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In adventure/drama movies there is often a scene where Character X is desperate/overwrought/frantic and Character Z must attempt to restrain  X from an action that would be detrimental.  Sometimes it is one person stopping another from running into a burning building.  Sometimes it is one person stopping another from diving into a fight.  The key is that Z restrains while X struggles, flails, and beats upon Z in an effort to escape restraint.  The crisis passes and the scene moves on.  We frequently get to watch how X regains composure, but it is not often that the film shows the effect of this moment on Z.   Character Z had to stand there and be pummeled.  Z had to hold tight and not get pulled off balance.  Z frequently has no clue whether thanks or blame will be coming later.  When all is said and done, Z must be tired, bruised, sore, and emotionally wrung.

I have a lot of sympathy for Z.  I’ve been Z.  I have never had a dramatic moment such as those in film, but I can not count the number of times that I have physically restrained a flailing child, often for the child’s safety.  It isn’t always physical either.  Of late the battleground has been homework and Link has been playing the part of X.  He twists, and mopes, and throws pencils, and deliberately provokes others, and breaks pencils, and yells, and whines.  It is all flailing in an effort to escape restriction.  My job is to hold tight and require him to do the work.  Unsurprisingly, once he stops fighting it, the work goes quickly and fairly easily.  Then Link skips away, free to squabble with siblings over games instead.  I am left feeling pummeled, bruised, sore, and emotionally wrung.

This will not last forever.  I know it won’t.  Kiki had a similarly bad patch when she was in 5th and 6th grades.  It passed.  I’ve got the Kiki experience to draw upon, so I’m better equipped to handle it.  At the moment things are bad because I had a meeting with his teacher on Monday and we figured out how to require him to get work done.  Link has been educationally cornered, thus the flailing.  Each evening the flailing is less.  Each conflict gives me clues about how to manage better.  How to anticipate, prepare, prevent.  But there is so much to manage all at once.  Link is not the only child with homework.  I may have to move the Link homework battles into the after school hours to leave space for the Gleek/Kiki/Patch homework battles in the after dinner hour.  Last Spring the post-dinner hour was a very pleasant time of day.  At the moment it is the most grueling.  It uses up my patience so the kids have a cranky mommy at bedtime.  I need to shuffle so that Nice Mommy gets to do bedtime instead.

It is hard to stand firm and not be pulled off balance.  It is particularly hard when the other person is simultaneously trying to flail their way free and really hoping that you stay strong.  Kids want to know that parents will stay calm and firm for the things that are right.  Link would love to escape his writing homework, but he would also feel bad about not doing it.  He needs me to take the pummeling calmly.  He needs me to stand firm.  Later, when the battle is over it is okay for him to see that standing firm wore me out, but in the moment he needs to see calm assurance.  I just wish it didn’t make me so tired.

I’ve been dealing with some tiring stuff this past week.  None of it is difficult or drama laden.  I just get worn down by the one-thing-after-another with few breaks in between.  I am worn down by the end of most days.  Often I feel like crying.  The parenting load is particularly heavy because of the time I spend worrying about long term repercussions of the day’s decisions.

My tiredness does not change the fact that I am much happier this Fall than I was last Summer or Spring.  I am still buried under things to do, things which wear me out, things which tax my capabilities, but last Spring I kept sacrificing important things to manage urgent things.  Now I am spending most of my days on the things which have long term importance to me. The difference is huge.  Even when I am so tired I want to sit and cry, I feel calm.  At peace.  Life is not easy, but it is good.

The good news is that things are going to get even better.  The kids have already settled in to the school year, but as we keep going they’ll get practiced at interpreting the desires of their teachers.  They’ll internalize the expectations and make meeting them habitual.  All of that will take time.  Some days are going to be harder than others, but on the whole I think we’ll see slow improvement in the next few months.  Status quo through Thanksgiving sounds really good to me.  After that we’ll be headed for Holiday shipping and the finishing touches on a book.  December is always busy.

