Holding Still

holy robin, batman!

Lire likes to find "pretty things" outside. He then shows them to me and usually gives them to our little Buddha in my sewing room. These types of things include rocks, shells, shards of glass, broken pieces of plastic.

Today it was the shell from a robin's egg.

Me: Wow! Where did you find it?

Lire: Outside, on ground.

Me: (holding shell and noticing it was still sticky) Um, on the ground?

Lire: In bush, then on ground. I get big stick, I poke, poke poke bush...

Me: (!) You hit the nest?! And then the egg fell on the ground?

Lire: (noticing my alarm, he gets quiet) I get stick... so pretty...

We go outside so he can show me. Between me, Dad and Lire, we figure out that yes, our small boy has disrupted a robin's nest, poked the hell out of it and ended the very short life of one of its future denizens. We explained to him why this wasn't a good idea, but acknowledged that he didn't mean to hurt the egg or the birds, but to try not to do it again.

Once Lire realized that the egg was to become a baby robin, well, he was crushed.

Lire: I want time-out.

Me: You didn't mean it, Lire, you don't need a time-out.

Lire: Yes, I time-out.

Me: Well, if you want to, you can sit in your room and come out when you feel better.

I open the door to go in myself and hold it open for him.

Lire: I no time-out.

M: Ok.

This followed an interrupted nap which itself was followed by a tantrum brought on by having to choose between staying home with me and going grocery shopping with Daddy. Lire's choice. Then later at dinner he cried because, well, I forget why. Something having to do with mustard maybe. Or apple juice.

I think he may be having a change of life or something.

(Lire is pretending he has removed one of his eyeballs and put it into his mouth. This was learned by Uncle J. Nice.)

tiger suits and dinosaur eggs

Today was a de-gorgeous day here -- sunny, 50ish degrees, lots of yellow flowers popping up all over. Lire was still napping and Al had gone to pick H up at school. Chauncey and I were cleaning up the yard. At least I was cleaning the yard. Chauncey imagines he is my Centurion, guarding the perimeters of our property against speeding tractors and noisy pick-ups.

The boys have managed to make our yard look pretty trashy, I must say. Broken plastic frisbees and sand buckets, bubble wands aplenty, sodden tennis balls and random pieces of wood decorate our lawn. So I decided to pick up a bit while the wee lad slept. I kept the front door open, so when he awoke, he would see me.

I traversed the lawn about a million times, picking up random bits and throwing them in a bucket. I kept looking at the door for Lire's little face, listening for his usual post-nap "Mommy?... Mommy?" I found one of Al's garden spades amongst a pile of broken bricks (yikes! what do these boys do when I'm not around?). I decided to put it in his work room, to keep it from rusting when I heard the saddest sound.

Heart-wrenching sobs! I rushed to the inner door and opened it to find my sad little Lire on the other side! He was beside himself with sadness and fear that no one was home for him! Writing about it hurts my heart yet again. I've been so strict about one of us being around for the boys when they awaken, and all last summer he would come outside to look for us after a nap. I guess with the cold weather he hadn't remembered that I may be outside.

I held him and rocked him and told him I would never leave him alone, not ever. That he must have been so scared to wake up and not find anyone in the house. To add comic relief to the situation, Chauncey decided this was the perfect time to rip the hat off my head. For those of you who don't know, it's C-dog's favorite trick, next to catching the boys' tee-ball hits. He did it not once, but twice as Lire bawled and I tried to comfort him. You have to give the dog some credit, he was trying to lighten the situation.

Dad and Habtam arrived home and I carried him over to them. Fortunately, Al had a plastic dinosaur egg that hatches when immersed in water in his hand, which put a smile on his face.

It brought home (again) to me how fresh the boys' relinquishment is in their subconscious. Just below the surface of Lire's joyful exterior. I find myself thinking how terrified he must have been, and it twists my insides into a knot. You will be glad to know that he had a wonderful rest of his day. He is anxiously awaiting the hatching of the dinosaur egg, and wore his tiger suit for the bedtime story. Little man.

time was...

A year since the boys' arrival is soon approaching. We've come a long way in a lot of respects, and are still struggling in others. I've been reading a couple blogs in which the families have just recently returned, and it is bringing back LOTS of memories. Some great, some very painful.

H had another spitting/screaming episode the other day. He hadn't had one in a really long time. I feel responsible for it in some ways, I should have eased off of him. I was PMSy, and was triggered by his disrespect -- he resembles a teenager in a lot of ways. Anyway, he ended up spitting at Lire, so I carried him to his room so he could spit on his bed as I held him, and not at his brother or anywhere else in the house.

Sigh.

