I so appreciate your validation and support of me as a parent and your assurances that I’m a good one. It helps. And most of the time I may even agree that I’m a good parent. But. (My mom can attest that I am extremely skilled in “yes, but…”) There are the times that no one or a very few people witness when I scream and yell so loudly and longly at Sarah that it horrifies me. Almost none of you see that. I seem so nice so much of the time especially to grown ups. But I am truly horrified by myself sometimes. Friday night I was suggesting that Sarah put lotion on her legs because she seemed itchy and swimming may have made her skin even more dry. Before I finished speaking she was whining and slightly yelling in protest. I was calm. I was calm. I was calm. And then I really wasn’t. I hate not being allowed to speak. I hate feeling powerless. It was as if I was watching Mom-Hyde and couldn’t stop the anger even as I realized how absurd it was to be screaming at her to stop screaming. It was as if all the frustration and pain and rage of all my parenting moments for nearly 11 years were compounded and coming barreling out of me in that moment. And then I felt embarrassed and awful. The worst is knowing that it will most likely happen again. And then the extra worse is how un-Son-Risey this is. I am supposed to be able to think my way through this and change, truly change so that I don’t do that anymore. Right now I feel like anything I try to change ends up rebounding worse than before. I feel like a hypocrite for how calm and nurturing I can be with my work, how centered and present with my clients and students, and then how completely uncentered I can be as a parent. I know. I know. I have many many many wonderful and calm parenting moments. And the screaming moments probably only last 2 minutes. But the repercussions in me last so much longer and overshadow the rest. I feel like I need to go into the woods and scream and yell for hours, though my throat certainly couldn’t handle it because it is rough and scratchy after 2 minutes. I feel like I ought to be able to apply all of my principles from work to my parenting but that is so much harder. If my students started whining and yelling in protest about my ideas I would probably be a lot less nice to them too. So I guess the real confession of this paragraph is that I am even more deeply human and imperfect than you may imagine. In two minute increments. Maybe you all have your moments too that almost no one sees. That is the thing. No one talks about these moments so we end up thinking we are the only ones. That is partly why I share so that maybe all of us two-minute catastrophes can come together.
After writing the above I did think more about why I yell and what I might be able to change. I practiced imagining Sarah whining or yelling and practiced letting go of my tension. The next day I was able to let go of some of my tension in the moment for several different moments. And then I wasn’t. But I do feel hopeful that maybe if I practice more when I’m by myself I will get more skilled. I often suggest that my students practice extending their arm and thumb when they aren’t giving a massage to make sure they can do that part comfortably because if they can’t do it comfortably when they aren’t giving a massage then how can they do it when they are?
When I was younger I used to play group solitaire with my best friends and their family, each of us having our own deck but using communal piles in the middle. This was a fast-paced game that would have piles completed before I even knew what had happened. I would often have moments where I waved my hands and just wanted everything to stop. I feel this way about parenting sometimes. If I could only wave my hands and say “stop” and have the game pause so that I could slowly understand what is going on and play my cards, but the pace outpaces me and thus the yelling before I seem to know what has happened. So I will practice slowly, getting ever more familiar with my own deck.
Swim lessons went extremely well. This time, at the teacher’s suggestion, Amy jumped in the pool, turned over, and floated all while the teacher was still out of the pool. I could see the fear in Amy’s eyes but she did it! She was so brave and she did it. She really is capable of saving her own life if she were to fall into water. Sarah’s body was calmer than in the past for her floating practice, though she still doesn’t want the teacher to let go. I also noticed how I could smile and enjoy Sarah’s spunky cheeky rebelliousness when she was not following what the teacher said. It is so much easier when it isn’t my instructions that she ignores!
Thursday the girls both had two hour delays for school due to snow. I don’t remember this ever happening last year. Usually one of them had a delay or closure but the other didn’t and if Sarah’s Catholic school was on time then Amy and I would drive her because her bus is a public school bus and I didn’t want her to be two hours late. This time I had a delay too so it was all easy and relaxed and fun. We all got bundled and enjoyed the snow.
I feel that there is some profound lesson in my words “this time I had a delay too and it was all easy.” Hmm. To be pondered and expanded in my life as a whole when possible.
My quandary as we look ahead is how to deal with Christmas eve. Amy wants to sleep under the tree in the hopes that she will wake to see Santa. Umm. Does she still have her superhuman sleeping ability from years past when we could have the lights on and Sarah could be screaming and Amy would sleep through it all?? If so then we don’t have a problem. But if she wakes up?? She does know that some presents come from us so I suppose we could always just say Santa hadn’t come yet or had already come and gone or that we were up because we thought we heard Santa too.
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