Spring is on its way!/Life lessons in relationship

The crocuses have been carpeting the neighbors' back yard for about a week. The ground is thawing (after another late snow last Wednesday!), and we'll be planting peas in the next couple of days. And this morning I heard the geese honking as I lay cuddling with Samuel.

I do so appreciate my affectionate teenagers! I had morning cuddles with both twins this morning. Miriam came in for the first time since we cleaned her room the weekend before last. I've really missed her. As much as I understand her frustration and anger, and our need to be parents, I really felt hurt when she refused hugs. (It's her right, and we have never pushed our kids to be affectionate when they don't want to.)

We did have one really funny story come out of her "punishing silence", and she knows I claim the right to publish it, so here goes. . . Thursday night Tori was giving one of her friends a ride home to our neighborhood, and her car died in the turnaround on the highway just outside the entrance to our neighborhood. Naturally enough, she called for help. Knowing James had work early the next morning, and not wanting to disturb him at 10:45 PM, when Miriam answered the phone, Tori asked her to wake me. Miriam's response? "Can I get James instead? I'm not speaking to Mom." Everyone (except Miriam for some reason) has gotten a good laugh out of this.

Fourteen can be a miserable time to be a girl! Fortunately, I have seventeen and nineteen-year-old daughters to remind me that we CAN all live through it!

A visiting baby in Meeting for Worship this week, along with wonderful times "babysitting" my nieces and nephews in recent weeks, contrasted with adventures in parenting teens and conversations with the ones who have flown the nest, have made me really appreciate how quickly time passes and the kids pass through the phases of life. They all have so much to learn and teach!

Last Wednesday I spent the day with Aria and Evan, my brother Rob's children, while he and Lisa were educating our legislators about Tuberous Sclerosis. It's wonderful to be able to enjoy the results of their loving parenting. The kids are so happy, loving, enthusiastic, creative, and intelligent! I got sleepy toddler hugs from Evan when I arrived, and we had a wonderful time together while Aria was at school. He focuses so intently on his trains and construction projects, and then switches gears, and is all about communicating something imaginative. It's clear that he really enjoys the attention his big sister gives him, and learns so much from her.
Aria is a "model child" (a role model for the other children) in an early intervention program at the neighborhood elementary school, and was delighted to introduce me to her friends. She was even more delighted when I started speaking Spanish with one of her classmates. The kids have an Hispanic day care provider who speaks Spanish with them, and Aria had forgotten that I speak Spanish also. She's hoping to be included in the Spanish immersion kindergarten next year. I hope she makes it! Even with the challenge of learning Spanish, the teachers will have their hands full keeping her challenged! At lunchtime we had an intense conversation about numbers and math, because Aria was looking for a number word that I wasn't getting "right"! (You have to understand, twenty plus twenty equals forty, which is a new word for multiple tens. Therefore, by Aria's reasoning, there should also be new words when you add multiple hundreds, and I wasn't giving her that word!)
It really is impressive, especially with my background in language and early childhood education, to see how much those two kids have integrated! Evan's language skills, and synthesis of grammatical rules, are so far beyond his age level expectations that I was pulled up short by his age-appropriate (not quite 3 1/2 years old) speech patterns (missed sounds in words, for example). And his numerical sense is impressive also. One example-a kindergarten readiness test is the ability to count to twenty by rote, without missing numbers. He not only did that in English, but did most of it in Spanish also! Aria, who actually will be starting kindergarten in five or six months, can count beyond one hundred in English, and has the pattern down in Spanish, but just needs the words for multiples of ten (30, 40, 50, etc). She also sight-read a book I brought with me, WITH EXPRESSION!!! I really am impressed! And I appreciate the opportunity I have to be included in their lives! You're doing a great job with them, Rob & Lisa!

So, back to that idea of lessons to learn & teach. . . I feel like I learn so much about the world, and myself, through my interactions with my kids and other people in general. We each have our own path to walk through this life, and I don't presume to know how others should walk theirs. I do appreciate what I learn to see, by contrasting what I accept as a given with the way other people do things. Kids help so much in this, because their innocent questions, or adamant demands for answers (Aria) open my eyes to so many other possibilities.

Living with teenagers, especially my own, it can be a little harder. (For that matter, I think I may have been too exhausted to fully appreciate & take advantage of the opportunities when my own kids were at that younger stage!) They've now assimilated many of my viewpoints, and I often expect their behavior to match my expectations more than might be realistic, or even appropriate. Their different perspectives are more often couched in "attitude". And, for some reason, the opinions expressed in a huff just don't land as "cute" the way they did at five-years-old. And then I get to have a conversation with Eliza, who is still in Hungary, and appreciate the world through her perspective and experiences. I am so looking forward to traveling through Eastern Europe with her next month!

As I watch my kids with each other, I am really beginning to "get" my mother's joy at watching the relationships my sibs and I have with each other. I love being with the people my children are becoming, and am so glad they appreciate the relationships they have with each other! Like my sibs, they're all individuals, with different perspectives on life, but an abiding love and respect for each other. They're "good people", and I'm glad they're my people!

Parenting Teens, Part 2

Or, "How did I get myself into this????"

This just happens to be my hundredth post. . .yippee!

Now for our story. . .
So, the crock pot was somehow missed when Miriam did dishes last week. She assured me she'd get that done when she washed the dishes she used to bake a cake for her Young Women's activity Wednesday night-after she got home that evening. They were still there Thursday morning, but eye contact and a look in that direction earned an "Oops!" and she got right to it. I came back down to the kitchen after she left for school to find the crock pot in the drainer tray, but the lid and baking dishes still unwashed.

