The New Girl

Scarred.

I just knew something was wrong--in that awful way you just know. She was running, having been sent to her room, and she slipped and fell. Whacked her face. She got up, crying, and continued to her time out. And I just knew.

So I followed her to her room.

"Did you just hit your face, baby?" I asked.

She held her face in both hands and I sat on the edge of the bed and looked down.

Blood.

Big, fat, crimson, drops on her purple sheet.

"Are you bleeding?" I asked, prying her hands away.

Flowing. Pouring. In a way that was so, so, wrong, I instantly knew beyond any doubt, we were headed to the emergency room. And stitches.

The beautiful ingredients for my dinner were all prepared and laid out, ready. I'd baked a cake for my sister's birthday. And just like that--our plans changed. In an instant, everything was different. Upside down.

My emotions went wherever they go when there's a crisis. Away. I become super calm and organized. Getting the directions to the best ER and heading out with a panicky pre-schooler, leaving behind my husband, son and our soon-to-be-arriving dinner guests. Luck was with us and the hospital was great and we were in and out in under an hour. I know. I KNOW.

They swaddled my baby and stuck her with a needle and sewed her lip back together, while she cried and yelled, "I want to leave RIGHT NOW!" and, "EVERYONE TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" and my belly got woozy and my heart broke into a bazillion pieces, even when my head was all, "It's only four stitches. Get over yourself. SHE'S FINE."

And she was. Is.

Fine.

There's something about it, though. About the knowledge that one minute you can be fixing an awesome dinner and the next minute, things can, well, change. Something about those tense moments, that time when realization blooms and you know--know--things aren't going the way you thought they were going to go. For whatever reason, for me, it dipped right into the place where the memories surrounding my mother's dying live. The place where tragedies alter not only your plans, but your life. That place is hard to find when you're looking for it but you recognize it in a flash, when you're passing through it.

I know a woman whose son was attacked by a dog. He required stitches all over his torso, arms and legs. His mother grieved for his skin, for the scars that would mark him now, forever. Even though I was childless at the time, I understood her sadness, her sense of loss. On the way to the hospital with my girl, I remembered her. I remembered her grief as I thought about my daughter's face. Flawless up until now. This will be her first real scar.

When I got home, I ate the take-out The Man ordered after he'd butchered the dinner I'd intended. We sang happy birthday and cut the cake. I ate a piece as big as my head. And when everyone went home and the kids were snuggle-buggle in bed, my feelings came back from wherever it is they go in a crisis.

And I bawled my eyes out, even though she's fine.

She'll have a scar.

And so will I.

By The Time You've Finished Reading This Post, I Will Owe You For The Hour Of Therapy. You've Been Warned.

Ah, you guys.

I don't even know where to start. I've been struggling with Parenting Issues in my little [hidey hole] corner of the internet and it's been...a struggle. It's a teeter-totter-roller-coaster up in this piece and I debate even how much to write about it, since the internet is all PERMANENT and someday, my beautiful girl will be able to read and do internet searches and well, I wouldn't ever want her to stumble on something that would have her feeling like I didn't Like her all the time, even though, I feel like, well, like I don't Like her all the time.

Oh my word.

Seriously.

There's nothing that makes you feel more reptilian than admitting there are moments that you don't Like your own offspring.

And by you, I mean me.

This is a fairly new occurance around here, actually, but it's not at all new to me. I see it in my job occasionally. Worn-out, anxious, exasperated, parents of a child who has a 'Difficult Temperament' or other challenging behaviors will come into my office for help. They sit on the couch and discuss their child and his behaviors and list all of the books they've read and the techniques they've tried and the meetings they've had with school personnel, counselors, therapists, and doctors. They tell me about the frustrating, irritating, and even humiliating situations that have resulted from these behaviors. And what is abundantly clear, as they are talking and confiding and crying, is that they Love their child. That much is so obvious, it goes without saying.

