Mrs Metaphor

Hmm.  Anger management, anyone?  

I can’t criticize too much.  I FEEL this…deeply, babe.

It’s not really a hairshirt, it’s actually this flannel jacket/shirt thing I wear around my house. Whenever I put it on I get very depressed. I put it on because I’m feeling cold and it’s the best choice in a utilitarian sense. It does the job so to speak. It just so damn ugly. I think this is it, at least. I’m not sure how it happens, psychologically or spiritually or what….but whenever I put it on I may as well have put on a suit of lead that accentuates every body flaw I own and a few I didn’t know existed.I only wear it at home, when I’m in parenting mode.

It gets all the snotty noses wiped on it (not my choice, it’s literally out of my hands or out of their noses perhaps is more like it.) By now you are asking yourself why I don’t throw out that shirt. That is a good question. In the spirit of giving things up for Lent, maybe this is a good time to give up the comfy crappy shirt and choose the good.  Ack,  it’s just so comfortable.

And because I am Mrs Metaphor and I just can’t leave it alone I gotta say that I think there’s a connection here for us to draw our metaphorical moment.  Looking at my crappy flannel I wonder, psychologically and spiritually, what else I’m clinging to in the name of comfort.  What have we grown accustomed to that  warms us up and makes us feel like hell at the same time?

Points to ponder…

My Lenten task this year is becoming more and more refined as I walk through each day. My sacrifice this season is to “choose the good.” You might say at first blush, “Well gee, Mrs M…that’s no sacrifice!” but you would be wrong, my friend. It does feel like a loss to let go of a way of behaving that I’ve grown accustomed to…quite a lot it seems. It has not been easy to give up these little battles without the usual fight or retreat into fantasy brain land. It’s hard to explain but just trust me, it’s not easy and it is a sacrifice. You do trust me, don’t you?Don’t answer that (unless it’s “YES”)

This is the moment though I wanted to put out there to you today. Observe Miles, my youngest…

It’s hard to tell from this picture but he was in character…as he is often. He decided today that he would smear pancake syrup on both of his hands and perhaps his face for this character. He was the “Silver Surfer” from the Fantastic Four. When he tried to leave my kitchen obviously I started in with the mama hissy fit and wiped his hands and face. He had a meltdown. He was shouting and crying and I was about to shout, myself….as I am apt to do.

In that moment though, here’s the thing, I decided to choose the good.

In this case  I felt the “good” was not to go Dictator-ville on the guy. He was in character and I was ruining his character. Yes, I’m the mama and I’m in charge of cleaning up the syrup hand prints around the house and yet, I kept thinking…choose the good, choose the good…and I chose to engage rather than enrage. (Like that? It’s copyrighted by me but you can use it if you want.)

You see I have these choices that I didn’t really see before. I had thought until, um, last week, that it was my JOB to be the killjoy. I had thought that imposing my iron will in my typical Bohemian Dictator style was just what the Dr. Phil ordered but alas, it’s never been a terribly good fit for us as a family.

In taking a minute to pause and consider the “good” I realized that all I really needed to do just then was engage him…so I did. I put down whatever I was doing and first smeared his hands with syrup again to get us to the peace table. Then I sat down next to him and said, “So tell me about your life here, man…what do you need?” and he began to tell me the story of his “character” and why it was important for the character to have sticky hands. Truthfully, I still don’t get why he has to have sticky hands but that’s beside the point. The point is that he was calm (albeit sticky) and I was calm (and actually amused) and we were having a little moment right there.

When we were done talking I said, “So, you know…you can do this in the kitchen but no sticky syrup hands anywhere else, right?” and he agreed. It took him about three minutes of playing and then he asked me to wash his hands and face off…so I did. And that was that.

I’m generally of the belief in the childrearing part of my life that everything works once and for about 5 minutes at a time and then next time it’s like a totally different television show so I don’t delude myself into thinking that what I’ve got here is a magic bullet. What I do have here though is a really nice moment and I treasure those, I gather those up and hold them close in me. Hopefully that is like a little emotional vitamin to help fortify me for the next time.

I need a lot of these but I’ll take them one at a time.

Bear in mind that I basically avoided entering the conflict on this one because it was too good an exchange to not transcribe.  

Here’s a glimpse into my life today…I spent the better part of an hour fighting with my three year old about his pee. He took a bath after playing in the mud outside this morning and while bathing decided to let loose the waterworks.  He was thrilled.  He told me in no uncertain terms how excited he was to have peed in the tub.  ”Look, it’s my pee!”  He was very proud.  I felt it best to drain it away, wash the tub and child and begin afresh.  He begged to differ.  I won because I’m bigger and stronger.

