The Order of the Phoenix –SPOILER ALERT

By / March 17, 2005 / 11 Comments

I just figured out what bothers me most about the latest Harry Potter book. It is the way that all of the adults keep secrets from the children. My philosophy is that if a child is old enough to ask the question, then they’re old enough to hear the answers. This is particularly important if the child has been traumatized in any way. If you withold vital information, then the child will not trust you and come to you for help when they need it. In the very first book Harry asks why Voldemort wanted to kill him. Dumbledore refuses to answer the question. Harry should have been told about the prophecy right then and there. Dumbledore claims Harry was “too young”. Any child who has been visciously attacked and nearly killed NEEDS to know everything about causes of the attack in order to recover. In addition Dumbledore tells Harry that his father saved Snape’s life, but fails to tell him the full story even though it is relevant. What should have happened was that Dumbledore sat down with Harry for an entire evening and answered every question Harry had.

My approach when my kids ask difficult questions (Like “where do babies come from?”) is to give a general, but truthful answer. If they then ask for more information I fill in details. That way the child gets exactly as much information as they are ready for. Dumbledore should have answered Harry’s “Why” with basic information about the prophecy and elaborated as Harry asked further questions. At least that is what Dumbledore should do if his first concern was for Harry. I don’t believe that to be true. I believe that Dumbledore’s first loyalty is to humankind at large and that his intention is to bring the permanent downfall of Voldemort. This larger goal causes Dumbledore to hide things from Harry and to use Harry as a tool. The sad thing is that Dumbledore could as easily achieve his larger goal by telling Harry things and then Harry would be a willing tool. I don’t like Dumbledore as much as I used to.

Movie Reviews

By / March 16, 2005 / 5 Comments

Howard and I have indulged in what I’ll call “retro-sci-fi” movies over the last week. We watched Soylent Green and then Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow.

As a movie Soylent Green was bad. 90% of the movie was watching actors appreciate things which we take for granted, like soap and water. The concept of the movie could have been done better in a 30 minute twilight zone episode. What I found fascinating was what the movie told me about societal values in the 70’s when the movie was made. It was obvious that the civil rights movements of the 60s had taken hold. The hero was Charleton Heston (a white man), the slimy villains were white, every other male character with a speaking part was black. The women in the movie came in two categories “destitute extra” and “furniture”. And by “furniture” the movie meant just that. You rent a furnished apartment it comes complete with a beautiful girl as part of the furniture. (Apparently women never rent their own apartments.) There were about a dozen of these women who simply were there to provide the camera with anatomy to focus on. Only two of the women had speaking parts and all of the lines were either flirting with men-in-power or screaming because the men hit them. Had the movie been made recently it would have offended everyone. It makes me wonder what modern movies are going to tell people thirty years from now about our values.

Sky Captain was beautiful. I enjoyed watching it with Howard in our own home where I was free to make fun of the ridiculous stuff in it. Some serious scenes made me laugh out loud, supposed-to-be-funny scenes fell flat. We declined to watch any deleted scenes because I decided that I didn’t want to watch anything that had been removed from the film on purpose. And the supposed love interest between the two main characters? Completely disfunctional. It’s a movie to watch with a group of friends for an MST 3K party. I’m not sorry I watched it, but I don’t think I’ll watch it again.

Mind and Body

By / March 13, 2005 / 3 Comments

Years ago when I was pregnant with my first child, I read pregnancy books with dismay. They informed me that I was going to get fat and clumsy and my thinking would go foggy and my emotions would be unstable. I read and wondered “How will I still be me when so much about me changes?” I feared losing my identity, my “self”. Obviously I’m still me, I still have my self, but I have definitely learned that the condition of my body affects what I am capable of accomplishing. I don’t like that. I intensly dislike that pregnancy or illness or chemical imbalance can take away from me things that I value about my self. “Stable”, “Capable”, and “Responsible” are all words that I want to always be able to use when describing myself. There are hosts of other words “creative”, “imaginative”, “energetic” and yet it is entirely possible that some bodily condition could put those things forever out of reach. All it would take is a car crash to land me in a world where my whole existence is narrowly focused around pain management. All it would take is for me to beat the odds on yet another rare or disabling illness. All it would take is for me to not have access to Thyroid medication and my world would dissolve into emotional chaos. I’m pretty sure that a thyroid imbalance is what has set off all this gloom in the first place.