From the moment I send friends away so we could have dinner and homework, Link transformed into the walking manifestation of contrary.  From refusing to come for dinner until I scolded him at high volume, to making a whining screech when anyone dared speak to him, to shooting dirty looks at everyone, Link made Oscar the Grouch look like Mr. Rogers.  I got frustrated quickly, but I noticed that any angry response to his behavior only made things worse.  Link was looking for a fight.  I knew why.  He had a writing assignment and he was mad at the world about it.  He hates writing.  Unfortunately for him, this is the year that I have decided that he must practice writing.  He’s significantly below grade level and I’m convinced that this can be remedied if only we can force him to actually practice instead of avoid.  He was attempting to continue to avoid writing by making the experience so unpleasant that I would give up.  This was not a conscious effort on his part.  He was not aware that this was why he was being so awful.

The solution was for me to clear the room of all other people except me and Link.  He was trying to provoke reactions which would distract us all from the assignment.  I denied him those reactions.  I even told the other kids that this was what I was doing while Link was listening.  Then I remained calm and insistent while bringing him back on task.  I rewarded effort by providing drinks of milk or snacks.  I praised where I could and did not react to bad behaviors.  It took an exhausting 90 minutes, but the assignment got done.  (Amusingly the assignment was to write about school subjects he hated.)  Then Link stomped off to his room.

I turned my attentions to the other kids.  It was not long before Link was back.  He had calmed down and was very apologetic for all the trouble he had caused.  He felt really bad about it.  He even made a plan to make things up to everyone.  I think the right lessons were learned.  I just hope that the penitence can last long enough to get him established in the habit of writing without being completely upset about it.  But even if the penitence doesn’t last, my determination needs to.  This is what my son needs from me right now.  He needs me to make him do this thing he hates enough so that it gets easier for him.  Once it is easier, I think he will stop hating it so much.

I predict a string of exhausting homework times ahead.

An excerpt from an email I wrote this morning:
Most of what I write these days is blog entries about small stuff.  It took me a long while to really get the fact that life is mostly constructed of small stuff, that small stuff matters. Little happinesses can make all the difference in the world.  Little dreams are wonderful because they are attainable.  I can go a very long way merely by chasing little dream after little dream.  I don’t need to change the world.  I can just change me.  Me being different may have an effect on the world, or it may not, but it definitely gives me peace and happiness.

Last year I was lousy at making kids get their homework done because I was too insanely busy to do more than a token effort.  This year is offering me the opportunity to atone for that neglect.  The good news is that the heavier load is an indicator that my kids are being challenged academically this year.  Kiki is learning how to tone down her perfectionism and how to time manage for an array of assignments both small and large.  Link is going to be miserable while he is forced to practice both spelling and writing regularly.  Gleek is having her first experience with reports and regular homework.  Patch is thrilled to have homework at all, and wishes he had more of it, except on the days when he does not want to do any.  All of the above requires my active participation, sometimes simultaneously.

Mondays are going to continue to be hard because of the marathon organizational run from beginning dinner all the way until bedtime.  Most evenings will have something of a break between homework and bed.   I hope.  Or I shall be cranky.

I’m sure there are important insights to be made from all of this, but I’m too tired to give them coherence.  Three spelling lists, two spelling assignments, one reading book, one book report, one grammar paper, two maps, two math sheets, and one writing assignment are enough to fry my brain.

This has not been a weekend for thinking.  It has been a weekend full of reality-avoidance in the form of television on DVD.  But I’ve put all of the boxed sets away now and I think I’m ready to pick up all my things so I can work effectively during the next week.  It is interesting to note that in three separate church related meetings, four separate speakers spoke about the value of our time and the importance of using it wisely.  Only once was this theme the focus of the lesson, the rest of the time it was just mentioned in passing.  While the mentions passed, they jumped out at me and something in my brain said “this is for you.”  Obviously this weekend is not a good example of me listening and learning, but I intend to do better next week.

