The mind is a fascinating thing, is it not? I've been trying to figure out how I've gone from feeling markedly inadequate to the most calm and in control for a long, long time indeed, a real sense of being grounded, centred -- pick your metaphor/cliche.
I notice almost month by month how my boys are growing up and getting on with their own interests and interactions with less intervention from me; we all needed to get to this point so badly. Nevertheless, forf a couple of weeks my habitual 2 days to myself were unavailable, and I became very tired. In fact, I slept a lot, even for me. There were some ongoing health issues, the usual disrupted nights with kids, but I was remarkably unrefreshed by the extra rest.
Is it a gender thing, or is it specifically me, that my reaction to this was to beat myself up? To find myself hopelessly unable to cope with the day-to-day world and normal wear and tear? That's how I was by the time I took both boys to a birthday party in a play centre not long ago. A play centre; i.e., a place where kids jostle, knock, wrestle and occasionally shove each other, but where the action is generally good-humoured. I hit a low as I watched P gallop like a big puppy towards any group of kids he liked the look of; he's so open, so warm, it's so hard to see the older kids pause with unfriendly expressions and turn their backs. But even worse was watching S turn red with rage at every friendly attempt to play -- a ball thrown in his direction, a bump on the bouncing castle, a hand to his arm or shoulder ... I felt that some part of me was going into overload. After what felt like an eternity of boy-monitoring, I walked away and sat down. It was too much, watching this inexplicable fury at a birthday party.
As it happened, after food, all the kids' mood changed. Things got calmer, and S got friendlier. A welcome surprise.
The next day I finally woke up and felt awake. It was the last day of the school holidays, and I was to spend most of it alone with the boys as Q was visiting his father. I don't know why, but I sat P down and had a talk to him about his diet. I found pictures of food with protein, and I brought out small quantities of things he could choose from. He ran away, he howled, he blocked his ears, he sobbed. I admit that by the end my calm was exhausted and I felt angry and resentful at my failure to get him to eat, but I went shopping later and brought back a few other options, this time with success. Very small, but success nevertheless.
In a variety of ways since I woke up that morning, I have felt more in charge again. I don't quite know what has shifted; whether it is the simple overcoming of exhaustion (including remembering to take my iron supplements!), or hitting the bottom of that parenting spiral where I had to walk away from my own helplessness, or whether the boys' behaviour has shifted again in some fundamental way that I have yet to identify, giving me more much-needed mental space. Whatever it is, more please!
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