Something Good

Every few days, I review my list of goals for May.  I go through and highlight stuff or cross it off or whatever.  Some of the various things on there had to happen in stages, so I would mark off whichever action steps were done but not the overall goal.  

When I went to check the list this morning, I found that there is only one area that's not completely marked off.  I had on there that by May 25th I would have updated my invoicing system, moved all the information for 2012 into it and created a new spreadsheet to keep track of expenses.  

Strike that.  I actually had that I would recreate a new spreadsheet for invoices and expenses, in addition to creating pretty new invoices to send to clients and a system for keeping better track of everything.  I actually did all of that.  

Then I realized that the system I was putting together would probably be more work than it was worth and had my husband install some invoicing software.  That meant that I had to put a whole new set of actions onto my list; and as of today, they're not quite done.  I have three days to learn and update that invoicing system and log my expenses for so far in 2012.  Can I do it?

Honestly, I'm not sure.  And I'm not sure that I'm going to beat myself up about it if I don't reach that goal.  You know why?  Because I have kicked ass at every single other thing, and I have taken on a significant extra load of work this month.  I have eight days to finish up the work projects on my plate, and I don't have a babysitter anymore, which means I have to be very creative with my time.

Plus, I really did finish the things I originally had on my list, right?

A couple of weeks ago, I was writing about how so many of the things I was getting off of my to-do list were actually way easier to accomplish than I thought they would be (I Will Happily Experience This Lesson Over and Over Again).  I also said that I would post about something I did that was just as hard as or even harder than I expected.  

It's a silly little thing, but The Big List is full of all kinds of things.  In this case, it was a little arty idea that I had gotten from Pinterest months before.  (You're welcome to follow me here: http://pinterest.com/dornaloone/). 
Using Pinterest has been an awesome experience for me.  As I wander around the web, I am able to easily save the things I want to revisit later.  Since I do lots of crafts with the girls (and write a craft blog), I love to pin craft ideas to draw from when I need inspiration later.  I have four different boards that are devoted just to crafts, and they are quite prevalent on other boards such as "art," "Wizard of Oz," "party ideas," etc.

Some people have a problem with Pinterest because it makes them feel inadequate.  They see all these beautiful things that other people are doing and then berate themselves for not doing the same.  Or they pin lots of stuff with the best of intentions but then don't actually follow through on doing any of them.  The post "Pin This" from Scary Mommy sort of sums it up.

I'll admit that there are times when I pin something thinking "Yes, I'm totally going to do that this weekend!" and then never get around to it.  On the other hand, I actually do create a lot of the things or use them for generating ideas or whatever; so I don't really beat myself up too much.  There's one project, though, that I pinned a really long time ago that I wanted to do and just kept not getting around to for various reasons.

I decided to put it on my list for May, and I actually got it done really early in the month.  It was this cute little picture that I wanted to paint on the wall, based on this decal.  I thought it would be adorable on the baseboard molding in the kitchen.

A couple of problems:

• I'm a terrible painter
• I have two small children "helping"

I decided to just go for it anyway, and hit the craft store for a $0.59 bottle of black craft paint.  I won't go into all the steps, as I actually do plan to use this for Craft Jr., but I will share that it took me TWO DAYS to complete.  I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I have a shaky hand.  These two things mean that it takes two days to get fairly straight lines.  *sigh*  And in the end, I don't think mine is nearly as cute as the one it was based upon.  

But, I did it.  I don't ever have to look at the molding in there again and say, "Geez, I really should get around to that project."  I don't have to come across the decal on my Pinterest board and think, "Geez, I really should get around to that project."  I don't have to keep it on a mental checklist that could easily be titled "Geez, I really should get around to those projects."

Plus, I do think it's kind of adorable...



I also had a pretty adorable assistant who may have been a bit astonished that she was allowed to paint on the wall...

A part of my focus for this month has been “motivation.”  In fact, I figured I’d have motivation-related goals every month, and this time around it was to increase my motivation through the use of hypnosis.

(In my mind, I’m picturing a scene from a television show where the needle just scratched across the record as everyone in the room came to a screeching halt and started murmuring things like, “Hypnosis?  Did she just say hypnosis?”)

Yeah, I did.  I happen to be quite a fan of the stuff, actually.  Several years ago I worked at a hypnosis center, and I learned a lot about it.  One of the biggest questions I got then (and still get now when people know I worked there) is “Does it really work?”

Here’s the answer that I can give freely, since my income is in no way dependent upon whether or not someone decides to enroll in a program:

Hypnosis works like gangbusters for some people.  It doesn’t seem to work at all for others.  If you really want to make some changes in your life and have the time and/or money to give hypnosis a try, I absolutely recommend it.  I am not saying that it will definitely work for you, but I am saying that it totally might.

It does work for me.  I’ve had a lot of interesting results from using hypnosis in the past, from distancing myself from really painful situations to actually improving my ability to recall names overnight.  I also used Hypnobirthing during labor with my second baby and came out the other side feeling so calm, confident, and pretty much just “blissed out,” which was about a 180-degree turn from where I was after my first birthing experience.

Using Hypnosis for This Project

I decided that I wanted to use hypnosis as a way to help boost my motivation and drive in order to tackle the Big List.  Additionally, hypnosis provides a really great relaxation tool, and with two kids, a small business, a household, and a pregnancy to manage, relaxation is definitely lacking for me these days.  Not only that, but my anxiety levels in the last couple of months have been very, very high.  I have a stress-induced illness, and it has been attacking me like crazy for a couple of months now, too.