But equally obvious, and almost always unspoken and (I imagine) carried in the pits of their stomachs like a stone, is the fact that they are having great difficulty Liking their child. And I'm not talking about the flash of anger or resentment that comes with the territory of your kid being an ass. I'm talking about an ongoing, chronic disconnection from feelings of fondness, tenderness, or anything else resembling a Warm Fuzzy.

And so it is for me, internet, these past few weeks. My girl, my feisty one, has always had a tough temperament. She is not terribly flexible. She is tenacious in all the most challenging ways. She is easily frustrated, sometimes anxious and overwhelmed. She needs about 748576 feet of personal space around her or she starts whacking people. She's a little wired and a lot sharp and likes to rattle cages. Kind of like her mother. Go figure.

The interesting thing about temperament is, objectively, there's no such thing as a difficult or easy temperament. They just are what they are, kind of like feelings. It's the context that decides what's easy and what's not, see. Parenting or teaching a flexible, regular, generally contented, movable child is just....easier. (And, uh, I know that from personal experience, as well.) I've always known this stuff about my girl. Re-reading that post I linked was a little mind-bending. It seems that Four is a recycled Two but with more vocabulary! And horse-power!

Without going into the grizzly gorries because, oh my holy hell, she's four years old and her worst isn't that bad, suffice it to say it's bad enough. Bad enough to make me feel like I'm standing off to the side and watching myself watching my kid. With no smile, no tenderness, no warm fuzzies. It feels cold and a little scary to be here at four.

I'm getting my wits about me and we've embarked on the latest round of lollipop rewards, sticker charts and positive reinforcement (all of which usually end up working for us). We've got family meetings and loving talks to counter-balance punishments and frank rage, fueled by my helplessness and fear.

I understand my own feelings pretty well. I know I'm not a reptile. I know it's a normal part of parenting and it waxes and wanes and that, if I'm feeling it, others are too, somewhere. Maybe, one day, I'll be on someone's couch, crying and listing and hoping it all comes out right enough to convey the intensity of my love for this kid.

Because it's like the blazing sun in the desert, you know.

It really is.

All Right, Already. Manson.

I crack up every time you guys talk about Manson.

Oh, if only Manson knew how popular his ass is on the interweb.

It would, I'm sure, trigger an episode of paranoid ramblings, complete with crumpled grubby lists and squinting at every traffic helicopter while talking of a government conspiracy to earn money by telling his life story. Screwing him out of his identity or his inheritance or WHATEVERthefuck.

Anyway.

I love you guys for 1) remembering about Manson and for 2) loving on the Crazy.  Though I hate to say it, this might be the last, full-length Manson Story to be had.  There are a finite number of these gems, really, as I don't live there anymore (whoo hoo!) 

So, if you haven't ever heard of Manson, and you have absolutely no effing clue what I'm talking about, you should probably read to catch up.  (There are three separate links there. You're welcome.) Otherwise, I'll go ahead and tell you of the time that Manson turned his ENTIRE DOWNSTAIRS INTO A DOG KENNEL. FOR BREEDING DOGS.

Yes, yes, my friends. Yes he did.

But we'll back up and talk a little bit about Manson's dog.  His [little fuckwad of a yapper] dog was a Boston Terrier.  It liked to [torment the shit out of my dog] run up and down the length of the fence, barking a hearty 'HALLO!' to anyone, anyone at all. For hours on end.

[Bonus TFS in a story: One time, Manson left pictures of his dog in our mailbox. I've looked for them, but I can't find them. One of the views was the back of the dog's head, hanging out the driver's side window, as Mason took a picture of the FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. One other time, Manson left his dog in his car when he went inside to get [high] something and just, er, forgot to come back out. It was hot as balls and The Man and I did a little Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who was going to have to go and knock on the door, so that little fucker wouldn't roast to death. I lost. Damned rock.]

Anyway.

Manson approached the fence one day, gripping the squirming pooch in his hands.  He had a couple [guys just out of rehab] friends over, lugging cinder-blocks into his downstairs and mixing cement in the driveway. I didn't think too much of this, as there were always cinder-blocks and rehab guys around and, well, let's be honest: I didn't really want to know.

