Seeking calm in the storm

I don't know what it says about me, but sometimes I feel like I can best relate to the boys when they're at their worst. Their meltdowns and tantrums bring me right back to my own moody childhood. Of course, now I'm experiencing these colorful displays of emotion in a whole new way.

On Friday afternoon, I promised I would pick up Ben and Paul from school and take all three boys to the library. Bringing my brood to the library doesn't strike fear in me the way it used to, when Gus would be liable to wander away from me, trying to open DVD cases, or worse, simply run away from me. No, my youngest has calmed considerably. He knows where his favorites are - Max and Ruby, Charlie and Lola, Batman - and he gravitates toward those. Don't get me wrong, he's no angel, but my crew is manageable these days.

This day, though, I should have been very fearful, for what ensued was disastrous. It started off fine. The boys found materials peacefully enough. It was checkout time when everything fell apart. Ever since the Menasha Library moved all checkout to the adult side, I've become devoted to using the self-checkout on the children's side. I'm simply more comfortable to keeping my kids confined to the side where noise is at least somewhat acceptable.

The self-checkout is great, and I've become pretty quick at using it, but when the boys want to "help," things take a turn for the worse. This day, Gus planted himself squarely in the center of the step stool. He's the worst possible assistant, because he is of no help and is in fact a hindrance. Paul, too, was adamant that he wanted to check out his items. He began to whine loudly and shove Gus. Gus, naturally, whined louder and pushed back.

The whole time, I was strenuously whispering-yelling and making threats. The situation did not improve, and I was worried that Gus soon would have a full-on tantrum or a fistfight would break out. It was time to extract Gus from the situation. I asked Ben if he would take over for me so I could take Gus out to the car. He was standing there obliviously, nose in one of his books, as the drama unfolded. "What?" he asked dazedly as I stood there unraveling.

Gus was kicking and fighting me as I lifted him, all of this on display for the friendly children's librarians. Gus threw his head back and hit against the pole behind him. That sent him into hysterics. Very, very loud hysterics. I walked quickly, shame-faced to the car and managed to get Gus strapped into his car seat.

I was furious. If there's one thing I don't handle well, it's when the kids embarrass me in public places. And how much worse does it get than the library, a place of quiet and decorum? (There's a slight chance that I belabored this point to Paul. When we were having our postmortem discussion about what had gone wrong, he said, tentatively, "I behaved badly in public?")

When Paul returned to the car, I meted out consequences to him and Gus - no screen time for the rest of the day. Gus didn't take it too hard, but Paul threw a fit and yelled the whole way home and into the house.

Paul's outrage went on and on until it petered out seemingly just as quickly as it arrived. He asked me in a sweet voice when we were leaving for our Chicago trip. I remember doing this to my mom when I was a kid. I had a temper, you see. I would go into a rage and then it would evaporate, and I would expect her to just catch up to me. I'm calm now. We're all good, right? Of course, my mom would still be fuming, as well she should have.

Experiencing this from the role of parent is quite a different situation. My frustration with Paul hadn't left me. I wasn't ready to make nice yet. I told him I was still angry and he needed to give me space. After a little while, I felt better, and we were able to move on. In a lot of ways, I'm the same way I was when I was a kid. I tend to get angry, though of course with better ways to manage it now, but I do get it over it fairly quickly.

Anger comes to us all. I think all I can do is give the boys techniques for better handling theirs and try to remain calm through their storms. I know from personal experience that the intense emotions of childhood do die down eventually. Until then, I guess we will be stuck in this cycle of outburst and forgiveness. Om ...

Fasting and feasting

If I had to characterize my relationship status with the Catholic Church, I'd have to go with the Facebook description, "It's complicated." The church provides me with comfort and frustration in nearly equal measure.

As I've written in the past, Catholicism is like a huge, dysfunctional family to me. I love my family, but sometimes I have a really hard time understanding and accepting it. In this case, my family is complete with the equivalent of a grandpa who makes mortifying racist remarks. Only in this case, instead we have a Pope, cardinals and bishops who make mortifying anti-gay remarks. I'm sorry, Catholic Church, there have got to be more important issues over which to throw down the gauntlet. Many, many, many more important issues.

I've shied away from writing about it, but Bishop David Ricken's election-time letter (or if you see it the way I do, his very thinly veiled attempt to intimidate Catholics into voting for Romney) bothered me no end.  The letter specifically attacks abortion, euthanasia,  embryonic stem cell research, human cloning (human cloning?), and homosexual "marriage," as Ricken described it. More than ever before, his missive really had me second-guessing whether the Catholic Church was the right place for me.

Here is an excerpt from Ricken's letter. "But what does this have to do with the election?  Some candidates and one party have even chosen some of these as their party's or their personal political platform.  To vote for someone in favor of these positions means that you could be morally 'complicit' with these choices which are intrinsically evil. This could put your own soul in jeopardy."

Wow, my soul in jeopardy. Those are some strong words. I thought threats like these belonged to another century. For the life of me, I don't see how political choices can be that black-and-white to anyone.