Could someone please explain to me how washing the crock pot would NOT include washing the lid??? Have I mentioned that fourteen-year-old brains work differently than more "experienced" brains do?

Being their birthday, I chose to consider that she had fulfilled the letter of the request, and only deferred the other dishes out of consideration for her sister who was sleeping on the futon nearby. We were going out to dinner, so there was a bit of slack in letting Miriam figure out when she'd finish the dishes that were piling up around the sink where the baking dishes awaited her attention. Friday morning James pointed out that the unwashed dishes were now at the point that he couldn't work in the kitchen, and she promised to do them when she got home from school. But then the weather was sooooo nice, and she just had to get out for a walk with her best friend Kimmy. Except that Mean Mom said the dishes had to be done first. I even offered to help her with the other if she'd like, but she refused to do the others because they weren't "her" dishes.

In the conversation that ensued, I heard "I don't know why you guys keep saying I choose to forget. I don't CHOOSE to forget. I just forget." "Consequences won't teach me to remember. Dad's tried that too, and it doesn't work for him either. You can't make me remember!" (Seems she's consistent between the households. . .) I'm not quite sure how the conversation flowed, but somehow I chose to connect us clearing out her room as a consequence of her choosing not to finish the dishes before she left. She even had extra time to consider that option, as her stepmother agreed to leave her here when she picked up Samuel, so that we could show a united front on the need to complete chores. We'll be making up that time on Tuesday evening, and won't do it again, since it "can't be reciprocal"-or her dad doesn't see a way that it could. No big deal since it didn't work anyway.

James and I spent a dozen or more hours working together this weekend-throwing out obvious trash, recycling papers from third-fifth grades and scraps of receipts, etc. We filled two contractor bags with clothes that needed washed, and twelve boxes with books. I washed the shelf and walls in the closet, and wiped out the drawers in her emptied dresser, so those spaces would be clean and ready to accept the limited wardrobe she was allowed to select when she got home last night. (10 each: panties, bras/camisoles, tops, bottoms-pants or skirts, accessories; 2 swimsuits, 2 dresses, 4 sweaters/sweatshirts, her PE uniform, a jacket and a heavy coat) We bought her some storage containers for her make-up and other "girly" things, art supplies, mementos, and a hanging shoe holder. She'll keep a few other essentials/comfort items (lamp, radio, cuddle dog, and such), and can earn back 10 items every two weeks that she keeps what she has in order. What isn't kept in order goes away. (The Navy term is "Gear Adrift"=gear gone.)

I know she can't appreciate it right now, or maybe ever, but there was no way she could have put that room in any resemblance of order with all that she had before. We threw away little that didn't seem obviously trash (except for stashes of candy that aren't allowed to be stored in bedrooms-especially back corners! We do live in a wooded area and can have small furry visitors, whom we do NOT want to encourage to stay). It would have been much easier, and was very tempting after working for more than ten hours in two days and still having a good section of the room remaining! I'm not heartless. I understand that having "her" space invaded like this is traumatic for an adolescent. She was given instructions to get things in order, and deep/Spring cleaning was due to be completed this month. We just moved it up a bit, and she did have a half-hour task that would have postponed this project until her spring holiday from school.

The challenge ("You can't teach me anything with consequences!") accelerated the schedule, but we've been having concerns about Miriam's "perceptual challenges"-not noticing things out of place/that need doing.
There could be actual physical challenges, possibly related to the effects of limited oxygen to the brain when she had an upper GI bleed as a toddler. She definitely has "clutter-genes" from both sides of her family. I don't think she has a single naturally-neat grandparent! Maybe one or two uncles/aunts out of nine? And then there's the link between creativity and a degree of disorder in the physical environment. All readily available to be used as excuses, or just for understanding.

Nevertheless, life needs coping strategies to get around this challenge area. . . And it's our job as her parents to help her learn them. I didn't have time, energy, or support (Thanks, James!) to be able to tackle a project like this for the older girls when they were this age. (That whole single-parenting, grad school, working full-time, and dealing with Lyme disease thing. . .) I'm sorry about that. I can give Miriam an experience that she CAN live without so many things. I can give her practice in selecting what is meaningful to her.

And oh yes, apparently the reason Miriam didn't get her week-long math project finished was that every time she started to work on it, we "told (her) to do the dishes". But she was "not having any trouble managing the way it was!"


James and I have been moving through the whole house clearing clutter, simplifying, and practicing maintaining a higher state of overall order. The twins had been informed that we would be moving into their rooms if they couldn't bring things up to (our) reasonable standard on their own.

This hasn't been an easy weekend, and I know Miriam is going to let me know how she feels about it for quite some time. I treasure the close, warm relationships I have with my children, and it hurts that she is hurting and shutting me out (but I absolutely understand it, and love her anyway!). Sometimes parenting can be the hardest job in the world. And my job's to prepare her for success as an adult, not to be her best friend. There are just plain going to be times when I fit the "worst enemy" category more closely that the friend one. I'll just hold on to the experience I've had with the older girls coming back to our connection.

BTW-"Spring is sprung,
The grass is riz,
I see my little crocus-iz!" since Tuesday. Snowdrops are up also and the combination of deep violet crocuses and the white snow drops is gorgeous!