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Link does not like loud noises. He never has. This is especially apparent around the Fourth of July which seems to be all about loud noises. As a baby Link would huddle in my lap and I’d cover his ears so that he wouldn’t cry. When he got a little older, he’d watch Daddy light fireworks out one of the windows. He wanted to see, but he didn’t want to hear. Last year we went to the local parade and Link spent much of the time with his hands over his ears because every vehicle honked, every band played, and a cannon boomed. On Tuesday we watched hot air balloons launch and Link was afraid. I realized that it was the sound that was affecting him more than the sights. I pondered this and I pondered our intention to attend the parade again. Then I dug around in the garage for Howard’s shooting headphones. These things are designed to protect ears from the sound of nearby firearms detonations.

As soon as we arrived at the parade I handed the headphones to Link. At first he was confused, but when I explained why I wanted him to wear the headphones, his eyes lit up with joy. He plunked them on his head and didn’t take them off except once when he checked to see how loud things were without them. He was able to sit on the front row and enjoy the entire parade instead of wanting to flee from the cacophanous noises. I also sent the headphones with him to the huge fireworks display. Again he was able to enjoy the show without being overwhelmed by the noise.

The very coolest thing about this event is that it demonstrates to me and to him, that he is not inherently fearful. He is having a physical reaction to loud noises and we’ve been interpreting that reaction as fear. He isn’t afraid at all. That knowledge gives us tremendous power. As he gets older he’ll be able to identify the reactions and label them as something besides fear. He’ll be able to take actions to correct the difficulty without feeling helpless or fearful. For today, I’m glad that a set of red headphones allowed him to enjoy the Independance Day activities.

There was a huge chaotic bustle trying to get Kiki and Link out the door. They were being taken to The Stadium of Fire by my Dad. After the chaos of shoes and jackets and directions, they finally piled into my van and drove off. I turned from the window and asked Howard if it was silly of me to be anxious. He said it wasn’t, but I still felt silly. Logically I knew that they would get there fine, find parking, have a great time, and come home safely despite horrendous traffic. But I worried. I worried about each of those steps. I worried that Link would be frightened by something and I wouldn’t be there to talk him through it. I worried about even more unlikely things. But the potential good from the experience far outweighed the unpleasantness of my anxiety.

I sat in the kitchen and sorted through my anxious thoughts. I addressed them individually with logic and stowed them away. Under all the layers it came down to the fact that sending my children off to a major public event with my father isn’t something I’ve ever done before. The very newness of the event made it outside my comfort zone. It is hard to let go and let the kids fly, even when they’re ready. The anxiety sort took me about 20 minutes. Then with all the anxious thoughts tucked safely away, I proceeded to have fun lighting off small fireworks with Howard, Gleek, Patches, my mother, and some neighbors. We had a good time. Kiki, Link, and my dad had a good time. All was well and none of my worries came to pass.

It seems like I have to go through this kind of process frequently. I come from a long line of worriers. They seem to have bequeathed to me a voice which mutters darkly about all the worst possible scenarios. That mutter can be nerve wracking. The only solution I’ve found is to yank the voice out into the light and to require it to speak to me clearly. The articulated worries often become obviously ridiculous. Then I can dismiss them. If I can’t dismiss the worry outright, I can still create an action plan based on the possibility. Then I file the worry and action plan where they’ll be ready if I need them, but where they don’t have to clutter my conscious mind.

My brain is as noisy and chaotic as my house and in as much need of decluttering.

Every year as part of the Independence Day celebrations, the city of Provo hosts a hot air balloon launch. 25 balloons and crews gather in a field to soar into the sky. Spectators can wander through the balloons and watch with amazement as they take to the sky. I’ve always meant to attend this event, but never managed to get there until this year. At 5:45 this morning I began hauling kids out of bed. We all loaded into the car and went down to the field to have a McDonald’s breakfast and to watch the balloons take to the sky.

The air had a pleasant chill to it compared to the roasting oven of yesterday afternoon. But once we reached the damp field, it was a little too cold for the kids. They huddled together, not certain that this balloon thing was such a good idea after all. Then the crews turned on the fans and the previously flat masses of fabric became behemoths of air. That was impressive enough to make the kids forget the cold. They began to exclaim over the colors and patterns that began to emerge. Stars, stripes, rainbows, swirls, smokey the bear, and a strawberry were all exclaimed over. Then the burners turned on and the beached behemoths surged upright, ready to soar.

