There are two problems in my life right now that I am so frustrated with I feel like I'm going insane. I've been to insane. Liked the hours, didn't care for the people. I'd rather not go back if I don't have to.
The first is that my son is having great difficulty sleeping through the night. I truly don't know what the reason is. It's probably a combination of factors as suggested by his doctor, teachers, and strangers whose childcare books sit on our bookshelves, their book jacket photos grinning at me as if the bastards actually get some sleep.
Possible reasons include: It's never been easy for him to get his bearings back after we stay overnight somewhere else; post nasal drip; nightmares (not certain of this, just a guess); very cold room; noisy heaters that attempt to heat very cold room; lack of limits-setting on our part (one more book, one more milk, one more dear friends into the breach); and who knows what else, although I'm sure I'll know very soon because everybody has an opinion, usually unwanted and often seemingly crack-addled.
The second problem is simply a difficult relationship that I would like to see improve. Enough said there.
In both cases I've been asking. And asking and asking and meditating and asking actual people and asking for guided dreams and praying and hoping and asking. And the solutions have not come. What do you do? Keep asking? Change the question? Accept defeat? Squint at the horizon so hard to try to see the tiny changes that have come that you give yourself floaters on your retenas for the rest of time?
Anyone?
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
#23: Let me dissipate rage
I was on the playground with my son the other day when we saw one kid jump from a great height on top of a younger kid, intentionally. When the younger kid started to wail, the older kid got right in his face and yelled "Well, it's your fault for getting in my way! It's your fault!" and ran off.
I helped the younger kid get up while a couple of other moms tried to locate his mom. The kid hurt his arm and hit his head and just wanted his mom and was wailing. The older kid came back, saw me standing next to the hurt kid, and ran off again. The mom came over and carried the little kid off. I didn't see the older kid again.
Over the course of the day, I felt angrier and angrier at this kid. One, I felt bad for my own kid, who was confused and upset by the whole thing and asked me to explain what happened about five times and acted the whole thing out a couple of times. But I was angrier about the kid telling the younger kid that his getting hurt was his own fault. The reality of that situation was the younger kid was "at fault" for being anywhere near this enraged, angry, out-of-control kid.
And I became completely infected by his anger. I became obsessed with what had happened. My own anger got wrapped around this kid and this incident, and it paralyzed me for the rest of the day.
As I was falling asleep I envisioned speaking with the kid. The first few times, I wound up screaming at him. The last couple of exchanges went kind of like this.
"So what happened out there on the playground?"
"He was in my way! It was his fault!"
"I think you were angry before that. I noticed when I walked in that you were mad someone else had teased you. But you were really really angry about that, and that was a pretty small thing. I think you've just always been angry, and I don't know why. I'm sorry I can't help you."
Annie Dillard wrote in "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" a passage about how when you chop wood, you need to look at the chopping block and not at the wood you're cutting. I think people are sort of the same. When their behavior is insane, you have to look right past what you see and what they tell you, to what makes sense underneath. That's usually a wounded animal who doesn't even know where the wound came from anymore or how to fix it, so they attack you.
I'm not going to let other wounded animals turn me into a wounded animal anymore.
On another note, I'm listening right now to the podcast interview of the director of the National Institute for Play on the value of play and how it positively shapes our human character and socialization. Very interesting stuff.
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/play/index.shtml
See you later.
I helped the younger kid get up while a couple of other moms tried to locate his mom. The kid hurt his arm and hit his head and just wanted his mom and was wailing. The older kid came back, saw me standing next to the hurt kid, and ran off again. The mom came over and carried the little kid off. I didn't see the older kid again.
Over the course of the day, I felt angrier and angrier at this kid. One, I felt bad for my own kid, who was confused and upset by the whole thing and asked me to explain what happened about five times and acted the whole thing out a couple of times. But I was angrier about the kid telling the younger kid that his getting hurt was his own fault. The reality of that situation was the younger kid was "at fault" for being anywhere near this enraged, angry, out-of-control kid.
And I became completely infected by his anger. I became obsessed with what had happened. My own anger got wrapped around this kid and this incident, and it paralyzed me for the rest of the day.
As I was falling asleep I envisioned speaking with the kid. The first few times, I wound up screaming at him. The last couple of exchanges went kind of like this.
"So what happened out there on the playground?"
"He was in my way! It was his fault!"
