Posted in family life

learning to surf your emotional waves

Posted on by kristinabean

Rondel is a little boy with huge emotions (he takes after me in that way…). Seeing Limerick moving towards or touching one of “his” toys (meaning, any that he has used in the last week or so or assigned a personality to, especially a car) can send him into instant motion, screaming and pulling Limerick away. Not having the right tool on hand to accomplish something – like his preferred type of towel for wiping his eyes or nose – or one of us not being able to do something he wants us to do, like reach a toy from the backseat while driving or pull a random object out of a place where it is stuck, can render him completely mentally immobilized, unable to proceed, to let go, or to accept another option. And he tends to express that feeling of being helpless and stuck by yelling rather forcefully at whoever is near and trying to help…

There is the flip side of his silliness, his excitement over everyday joys (he literally ran around the room in circles glowing when he saw my brother the other day), his overflowing affection for the people he loves, and the happy stories he creates – but none of that negates the fact that he’ll need to learn how to cope with and appropriately express his more negative emotions as he grows.

One thing that’s been helping him lately is to remove him from the situation (which he hates) and sit with him until the worst of the emotion passes by, and then talk about what happened, what ideas we can try next time, and what we can do to amend or move on right then. So in the instances with Limerick, we’ll discuss what exactly made Rondel upset, and I’ll try to get him to come up with different ways he could approach the situation (like asking Limerick nicely to play with a different toy, or to let Rondel have a turn, or offering him something else in trade) and suggest some if he can’t think of any, and then I’ll let him know what I would like him to do to make things right with Limerick (usually saying sorry). As we have done this more, I’ve seen Rondel attempting to implement those ideas in the moment, and I’ve seen his understanding of the concept of an apology grow. I know a lot of people argue that you shouldn’t make a child say sorry – but I want him to learn and practice the habits of courteous behavior, and one of the most important of those behaviors is apologizing. It also gives him something he can do to fill the breach made by screaming and hitting and angry feelings, and that is empowering.

However, I’ve been thinking it would be nice to have an alternative option for times when I can’t take him away for one-on-one time! I can’t always leave what I’m doing, or leave Limerick, and it is hard for him to just be sent away on his own. So I’m thinking of making a “calm-down corner” for him to go to (either on my direction or of his own choosing) when he is feeling angry, exhausted, overwhelmed, anxious, sad, or just in need of some space and quiet time. One of my coworkers recently gifted us a massive pillow puppy that I am planning to put there, under a little hanging canopy to clearly set the space aside from the rest of the boys’ bedroom. Then there will be a small basket of toys that are just for the calm-down space: exercise balls to squeeze, bottles with water and glitter or other objects in them that can be shaken, a few soft toys to hug, and maybe a book or two. I talked with Rondel about the idea and he thought it was a good one – so we’ll see how it goes! I’m hoping to start making the canopy and toy basket this afternoon after work.

What are some of your techniques for helping your intense children learn to manage their emotions? I want to give him as many tools as I possibly can, so he’s able to stay on top of those waves instead of letting them pull him under the water.

 

Posted in musings

doctors, thyroids, depression, and pregnancy

Posted on by kristinabean

My favorite doctor ever is my endocrinologist. She’s actually a physician’s assistant, but to me it’s pretty much the same thing. I think she’s the only doctor I really enjoy talking to and trust unreservedly – and it kind of makes sense, considering I’ve been seeing her for seven years and through two pregnancies. And when you’re pregnant with a thyroid condition, you really get to see your endocrinologist a lot! I am in there every 4-6 weeks through the whole pregnancy, as changing weight and hormones affect the dosage of thyroid hormone I need, so Marie and I have developed a fairly good doctor-patient relationship 🙂 She sees my lab results come in and knows who I am without having to look up the chart to remind herself; I see her and know that I’m going to get my questions answered and my concerns addressed in a friendly, competent way. (I am hoping to eventually find an ob that I trust in the same way!)

