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I feel much lighter. The last two days have been heavy. Yesterday was so full of child management that I do not see how I remained calm and coherent through the end of it. I’m pretty sure I was loaned some strength.

But this evening I’ve gotten through all the events. I helped manage the bi-weekly activity for fifteen little girls aged 8-11 and it went well. I nudged two reluctant teenagers out the door to an activity that they were dreading. They both came home from it happy and glad that they went. I went to three parent/teacher conferences and I learned that I don’t have more work to do. The structures I have struggled to put in place are succeeding. The kids are doing well. And I walked away convinced that all three kids are in class situations which are ideal for them at this time. (This is such a relief considering how much my fourth has struggled with teachers this year.)

Tomorrow there will be more work to do. I will have to confront kids and require them to do things that they don’t like. I will have to stay calm while the kids attempt to punch my buttons to get emotional reactions. But all of that is tomorrow and I can contemplate it without dread. For right now, I feel light.

Two hours spent making much-desired rag doll for Gleek who has been reading Little House in the Big Woods and who really needed loving attention. Check.

Two-hour-long homework showdown, Mom vs Kiki with ultimatums. Check

Fix dinner and feed it to kids. Check.

Corner Link and make him add details to a bare bones writing assignment. Check.

Remember to eat some dinner. Check.

Introduce Patch to Frog and Toad. Check

Make kids go to bed. About 50% at the moment.

My day appears to be all used up.

I’ve mentioned before how I arrived at this Fall and my children transformed into pits of need. I’ve speculated that some of this transformation was driven by the fact that I was truly available to them for the first time in months. The months prior had been overwhelmed by business tasks. I felt guilty about how much the business stuff displaced the family stuff and so it was with relief that I turned a large portion of my creative energy toward the needs of my kids; figuring out what they need, then attempting to supply it. I call it my “Mommy sense.” I’ll observe a child’s behavior, know what is driving it, and how to come around from the side to meet the need so that the problematic behavior is eliminated. In essence, I’m circling around and flanking them, which means that for every step forward the child makes, I’ve taken a dozen steps.

Of late I’ve begun to get the feeling that I’m too available. I’m running around in circles. There are legitimate needs which actually require my focused attention, but I’m also noticing places where kids are waiting for me to solve problems rather than taking initiative. For example, certain of my kids think nothing of calling me in from another room to ask me to pour them a glass of milk. On the one hand I understand how struggling kids need reassurance. They need to feel safe, and cared for, and nurtured. Small acts of service from me go a long way to fill those needs. On the other hand, kids don’t need as much nurturing when they are confident in their own capabilities. The gripping hand is that I hate being paged from another room to perform menial tasks that kids are fully capable of managing themselves.

The milk example seems pretty clear cut, but some of the other things are not. When Kiki is over-tired, feeling blue, faced with a pile of unpleasant homework, and complaining of soreness in her back, it is very tempting for me to let the chores slide, to let her play a game to relax for awhile. Sometimes I’m even tempted to do the chores for her as an act of love. She is always grateful when I do, but it doesn’t make anything better in the long term. We end up in the same place the next day or the next week. She’s struggling and it seems strange that the right answer, the best answer, is for me to push. But it is. When I stand up to her and tell her that she will do her homework now, she sticks out her chin and scowls at me, but then she plows through the homework and feels much better for it being done. Letting her relax solves nothing. It is just easier. Doing things for her solves nothing. I’ve got both Kiki and Link fighting me in this exact same way. I have to stand firm against them both to get them moving. Then there is Gleek whom I have to reign in. Patch is less demanding at the moment, but he also needs me to stand firm to get him moving.

And so I need to be simultaneously available and unavailable. I have to structure my availability carefully. I have to be ready to drop everything and jump to help a child, but also be prepared to look that same child in the eye and say “do it yourself.” And I don’t get advance notice which I need to do. I have to be ready to evaluate and switch tactics at a moment’s notice. Sometimes I choose wrong. Sometimes I get it right. Either way I’ll have to do it again. And again. And again. No wonder I’m feeling so worn out.

Children lack self-awareness. They are not alone in this. Many adults lack it as well. In fact I think everyone fails to recognize their own motivations at some point or another. It can be very frustrating to me because I can see both the behavior and the needs which drive it. I can see when the behavior actually makes the needs less likely to be met rather than more.

Today Kiki called me from school. She was rambling and tired on the phone. She mentioned that her head hurts and then requested that I bring her bag to school. The contents of this all important bag were pencils and erasers. She was requesting me to take 20 minutes out of my day to deliver pencils to the school. What she really wanted was sympathy, and mom to come to the rescue so she can feel loved, and possibly even that mom would see how poorly she is feeling and just bring her home. Unfortunately she’s been calling me to rescue her a lot lately. After the last time, I warned her that me delivering items to her at school would cost extra chores and would only be done in case of emergency. Pencils do not qualify as an emergency. I told her to borrow a pencil from someone. She said “I’m mad at you!” and hung up. By the time she got home, she wasn’t mad at me anymore and I offered all the sympathy and nurturing that she’d wanted in the first place.