He launched into one of his famous 'discussions.'  These generally started half-way through whatever the hell was running on and on through his head, and so it took me a few minutes to jump in mid-stream and figure out what he was trying to say.

'Do you like bulldogs?' he asked.

'Um. Yeah. Sure. I like bulldogs,' I said (while the inside-my-head voice was all eye-rolling and heavy-sighing, 'Whaaaat?  What'sThisNow?!')

'I'm making a kennel! I'm going to breed bulldogs!'

'Uhhh. Oh--uhhhm..'

'And Boston Terriers! (Lifts the dog up for emphasis.) I just ordered all the puppies and I'm making a kennel!'

I should say at this point, that the houses in my neighborhood had no basements. Manson's house was just like mine, only with a monster addition on the back/top, which gave his house a second floor.  The year before, [the rehab guys] his friends had sectioned off the front of his house and made it into an apartment that he used to rent out. So, the area in which the guys were working was like, The Kitchen and The Laundry Room.

???

'Sooooo,' I hazard a guess, 'you're turning your kitchen? and your laundry room? Into a...kennel?'

'YEAH! It's gonna be great! State of the art!'

???

So, a couple weeks go by and you can hear the yipping and the yapping and you can, every once in a while, see some puppies frolicking in the backyard.  I don't need to describe the smell of urine, right? If I tell you that it smelled like The Vet outside my house, you'd know what I'm saying, yes?  So, it would appear that Manson made good on his [insane] plan and is living above, his, um, dog kennel.  The sliding glass door was always covered and so, I had no idea what it actually LOOKED like in there.

Me and my other next-door neighbor [Gladys Kravitz] were DYING to know what's going on in there. How has a guy turned his Kitchen? And his Laundry Room? Into a...kennel?

And then, one day out of the blue, Manson sees me in the back yard and asks me if I want to come inside to see the kennel.

I'm going to give you a minute, so you can let that shit sink in.

Go ahead and take your time. I'll wait.

Yes. Yeeessss.

He asked me if I wanted to GO INSIDE his house and LOOK AT HIS DOG KENNEL. That was IN HIS KITCHEN.

I was thoroughly and completely torn.

On one hand, I NEEDED to go inside there to see a Kitchen Dog Kennel, first hand. But on the other hand, [as I looked and looked for another living soul who could witness me walking into Manson's house, in case I never came out] I was, er, a little skerrd. I mean, really, there were no Potential Witnesses to my disappearance. Manson lived with a [boyish looking heroin addict] his [air-quote] cousin, who was a tall, quiet [creepy fucking lurker] guy, who had nearly given me cardiac arrest, several times, when he suddenly spoke to me after minutes of standing stock-still, unnoticed.

Anyway.

You know my nosy ass wasn't going to turn down his invitation, just on account of the crazy. And so, although my dog was less than thrilled with the idea, I left the sanctity of my yard and entered The Kennel Kitchen.

The first thing I noticed was how...authentic...the smell of the urine/veterinarian's office was up close. Along with the yipping and yapping, it felt like I was walking through the SPCA. Seriously. I looked around and saw...kennels. They were built of the cinder-block and each had a gate for a door. The linoleum had been stripped and the dogs were kept in a room on a cement slab (with blankets/bedding for each dog.) If you didn't look at the sides of the room, you might have believed that you were in an actual kennel.

But that impression, friends, came to a screeching fucking halt the second you looked at the perimeter of the room. For the perimeter of the room was more or less, intact.  There were shelves and then, you know, the kitchen. A stove and a fridge and the door to the upstairs, all streaked and rusty looking and smelling very strongly of puppy pee. As I was walking through, I was completely preoccupied with two things. The first was the 29475084573 puppies who, free from their cages, came to mob me and for some reason were, ALL of them, trying to chew the bows off my slippers and the second was that every single inch (every. single. inch. EVERYSINGLEINCH) of available surface--wall or otherwise--was filled with a cheap, dollar store nick-knacks. Of a bulldog. Or a Boston Terrier. There were HUNDREDS of little figurines, bobble-heads, cups, ashtrays, plaques, doo-dads, you name it. They were e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.

