STUFF

I wrote the following this summer:

Insomnia again.

I can't afford to lose sleep tonight. I'm way in sleep debt. BUT here I am.

I've done all my usual tricks for getting back to sleep: meditation, poetry writing, net surfing, meditating again, moving to a new location, tarot...

Tonight my head is a-whirl with self reflection.  Usually this manifests itself into some sort of art, writing, poem, etc., but tonight it seems content to prevent my sleep.

We recently got a huge tub of legos. It's been like candy for my son, who loves them and loves playing with them. And now that he had this massive pile, he just wants MORE. Not more Lego's necessarily, but more STUFF.

When I was young, my parents did not have much spare income. I was told no about new toys because we did not have enough money. I think things changed at some point and I started getting more toys... And maybe I should not have. Maybe, instead, my parents should have kept the STUFF to a minimum even though they could afford not to.

Because now that I have my own wealth, I find myself feeling trapped into Leon's desire of things. My son wants a toy. He thinks it will make him happy (and it will for a while). And I have got no muscle built up for helping him to resist that urge for stuff.

We offered to pay him to do extra chores around the house so he could save and buy himself a toy. He enthusiastically did so the first day. Now he is starting to get a feel for work on top of his usual responsibilities, and it must feel like too much for him. I don't push him; I hope I can transfer his Desire for a Toy into Working Hard for a Toy, but truly I don't know if this is the right time for him. Or is it too late? Ah, being a parent. So many unknowns.

UPDATE:

We finally implemented the Toy Library from Simplicity Parenting. Most the kid toys are out in the garage in bins, and they are allowed to check out three toys from the library a day. They must return their old ones before they check out new ones.
It has been AMAZING.

They nearly never check out toys. We have less mess to clean up. In fact a ten-minute tidy, which we have started to do every day, is enough to get the house under control.

In addition, last year we started the One Gift Rule. Everyone, grandparents too, can only give one thing for Christmas to each child. Last year, Leon complained bitterly about this one gift rule.  But THIS YEAR, he is thoughtfully considering which one thing he wants for Christmas. (He's settled on an RC car.)

Sure is nice to look back in my old problems and see they are better.

He never did save money fir the marble run, but he did trade in all his Halloween candy for it.

The Secret to Happiness

Last night I was helping my kids out of the bath. I gave the monster towel to my three-yr-old, because my five-yr-old often complains it is too small.

Not last night, apparently.

My thoughtfulness was met with wails of despair.

"You're so mean, Mommy!" he cried. "You have ruined my life! I will never be happy again!"


Needless to say we will be getting him a towel for Christmas and we're taking back the RC car. We've found the secret to happiness!

Peace out, yo.

Playful Parenting/No iPad

I have finished--oh yes! FINISHED!--a new parenting book called Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen. *applause* It was most useful and I shall be picking up more o' dat!

Chiefly what I found useful was that play can often have a sideways purpose we adults don't always recognize. He suggests adult play with children can and often should be used to reverse the normal power structures. It's a chance for the adult to cry at the idea of the child leaving (all in good fun, and quite pretend), or a chance for the adult to bumble into something and utterly fail, or a chance for the kid to tell Mommy to Go To Bed This Minute!

He's suggested one game that has been a lifesaver so far: GO and STOP. Mom freezes when they say stop and moves again when they say go. This is now how I get nails trimmed and knotted hair brushed.

The next game to try is the WIN/LOSE game, where we flip a coin and pretend that winning is absolutely totally the most important thing ever, and losing is the worst. Flipping the coin over and over so we can really practice getting dramatic about winning or losing in a completely silly way--this is what we need, to take the stress away from winning and losing. Cohen says that kids need to experience both winning and losing, and the parents should take their cues from the kids as to which they need. He says a kid who often wants you to play your hardest sometimes flip flops and wants you to take it easy. All natural.

I've also learned that nothing has to be dramatic about behavior. Even bad behavior can be dealt with in good humor. That is my greatest challenge yet of course.

