Some solitude... and meltdown lessons

Firstly, big cheesy virtual hugs to Laura and Ren for the comments on my last post. You guys are the best support net a gal could have. Ren admitting that she is sometimes an asshole (even if I do find that hard to believe :D) helps me start to forgive myself. And yes, Laura, being able to apologize and just say, "Hey, you know what? I'm being a total control freak. Thanks for that. You go on, I'm sorry." is so healing!

Today, the kids were with their assorted grandparents for a whopping 6 hours. I spent about half that time knitting and listening to this talk on archive.org with Sandra Dodd and Richard Prystowsky, on peaceful parenting. Wow. I would recommend this to any parent. It's about having a peaceful relationship with your child and the importance of meditation practice-- the planting of peaceful seeds, internally. It deals a lot with anger-- how troubled times WILL come, and how to deal with them. Just the sound of Sandra Dodd's voice makes me question what I'm doing.

So... after listening to that talk, I had a few more hours to kill. It was quite insane how much I missed my wee beasties. I started thinking, Dammit! I want to practice peaceful parenting right NOW! Right now I say! (Typical me, that.)

I managed to get the toys in the living room straightened out. They had so much stuff in here that they couldn't get to the cool toys for all the junk-- you know the kind, all the stuffed animals they got for Easter last year, etc. I got two boxes to give away, a big plastic box to put away (so I'll have something to pull out for crazy days), and a trashbag of stuff that is, in fact, trash. It's a lot better and more open now. Rowan squealed with delight, no joke. I won't try to pretend that it wasn't all mixed with laundry and Pringles cans. It won't take nearly as long to pick up now.

By the time the kids got back, I was so glad to have them. Dairbhre's grandparents had given Rowan a Valentine's Day present, which turned out to be Milo and Otis on DVD! I feigned falling to the floor in amazement-- that was my favorite movie as a kid. I watched it after school every single day for at least 2 years. I ran to the DVD player and said, "Oh yeah, we're watching this RIGHT NOW!" (I get like that, have you noticed???)

So, at first Ro was like, "I don't like how they keep talking." (The movie is just footage of cats and dogs and animals-- it took four years to make-- with a narrator telling the story and doing the voices of the characters.) Then she got really freaked out over chairs-- she wanted both of the kid chairs beside each other and Boo Bear kept knocking one over and they were both screaming over it, so Chad went and put it up. It wasn't really my place to argue, and I honestly could not figure out what they even wanted. Rowan became completely incoherent with crying and screaming over this chair, that she wanted to sit in THAT chair (it was identical to the one she was sitting in). Normally both kids having meltdowns at once causes me to melt down. But I kept my cool. I didn't even get frustrated. I took Rowan into her room and got her pj's on. She was still freaking out by the time they were on, she thought I was going to make her to to bed. She kept yelling, "Answer me! Do I have to go to bed now? Yes or NO?!" but she was screaming so loud she wouldn't have heard me. I just sat down with her and told her to breathe with me. After two deep breaths she started giggling. We went back into the living room and she got really into the movie. She very calmly asked where the chair was, so I fetched it for her. No more worries.

I think I learned something from that peaceful parenting talk.