I was completely visually overwhelmed and as I wandered through the living/laundry room kennel, disoriented, into the kitchen kennel, the [creepy fucking lurker] cousin materialized out of nowhere and was leaning against the door-jam, standing there mute. Watching me. It was like a dash of cold water to the face and I was roused from my dream-like overwhelm state and tried to pick up the pace, wading through puppies, to get to the side door and out into the [real world] yard. It was like trying to run with your shoelaces tied together. Through six inches of peanut butter.

Anyway. (You still here?)

I was still a little shaken when I crossed into my yard. I was accosted by my own dog, who was hyper-smelling me all over, like, 'What the fuck is all this I'm smelling?! You were only gone a few minutes, jeeezuz!'

I went into my own back door, awash in relief that I made it back out into the light, hooked off both slippers, stepped into my own kitchen and dumped them, unceremoniously, directly into the trash can.

The End.

 

You Wouldn't Believe How Long It Took To Write Even This Pitiful Attempt At A Post.

Having been so long away from this space and you, my dear friends, I've kind of...lost my voice. I find myself composing half-posts in my head and then, you know how it goes--I lose the thread before I can sit my ass in a chair that doesn't include a toddler trying to scale it. While whining or screaming or grunting or pulling at me. Making it impossible to concentrate.

Wait. What was I saying?

Anyway.

I want to write. I want to tell you things. But I just don't know what to say.

Is that writer's block?

Maybe.

I am good for a few 140-character tweets here and there but it seems that, in a way, Twitter is helping to kill my blog.  I tweet something and then my brain calls it 'DONE!' and it doesn't make it to the page here. Which is ridiculous, I know, but there it is.

So.

What now?

I remember the days of [you guys doing the creative heavy lifting] blog participation fondly.

Anything you want to hear about?

 

Flatlining.

I am searching for a pulse, here. Looking for the blog's corotid and trying to detect a trace of blood pumping through. Looking for a beating heart.

Is it...is it...dead?

There is no Blog 911. No emergency response team to resuscitate a blog. No code blue. No crash cart. No glooping mystery gel onto electro-charged paddles, charging up to whatever, --CLEAR-- BZZZZZT, regular sinus rythm, everyone breathing a sigh of relief.

There's just this vague feeling that the universe is organizing in a not-so-benevolent way. Organizing to create a vacuum, a black hole, into which all of my time and energy--creative and otherwise--is being sucked.

I'm going regularly to the gym again. I am working to keep up with laundry, dinner, laundry, dinner, housework. My kids have been sick no fewer than four separate times since the beginning of December. My son is the worst kind of mobile--upwardly, that is, climbing onto every horizontal surface, without regard to height. He is like a mini-tornado, only with a breakable head and so in addition to everything else, keeping track of him has become an even fuller-time job.

It sounds like I'm making excuses. It's not intended to be that. I'm not rationalizing. I'm...I don't know what.

Grieving, a little, maybe.

Bending my head down, ear to my blog's mouth, listening hard for its breathing, while I wait and hold my own.

Sliding my hand a bit down and in and yes, there it is, I found it. A pulse. Sluggish and weak and fragile.

I think it's going to be touch and go for a while, so let's don't get our hopes up.

Let's just be Cautiously Optimistic.

Whatever the hell that is.

 

In This Video, The End Is The Only Part Worth Watching.

It is in silhouette because The Man didn't turn on the light before he started shooting.  The subject is TLNG [totally doing some Fucking Evil Mastermind bed time stalling] busting out one of her nightly *dances* for us before she retires to bed.

It's only 20 seconds of dark, ill-framed, jiggling-camera nonsense.

But you Absolutely Must watch until the end.

Because, it's like the title says.

I suppose it could be just me who finds this hilarious.