I don't feel I have the social skills to deal with bad behavior in good humor. With that said...

My five year old came to me the other day and told me about each of his friends who have an iPad, and how he wished -he- had one too. I told him what I always do: he'd have time for all those fun video games later. But why not -now-? he finally asked.

So I sat him down and told him that I had video games and TV galore when I was young; that I had learned to play them well, and had NOT learned things like how to play with my friends and how to tell funny jokes. I told him this was his most important job now: to learn to play with his friends. There would be plenty of time for everything else after he had learned that.

Leon got it. He really did. You can see confidence in a child's body when they learn and truly understand something new; his posture straightened, he looked me in the eye. He was just fine with the arrangement.

Hibernation, Narration, and Present Participlenation

Nothing much worthwhile to report, except to say that quitting plaquinol, while great, hasn't solved all my problems. Fatigue must just be a damned fool winter-time thing that I will have to deal with.

I know one is not supposed to let the disease interfere with one's life, but! when one has to sleep more than a hibernating bear and the first day of winter hasn't even come yet, it's pretty frustrating. Also, the impersonal third-person "one" is super archaic. I should have just written that all in first person.

Speaking of grammar, my youngest son has been utilizing a hilarious bit of present participle narration. It's a past tense verb, followed by a comma, and a present participle. He'll say, " 'I'm done!' said the boy, getting down from his chair"  or even " 'I ate it, Mommy!' said the baby pine marten, chewing his food."

It reminds me somewhat of early Brandon Sanderson work--Sanderson spent that first Mistborn book using similar sentence construction. (For example, sentence 1 paragraph 1 of the opening prologue: "Lord Tresting frowned, glancing up..." That bit of past tense, followed by a comma and then the present participle, is in nearly every sentence and it got old real fast. Although despite this, the book was fantastic.)

But I digress. Torrin topped even Sanderson's ridiculous love for this type of sentence construction when he told me, " 'I'm done!' said the boy, saying 'I'm done.' " Hilarious!

Now, actually I adore the narration, silly though it may be. It allows me to jump right into Torrin's current game and use it to further my own purposes. " 'Okay,' said the mommy pine marten to the baby pine marten. 'It's time to wash up!' " And off trundle our pine martens to the sink, and oh how their paws get washed! Such washing of pine martens there is!

Very well. That said, someone find me a cave. I have hibernating to do.

Hearing Myself Talk/Quitting Plaquinil

I feel like posting to my blog because I want to hear myself talk. I do miss being published in a newspaper where I could reasonably expect 1) people to have read my writing and be down for discussing it and 2) people to have ignored my writing and be down for discussing everything else.

 These days I am left out of a lot of conversations, being that my life is so inward now... between caring for my kids and caring for myself, I don't have time or brainpower left for much else. It is a tad stifling.

Equally worth posting about (ie... not worth posting) is my small triumph in quitting plaquinil. My memory is back. Let me say it again: my MEMORY is back. My brain may not be too robust but it is no longer, shall I say, "roont." Moving forward I will only be on methotrexate, which my doc is nervous of but I am thrilled. My joints are worse, but not by too much yet, and my quality of life is higher than the Space Needle. The dizziness is much more mild. Mood swings nearly gone. My fatigue has been a tad better. The absence of negative experiences in my body has left me feeling a tad empty--and the emptiness is sometimes filled with actual vitality. WOW.

Now... here is something interesting that I doubt other RAers have experienced, but I want to know, so please leave comments... My sex life improved with the diagnosis. I stopped hurting myself because we knew I had to be careful. Plus, I really prefer these new gentle positions.

Okay, that is all. Time to pretend to sleep.
#prednisoneInsomnia #tmi

I mentioned briefly in my last blog that I had decided saying no was not the best thing to do with a child. Dr Laura Markham has written a WONDERFUL post on No, and what you can say instead.... and why your young toddler's No is important for them to say.

12 Ways To Get Around No

My two year old now climbs the fig tree regularly. It stops my heart, but, he is very careful and feels so empowered when he does it.