Yesterday I went in for my first appointment of this pregnancy with a host of concerns that I thought might be related to my thyroid condition: my increased fatigue (although it’s always difficult to tell how much is first trimester tiredness and how much is thyroid fatigue), my chills, my decreased appetite, and my increased moodiness and depression. They’re all part of the vaguely non-specific cloud of thyroid symptoms that could just as easily be caused by the pregnancy itself, or life stress, or something entirely random. I was hoping they were thyroid-related because then she could just increase my dosage and they would get better! But unfortunately my lab results looked great – they were even solidly within the much tighter range Marie likes to target during pregnancy, and at a place where I knew that I wouldn’t be having thyroid-related symptoms if I were not pregnant (after seven years of monitoring your TSH levels, you start to know where your body feels best, and that’s honestly pretty much where my labs were). Because she is an awesome doctor who considers her patient’s concerns as well as just the lab numbers, however, she did increase my dosage slightly in hopes that it will help; as it will need to increase anyway when I start gaining weight, there isn’t much risk of going too far and triggering hyperthyroidism, which has it’s own issues for me and the baby.

What it means for me practically, though, is that I’m going to have to get intentional about things like exercise, sleep, and spiritual quiet time, since I can’t blame my mood issues (which have always stabilized during pregnancy in the past) on low thyroid hormones. It’s not easy to work those things in when I’m exhausted and down, but it’s going to be important for my physical stamina later in pregnancy as well as my mental well-being now, so I need to come up with a routine and make it habitual. Sigh. It’s hard to get up and do something I don’t really want to do when I don’t even have the energy and willpower to do things I enjoy and want to do, like writing here or reading a good book, both of which have fallen off since the pregnancy hormones started wreaking havoc on me.

Have any of you dealt with this general fog and malaise during pregnancy? How do you cope with it best?

 

Posted in family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – memorial day weekend

Posted on by kristinabean

We packed a lot of activities into one weekend!

Saturday was our fifth anniversary – but my sister’s husband’s brother (who is also a friend of ours) was getting married that evening, so we dropped the boys off at my parents’ house Friday night for a sleepover so we could celebrate a little early. The next morning I woke up early, being somewhat incapable of sleeping past 6am, and made cinnamon rolls for an anniversary surprise 🙂 He ate six of them over the course of the day, so I think they were a success 🙂 and I ate the other six between that day and the next, shh! So that’s a bit of {happy} and {real}:

I didn’t take any pictures at the wedding, in part because the cameras honestly tend to detract from the ceremony in my opinion, but also because corralling two toddlers with no practice in sitting still through long events took both my hands, all my skill, and most of my patience. Fortunately they had a foyer area where we could watch the wedding without any of our noise disrupting the event! My sister, who was a bridesmaid, said she couldn’t hear anything; the wedding planner, who kept darting in and out of the foyer, seemed to think otherwise by the looks of exasperation and disapproval she kept shooting our way.

And in general, despite the fact that it was an exceptionally nice wedding and reception, and was set up in a very family-friendly way (as I had anticipated, knowing the couple), the attitude of the other guests made it really hard for me to enjoy it. Maybe all those older women were childless, or had forgotten what it was like to have young kids – but I got a larger dose of judgmental glances at that reception than I have ever gotten before. If you really want to make someone feel uncomfortable enough to leave, just keep shooting nasty looks at them… but if you want to be courteous, come over and express whatever’s bothering you and maybe it can be addressed. It didn’t help that our kids were the youngest there. We had a lot of young children at our wedding and reception, and I would have loved to have more – it is weird to me to celebrate marriage, the covenant that leads to new life, in a child-exclusive way – but there were only a few here, and I think the others skipped the ceremony and came late. Sigh. I don’t think I want to attempt that again; my social anxiety is bad enough without the blatant disapproval of others pushing it home.

Sunday was another story altogether, though. Since my sister and her husband were in town for the wedding, we had a family party at my parents’ house, including my uncle, his sons, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend’s daughters, whom I hadn’t met before. Again, I didn’t take many pictures, but it was mainly because I was too busy swimming and eating to think about it! It was good to be with family, to relax, to be free to be ourselves and let the kids be themselves, and to remember the love of family which matters more than the passing judgments of strangers.

I did get a few shots of my husband and Rondel swimming together, while Limerick was napping! The boys absolutely love the pool and spent hours in it throughout the day, with whoever they could persuade to accompany them.

On Memorial Day itself, we stayed at home and recovered from the weekend. I was intending to clean but after doing three loads of laundry, washing a couple batches of dishes, and vacuuming the floors, I was pretty much exhausted. I keep forgetting how much less stamina I have in the first trimester! The floors were in desperate need of vacuuming, though, so I’m glad I at least got that done. Next in line? The bathrooms. (Always the bathrooms… I hate cleaning the bathrooms, so they get put off, and then they get horrible, and then I want to do them even less, but then I finally do them and it is such a weight off my shoulders.) I had found a good routine for housecleaning over the spring semester, but my schedule has completely changed again and I have two fewer mornings at home, which makes cleaning more difficult as the boys are more tired and needy in the afternoon and dinner prep needs to be done. I’m sure I’ll figure something out before the schedule changes again, though!