I held him while he screamed about how much he hated me, how he wanted to go to the store with Daddy, a few odd threats thrown in. I started to watch my breath go in and out, trying to become an observer as well as a participant to the situation. I realized I should have stayed downstairs and ignored a few of his earlier activities and words. None of this would have happened, and who cares if he trashed the piano?

I think my conscious breathing calmed him. He stopped fighting me and his shrill scream turned into a little boy's crying. I said a few things that validated how he might feel -- angry at me, afraid, not liking when people didn't like the things he did and being told to stop doing those things. He nodded at most of them, especially the last one. He said he didn't like it when people told him to stop or to change. I acknowledged that it is hard to hear people tell you that they don't like what you're doing. And I told him I didn't like it much, either, but sometimes it was to help us. I admitted that Daddy and I often told one another we didn't like what the other was doing or saying, and although it made us angry, we knew it was usually to help us make better decisions. He actually seemed quite interested in this.

Hugging ended our session, and he went outside and did yard work with Dad.

None of this really had to have happened, if I had just minded my business and let the kid be a kid. At the same time, I'm glad we ended up having the discussion we had at the end. I always feel spent and a bit of a failure after one of these blow-ups. However, I do feel I'm learning how to get through them better, H and L seem to be weathering their tantrums better and we're avoiding them more.

Craft and seek

Bad Erin!

I have been remiss in many things, one of which is getting an Etsy shop up. Instead of finishing my quilts, I've been obsessed with this book.

It's way too much fun. I would be booted off Proj@ct Runw@y faster than you can say Km@art, but I'm having a very good time. I've refashioned a baggy turtleneck sweater, an ankle-length skirt, and a hoodie. The hoodie makeover is very lame, but the sweater looks great, and the skirt has potential. I'll post pics as soon as I finish putting on buttons and finishing edges.

For now I will leave you with the latest Hide n' Seek costumes:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright -- so bright he had to wear shades

Sporty Superman -- eschewing his good-guy image he spent all afternoon attempting to rip the mask off of Tiger's face

Superman was terrified of Tiger. I think that's why he wanted the mask. He finally realized why Batman and Spiderman wore masks -- courage.

Also, I have a question. Why do boys throw things? Just curious.

let's go shopping!

At dinner last night Alex was talking to the boys about our impending visit to NYC. He mentioned that we might visit Chinatown. Habtamu stared at him for a long time. "China?" he asked. Daddy clarified that it was "Chinatown", not the country of China, and that there would be lots of interesting and strange toys to choose from while there. I mentioned that I didn't want any more small plastic things in the house (I mentioned my issues with JUNK in my last post). Habtamu stared at Daddy some more.

H: "Where I buy person?"

Us: ?

Daddy: Um, did you say "buy a person?"

H: Yes.

Me: Do you mean a person to get married to?

H: Yes?

Daddy: ?

Me: Do you think that people buy the people they want to marry?

H: Yes.

Yeah, I know. Where did THIS come from? My brother got engaged before Christmas, and over the Easter holiday asked Habtam and Lire to be ring bearers in his wedding. I'm guessing that this has taken on grand proportions in his imagination, as he is very excited to be able to wear "fancy clothes" on that day. But why he thinks my brother bought his bride-to-be, I know not.

I told him how Daddy and I loved one another very much and that Daddy asked if I wanted to marry him. I told him how I said "Of course!" and how we both wore rings to show that we were married and had a wedding to celebrate it. I told him that his uncle and soon-to-be auntie had done the same.

Then I asked him that if he could marry anyone in his class at school, who would it be? I won't divulge it here, but he made a very good choice. I told him that I would marry her, too, if I weren't already married to Daddy.

H: When I marry?

Me: You have to wait until you're a grown-up, at least 18 years old.

H: (Looks troubled by this bit of info) I marry C_____?

Me: If she wants to marry you too, sure.

Never one to be left out of such an important discussion, Lire asked to be asked whom he would marry. So we did. Lire wants to marry both of his teachers. I told him they were already married, but he didn't care.

Habtamu wondered if one could marry more than one person, so we told him that he couldn't (at least not in this country). One at a time.

I think one of the reasons he likes her is because she likes to race him. Upon entering school the other day they both ran at full tilt to see who would arrive at class first. However, later in the day she betrayed him by giving the blue jewel (plastic), he had found and given to her, to another boy. The boy in question apparently gave it to a boy in the other Pre-k class. H was temporarily devastated, but bounced back quickly.

Young love.

ready or not!

The boys have been perfecting their game of Hide and Seek of late. One of them will hide, often with the help of one of us. The other will pick a room to count in. Depending on who's doing the counting, it can be quite hilarious. Lire does the "10, 13, 21, 13... Mommy help?" while Habtam makes it to 20, and then free-forms it from there. They insist on counting to 30, even though the hiding doesn't take that long.