The main things I’ve been trying to focus on with hypnosis this month include:

·         Motivation

·         Reaching goals

·         Rest and relaxation

·         Confidence

My first step was to try out some free apps available for my smartphone.  I’ve been using “Relax Completely” by Darren Marks for quite a while, as well as “Confidence Now” by David Ridgeway.  I’ve enjoyed both of them quite a bit.  I usually plug the headphones into my cell phone and listen to a session as I settle in to go to sleep at night.  Often, I fall asleep before it’s over, but most hypnotherapists will tell you that is totally OK.

The next step was to take the plunge to actually purchase a new app, since I’ve been using these two for quite a while now.  I spent so much time going through everything available and was really overwhelmed by the choices.  Finally, I settled on an app that is actually four sessions by Darren Marks.  It’s called something like “Total Confidence” and includes “Relax Completely,” “Supercharge Your Self Esteem and Self Confidence,” “Be Successful and Achieve Your Goals,” and “Total Focus and Concentration.”

As kind of a humorous aside, I’ll share that even though my original intention was to seek out “motivation” sessions, I ended up kind of shying away from them.  I have done such a great job on my list of May goals, reaching most of them within the first two weeks, that I was a little nervous about allowing myself to become any more “motivated” this month!

I’m quite pleased with my choice.  It cost $4.99 for the entire package, and each one has a few different audio pieces that go with it.  The first time I did one of them (I can’t remember if it was the self confidence one or the goals one), I was really impressed by how I felt afterwards.  Very calm, centered, and…strong, really is the best word I can think of.

There’s Nothing Like the Real Thing

The last part of my hypnosis idea for May was to set up an appointment with a live hypnotist.  I literally had to create a number of action steps to help make this a reality:

·         Find Mary’s number

·         Call Mary

·         Set up appointment time

·         Get babysitter

·         Keep appointment

I’ve known Mary for many years, and she is the person Rob and I did our Hypnobirthing training with, too.  She is one of the coolest, nicest, most accepting people I know (and I know some pretty cool, nice, accepting folks), and it’s always a pleasure just to be in her company, even though we very rarely see each other in person.

Anyway, we set up an appointment a couple of weeks ago, and I was able to meet with her on Thursday for a wonderful one-on-one session.  I’ll be revisiting it a lot next month, as many of my June goals will involve getting ready for the new baby’s birth, and we did some great work on preparing mentally for that, as well as how to further strengthen my relationship with my husband and kids.  Heck, we covered a lot of territory in that session, with a focus on releasing fears and doubts about a variety of things.

It was awesome.  I’ve never had a hypnosis session make me cry before, but when I was visualized Dot and Lucy meeting their new baby sister in the hospital, it was so beautiful that a couple of tears slipped down my cheek.  OH!  And when we were doing this counting down thing to go deeper and deeper within myself, I had this moment at #3 where I felt like when I got that far down inside my core being, I was just full of flowers.  Beautiful, inspiring, colorful blooms bursting out of the deepest parts of my spirit. 

It was really cool.

So, Yeah, I’m Doing That

I’ve been having a great time using the hypnosis.  A kind of funny thing has resulted from it regarding my hair, of all things.  I’ve been trying forever to decide if I’m going to grow it out or cut it back short.  Then I noticed that during the hypnosis sessions where I picture myself as very confident, I seem to always have long hair, pulled back into a braid.  I figure that if this is the person I’m trying to bring about, then why not make the outside match my vision for the inside?

Yesterday I posted about how we've been helping Dot to better deal with her feelings in order to improve her behavior, and I went into a little explanation about what she calls the Calm Down Box.  I also mentioned that we hadn't had need to use it yet, so we didn't know what the outcome would be.

Then I went to Bunco last night, leaving Darling Husband Rob alone with the girlies.  Dot was inconsolable about the fact that I was leaving.  I figured she'd recover in a couple of minutes, as that's how these things usually play out.  But, as I may have mentioned before, she's quite a tenacious little thing, and she would not be deterred from her mood.  I found this out about an hour later when I received the following text:

"Dot has been hysterical since you left.  Put the bead sorting in front of her and immediate effect.  Calm and intelligible again.  Wow."

Wow, is right!  She's mentioned it to me a couple of times today, and when I asked her how it made her feel she said "good."  It made us feel pretty darn good, too!

Those of you who are playing along at home know that one of the big things I’m working on this month is a new approach to dealing with some of my 4-year-old’s less-than-desirable behavior.  I’ve already talked a bit about how Darling Husband Rob and I are ignoring certain behaviors that are designed specifically to annoy us and get negative attention.  As I mentioned last week in this “progress report” post, we have seen some pretty great results.

I wanted to talk just a bit more about the changes we’ve made and ideas we’ve implemented.  One of the most important, in my opinion, is our focus on the positive.  I really think I was already doing a good job at encouraging Dot and “catching” her doing good things.  It’s been clear to me that a lot of her behavior is of the attention-seeking variety, and I really do make a big point to offer a lot of positive attention.

Plus, that’s just sort of how my personality and parenting style works.

Praise

I do try not to just give empty praise, though.  Rather than compliment Dot for doing something that her baby sister could have done, I try to find real, actual accomplishments to comment upon.  I’ve done a fair amount of reading and writing on healthy self-esteem in children, and those who just get praised for every little thing tend to have overinflated senses of themselves, their abilities, and what the world owes them.  I want my kids to know that they’re amazing, but also to understand that they have responsibilities and need to work for what they want in life.