To say the least, he took this badly and yelled at the top of his lungs for quite a length of time thing like, “It’s MY pee! Give it back!”  and “I want my pee back!”  and “It’s not FAIR!  You took my pee!”Seems he was quite attached to his pee.  I tried a few tactics beginning with, “Yeah, you know…it’s just gross to bathe in your own urine….seriously” and moved onto “No, I’m not going to bring it back.  It’s not going to happen” and descended finally into rinsing him off and then leaving the room.  He continued to yell and scream and cry.  I came back in a few minutes later and sat next to him.  ”What do you need, Miles?”  His teary response was anticipated, “I want my pee back.”

This is a moment to chuckle…because it IS kind of funny, yet, I was not in any mood to chuckle.  I was already pissed that I spent even that amount of time 1)arguing with a three year old and 2)arguing with a three year old about his pee.  I wish I had been in a mood to find the humor and move out of that but extenuating circumstances being what they are I’m just having trouble getting a grip most days on the tangibles…this felt like an intangible and for that I had no time, which is kind of sad, really.

The last thing we talked about it in this intangible discussion was interesting in hindsight.  I said, “Miles, drink some stinkin’ water, man..you can make MORE pee” to which he replied, “I can’t, I don’t have any tools.”  I tried to explain that the tools he needed were already in his body and that he just needed to trust me that he’s got it all covered but he just wasn’t having it.  He wanted things the way he envisioned them and there was NO other solution. He finally settled on the couch because I commenced to vacuuming.

In the quiet aftermath of his tantrum though I’m able to take something away from it all I guess.  It feels prophetic, a word of wisdom, a moment of enlightenment from the mouth of a three year old, an attitude of a three year old.  I want things the way I want them. There is NO other solution except the one I have in my head.  It’s hard for me to hear that there is another way, that what I want is perhaps not such a good thing in the grand scheme of  my metaphorical hygiene habits.  It’s hard to grasp this kind of thing in the middle of it all.  I just hope I  can rebound from my tight fisted  tirades as quickly as my three year old.  

I’ve been feeling blue lately…the stress of selling our house and not really knowing where we will live next I think has gotten to me a little this season of Joy and Peace.  My “sense of place” is all out of whack…I’m missing this piece and then missing the Peace that comes from that.   Today, talking to my therapist mom on the phone she told me about a funny thing she saw recently, “Christmas Carols for the Mentally Ill.”  Bear in mind, we are not making fun of mentally ill people….I know and love several mentally ill people…but I’m sorry, this made me laugh and I needed that at this moment so here it is for your enjoyment. I found this by Google on John Fry’s website.I think I’m allowed to say I like the one for ADHD the best…my DH is diagnosed and medicated for this disorder….

 Christmas Carols for the Mentally Ill

Schizophrenia — Do You Hear What I Hear?

Multiple Personality Disorder — We Three Kings Disoriented Are

Dementia — I Think I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Narcissistic — Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

Manic — Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses

and Trucks and Trees and . ..

Paranoid — Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

Borderline Personality Disorder — Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

Personality Disorder — You Better Watch Out, I’m Gonna Cry, I’m Gonna Pout, Maybe I’ll Tell You Why

Attention Deficit Disorder — Silent Night, Holy OOOOOOOOh look at the Froggy, can I have chocolate, why is France so far away?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder — Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bell …

This dedicated to my blog buddy Babychaos….enjoy

I blame it on my childhood. When my parents would argue I would try to think of ways to fill the gap. I was small, though, only a child and children can’t fill gaps left by grown ups, especially when the grown ups do not want that gap filled. So I contented myself to mediating amongst my siblings. This was not a welcomed practice but I kept it up to my own detriment. I do blame my childhood for this habit but looking back it’s hard to figure out what made me think I had gained proficiency in it. The reality is that I never became much of a peacemaker. I would throw up my hands in despair when my efforts were both unfruitful AND unappreciated. The problems of the people I was mediating became my own problems and their emotions, my emotions.

Now, as a parent I find I am suffering from this same disease. I find myself trying to make peace between my children. I try logic, I try kindness, I try threats and then when those don’t work I throw up my hands in despair and bellow to no one in particular “what am I doing in this nut house?”

Once, a few weeks ago I was so overwrought that I actually just laid face down on the floor til they stopped arguing. Sadly, this only stopped the flow of bickering for about a minute and then they were back at it again. But, while lying on the floor I had a revelation. Am I attempting to be the peacemaker with these children or the peacekeeper?