But if you don't find it at least a little amusing, I don't know that we can be friends.

I Should Just Title This Post: Can't Skate On Any Of These Ponds Cause These Bitches Ain't Frozen Yet. Or, Alternately: If You Follow Me On Twitter, You Prolly Know All This Shit Already.

I feel wrung out. 

Like over the past two weeks, I've been full to bursting and then squeezed empty and then refilled and then squeezed again.  It's hard to imagine that only a short time ago, I was in NYC, staying at the Hilton and communing with some of the funniest, smartest, prettiest women (plus, like, two guys) on the planet.  There were lots of highlights for me, too many to link when I'm feeling so bleary-eyed and do you really want to read The Internet's Most-Delayed BlogHer Recap?  Honestly, in Internet Time, BlogHer was like, 10 years ago. So, it's like I'm sitting behind my word-processor, suited up in my Member's Only jacket, writing about something that happened before you were BORN.

I'll say that I got to see so many of my good friends and introduce myself and express my [writer's crushes] genuine affection for the work of most everyone on my 'I want to meet them and gush about their work' list.  I got to talk about things that really matter with a few awesome women.  I got to meet lots of people that I have wanted to meet. Plus, if you follow me on Twitter, you undoubtedly saw the CUPCAKE that I got to eat because I CRASHED the birthday celebration of a very sweet, tutu-making maven.

Of course there are 70 quadrillion people that I forgot to link and so, just know if it was you I forgot to link, I already understand that I suck. Prophylactically. 

And, if you are the ball-less motherfucker who stole the bag I got for [air-quote] running [air-quote] the Tutus-for-Tanner 5K? You know, the one with the autographed, sure-it's-awesome Dread Crew in it? YOU CAN SUCK IT. (I hope you liked the book, though, even though it WASN'T ADDRESSED TO YOU.)

Anyway.

I got home and it was official that The Boy was weaned.  Fully weaned at 10.5 months.  Hard to describe how I feel about it, really.  The fact that I went without nursing for 4 days and never ONCE leaked or felt full/tingly led me to believe that he hadn't been getting that much anyway.  My production was a challenge for months and months and man.  I really just don't want to totally get into it.

A couple days later, I had to turn around and leave my kids for ANOTHER four days to go to my childhood home to pack up my dad's stuff and move him close to The Little Sister and I.  It's hard for me to articulate what that experience was like but I'm sure that you can imagine it.  On Twitter I posted all the reeeeediculous things that we unearthed there (plus, the world's WORST EVER wallpaper which NO ONE commented on because by the time it made an appearance, they were all immersed in the crazy and didn't EVEN NOTICE,) partly because it was funny as hell and partly because I deal with the not-funny by turning it into the funny.

Then I came back to two kids who were crazy out of their minds, testing like motherfuckers, trying to adjust to Mommy being away-coming back-being away. Not to mention that they both had some bug that manifested in horrible napalm-poo explosions of the 'Requires A Morning Bath' kind.  When those cleared up, there came a baby who refused to sleep at all (AT ALL!) confusing the shit out of us before it became apparent that he was suffering from a cold, that he gave to his sister.

So, I had my first Total-Without-Sleep night since my son was 2 months old.  It was as sucky as I remember.

Anyway. So, now you're caught up.

Geezuz.

What's new with you?

Technically, It's Not About BlogHer.

Hey there!

Long time no posting. As per what appears to be my new(ish) usual. *sigh* I'm trying to post more but it appears to be only manifesting in my mind.  Much like I'm trying to lose 30 pounds. That's also manifesting in my mind (even though it shows on my ass) and so, there you have it.

Anyway.

I have an urge to complain-slash-explore-slash-panic about going to BlogHer and about all the shit I have to do before going to BlogHer but who really wants to hear all that, am I right?  The way I figure it, is, if you're going, you have the same shit to think about for your own self and if you're not going but want to go, the last thing you probably want to hear is some horse's ass bitching-slash-exploring-slash-panicking about it and if you're not going and you don't want to, then, well, you've probably already clicked out.

