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I frequently hear and read about people trying to achieve balance in their lives. When I think of balancing my life I picture myself attempting to carefully support all my kids and my housework and the business stuff and the writing and the wife stuff and the Sandra stuff and the religious stuff and dinners made and sleep and yardwork and bad mood days and… well you get the idea. Some of those things would be metaphorically sitting precariously on top of long poles. With that image I have to stay very still to keep everything balanced. Because if I move, or if a single thing gets added or subtracted, everything might come crashing down. Balance is very static and very tense.

I don’t want to live a balanced life.

What I want is dynamic equilibrium. Dynamic equilibrium is like one of those metal novelty toys where all the bits are constantly moving and it looks like everything is going to fall apart at any time, yet somehow the whole thing keeps going and nothing falls. My life is like that. Things get added. Things go away. But since I’m already moving around, shifting a little to accommodate isn’t very hard at all. Dynamic equilibrium requires constant tinkering to make sure that things don’t cause other things to fall out of place. Sometimes the whole system needs to be pulled apart and rebuilt from scratch. Sometimes rebuilding means I have to take pieces out completely, and leave them out permanently, to make space for other pieces. On such days I feel like a failure. Sometimes I just wish things would hold still for awhile. It feels like if things would just hold still I could manage everything, thus comes the lure of balance. The truth is that dynamic equilibrium is far more stable than balance.

What does this metaphor mean in practical application? It means that sometimes the dishes don’t get done and I don’t beat myself up about it because I know I’ll catch them on the next pass through the kitchen. Sometimes the laundry piles up. Sometimes I don’t make kids do chores. Sometimes I make the kids do more chores than usual. Sometimes homework doesn’t happen. I’m allowed to have not so good days because sometimes I have amazingly effective days. Bad days are not the end of the world because everything keeps moving and this inevitably swings me out of the bad day and into a better one.

The last couple of days were not good days. I suspect forgetting my thyroid medication a couple of times last week has something to do with my inability to cope. This afternoon is better than this morning was. The future isn’t yet bright, but it is not so bleak as it seemed at 9:30 am. I’m still tinkering with the Fall schedule to find one that can keep flowing with nothing crashing or falling. Hopefully I can get through this evening and tomorrow with nothing else going: TWANG!

Today is Link’s birthday. As is customary I brought treats to his class. His teacher also told me that I could have a few minutes to play a game or to tell something about Link. I decided to take along Link’s game boards and his pieces. These are all made out of paper and crafted by Link himself. He spends enormous amounts of time creating them and then playing with them. I figured it was an easy way to fill the time. I did not expect the awed reaction from Link’s peers. They were completely impressed with the game boards and blown away by the tiny paper playing pieces. Link is a Game Maker and that amazes them all. I’m so glad I took the games. I want Link to realize that though he struggles with some things in school, he also does stuff that amazes his friends.

I think in a month or two I need to have Howard go into Link’s class and tell them about being a cartoonist. When Howard does, he needs to take along some of the amazing cartoons that Link draws. I want to cement in Link’s mind that there are lots of things he is really good at. The top of the list are Video Games, Game Making, and Cartoon Drawing.

Later tonight we’ll be ordering pizza and putting birthday candles in it. Link wanted that instead of a cake. For now Link is happily playing his new video game. I think it is being a good birthday for him.

Addendum: Wax candles placed into a hot pizza will melt onto the pizza. Go figure.

As I looked ahead to this fall, I saw all sorts of empty space in my schedule. There were times where I considered filling some of that space with volunteering at the school, getting more involved with PTA, or running a home preschool for Patches. I didn’t do it though. I didn’t do it because I knew there would be days like today. Today I was stretched beyond my capabilities just to meet the needs in front of me.

Today Gleek was sent to the principal’s office for refusing to come inside from recess. I’m still hopeful that we are dealing with adjustment issues rather than long term behavioral problems, but no guarantees. I’ve got a rewards plan figured out, but I’ve got to run it by her teacher to see if she agrees.

Today Link had a meltdown with the kids in his carpool. He doesn’t want to ride with them in the morning and he really doesn’t want to walk home with them in the afternoon. After today, they don’t want to walk with him either. So I rearranged things.

Today Patches played with friends happily, got filthy dirty, was cranky during dinner, then fell asleep on the couch before I could bathe him. With copious amounts of help from Howard, I woke him up to give him a bath. He screamed during the whole thing and was not inclined to go back to bed right away. Oh and zero progress on the potty training. I haven’t even had the brainspace to try.

Today Kiki was sad because Link got a pricey birthday gift which she would have loved to receive. She was very good about not spoiling Link’s birthday joy, but I still got to listen to a litany about the unfairness of life.

Today Howard was discouraged because he wanted the book finished by now.

Today I am inclined to feel that all of the preceding events are somehow my fault. I know it’s not logical. I know I’ll feel better in the morning, but tonight I am weary and the thought of getting up to do it all again tomorrow makes me want to weep.

Sometimes having the right book can make all the difference in the world. Gleek had a somewhat challenging first week of Kindergarten. I could tell she had mixed feelings about the experience, but I couldn’t get her to talk about it. On inspiration I began reading Ramona The Pest by Beverly Cleary as her bedtime story. It is the story of a kindergartener who always ends up in trouble although she never intends to cause it. I remember enjoying Ramona’s adventures as a kid, but the book was completely uninteresting to Kiki, so I figured I’d remembered wrong. I didn’t remember wrong, Ramona just wasn’t a sympathetic character for Kiki. Gleek is a different person, Gleek can identify with Ramona. We just finished chapter one, which included the travails of Ramona’s first day of kindergarten. Reading about Ramona’s experience opened the way to talk about Gleek’s experiences. More importantly Gleek does not feel alone because Ramona had a time-out on her first day of Kindergarten, while Gleek did on her second. This Ramona book is exactly what we needed so that she and I can discuss what is going on in her life.