Peacekeepers make me think of policemen and soldiers in foreign countries…enforcing laws that someone else has made, laws and rules made by peaceMAKERS. Their purpose is clear, the authority is granted, the rules are in order. The trouble I have, I mused during my humble siesta on the hardwood floor, is that I’ve been trying to be the peaceKEEPER in a land where the peaceMAKERS have made no laws. I have not laid out the guidelines; although I suppose I thought, “don’t hit the dog with a shovel” would be a no brainer…apparently not.

You see, the people I am dealing with here in “nuthouse central” do not know the simple laws of household civility. I had some expectation that they would come hard wired with this. It was not until I threw myself to the floor in a fit of despair that I realized my job was impossible without the groundwork laid. How can I enforce laws that do not exist?

If sister hits brother because she’s annoyed my response has been, “Why on EARTH would you hit him? ” She feels remorse for a moment, gives big weepy looks my way and then wails a loud “I’m sorry!” Well, what then? Apologies all around, forgiveness ensues, everyone’s happy. Except me, because 5 minutes later someone is hitting someone else.

It’s all about the follow through. I have no follow through. I have mommy brain. I have dogs eating cellphones and children removing their own dirty diapers during the time period that “follow through” is meant to happen. I consider making a chart for the wall…I saw this online. It is called the “IF…THEN….” chart and the idea is something like this; “If you hit someone…then….blah blah blah…(punishment here).” You do the crime you do the time. I imagine this wonderful scenario in which someone commits an off limits act and I calmly walk to the wall chart. “Oh, juvenile arson…that’s 2 weeks without the CD player.” It seems perfect. Just what I need to make this family really work together and bow to my iron fist. Unfortunately I can think of 35 reasons that this will not work however, and they all have to do with the Follow Through. Damn, the Follow Through, it’s never been my strongpoint.

Maybe I will just spend more time on the floor, face down. This seems to awaken my brain at the very least and produce happy, productive thoughts amidst the chaos. Maybe this, in turn will lead to more happy, productive thoughts and I can finally begin to work on that Follow Through. Maybe.

I confess to you, dear reader, that I feel I am the soul of laziness. I am not certain whether the trait is inherited or learned but it is at the very least imbedded rather deeply at this point. I keep thinking that I am tired, yes, it must be that I am tired. I am, it seems, rather overwhelmed I suppose, what with my writing, my domestic puttering about, my childrearing, homeschooling and all the other sundry tasks with which I busy myself.

I have so much to do and find that I might even get the time to do some of the “list” I keep but I feel lazy, unable to move, unwilling to participate, depressed and downright defiant…no matter how many cups of coffee I imbibe.

Someone suggeted to me recently that I consider putting my children into “regular school” and for a brief moment it did sound appealing. The suggestion hung there weightily, a red delicious apple gleaming in the sunlight, hanging from a branch labeled “free time” and I reached for it with both hands…and stopped. “Think” says I, to my greedy subconcious self.

All I could think in that moment was “what will make my life easier?” Layered under that brief question however were other, more specific things I hoped would be solved by this momentous decision…what will make my house cleaner? what will help me sleep better? what will make me feel more satisfied? what will make me less cranky?

Will putting my children in school and daycare do all that for me? “Sign me up!” thinks I, yet I stay my hand another moment from grasping the succulent fruit before me.

Will putting my children in school and daycare do all that for me? This is the question and one not so easily answered, “yes” in sudden haste. Moving back from the tree of institutionalized education for a moment I ponder. Why did we detour from the given educational road when my daughter reached the first grade; my first born, my early reader, my incredibly social, super friendly and outgoing child?

I suppose the easy answer to that hard question is that it felt like the right way to go. I felt a crazy pull toward homeschooling that is hard to explain. To be perfectly honest homeschooling was NEVER on my radar, I thought it was a rather crackpot way of doing things. One summer day after the last day of kindergarten I felt this tug. I knew that the school my daughter attended was perhaps not the place I wanted to see her live out her gradeschool years and was examining our other options. The most basic and yet the most complex reason I chose to homeschool was that my heart kept coming back to it, over and over. Finally, annoyed with the whole idea I prayed about it. I gave God this little ultimatum, because that’s how I am with Him (I hope He finds it amusing…) “I’ll pray for one week about this God and I’ll homeschool if that’s what you want but you have to change my heart, because I DON’T want to do it.”

