Let's Active Listening

I had never really been a fan of active listening. My old boss was always a fan of "seek first to understand, and then to be understood." Whatever. To me, the whole reflecting what someone is saying to try to make it seem like you are guiding them seemed so patronizing. "It sounds like you are really upset." Well no doy!

But with young kids, especially Owen, who is almost 7, this works really well, much to my surprise. Mostly, this is because he doesn't really know what he is feeling, since he is still pretty new to feelings in general. It is a big deal of parenting, as it turns out, to be your kids' guide to what they are really going through.

So Owen has been having fits of late, and the gists of those fits are that he doesn't get enough attention, especially with respect to Nathan, who is 3 1/2. He is also pissed that Nathan gets away with more, which doesn't seem too unusual for an older child. This has been coming to a head.

One other thing about Owen is that he wets the bed at night. I am not particularly concerned about this, even at almost 7. I was the same way, and now they have these pullups (essentially a big boy diaper) that saves this from being a big deal. He is a really hard sleeper.

This was all ok until we realized that Nathan, much younger, wakes up dry each morning, and we started letting him sleep without a pullup. Owen completely lost it, literally, he was hard to understand through crying for 10-15 minutes. When I finally calmed him down (kind of), I started the active listening, pinpointing what he thought he was mad about:
Me: "It seems like you are mad about having to wear a pullup
Him: "Yes. You guys told me we'd work on it and we didn't and now Nathan gets to do it."
Me: "It sounds like you think it isn't fair that Nathan gets to wear underwear to bed."
Him: "Yes, he always gets whatever he wants"
Me: "It sounds like you think Mommy and Daddy treat you unfairly"
Him: "Yes, and he always takes away my priviliges"
Me: "He takes away your priviliges? Like with the pullup?"
Him: "Yes, and with you and mommy spending so much time with him."

I mean, it really can't be that simple, could it? Solution (for now), we worked out a plan to try to get him out of the pullup. More than anything, the kid was just desparate to be heard. You want to say to him "Why not just ask to work on this?" and then you realize that such a concept just wouldn't occur to a 1st grader.

Been almost 4 months since I last posted. Many of you might know that my mom rather suddenly passed away in December. I say suddenly though she had cancer for 4 years, but it really happened pretty quickly, from relative health to coma in under 48 hours, and then passing less than 2 weeks later. So there is that.

Having kids when your parent dies is really, really difficult. It is essentially impossible to be strong for your kids, and while I just want to be there for them, I just haven't been able to. This has gotten better over the past few months. Still, the honesty that they come up with sometimes just slays me. We went to San Diego last week, and the first thing that Nathan says is "Where's Grandma?" This, with my Dad right there. All I could say is, "Grandma's gone."

I try to be strong, but my guilt lately is that I find myself not feeling sad all the time about my Mom's dying. My concern is more for the living, which is positive, but I feel like I should feel more misery about my Mom in particular. I know I did when she was dying, and over the last few years, maybe I have just done a lot of my grief. Then again, maybe this is just going to hit me like a ton of bricks one day.

Yay for my sister and Russ who are finding newfound fame for their urban beekeeping in Los Angeles. Next stop Oprah.

You're a wolf boy get out of this town

Long weekend done, and our excursion to the Great Wolf Lodge in Washington which was much anticipated by the kids. Basically, giant hotel/water park. Kid heaven. Was a great time, but tough times with being in chlorinated water for hours upon end. Really 3 small items:
1) Great mexican restaurant in Centralia, WA (who knew?). Called La Tarasca. Kids hated it. Family run. Fantastic.
2) Quote from Owen, upon eating a warm pretzel during snack time at the Wolf "Now I know why they say the food isn't good here... it's because it's GREAT!"
3) Sleep was horrid for Nathan, who kept waking up. At 5:00AM, in bed with Katie, and up again, he just kept saying "It's so hard!" The bed? what? "No," Nathan said, "This nap."

Now that I write it, you had to be there.

Frost on the window... acid in my stomach

Oh geez... I do not recommend raising 2 kids whilst being in the mortgage industry during these times.

I am a lapsed blogger, trying to do my best. My kids are still great. Went to see Owen performing in a 1st/2nd grade thanksgiving pageant. That was lovely. So nice to breathe and watch your kids grow up before your eyes.

Weird weekend, didn't do too much but it feels like so much happened. In these crazy economic times, and for someone as obsessed with money as I, I am doing everything I can to breathe and realize the world is in no way collapsing. Things are bad, yes, but my family is unreal, things are relatively ok economically, and as I wept 19 days ago, Barack is going to lead the way. He has already brought optimism to me and my family, and I hope he does to yours. If you like him, bless ya... if you don't like what he stands for, well, give him a shot. 8 years ago, I gave Bush a shot. Bad example, but you got to give them all a chance. After 9/11, I thought Bush was doing great... let's hope that this man, who we have chosen out of so many, becomes more than "history has been made" and more about "he is making history."

Different blog, yes, but these are different times.

Been awhile...

