Mystery solved

My child loves to argue, debate, and negotiate. I say we're having chicken for dinner and he tries to convince me to order out instead. The mountain man tells him to pick up his shoes (jacket, backpack, pencils, etc) and Javi launches into a tirade of self-pity because he always has to do work and he's just so tired. You tell him to go brush his teeth and get dressed because he's been up for hours and still looks like he just rolled out of bed, and he flails around the room while giving you 18 reasons why he shouldn't have to do those things

All day long. About everything. And sometimes he makes sense. When he argues that I should let him go upstairs (even though Bella is sleeping) because he is much quieter when he draws than when he watches tv because he gets bored of tv and then he plays and don't I want Bella to stay asleep and wouldn't it be better to just let him tiptoe very quietly up the stairs to get his paper? And this wouldn't even be a problem if I'd let him keep his paper and pencils downstairs so he doesn't to go all the way upstairs to get them.

But most often (and to my frustration), his logic and reasoning is circular. He argues himself and us into a tangled knot of confusion. Nothing gets accomplished except yelling and the repetition of us saying loudly (and you know that often means yelling over his continued protestations), "I'm not asking you. I'm telling you! Do! It! Now!"

Until yesterday I thought my lot in life was to have this miniature politician constantly questioning, probing, and demanding. I thought it was my fault because I'd prayed at night when he was a toddler that he please find his voice and grasp language. I thought I'd turned him into this argumentative little hassle. I was almost resigned to a lifetime of this little boy who can't really reason his way out of a paper bag. But then we had a conference with his teacher to go over his test scores (welcome to third grade) and a huge weight lifted.

She showed us the results of a bevy of tests, but one stood out above all others. It was a test of his verbal, quantitative, and math ability (at a single point in time, as his teacher stressed over and over again). His verbal score was off the charts, his math score was directly between average and above average, and then there was his quantitative score -- dead last (also known as average range). No wonder his arguments always leave my head spinning! The child can't reason.

It was like a revelation. It's not that he's argumentative or difficult or hard-headed. He simply can't understand why we made the jump from Point A to Point B, and his "reasoning" is his attempt to figure it out. His nine-year-old mind hasn't developed the ability to understand why and so he must question and second guess and offer different options. He's not defying his parents, he's attempting to learn from them.

My new goal is to entertain his questions and travel down that rabbit hole with him as he links nonsequitor to nonsequitor and asks questions that have no connection to your original topic. I will have patience with him as his brain wrinkles and stretches to firmly grasp cause and effect and the big picture. God help me.

Mantras

A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of creating transformation, usually in the spiritual sense.

In the past few years, I have done lots of soul searching (navel gazing?) and lifestyle evaluation (more navel gazing?) and bootstrap pulling to separate who I am from who others want me to be, and the fear that comes from not trusting that your true self is enough.

These are the mantras I've learned so far. Repeating them daily keep me from regressing, descending, spiraling into the pit of self: self-pity, self-doubt, self-loathing, self-absorption ... you get the picture.

It's not my business what other people think of me.

Words have only the power you give them.

Speak and act with the intention and direction of truth and good.

Always make the next best choice.

Courage means asking questions and expressing what you need.

It's okay to be wrong.

I am not the most important person in this room.

It's my job to love myself. If I don't, who will?

This is not about me unless I make it about me.

Notice a theme? My whole life, I've felt there was so burning spotlight trained directly on me. People watching, judging, measuring and always me coming up short. My mantras revolve around me remembering that I am just another face in the crowd.

You wouldn't believe how freeing it is to know that the room isn't staring at you. That the world couldn't care less about you. That you can show up to a fitness class or a civic group meeting or a house party and no one will care you're there. Sure, someone may be happy to see you or someone may cringe that you showed up, but that person is just like you -- just another person in a world full of people.

In the end, it's not my business if you want me to show up. It's not business if you think I look disgusting in a bathing suit. It's not my business if you can't believe I don't know that song, that word, that movie. My business is putting good into the world. My business is loving myself. My business is speaking what I need so that others can be fully present in my life (and I can be fully present in theirs).

Those are my mantras. What are yours?

Snow days

We've recovered from the Great Blizzard of 2010. Piles of snow and ice are melting, buses are running, and we're finally able to walk without slipping and sliding across the ground.