I think the avoidance was in part fueled by a conversation I had with a good friend on Friday.  It was one of those fascinating conversations where I dig around in my brain and discover that I’ve got stuff that needs sorted through and assimilated.  None of it is earth shattering or likely to cause epiphany.  Most of it was discovering small things that which send out ripples of stress into other things.  Finding the source of the ripples gives me some power over them which is good.  Or, it will be good once I start taking care of it all instead of watching fictional people make emotional messes. It is kind of like watching a train wreck so that I can figure out how to never ride that particular train.  (Side note:  Lessons learned from television this weekend:  Keeping secrets from friends and family is asking for pain.  Thinking about someone besides oneself is a really good idea when making decisions.  The phrase “I had no choice” is almost always a lie, usually a rationalization lie.  The sentence “You wouldn’t understand” is like a shield to prevent others from understanding because if they do understand you, that would make you vulnerable.  Vulnerability is scary, but ultimately the only way to develop closeness to another person.  End side note.)

This next week has no major scheduled events.  A routine week would be a good thing.  We need lots of those in the next two months so we can turn <i>Resident Mad Scientist</i> into a real book.  Also it would be nice to finish cleaning and organizing the house, which is much more likely to happen when life is routine.

Howard was gone this weekend.  Before I took him to the airport, he pointed to his ipod which he left in the docking station.   He explained that he’d set it to play his bedtime playlist and his morning playlist automatically.  That way I’d hear the music, be reminded to stay in something resembling a sane schedule, and remember that he loves me.  My sleeping schedule is always thrown off when Howard is gone.  I smiled and nodded at his explanation.  Then I didn’t think any more of it.  Until 11 pm when the music started playing, and I remembered I should head to bed and that Howard loves me.  It made me happy.

Some days are a wreck waiting to happen.

Link is having his first experience with real homework. He has a 20 picture autobiography and a country report both due tomorrow. He has two regular homework assignments as well. He is feeling a bit buried and overwhelmed. It isn’t too much work, we just didn’t get enough of the big projects done earlier. An hour or two of solid work will get the assignments done. The tricky part is cajoling Link into putting in the work instead of staring at the pile in despair.

Kiki is struggling this year. She has a moderate to heavy homework load. She’s getting up earlier than she has been accustomed to doing. She continues to struggle with insomnia. She too has some large assignments looming over her. She is at the beginning end of the assignments, but she really needs to not procrastinate. So today needs to be a heavy homework day for her. Only she’s of an age where she pushes back when I lean on her to get her work done, or when I suggest that she needs to apply some time management techniques.

Gleek and Patch are having a normal day, but normal includes frequent requests that I need to respond to or help with.

Howard is tired because his sleep rhythms have been all over the map lately. He also needs help packing for a seminar and is stressed about getting the presentations right.

I spent all day assembling two pallets of books. This involved much heavy lifting and two trips to the storage unit. I also had to put together some box sets to fill out the order to the distributor. I am physically exhausted, in need of a shower, and longing to lock myself someplace quiet and just zone out. Instead I have to help with all of the above. I still need to wrap and strap the two pallets of books. Also there are dishes to hand wash before bed.

We have not yet had a major argument, but it is probably a matter of time.

I guess I must have needed the extra sleep, but having two and a half hours vanish into a nap made the day feel really short.  This is particularly true because I did not emerge feeling rested.  Instead I felt fatigued because I’d had to fight my way free of the clinging tentacles of anxious dreams.  I think those dreams cameoed just about every worrisome thought that has floated through my brain in the last week.  In technicolor and full-sensory surround.  But they weren’t true nightmares, just tangles.

Tomorrow I get to haul books from our storage unit and assemble them into a pallet.  On Friday this pallet will get hauled away by a freight shipper and delivered to our distributor.  XDM books and The Tub of Happiness will be hitting game stores in mid-October.

Beyond this entry, none of the posts have comments because I did not import the comments from the original Livejournal posts.  All of the posts here are mirrored on sandratayler.livejournal.com.