Yesterday while it was H's time to hide, L decided he was too scared to look for his brother. "I too scared, Mommy." This is because they both growl and scream upon being found, which scares the pee-pee (literally in Lire's case), out of them.

Ever resourceful, Lire dug through the bin filled with various and sundry JUNK gotten from birthday parties and school holiday events (don't get me started on the JUNK. I do not heart it. At all) He pulled out a green glitter Mardi Gras mask. He put it on as if it was what he had been looking for all along, and marched down the stairs, reaching for my hand.

"I scare Habtam. Habtam no scare Lire."

And it worked. Habtam was terrified by the little man in the green glitter mask. Wouldn't you be?

BONK!

Ouch. Lire just butted his head into the wall as he was falling asleep. It doesn't wake him, believe it or not. The noise is loud enough to get me running downstairs to make sure there are no hi-jinks, or worse, head injuries. There never are. Just Lire under his pillow, legs up the wall, or head against it. Bonk.

The book I alluded to last post is Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves by Naomi Aldort. I don't have it in front of me, and I don't want to write an exhaustive review of it. Frankly, I'm a bit tired (it's the last day of an eleven day vacation, people), so I'll let you know why I think it's helpful and all that good stuff.

First off, it shares a lot in common with this book, which I've discussed briefly in the past, and which mimiboo writes really eloquently about in regards to her children. The biggest thing that they share, for me, is that they address the parents' reactions, behaviors, what-have-you in relation to their child's behaviors. Beyond Consequences discusses the triggers that set the parent off into his/her own maelstrom of fear and reaction, generally originating way back when. Identifying the triggers and one's reactions help one to slow down, analyze what's really going on, and hopefully allowing the parent to identify for the child the possible reasons for his/her behavior. Mimiboo gives a great example in the post I linked to above.

Aldort's book also helps the parent to look at his/her own reactions by slowing down and surveying a situation before reacting. She uses an acronym, SALVE: Stand back and survey the situation. Pay Attention to your child. Listen. Validate and Empower. The key letter for me was the V -- validate. Not only do I find that I often do not validate my children's reasons for outbursts and questionable behaviors, I'm repeating the actions of my parents. Who are WONDERFUL, don't get me wrong. I cried a lot as a kid. Some do, some do other things. This was a Big Deal in the family. It was discussed, teased, jeered, and yes, scorned. I understand. I find L's frequent crying a bit hard to deal with. But I'm treating him the way I really, really hated being treated. I'm not validating his sadness.

For me, validation equals compassion. Breaking down the word compassion, it means "suffering with." It doesn't mean spoiling. It just acknowledges that something -- something that to us doesn't mean so much, or something we can't even know -- has made the child cry, or hit, or scream, or throw toys down the stairs. When I turn down my roiling Italian/Irish blood, I can more easily see what may be the trigger. And I try to calmly identify this thing in an objective way. "you might feel hurt that Habtamu said Grace by himself (real example). That might be why you hit him." In this instance I waited a bit, and the Pucker fish (see previous entry) stopped pursing his lips, reversed the Ethiopian head-fake and looked at me with the biggest, saddest eyes. The screaming lasted a little less long than usual. We were able to go back to dinner and finish our pasta. Previously I might be so ticked at the hitting that I might berate him for it, saying that H saying Grace alone wasn't a good enough reason for hitting, yadda, yadda. To me it isn't a good enough reason, but to Lire, apparently it is.

Anyway, this may be elementary to you seasoned parents, and others may be saying, yeah, and?

For me, validating my own sadness and crying from Way-Back-When helps me to slow down. I have a harder time with disrespect, sadly. It really pushes my buttons! I'm trying to go back and think about when I've been disrespected and how it made me feel, how maybe I felt powerless at the time. This allows me to better see that our guys may feel powerless a good bit of the time and find my sometimes bossy ways a bit much.

The two books also share concepts I've been exploring in Buddhism and Siddha yoga. Bear with me! Nothing too esoteric. Just the idea that anger is mostly one's own thoughts wheeling about one's mind, not the actual event that precipitated the initial feeling. We've all been there: Someone says or does something which p's us off. A lot. Our mind starts cycling -- "she always does that! I bet she's going to go home and tell so-and-so. She probably thinks she's smarter than I am..." blah, blah, blah.

Those swirling thoughts make us angrier and angrier until we have a whole movie in our heads of our being wronged. Whatever precipitated our response, it's over. Buddhism advises us to acknowledge that thing, look at it as an observer, watch our feelings surrounding it, our thoughts, and then... let them loosen. Let them go. Practicing this a lot makes it easier as time goes on.

Aldort's book discusses how important it is for us to do this for our kids, to teach them not to wallow, not to attach to negative feelings. Something happened which made us sad, angry, whatever. Name this thing. Allow yourself to feel it, experience it, and then let it go. Easier said than done, but I'm working on it.

