One Cobble at a Time

Patches fourth birthday party was today. We had a jungle safari theme because sometime last year I picked up a How to Host a Kid’s Party kit at a thrift store for a dollar. This kit was great. It came with all the activities and prizes for the whole party. We adventured through the house looking for clues and playing jungle games. Then raisinfish made balloon swords for everyone and there was joyful chaos.

This evening Patches was climbing into bed and hugging his new stuffed Charmander. He found one of the pawprints we’d used as part of the activites. He instructed me to stick it to his dresser so that he would always have it. Then he told me that he’d liked the game and he wants to play it again for his next birthday. He also wants to have another Charmander and a Cookie Monster cake just like this time. In short, he thought this birthday was so perfect he wants to do it all again.

Then he snuggled up and fell asleep cuddling Charmander.

Yesterday, as I was gearing up all the kids to go to the cub scout Blue and Gold Dinner, I ordered Gleek to get her shoes on. She smugly stuck out her foot to show me that her shoes were already on. I reacted with delight and surprise. Patches witnessed this event and he wanted to surprise me too. He ordered me “Don’t Look!” and ran from the room.

A minute later he was back in the room with one shoe half on one foot. “Mom, I need your leg.” He said. This is how we usually put shoes on, he steps them onto my leg and I help wiggle the foot into place. I knelt down to help. But then Patches remembered he was trying to surprise me so he shouted “Don’t look! Just look over there!” He pointed at the wall. So I helped him wiggle his foot into the shoe while I stared at the wall. He ran to retrieve the other shoe and we repeated the process complete with the order not to look.

Then I stood up and said “Patches, go get your shoes on.”

“Ta da!” he announced while dancing his feet to show off his shoes. I acted completely surprised at his amazing feet.

Tuesday I was holed up in my office clicking on things because I was bored. I happened across a report on CNN that was talking about chinese rehab camps for internet addiction. They interviewed a net addict and discussed the phenomenon of internet addiction as a whole. Specifically they talked about how addicts develop an emotional need for the internet and it interferes with other aspects of their lives. I sat in my office, ignoring laundry, and children, and dishes, and a hundred other things that need doing. I thought about how often I run down just to check my email and end up whiling away an hour or more clicking on links. I realized that while I do have to use the computer for necessary business and writing tasks, I was wasting more time than I was using wisely. It was not a new train of thought. I’ve thought it through before. I’ve even already got the solution. I just have to implement it.

So yesterday morning I decided that I was not allowed to check my email until I’d gotten all the kids off to school and had vacuumed the family room. Since the family room was a mass of toys, this required significant picking up as well. It was highly motivating to me because I want to know what is in my email. All morning I worked hard and fast because I had this nagging feeling that there might be something important in my email box waiting for me. When I finished my work and went downstairs there were several messages waiting. None of them had suffered for waiting an extra hour or two. In fact it was far more enjoyable to have 6 messages to read than it was to check 3 times and only have one or two or none each time.

Today I picked a different household task and did the same thing. It is working. My house is cleaner, everyone is happier. And for both of the last two days the TV and video games have been off. The kids had so much clean space to play in, that they didn’t even want to turn it on. I loved it.

In addition to the morning “no computer” time, I’ve also defined a space in the evening where I’m not allowed to be on my computer. At 5 pm I need to be starting dinner, but frequently I’m in my office clicking just one more thing. So now I’m not allowed to look at my computer from 5pm until 9pm. For those four hours I need to be focused on dinner and homework and getting my kids to bed. If I really need to multitask, I can do housework while doing those things. The evening span of time is harder because I’m more tired and I want to retreat. But if I really want to retreat, I can read a book. At least that way I’m still upstairs with the kids.

I looked at it and realized that this leaves the hours between 9:30 am and 5 pm where I can be on the computer. That is 7 hours of computer time per day. If I can’t finish all my computer things in 7 hours I must be doing something wrong. So far it has been good for everyone. I hope I can keep it up.

And it’s almost five. Time for me to walk away from the computer for awhile.

As part of preparation for parent/teacher conferences, Kiki was asked to write a letter to her parents. It made me laugh. With her permission I am entering it here. I’m leaving the original spellings and grammar intact.

Kiki’s Letter:

Mom, I was thinking since I am almost 12 and becoming a young lady, I think I deserve someting. Like more personal space, and to be exact my own room.

Firstly, I deserve my own room because I am going to Junoir-High in August and will need a lot more space. I will need privacy, and way way more space for my stuff. I refuse to throw out stuff because I like all my stuff. Also I will need more, way more closet space.

Secondly, I’ve been nice to Gleek and we haven’t goten into any really bad arguments over nothing recently. I haven’t yelled at Gleek because she drops stuff onto my bed…yet. If I am going to have friends over to play I will need to have my own room to impress them.