"I think you were angry before that. I noticed when I walked in that you were mad someone else had teased you. But you were really really angry about that, and that was a pretty small thing. I think you've just always been angry, and I don't know why. I'm sorry I can't help you."
Annie Dillard wrote in "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" a passage about how when you chop wood, you need to look at the chopping block and not at the wood you're cutting. I think people are sort of the same. When their behavior is insane, you have to look right past what you see and what they tell you, to what makes sense underneath. That's usually a wounded animal who doesn't even know where the wound came from anymore or how to fix it, so they attack you.
I'm not going to let other wounded animals turn me into a wounded animal anymore.
On another note, I'm listening right now to the podcast interview of the director of the National Institute for Play on the value of play and how it positively shapes our human character and socialization. Very interesting stuff.
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/play/index.shtml
See you later.
Friday, September 7, 2007
#20: Please please please let me find Little Larry
Full disclosure: My son Will started nursery school this week and I just dropped him off for his first full day. He was howling and screaming when I left, and everything at the moment is filtered through howling-colored glasses.
On the way there, we seem to have lost Little Larry, who was riding shotgun -- undergun?-- in the basket beneath Will's stroller.
Little Larry is one of a tribe of Larrys. Originally there was just Big Larry, a lamb baby blanket with soft satin paws that Will picked apart over time into cloudy pom poms of thread. He was a shower gift from friends and at one point in his life was actually white and not grey.
Big Larry was at first just Larry, named for my husbands now-late uncle Larry, who wouldn't eat lamb. Ha ha. Larry was eventually lost at the zoo where I like to picture him in the soft grass gazing happily at the clouds and not, say, frolicking with the baboons.
At that point there was a second Larry already, dubbed Larry Feingold, Certified Public Lamb, by my cousin. We ordered a third, and so we had two again. New Big Larry and Larry Feingold.
But the Larrys kept growing. The same friends who gave us OL (Original Larry) also gave us a tiny white Gund bear like the one my friend C had growing up. His was Mohatma Gundhi; we named ours Indira. By the time Will could talk, he let us know that clearly this was a case of mistaken identity. That bear was little Larry; the big teddy bear was Larry Bear; the little brown Gund (plucked from the Salvation Army when we were first talking about having a child and subsequently washed and washed and washed) was basketball coach Larry Brown.
So it's Little Larry, nee Indira, who seems to have made a run for it. I hope to find him in the nieghborhood or through the parents web group. I also hope to get through this morning without a big shot of whiskey.
As a parent you can control two things and two things only -- how much love you put into your children and keeping track of all their crap. In the face of howling-colored glasses and the sense that by God my baby is out in the world now, I'm trying to keep from hyperventilating over the few things that seem controllable.
For a very eloquent take on kids and their bears, go here: RIP, Minty Bear
On the way there, we seem to have lost Little Larry, who was riding shotgun -- undergun?-- in the basket beneath Will's stroller.
Little Larry is one of a tribe of Larrys. Originally there was just Big Larry, a lamb baby blanket with soft satin paws that Will picked apart over time into cloudy pom poms of thread. He was a shower gift from friends and at one point in his life was actually white and not grey.
Big Larry was at first just Larry, named for my husbands now-late uncle Larry, who wouldn't eat lamb. Ha ha. Larry was eventually lost at the zoo where I like to picture him in the soft grass gazing happily at the clouds and not, say, frolicking with the baboons.
At that point there was a second Larry already, dubbed Larry Feingold, Certified Public Lamb, by my cousin. We ordered a third, and so we had two again. New Big Larry and Larry Feingold.
But the Larrys kept growing. The same friends who gave us OL (Original Larry) also gave us a tiny white Gund bear like the one my friend C had growing up. His was Mohatma Gundhi; we named ours Indira. By the time Will could talk, he let us know that clearly this was a case of mistaken identity. That bear was little Larry; the big teddy bear was Larry Bear; the little brown Gund (plucked from the Salvation Army when we were first talking about having a child and subsequently washed and washed and washed) was basketball coach Larry Brown.
So it's Little Larry, nee Indira, who seems to have made a run for it. I hope to find him in the nieghborhood or through the parents web group. I also hope to get through this morning without a big shot of whiskey.
As a parent you can control two things and two things only -- how much love you put into your children and keeping track of all their crap. In the face of howling-colored glasses and the sense that by God my baby is out in the world now, I'm trying to keep from hyperventilating over the few things that seem controllable.
For a very eloquent take on kids and their bears, go here: RIP, Minty Bear
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