But Bella's not worried so much about the walking. She's way more interested in the throwing. My goal is to buy weather-proof gloves for the next big snow so she can pack together the perfect snowball. I think she got more joy from just busting snow globs on the ground than she did sledding!

I am counting down the days until Spring bursts forth, but until then, I choose to appreciate this beautiful life.

Just ... no

Regarding my earlier post: I should never watch Intervention while looking through old photos. I cry and snot and feel too deeply. Let's shake off the melancholy and get light.

Here are a few things you will not catch me doing, ever (and don't try to convince me otherwise):

Entering my child in a beauty pageant. I don't understand why parents prance their toddlers around in expensive clothes (they likely can't afford) and under way too much makeup. My daughter is a cutiepants and I know it. She knows it. We don't need the validation or attention that comes from a $2 trophy that's handed out to everyone who pays the right amount of money. If she chooses to enter a pageant one day, I'll support her -- but it's her body, her decision, and should have nothing to do with me.

Swimming in the ocean. Do you know what lives in the ocean? Sharks. Great big sharks with razor-sharp teeth and millenia-old instincts to rip me limb from limb. There's also poop -- fish poop, shark poop, people poop (the worst). No thanks. I'll stick to the pool conveniently located not 50 feet away from your salty cesspool. Thanks much.

Jumping off of stuff. It's unnatural. I mean, if I was designed to jump off cliffs or out of planes or from bridges with a cord strapped to my ankle, then I'd be the indestructible girl. But I'm not indestructible and you won't convince me to hurl it off of things. Any things. So give up.

Walk under ladders, or open umbrellas inside, or break mirrors. Yeah, I'm a firm believer in superstition. They were developed for a reason and I'm not one to play with danger. Just move around the ladder. You want to open an umbrella, go outside and open it to your heart's content. Do what you want with your mirrors. Be my guest. But don't try to drag me into your bad luck!

I'm not interested in why you love it or why everyone else is doing it. I don't care that you LOVE IT and it's the most fantastic experience in the whole world and if you haven't tried it then you haven't truly lived. Just .. no. Now let's move on, shall we?

The silent killer

I was the kind of teenager who broke lots of rules. I snuck out at night, stole my mom's car, had a string of boyfriends, and dabbled in drugs and alcohol. I chose not to abuse inhalants like fumes, solvents, and gases.

Because of my uninformed choice, my mother didn't have to do what my best friend's parents did; she didn't have to bury one of her children.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about Christina. She was wild and beautiful and strong and brave. She laughed loudly and without fear. She smiled at the world, yet knew how to kick its ass when necessary. She had long red hair and a face full of freckles. She was a free spirit. And she was dead at 18.

Christina changed my life.

Before her death, I thought of huffing as something silly and pointless. I would laugh at the boys in my gym class who kept bottles of Freon tucked in the inside pocket of their coats, roll my eyes when they'd huff and then talk in droning voices with spittle pooling in the sides of their mouths, and shake my head at their glassy eyes. I thought nothing of people inhaling "Rush" at a party or a friend's house. It didn't occur to me that it was more than stupid that many of my friends chose to hang out at closed convenience stores to huff gas fumes.

I never stopped to think those silent, noxious fumes could kill me. My mother certainly had no clue she should be warning me about inhalants the same way she beat me over the head with warnings about drugs and alcohol.

I didn't know. I chose not to huff the same way I chose not to experiment with hard drugs or pills -- because I was scared. But my best friend was braver than me and she made a different choice. I didn't know I should stop her.

Christina died in August 1994, just a few weeks after her birthday. She died from complications from flash burns incurred after huffing in a car with the windows rolled up. She lit a cigarette and the air in the car exploded. She survived for nearly a month in the NC Jaycee Burn Center, but ultimately lost her battle.

Today, one in five teens in the United States have used inhalants to get high. One in five. If you have a child, you have to learn the warning signs and talk to your children about inhalants. Most of the kids I knew who huffed started as young as 10 or 11. At Christina's memorial service I met a girl my age whose twin brother passed out after huffing glue, vomited in his sleep, and asphyxiated. He was 12.

Inhalant abuse is serious and it's deadly -- and it's legal. Your children can find inhalants in your home or buy them without hassle at any store. They could die the first time they try it. Know the signs of inhalant abuse and arm your children with the knowledge of how dangerous huffing can be.

You'll never regret that talk.