All of this psuedo-philosophical rambling is me trying to hide a childish “It’s not fair!” behind enough words so that no one knows I’ve said it. Life isn’t fair. No one said it was. Life isn’t permanent. No one said it was. Life is a gift. All those capabilities and qualities that I fear losing are gifts. I need to enjoy the gifts while I have them because I’m pretty sure some of them are only on loan. Anyone who has done any aging will tell you so. Most of all I need to be grateful that medical science has made resovling a thyroid imbalance into a simple procedure. I really should not grumble about my soluable medical condition when so many people suffer under conditions which continue to mystify all the experts.

So tomorrow I’ll be trotting myself to the doctor for a blood test. Then I’ll get to re-convince everyone that “High normal” actually means that the dosage of my medicine definitely needs to be raised. I’ve gone through this multiple times before, I just was hoping that my broken gland would stabilize instead of continuing to slowly degrade. I really dislike being dependent on daily dosages of medicine, but I am intensely grateful that medical science has made my continued existence and daily medicine possible. I’ve got to remind myself of that because I’m currently chemically inclined to gloominess.

Good Friends and Good Neighbors

By / March 12, 2005 / 2 Comments

Friday was a day for good friends. Pi and Kreely stopped by for the day in their migration from Texas to Washington. We had lunch, a round of disc golf, dinner, and lots of fun visiting. It was definitely something that bears repeating. Maybe next time we’ll take our horde of children and invade their hometown. If nothing else it sounded like they were considering going to Penguicon. It would be very good to have familiar friends at that event.

Today was the day for good neighbors. The house behind ours finally sold to a wonderful family. They have four kids who are near perfect matches for ours in age. They share some of our interests and in all respects bode really well for being long term good friends. To simplify the kids playing we took down a section of the fence and now all the kids have free run of both yards. A few weeks ago I mentioned that I needed to pull up a patch of lawn to create a larger vegetable bed. It turns out that they had a patch of dirt which needed sod. The patches were almost the same size. Today they rented a sod cutter and we pulled sod from my yard and laid it in theirs. I am so glad I didn’t have to do the work with a shovel, they are really glad they didn’t have to buy sod. Everybody wins. Only now I’m stiff and sore and exhausted. Sod is very very heavy. And the more of it you lift the heavier each piece seems.

Tantrum Management

By / March 10, 2005 / 1 Comment

The following analysis is mostly for my own reference, but maybe someone else will find it useful/interesting.

Patches tantrums are very straightforward. They pretty much occur because he wants something that some one took away or that he isn’t allowed to have. He’s still small enough that I just pick him up and carry him elsewhere. Once we’re elsewhere, I provide a distraction and usually that ends the tantrum.

Gleek has spectacular tantrums. They usually occur when she has it in her head that things should be a certain way and then they aren’t. (Mommy should be here, I want fudge, That’s mine!) I can usually see the tantrum coming in Gleeks escalating levels of upset and sometimes I can head off the tantrum. My current favorite tactic is to say “Okay it’s my turn to be Gleek!” then I demand whatever it is that she wants and she has to be mommy and try to explain why I can’t have it. That tactic has been educational for both of us. I’ve learned that mostly she doesn’t listen to my explainations and just considers my decisions arbitrary. She’s learned that mommy DOES have vaild reasons for saying no. Sometimes I’m tired or Gleek is particularly headstrong and the tantrum can’t be dodged. Then we have kicking and screaming. I’ve learned that the tactic of holding the child until they calm down is NOT a good idea if the child is Gleek. She gets increasingly more upset and escalates quickly to deliberate punching, directed kicking, and biting. I just don’t think I’m strong enough to hold her without allowing injury to her or to myself. Truth is I haven’t found a tactic that I really like. I generally resort to shutting her into her room and telling her to come out when she has calmed down. Unfortunately she either doesn’t hear the instruction or completely disregards it, because to actually get her to stay in her room I have to stand by the door and hold it closed. She then kicks and pounds the door for awhile. Eventually she shifts from anger to fear that I’m really angry and that I’ve abandoned her. I think she is also frightened by her own out-of-control emotions. Once we reach that point I can go into the room and snuggle her into my lap and we can start discussing the incident. We talk and I appologize for any behavior of mine which might have been over-the-line (like yelling). I require appologies from her for the tantrum and any hurtful things she may have said (Like “I hate you mommy”). Usually long before I feel calm and resolved she hops off my lap and runs off to play as if the tantrum hadn’t happened at all. Then all is well until the next time.

