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Gleek had a great day at Kindergarten today. She actually helped rather than hindering the orderly running of the class.

Kiki confronted one of the peers who she felt was giving her grief and found that she was perceiving something that wasn’t there.

Link had a break down at school, but it happened when I was there to pick up Gleek. I was able to sit down with him and find the source of his sadness. He was missing his best friend who moved away. We wrote the friend a quick letter and he bounced back to class completely happy.

Patches decided that he wants to wear underwear. So far this has resulted in multiple changes of pants and a completely dry potty. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be able to switch that around a little. But at least we’ve taken steps in the right direction.

Howard has reached the last few tweaks on the book before we send it off for printing.

We had both morning prayer time and family home evening.

I actually accomplished all of the critical tasks for the day.

And all of that is despite the fact that I was running on 5 hours of sleep. Some days are just good.

Today I heard from a friend that I haven’t spoken to for a long time. He says it is his personal tradition that every September 11th he calls people who have made a difference in his life to tell them thank you. Five years ago today our whole nation learned that sometimes the chance to say “goodbye” and “I love you” and “thank you” is gone in an instant. Who has made a difference in your life? Have you told them how much you appreciate it?

I do not personally know anyone who died on September 11, 2001. The chance for knowing them and thanking them is gone. But there are people alive today who deserve thanks.

I’m adopting my friend’s tradition. Today I am thanking all of you. This journal has been a blessing in my life. I cannot say how many times the realization that all of you are out there reading and caring has touched my heart. It is a great gift to me to know that my words are valued. It is a greater gift to know that something I say touched someone else and made life better.

I wrote the following on Nov 24, 1997. I really like it. I’m posting it here:

Dreams are a reflection of reality. Or perhaps a refraction of reality. The images/emotions/ideas enter the brain during the day and bounce around the subconscious, then the sleeping mind refracts them into dreams. Dreams resemble what entered, but also seem fundamentally changed. Thus unmanageable emotions become monsters when they are refracted by the sleeping mind. Children are much more likely to have monster nightmares than the average adult. Yet an adult when confronted with new stressors and emotions may also find monsters in the dream world.

Monsters like to lurk in dark places. Even the mind has dark corners. We each carry with us dark corners that we are afraid to poke into because we fear what might be in there. When did my dark corners begin to loom so large? I cannot pretend they aren’t there, because the monsters they conceal will pop out. Or perhaps it is not so much that the corners got larger. Perhaps instead it is the monsters, the frightening emotions, that have gotten so much larger that they no longer fit into the dark corners anymore. So they sit with bits poking out and I am left with a choice. I must either willfully ignore the fat scaly tail hanging out from under the bed, or I must acknowledge the monster that is there. perhaps best of all would be to drag the monster into the light and know it for what it is. Thus do monsters cease to be frightening and become mere creatures.

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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