The Groove!

 It's the sort of thing that normal people don't keep track of, but I am celebrating my fifth good day in a row!!!

Yes, for the last month or so, I've been keeping track of my days, and writing down little notes to myself about them. Why? Well, because I was having a lot of bad days, and I wanted to figure out what I could do to help.

Happily watching Bucky throw a boomerang!

Things are finally coming into focus for me, for how I can make a good day. Some days will still be bad, and I've come to terms with that. I don't have complete control over what needs to be done. I've got kids, I've got a house, and I don't have the amazing superpower to change how I feel! Which means I've got to put the work in, like a normal person.

I'm glad I know my own brain, and how to deal with it.

The walk from school!

1. Breathing

I've taken up meditation, and I think it's here to stay.

Every night, I find ten minutes to sit down, close my eyes, breathe, and listen to a guided meditation, where some dude is telling me to relax my shoulders, feel my breath move all the way down to my toes, and to think about only my breath.

It's a skill, and I've been using it in the heat of the moment. Kids can get overwhelming very fast, and like I said, I can't just tell myself to feel better about it. But I can breathe.

Inhale for 4.
Hold for 7.
Exhale for 8.

I've got it memorized! I even memorized it in a funny way. "Just breathe, compadre!" (4-letter word, 7-letter word, 8-letter word.)

I know when something is going to be rough for me. I can tell by the pitch and timbre of any one of my kid's screams what has happened, and who is responsible for it. And it's always stressful. So it's nice to at least enter the situation with steady waters.

Giraffesey's driving the cart as we get spray paint!

2. Refusing to escalate

Daniel is a kid who loses control sometimes. And I have a hard time with that, because he doesn't do it peacefully. Just last week, the rest of us were eating dinner, while he was screaming and hitting things in the front room. It went on for about an hour. And yes, he was screaming the entire time.
I don't remember why it started. I'd told him to put something away, maybe, and he took it personally. And he spiraled out of control. Now he was missing time with his cousins, who were over for dinner. So he screamed. He wasn't going to be able to get a second slice of pizza. So he screamed. Oh, now he doesn't even like pizza. So he screamed.
There is nothing good in this situation for me. It fries my nerves, it drains my battery, and it makes it hard for me to do anything else.
But I freaking DID it. I checked in every few minutes, offered an acceptable solution, got screamed at, and left. And it takes a lot for me to do that. I do not have a lot of patience these days. But eventually, when his dinner was cold, the cousins had left, and it was time to wind down, I offered to make him another dinner.
And he said okay.
And he had some chicken nuggets, and smiled again, even through red, red eyes.
And that night, he hugged me, and said, "I'm sorry I lost control, Dad."

He's a sweet boy. And he's as much the perpetrator as the victim. We're working on it, and he needs to know I'm not his opponent, but I'm on his side.

So this morning, he started to spiral. Didn't want to go to school. Said he hated school. Climbed under a chair and said he was going to stay there FOREVER.
Well, he's got to go to school. And earlier this week, I had to put him in the wagon like a bag of sad potatoes and drag him to 1st grade. But I didn't want to do that.

The idea of giving him things, of rewarding him as a result of these episodes, is a hard one. But I'm not rewarding the fit, I'm rewarding him stepping away from the brink. Punishing him only makes it worse. So, I told him I'd give him a piggyback ride all the way to school if he came out.
And he said okay.

So I carried a boy on my back while pulling a wagon all the way to school. Someone called me "a beast", in the good sense! And you know what? You're damn right I am!

Crash Boy and Josie are so good at playing together!

3. Downtime

I have a rule, and it applies to adults. If you're tired, you should sleep. Sounds straightforward enough, but it's a hard thing to achieve when you've got kids.
(Man, kids really run the show nowadays, huh?)

Whenever Jessi is zoning out, I tell her to go take a nap if she feels like one. Because by golly, it's the right thing to do!

For me, my downtime is usually spent on a couch, or sitting at the kitchen island, doodling and writing. And I can think all the thoughts I want, about how some things need to get done, about some projects I could be working on with the house... and while those are important, and I know that I can do them even when I'm tired, it's just healthier for me to do it while I've got a little bit of rest tucked away.

It's still sadly true, that the last time I felt fully rested, like I woke up and I was at 100%, was the day after Echo was born. Almost three years ago!

Breaks are hard to come by, so I give myself carte blanche permission to take as many smaller breaks as I can squeeze in.

This Echo Guy is a real goober!

4. Personal achievement

I could talk your ear off about Dungeons and Dragons, or about Rollerpunk, or about how I think vampires should be. And what I've found is that it helps me feel better about myself when I do these things, because it feels more like I'm being the person I want to be.

I congratulate myself when I write and send silly postcards to my friends. I smile for hours after a good session of D&D where the players had a good time. I tell people who don't really care (but are polite enough to listen) about the new conspiracies in Rollerpunk, because it's what's on my mind.

And at the end of the day, I find myself really admiring myself. Looking inward, I see and recognize the person I want to be when I do these little things. Yesterday, I took my younger boys out to Home Depot to buy gold spray paint, so that I could paint some rocks in the backyard and hide them! It made the cousins laugh and run around and start their own little adventures, and I was proud to be me.

And in the end, when the actions you do match the person you want to be, you've really got it made!

Climbing up the big rock at Larkspur!