One of the interesting ideas that I came across was that of not always praising the outcome, rather of praising the effort.  I like that, because even when we don’t always succeed, it’s pretty important to try, to practice, and to understand that we can’t always be perfect.  Dot gets frustrated when she can’t do something right the first time, and having dealt with those perfectionist tendencies and the anxiety they provoke, I don’t want her to put that kind of pressure on herself.  That’s not to say that we don’t do our best, of course, rather that we can focus on how it makes us feel to know that we’re doing our best instead of how it feels to have drawn a perfect heart or had our cookies come out just right.

I’m also trying not to spend a lot of time focusing on how I feel due to her good behavior--although I certainly do mention it--but to help her identify her own good feelings to make her desire to behave more intrinsic. 

“Wow, you have such a good attitude today, how do you feel when you’re behaving this way?”

“I’ll bet it feels really good to know that you did that nice thing for your classmate.”

“Oh my gosh, are you so proud of yourself for making that good choice?!”

I also throw in stuff like: “I love your good attitude and behavior!  I am having so much fun spending time with you today!”

Avoiding “No”

Let me start this section by saying that we absolutely tell our children “no.”  They don’t just get whatever they want whenever they want it.  Please don’t think otherwise.

That said, both Rob and I are working on how we phrase our “no” responses.  Imagine that you live in someone else’s house.  You have to wait for them to make meals, and you have little to no input on what those meals will be.  Someone else picks out your clothes.  Those people decide if and when you can go outside and what time you have to go to bed.  There’s not a whole lot of control in that world.

Now, imagine that most of the time when you ask for something, you get told “no.”  It doesn’t matter if the things you are asking for are rational or not; you don’t understand that the reason Mom and Dad say “no” to going to Grandma’s house is because she lives on the opposite coast and it would take two planes and $1,000 to get there.  You just know that you’ve been told “no,” yet again.

Instead of always defaulting to “no,” we’re working on rephrasing our answers to be more positive.  So, when Dot asks “can we go to the Milk Bottle for a milkshake?” I try to answer with, “Yes, we can totally do that sometime soon.”  Of course, she was asking to go right this minute, but instead of just telling her it’s not possible, we find a way to not discount what she wants while still letting her know that she can’t have what she wants right now.

“Can I have a sucker?” “Sure you can, right after dinner tonight.”

“Can we go to Amelia’s house?” “Yes, I’ll call her mom and see what day will work for them.”

“Can I have a pet snake?” (Yes, she asks this fairly often.) “You probably can when you get older and are able to take care of it yourself.”

It’s actually gotten to be kind of a game that I play with myself.  How can I take her most recent crazy request and not actually say “no” to it?  It reminds me of when my friend Kelly had a “yes” day with her daughter, where she had to say “yes” to everything all day long.  She got pretty creative in her responses.

As I said, though, there are certainly times when the answer is just obviously “no,” and when that’s the case, we definitely tell her so.  The idea isn’t to NEVER say “no,” but to decrease the amount of times she hears it.  I think it lets her know that we are listening to her desires and considering them and makes her feel like she has a little more control over her own existence.

Calming Down

There’s one other kind of cool thing that we’ve instituted.  To be honest, we haven’t had to use it all that much so far, but I’m still going to share it.  Basically, it boils down to us giving Dot some opportunities to calm herself down when she gets all worked up and out of control.  I call it “spinning up,” and I can watch as she starts ramping herself up.  I think any parent of young children probably knows what I’m talking about.  It’s like this negative energy starts building and building and rather than trying to gain control of herself, she just gives in to the feeling and goes crazy.  It’s most pronounced when she’s tired, but for quite a while it was happening many times a day, and it was horrible to watch and to deal with the aftermath.  She would start doing mean and/or nasty things; often laughing maniacally.  I’ve had mom friends tell me that their kids have the same experience, which was actually kind of a relief to hear.

We have two calming methods that we’ve introduced.  One is a glitter bottle that Dot and I made together.  I’ll link you to the instructions I found in case you’re interested.  With our new timeout system, there isn’t really a set time for her to sit, so we use the bottle instead.  She shakes it up and watches the glitter swirl and fall, calming herself as it happens.  Once the glitter has stopped, she can ask to be done with timeout.  Every single time we’ve used it, it has worked.

We also created the “calm down box.”  I spent something like $5.00 for a bag of star-shaped beads and $2.00 for a craft box.  The idea is that when she starts spinning up, she needs to sit down with the box and just sort the beads into compartments by colors.  Having such a mundane task that still takes some mental effort is supposed to help her refocus her mind and calm down.  We haven’t actually used the box yet because for the last couple of weeks she has kept really good control of herself, but we have it on top of the fridge for when we need it.  (Also, she loves stringing the beads for necklaces and bracelets!)

Is It Working?

I think it is.  To be fair, Dot’s behavior started to improve for a while toward the end of last month, especially when I started paying better attention to her diet again.  Then it slipped a bit before turning back around.  I don’t know if implementing these new ideas played a huge role in bringing about that change, but I don’t doubt at all that they are working to reinforce it. 

If I’m being really honest (and why not?), it also makes me feel like I’m being a better parent, and that’s certainly Something Good.

There’s something that I’ve been wondering about for a while, and I think I’m starting to see the answer as a result of all this Big List hoopla.  I guess it sort of plays back into the epiphanies I’ve been having this month

• Sometimes things are a lot easier than they seem.
• It takes a lot more energy to NOT do something than it does to actually get it done.

I think I’m ready to add a third item to that list:

• The best way to solve a problem is to pay attention to it.