Head over to Like Mother, Like Daughter for the link-up today! There will probably be a lot more beauty and happiness there than in this rather rambling and complaining post of mine – but I am glad and thankful for the special times we’ve had thrown in with the challenging ones this weekend.

Posted in family life

marriage and anniversaries and slogging through the hard times

Posted on by kristinabean

I wasn’t able to write this up and post it on our anniversary this past Saturday (I’m blaming the pregnancy fatigue), but I did want to post it before the days slipped too far away!

Saturday was our fifth anniversary – the first real “milestone” anniversary we’ve reached together – and it made me think about all that has already happened in our marriage, and where we are now. We’ve packed a lot of things into those five years, between my husband’s school, my job, finding and buying our first home, and having two kids (with another one on the way)! There hasn’t been much time to get used to things being a certain way before they change again; even though we’ve had the same basic setup now for over a year (two kids, classes for my husband, and 30 hours/week of work for me), the exact schedule changes every semester, and we’re forced to rethink childcare and daily routines for both ourselves and the boys. I’m usually up early every morning to work (I try to start at 6:30am), and my husband is usually up late every night doing homework (often not coming to bed until midnight) – so lately, at least, our time together has been limited, sporadic, and fleeting. It’s the kind of environment that breeds misunderstandings and resentment, with both spouses feeling tired and overwhelmed, isolated and worn. I described it to a close friend as feeling as though we have no margin, as though we are using every resource and drop of energy we have just to keep things going.

And yet, somehow, we’ve kept our trust and love for each other strong. Both of us have striven to prioritize family time whenever possible, and to pick up the everyday tasks of cleaning and organizing as we have time and energy (although, I have to confess, my husband is probably more sacrificial of his time and energy in those things than I am…). For the most part, we understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and can support each other through those things; especially when we see each other at the end of our rope, we try to pick up the burden to let the other get rest. My husband is especially generous with his time when he sees that I am getting exhausted, which is something I am incredibly grateful for! My personality tends toward suspicion and jealousy, but instead of letting my husband’s late-night study sessions give rise to paranoid fears in my head, I remind myself of the character and heart I know him to possess, that he has proven to me time and time again. In short, his love acted out in the simple tasks of everyday life gives me assurance in the times when we can’t profess and renew that love in deep or romantic ways, and I hope mine does the same for him.

I hope there will be a time when life isn’t pulling us in quite so many different directions, when it will be easier to create consistent routines that build in space for family time and couple time to strengthen those most intimate relationships – but I am sure that the trust and love developed now, if we keep striving towards that end through the difficulties of it, will be a blessing for us no matter what happens.

Happy anniversary, wonderful! There is no one else I’d rather live life with than you.

Posted in musings

peanuts

Posted on by kristinabean

When I was in elementary school, I loved peanuts. Especially the kind roasted still in the shell, papery and crumbly at first, then rich and buttery on the inside.

My grandma used to love peanuts too, and every time she came to town we would buy a bag or two to set out on the kitchen counter. I remember what a treat it was to stand around the counter with her and whoever else was around (my mom working in the kitchen, perhaps, or my dad sharing in the snack), crushing the shells and slipping out the brown nuts, accumulating a pile of dusty debris, the slow process of unshelling the perfect companion to conversation.

She must have held those moments dear as well, because every summer when I would go away for summer camp she would send me a care package with a bag of peanuts. Every summer, every time, without fail. To get a care package to a week-long summer camp on the other side of the country reasonably early in the camp requires much forethought, but she never let me down: I could always count on her peanuts and Maria cookies.

We don’t eat peanuts much together anymore, and haven’t for years. I had forgotten all about it until Rondel discovered roasted peanuts this week, actually. Her diverticulitis makes it much less enjoyable for her! But I’m glad I thought of it again, that I have those simple rituals of our relationship to remember. Because things don’t have to be complicated or extravagant to be important, and love colors even the most mundane things with beauty and value.