My other daughter Gleek is also frequently lacking in self-awareness. She will end up in fights with other kids and be righteously angry with their actions. But when I start sorting through all the he said / she said and accusations, I invariably discover that Gleek provoked the other child to the point that the child had to defend themselves. Then Gleek is angry and hurt by the defense. But I can’t get Gleek to see it. And spending hours trying to explain how the conflicts are her fault don’t do her any good. They just make her feel bad about herself and that suppressed emotion makes the next conflict much more likely. So much of it is driven by sadness and feeling left out. Gleek feels these things and so she provokes the other kids into paying attention to her. Not all the time. Many times she is loving and thoughtful. Many times she plays with friends peacefully. But some days I just want to put her in a room by herself until the mood to provoke passes.

My girls aren’t alone in not seeing their motivations. When Link is faced with a task he does not want to complete, he gets angry and obstructionist. He lashes out at everyone and claims that they are preventing him from concentrating. He tries to pick fights because the resulting argument delays the task. And he can’t see why he is doing it. On some level he knows he is being unpleasant and he feels badly about it, but he can’t just see the task he doesn’t want and plow through it. I have to corner him and not let him escape.

In my kids’ defense, I think they are far more self-aware than other kids their age. They have a mom who pulls them aside and points out what they are doing and why. I doubt they like when I do that. But I can’t help but try to teach them what I see. I can’t just look at behaviors, I have to ferret out why they exist. I have to understand what is going on. I do it to myself too, except that I’m sure I don’t have a clear view on me. Just as a person has difficulty seeing the back of her own head. I need to remember that when I feel frustrated about what my kids don’t see.

Before rolling out of bed this morning, I contemplated my day. In that quiet, before-the-chaos moment I realized that I have three big projects on my plate. Each is important and none of them can be completed in a single day. I need to go through the Schlock Mercenary archives drawing frame boxes so that we can launch the iPhone app. We want to release the app as soon as we can. I need to assemble pictures and layout for the 2008 and 2009 family photo books. I want them done in time to order books as Christmas gifts. I need to collect and revise essays into a book. I’d like to get it ready for submitting within the next month or two.

My preferred mode of operation is to tackle a big project and complete it before taking on another large project. So I lay in bed trying to decide which thing to tackle first. But every time I was leaning toward one of the projects, I could feel the other two pulling at me. If I decided that business came first and I should just get the frames done, then my head would be filled with thoughts about how family things should have priority over business. If I decided to let the frames lay idle in favor of the photo book, then I would remember the feeling I’ve been getting over the last month that the essay book is important and I need to get back to it. (No idea why it is so important, just that I need to finish it.) But if I decided to dive in to the writing, I would remember how the other two projects will both take less time and so I should probably complete them first and clear my head of the conflict. Around and around I went with significant mixing and matching of arguments and counter-arguments.

It was paralyzing. And over the jabber I could hear clearly the voice that claimed I should just scrap it all and go play a computer game instead, because at least a computer game would be relaxing. Then there was also the voice which reminded me that big projects are well and good, but that there’s a pile of house cleaning to be done as well.

This is when I remembered my good friend the timer. I have 16 waking hours in my Saturday. That is enough hours that I can spend time on each of the big projects and still get the housework done. So I got out of bed and made breakfast. Then I set a timer and worked on frames for an hour. Then I took a break to change laundry loads and tend to kids. Then the timer and I worked on the photo book for an hour. Then came a break to make a fresh batch of play dough to occupy bored children. Now I am having an hour of writing. I’ve done all of that, and it is barely lunch time.

I feel so much better about all of the projects. I feel much calmer when I can see that by choosing one project I am not sacrificing the others. They each get their turn in rotation. After lunch I may rotate through the turns again. Or perhaps I’ll give that computer game a turn for awhile.

It is a night for home made pizza and a movie. Each kid got their own little pizza to deck out with toppings. “You mean I get the whole thing? And I can put whatever I want on it?” Link asked with amazed delight. Then we sat down to watch Bolt. It was found under the couch yesterday and thus has all the shine of being new since the kids haven’t seen it in awhile. Here’s to home made fun which costs nothing but foresight and effort.

I feel like that digression in the book The Princess Bride which explains why three years of events are summed up with the words “what with one thing and another, three years passed.” It has been a one-thing-after-another kind of day. None of the things were urgent or stressful. Nothing made me sad or upset. Several things made me happy. But I don’t have the energy or clarity of thought to pull the day together around any kind of a focus. My mailbox is emptier. My house is cleaner. The last of the make up homework is done. The packages are shipped. Meals were cooked then eaten. And if the kids were a bit wild and inclined to squabble, I choose to blame it on the dropping barometric pressure which preceded the rain. On the other hand, two of those same kids spent time today writing fiction stories and the results were good. The mailman brought me the last disc of Bones so Howard and I can watch it tonight. And I even sneaked a little bit of writing time.

It was an ordinary, mostly good, occasionally frustrating, day. The kind of day that passes and is forgotten because it contained nothing momentous. It is the kind of day about which I can say “what with one thing and another, the day passed.”

Some mornings I just want to curl up into a ball and cry.

