Monday, October 18, 2010

In an effort to focus on what DOES happen in our home instead of what doesn't (oh, darn, I have a load of laundry that needs to go in the dryer. . .), today we. . .

. . . taught HD how to play Pokemon. And I finally read all those words under "Special Conditions" and realized that there IS a way to recover from them (retreat or evolve)! Fantastic!

. . . took a short walk in the woods to check out a huge tree that lives not far from the house. I'm not sure what it is yet but it has smooth, light gray bark that just begs to be touched. I've heard that the land around here was all clear cut by Mead back in the 40s, so we have a lot of smaller, crowded trees in the forest. Thankfully they didn't cut them all down, and we have some awesome stately giants that live here and there. :)

. . . walked farther and found at least 6 maple trees that are over 10 inches wide! Including another one of those stately giants. I am excited about that discovery because that means I have reason to look more into the logistics of tapping the trees and trying our hand at making some maple syrup. Yum!

. . . I also found some saplings that I'm almost positive are paw-paw! W agreed with me that the leaves we found looked like the ones in the book. I guess we'll keep an eye out for dark red flowers on them next year!

. . . made lots of balloon animals, swords, and belts. L figured out how to hold the balloon on with one hand so it wouldn't fly away and pump with the other. E made a couple balloon dogs. And some of them even had 4 legs, lol! The other ones were ballet dancing. :)

. . . I discovered that I CAN stay calm and not yell in frustration when three people want me to do things with them all at the same time. It can be accomplished by lots of breathing and explaining my feelings to the kids. Also by only moving forward with any of the tasks once I feel at peace again. And I learned that I can make balloon animals and play Pokemon at the same time, by taking breaks and focusing on each thing for a few minutes, then going back to the other thing. This is actually big for me because I really only focus on one thing at a time. It's something I've just finally accepted about myself. I just do not multi-task well- I forget what I'm doing and generally make a mess of all of the things I was trying to do. I do not keep running lists of everything going on at once in my head. I see what's in front of me and do that. Maybe it doesn't seem like much of a distinction, but for me it is. It's the difference between listening to someone talk AND stirring a pot AND hearing the song on the stereo, and knowing exactly what's going on with each (which I know some people can do!) or setting the spoon down, pausing the music, and looking at the person with my full attention to GET what they're saying, THEN stirring the pot, THEN pushing play for another song. The second example just feels so much more peaceful and grounded to me.

And I realize it doesn't have to be an all or nothing type thing. When I had kids I gave up doing lots of things that I used to love- reading fiction, creating in an artistic way. Mostly because I HATED being interrupted, which is inevitable with kids, so I just decided it wasn't worth it. But I've started to see how much I've lost by just NOT doing those things, and I want to bring them back into my life. And it feels like I have figured out the way, the structure of HOW to do it even with the interruptions and the "Mama I need you now!"s. Yay. :)

No comments:

Post a Comment