In short, I struggled mightily. Mark and I discussed our concerns with our parish priest. Through it all, though, we've stuck with our church. I guess I keep coming back to the idea that I'd like to stay and hope I can try to be a part of change in the church from within.  Ultimately, too, it's hard to leave your family.

After that very long prelude, I don't want to write about the new pope. I've seen some good and some discouraging about him, so I'll just hope and pray that he takes the church in a positive direction.

Instead, I want to write about a positive experience we had this Lent. Last week, Mark took Ben and Paul to a special Lenten program for faith formation. At the event, kids and parents were asked to complete a project: "Our Family's Lenten Promise to God." On a poster, kids and parents were asked to choose and record negative activities to fast from and positive ones to feast on for each of the remaining three weeks of Lent.

To Mark's surprise, the kids, especially Ben, really dug in and thought about it. Bright and early the next morning, Paul told me I needed to add my fasting and feasting goals to the poster, so naturally I completed my assignment posthaste. Week 1 - fast from negativity, feast on acts of kindness. Week 2 - fast from iPad (well dramatically cut back, anyway), feast on mindfulness and reflection. Week 3 - fast from judging others, feast on counting my blessings.

It's not like this has been a magic tool for creating harmony in our house, but the poster is on our fridge, and we're using it to try to keep one another on track. "Ben, are you fasting from arguing?" "Paul, remember what you said about pouting and complaining?"

I must say, this activity has been good for me. For me, Lent is a time to look closely at myself, but it's easy to grow complacent with my goals. This has gotten me more focused, and I'm checking myself on bad habits more often.

Something tells me my relationship with church will remain stuck at "it's complicated." While, I work through it all, I'm going to hold on to all the positives I can find.

A complaining sort of day

Today was one of those days that started out bad and quickly progressed to worse. It was the kind of day that makes you feels so defeated that all you want to do is crawl back into bed for the next 12 hours but instead your schedule is unusually full.

It started at 6:40 a.m., minutes after I'd sauntered out of bed. The phone rang, and I just knew it would be a parent of one of Gus's classmates asking me to emergency sub at his co-op preschool. Mark was standing there as I said, "No, no, no! I don't want to work today!"

"Just let me answer it and tell them you're not available," he said.

Really, Mark should know better. That's not how I roll. I'm a yes woman. I want to be the one people can count on. Really, I volunteered to be an emergency working parent, and I don't mind it. I'm one of the only parents whose child is a youngest child. Most have little ones, and it's nice that I have the flexibility to be able to pinch hit.

And yet. I didn't anticipate how often I'd be getting last-minute calls or how difficult it would be to change my plans with little notice. I had my day planned to the minute, and two and a half hours in Gus's class wasn't in there. Nevertheless, I answered the phone and said I'd do it.

Mere moments after I hung up the phone, Paul approached me. He wanted to know what username and password I'd entered for some app he'd downloaded the previous night. I said I didn't remember. What I really meant was that I'd have to try to enter a couple things before I came up with it. I couldn't even get that out because Paul, in true Paul fashion, went from normal person to screeching lunatic in no time flat.

Paul was hysterical, going on about how he was going to lose all his progress in the game. I told him needed to back off. I was in no mood. Ben was sitting at the table and blurted out, "Why are you yelling at everyone? You're just making everyone sad!"

Truly, I don't know what the "everyone" meant, because I'd only been short with Paul, but whatever. At that point, I lost it and stomped off, sputtering that all I do is care for them, and still I get dumped on.

Ben can choose the most inopportune times to decide he's going to stick up for his brother. What Ben said made me angry, but more than anything, it hurt. I felt attacked, and suddenly I'd hit my limit of acting as the repository for all the boys' frustrations. In the car on the way to school, I fully morphed into my mother, using the exact words she used to utter to my brothers and me. "You push and you push and you push me!"

The day didn't get much better from there. Gus was wound up at school. At one point, he got overzealous and whipped a toy over his head, inadvertently hitting another boy in the chin and leaving an abrasion. I was mortified.

After working in Gus's class, I zoomed to the grocery store for the shopping trip I had to postpone because of the volunteering. I put away all of the perishables, leaving everything else littering the countertops. I inhaled a quick lunch before going to volunteer in Paul's class, where the kids today were extraordinarily hyper and unfocused.

I'm home now, unwinding after volunteering one more time today - for an open house at Gus's school. Yes, I'm seeing my difficulties aren't as great as they seemed earlier today. First-world problems, as they say.

Parenting truly can feel like a thankless job. If my kids are like me, they won't fully appreciate us until they're adults - most likely when they have kids of their own.

Whatever tomorrow brings, I want to be calmer for my kids. I loathe being the mom who yells. I want to be a model of staying cool even when life gets frustrating.  I try so hard, I really do. Then all of a sudden a day like today blindsides me, and I act, well, human, I guess.

 

Sometimes I feel like I'm always striving to be the mom I want to be, and I'll never reach that goal. I'm holding out hope that I'm still evolving and that one day I'll be able to handle whatever life throws at me.