So I prayed for a week and began on monday with a heart of concrete. By wednesday I was looking at homeschooling laws, by thursday I was picking out curriculum and by saturday morning I was doing a “test run” with my daughter in our livingroom to see how it would feel…and it felt right, my mushy, slobbery heart leaking all over the couch as we read together…so we began that way.

Would it really make things easier to put them in school? There would still be driving from place to place, lesson to lesson. There would still be projects to complete, models to make, spelling tests for which to study, math homework to tackle. I woudl still have the “hard ones” running around my feet…the ones too young to put into school, the ones who need the majority of the attention.

What would it really change? It would mean that new deadlines would appear, ones which could not be moved because it’s a beautiful day for a nature walk, because it’s pajama day at our house, because gramma is visiting from out of town. We have this remarkable gift of making our own schedule, making our own rules, making and moving our own deadlines if we’d like. When will they ever get this opportunity again? When will I ever get this opportunity again?

Alas…the apple, she dangles there…ready to be plucked…all I must do is reach and pull. I find though, in that moment that I do not desire an apple but rather a plum…and that tree is planted, already bearing fruit in my own back yard.

When I want to know how much I weigh I use the high tech fat analyzer scale in the closet of my bathroom. Not only do I want to know my weight but I want to know more than that; of what does that weight consist? I want data, raw numbers to interpret and apply to what I know of my body already.

When I worked in the outside world and wanted to gauge my progress I would lookward my peers, co-workers and collegues. I would see what they did, how they acted, how clean or messy their desk appeared and glean from it what I might to become more successful.

In my current profession, that of mother and domestic goddess I often employ the same means of evaluation although it has morphed into a self depreciating and defeating practice.

I visit houses of my friends and always find myself lacking. Jenny’s home is always spotless and her children well groomed. While Pat’s home is not spotless her children are extremely well behaved and she is incredibly creative with them. Tracy’s home is spotless, her children well behaved, she homeschools, grows and cans her own vegetables and is an unbelievably sweet person. It’s no wonder that I am friends with each of these women. They all possess qualities that I admire.

Aside from being my friends these women are in effect my collegues in this business of parenting and house-tending. It is understandable, I suppose, that I would look to them and their ways when I measure myself in this vocation. The struggle for me is to really see their lives without drawing the negative connotations implied in the different ways we run our proverbial ship.

My home is far from spotless. There is a half hearted but well meaning structure for where things belong. There are days when the floors are clean and the bathrooms smell fine, the laundry put away, the dishes done and all is well with the world. Then there are days when the floor is so sticky it’s embarrassing, the dishes piled high in the sink, the children wearing yesterday’s underwear because the laundry is awaiting my attention. And then we find our moments of what I call “Ordinary Time”. Clean clothes that are not yet put away, clean dishes, still in the dishwasher, sweepable floor and merely a thin layer of dust on the bookshelf.

It seems that I keep house the way I homeschool; a somewhat disorganized but well meaning and “organic” manner. There are days when we stay in our pajamas all day and sit around reading and playing with art stuff. There are days when we hit our “schedule” like clockwork and get all of our subjects finished. There are mainly days, though, that fall in between. Ordinary Time. Half the kids are dressed, half in pajamas. Some have brushed their teeth, others staunchly refuse. The dog’s been fed at least once. We finished our math work and part of the required reading for History. The television has been on for far longer than I even care to admit. These are the nights I quiz my husband and require him to tell me that our children will not be permanently damaged by my lack of follow through. His standard response, “They’re great…they really are” is all I need to hear.

Ordinary time, is where we live. These in between days make up the bulk of the year and yet I find that I still feel as though I’m playing catch up. If given the choice between Slouch Time, Ordinary Time and High Time I guess in the end I’d like to be a slouch with a spotless house on a regular basis. I want it all but I don’t REALLY know anyone who can do this and keep her sanity.

I think back upon my three friends to whom I compare myself.

I can look at each of their lives and see how they differ from mine, I could draw unfavorable comparisons to how well I do things, how they lack just to make myself feel better I suppose. But in the long run, when day is over what really strikes me is that I AM friends with each of them because of the qualities they possess; kindness, faithfulness, joyfulness, creativity just to name a few. I admire these qualities because I have them too whether or not I realize this on a regular basis. What brings us together really is seeing those things in each other that we find to be valuable.

My hope is that I begin to use sentances such as, “what I love about Pat is….” rather than “what makes me jealous of Pat is…”

My hope is that I will begin to live in and through this Ordinary Time… and see how it lives in me.