Happiness in three random steps

I love Spring. First of all, the mosquitoes are not out yet!!! Second of all, the climate here is perfect for sitting out in the yard, pulling weeds.

Of course, this is what got me into poison oak trouble last week, but I'm clearing up thanks to steroids that are probably going to give me unwanted facial hair (scratch myself to death or shave my face forever...), but even still, I love the spring.

I'm in a happy mood today (I'm writing this on a Saturday night), and I wanted to share three things we are doing that are making me so happy.

First: Sunday-night-read-a-thon

Why we are calling it this, I don't know. All we do is throw blankets on the floor with a bazillion stuffed animals and pillows. Then I read aloud. This did not work when we tried it last Sunday—at first it was quite terrible. Only one child was listening to me read and the rest were talking, giggling, and fighting. I nearly gave the whole thing up in a very self-righteous, wounded way.

But then I checked the time.

It was bedtime.

"Only those who are completely silent may stay up to listen to this story," I said. "Because it is bedtime. Staying up late is a reward only for the silent."

Silence. (Except for Flannery, who was very tired and wanted to go to bed. So we let her.)

We immediately lost ourselves in the story (I was reading a Great Brain adventure), and everyone wanted to read more the next night. This didn't happen, because we were all going in different directions, but we decided to make it a Sunday night regular. Sunday-night-read-a-thons are awesome.

Second: Dinner nights

We are on week four of kids-making-dinner nights. On Sunday of each week, all five kids choose a recipe from the internet, then give me a list of ingredients they need. Everyone can do this completely on their own, except for Flannery (who can't read ingredients), and I do not help. I buy the ingredients on Monday. They make their dinners on their assigned night.

I know, I know, revolutionary, but the revolutionary thing is, the oldest three are doing their dinners, COMPLETELY ON THEIR OWN. Not only that, but we are getting some serious variety in our meals, and everyone is so anxious about their own meals being well-received, they are nice about each others' meals, even when they don't like them. They are willing to be more adventurous in trying food because it is not me who is forcing it. So many good things.

Last Thursday, it was Lucy's turn to make dinner. Most things are very easy for Lucy, so when things do get hard (the least bit hard), she tends to fall apart. Cooking is one of those hard things, and this week she chose a recipe that had no set ingredient amounts. (A little bit of this and a little bit of that.)

"How many carrots do you think I should cut up, Mom?" Lucy said through tears and shouts of rage.

"Arrrgghhhhhhhh!" Lucy screamed.

(I was hiding upstairs in my room at this time. When it is their night to cook, I do not set foot in the kitchen). "I'm not going to tell you," I said. "It doesn't matter. You can decide. There is no right and wrong here."

"How do I get the chicken breasts out of the boiling hot water?" Lucy said through wails.

"There are lots of ways to do it, Lucy. You decide."

"Arrrgghhhhhhhh!" Lucy screamed.

"Should I mix the lettuce in before or after?"

"If the recipe doesn't say, it probably doesn't matter. You decide."

"Arrrgghhhhhhhh!" Lucy screamed.

Oh, there was a lot of rage coursing through my ridiculously skinny ten-year-old's body. I finally asked her what was the worst thing that could happen.

"That nothing will work and dinner will be ruined!!!!!" she shouted.

"Then you can whip up some spaghetti," I said. "I want this dinner to be completely yours, so that when someone compliments you on a job well done, you won't secretly think Mom really did it. Or when it fails, you won't have anyone else to blame for what happened and you will know what not to do next time."

"Arrrgghhhhhhhh!" Lucy screamed.

Boy, it did not seem like this would work (at one point she stomped in her room and refused to continue), but that girl of mine finally did it, completely by herself, and an hour or so later, she had completed a delicious version of this:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/11/leftover-turkey-spring-rolls/

And she was so proud of herself, she glowed the entire meal. All that shouting and crying really as worth it.

Third: Kid Gardeners.

I believe there are right ways to motivate people and not so good ways. I'm working on implementing the right ways into our family's life so that ultimately everything I want my kids to do, they want to do too. Intrinsic motivation. He he. Not an easy task, you say?

I definitely believe in explaining to our kids why we want them to do things, but for them to get a testimony of the importance of certain things for themselves, there has to be more than just talk. There has to be experience.

If you have time, watch this GREAT RSAnimate about motivation (it's ten minutes long):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

If you don't have time, Daniel Pink, the economist says there are three things that motivate people to do great work: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Well, I'm doing my own little experiment with this idea in our yard, and, despite poison oak, I am really excited about it. I sat the kids down several weeks ago and explained that I was tired of our yard looking like something that crawled out of the slimey streets of Oliver! The Musical. We weren't being good neighbors, we weren't attracting important things like birds and butterflies and bees to our yard, and flowers can be so beautiful! We were missing out on that beauty, which sometimes does need to be cultivated.

