Tangled up in you

I had a hard time the other day, for reasons that I'll write about in a separate post. I was curled up on the couch crying and Ian came in to ask what was wrong. I explained that sometimes just like he will wake up and his tummy will hurt or his head will hurt and he doesn't know why, that day my emotions hurt. He nodded, knowingly. 

Ian went through several days/weeks/months of being pretty emotional this summer. It was exhausting for all of us. I thought we had turned a corner. Well, yes, we had turned a corner. 

And this road we humans are all on has many twists and turns. 

This morning, Ian woke up and seemed fine. Time got away from me/us and I told him he needed to get his shoes on while I brushed his hair. He protested a bit about his tangles but didn't flip out like he has in the past. I thought we were doing well.

As we got out to the driveway, where he should ride his bike to my folks' and I should drive to work, he looked down at the pavement and said, "well ... bye ..." I asked what was wrong and he started sobbing. "I don't even know! I'm just sad and I don't want to leave and I don't know whyyyyyyy!" 

I nodded, knowingly.

He rallied and made it to my parents' house. I worked from home this afternoon and walked down there to deliver food to them as well as tell Ian he could come home if he wanted. As soon as he walked in the house, something seemed off. He declared he wanted to stay at Grandma and Pop's. "Well, who's gonna eat shrimp and broccoli with me?", I asked. I was just playing. 

He walked out the front door and sat alone on the porch swing. After a few minutes, he came back inside and headed straight to my parents' bedroom. I followed him to see what was up. 

So many tears. 

"I WANT TO STAY HERE BUT I DON'T WANT YOU TO EAT ALONE AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DOOOOOOO!"

It was like Bill's Capslock Friday (TM) but not in a good way. 

There was a great article I read recently (which of course I can't find now) about being present to your child's upset and not trying to immediately fix it. I am mindful of that, while at the same time, I hear my child sobbing "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DOOOO!" over and over. It's hard. 

I listened to his various complaints. His hair is tangled. He wants to eat with me and he wants to eat shrimp and broccoli. He wants to stay with Grandma and Pop. He feels stuck. There is no solution. We should all just lie down on the floor and give up and let the vultures come for us (I'm paraphrasing). 

It's hard not to get impatient. I offered a solution and before I had even finished the first part of the first sentence, he was sobbing "NO" and shaking his head. Well, what part of that plan do you not like? He didn't know he just knew it didn't sound like a solution. Fair enough. We lounged on the bed for a few minutes, me in silence, him in heaving sobs. 

Eventually, we worked out a plan. He agreed to put his shoes back on (But not his socks. Those socks are dead to him this afternoon.) I would carry his back pack. He would ride his bike home. We would go upstairs for him to take a bath (he was filthy) and detangle his hair. He would chill at home and have a snack. We would eat shrimp and broccoli together for dinner. And after dinner I would take him to Grandma and Pop's for a sleepover. 

As we rode/walked home, Ian said, "I don't like that I don't get to spend as much time with you as other people." I was unclear if he meant that other people took up too much of my time, but he meant that other people took him away from me. He reminded me that when he stayed with Jenna over the summer of 2016, she saw him a lot more than I did and that wasn't fair. 

"I only get to see you in the morning and in the evening each day and that's only like four hours a day and that's not right because you're my mom."

I told him that I got it. And it is rough. I told him that Jenna and Anton love each other very much and he doesn't get to see her nearly as much as Ian used to in the summer of 2016 and that sucks because Anton is her husband. I broke the news that most families spend a lot of time away from each other, at different jobs, schools, hobbies, and obligations. So we have to make sure that the time we do spend together is as good as we can make it. We have to focus on the content of our time together versus the sheer numbers. 

It's hard, you know? For all of us humans. We grow a person, or a person brings us into their family, or we pick a person out of all the possible persons on the planet to spend our life with, and then we have to share them with all these other people. Each of us has our own measure for how much time is "enough" or "too much." That measure changes. It may not change with the same rate as the circumstances that also change. We all feel squished or stretched and generally uncomfortable.

So sometimes we cry. And sometimes we sit on the toilet answering work emails on our phone while our loved one detangles their hair in the tub. And sometimes we deliver pork butt and Moroccan chicken to one house only to make shrimp and broccoli at another. 