Posted in family life

the importance of words

Posted on by kristinabean

Everyone always says that little kids pick up on everything going on around them, and understand far more of what they hear than you might expect – but it’s still hard to really believe it and act on it until you see evidence of it with your own kids! They just seem so deep into their own world that you don’t expect them to be paying attention to what you’re saying to another adult…

Last night, as we were reading our bedtime books, Rondel said somewhat sadly, “You don’t sleep very well.” (He refers to himself in the second person – I brought it up with the pediatrician and she thought it was hilarious and not something to worry about, which was reassuring.) I’m guessing he had heard my husband talking about how our kids in general aren’t great sleepers, because Limerick has lately been having some sleep struggles reminiscent of Rondel’s younger days, and taken it personally, and become concerned about it.

But the thing is, Rondel has been sleeping amazingly well for the past month or so, ever since we settled into a consistent routine – going to sleep without tears and protests, sleeping through the night, and waking up at a reasonable time (you might call it an ungodly early hour, but it’s when I have to get up for work anyway). He doesn’t like going to bed, but what kid does?

So I told him exactly that: that even though he doesn’t like going to sleep and it can be hard for him to calm down after a busy day, he has been sleeping really well. I told him how proud I was of him for getting into bed with a good attitude every night, and doing something that was hard for him, and sleeping so well all through the night. And he just lit up with this shy little smile, and scrunched up his shoulders, and I gave him a big hug for being my sweet and wonderful boy, just the way he is 🙂

Then I resolved to be more careful about what I say about the boys in front of them!

Posted in family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – a big announcement!

Posted on by kristinabean

Well, the boys and I managed to finish our teaser project from last week, and while it didn’t turn out quite as nicely as my Pinterest-addled mind envisioned, I’m still pretty happy about it 🙂

{pretty}

IMG_4959

{happy}

IMG_4956IMG_4954

The second picture has better smiles, but something about the first picture just seems fitting for two boys expecting a new sibling! Rondel’s somewhat suspicious face says, are you sure this is such a good idea? – while Limerick just looks slightly in shock! So I can never decide which one I like better…

{funny}

Of course, most of our takes ended up along these lines:

IMG_4952
L: Mom! It fell off again!
Me: Stop pulling it off then!

It would have been cute as well to have me holding the number 3, but that would have required another photographer so it wasn’t logistically going to happen this week. Another pair of adult hands would have simplified the process greatly though! No sooner would I position the kids and run back to the camera than they would start scooting around or becoming distracted by everything around them. I just considered myself fortunate that they were mostly happy throughout the proceedings 🙂

{real}

They were much happier when I let them run wild on the little walls and hills and explore the number boards in their own way! I have no clue how professional photographers get toddlers to look so good in posed pictures.

So… the details? Our new little one will be arriving sometime around Christmas, and we are so excited to welcome him or her into our family. I’ve been significantly moodier and queasier with this pregnancy so I have my suspicions that it may be a girl, but we’ll have to just wait and see – it could be that I’m just out of shape so my body is protesting more 🙂

I am beyond excited to be able to walk through this Advent season with Mary, growing heavy with child, pondering the mystery of the Incarnation as the mystery of new life blossoms within me (and probably aching for the pregnancy to be over like she must have been at the end as well!). It just seems like it will be a special way to experience Advent and Christmas, a new way to see the wonder and the gift of the baby Jesus. Hopefully I will be able to hold to that instead of letting stress and busyness run my days.

Head on over to the link-up at Like Mother, Like Daughter to share in each other’s everyday joys and struggles!

Posted in musings

“closed-hand” issues and confusing terms – a quibble with my pastor

Posted on by kristinabean

In church on Sunday our pastor was distinguishing between what he called “closed-hand” issues (what C.S. Lewis might have termed Mere Christianity, the essential doctrines of the faith) and “open-hand” issues (points that aren’t clearly taught in Scripture and about which Christians are free to disagree, like the details of the end times or evolution). I was nodding along with him, as this is familiar territory for me, expecting him to take it in a truly ecumenical Lewisian fashion, when he suddenly burst out sola scriptura as a core, essential, inarguable tenet of the faith.

Excuse me?

I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that he simply meant to say that Scripture is inerrant and authoritative, the primary guide for our faith, because I don’t think any Christian group through the millennia of the Church would disagree. But what he actually said was that Scripture is the sole authority for the faith and for Christian living – and that is not Biblically taught and was not held by the Church for the majority of her existence. Logically, this makes sense. The Bible can interpreted in a million ways, some of them drastically different and leading towards widely varied ends, so as a sole authority it doesn’t seem to be very well-suited for keeping either orthodoxy or orthopraxy intact. There has to be some way to determine which interpretations are valid and which are heretical, and since Jesus is no longer living on earth to deliver those kind of judgments, it would make sense for the authorities within the Church, led by the Holy Spirit, to have that kind of authority.