So let me just say these things: I have been shopping [for BlogHer] and I got a haircut [for BlogHer] and nothing has quite the pick-me-up effect as realizing that you 1) have to buy Giant Pants and 2) your new haircut is the shape of a bell.  I swear.  It's like newscaster hair. Only less cool.  I'm hoping it doesn't qualify as Midwestern Hair but I think it might be a close scrape.

*sigh*

I don't mind telling you that the week after BlogHer, I am going to my hometown (with my BIL and my dad) to get my dad's shit together to move here.  He settled on a house last week and now, we've got to go and get the stuff he needs to move in.  I am not looking forward to it, really.  A long trip with shit-loads of work involved.  A quick turn-around time. And another four days without my kids.  Which, on this end of it, with the day I've had so far, doesn't sound all that bad. I know enough, though, to know that two trips on two consecutive weeks is going to be hard. Ish. Maybe. Probably.

No, it will.  I know it will.

Speaking of my kids...

I just had the weirdest interaction at the library.  For this summer reading thingie, the kids have to do an activity each week and then bring in this sheet of paper to show the librarian (to collect a toxic-plastic prize).  One of the tasks for kids 2-4 was that they learn and tell a joke. 

It was TLNG's first time learning an ACTUAL joke to tell and we've been practicing that son-of-a-bitch for two weeks (since we missed going last week), so she was excited to go and tell her joke today.

And here was the interaction:

TLNG: 'I have a joke to tell you!'

Librarian: ??

TLNG: 'What kind of alley do I run from?'

[Note: It is supposed to be, 'What kind of alley do you run from?' but that use of the pronoun eludes her. She's 3.]

Librarian: 'What kind?'

TLNG: 'An Alley-GATOR!!'

Librarian: [straight-face. NO laugh. At all.] 'Okaaaay, then.'

WTF?

Seriously, Librarian? SERIOUSLY?  It was her first joke, for fuck's sake and I gotta tell you, she had some damn good comedic timing (for a 3 year old.) I mean, I KNOW it ain't Chris Rock but she's still a little young to be dropping N-words and F-bombs for her summer reading library jokes. 

Who knew there was such a tough crowd at the public library? Fucking A.

A much more receptive audience for her comedic skills. AKA: He laughs at EVERYTHING SHE DOES.

.

.

 

Most of the time.

 
[Edited to add: THE JOKE!]

The Great Temper Experiment.

I don't remember exactly what it was that pushed the point home, finally.  Pushed it in far enough for me to act on my realization.  I had an epiphany for sure, though.  (An Aha Moment, if you're partial to Oprah-speak.)  The way that it usually works for me is this: I suddenly realize something that I've known for a long time, even maybe forever.  It's like, in an opportune moment, I really see this thing.  I see it clearly and in a way that is sudden and complete.  Like lightening striking.

How am I supposed to teach my daughter to stop screaming and yelling when she's angry, if I'm all the fucking time screaming and yelling when I'm angry?

Bzzzzt.

I have long thought that my yelling and carrying on (in the parenting realm) was related to my own upbringing and an innate lack of patience.  But included in this Not-Too-Comfortable epiphany was this, here:

It's not Lack of Patience.  It's Lack of Impulse Control.

Bzzzzzzt. Bzzzzzzzt.

When the realization hit me that my ever-increasing-in-frequency episodes of over-the-top, in-the-fucking-red-zone, aggressive-yelling were, indeed, were more about a lack of impulse control than anything else, something in me clicked.  

Initially, it was more than a little humiliating, actually.  I can only surmise that is why it stayed outside my conscious thought process for such a long time.  But a few moments after that, it started to sink in. I was impulsively acting out my anger.  And that, I needed to fix.

So, I started with a decision.  A decision that will, no doubt, sound absolutely crazy to some of you but what can I say?  It's what I did.