Everyone seemed to get this. This was my attempt at the PURPOSE part of the motivation equation.

We got on the web to explore perennials, and we figured out what kind of perennial plants we wanted to buy. Low-maintenance, low-water plants that bloomed at different times of the year. Then I let everyone pick a certain number based on their ages. For example, Mary chose seven, Flannery, three. They were so excited to make their own choices, and other than insisting the plants fit our definition of low-maintenance and meet our soil requirements, I DIDN'T INTERFERE AT ALL IN THEIR CHOICES.

This was very hard for me. (That's the AUTONOMY part of the motivation equation.)

Since then, before the plants arrive, we've been working hard to get our weed-ridden, poison-oak covered, ugliness cleaned up. We now have lots of bare earth to deal with. I've told them they get to choose where to plant their plants (as long as they give their plants enough room to grow), but they have to prepare the soil themselves. Lucy and Shaemus have been working hardest on the clean-up. This is no surprise, but the surprise is that Calvin and Mary and even Flannery have been willingly—voluntarily—helping too. Those three avowedly hate yard work, and yet, there they were, helping without being forced.

I have great plans for this. There will be no monetary rewards for work done (AUTONOMY). There will be no scolding from me (AUTONOMY). There will be no reminding them to weed or water their chosen plants (AUTONOMY again!). But I will take pictures of these plants and post them on our kitchen wall. We'll do before pictures (I'm going to encourage them to give their plants names, and we'll put those under the pictures), right-after-they-are-planted pictures, and we'll take pictures as they grow. Sort of like those picture displays of children at age 3, 5, 8, 12, etc... I want them to take pride in what they do. I want them to have a real interest in helping something grow. I want them to have a feeling for these plants, like they are depending on them. I want them to feel like they are doing something great, which they are! I want some of their plants to die. I want them to help each other figure out what works and what doesn't work, and be okay with failure (that's the MASTERY part of the motivation equation).

Of course, this is just the beginning, but if, by the end of the summer, I have five little gardeners, each doing their own thing to take care of the plants they have chosen, I don't care what our yard looks like. (I haven't really cared for the past five years anyway, so there's no big leap there.)

Tomorrow, I may be regretting ever starting this (I really might, we ripped out a ton of stuff and now our house looks very exposed and naked, and I have little kids who like to run around the house naked in front of open windows...), but today, I'm very, very happy.

Pets

My heart is full today. I saw a simple thing this morning that made me very happy, and so I'm not going to post about reading, not exactly. I'm going to post about this little happiness so that I can remember it, especially when times get tough with all the critters we have in our house.

I've already shared this poem my grandfather wrote:

“Learn to like what doesn't cost much.
Learn to like reading, conversation, music.
Learn to like plain food, plain service, plain cooking.
Learn to like fields, trees, brooks, hiking, rowing, climbing hills.
Learn to like people, even though some of them may be different...different from you.
Learn to like to work and enjoy the satisfaction doing your job as well as it can be done.
Learn to like the song of birds, the companionship of dogs.
Learn to like gardening, puttering around the house, and fixing things.
Learn to like the sunrise and sunset, the beating of rain on the roof and windows, and the gentle fall of snow on a winter day.
Learn to keep your wants simple and refuse to be controlled by the likes and dislikes of others.”

It was a long time before our family could say we had learned to enjoy the companionship of dogs. When I was pregnant with Shaemus, we adopted our first dog, a juvenile german shepherd named Turtle. Turtle was very big. We picked him because at the shelter, he was marked as a Gold Star dog, which means "Great with kids." 

Turtle was not great with kids. Turtle was big. He was young. He nipped, and his nips hurt. He freaked me out. The kids were frightened of him. So we spent four hundred dollars having him neutered and vetted, then returned him a few days later to the shelter because we could not handle him. (I think they were very happy we neutered him for them...)

Soon after, we went to a different shelter where we hoped their gold star system was a little more reliable. We got a darling beagle named Cocoa. Cocoa was so sweet with the kids. Cocoa nipped no one. But Cocoa had emotional issues. Whenever anyone left the house, Cocoa tore around the rooms like a crazy person and wouldn't stop for many, many minutes until everything in her path had been thrown from its proper place. She must have had serious abandonment issues, but it was so strange, because she did it when everyone else was home. 