Today Al was wrestling with the boys on the rug. He had pinned H's arms with his legs, which H usually (why?) enjoys. All of a sudden he started to wail, to cry, to panic. Of course, Al let him go. He was bemused and went into the kitchen to check on dinner. Here goes mom, "It must be scary to be pinned like that." H shakes his head no. "Maybe you weren't sure he was going to let you go." H nods his head, we hug. H enters the kitchen, tears still glistening on his cheeks: "Daddy, you no catch me!" and runs into the living room, apparently ready for more.

Doesn't sound earth-shattering, I know. However, a few months ago that crying would have turned into a high-pitched scream, following us around the house, knocking over random objects, not looking me in the eye (whenever H was upset, he would transfer his negative feelings to me. Yay!). I know a lot has to do with increased language acquisition, but the fact that he came to me for comfort, and I could give it and not feel worn out and empty. Well, that is good.

Of course, most people probably don't need parenting books to help them be effective parents. I am a reader, however. And when I find parallels between books and an established spiritual tradition, I listen.

An added caveat: I am not doing either book or Buddhism enough justice. I wanted to show you the gleanings I found helpful and that resonated with me.

Below: Lire in mid-sleep. Note the foot poking out from under the pillow.

sigh

I haven't posted in a while. Feel like a slug. I caught a nasty sore throat/chest cold over the Easter holiday, and before that we had some family drama, so I haven't felt much like writing. Sigh.

Good news is that the boys are doing GREAT and have been having a lovely week off school. H is definitely ready to go back, however. That boy misses his routine! For the last few days he's been asking me how many more sleepies before he goes back to school. He was disappointed today when I told him tomorrow was Sunday, not Monday, and so he'd have to wait an additional sleepy.

We went to my parents' place for Easter, which was also my mom's b'day. The boys met my mom's sister and brother and their families, and were invited to participate in my brother's wedding in August. They are EXTREMELY excited to wear "fancy clothes" at the wedding. Every day they ask a new question about their outfits. As I am not the bride, I'm unable to answer satisfactorily. I have to tell them the dreaded, "you have to wait and find out..." which they do not like one bit.

My sweet little Lire has become Sir Sass-a-lot -- what is with this age? H was like this last year, only he didn't speak English, so it was Kembategna delivered along with meaningful, angry glances. With L we get the drama in English. "I no talk Habtamu EVER!!!" This last "EVER" is reminiscent of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, sans the spinning head. We usually hear this early in the morning from our bed, while the boys play "happily" together in their room.

"NO. I no pick book. Mommy cuckoo!" This is shouted while turning away in exaggerated anger, sometimes with a frisbee flip of the book in question. Habtamu then lectures him about how the librarians won't let him take out any more books if he damages them, and the Pucker Fish makes an appearance. Pucker fish purses his lips and turns his head away from us in the classic "Ethiopian head-fake" made famous 10 months or so ago upon arrival in the states.

Smart Daddy will then say, "Don't laugh. I said, DON'T LAUGH!" and Pucker fish will generally become hilarious Lire again.

This boy loves his drama.

So despite our own, real family drama (involves extended family, nothing too serious, don't worry), the mini-dramas here have been mostly entertaining. Pre-school soap operas not unlike the General Hospital of the mid-'80's.

I hope to post soon about a book I've been reading which has been great at helping me deal with the anger I can experience when I've just about had it with the soap operas. Yes, another parenting book! But this one shares a lot with the concepts I'm encountering in my Buddhist studies, so it's all coming together. Now if only I could relax enough to employ these ideas...

And now for a taste of spring...

while watching wiggle bay...

Today Habtam and I decided to twist his hair. His hair has looser curls than Lire's, and needed more loc butter, but it seems to be holding the twist pretty well. We'll see how sleep affects it. He wants to keep it in as long as possible, and then to twist it out and let his hair get BIG like Lire's was. Lire was a bit jealous during the session. He kept putting himself upon my lap and saying "twist Mommy! Why no twist two boys?"

We also introduced "eskimo kisses" (rubbing noses) to the boys tonight. H, as with everything, got carried away and would have rubbed our noses raw if given half a chance. L likewise did not want to stop -- "I like it. I like it a lot. I like it a lotter."

Does anyone else watch the Wiggles? The boys picked Wiggle Bay from the library, and really love the music, dancing and singing along. I thought it was pretty funny, especially when everyone was partaking of "Rosie Tea." Does anyone else think "rosie tea" might be code for, um, something else? It's just that everyone REALLY seemed to be enjoying it. A lot. A lotter.

puzzled

Don't you love this? Our favorite babysitter gave it to the boys. She found it in the grocery store. No other puzzles, just one lone teen Buddha (don't ya think?) sitting on the shelf in shrink wrap.