Yes, I CAN!, Girls Night, & Bama Blanket

Brian just came out of his room, laughing his head off about a scene he just read in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince". In the book, Ron was performing miserably at Quidditch, and the opposing team gleefully taunted him about it. Harry made Ron believe that he had spiked Ron's drink with some "felix felicis", a lucky potion that gave the imbiber 12 hours worth of good luck. Ron subsequently played a miraculous game of Quidditch, saving the day, making the great plays. It wasn't until later that he learned that he had taken a placebo and that he had actually made the winning moves all by himself.

Brian was cracking up thinking about how Ron was "tricked", and I pounced upon the "teachable moment" of the POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING. How easy it is to explain it to Brian. Easy to teach, harder to do.

Then I thought of Lisa's comment, that CAN is an affirming and positive moniker. It's a reminder that I carry my own felix felicis. I'll share though...any takers? :-)

And BTW, Sunny Spring...Let's definitely do that "girls night out"! I haven't seen the movie, Drop Dead Gorgeous, but it sounds like fun. More power of positive thinking!

One more thing...to Brown's Bridge Academy: Since you recommended a rednecky "Bama" blanket to my much superior, regal and sophisticated Tigers of LSU blanket, I'll take this opportunity to share the following:

Three college grads, one from Auburn, one from LSU, and one from BAMA, are all construction workers. They were sitting up on one of those high rafters that builders often eat lunch on. The Auburn grad opens his lunchbox and says, "Awww man! CHICKEN!!! I HATE CHICKEN!!! Every day its the same thing...Chicken, Chicken, Chicken!! If I get chicken one more time, I'm gonna jump off this beam." Then the LSU grad opens his lunchbox. "Awww man!!! HAM AND CHEESE!! I HATE HAM AND CHEESE!!! Every day is the same thing...HAM AND CHEESE, HAM AND CHEESE, HAM AND CHEESE!! If I get ham and cheese one more time, I'll jump off this beam with you." So then the BAMA grad opens his lunchbox. "Awww man!!! SPAM!!! I HATE SPAM!!!! Every day its the same thing...SPAM, SPAM, SPAM!! If I get SPAM one more time, I'll jump off this building with y'all." So the next day on lunch break, the three guys are sitting on their beam. The Auburn grad opens his lunch box. As fate would have it, it was chicken. "Well, it looks like I'm jumping." He looks at the LSU grad and says, "So what'd you get?" The LSU grad opens his box...ham and cheese. "Well, it looks like we're jumping together." They wait for the BAMA grad to open his box. "Sure nuff...SPAM." They jump. Since they all died at once, they held their funerals all at once. The three men's wives were standing around crying. The wife of the Auburn grad says, "I had no idea he hated chicken...If I had known that, I wouldn't have packed it for him." The wife of the LSU grad sobs, "I had no idea my husband hated ham and cheese...If I had known that, I wouldn't have packed it for him." The wife of the BAMA grad then says, "My husband made his own lunch."

Pick Your Battles

I was just remembering a visit many years ago to my aunt and uncle's house in San Diego. My cousins (their boys) are now in college, and back then, the twins were maybe 14, and my older cousin was maybe 16.

They ate like teenage boys so, which is to say, like vacuum cleaners. The problem was that they didn't clean up after themselves like vacuum cleaners. I remember my aunt coming through the kitchen, putting tops on peanut butter jars, twisty ties back on the bread, jelly back in the fridge, sealing up the cereal and the chips, and wiping off counters.

I called her on it, asking her how they were going to learn to take responsibility for themselves, and particularly, how were they going to become good husbands in the future if they expected someone to clean up after them. She responded that, yeah, she knew, but that sometimes you gotta pick your battles. The boys had so much else going on (the twins had been major premies and still struggled with some OT and social issues). My older cousin was holding down a job and going to high school at the time. Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah.

Flash forward to today, and guess what? Oh crap...I have become my aunt. I totally and completely get where she was coming from. ("From where she was coming", I should say...we're not allowed to end a sentence in a preposition in my house. But I digress).

Of course, I've thought up with some good excuses for my lax parenting, so I'll just vent them here:
a) My boys have OT issues, sensory issues, PT issues, social issues, and so on. The social issues don't have anything to do with helping make breakfast, but the others do. Half the time they trip or spill or make a huge mess. Other times they can't stand the feel of a texture. They're really sensitive and klutzy.
b) I would rather do it myself just for the sake of expediency (see "a" above).
c) If they've been stressed by other demands, it's my way of letting them rest, i.e., I've picked other battles, and I'm not going to choose this one.
d) Particularly with Evan, but also Brian, I can only give one small instruction at a time, breaking down some simple tasks into minute bits of tasks. It's really tiring.
e) I'm just too tired to care (see "a" thru "d" above).

But yet, they are now 10 and 8, and darn it, it's time for them to do more...spilled, mucky, mess or not. I have just picked up my sword.

Thinking through my battle plan like a homeschool parent (where everything is a "teachable moment"), this is what I've decided:
We are going to schedule some classes this year called "Home Economics for Dummies". I won't be sharing the title with the boys.

We will take as long as it takes to learn how to make and clean up a pb&j. We'll practice sweeping floors without knocking the toaster off the kitchen counter. We will perfect the art of making a dish towel "damp" (not dripping and soaking, but "damp"). If something smells "funny" to B & E, then they can wear surgical masks, and if it feels uncomfortable to handle, then we'll go with gloves.

We'll make time for all sorts of "mundane" tasks slowly and patiently. It's all gonna be part of the 2007-2008 curriculum at CAN Academy.

I'm feeling more hopeful already.

P.S. Seeing as I've got several "doctor" friends, how 'bout donating some of those masks and gloves? :-)

Is it Worth a Thousand Words?

It started with a picture. Really, are they worth a thousand words? This morning, I tried to take a picture of Brian and Evan so we could turn it into a birthday card, print it, and send it to their sister Noelia (Ed’s daughter) who is turning 24 in a few days. It turned into a tantrum-fest, complete with lots of fussing and complaining (and that was just me…you should have seen the kids in action).

In the grand scheme of life, it was not a big deal, we're just talking about a birthday card and a camera, and a couple of whiny kids. But a wise friend once told me that it’s the minutiae in life that trips us up. We rally around one another when the big stuff happens…but over time, the little stuff wears us down, and tires us out.

My new life coach (I call her “LC” for short, but you may know her as “Sunny Spring Bliss”) has reminded me that life is short, and it’s happening right now. LC is teaching me to not take things personally, and the importance of community. I feel like a slow learner.

A wise doctor friend recently recommended that I consider journaling to track the kids’ progress over time. Her thinking is that I’ll look back in a few years and laugh at some of the tantrums and fits and issues with which I once dealt.

So, I’m considering all the wise advice, living for today, and “just venting” here.

And BTW, which one of these pictures would you choose for the birthday card?