Chapter 1

Summer is almost over, and with it closes the first chapter of a new book I guess I could call Boytrapped Volume II.  In my custody agreement with Kirk, I get the kids (and optionally the dog) for the whole summer.  Exercising the dog option has brought a little added chaos to the last three weeks of summer.  And the kids have kept us on our toes as we all adapt to our new lives together and in Sugarhouse.

Adam opted to spend the night at Kirk's, so we took the other two to their favorite place, Dough Co, and ended up piled on the bed watching YouTube videos David had referenced during the walk back.

I am hoping we'll find time for a last-of-summer hurrah with Adam at the new ramen place around the corner before my house becomes 3 boys and a dog quieter next week.

Meditation Whim

On a whim, I decided to try meditating in my car on the way home. I looked up a YouTube video specific for car meditation, and I really tried to give it an honest effort.

But when the voice coming from my stereo asked me to invite my "clearing angels" into my car and ask them to take away the energy that I got at work and no longer need, I gave up.

If I have "clearing angels," I am giving them the evening off.

Organized

Was it worth the time? Probably not.  But it makes me happy to see the books organized by color as a result of the library I loved so much at the hotel Arlo in New York.

Was it worth the sliver I now have lodged under my fingernail?

The jury, unlike the sliver, is out.

Hole in the Fence

It isn't fair how much we tease Adam. But my highly intelligent son has a frequent habit of letting his mouth move faster than his brain, and I just can't keep myself from laughing. Similar to the way I would have chronicled his first words when he was tiny, I wanted to record a few of our favorite Adamisms lately.

- Cheddar incense (it was really cedar)
- Exit salad (Dad chronicled that one on Facebook)
- This look he gets every time he doesn't quite understand that David is joking

But my favorite happens this last weekend when we were spending some time with Logan and Ehlana.  Adam struggles when words don't match tone, and will take the tone every time.  This has been a problem for him when dealing with adults all his life. Sweet primary teachers would smile at him and say, "I really need you to sit down." All he could hear with the kind tone was, "She really likes me! I should keep doing exactly what I'm doing."

Well, this means he is fairly likely to believe anything that is said by someone who sounds believable. Ehlana had him completely convinced that they had cut a hole in the fence just big enough for their dog to cross from the back yard to the front yard. All of Ehlena's body language indicated that she was kidding. The statement she was making sounded completely false. But her tone sounded serious!

And so when he was asked to open the gate for Alex, he responded, "Can't he just go through the hole?"

Girls Day Out

David asked if I would be interested in a girls day out.  A girls day out.

Of course I had all the questions. Which girls? Doing what? I have a core group of female friends, but I knew if they wanted to hang out with me the invitation would have come from Amy.

Whatever it was he had up his sleeve, he wanted to keep as a surprise. But I'm kind of a difficult person to surprise. It's possible I might be a diagnosable control freak. And it is all together entirely true that I am over scheduled all the time. Letting someone else put something on my calendar? That sounds like the definition of hell.

But I assured him that if he could promise me it was with people I liked doing something that I would rather do than spend time with him, I was up for the adventure. He tried to continue planning the surprise, But ultimately decided he needed my input in order to finalize the plans.

I stood in the hallway with a facial expression I am sure was a mix of complete disapproval and delight as I waited for him to spill the beans.  Really... what could he have planned that I would actually enjoy.  With girls?

"Would you like to go skydiving with Mena?"

That's his idea of girls day out?

No wonder I love this man.

Going Back

I am going back to blogging. Long before Facebook, I cleared my mental space by draining words straight into my blog. And while I did It for my own sake, others seemed to actually enjoy reading it. Perhaps that's when the problem started. Perhaps that's when I got an over-inflated sense that what I have to say matters.

Then came Facebook. And it's early days, it was a friendly place for sharing potty training stories and pictures of your dinner. It helped me feel less isolated when my children were little. But Facebook has changed, and so have I.

In order for me to confidently click post, I have to edit not only for spelling and grammar but for audience perception. Will a world of acquaintances catch my subtle tone? Have I tagged anyone would prefer not to be publicly acknowledged in my story? Have I gotten Adam's approval to share stories and pictures in a space he shares? My words have become carefully guarded. Spun for what I think will be accepted when received.

That does not help my brain declutter.

So I'm returning to blogging, and it's going to be more word vomity than ever.  Read it if you want. Judge it if you will. And get to know me if you stay.

Sometimes It Is About the Nail

I had a dream last night that I was working with a partner to put away a large stack of chairs in a corporate environment.  Together, we put these chairs away at lightning speed, but as I stepped back from the project I noticed that a piece of trim for a doorway we'd gone through had managed to attach itself to the skin of my left leg, running ankle to knee.  It was sort of just wedged in there, but one thin finishing nail was burrowing into my leg, making sure the over-sized splinter wanna be couldn't go anywhere.

The problem was obvious!  There was an obnoxious piece of lumber stuck loosely to me with a nail.  The solution was easy: remove the nail.  Except it wasn't easy.  I was new at the company, and I didn't know if there was a correct procedure for this.  I couldn't walk to HR on my own, so I sat in a wheeled chair and had a friend push me.  I arrived in the HR office, where I was wheeled directly between two women having a seemingly important conversation.  I waited silently as they continued, not at all noticing the nail in my leg or even that I was there at all.

I finally had to interrupt.  "Excuse me?" I started timidly, "I got injured moving the chairs, and I don't know if we have a sick bay or anyone who is supposed to handle this sort of thing?"

The HR woman looked annoyed that I was wasting her time.  Wordlessly, she reached toward the wood, took a firm hold, and yanked.  My problem was solved, but I felt both stupid and in pain.  I could have easily done that myself.  It would have hurt a lot less.  Did she understand that I was perfectly competent enough to pull that out?  Did she know how much effort I had gone to in order to not do something that might have been someone else's job?  

When I was younger, my mom noticed that I liked to work my problems out in my sleep.  If she walked by my room and heard me sleep-talking, she knew I was facing something in life that I didn't even yet know was bothering me.  My conscious self wasn't ready to admit the problem, but my subconscious was already digging in.

I am pretty sure I don't sleep talk anymore, but I do still tend to identify the root of my conscious problems while deeply slumbering.  Sometimes it takes a minute to piece together.  Sometimes it is obvious.

This one was obvious.

This summer I am learning to delegate.  Actively practicing it.  And it is a beautiful thing!  But clearly my subconscious has not gotten the memo and is trying to remind me how much I prefer to just pull every nail out myself.


Sometimes it is about the nail.
And sometimes pulling it out isn't as simple as it seems.