If the Church isn’t led by the Holy Spirit, than to trust her authority and direction on the interpretation of Scripture would obviously be a dicey matter, no different than turning to any random person on the street and following their opinion. But we do see in the Bible Jesus promising to send the Holy Spirit to remind the apostles of everything He taught; we see the Spirit coming down with power and transforming the apostles and other believers; we see the early church following the decisions of the apostles as to which laws and traditions to live by. Was that just because they didn’t have a written Bible yet? Did all those councils and traditions and oral decisions become unnecessary once the Bible was assembled? Considering the number of heresies and divisions that have arisen in the 16 centuries since then, I don’t think so. We still need a person, or people, led by God, to clear up arguments and prevent error from creeping in to our understanding of the inerrant Word.

So please be more clear, pastor, about your terms and definitions. Please try not to exclude the vast majority of Christians throughout time and space from your tight definition of the “closed-hand” issues one must believe to be truly Christian by narrowing down the broad historically-accepted truth into your Protestant doctrine, which may or may not be true (I’d love to hear your arguments for it!) but which is most definitely not universally believed by even the great Christians of the past.

Posted in family life

Rondel and role play

Posted on by kristinabean

Rondel decided a few days ago that we are all different characters from Pixar’s Cars movie, and assigned us specific roles.

He, of course, is Lightning McQueen. Sometimes he will run through the house revving his engine, screeching his brakes, or crashing into things…

Limerick is Red the fire truck, at least in Rondel’s head – he doesn’t really get it.

My husband is Sally, I am Doc Hudson, and Rondel’s grandma, grandpa, and uncle are the Sheriff, The King, and Mater respectively.

It’s kind of funny because he won’t refer to us by any other names, and he’ll correct us rather emphatically if we refer to someone in the family by another name.

I was beginning to worry about this kind of imaginative play, wondering if the influence of the movie made his pretend play more rigid and less his own, when I remembered that I did exactly the same thing with the Cinderella movie when I was his age. My pretend play probably had even less complexity than his, since I didn’t have quite so many roles to assign and since I didn’t really ever deviate from the movie’s plot like Rondel will – and it didn’t hurt my creativity in the least. I was still wildly creating my own stories all through childhood (and indeed into adulthood).

So for now I will just enjoy being Doc Hudson and race with my Lightning all through the house!

Posted in family life

rondel the storyteller

Posted on by kristinabean

In the last few weeks Rondel’s imagination has really taken off, along with his storytelling ability, and all throughout each day I am treated to the most creative and hilarious stories about us, his toys, and characters from his favorite books.

At dinner, his broccoli becomes the apple tree from Harold and the Purple Crayon (by Crockett Johnson, 1955 – a book that deserves to be on our next favorite book list post), complete with a fierce dragon guarding it – but fortunately he eats it without waiting for the “apples” to turn red!

When “reading” one of his books, all the other literary figures he’s familiar with make their way into the current book to join the main character in his adventures, so that this afternoon If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (Laura Numeroff, 1985) became Tom and Pippo Eat Cookies and Chips with a Mouse, borrowing the delightful Tom and Pippo from Helen Oxenbury’s series and telling me on every page what they were doing with that incorrigible mouse.

His race cars crash and blow their tires and race like he’s seen in Pixar’s Cars movie, but they also take time to snuggle and nurse, and some special ones (his description) have extra seats to hold “big boys” and babies, along with the mommies and daddies needed to take care of them. Some of the race cars themselves are baby cars, who need extra help to do various stunts, while the big boy cars can do pretty much everything 😛

And the best part is the way he tells the stories! He typically starts off very serious and thoughtful, creating the scenario and carefully describing it – but as he picks up steam, he gets faster and faster and more and more ridiculous, until at the end we are both laughing hysterically together at the utterly nonsensical conclusion he’s reached. This is the creativity I’ve always assumed young children have, and which I’ve been waiting to see in my own kids, not being exactly sure at which age to expect it, and it is amazingly fun to watch it develop! I hope he is able to cultivate this ability to tell stories as he gets older, because one of my favorite childhood memories was listening to my dad tell stories (real and made-up) at the dinner table each night, and as I very painfully lack said talent myself it would be the next best thing to experience it again in this next generation.