It's a tangled mess to balance.

Tangle-free for the moment

Because we are not savages: assigning chores and an allowance

About six months ago I started giving Ian an allowance. It actually has saved me money in that he stopped begging me to buy him things at Target, Toys R Us, and online. My answer was always, "You have money now. Save for what you want to buy." 

Every Monday, Ian gets $1 for every year he is old. $5 of those dollars goes into a spending account and then $1 goes into savings and $1 goes into a charity account for him to decide what he wants to do. If you're looking for a great way to keep track of all that stuff, I highly recommend FamZoo. There are many weeks I would have totally forgotten to pay him otherwise.

I had some general things around the house that I wanted him to help me with but there wasn't a check list or a chore chart anywhere. I kinda felt like there are just some things that he needed to do in order to keep the house going. Honestly, I've not had the bandwidth for coming up with some sort of chore system until now.

The last few days I've been pondering how to modify this plan. Since Ian has a lady friend he's taking out for taco burritos* and sodas, he wants to have more money in his wallet. I can respect that. This also means, however, that he's been hounding me the last few days for jobs at home that will earn him money. 

I am in uncharted territory when it comes to all this stuff as I never had an allowance, or a bedtime, or chores, or a curfew, or ... I was raised by wolves. Wonderful, amazing, loving, wolves. 

I started with three levels of expectations. The first section is: Because We Are Not Savages. These are things that you just need to do to separate yourself from dogs. They include:

• Put on clean clothes
• Brush your teeth
• Clean your body
• Make your bed
• Put dirty clothes in the hamper
• Make good choices about food
• Help prepare meals
• Clean up after eating 
• Put dirty dishes in the sink
• Do your homework 
• Reduce needless noise in the home (turn off the damn TV!)
• Listen generously
• Help bring groceries into the house
• Put things back when you're done
• Leave things better than you found them

The "payment" for those things is getting to sleep in a bed, kisses on the head, and moving along the path of becoming a kind, clever, upstanding member of society. Congratulations.

All the essentials on our fridge. 

The next level includes the things that earn him his base salary of $5 a week. They include:

• Feed the pets & refill the water bowl daily
• Clean up toys in your room daily
• Empty the small trash cans around the house on the night before trash day
• Bring the empty trash cans in from the curb after trash day
• Put away your laundry
• Sweep the kitchen floor
• Sweep the front porch
• Sweep the bathroom floors
• Clean bathroom sinks & mirrors
• Vacuum downstairs (we have a cordless Dyson that is seven-year-old friendly)
• Dust the shelves (the dog hair levitates) 

None of those jobs are really a back-breaker. And they're all things that have to happen pretty regularly in order for the house to not look like a sty. If he only did those things and nothing else, I would be satisfied. But the boy wants to make some more money, so I added another level.

He is able to make up to another $10 by performing additional chores for money. Those are:

• Wipe down the outside of the kitchen trash can and the fridge handles ($0.50)
• Empty the four litter boxes ($1 each, up to twice a week)
• Scrub toilets and wipe them down ($1 per toilet, once a week)
• Wipe down the leather living room furniture ($1, once per week)
• Wipe down the stove ($0.25 each day)
• Wipe down the kitchen counters ($0.25 each day)

Shrop felt like the chores involving poop should have a higher pay rate, but I'm gonna see if Ian protests. It's not like anybody was paying me anything to clean cat boxes and there are a lot of cat boxes in this joint. 

And finally, my favorite job. I added a Bonus Adventure Assignment. If Ian chooses to go on an unsupervised adventure of at least 30 minutes and reports on his findings, he earns $3! This adventure can not happen on our street (if I can still hear you playing, you're not adventuring). The report must be written before payment can be received. Photos and video are encouraged. 

The iPhone allows me to stalk my kid's location using Find Friends while still giving him freedom.

Yes, $3 is a lot. But when we got to that section of the document, Ian FLEW off of the sofa, grabbed his phone and his Stryker bag, and was off to the school playground! He was gone for an hour. He called to tell me he finished his report, he called again when he got to our driveway, and he raced straight to the couch to share it with me.

