Yeah, that’s about right

I am the type of person who does quizzes in magazines and answers surveys. I like lists, I like boxes to tick and ideas to think about. Knowing this, a friend sent me a link to a personality test. Whee! Questions to answer! Lists to read! My opinion solicited!!

I did it, of course. Because that’s what I do.

Then I looked at the results, thought of the ongoing project that is Daniel, and nodded my head. Several times.

There were some aspects to my description that don’t apply to me. I don’t think I’m any more hurt by rejection than most people, and criticism I can take in stride, particularly if it’s constructive. I don’t think I’m “dogged” at all. In fact, I’d like a little more of that, really!

But when it comes to how I feel about conflict? Yup, yup, yup. And problem-solving, creativity? Uh-huh. Pretty much everything else there is me.

Harmony-Seeking Idealist? Not too far off!

If you try the test, let me know which one you are!

Here be sharks

Remember Daniel? My darling little barbarian? We’ve been working hard on his blundersome tendencies with notable success. After all, he’s a loving, willing, cheerful little guy. Good cheer? Daniel owns the patent. The rest of us have pale imitations.

So, though he remains a sturdy and active little fellow, he really is easing off on the maiming and bludgeoning. Really.

Yesterday, though, was a difficult, physical day. We had commando hugs and hair-pulling. We had inadvertent flattenings and absolutely vertent shoves.

And while I use all these events to train Daniel into better patterns, and to teach the others how to deal with unpleasant events (and manage Daniel a bit), it does get a smidge … repetitive.

1. “MARY!!! Daniel hitted me!”

2. “Did you talk to Daniel about it?”

3. Blink. Blink.

4. “Well, I didn’t hit you. You need to talk to Daniel. Go tell Daniel you don’t like hitting.”

5. “Daniel! You not hit me! I don’t like that!”

6. “Good. Now tell him what hands are for.”

7. “Daniel, hands are for hugging!”

And the sun bursts forth from Daniel’s charming round face, the arms spread wide, and we have much love all round.

Until the next time.

“MARY!!!! Daniel pushed me!”

“Did you talk to Daniel about it?”

Repeat steps 3 – 7. Over and over again. With every child. We’re all learning here. Except Daniel, you might reasonably conclude, but no, over the weeks there’s been definite improvement. Yesterday was a relapse, is all. These things happen.

Things had, in fact, improved by late afternoon, after naptime. (Either that or my reflexes had improved and my deflections were more timely. Could be either, but I prefer to believe it was Daniel.)

Until, fifteen minutes to home time …

Grace, running around the corner from living room to front hall, caught her arm on the doorframe. Quite the whack. I heard it from the other end of the dining room. I heard it and looked up in time to see her approach Daniel, who was sitting on the bottom step. (Also known as the Quiet Stair, but he hadn’t been sent there. He was just sitting there.)

Approach him with her arm extended. “Daniel, I got a bo-bo. You wanna kiss it better?” And …
she places…
her arm …
against …
his mouth.

Yeah, I was wincing, too.

You know how when a very bad thing is about to happen in a movie, it suddenly goes all slow motion? I knew what was about to happen. I started up and across the room, but there was no way I was going to get there in time. A sudden, startling yell would probably only hasten us to our unfortunate end. I hurried, but I may as well have been in slow motion. “Nooooooooooooo...”

Poor Grace. Her yell was entirely predictable. Her poor, unsuspecting arm. Bloody meat dropped into the shark’s tank, really.

“MARY!!!! Daniel bitted me!!!”

Oh, dear. And, yeah, surprise, surprise…

It wasn’t a bad bite. Barely dented the skin, and left nary a mark. But a bite, for sure. We put ice on it, of course. We always put ice on things. Ice is the Miracle Cure at Mary’s house. It was almost a non-event, but it was quite definitely not a kiss.

Poor innocent Grace.
Poor impulsive Daniel.

So what catchphrase now? Lips are for kissing? Teeth are for eating (but not your friends)?

I guess I shouldn’t find this quite so amusing, huh?

This might explain it

I hate watching political debates. Loathe it. Political debates make me endlessly miserable.

Not because I think they’re all fakes and crooks, because I don’t. I think most of them honestly want to do their best by their country. Not because I think they’re liars, though it’s pretty damned obvious that they’re selective in their choice of facts, and a certain amount of (deliberate? inadvertent?) fudging goes on. It bugs me that never once in a debate do you hear someone say, “You know, that’s a good point. Now, I think you need to put more emphasis on this, or you’ve overlooked that, but that one point there? Nicely put!”