I could have dealt with this, she was otherwise so good, if it weren't for the troubles we had at night. Cocoa was a beagle and she howled, and if she wasn't in bed with me—specifically, cuddling right next to me all night long—she howled and scratched and threw an absolute fit. An absolute fit! 

Sam had had it one night and after some rather heated and lengthy discussion between the two of us, he went to sleep on the couch. It was the only time in our marriage where he had gone to sleep on the couch (except for when we had tiny babies, and I told him to go get some rest elsewhere). I realized as I lay there with my dog instead of my husband, that if I didn't do something, there would be trouble. It was a choice between this howling dog or Sam. 

I chose Sam. (And Cocoa found a very nice home on a farm where no one could hear the howling.)

We gave up owning a dog for several years. Then we tried puppies. Two of them. I won't go into details except to say that I am incapable of potty training children. I am also incapable of potty training dogs. I don't like human or animal waste. I have no patience for it. I think it should be eliminated (he he he). 

When these two puppies did not work (don't worry—we found good homes for them both as well!), I gave up all hope. We had three parakeets. We'd had some fish over the years. We were fish and parakeet people, not dog people. 

This truly made me sad. I had a dog growing up, and I loved him. I have some serious animal lovers in my house, and I wanted dogs for them too, but it didn't seem to be in the cards.

And then a woman at my church casually mentioned that she needed to find a place for her dogs. She was getting too ill to take care of them, and she wanted to find them a good home. We'd walked their dogs before, and Sam and the kids knew them. I had been thinking of her and her dogs and wondering if this would be the case, but I hadn't said anything to her or Sam. When I brought up the possibility later to Sam, he looked at me, startled, because she had spoken to him about it that very day. 

It worked out. We took her dogs for her, and they are wonderful. We love them. They were already potty-trained (actually, one wasn't perfectly trained in the beginning, but he hasn't had an accident in a very long time. I have no idea why—it is certainly nothing we did), they are gentle with the kids, they sleep happily in crates at night, and they are practically maintenance-free. We could not have found better dogs for us. Everyone pitches in to feed them, walk them, pet them, love them. And every one does. Every single one of us, even Sam. I regularly catch one of the kids snuggling with them, not just Calvin who loves animals so. I consider these dogs literally a blessing from God.

(Here is Mary with one of our dogs, Aesop. I can't find a picture of Ruddy.)

I truly believe it is a good thing to learn to enjoy the companionship of dogs (or any pet).

Fast-forward to this morning. Calvin got two frogs for his birthday. 

 (Please ignore his hair. He doesn't always look like that. Like when he's wet.)

I wasn't in town at the time. I'm not sure I would have let this happen (I'd been rooting for a turtle). The frogs have to be fed live crickets, which means the crickets have to be fed so they can stay alive until the frogs eat them. They need a heat lamp. They need to be regularly sprayed with water to keep the tank at a perfect humidity level. They are pretty high-maintenance pets. 

But Calvin does it. He takes care of them completely on his own, or so I thought. I haven't had to lift a finger, but this morning, I saw Shaemus opening the frog's tank to spray water on them. At exactly the same time, I saw Lucy come into Calvin's room to coo at Calvin's rat. She noticed that Scabbers was low on food and began to feed her. Lucy as three pets of her own to feed, and here she was, without  recognition or thanks, helping Calvin take care of his pet, the exact thing Shaemus was doing. It was innate for them. It took no thought. No one was paying them or forcing them or even asking them to do it. 

This scene made me so very happy. They were being considerate to both their brother and to these really quite sweet living creatures (though I still won't touch the rat—and okay, I won't touch the frogs either). I hope, as they grow and mature, this translates into a love for all livings things. I hope these experiences with these pets teach them responsibility and duty and the true satisfaction of caring for something that cannot care for itself. 

(No, we don't own a horse. But that would be cool if we did!) 

Here are some of my favorite books ever about pets. 

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat. We LOVE this book. It is hilarious, and based on a true family that owned every pet you can imagine. Awesome.

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot, and other books about animals (Have you read these books?)

These are from one of my favorite Non-fiction series for younger children, the Read and Wonder series by Candlewick. I Love Guinea Pigs and All Pigs are Beautiful by Dick King-Smith.

A Very Young Rider by Jill Kremetz

This is from an out-of-print, from-the-seventies, series about young children with great talents. I had A Very Young Dancer growing up. This one is just as awesome, all about a girl who loves horses more than life itself! (There is even A Very Young Circus Flyer in this series!!!)

My Pony by Susan Jeffers

I have many more—I'll post more tomorrow—but do you have any favorite books about pets?

I'm going to be honest with you...

