I got into an argument over clarinet practice. This is not the problem. The problem is that in certain emotional states I can not leave things alone. I lecture and Kiki acts stubborn. So I lecture harder because I feel like I’m not getting through. And in that moment it feels critically important for her to learn that lesson right now. Finally I manage to break out of the face-off, usually because another child has developed a dire need for attention. However the argument with Kiki feels unfinished and so I’ll go back to it. Eventually I allow Kiki to escape into solitude in her room. Once Kiki is away from the barrage of parental scold, she invariably breaks down into noisy tears. During that time she is taking my words and using them to berate herself. I hear the sobbing and the nurturing mommy part of me just has to do something, so I go to her to try to make it all better. But she’s still angry with me and with herself. She isn’t ready for it to be “all better” yet. So we end up going for another round of argument on the same subject that started the mess, or sometimes we find another thing to circle endlessly and uselessly.

Honestly the best thing for me to do when we end up in a face-off, is for me to leave Kiki alone until she works completely through her emotions and thoughts. She is really smart and she knows what is right. She has really good instincts that lead her down the right paths. I need to back off and trust that she’ll find a good way, even if it is not mine. But it is so hard. I really dislike conflict and I have a driving need to make it all better. At the same time I have a driving need to make sure that I teach my kids the lessons they’ll need. And so I try to do both and end up making a mess. Poor Kiki doesn’t see that I’m the one making mistakes in managing a minor incident, and so she feels like everything is crashing down around her. She is convinced it is all her fault. I’m convinced it is all mine. And sometimes we fight over that too. Which is dumb.

I have got to find a way to stop these escalation cycles. Everyone else suffers for them too. Gleek, Link, and Patches did not have a pleasant bedtime because I was pre-angered over the conflict with Kiki. Fortunately this kind of head-to-head conflict is fairly rare. Today it happened because I’m stressed about the books arriving tomorrow and I was subconsciously looking for things to fill my time. I need to teach my subconscious that picking a fight is not a satisfactory way to spend time.

Tonight I broke the cycle by leaving the house. I left the kids with Howard and went shopping. By the time I arrived a Walmart I realized that, except for a 15 minute trip to pick up kids from school, this was the only time I’d left the house all day. No wonder I was ready to pick a fight. I bought a card to say sorry to Kiki because cards are very important to her. She keeps all of them. I figured that I should apologize in the way best suited to her. Tomorrow Kiki and I will talk and it will all be okay.

Now if I can just figure out how not to do this to any of us again.