Yikes, so much going on. The real shocker was on the 14th, a 5th grader at Owen's school died. You might have seen it on the news... his heart stopped when he was hit with a football in the chest. Really random, really horrible. I really don't like talking to my 6 year old about death.

The kid turned out to be the son of the woman who runs a house cleaning business. Her mom cleaned our house. It brought it home a little more, but really, it was just a hug your kid week. Really depressing.

We have a new deck, which is nice, though now I wonder whether we should be spending any money at all.

Crazy weekend coming up with anniversary Thursday, Nathan's birthday Friday, Nathan's birthday party Saturday. Nathan is a good boy.

Please win Barack.

Game on

I'll gloss over the things giving me IBS this weekend, and get to the theme of the weekend: Games. Ok, it is a weak theme, and it is only based on 2 things, but here they are:

1) Showed up at Owen's soccer game Saturday morning (drizzle, wet field), and one of the coaches couldn't make it. I volunteered to be a coach for the day, which essentially meant being on the field and trying to help manage a 3 on 3 game. I had Owen, a boy named Connor, his twin sister Claire, Jillian, and Catherine. Owen can play, Connor can play, Jillian can even play, but Claire and Catherine... it isn't so much they can't play is that they can't pay attention. I also had to shuttle kids in and out while quelling my inner instinct to stick with Owen, Connor and Jillian. This was fine except for:
a) One point where I had the 3 girls in, 2 of which couldn't pay attention, and even served to distract Jillian to the point where the other team scored like 5 goals in 5 minutes; and
b) The Euro kid (Marcus), who seemed like he was on the Danish U7 team. No kidding, he slide tackled Owen. Kid was 6. Now if I'm on the sidelines, I'm not sure what to do, but when the kid is playing intense like this, it took everything I had not to yell at the other coach on the field. Also took a lot to get Owen not to smack him one (and Owen would have taken out the trash).

Anyway, I learned that coaching 6 year olds is exhausting, but also that I can set up a really good corner kick at this level. Almost the goal of the year.

2) Sunday, Owen has his quiet time after lunch, which usually involves him being in his room, listening to CDs of stories, and reading or making a fort. After quiet time, he came downstairs and shows me this series of 9 drawings he made on pieces of paper about 1" square. I have to say, they were pretty creative. Including: a) A globe b) His desk at school c) 2 trees (an apple and a pine) d) The "Ratmobile" e) A picture of a mountain with 2 guys going up the mountain, and 2 guys skiing down the other side; f) Another picture of mountain climbers; g) A "farm" (read: Garden) with vegetables growing, complete with little signs with pictures of carrots, etc.; h) A picture of a dog, with a leash extending off the picture (implying someone is walking the dog; and i) Of course I can't remember the last one.

So he explains all these drawings to me, and I'm just tickled with his creativity and initiative. Then he asks me to rank them in order of preference, and does the same with Katie. Then he decides he is going to come up with a game for these, and talks a completely convoluted nonsensical game that I kind of dismiss. But then he comes up with another game; which involved hiding each paper, then Katie and I try to find them. When you find one, you get the points associated with it, which are 9 if you find your personal favorite, 8 for 2nd favorite, etc. The trick is you get the points associated with your ranking if you find it. Anyway, he hides these and Katie and I spend awhile looking for them, and he's tallying up the points, and all I can think of is, well, WOW. This was done all on his own, with his own initiative, his own thoughts, his own creation. The game was even fun! And competitive (Katie accused me of shoving).

Good times.

Biden my time

Yesterday was hectic. I really wanted to watch the debate with others and yell at the TV, but I had agreed to deal with the kids while Katie had her book group at the house. I made the mistake of taking the kids out (tired, as they are wont to be on a Thursday night) for dinner and basketball.

So we are on our way home at 7, and Owen is being contrary, egging Nathan on, and Nathan is being his almost 3 self, bitching about whatever happens (good or bad), and them both exhausted. So I promise:
1) Chocolate milk
2) Licorice (in straw form)
3) Movie (upstairs, in mommy and daddy's room, to avoid the book group).

So once we get upstairs (which was no easy feat), and my temple veins are throbbing, we finally get Space Jam on. A short aside here: Space Jam kicks ass. From the horrible Barkley/Ewing/Shawn Bradley acting to Danny DeVito voicing the bad guy, to my kids loving to sing along with "I believe I can fly", the movie really has it all.

So what happens? 5 minutes in, Nathan craps his pants. This is a bigger deal than it used to be, because Nathan wears underwear now. Now this means he's gonna need a bath, which we were going to get away without. It also means I have to drag him away from Space Jam, just before Barkley's talent gets drained away and Vlade Divac gets worried that this is a strange virus he can get from the locker room.

This involved a lot of screaming. Not so much fun. Then the bath, and Nathan flat out refuses to sit down, screaming constantly. It's a battle. It's on. I lose. I take washcloths and clean the crap off his butt and legs. Then come the jammies. And I'm close to snapping here.

Long story short: Nathan crashed hard... Owen was a saint, and I watched the debtate on TiVo. It all worked out, but man...

Tonight: The Silly Sox Hop. Enough said.