... don't ever cut the bottom of your foot.

At about 4:30 last Friday afternoon, I was upstairs in my bedroom trying to decide if I had the energy to make something difficult for dinner (or make dinner at all) when I heard a scream from the backyard. I looked out and saw Calvin racing around the trampoline like he was being chased by wild cheetahs. This is something he does regularly, so I thought nothing of it until I realized he was screaming, "I stepped on glass! I stepped on glass!" Rather than, "A cheetah is going to get me!" I wasted time pondering why he would be running around on an injured foot, and by the time I recovered from my wonder, he was in my bedroom, blood and dirt everywhere. 

Without much sympathy, I sighed and got out the first aid kit, instructing Calvin to hold still and get on the floor.

Then I saw his foot. Blood was everywhere because he had sliced it open in three places, each cut well over an inch long. One of the cuts was a good two inches.

He had jumped off the deck railing and landed right on a glass jar that had once held a bean plant, smashing it and cutting himself up. I had an enthusiastic audience of four giving me all the details. Crowding over me to see the gory results.

I am squeamish. Very, very squeamish. This squeamishness has two effects. First, it makes me shudder and hold my head as far away from blood as possible. Second, it makes me laugh. Giggle might be a better word. 

"Okay," I said. Giggle, giggle. "Everything's going to be okay. Calvin, you're not going to die." Giggle. "Lucy, go get me a towel. Quickly. We've got to stop this bleeding so he doesn't bleed to death." Giggle. "The rest of you, go away. This is very stressful." Giggle. 

Sam, I thought. Where is Sam? Virginia. Another state. Two hours away at least. Sam is the one in our family who does injuries. Sam does large wounds. Sam carries sick and wounded children around in his arms like a hero while I hide in the bathroom and giggle. And Sam was too far away to help.

I called him anyway. 

"Do you know where the nearest urgent care is?" I said. "Calvin's sliced up his foot and he's bleeding and it's really bad. Lots of bleeding. There's a lot of blood. It's really bad."

"Shoot. No. Are you okay? Do you want me to call someone? Here, I can pull over and get out my GPS and look it up for you—do you want me to do that? Shoot. Do you want me to call someone? Here, I'm trying to look it up. Oh, shoot, it's a green light."

I wanted him to magically transport himself here so I didn't have to do this. I did not want him to pull over on the side of the road and fumble around on his iphone. "No!" I said, or maybe shouted. "I don't want you to call somebody! There is blood everywhere! I've got to go." I hung up. 

Sorry, sweetie.

I called a neighbor and she gave me her favorite urgent care and the directions which I didn't understand in the slightest, so I had Lucy bring me my laptop while Calvin continued to moan and shake and complain. "Mom!" he cried, as I opened up my laptop. "I'm bleeding!" I think he thought I was checking my email. 

I explained that I was looking up urgent cares and their hours. I don't think I giggled as I said this, though I might have shouted a little. After figuring out where the urgent care was and that we had an hour to get there, we tied an old tie around the very bloody, bedraggled towel wrapped around Calvin's foot. Then we sort of slid/dragged/hobbled Calvin down the stairs and out to the van. I told the girls I would buy them a cake at Costco the next day if they cleaned the house, made dinner, and took care of everyone until Sam or I got home. It would be chocolate if no one died.

Then I drove Calvin to the urgent care. Calvin, when in pain, likes to know what is going to happen. The entire time I was peppered with questions about whether or not he was going to be okay. How much stitches would hurt. If we were going to get lost, because we got lost that one time. How long this would take (that was extremely important to him). 

I slid/dragged/hobbled him from the car to the urgent care where I was met with forms in another language (who is the guarantor and what in the heck is a Patient AKA? for example) and a cramped waiting room. People were obviously impressed with our clever use of towel and tie. They were also probably impressed with Calvin's other foot, which was bare except for a thick layer of dirt, and the hygienic state of the rest of his body. Only a few people actually shifted chairs to get away from us. 

Just to show them, I whipped out my purse and pulled out a book for Calvin to read and a book for myself to read, because, hey, we may be filthy, but we are literate.

The wait wasn't bad, and we were soon taken back to a lovely room with posters of venomous snakes and spiders to beware of. This was heaven for Calvin and we nearly forgot why we were there in our excitement until the nurse came in. She seemed very impressed with our towel/tie/hygiene. 

She checked Calvin's foot. Then the physician's assistant checked his foot. Then the doctor came in to check Calvin's foot. There were many weighty glances and a little whispering. I was confused at their obvious perplexity. The bleeding had stopped. The cuts were huge and they obviously needed stitches, but they didn't look that bad to me. 