I decided that the following day I was just...not going to act angry.  Even if I was.  I went from thinking that in order to have fewer angry incidents, I would have to do the hard-if-not-impossible work of cultivating more patience (HA!) to deciding that even if I was pissed off, I was going to deal with it internally.  I was not going to act angry.

Or, more like it, I was going to act 'not angry,' even when I was*.

As a therapist, I am incredibly adept (most often) with keeping my own feelings to myself.  It is a skill that I have honed over the years.  I'm actually very good at it.  For me to have a feeling and act on it impulsively, professionally, would be unheard of.  I am able to compartmentalize and stash away my own feelings for my later examinations.  I mean, I worked through two hard pregnancies and the death of my mother, all the while attending to the needs/feelings/problems of my patients when I was at work.

It's not a giant stretch to bring some of that talent to bear with regard to keeping in check my anger at my 3 year old kid.  

So, I don't remember what it was that flipped the switch but I remember when it was.  It was June 17th.  It was a Thursday and I was in the doctor's waiting room with my dad, looking at some parenting magazine with a bullshit(ish) article on 'How To Get Your Kids To Listen Without Ever Having To Endure A Tantrum EVER,' when the lights came on in my head. 

And I made my decision to Act 'As If.'

The basic premise being that, initially, I would 'act as if' I wasn't angry, allowing my brain to burn some new neural pathways so that eventually, I really wouldn't be angry at stuff that didn't need to make me angry.

I started that day and have been doing it every day since.

Here are a few things I've found so far:

1)  It was easier than I thought it would be.  Once I made that decision to act in a certain way, regardless of internal, emotional experience, it gave me a framework, I think.  Something concrete to do instead of flip my shit.

2)  There were many, many times that I wasn't even really, truly angry.  My anger wasn't, isn't, *real* anger.  Not the kind of anger that is founded on some reasonable action/reaction loop, anyway.  It's an impulsive, angry reaction, out of proportion to the situation at hand.  Given 3.4 seconds, I was able to chill and realize that she's just testing or testing or possibly even testing.  Like 3 year olds are supposed to do.  In fact, if I'm totally honest, I found myself 'trying to teach the importance of certain points' via the angry tone and scowl.  As if.

3) Me simmering the fuck down, in an of itself, helped her to simmer the fuck down.  Of course, it stands to reason that when your mother is visibly angry and yelling that you, as a kid, will feel...a lot of intense emotions.  I did a little thinking about-slash-remembering-slash-realizing how I used to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing (LAUGHING!) in my screaming mother's face.  It is counter-intuitive maybe, but I found that when there was less anger from me, there was more compliance from her (which, I imagine, is due to less anxiety and impulse to be oppositional when a stark line is drawn.)

4) The Out of Proportion Angry Responses were cyclical in nature, creating a counterproductive loop and also a larger pattern of communication.  Disrupting that cycle, that loop, that pattern, has resulted in a more peaceful cycle, loop, pattern and house.

5) There are benefits to slower, longer reactions. It was an unforeseen outcome that, while trying to keep in an impulsive action, I was slower to react and thus, took a little more time to work things through.  This afforded me some opportunities to actually negotiate and stay places vs. cutting and running when TLNG was acting up.

If I were a math person, I'd be able to calculate for you a percentage of reduction in episodes of Out of Proportion Anger but in my 'just-eyeballing it' kind of way, I'd say it's been nothing short of stunning.  They say that to make a new behavior a habit takes a good 6-8 weeks.  And we're close to that.  I've had slips and I'll continue to have them, I'm sure. 

Some days are harder than others.  But it's so much easier to recognize and regroup.

And it makes me feel much, much nicer.

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*It may go without saying but I'm going to say it anyway, just in case.  I'm not talking about not expressing valid or justified anger/upset.  I'm not even talking about not expressing annoyance or frustration.  I'm talking about a certain level of pissivity, an impulsive acting out of a rush of exaggerated anger.  It's hard to define it, really, as it's all on a continuum.  I know it when I feel it, though.