There are so many times that I keep doing the same things the same way, even though I know that the approach I’m using stinks.  But a lot of times, I’ve put a ton of effort into making the system I’m using or trying to perfect it, and I just KNOW it’s all of a sudden going to click and start working.  I just need to tweak it a little more, be more committed, get other people onboard, etc, etc. 

Even when I know a system isn’t working, I spend a lot of time lamenting that it doesn’t work.  I’ll think, “Geez, I really need to make this better,” and then don’t think about it again until the next time I’m annoyed it doesn’t work.

I Hesitate to Say I Learned "The Hard Way," Because It Was Such a Good Lesson!

I have a few work-related things on my list for May.  A couple of them have to do with streamlining things and making everything more organized.  My business partner used to take care of invoicing and payments, so when we split into two businesses in 2011, I found myself kind of floundering for a system that would work.

I came up with a spreadsheet to track payments and expenses, but it’s really not efficient at all.  Invoicing was a mess, too.  Some clients want to be invoiced through PayPal.  Some get email notifications.  Some pay right away, and some take two months, a few pay in advance, a couple work on trade-out…and since there was no clear invoicing system to refer to, a client could totally miss a payment without me even realizing it for a long time.  Oh, and I’d also not get around to updating that spreadsheet for months on end.

The “system” was obviously not working, which became pretty clear a couple of months ago when it came time to do taxes.  Generally speaking, I’m able to locate everything and can be pretty accurate, but it shouldn’t take two days to do that.  Everything should be in one place and ready to go.

So, for the umpteenth time, I decided to revamp what I’m doing.  I decided I was going to go totally old-school and print out every single invoice, marking it “paid” by hand when the money was received.  I’d input them into a much less cumbersome spreadsheet and hyperlink the different documents so they would all be accessible from that one place.

This Is Where The Universe Tried to Teach Me Something

I know that there are a million different accounting programs out there, and several of them are probably directed right at freelance writers.  But, I’ve dreagged my feet and decided to do it “my way.”  One of the biggest reasons for this, to be honest, is because I really didn’t want to take the time to learn a whole new suite of software.  My needs just aren’t quite that complex, and I’d rather spend my work time, well, working.

So, in pursuit of one of my May goals, I sat down at the computer last night and created a beautiful invoice.  I loved the way it looks, with my beautiful new logo and tagline included and everything in Courier New font so it had just a hint of “typewriter” to go along with the brand elements.  Very cool.

And then Darling Husband Rob decided he should show me this free invoicing software he’s been using for our family business.  I was really skeptical at first, and it’s definitely not a perfect fit.  But, the more I thought I about it, the more I realized that it has the potential to do everything I need.  (I’m not totally sure about setting up accounts for clients who pay in advance or do work in trade-out, but I’m feeling pretty good about it.)

I’m disappointed in some ways because the software’s invoices won’t be nearly as pretty as mine, and there will still be somewhat of a learning curve.  But, if I hadn’t sat down and designed those and thought about what I REALLY needed, I wouldn’t have come to the conclusion that there is a better/easier/more efficient way.

I couldn’t solve the problem until I really paid attention to it.  I had to sit at the table and wrestle with my options.  I had to think through a ton of different scenarios.  I had to let go of something I really liked and the need to do things “my way” in order to find something better.

It probably took me about three hours from start to finish to create the invoice, learn about the new system, and come to a decision.  In the long run, I’m pretty sure this is going to save me many, many hours down the road.

And Then I Did Pretty Much the Same Thing Today

It’s not that I’m stubborn, per se, it’s just that I really want to barrel through and get things done.  So, today I took some time to revamp that entire Excel spreadsheet that wasn’t working for me before.  This is no small feat, as I don’t really know how to use Excel.  By the time I was done, I had a pretty great looking skeleton that included everything I wanted.  All I needed to do was look up the right formulas to put into the appropriate cells.

As I sat and stared at my handiwork, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe I wasn’t duplicating my efforts again.  I’d already decided to use that invoicing software, and from what I gathered, it can probably generate reports that give me most of the same information that the spreadsheet was designed to create.  Hmm.

I talked through it with DHR.  I tried to convince myself that I needed both the spreadsheet and the invoicing system.  But, I can’t entirely articulate WHY I need both.  As far as I can tell, the only thing the spreadsheet does that the software doesn’t is to keep track of expenses.  If that’s the case, then why don’t I make a much smaller, simpler spreadsheet for that purpose and not input the same data into multiple places. And just like that, I think I saved myself many more hours of work over the course of a year.

It’s About More Than My Time

I’m glad to have found ways to save some time.  In fact, “Creating More Time” is one of the categories that will likely be appearing on all of my lists each month.  This month’s method for creating more time was supposed to be cleaning the house in the evening instead of during the day (I’m sure I’ll talk about that at some later point.)  Time is truly a precious commodity for me, and I’m all for utilizing it to the fullest.

But, I think I may have gained something even more important.  I think I just reached into my own future and erased several negative experiences before they even happened.  Every time I didn’t update that spreadsheet in a timely manner, I would have gotten down on myself.  I would have ended up more stressed because of it.  I probably would have been grumpy or at least felt like a failure.  And all of that is without even considering that I would still need to take the time to update the spreadsheet, to sort through all the invoices by hand, and probably to justify my “system” to other people.

To Sum Up:

Holy cow.  So, even though I have spent a whole lot of time thinking (in passing) about the changes I need to make and telling myself that things will be better when I tweak the system I had, and blah, blah, blah, it turns out that what I really needed to do was to pay attention to the problem.  I needed to give it a few hours alone in my head to play out. 