The doctor pulled me out into the hall. "Look, I'm going to be honest with you. Stitches on the bottom of the foot is about the most painful thing you can imagine. You could not pick a more sensitive part of the body, and we really don't have the equipment/supplies here to stitch him up with decent anesthesia. I think you should take him to the ER."

Oh, boy. It had taken so much effort to get Calvin into the urgent care, and I was hungry and tired and really, really, really tired. And more tired. Screaming erupted from inside the room. I ran back in to see the nurse brutally dunking Calvin's wounds in a bowl of soapy water. She wasn't even touching them. Calvin was writhing in pain.

"Okay," I said to the doctor with a sigh. "We'll go to the ER." 

"I know a good one," she said. "With really short waits." I was then given directions to an ER  in a different town I didn't know at all. "You know Beaver Creek Commons?" the nurse said. "You just get on 64 and take the exit for 55 and then you head toward Holly Springs in the direction of Apex towards 1 where it intersects with 29. With all those little fast food places? It's right around there. Lots of signs. You can't miss it. It says Emergency Room."

"Oh, yeah," I said, because I hate confrontation and asking for clarification in my mind equals confrontation. "Okay. Got it." 

I called Sam on my way (because I don't mind confrontation with him) and asked if he knew where the place was. 

"Maybe," he said. "I think it's in this one place and you should probably go left after you get off the freeway. Do you want me to pull over and look it up for you? It will take a second—I'm on this weird highway in the dark and it's foggy. My GPS was getting me lost earlier but I'll try to hurry..."

"No!" I said. "Ahhhh! I have to get off the freeway now!" Then I hung up. 

Sorry, sweetie.

After driving by it only once, we turned down the right road to the ER and after driving up to Receiving and parking behind four big semi-trucks and getting out and wondering where the ambulances were and why there was no front desk, I finally got back in the car and found the general entrance. Receiving should not be the place where semi-trucks deliver supplies. That should be called Delivery. Receiving should be the place where they Receive patients. I'm going to write somebody about that, except I don't like confrontation so I probably won't. 

There are supposed to be valets at ERs who will park your car for you, but this ER seemed to have forgotten that rule, so I parked illegally in front of the entrance and slid/dragged/hobbled Calvin inside.

They got us a wheelchair and then seemed upset when I told them I would have to leave Calvin alone to go park my car. This seemed unnecessary to them, so I had to explain that my body could not be with my son and getting my car out of a No Parking Zone at the same time. They reluctantly agreed with very grim faces, because this was probably something their bodies could do.

When I got back, Calvin was gone, already in a room. Great! I thought. We won't have to wait.

We waited in a very lovely room for about an hour for the doctor to come, though I swear to you the ER seemed empty. Then there was some examining and some discussion and some x-rays. Then they applied some numbing cream to the wounds. The numbing cream was a precursor to the shots that would really deaden things up. Calvin shook violently as the numbing cream was applied. The nurse kept asking if he was ticklish. It didn't look like a ticklish kind of shaking to me. Especially because he was saying, "Ow." 

At some point in all this, the doctor took me out into the hall. "Look," he said. "I'm going to be honest with you. Stitches on the bottom of the foot is about the most painful thing you can imagine. You could not pick a more sensitive part of the body. This is going to really hurt him. Really, really hurt him. I can try and make it not hurt. But it won't work. It's going to hurt."

"I understand," I said, because I was now well-versed in how much the bottom of the foot hurts. "And please forgive me if I laugh," I told him. "I am the kind of mother that laughs hysterically when her children in pain. It's a squeamish, I-am-so-helpless, kind of thing." 

He said he understood. Sort of. 

The bottom of the foot really hurts. There was much quivering and shaking and gasping as they jammed that needle into his skin again and again, but Calvin was prepared. We told him exactly how long it would take and how much it would hurt and he did a great job. He watched the doctor do the first stitch: "Wow," he said. "It's like knitting!" This sent the nurse and doctor into hysterics and all was well. It was okay for me to giggle.

It was a grand adventure. Nothing hurt after the anesthetic was in place. They didn't call the social workers because Calvin was jumping off the deck, landing on glass jars, and Calvin gets to have crutches for a few days because he can't put his weight on his foot. 

We survived, and Sam wasn't even here, and I did blood and emergency rooms all by myself. (I'm very proud). And the girls were so awesome, they totally earned the Costco cake I brought home the next day. Chocolate. And Calvin's only fallen while using his crutches maybe fifty-six times. 

The moral of the story: don't cut the bottom of your foot. Ever. Because it really, really hurts.