It could be that the mood was started late last night when I once again realized that I had completely spaced Gleek’s art lessons. These are the same art lessons that two weeks ago I realized really are emotionally important to Gleek and so should be high on my Things to Remember list. But then everyone was sick and the days got all muddled and I forgot about the significance of Tuesday until after 10 pm. Granted, I’d spent the afternoon taking Kiki to the doctor for an ear infection and back pain. Then there had been dinner and the management of much make-up homework with accompanying crying. Then bedtime when Gleek once again complained of being too creeped out to sleep. This indicator speaks of an un-met emotional need, one I’d hoped to address by prioritizing her art lessons to the top of the list. I was busy all afternoon and evening with important and urgent things. My mental glitch was understandable, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.

Then this morning Patch was not all better. He was sniffling and coughing and laying limply on the couch. He was supposed to go to school so that I could accompany Gleek on her field trip and so Howard could get piles of work done efficiently. While trying to decide what to do I discovered that a still-pajama’d Gleek had loaded the washing machine for me and was ready to start it. She was trying to help. It was a lovely thought, but she’d loaded the washer full of already clean clothing. I should have just dumped the soap in and let the clothes get washed again, but I didn’t think fast enough. So Gleek ran upstairs and wrote a note about how no one understands her at all. Then she showed me the note right as I needed to drive Kiki to school.

Gleek needed me to sit down and listen to her, to sort out her feelings. It was a window of opportunity with a child who usually dashes off distracted.

Kiki needed a ride to school, and a check for lunch money, and an excuse note for the days she was sick.

Link was laying flopped on the couch with one sock on the other in his hand.

Patch was valiantly getting dressed while coughing up a storm.

Howard was helping nudge Link into motion, heading for a shower, eating his breakfast, prepping for the gym, and trying to get into the right headspace so he can get loads of work done today.

Also: There were piles of laundry which need to be sorted; the fact that I need to sort through the kids winter clothes and see what gaps need to be covered; the fact that Gleek has holes in the toes of her tennis shoes and therefore needs new ones; Dishes to wash; my breakfast partially eaten; myself to get dressed; the feeling that I really need to get back to the writing work which has lain idle for more than a week; Schlock Mercenary email and shipping waiting for me on the computer; and the house has felt like a cluttered disaster for two weeks.

I know my life is good. I know that my problems really are small. I know that it is all going to be all right. Somehow knowing all of that makes the feeling worse because it adds a layer of guilt that I can get overwhelmed by problems that are so small in comparison with the blessings they are attached to.

Then I remember a blog post I wrote long ago. I was at a grocery store and the clerk said the perfunctory “have a nice day” My answer was “actually it has been a lousy day.” Somehow that admission and acceptance of the lousy day made all the difference in the world. Accepting it gave me the power to put it behind me and the rest of the day was good.

So this is what I am doing this morning. I’m typing out exactly why I returned from dropping kids at school (except for Patch who is being Howard’s buddy today) and wanted to sit down and cry. It is okay. Some days are just like that. So I write a moody blog post. Then I get up and make the rest of the day better.

Tomorrow, for the first time in almost two weeks, all of my kids will be at school simultaneously. This brings the joyous possibility of me having some time during which I am not doing 24/7 on call nursing/parenting duty. Except, I’ve already committed to chaperon for Gleek’s field trip. This means I’ll be helping shepherd excited third graders to a play rather than being at home reveling in the fact that no one needs me to fetch anything. But I can see it on the far side of tomorrow. I can see time when I have my house to myself. I can see when the morning routine is back to normal and the house is getting cleaned up and all the make-up homework is done.

Fevers are more common for babies and toddlers than they are for older children. My kids used to have fevers all the time. I got to the point that I could tell how high a fever was just by putting my cheek against the child’s forehead. Often I used a thermometer just to verify, but I was right within a degree. I can’t do that anymore. It has been so long since fevers were a regular part of our existence. Although after the past couple of weeks I’m starting to regain my skill. Its a skill I’d just as soon stay rusty.

Today is Patch’s miserable day. He just lays on the couch and tries to get comfortable. This means he’ll still have a fever tonight and probably tomorrow. Then the cough will settle in but he’ll feel better. I’m expecting to keep him home from school all week. Patch benefits from my experience with the prior three kids having this same flu. I know what to expect and so I can tell him.

Patch is often the beneficiary of my experiences with the other kids. That just comes with the territory of being fourth. He benefits from the routines that I figured out when the other kids were his age. He doesn’t feel very scared about growing up because he’s watched older siblings tread the path before him. On the other hand, he always feels like he his being left behind, last one to the party. I know how he feels. I’m a fourth child too. Only I had three siblings following me as well, so I didn’t feel like I was trailing everyone.

There have been lots of studies done on birth order with lots of conflicting results. In my observation of my own kids, the older two have more pressure placed upon them to be responsible, but the younger two succeed at responsibility younger because the structure is in place to support it. The older two had more individualized adult attention at younger ages but the younger two had role models who spent time playing with them. I don’t know that any of them are better off for when they were born. They each have their own package of challenges. I do believe that our family as a whole improves the more experience we have in being one.