Link doesn’t tantrum often and when he does he usually calms himself without intervention. He’s always been that way, even as a baby. On the rare occasions when he doesn’t calm himself, all I have to do is walk to him and talk to him calmly and he’s old enough to pay attention. It happened that way just this evening. I walked in and told him “You’re behaving like a toddler. A seven year old boy doesn’t need to wail at the top of his lungs to get what he wants. Please calm down” He answered “I can’t stop the tears.” my answer “I don’t expect you to. When we’re sad, we cry. We can’t control that. We don’t want to because being sad is natural.” I then clarified that wailing and tantruming are a different thing from sadness and crying. Wailing is trying to force everyone else to pay full attention to your sadness, generally because you want them to fix it. (This isn’t true for a younger child, for them sadness and wailing are inseparable.) Since Link was no longer wailing I gave him some sympathy for the cause of his sadness, then Link decided to have some quiet time in his room until his sadness passed. Five minutes later all was well.

Kiki’s tantrums tend to be long, involved, and emotionally exhausting for me. When Kiki is overwrought even the smallest problem is blown-up to a giant size and wrangled over. I’ve discovered that having an audience (me) actually exacerbates the situation. The more that I sit there being supportive and reasonable and helpful, the more she will yell and cry and be upset. The best solution is usually for me to leave her alone until she’s worked through the emotion. Then she is ready to talk and I can help her tackle whatever set off the tantrum in the first place. Most of the time I don’t even have to help. Once Kiki is calm she usually solves her problems by herself.

Sigh. I need to go help resolve a tantrum upstairs.

I’m going to Penguicon

By / March 9, 2005 / 6 Comments

I just booked a round trip flight to Michigan for myself. Howard had extra skymiles, my brother and his wife volunteered to take the kids, and so I’m going to Penguicon with Howard. I’m scared. I know that my fear is needless. The kids will have fun. I’d be hard pressed to think of anyone I’d rather have watching them. I’ll have fun. Howard will have fun. But part of my brain is convinced that if I step out of my daily duties complete chaos will ensue. I need to figure out how to tell that voice to shut-up. Four nights away from my kids will not create long-lasting psychological trauma. My first trip away from the kids in 6 years does not constitute deriliction of duty.

Hopefully by the time the trip gets here at the end of April, I’ll have managed to quiet the voices in my head.

Theories I work by

By / March 8, 2005 / 5 Comments

I recently posted a pair of comments in my sister’s livejournal that I’d like to have in my own for reference. Also I think some of you might find them useful/interesting.

My Potty Training Theory:
The first thing about potty training that many people don’t realize is that it
isn’t a single skill. Self toileting is a whole raft of skills that must each be mastered individually:

terminology- understanding the words to describe the experience.
being able to undress by yourself
being able to redress by yourself
how to sit on toilet/potty chair
recognizing the need to pee
witholding the pee until on the toilet
relaxing and letting the pee go
regognizing the need to poop
witholding the poop until on the
toilet
relaxing and letting the poop go
prioritizing potty above this
interesting toy
wiping
flushing
handwashing

There may be skills I’ve forgotten to list. The point is that expecting a child to master all of those skills at once is a bit much. To me, a child is not really fully potty trained until they are able to do all those things by themselves and I am completely uninvolved with their potty-process. Gleek is still working on some of these skills (mostly wiping, flushing, handwashing, and not needing company) and she is 4. Most kids will not fully master the whole list until around 5.

I’ve said that I’m not working on potty training with Patches, but I guess that isn’t true. Right now we’re working on terminology and on the concept that “big boys poop in the toilet.” Probably the next thing will be undressing, but I’m in no hurry. Potty training should be a learning adventure in which mommy and child are exploring and mastering skills together. If the toilet becomes a battlefield no one wins.

What has happened with 2 out of 3 kids so far is that I work on skills and then I decide it’s time and I make a big push toward skill mastery. The charts and underpants work for awhile, then it all falls apart and I get tired of cleaning carpets. At that point I put diapers back on and gave up. In both cases about 6 months later I glanced up and the child had decided to potty and wear underpants all by themselves. With my encouragement they never went back to diapers or pull ups again. So my plan for this time around is to teach and work on skills then let them go for a bit, then work for a bit then let it go. Two steps forward, one step back, we’ll get there eventually.

My discipline Theory:

There are two ways to stop an unwanted behavior.

The first is to remove the motivation that drives it. For me this is the prefered method, it usually stops the behavior almost instantly and the behavior stays stopped as long as the motivation is gone. Identifying the motivation can be tricky at times and unfortunately sometimes the motivating factor is irremovable. A parent can’t stop flinching when things are thrown at them and a child’s desire for amusment/attention is fulfilled by the flinching. Finding other sources for amusement/attention will definitely help this behavior.

