let me finish!

so one of my sons was playing this video game on PS2, some action-packed, blood & gore fest involving some ancient warrior's quest for something important. but in the midst of all this are these assorted puzzles, i.e., fill in numbers 1-9 so each column totals 15.

one sort of puzzle requires you to shift pieces into the right places so they make a complete bull's-eye. you have six moves in which to do this. this morning, as my husband was on the computer, i solved the one that no one in the house had solved yet. (yay me!) so when my son happened upon another one, naturally i wanted to try.

but my better half kept interrupting me while i was trying to figure it out. he wouldn't let me finish my thoughts, pausing me to say, "honey, try this" or "i would do that." he would tell me what he wanted to do, and i would say, "we can't do that because it would introduce white space into the puzzle." i would then try to go back to thinking, but he would interrupt me again. i finally resigned to just sit there and watch him, inwardly irritated that i couldn't do it on my own.

and maybe his "helping me" shouldn't have gotten on my nerves, but it did. it really, really did.

see, i'm an overachiever, an independent one at that. i like to do things without assistance, unless i ask for it. if i'm trying to work out something like, oh i don't know, a puzzle on PS2, i need time to just sit there and think about it. i need to look at it for a while and see what i can see, without the "help" of someone else trying to help me.

and i know he meant well. i know he was just trying to help solve the puzzle. but all he was doing was making me feel like my ideas weren't good enough, like i was taking too long to think, and that what i might come up with might not work anyway.

this is something that happens more often than i'd like with us. if my husband thinks something i'm suggesting won't work, he'll stop me before i finish my thought to explain in great detail why he disagrees. i'll finally get to say something that lets him know that what he was objecting to was not what i was suggesting, and he'll then say, "why didn't you say that?" to which i am forced to reply, "because you didn't let me finish my thought."

now if only for the sake of women's lib, i would love to say that i never do that to him, but such is not the case. i too have the tendency to finish his thoughts incorrectly, respond accordingly, then have to bring my emotions back down once i realize we were talking about two different things.

why do we do this to each other? are we really so insensitive or self-involved? hardly. we do it because we think we know each other as well as we know ourselves. we think we can finish each other's thoughts; we think we know what the other is thinking. based on that assumption, we respond, sometimes doing exactly what people who assume do. but we do it in love, and we do it out of that place in us that is constantly aware of (and in love with) the other person.

so when my husband tries to take over while i'm playing a game or trying to make a point, i'll remember the loving place from which that urge originates. and instead of shooting daggers at him behind his back, i'll smile.

ps - he figured out the puzzle ... without my help.

the power of grammar

is it me or has grammar gone to pot?

(it probably is me, or at least partly my fault, since grammatically speaking, it should be "is it I" and "it probably is I.")

to say nothing of the rampant abuse of the apostrophe, the schizophrenia of "its" and "it's," and the comma splice epidemic. don't even get me started on subject-verb disagreement and the effect of the e-age on standarized spelling.

"but denise," you say, "with everything going on right now -- economic collapses, two wars, crises in healthcare and Medicare -- does this really matter?"

i respond, "with everything going on, it matters even more."

think of it. in a world gone mad, wouldn't it be comforting to know that every sentence you read was properly punctuated, grammatically correct, and devoid of syntax errors? wouldn't you feel better knowing that every sign, every slogan, every advertisement you passed would also pass the test of your third grade grammar teacher, Ms. Crabtree? wouldn't you write your thesis and craft your PowerPoint with more confidence if you had the proper uses for "their," "there," and "they're" in your arsenal? wouldn't life be so much sweeter if the underappreciated semicolon finally got its due?

no? maybe it's just i, then.

score one for Mommy

for those who don't know, it would take too long to explain the wonder that is my son Jonan. suffice it to say that Jonan has been the most rewarding and challenging part of my life since his days in the womb when i thought he was a girl. and since he emerged a year and a half ago, i have struggled to translate my maternal urgings into actual progess. you have all these ideas and fanciful notions about the kind of mother you'll be - what you will and won't allow, how you'll respond to tantrums and administer discipline. but most of it is meaningless because children determine how you parent because they each have different needs. i parent all six kids with the same philosophy, but their differences demand different manifestations. my son with Autism cannot be disciplined the same as the others; ditto for my son with a penchant for the dramatic.

and then there's Jonan.

in a way, i thought mothering him would be easier than mothering my stepkids because i'd be there from the beginning. and that is often the case. and my husband, veteran father that he is, offers suggestions and techniques proven effective with his first five, which also helps. but Jonan, boy wonder, seems to revel in being the exception, causing Mommy to often ask, "where are your real parents? they said they'd be back in an hour - that was 19 months ago."

our latest skirmish has been regarding his bedtime and the lack thereof. Jonan sleeps when he wants to, usually aided by Daddy's insistence. his crib is in our room, so if we're awake, he's usually awake too. his mother was also known for keeping odd hours, so she gets little sympathy from her mother. as much as i love seeing his head pop up in the morning, a small part of me cringes, knowing night is always coming.

as a special bonus, Jonan is allergic to midday naps. we can also thank Mommy for that. he does however nod out at 5pm then wake up at 8:30 - ignoring attempts to rouse him at 6 and 7 - wide awake and full of fun as my late Grandmom Elsie would say. thank God for his teenage brothers who don't mind staying up with him and delivering him to our room once he's asleep. but on a good night, he can outlast even them and the PlayStation. i was uberfrustrated by this and resigned to accept my fate as a sleep-and-privacy-deprived woman ... until the other night.

i remembered that when Jonan was a baby, he would wake up around 7am, eat, watch Super Why at 9, then nod out in his swing for about 2 hours. it then occurred to me that if i could get him to do that now, then keep him awake for another 7-8 hours, he would lay himself down to sleep for the night, early enough to give me most of my evenings back.

so Wednesday morning, i woke him up at 7:30. he was none too pleased, but this was no longer about him. this was about Mommy proving to herself (and the world) that she was boss, that she could identify a problem in her child's schedule and correct it. this was about controlling what i could, in the face of so many other things beyond my reach. this was about watching Stylista undisturbed and pillow talk truly for Hubby's ears only.

Jonan ate breakfast, ran amuck until 8:45, then started slowing down. i took him upstairs, put him in his crib, turned on Super Why, then went back downstairs. a little later, i crept into my room to discover that Jonan was fast asleep.

so far, so good ...

Jonan woke himself up at 11:15, seeming to know something was up, then proceeded to put on the Jonan Show for the rest of the day -- running around, making Jurassic Jonan noises, picking with his brothers, eating Vaseline, and having a bang up time. at 6pm, he started whining then almost fell asleep on my lap. i gave him dinner, let him run around for another half hour, washed him up, then at 7, returned him to his crib with the lights dimmed and some of his favorite books. by 7:15, he was asleep for the night. he woke up Thursday morning at 7, and we repeated the process with much success last night.

for some parents, it's eating. for others, it's incessant crying or chronic cradle cap. for still others, Heaven help them, it's all the above and more: issues with our babies we can't seem to fix. Jonan also had problems gaining weight and a few bouts with constipation. those were tough, but his doctors told us how to handle them. getting Jonan to sleep when i needed him to sleep required knowing him, knowing our home, and knowing what I was willing to do. no one helped me figure this one out -- i did it on my own. and that makes me some kind of proud of the Mother i am.

now, to get him out of our room ...