This experience with Gleek has gotten me to thinking about Kiki and Link. I know that there are books out there that would help them deal with the experiences they are having. I want books that I can read aloud to them and discuss the characters. I’d love suggestions, please tell me the name of the book and a little about why you recommend it. Movies would work too.

Kiki is in 6th grade. She feels alone, that no one likes her, and she has no friends. She does have friends, but she just isn’t seeing them. I’d love a book that delves into female preteen friendships.

Link is in 3rd grade. He sometimes struggles with schoolwork. He is often distracted or off in his own world. He doesn’t feel like he has any friends to play with at recess. He knows lots of kids, he likes them, they like him, but he’s reluctant to approach them.

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I’m at my brother’s house visiting for the weekend.  Like most times when I manage to escape my house for extended periods of time, I now have a head full of thoughts which I want to capture.  Unfortunately I only have a borrowed computer on which to capture them.  The computer itself is plenty nice, but I worry about tieing up someone else’s machine for too long.  On the other hand, since the machine is a laptop I’m finally getting a chance to see what using a laptop might really be like.  Thus far the experience has only increased my desire to some day own one.

During this weekend I’ve had several conversations with Gleek.  This is a nice change from the last few months when 99% of my interactions with her were disciplinary in nature.  Just yesterday she said to me “why am I always the problem?  I want to be kind, but it’s always a problem.”  She was honestly questioning and trying to figure it out which is a major change from all the avoidance she habitually uses to not deal with emotions.  I’m not sure if it is this trip or the first few days of kindergarten, but I think she is developing mentally right now.  Suddenly she is seeking answers for questions that she didn’t even know existed.  She’s also trying to come to grips with the changes in Kiki.  Kiki and Gleek used to play a lot more than they do now.  At one point this weekend both Gleek and Kiki were declaring that they didn’t want to be sisters anymore.  An hour later they were playing together on the trampoline.  They giggled and laughed together for hours.  I was pretty stressed during the fight and the playing afterwards was very reassuring.

Every time I get away for awhile I realize it is really good for me to do so.  And yet getting away seems to be so hard to do.  I wish it was easier.  I wish I could do it more often.

Oops.  Got to give the computer back.  Write more later.

Second day of kindergarten, and the teacher has already talked to me about Gleek’s difficulty sitting still and staying with the group. Nothing she has done qualifies as a problem yet. I’m still optimistic that she’ll settle in and be fine. But it only took two days…

Kiki is convinced that none of her school peers like her.

Link is also feeling at a loss for a friend.

And so the school year begins.

The good news is that I think they all have teachers that I can really work with. Hopefully these beginning of school challenges will not become long term problems. Hard to say at this point.

I had a day off yesterday. I got Gleek off to her first day of kindergarten and then my mom held down the fort while I took off for the rest of the day. I had 12 hours with nothing in particular to do. It would be nice if I could blog about a major insight or epiphany as a result of my mini vacation, but I can’t. On the other hand, epiphanies are hardly restful events. Since my goal for the day was to take a break, the lack of insights and epiphanies is probably a good thing.

I spent the morning at a local public garden. It was huge and beautiful. It was kind of like a herbological disneyland. All the plants were carefully planted in well defined flowerbeds. There was beauty, but none of it felt natural. Then I found the secret garden. It was a constructed ruin and the plants inside were allowed to run riot over the structure. It felt enclosed and private and natural. I stayed in that place for two hours. I wrote in my paper journal and drew a picture and just sorted my thoughts. It was so nice to just have time to let my brain wander without interruption.

The afternoon was spent having lunch with Howard and visiting at Dragon’s Keep. After that I called up raisinfish and the two of us went out for ice cream and a movie. I got home in time to put my kids to bed. It was so nice to be able to come home and really focus on each of them. I could listen to them and be glad of them.

The day off was good. Having a whole day to myself is a rare event, and it should be. If my daily life is balanced, then I shouldn’t need days off very often, because I will build refreshing myself into my daily schedule. Apparently I had similar thoughts almost a year ago when I wrote about Filling Up. The goals I wrote back then are good. I’m going to reiterate them here because rewriting them helps put them back at the front of my brain where they might actually get used.

I will read from my scriptures every day. This gives my brain and spirit something meatier to nourish them than the usual light reading I default into.

I will do something every day to make my home more beautiful. It may just be doing the dishes and wiping the counters, but sometimes I’ll try to do longer lasting things like planting flowers or repainting a room.

I will do something active every day. Anything that gets me moving will do.

I will write something every day. It might be a fragment of story, it might be a journal entry, but writing focuses my thoughts and makes me feel like I actually did something measurable.

Each week I will schedule some time for a project that is mine. It might be sewing, it might be a trip to the hardware store, it might be an early morning birdwatching jaunt. The important bit is that I plan ahead for it and it is something that I want to do not something that someone else asked of me.

And now I need to catch up on chores that I ignored yesterday.

Howard came home yesterday. That was the biggest happy thing.

Then he checked his email and we discovered not one, but two, convention invitations for him.

Then he checked the forums and learned that Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management was reviewed positively in the latest issue of Analog.

It all combined to make us feel giddy/happy for the remainder of the evening. It is such a nice change from the last couple of weeks where we were both so stressed we could hardly see straight. Convention vacations are a good thing. The only thing that would have made it better was if I could have gone with Howard to World Con.