I would like to point out that I am recording the lowest points in my journal because I don’t want to gloss over them later and pretend they didn’t happen. Mostly we are getting along very well. Mostly we are having fun wonderful days full of playing and laughing. We are getting along pretty well.
And then the stress gets to me and I lose some piece of my control. I don’t want to deny later that the worst parts happened so I’ll write them down. I feel comfortable coming back later and filling in the gaps on the good parts. (Yes, this experience will probably turn into a book.)
I’m scared of not being honest about the worst of the worst. I don’t want to ever be in denial about that.
The kids and I had another intense conversation about boundaries, limits, abuse, and standing up for themselves. We talked about how it is better to hurt my feelings now by telling me to BACK OFF rather than hurt my feelings later when you have to stop having a relationship with me because I have a pattern of hurting you. I’d rather not hurt you. Sometimes I am a giant asshole and I will hurt you. I require feedback. I’m sorry that I do. I do.
This trip has been a wonderful experience and I’m so glad we did this. I will remember this forever as a positive time when we learned how to depend on one another to get stuff done. We take our sense of home with us. We haven’t gotten really impatient and pissy to go home till this last month. That’s pretty incredible. And the kids have never gotten mad and told me they are angry we came on the trip. They might get halfway through a similar sentence and I say, “Oh really. You are sorry we did ____ and ______ and _____ and” then they say, “Ok I’m glad we came. This has been incredible.”
I don’t want to bully them. I don’t want to “get away” with doing it because I’m not being watched. So I watch myself.
It’s the only way I know to try and be better.
Eldest Child had a fascinating question the other day about why is it hard to deal with a lot of these parenting issues. We had a conversation about how we are at a fascinating place in history where parenting ideals are radically changing and adapting is hard. There are always hard crunch points as populations change and grow. We talked about the evolution of beliefs from “You must hit your children to prove you love them” to “You must not hit your children to prove you love them” and why that is hard in terms of managing bodily impulses and frustration.
God I love talking to this kid. She blows my mind every day.
Youngest Child continues to alternate between being a ray of sunshine and having excessive temper. Goodness the intensity of that kid.
I’m told that as often as possible I should just be using “kid” as gender instead of boy or girl. It’s kind of clunky in language. But I’m trying.
I’m trying every day. Only 15 days till we go home. I won’t start frequent blogging right away. I seriously need to let my arms heal.
Last summer, I road tripped with my mum and brothers and aunt across a state, after a family wedding. One car was running low on gas and not running a/c in 95+ heat and the other car was worried about losing them with no gas and no cell signal. At one point, there was a cow on the shoulder of the road. At another, there was a line of eight cars behind us. When we found gas (literally one gas station in two+ hours of driving), we ate lunch at the adjacent restaurant and the waitress told us we looked like we traveled well together. Then the other car took the wrong turn out (but got to the destination shortly after dark).
The alternative was a boring drive up the equivalent of US-5. It would not have been a memory. I hope you and the kids get to remember the good bits.
I think we will. We are having a great time most of the time.