The family has been sick. Mommy has a stomach bug. M has oral herpes that is killing her teeth. T and L are coughing and fatigued. Mommy called me at work on Tuesday and said that I had to take Weds. Off.
I looked at my calendar.
"Weds. Is the worst day of the week. I have staff meetings and 3 other meetings." I said.
I thought hard during the silence.
I scanned my calendar and was amazed to see that Thursday was wide open. "How about Thursday?" Can you hang in until then?
Mommy replied begrudgingly that she could manage until then.
I slept with M on Tues. And Weds. Nights. Tuesday was rough, but Weds. She slept right through. I felt good going into Thursday with the kids.
M's teeth have been extremely sore. Everyt time something touches her mouth she is sent into a crying fit. Mommy had been in this hurricane for 3 days straight. She desperately needed a break. I realized however that when we are all around the house that we can hurt each other as much as we can help each other.
If I stayed home and was defensive and irritable then I would be no help to her at all. I meditated on this idea in the morning. I vowed to be of service to my wife today. I vowed never to react to her emotions and to always respond with empathy. This week had been tough and her nerves were frayed. This day would bring out some difficult personality traits. When our personalities clashed I vowed not to escalate it into an argument.
It did not take long for the challenges to begin. M would not go to me in the morning. She desperately wanted to cling to momma, who she had been attached to for 3 days. Eventually I was able to coerce M into the tub and the kids and I took a bath.
Mommy headed into her office to get some work done.
After the bath it was time for a family project. I jumped on the web and looked up a volcano recipe for the kids. We made volcanic eruptions for the next hour. I took my eyes off of M for a second and she was head to toe in green food coloring.
"Look dad, M's playing Shrek!" announced T.
I busted a gut over that one.
Back up to the tub for papa and M. Luckily I had left the bath water in the tub, just in case. The older kids joined us after a few minutes.
After we got dried up, mommy tried to take the older kids to the library. J already looked refreshed after just 2 hours of peace. Once M saw mommy, however, she was not to be denied.
"Mommy! Mommy!" She wailed.
I patiently tried to coax her off of mommy's leg, but to no avail. J was about to turn on the TV when I said.
"Wait, she might go for some videos on the laptop."
"D, I have had 3 days of this and I can't take any more!" J replied and she turned on the TV.
I took a deep breath and tried to empathise with J's plight. I deeply dislike feeling overwhelmed and I even more deeply dislike expressing that I am overwhelmed. I realized that my pride was not important at this time and a use of the outside voice from momma should be overlooked.
With the TV on, J was able to make a hasty exit.
I later coaxed M off the couch by offering to cut her toenails. I found out today that she loves this activity! We had a ball chomping the nail clipper on her piggies.
I put M down for her nap at 11:30 as J had requested. I made a salad for her and hotdogs and fries for the big kids.
We had a nice lunch when the rest of the family got home. J suggested that the older kids and I go for a hike.
We cut through the back yard to the golf course and for the first time the kids beat me to the course. L was on the 5th fairway making snow angels and T was asking to be picked up. We hiked for over a mile and covered many areas of the course that the kids had not seen.
When we got back M was awake. J seemed OK that she had been with M for a while. But soon M was crying again and mommy was getting visibly flustered. I scooped up M and tried to take her out to the car for a quick ride. She would have none of it. She screamed and hollered and fought to get out of her car seat.
Mommy came out after a few moments and took M out of her car seat and hugged her. I took a long deep breath and followed J back into the house. M was calming down now. We would need to put her infront of the TV again, however. This time she quickly lost interest and began wandering back down towards mommy's office.
"D, can you keep her out of here" Mommy scolded.
I again breathed deep and tried to think of something else to do. I retrieved a ball from downstairs and we began to play catch. This quickly became hit the kids in the head with the big ball. We played this for about an hour. Until M finally got caught in the teeth by an errant shot and began balling her eyes out.
Mommy arose from her office and shot me a look. I breathed it and let it go.
J and I had several other tough confrontations like this throughout the day. I did not react negatively to any of them. As a result, I believe, we had dozens of positive and loving interactions. At any rate, we definitely had more positive interactions since we were not dwelling on any arguments that we had throughout the day. J was also very loving and fun to be around for the majority of the day as well.
It is important to note that I did not hold all of these exchanges inside where they would eventually blow out into a full blown fight later. I was able to reduce my sensitivity to those exchanges and truly let them go.
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