(You’re laughing? Why? Why? Why the hell not? Why must debate be entirely about undermining the other guy? How does it weaken you to admit the other guy’s good idea — and then improve it?)

But the real reason that I hate debates, I realized earlier today, is that they’re so much like my daily life… except I can’t fix it. When I see one person shouting over top of the other one (and may I here note that in my admittedly restricted experience, Canadian debates are way worse than American for this) The Daycare Lady in me is desperate to start issuing edicts: “Play fair! Take turns! No name-calling! Stop shouting!”

There is no fun at all in helplessly watching adults employ the same conflict-resolution “strategies” — shouting, interrupting, rudeness — that I spend my life trying to train out of toddlers. No fun at all.

Nor do I learn anything from their aggressive verbiage… except that maybe they all need remedial time with their Daycare Lady. Sigh.

I’m so proud

Nigel is visiting this week. Nigel, Timmy, Anna and Emily are building with blocks in the kitchen. A howl of protest from Timmy surges into the dining room, where I am setting up a craft.

“Nigel! Don’t knock down my tower!”

“Oh, sorry Timmy. I didn’t mean to!”

“Nigel, you shouldn’t knock his tower down.” Emily is concerned with The Rules.

“Yes, but I said I was sorry.”

“Okay.” So long as protocol has been observed, Emily is satisfied. Timmy, however, is NOT.

“Nigel! Don’t knock down my tower!”

“He SAID he was sorry, TImmy!” Anna is concerned with the social facts.

“I said I was sorry!” Nigel is concerned with justice. And freedom from the indignation. Mostly, he’d like to get back to building, thanks.

“Nigel! Don’t knock my tower down!”

“I SAID I was sorry!”

“Nigel! Don’t knock my tower down.” Timmy is not letting go.

Anna has had enough. She lays an authoritative hand on Timmy’s shoulder.

“Timmy. It was a accident. He didn’t mean to knock it down, and he said sorry already. That’s all he can do. This conversation is over.”

(Heh. ‘This conversation is over’ is not something I say. I hear her father in that sentence. I’m sure it’s a sentence she’s had cause to hear a great deal. As measured as our Anna is being here, she’s more than capable of great heights of righteous indignation and equally vast depths of hard-headed self-pity.)

“But he –”

“Timmy?” Her tone is full of warning. “This conversation is O-VER.”

“Oh, all right.” He picks up a block.

Play continues, towers are (re-)built, there is the hum of happy conversation. All without a single interjection from me. They didn’t even know I was listening.

🙂

Just do it! Or not.

Timmy climbs up on the bench beside me, where I am diligently blog-surfing playing Facebook Scramble tidying up after crafts.

“Maaaarryyyy….” his voice is a tremulous quaver. “Emily did something to meeee…”

This is not an example of Information Sharing. This is just plain old tattling. And it’s whiny tattling, at that. The kind that makes you want to poke your eardrums out, because that would be less painful than listening to it.

I have had three nights of insufficient sleep. The children are VERY LOUD today, due to my decision (borne of insufficient sleep, obviously), that I am TOO TIRED to take them outside. So now I am trapped in the house with five children under four DESPERATELY IN NEED OF EXERCISE. Kill me now.

No, never mind. I’m obviously doing a fine job of that all by myself.

“Timmy, I’ll do something to you if you don’t go talk to Emily about it. Go on, now.” (What? We’ve been working on this “don’t tell me, tell the one who’s involved” for weeks now. And I’m tired.)

He wanders over to the kitchen door, and calls into the kitchen.

“Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily? Emily?”

She must’ve looked up eventually, probably with the feeling that she’s undergoing some kind of personalized Chinese water torture (can I say that? that’s not way non-PC?), because lord only knows that’s how I’M feeling about it right now. Death by a thousand mosquito bites. No! Insanity by a solitary mosquito whining in your ear that just. will. not. die.

She must’ve looked up, I say, because he stopped with the water torture, and continued.

“Emilyyyyyy, don’t do iiiiiiit.”

I am quite sure that Emily has no more idea than I what “it” might be, and evidently she decided not to sweat it. There was no discernable change in the activity level in the kitchen. Timmy paused a moment… then went, humming a slightly mangled version of “Rudolph”, to the living room to pull stuff out from under the couch cushions.

For today, that’s good enough for me.