We’d been standing at the edge of the field watching, but as more and more balloons stood upright I could see a pathway under and around them. I wanted to be closer. I wanted to stand and look upward at a sky framed by the curves of 10 story tall balloons. So we walked out into the field. This was allowed. Spectators are encouraged to get right up close to the balloons and baskets.

Standing there in the middle you could feel washes of warmth from the burners as the crews prepared to ascend. These burners caused some anxiety for Link. The sudden whooshes of flame startled him and he wanted to retreat back to the edge of the field. Instead I stood him close to me and helped him talk through the things that made him anxious. I tried to get him to relax physically so that his mind could be more at ease. He stayed pretty tense until most of the balloons had taken flight. Patches also hung very close to me. This left my Mom and Dad one girl each to keep track of, which worked out just perfect. The girls had no anxieties at all. Instead they were filled with wonder and delight.

The planners of this event obviously know what they are doing. The first of the balloons soared into the sky just as the morning sun peeked over the mountains. The bright sunlight sent rays of warmth over us all and illuminated the brilliant colors of the balloons. Twenty-five Balloons in a multitude of hues against a bright blue sky and a rising sun. My heart flew with them. It is wondrous indeed that fabric and hot air can bestow the gift of flight.

When the last balloon lifted from the field, we began our trek back to the car. The kids were all glad that we went, even Link. They continued to chatter about the launch as we walked. The balloons hovered above us, shifting with the winds, creating an ever-changing pattern in the sky. This was worth getting up early to see.

As usual when I have guests in my house, my blogging gets neglected. This is a major disadvantage of the guest room being in my office. It isn’t that anyone tries to prevent me from blogging or that I don’t want to blog, but the mental spaces that I need for blogging have changed shape and that interferes.

My parents are in town for the 4th of July. This thrills my children. It also makes me happy. I like my parents. I like to watch my kids and my parents interact. I like to quietly sneak off while they are interacting and go do something else. Fortunately Neither the kids nor my parents miss me very much when I do this. It makes us all happy.

Tomorrow morning we’re all headed to watch a hot air balloon launch. Then in the evening I’ll be running off to play with Howard down at Dragon’s Keep. Yay for parents in town and free babysitting.

Are my boys like me? It is so easy for me to see how my daughters are similar. Why is it so much harder to tell with the boys?

I know they both share my ability to focus so hard that we tune out everything else. I often have to work hard to get their attention. They often have to work hard to get mine. We love puzzles. I used to spend hours putting together jigsaw puzzles, my boys love this as well. There are certain kinds of logic puzzles that also intrigue me.

My boys have an innate affinity for math, which I do not share. I’ve learned to live with and even enjoy math, but it is not instinctual for me. My boys love stories. Link likes to be told stories, but does not tend to tell them. Patches is a storyteller in the making. He loves stories and words and sounds. He has just discovered rhymes and is starting to make them spontaneously. Right now of all my kids I think he is the most likely to become a writer/storyteller.

Link may choose to be an artist. He already has the capability to draw what he sees. He did a free-hand drawing of bugs bunny that was amazing for a child his age with no formal training.

Both of my boys have the same restless, creative spirit that I have. They must always be doing something. Usually the “something” takes the form of video games.

My two daughters are very different individuals and yet they are both like me. For a long time it puzzled me how this could be true. I finally figured it out. Kiki is more like me as I am now. Gleek is more like me as I was in my childhood.

Kiki and I are both very organizational. We love to dive in and create order out of chaos. Neither of us is particularly good at maintaining the order we’ve created. However I was not organized as a child and Kiki has always been organized. This probably means that as an adult she will figure out how to stay organized. This makes me glad because once she has figured it out, perhaps she can teach me. Kiki and I are very empathetic. We can both see how the other person feels and we can generalize from a small experience to a large one. We are both creative and artistic. Neither of us is particularly interested in wearing make up except for special occasions.

Kiki is much more dramatic than I am. She is much more of a perfectionist. I usually say “good enough” and she gets upset because it isn’t right. The perfectionism probably comes from Howard. I think the drama is all her own.

Gleek always has calluses, blisters, and healing blisters on the palms of her hands. They come from climbing swingsets and crossing money bars. I spent most of my childhood with similar badges of activity. I always had bruises and scrapes and half-healed scabs, as does Gleek. My hair was always a tangly mess, ditto Gleek. Gleek shares my childhood fascination with horses. I was puzzled when Kiki was not enthralled by my huge stacks of horse books remaining from my childhood reading days. But I’ll bet that Gleek will read them all and love them as I did. Kiki has shown very little interest in braiding, but Gleek braids all the time. I still love to braid, particularly my own long hair. Gleek is fascinated by make up and fashion, as was I at her age. She is eagerly looking forward to getting her ears pierced and wearing eye shadow. I remember being the same way.

