I was going to post a little statement on Facebook about how summer is coming and instead of dreading the increased kid-time, sibling squabbles, and family struggles that often come with increased time spent in one anothers presence, one could sign up for our parenting e-course and enter summer with a set of intentions that smooth out those wrinkles- like connection, empathy, and trust. I still might write that statement and post it to my profile, like a good business owner should, but I haven't yet because before I made it to the computer my brain scanned across my own set of kids, dates, summer custody scheduling and obligations and fell into a near panic.
It seems that I too need to sign up for the course!
My mind flashed on the current dynamic between Xi and Echo in which the after school hours are rife, and I mean f-ing rife, with hostility and tension. It seems Xi resents Echo's very presence and Echo, like any human would, resents this resentment and therefore makes her presence ever more known. I'm too familiar with this current dynamic as well as my personal lack of helpful perspective on this very dynamic and the thought of stretching that dynamic out, not across just after-school afternoons but across weeks and weeks of summer makes my courage shrivel and wither.
And then as Nathan and I were going over the schedule, as we are wont to do at midnight, right when I am most sleepy and vulnerable to stress, we realized that Bella arrives on saturday. Bella's schedule is any loving parents nightmare because her other house is now located very very far away. We get her for holidays and eight weeks of summer. Which means that we suffer a serious Bella-drought through the school season (once again thank god for Skype!) and live for the weeks when she is a living, breathing, in-human-form member of this family. We never feel complete without her and thus live for a Bella-filled summer.
But remember that I was in a mild pre-summer panic and suddenly I had news that our biggest, most impulsive, most animated child would be upon us in four days. Suddenly I forgot entirely what a three-child dynamic was. I forgot what Bella liked to eat. I forgot whether or not her drawers were stocked. I, obviously, felt ill-prepared.
I too need to take the e-course!
Recently I got an email from a dear friend and she listed a few really lovely parenting intentions she is putting in place before the summer and one of them stood out for me. She is planning on not taking sides in her children's arguments. She's not going to threaten or punish. Again I cast both backward over the past few months, and forward into summer, and knew at once my intentions in this arena needed to be adjusted immediately. I do all right on the not punishing and threatening part, that stuff is habit for me at this point in Unconditional Parenting. And before I read my friend's intentions I thought I was doing okay in the not taking sides department too, but then I realized that it's not exactly true. My response lately, during the after-school hostility hours when the space between Echo's body and Xi's body is in hot contention, I don't take sides per se, I just decide that both of them are wrong. Oops.
I'm facing an entire summer in which the space between three bodies is sure to come into play, if not into outright war. I better get my game head screwed on straight.
I went to bed, way too late since our midnight scheduling conversation and the imminent dates caught us by surprise. But I brought a meditation CD with me to stave off the panic, and a deep gratitude for the e-course starting next Monday. I know for sure that the couples signing up will get a good deal and find hope and connection and new ideas but now I also know that I too will receive that. In helping others I'll help myself. As I answer questions about siblings crashing one anothers lego towers I will renew my own stance on siblings crashing lego towers. As I give it I will receive. What a lovely set up.
And really it comes just in time.
Happy summer beginnings friends. There really are only a handful of these in a child's life, may you sail through with good intentions and even better follow-throughs.
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