Up until I put it on the Big List and decided that it was time to focus, there was no chance of it getting better for real because I never, ever would have given the problem the attention it needed to be solved.  I would have kept pushing forward, trying to make things better, better, always better.  It would have continued to compete with thoughts about where I’m going to plant the tomatoes and what color I’m going to paint the entryway and how to arrange the table of contents for my client’s newest ebook. 

I so often don’t feel like I have time for things.  I feel like I don’t have 20 minutes to devote to something as non-productive as thinking through a problem.  Instead, I end up frustrated because I can’t find matching shoes in the hall closet or concerned that Dot’s getting too much sugar on her oatmeal in the morning. This Something Good project is not only giving me the opportunity to pay attention to these things, it’s also making me aware of just how much I’ve been needing to do that.

So, one of the biggest things that we've changed with this approach to working with Dot on her behavior is that we're ignoring unwanted behaviors to try and extinguish them.  This is a particularly hard thing at times, and I don't always succeed.  Just knowing that there is a plan in effect, however, does seem to make it quite a bit easier.  I don't go from zero to livid in 2.6 seconds when she starts in with the "potty talk," for example.  I can remain calm a lot longer, and I think it's totally psychological on my part.  I feel like by NOT yelling, I am actually doing something productive.  Every time I don't get mad because she's marching around repeating the same request over and over, I feel like that's one more time closer I am to not having to hear it again.  

I don't think I'm explaining this quite right...Does this make sense to anyone?

Anyhow, she's doing pretty well.  

ETA:  Just in the time it's taken me to write this post, of course, she has really attempted to push my buttons.  She's trying to find ways around the ignoring thing, and it's pretty interesting to watch the psychology of it all.  She's doing things like saying nasty phrases and then when I won't respond, she'll very sweetly say, "Mama?" as if she's moving on.  When I respond, she answers back, "Caca head!"  When that stopped working, it was on to things like, "Can I write on the furniture?"  When I did, in fact, hear the crayon make contact with the chair, that's when we moved on to timeout, which is where she is now.  We're all definitely still feeling this out and determining how it works, but I'm pretty hopeful.  Also, the timeout chair is completely out of my eyesight, so I think it gives me a chance to calm down if I've gotten upset, too.  

That makes me think that I should probably do a post on the changes we've made to timeout.  I am flabbergasted at how easily she's taken to it, and when it's over, we are all in much better control of ourselves!

But back to what I was actually writing about:

The method we're basing this all on supports the idea of NOT reminding the kid or telling them that you're going to ignore them because it will give them the attention after all, but we've chosen to give some reminders, because I think it works better with her personality and the fact that she is only four.  The model was written to be used with kids 6-12.  So, in the morning or when I pick her up from school (depending on what day of the week it is), I usually say something along the lines of "If you start doing really annoying things and losing control of yourself, what are Mama and Papa going to do?"  It took a few days, but now she totally answers with "Ignore."  

I have to give myself reminders, too, especially as the day wears on and I get more tired and worn down.

Anyway, I've shared with you that it's making me feel calmer and more in control, but here's something cool that happened two days ago:

When Lucy and I picked Dot up from her preschool (she goes three mornings a week), she very nicely asked if we could go to the indoor playground at the mall to play.  The girls love it there, it's very inexpensive, and because I can create an Internet connection with my phone and laptop, I can be right there with them to alternate playing and getting client work done.  It seemed like a great idea, so we stopped by the house to get my computer and headed up there.  

After quite a while, I told her it was time to go.  We don't have as much trouble getting out of there as many parents simply because we usually go by the reptile store after we leave.  It's a lot easier to entice her to leave the playground when the next stop is going to be fun, too.  When it was time to leave the reptile store, however, things were set to go a little less smoothly.  She was starting to get mad because she wanted to go all the way back downstairs for a "ride."  They have several machines that kids can ride for $0.50.  I didn't have any quarters on me and told her we were leaving.  

Cue the crying and foot-stomping.

And then...it stopped.  She calmed herself down.  She changed her voice.  And then she nicely and politely asked if we could go back and do the rides.

I hunted down some guy in a store to give me quarters for my dollar bill.

No, I won't always change my mind about something, but this seemed like such a great opportunity to reinforce what just happened.  I didn't tell her to "fix her voice," I didn't tell her she was "in big trouble."  She totally recognized what she was doing and that it doesn't work, and she changed her behavior.

Oh, yeah.

I’ve been doing a pretty good job of working my way through my Big List goals for May.  We’re about a week into the month, and I’ve already met eight of the eighteen goals and have completed one or more action steps on five others!

But, This Post is About Socks (Sadly, it’s not even my first post about socks on this blog)

One of the things that I’m trying to do with this whole project is to identify ongoing problems that we have and find solutions that will actually work for us.  In many cases, these are aspects of daily life that fit one or both of the following criteria:

1.       Rob and I have tried many times to change the behavior, and it hasn’t worked

2.       It involves something that I have to do over and over that drives me crazy

When I was preparing for this whole adventure last month, I started keeping a list of things that bothered me.  When I would hear certain phrases come out of my mouth, I would pay attention to and write down what come next.  Some examples:

·         “I never…”

·         “I always…”

·         “I hate…”

·         “It drives me crazy when…”

·         “I can’t stand…”

Generally speaking, these are some pretty negative phrases, and by identifying those negative things that are playing on a loop in my head, I’m hoping to drag the underlying problem out into the light and drive a stake through its heart.  These are obviously things that are eating away at me, making me feel uncomfortable and discontent; and rather than continuing to let that happen, it makes sense to examine them and see if I can’t remove some of their negative influences from my thought patterns.