My current struggle is bed time. Torrin sometimes naps and sometimes not, leaving his bed time all over the place from evening to evening. All I want is to lock him in his room promptly at 6:30 so I can get a little time to myself before I pass out at 8 or 9. Really, I cannot get time to myself because of this fatigue, unless I have babysitters take care of things for me.

So Is This Mess

(a poem by yours truly - I have a lot of these... It is what I do when prednisone insomnia strikes!)

There are endless chores.
I forget the laundry; suddenly the hall is full,
Demands spilling out from a hostage war.
I try to find satisfaction in the Doing,
Since it will never ever Be Done.
Things seem so bad I try to swallow without chewing.
I spend a while pretending to be the Housework Heroes:
Snow White, Penelope. Grandma Sofie.
I reject them in favor of one and zeroes.
Empty Hollywood friendships--GIFs--Tumblr...
These are my country's best exports. (It used to be tobacco.)
My joints are growing feebler.
My energy waxes and wanes nothing like the moon.
(Predictable! Beautiful!) I grow weary of Plans.
I catch a cold and know I won't Get Well Soon.
Cold becomes Cough becomes Bronchitis
And three months of Nyquil becomes Me.
I play hooky like I have Senioritis,
Doing "home days." The worst is forgetting my meds...
Oh meds, how I love thee! Let me count the ways!
Other suitors are paraded before my bed:
Energy Bracelets, Bee Venom, Herbs, Worms, Diet Change...
I smile, nod, court them all, but never divorce my D-MARDs.
My child leaps into my arms. I strive for a peaceful exchange,
Reminding him to be gentle because Mommy's in pain.
He kisses my heart and assures me he can help;
A simple hand-transfer of energy like a magic flame
Shall kill my arthur-itis and cure me!
The darling faith of it flares my heart, and I remember
Why diagnosing was so hard. You see,
When caring for him, my pain seemed meaningless.
And now that I remember, I look around the house.
I realize that so is this mess.

Lacey Kaplan-Coleman

Well Begun is Not Done By Half / Blame, Validation, Jokes.

As an update to "Inner Rebel," I finished reading Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids by Dr. Markham. My struggle to forgive my parents has completely evaporated. Somewhere along the way, it just happened, gently and without my really even noticing. So yay for that.

Now that the book is done, as well as that particular bit of forgiving, I find I am not finished with my parenting work by half. The magical transformation that Jason affected after finishing it for himself did not happen to me. I am struggling to absorb and practice deep within myself all those good things that are in the book.They all boil down to how to treat someone like a person - I can sense when someone does it to me, but I fear I do not understand how to do in return to them. And so I am starting the book again, intent to soak up every nugget of wisdom.

The current nugget of wisdom I am carrying around with me is: "Blame is just anger looking for a target." I perceive people casting blame when really they aren't blaming at all, and I do my own defensive blaming in response. It's like a magic pile of drama that was never there before. POOF!

I also struggle with validation - that is, seeking with everything I do to get Leon to validate his own accomplishments. If he draws a picture, I say, "Awesome!" instead of "Do you find this to be awesome for your own reasons? Tell me about it!"

One key to surviving from moment to moment, I have noticed, is humor. Laughter dissolves most stressful situations. There's not much that isn't stressful to a four year old. And I really, really, really suck at coming up with jokes on the fly. I complained of this to my husband, and he suggested I run with Leon's current vein of humor: bodily functions. Yessssss, fart jokes! So if you hear me threaten to fart on my son, please don't report me to the police. I'm not a crappy mom, I'm just crappy at jokes...

Speaking of jokes, a man with R.A. walks into a bar!

This is hilarious because 1) he is probably a she - women are three times more likely to have RA. 2) "Walks" should be "hobbles stiffly" - ahhh good old joint pain and morning stiffness. (No not the good kind.) And finally, 3) "A bar" being a place to buy alcohol - when most folk with RA take medication that is too harsh on their liver to allow them to drink.

See, I am bad at jokes...