Bits and Bobs

I have a mosquito bite on my palm.

Squash bug guts have smelled oddly sweet and familiar to me for some years. When I cracked open a can of Peach-Pear La Croix for the first time, I finally figured it out: juicy pear Jelly Belly. Now I have a case of mildly-scented carbonated water that turns my stomach inside out. Maybe I can cook with it or mix it into other drinks to dull the scent further.

I'm feeling lonely. Busy, engaged, fulfilled, and a little lonely. It's not a crisis. I started writing in my paper journal now and then, but it didn't have the same therapeutic effect as writing on the blog because I knew none of my loved ones would be reading it. I was writing to the void, or to myself, which only gets me so far, y'know? I need people.

The kids have been setting up shop in the house this week. It started with James selling off all the candy he had that contained gluten*. Then Matthew pulled out his stash and started trading/selling. Then James expanded his offerings to include less cherished collectibles like rocks, shells, and fossils he'd collected over the years. The next day, he added a book rental service. Every once in a while he'd bring out something reeeeeeeally special like his soft, kitty cat slippers or his little key-code safe and give an irresistible sales pitch to Matthew who was then bursting to purchase it. The prices were reasonable, and parent-approved. Matthew is happier. James is a little richer. And I bought most of their candy off of them for pennies a piece. Mwah ha ha ha haaaaaa!

I asked Robert to consider talk therapy as a resource for dealing with some of his overwhelming frustration in trying to manage everyone else's behavior. He hemmed and hawed. Then I told him I made an appointment. He grumbled and moaned and let me know, repeatedly, in both calm and animated tones that it would be weird and wouldn't make a difference and he didn't want to do it. I let him know that talk therapy only works if you want it to. Just four sessions. If he doesn't find any value in it after four sessions, that's fine, he doesn't have to continue, but at least he knows what it's like. Two sessions down, two to go. I was present during the first session. He was solo the second session and she made him hot chocolate. He said it was okay, and that he mostly just agreed with what she said to him. Not ideal, but I'll take it. He told me about an exercise they did where they listed his triggers, the emotions that resulted from those triggers, and then actions he could take to deal with those emotions. 

"Aha!" moment! For me.

My instinctive response to Robert's triggers has been helping him logically work through the minutiae of the trigger situation and jump right into the "what can you do about it" bit**. I've completely ignored the emotions that he's feeling. No wonder nothing has changed! No wonder he doesn't feel heard! I haven't once validated his feelings (incredibly powerful medicine in my experience) or indicated that I see his suffering at all. Well, if four sessions of talk therapy does nothing for him personally, it's at least helped me as his parent.

James, Matthew and I took the van for a wash and thorough vacuuming while Robert was in his appointment. Matthew turned into a carpet-crud-sucking superhero, pouncing on every particle he could see, shouting victoriously at each defeat. James preferred to scout around the area looking for dropped treasures. He told me that the loud vacuums made it hard to hear when something dropped out of a person's car onto the ground, so it's an ideal place to look. He wasn't wrong. He found a wheat penny (!) and 9 cents more besides. I made him throw away the glass bead, metal spring, screw, and other such treasures*** over concerns of sanitation.

Matthew is 98% recovered from his recent cold (the Covid test came back negative) without a visit to the ER or a regimen of oral steroids. His daily allergy meds and inhaled asthma meds saved the day. I thank God for modern medicine that helps a cold stay simply a cold. 

Just the other day, James was telling Matthew that people used to die a lot younger than they do now. He figured that humans had evolved to live longer in just that short time. I corrected that notion and let him know that our gene pool doesn't change that rapidly. Our medical knowledge does, though. I told him that Matthew and I would have likely died in childbirth, and Bobby of appendicitis. Who knows how we would have endured childhood illnesses and infectious disease? Most of us would have would have lived, but a little worse for the wear...polio, scarlet fever, chronic ear infections...

Feeling grateful. 

*James is not nearly as diligent or scientific about his gluten experience as Alice has been, so we STILL don't know whether it's a problem for him or not. Even when Bobby and I offer him gluten free options, he accidentally eats gluteny things on his own without thought, or says he's not hungry and walks away, and doesn't care to keep track of his symptoms. If it doesn't bother him enough to care, then maybe it's not a good time to be investigating this.

**This is kind of my personality. I truly am part robot. I did it long before anti-anxiety meds ever blunted my emotions. When a problem arises, I investigate its roots. I want to know WHY and HOW it happened. As if finding the cause of the problem will make the sadness or hurt it created go away all on its own. Sometimes it helps, but most of the time the hurt remains. I carried hurt for decades, even when the "problem" itself was over. I didn't even know I carried it until someone named it and validated it. Then I felt healed. 

***Did I tell you I used to collect stuff like that off the playground in elementary school and hoard them in my desk? One day, I showed my treasure trove to my best friend and she said, "Ew! That's just a bunch of trash, you know." I smile inside at James' familiar habit, but draw the line at scrounging in greasy, sticky public parking lots. He didn't seem upset. He was content with the money.