By the end of the month, I had quite a list of problems, irritations, and annoyances to work through.  I’m planning to add a couple of them to each month’s list in order to work my way through them all.

Doggone It!  I Was Supposed to be Talking about Socks…

One thing you won’t find on the list is The Sock Drama.  I guess it just didn’t occur to me during the time that I was making that list, but it did come to my attention later.  One of the goals on my Big List for May was to sort through the baby sock drawer.  This drawer is a never-ending source of frustration for the adults in our house.  It’s almost impossible to find two socks in there that match each other, and if you do, there’s a good chance the baby outgrew them last month.  We’ve been living this reality for four years.

My version of organizing the sock drawer ended up looking something like piling all the socks up on the dresser, realizing there were TWO matching pairs and deciding that I was done with that crap.  I threw every single one of those socks away.  I’m sure there were more in the laundry, and if they come back with mates, then they are welcome in my home.  If they don’t, they’ve got a one-way ticket to the local incinerator.

I decided that it was worth it to me to go buy all new baby socks and start from scratch.  At that point, a potentially brilliant idea occurred to me.  Along with 20 pairs of socks totaling a little more than $15, I also purchased two $0.97 “lingerie” bags.  These are mesh bags that you put your delicates into so they don’t get all beat up when you put them through the washer.  I hung one on the hamper in the nursery.  Now, whenever socks come off the baby, they go directly into the mesh bag. 

They don’t get tossed into the hamper (Oh, no)

They don’t wind up on the floor (Nuh-uh)

They don’t belong in the crib or closet (They don’t!)

I’m not losing socks anymore…

So, get this.  When it’s time for the laundry to be washed, all of the teeny-tiny socks just stay right in the bag.  They go through the washer like that.  They go through the dryer like that.  When they’re all cleaned and make their way back upstairs, guess what?  BOTH SOCKS WILL BE THERE!

I’m a freaking genius, right?

Oh, and I got two bags so that when one goes down into the laundry, we can use the other one.

So, I spent a couple of days doing “small” things and finishing up on stuff I’d already started, but it didn’t seem like anything worth writing a whole post about.  Then we hit today, and I did such a big thing that it seems like it deserves its own.  So, I’ll try to update about things like the new car estimate (totally different from the first) and giving myself permission to throw away a whole bunch of baby socks later on, but not right now.  Instead, I’m starting with what’s been going on around here today and why it’s such a big deal.

Here’s Where We Are

Most of you know that I have two little ones.  They are both very bright girls and wonderful little people.  But, I will admit that I have been struggling with my older girl for a while.  Between her behavior and the fact that Lucy has decided to do the X-TREME version of toddlerhood (her entire life could be narrated by one of those guys who does the monster truck commercials), Rob and I are considering creating our own support group and naming it Pa.T.T. (Parents of Tiny Terrorists).  Some days I really do feel like I’m just being held hostage by some miniature rebel army that survives on rations of peanut butter and honey sandwiches and Goldfish crackers.

 Dot is just a bit over four now, and her behavior has been pretty intense for some time.  I really do chalk a fair amount of it up to how smart she is.  The child has an amazing vocabulary and can string together cause and effect like nobody’s business.

Unfortunately, developmental milestones being what they are, just because she has a certain level of knowledge doesn’t mean she has the emotional capacity to utilize it appropriately.  Or, in more direct terms:

My child uses her powers for evil.

Yes, that sounds really harsh, and I mean it mostly in jest.  Besides, I’ll probably say worse things before we get to the end of this post.  The thing is, my kiddo is a typical four-year-old when it comes to things like desire and impulse control.  Where she’s not so typical, however, is in the lengths she will go to in order to manipulate a situation to get what she wants. 

The Bad and the Ugly (Sometimes It Doesn’t Feel Like There’s a Whole Lot of “Good”)

There’s so very much to be said about this whole situation, and I fear that if I get rolling too much I’ll either end up writing a dissertation on why you should never have children, or I’ll come across as sounding far too defensive…and I don’t think either of those things would be all that accurate.  Simply put, things have been pretty hard.  She was talking back, waking up in a nasty mood, screaming when she didn’t get her way, lashing out at her little sister, and generally poking the Mama Bear with a great big stick to get a reaction.

I was beside myself.  I had been trying to do everything right.  We were “catching” her doing good things and praising them, I was creating challenges for her to rise up and meet, I was trying to provide one-on-one attention.  It seemed to be no use.  So much of what I had read indicated that she was trying to get attention, and everyone says that if kids don’t get the positive attention they crave, they’ll seek negative attention. 

This was just one of the many reasons that I started wondering if all the parenting books I was reading happened to be missing the same chapter.  They all give the same advice, but they all stop in the same place, too.  In this case, the books all advised that Dot wasn’t getting enough positive attention.  But, how could that be?  Sure, I am distracted at times and don’t allow myself to be at my child’s beck and call, but she certainly wasn’t suffering from a lack of positive interaction or reinforcement.  One of the things that would reduce me to tears was how she would literally stop us in the midst of a positive activity to do something simply because it was “naughty.”  If her behavior was all about seeking attention, why would she stop me from giving her positive attention in order to give her negative attention?

I still don’t have an answer to this question.