Gleek is more headstrong and stubborn than I was as a child. If I ever got into trouble at school it was emotionally crushing for me, but Gleek seems to be able to brush it off.

So I see these things in my girls now and it is like echoes across time. They are similar to me, but they are not me. They will make different choices than I have made and will end up in places that I can not predict. As a mother I hope that those places are ones that make them happy and fulfilled. Their choices may make them more like me or less like me. Both could be good, both could be bad. Mostly I need to see these similarities because they help me to understand the wonderful individuals who are my daughters.

Kiki babysat this evening. Bedtime did not go well. There was apparently a showdown between Kiki and Gleek that involved yelling and screaming from both of them. But Kiki did manage to get Gleek into bed. Then Kiki called me. She needed to confess and decompress about the yelling. I totally knew what she went through because I’ve been there. Often. Except that I’m usually dealing with four recalcitrant children instead of just three. Kiki spent a few minutes talking it through and we hung up.

When I got home I found Kiki in the rocking chair with almost-asleep Gleek in her lap. There had been apologies. There had been loving and snuggling. Kiki got to hear how Gleek talks through her emotions after the storm is all over. Apparently Gleek’s heart covered pajamas had become a conversational visual aid. One of the hearts has a bandaid and it represented how Gleek was feeling because of the yelling. The heart with round circles is how Gleek feels when she is taking a bath. The heart with tiny hearts all over is how Gleek feels when she is being loved. By the time I arrived they were all done with the bandaid heart and were well into the heart-filled heart.

I looked at my two girls there and realized that this is the first time they have ever seen a conflict all the way through to resolution. usually I step in and force them apart. I then talk to them separately and try to get them to see the other side. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. But either way they don’t end up snuggled up together on a rocking chair being sisters. That only happens when they go all the way through the storm together and come out the other side. They achieved remorse and forgiveness and restitution all without my help. I’m so glad of it that I want to cry. For once Kiki was willing to acknowledge that Gleek is adorable and amazing. Gleek always thinks that Kiki is amazing.

I helped tuck the two girls into their beds and they both fell into an exhausted slumber. Tomorrow we’ll probably be back to the regular bickering, but I don’t think it will ever be quite the same because once you’ve survived a storm with someone, you can’t forget that you loved them enough to forgive. What the storm does not destroy, it makes stronger.

I let my kids sleep in again today. The average needs per hour for the day was around 2-3. This is still worlds better than before, but not so heavenly as yesterday. Naturally 2-3 needs per hour is only an average. There were some uninterrupted hours, there were some excessively interrupted hours. The 9 PM bedtime remains a theoretical possibility rather than an actuality. I’ll try again tomorrow I guess. I just had too much fun sitting and talking with fun people to stay focused. Oh well. Good friends are balm for the soul. Well worth bedtime being a little bit later.

This morning I finally tracked down my relatives with whom I needed to compare schedules. We want to trade children sometime in July and I needed to know when. With that issue settled, I sat down to schedule swim lessons. I discovered that there were no times available where I could put four kids into four swim levels all during the same half hour. I am not interested in running over to the pool multiple times on the same day, so this presents a problem. I presented the problem to the kids and we all agreed that instead of official lessons, we’ll just go swimming once per week for the rest of the summer. This will cost about as much as the swim lessons would have and I suspect that the kids will actually have more fun. Now I just need to follow through on the “once per week” promise.

Can the solution really be this simple?

This morning rather than waking all the kids up at 8 AM, I let them all sleep until they woke on their own. There were a couple of long peaceful hours where I got stuff done, then they cheerfully emerged at around 10 AM.

For the past week or more the kids have been averaging 5-8 needs per hour. Those needs may be squabbles that I have to mediate, tummies to feed, or messes to clean up. Whatever it is, 5-8 times each hour I was called upon to solve a problem. Today has not contained a single major squabble and we are averaging less than 1 need per hour. I got a two hour nap with only a breif interruption in the middle. If the rest of the summer is like today, I will relish the whole thing.

So I’m now working on the premise that making sure the kids get enough sleep makes a major difference in how the day goes. This should not surprise me, but apparently it does. My tactic of trying to move bedtime earlier by keeping the getting-up time at 8 does not seem to be working. Bedtime still needs to be earlier than 10:30 PM, but I’m thinking that breakfast may need to slide to 9 AM for the remainder of the summer.

At least I had a nice relaxing day without having to flee the house for it.