Through this experiment, I've found that expressing even my legitimate anger/frustration/whatever in a calmer, quieter way gets better results. Makes a better loop. It's a work in progress, I suppose.  I share it as another way of working through. And to close a circle.  If you have questions or comments, I welcome them.  Don't be shy. It's not like I'm going to FLIP OUT at you. HA HA HAAAA!

It's Like A Bad Phil Collins Song. Or Great, You Know, If You Love Phil Collins.

He's said it only a couple of times, mostly lightly, even in passing, but it never fails to unnerve me nonetheless--in spite of or maybe because of the inherent truth in it.

"It's like we're two people who happen to live in the same house.  It's like we're living separate lives, together."

It's not meant to be hurtful.  It's not even really meant to convey a problem from his perspective.  It's meant merely as an observation that's been inserted into a couple of conversations we've had about other things.

But it kind of makes me shudder.

Because it's kind of true.

I get up super early with two small kids.  I spend the entire day, almost every day, corralling, feeding, cleaning, wiping, changing, and herding.  With a side of becoming an indoor jungle gym-slash-drool cloth.  He gets up early and goes to work, braving a long-ass, awful commute and a hectic never-sitting-down-lucky-to-get-lunch-day.  In the evening, I'm juggling kids, trying to make sure only the dog is eating the dog food and trying to prevent his water bowl from becoming a mini-water table while at the same time, making WHATEVERTHEFUCK for dinner.  He is braving the long-ass awful commute back home and walking into controlled chaos. (Sometimes it's controlled. We have cable.)

We eat together and I take The Boy, he takes The Girl and we do baths and bedtime. 

Then he goes downstairs to do more work and I spend some time arranging and cleaning and then [fucking around on Twitter for a while] reading before collapsing into bed.  He's a night owl and I don't even know what time he comes to bed.

Then, you know. Rinse and REPEAT.

He and I have been together forever. Well. You know. Like 15 years or something like that.  Our relationship, our marriage, is solid.  Built on bedrock.  Having been together for 12 years, married for 8, before having kids has given us a couple of incarnations of our relationship, really.  Dating for 4 years before getting married, we were students, then professionals.  Married for the 8 years, we were professionals, working and getting promoted and having expendable income.  We traveled some.  We remodeled some.  We went to dinner and movies and shit like that.

And then we had two small kids.

We went down to basically one income. We travel less. We go out with the kids but not a whole lot without them.  The day to day caring for children, leaves me with less Nice at the end of the day.  It probably leaves me with no Caring For Someone Else, if I'm honest about it.  His job is stressful and demanding.  It's not easy, I'm sure, to have the sole responsibility of maintaining and providing for a family.  And although he never complains about it, I would be wicked stressed if the situation was reversed.

And so, there it is.

I don't think that there's anything wrong in our relationship.  I think that having two small kids, who rightly need a ton of attention and care, siphon so much of our finite physical/emotional energy, that our focus has shifted temporarily.

Does that make sense?

I just don't think that we're alone.  As strong and as deeply rooted as our relationship is, it's just not an easy time for the Couple Maintenance, if you know what I'm saying.

But, I think the reason it makes me shudder is that those very sentences are spoken thousands upon thousands of times. To, like, divorce lawyers. Or Oprah.  You feel me?

I am as sure as I can be of anything that The Man and I are long-termers.  I think, though, if we're living separately together, there has to be a liiiiittle more overlap.  Maybe we get a sitter and go to dinner and a movie (or maybe just dinner because *YAWN* I might not be able to make it through both.) Or, maybe I go to more of his baseball games with the kids in tow.  Or maybe I turn off twitter and go down into the basement and sit with him.  Or give him a back rub or bring him some cut fruit before I go to bed.

I don't want years to go by, with the only increasing busyness that comes with kids--when the bounce-house play dates turn into weekend-long travel soccer--only to find that we have stumbled into some tired but still painful cliche.

Because I love The Man so.  I really, really do.

I mean, you know.  That's how we ended up these Little Cute-Ass Time-Slash-Attention Suckers, to begin with.