OK, There Was Some Good, Now That I Think About It

I knew that her behavioral issues were something that I wanted to tackle early on with this whole Something Good project, and Darling Husband Rob and I spent some time last month preparing for it.  This isn’t even our first go-round with this whole thing, and I found that some changes I made back in January seemed to yield some pretty amazing results.  After a very long time of dealing with insolent behavior, disagreeable moods, and what I will admit were a whole lot of hurt feelings on my part, I saw such a change in her that instead of crying out of frustration, I now found myself fighting back tears of relief and pride.  She became so much calmer and more in control of herself.  She was overflowing with love for her family and showing much more interest in preschool.  She would bound down the stairs in the mornings with a smile, a hug, and a cheerful “Good morning, Mama!”  It was about night and day from where we’d been.

Only a Paragraph’s Worth, Apparently…

But, then the girls and I went on a cross-country trip for 2 ½ weeks, and despite starting strong, by the time we got back home, I had lost my sweet, precious girl again.  It was fairly devastating.  I saw that glimpse of the loving, caring toddler she had been, and although I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much, I was starting to think we had rounded the corner.  When she regressed, I felt utterly defeated.

Yes, I Get That a Lot of This Is As Much About Me as It Is About Her

I suppose I should probably break in here and explain why this is such a problem.  First of all, I take my job as a guardian very seriously.  I am not just the biological parent of this child, but I am the person (along with my husband, of course) who is charged with guiding her through her experiences so that she can learn what she needs to in order to become a “good” adult.  The concepts of compassion and empathy are very important ones to me, and I feel that it is a parent’s duty to help develop these in their children.  When I see a lack of these things in my own child’s behavior, it worries me terribly. 

Worrying is another big part of my job, it seems.  I worry about them falling down the stairs.  I worry about the girls not getting enough Vitamin D.  And I worry a considerable amount about the kind of people they are now and will be in the future.

Another huge reason that this behavior is a problem for me personally, is because it has brought out an ugly side in myself.  Even if I could be considered a little high-strung from time to time, I’m typically a pretty laid-back person.  I’m a fan of the live-and-let-live philosophy.  I don’t believe in violence and get incredibly uncomfortable when there’s any kind of conflict.

So, it’s been a huge surprise to discover that I am now a yeller.  I’ve never been one to raise my voice in anything but good cheer, and now I find myself in the middle of blood-boiling rages, yelling at these tiny people who seem to be willfully driving me toward the edge of a cliff at impossible speeds. 

And I feel awful about it.  This is not the person I want to be and certainly not how I view myself.  But it’s sort of indisputable that I’ve become a yeller.  It honestly feels like there is no other way to be heard around here, and when I’ve asked you nicely several times to stop sticking your feet in my face and you continue to do it while laughing at the fact that it makes me angry, there’s a good chance I’m going to break.  It’s just awful.

I’ve Been Looking for Answers

So, I turned to friends who often had the caring, but not immediately-helpful advice that things will get better.  Then I turned to parenting books, and they all seemed to stop just short of being useful. I’ve read everything from Parenting with Love and Logic, to Have a New Kid by Friday (just to show you an example of the extremes on both ends).  Really, most of these books are offering pretty similar advice.  OK, if I’m being honest, most of them take about the first 1/3 to ½ of the book trying to convince you why you need the book, which is incredibly annoying.  You don’t need to sell me the book; I’ve already paid for it.  I just want some HELP!

Anyway, most of the books tell you what I’ve mentioned before about positive and negative attention.  They then offer a variety of options on redirecting, distracting, punishing, etc.  And then, you’re on your own.  One of the most common things they tell you is “ignore the behavior and it will go away.”  Really?  That sounds awesome!!!

Except, what do you do when ignoring the behavior actually turns into having someone stomp around behind you from room to room doing the same exact behavior, only now she’s doing it at ear-piercing levels while sobbing and probably attempting to hang off of some part of your body?  None of the books covered that.

Well, one kind of did, which is why we are where we are now.  Rob and I, completely independently, both found our way to a book called The Brat Stops Here.  Again, I’m sure it’s appalling to someone right now that I would even consider looking at a book that insinuated my child was a brat…but those people don’t live in my house.  Early on in the book, it describes several different kinds of brats…and my kid fell into all but one category.  I saw this as kind of validating, because I was pretty sure we were at Defcon 2, and it was nice to have a little confirmation that maybe things were as bad as I feared.  (Don’t get me wrong, it would have also been pretty cool to discover that my kid was really a whole lot better than most and I was just overreacting and needed to get a grip on reality.)

Last month, Rob read the book.  Then I read the book.  We agreed that there were some principles in there that we could get behind and would be willing to try.  I read the book again and took 13 pages of notes.  Then, we used our date night to go out to dinner and talk about the 13 pages of notes and to take more notes on what we talked about.  I made secret phone calls to get other people in cahoots with our plans and we filled in charts and put asterisks by important line items and so on and so forth.

Despite keeping things pretty well under wraps, Dot must have sensed some sort of disturbance in the Force, because all of a sudden, her behavior took a turn for the better.  She had eight days with something like one timeout.  She said things like “Oh, good!” when you told her she had school in the morning.  We rarely heard the word “poop.”  I started to falter just a bit.  Maybe we didn’t need our new plan after all.  Maybe the ship was finally righting itself all on its own…

Instead, we decided to look at it as a great starting place.  We kept our determination that this was the right path and decided that we would implement the new system on a weekend.  I know full-well that ignoring behaviors that are designed specifically to provoke me will be very difficult.  We’re also aware that kids tend to push really hard against an uncomfortable change, so it seemed wise to have us both home for a couple of days at the beginning of this whole thing to sort of tag-team if necessary.  If one of us starts to get worn down, the other can take over. 