The second method is to attach a consequence to the behavior. The consequence needs to be applied very consistently so that it ALWAYS follows the behavior and the child knows that it will. And the consequence needs to be significant to the CHILD. Knowing the motivation behind a behavior is important in choosing a consequence so that you don’t unintentionally reinforce behavior you want to disappear. If attention seeking behavior is given a consequence which requires lots of attention (like sitting on a chair), then you’ve reinforced the behavior rather than extinguishing it. Also the consequence needs to not punish mommy. If applying the consequence is too unpleasant for you, you’ll put up with the behavior rather than enforce the consequence.

Finding a balance is sometimes tricky. I found it a
particular challenge with Gleek because it was so hard to find a consequence
which actually mattered to her. I had to resort to spanking during her toddler
years because there was no other way to extinguish some of the dangerous
behaviors she was prone to. Fortunately now that she is older there are more
consequences that work for her and we’ve found better solutions.

All that rambling aside, it sounds to me like you actually have a really good action plan in place. You just need to stay consistent with it long enough for Alex to make connections in his head. Toddlers have poor impulse control and few reasoning skills, so much of their training has to be very pavlovian in nature.

A Useful Idea

By / March 4, 2005 / 2 Comments

Yesterday morning I was feeling overwhelmed by the stress of all the things in my life. Since nothing significant had changed from the day before I was a little puzzled at the change in feeling. By afternoon I realized that I was overwhelmed because I was getting sick. But in the morning I was stressed to the point of immobility.

Howard observed this and he sat me down at the kitchen counter with paper and pen. He told me to write down every single to-do item or stressful thought that came into my head. I sat and stared at the paper for 10 minutes while Howard repeatedly told me “Honey, start writing”. Finally I did. Some of it was a list, some were fragements of thoughts connected to other thoughts by arrows, but I got every stray stressful thought out of my head and onto paper. While I wrote I wasn’t allowed to judge. Every single stress got written down no matter how silly or unlikely it was.

Eventually my head was empty of new things to write and I was able to sort the stresses on my paper. Some could be resolved almost instantly with a phone call. Some were long term and therefore not to be tackled on an overwhelming day. Some sorted themselves out just by talking them over with Howard. There was a whole list of things detailing the parts of my life where I failed to live up to my own expectations. I was able to select one or two of those to work on right away and I could let the rest fall out of my head because I had them on paper. When I conquor my one or two failures I can go back to the paper, I don’t need to keep a running list in my head.

Being able to actually see my stress on paper was very theraputic. Being able to eliminate some of them and cross them out on the paper was even better. I don’t know if would work for everyone, but it certainly worked for me.

Money money money

By / March 2, 2005 / 4 Comments

Howard and I signed our income tax papers today. We’re getting a return. It is larger than I’d been anticipating. In fact it is almost 3 times larger. This was incredibly relieving, I can keep our financial ends together through May, possibly even June. Suddenly doing the accounting every week is fun again. My actual budget doesn’t change any, but my buffer is much much bigger. And hopefully Howard will now have time to take a break from heffty commercial contracts so that he can crank the schlock buffer up and do all the preparatory work for Schlock Book 1. I really want books in print because I want to have one. And I know other people want to have them. That means that the book will continue generating revenue without addtitional work put into that book. It would be nice to have sources of income that didn’t rely directly on Howard drawing until his hands fall off. T-shirts are good. Books would be better.

Today I’m also gearing up for spring clothing inventory. I’m going through everybody’s drawers trying to figure out what we have and what we’ll need during the next year or even two. That way as I hit garage sales, thrift stores, and other opportunities this summer I’ll know what to be looking for. I also need to break out my sewing machine so I can repair clothes, make over clothes, and make fabric into clothes. I scored some good fabric from a thrift store yesterday and I’m excited to make stuff from it.

Busy, but good

By / March 1, 2005

It’s been a very eventful series of days. We celebrated Howard’s birthday twice. Once with presents and a nice home made dinner and a second time when Howard’s wonderful sister brought us chinese take out and then babysat the kids while we went to see National Treasure. We had a nice dinner with Chalain, Chaliren, and Pi followed by a mayhem session in Metroid Prime Echos. Link has gotten good enough at the game that he can beat his daddy. All of that came on top of all the regular business of family maintinence.

Tomorrow I need to go and sign tax return papers so that I can get the tax return asap. The return is larger than I’d anticipated and will really make a difference in keeping ends together. Thursday is parent teacher conferences and …. I’m too tired to think of the rest of the stuff happening this week. It’s all on my calendar. I write it down there so that I don’t have to store it in my brain.

In short, I’m tired but happy. Things have been busy, but good.