Lastly, I’ve been good and recently done my homework happily and the Twili Poster incident is the cause for most of my homework unhappieness.

In conclusion, I have been a good girl. Take pity on your pre-teen. Gleek and I haven’t fought in a while; I need more space, so please. From the bottom of my heart, please? If not a room than a hacky sack.

She got the hackey sack.

One day I had Kiki along with me when I had to wait for a prescription. We sat right in front of shelves full of shiny knick-knacks. Kiki loves that sort of thing, and I agree that many of them were beautiful. I could just see her starting to build up a desire to save all her money and buy everything on the shelf. Then she would go look at the prices and wail because of the impossibility of the task. In order to head off the pending emotional upset, I leaned over to Kiki and said “If I had the money, I’d buy you that unicorn right there.” Kiki smiled and studied the shelves with renewed interest to pick out something that she would buy for me if she had the money. We continued to exchange virtual gifts until the prescription was ready. Then we left the store completely happy and satisfied.

Sometimes we can only give thoughts even though we’d like to be able to give more. Tomorrow is Howard’s birthday. I have a list of things that I would dearly love to be able to give him, but which we can’t afford.

Howard, If I had the money, I’d give you a digital camera so that you could take good pictures of your minis (this one.) I’d buy piles more minis for you to paint. I’d replace all your over-large bottles of paint with smaller ones so that more stuff could fit into your kit. I’d get you a big screen, flat panel tv. I’d buy you your new glasses. I’d give you a microwave with a turn table. And I would raid your wishlist until it was empty.

There are so many things I wish I could give. I love you.

For the past couple of days Kiki has been sleeping 12-14 hours per day. She’ll get up, drag around for awhile, then head back to bed. This wouldn’t be too alarming except that she has been complaining of fatigue for more than a week. Factor in the fact that a close friend has been diagnosed with Mono, and we were off to the doctor for a blood test. (It was negative.)

The appointment was at 3 pm, which apparently is the busiest hour of the day for the doctor. I usually schedule for first thing in the morning because the wait times are shorter and I have to take fewer children along. Today I had all four kids and a significant wait. Fortunately they were pretty good. Patches only circled the waiting room table 23 times before he climbed all over the chairs and jumped off. Gleek bounced around a little bit, then settled to draw a picture and read a book. Kiki and Link both read quietly. Then we crammed all of us into one little exam room. After the finger poke and negative test for Mono, the doctor suggested we draw blood to do some other tests. He made very clear that what she has is probably a viral thing that she’ll get over, but if it was something more serious, knowing sooner is much better than later. So we drew blood which will be tested for white blood count, anemia, thyroid disorder, diabetes, and strep. If all that is negative and she still doesn’t get better, we’ll be off to see a specialist of some kind.

My money is on Kiki just getting better without any medical intervention. That is usually the result when I spend money for medical tests.

EDIT March 6, 2007: Kiki got better within two days. She was enjoying her first day back at school when the doctor’s office finally called me to tell me all the blood work was normal. Too bad I didn’t actually lay down any money. I would have won.

Tonight I again took time to listen to Gleek at bedtime. She told me that she wanted to talk about “mad and school and stuff” so that she could have good dreams. I was so glad that she recognized that the talking helped her yesterday. We then had another rambling conversation. Mostly it concerned her mishmash of feelings for Bestfriend. I was surprised at the clarity of detail that Gleek could give to incidents which happened over two years ago. Apparently she’d never dealt with some of the emotions caused by those events and was just now trying to come to terms with them. She is getting in touch with her feelings instead of repressing them or running away from them and that is marvelous.

We talked about how everyone feels mad and that there is nothing bad about feeling mad. The problem comes in when we hold on to the anger. I explained that that was called a grudge. Gleek’s eyes widened with realization and she said “I’ve been having bad dreams because I’ve been holding on to my mads!” I believe she is right. I can’t believe how brilliant she is to arrive at that conclusion on her own. All the unresolved conflicts and emotions of the day come back to haunt her at night. Now she plans to let all the mads go out into space where they won’t trouble her anymore.

I listened to her talking and making connections and working through feelings. It was amazing. As I listened I came to a realization of my own. Gleek has turned one of those developmental corners which suddenly opens whole new worlds of thought. Her brain has gotten suddenly bigger and it is going to take her awhile to sort it all out. Until she does, I suspect that we’ll be having many more long bedtime conversations. I can see how much happier and relaxed she is after all the talking.

I watch her talk and her face is alive with character. Her thoughts outrace her words and so one topic segues into the next with hardly a pause for breath. I study her face, it is so small and beautiful. I could dance with joy that she is finally capable of talking through all these complex emotions that have driven her behaviors for years. Sometimes it was hard for me to believe it would come, but here we are. I cry for the joy of it.