And Here We Are at Day One

We introduced our new plan to Dot this morning at breakfast.  Over the last weeks we revamped how we do timeout, so that’s helped with the transition, I think.  We laid out some clear ideas of what is and isn’t acceptable.  We didn’t create rules for every aspect of life, rather we chose a few key behaviors that we want to extinguish and are focusing on them.  We made her aware of what she can expect, rather than just dumping a whole new system on an unsuspecting four-year-old.

The funny thing is, now that we’ve put all this planning into it, what we’re doing doesn’t seem like all that big of a deal.  In fact, it’s kind of right in line with what the books were recommending, but with some tweaks for our own personal beliefs.  I think it also helps tremendously that I’ve just taken the time to mentally prepare for the worst case scenario, and to realize that things will probably go much more smoothly than I feared when we first started kicking these ideas around a month ago.  Like I said above, I’m aware that a lot of this is as much about me as it is about the kid.

I imagine I’ll get more into detail about what we’ve changed as the month goes on and we evaluate our progress.  The biggest things really are that we’ve created a few tools for her to use to calm herself when needed, we’ve made timeout much more isolated, and we’re steadfastly ignoring non-dangerous behaviors that are used merely to manipulate us into getting angry.

We’re about 12 hours in, and so far, so good.  Wish us luck, and I will add in updates as we go along regarding Dot’s responses, as well as my own reflections on how it feels from my standpoint.  I can say that we’ve had two instances of her yelling and yelling when we ignored her behavior, and I found that two things happened:

1.       I didn’t lose my temper.

2.       They didn’t last all that long.

I’d call that pretty successful so far!

I read a saying once that I have held dear for several years:  "What do you mean it doesn't do any good to worry?  All of the stuff I worry about doesn't happen!"

As I mentioned yesterday, I've already learned something out of this whole experiment:

Sometimes things are a lot easier than they seem.

Today seems to have been about driving that lesson home.  I have several things that have been on my to-do list forever.  Forever.  Like, they've been on there so long that the fact that I haven't gotten them done has made me feel like a lesser person.  

Imagine how silly I felt when I found out that some of those things that I have allowed to diminish my sense of self weren't actually that big of a deal.  As in, they didn't matter at all.  (Yes I just italicized AND bolded the last two words of that sentence.)

In my attempt to be all productive about The Big List this morning, I was following through on the following item with its various action steps:

·         Mail box to R. by Friday, May 4

o   Look up address

o   Add anything else to the box

o   Seal and address box

o   Take to post office

I was mailing back a Space Bag that a friend brought here full of hand-me-down clothes IN NOVEMBER.  For 5 1/2 months I've been occasionally coming across that bag and thinking, "Oh my gosh.  I'm such a terrible person for not having sent that back!"  So, I texted R. today and asked for her address.  When I told her what I was sending, she advised me not to bother.  "No, no," I was thinking, "this is my responsibility, and I have shirked it."  She assured me that not only had she not even remembered the bag, but that it would cost more to mail than it was worth and I should just keep it and use it here.

Really?  Six months of beating myself up about something that wasn't even a big deal?  That seems like quite a waste of energy.

But, maybe I wasn't quite getting the picture yet.  I obviously needed more reinforcement.  

If you've looked at the list, you may have noticed there are a couple of mentions of paying quarterly taxes for my business.  I always mean to do it that way, but I think there's only been one year out of the last four that I've actually done it.  Every year I harbor this guilt over not doing things the right way.  I planned to rectify that this year with this piece of my list:

·         Have Rob print out quarterly tax payment stubs by May 15

o   Email Rob

o   Follow up

o   Start saving for next quarterly payment

Rob has all the access to our tax software, so I needed to have him go in and print out the payment vouchers for me to send in with payments every three months.  I emailed him and asked for him to do that when he had a chance.  He did, and guess what?  Based on our tax returns, the IRS doesn't want me filing quarterly.  And, it's likely been that was for the last couple of years.

What?  What!  WHAT?!   But I have derided myself over this regularly for several years.  It's just another example of how I'm lacking and don't live up to my responsibilities, blah, blah, blah...

But, we're still not quite done.

Finally, I got the first estimate on the car repairs today.  If I follow through on their advice for the front brakes and go through Perfection Tire, it will cost me about $315.  I happen to think that's a pretty reasonable price.  In fact, it's such a reasonable price that I am fairly upset with myself for not getting a quote earlier.  There's a lot of back story into all that, and I'm not going to air my dirty laundry here, but I do feel comfortable saying that I have been angry and resentful about the squeaky front end for about five years.

For five years I've been feeling toxic about that darn squeak, and for $315, I could have had it gone from my life.  I probably wouldn't even remember by now that it had ever existed.  At this point, I will NEVER forget the five years I drove around with my car squeaking.  

Isn't that pathetic?

Now, I don't expect to be having daily epiphanies during this Something Good project/experiment/endeavor, but we're on Day Two, and I've had my second one.  It goes something like this:

It takes a lot more energy to NOT do something than it does to actually get it done.

This seems to go hand-in-hand with my other discovery, and maybe the two are one in the same.  I'm going to go ahead and leave them as separate thoughts for now, though, because I have a few more things to say on the topic of procrastination.  But that is a subject I will tackle when the time is right.  (That may be ironic; I'm not sure.)

By the way, don't worry.  Tomorrow I'll tell you about something that was every bit as hard as it seemed.