After collecting his $3, he went back to the chart. He swept the front porch, hunted for things to put away in his room, fed the dogs, and swept the kitchen. He just kept saying, "I like helping out around the house, Mommy." I could see him taking pride in what he was doing. 

He took a bath while I read him the next chapter of Harry Potter and then he was out like a light. This anxious, nervous, wayward kid without a rudder just smiled and said, "good night, Mommy." I would pay a lot more than $3 to see this change in him.

Shrop has a theory that kids crave structure. I knew that academically but I wasn't sure how I wanted to implement things in our home. I was also concerned about turning our house into a boot camp or my kid into some asshole who wouldn't be decent unless he was paid to do so. I had a lot of worries (he comes by it honest). It seems Shrop's theory is proving sound so far.

After his reasonable run in with the cops this weekend and his obvious delight today, I'm feeling better about all of this. And so is Ian.

Adventure report filed. $3 in hand! He gave himself an 8/10 score because of his handwriting.

* I love listening to kids explain things. When Ian and Maylee returned from Taco Bell they talked about what a great deal the taco burrito was "because it's actually a taco *and* a burrito so you get two things in the same paper for $1.59 and that's a real bargain."

Between effort and ease

I mentioned before that Ian has been somewhat attached to me since his father died. He also is not a fan of being alone in the house (like if I walk to a neighbor's house or leave for work five minutes before he leaves for school). It's understandable given all that's happened, but I do feel like I have to peel him off of me at times. It also keeps him from getting out into the world/neighborhood because of his own fear.

We spent Friday night at Shrop's house in the beautiful L&J Gardens neighborhood. Ian wanted to make more progress in Harry Potter before bed. We were in Chapter Nine where Malfoy challenges Harry to a midnight duel. The children were sneaking to the trophy room when they discovered Neville, curled up outside the door to their common room. Neville couldn't remember the password to get in so was stuck out in the hall alone. 

Ian immediately commented that he felt bad for Neville. After a few more sentences, Ian's face went sour and he said that if he were Neville, he would have been scared and felt awful to be all alone too. A few more sentences and he was sobbing, begging me to stop reading. I assured him Neville was with his friends now and fine and we could keep going but he was not having it. We closed the book and I sang him a song until he fell asleep with tear-stained cheeks. 

Ian slept poorly all night, waking up repeatedly to tell me that he was scared and needed me. I also slept poorly because of all this. Saturday morning came way too soon and we decided to drive around the corner to our favorite local diner Rooster's for breakfast. The day was looking up at this point. I commented that I was going to my yoga class and that even if I had to rush off and leave, Ian and Shrop could walk home, it was so close. I did give them a ride home before heading to the Jewish Community Center for my dose of namaste. 

I returned refreshed and found Ian was playing outside with Maylee, a girl only a few months older than him from the neighborhood. They were doing really well and virtually self-sufficient. I spent the morning in the driveway with Shrop, helping him align his Jeep and trade out the risers on his motorcycle handlebars. It was as if we were childless. 

A little after noon, I decided to get some groceries, figuring the children would get hungry soon. As I left, Ian and Maylee had declared they were going to go on an adventure, perhaps as far as the lake a few hundred yards away. Ok, great. 

They had several false starts as they ruminated over what essential items had to come with them on this adventure. Ian ended up carrying not only his father's shoulder bag but his overnight bag full of God knows what. I shook my head as they walked away, noting that he looked like he was heading for a weekend adventure versus a lunchtime one. Whatever, kid. 

When I returned from the grocery store, Shrop informed me that the children planned on going to the fishing store which is next door to Rooster's for their adventure. Shrop was on the fence about that being a reasonable place for them to walk to, but was damned if he was going to show any concern after Ian's hesitation to be out of our sight for more than a minute. Ian was pumped about this adventure and Shrop sure as hell wasn't going to stop him. 

I sat and had my lunch with Shrop at the house. After an hour, I noted that the kids weren't back yet, but I wasn't concerned. Not 10 minutes later, my phone rang from an unknown caller ID. I clicked ignore, assuming it was a robo call. Two minutes later, it called again and I decided to answer it. 

It was Officer Hatch of Virginia Beach police. He wanted to know if my son and daughter were lost. I told him no, they were roaming the neighborhood. He said, "Well, they're up here at Rooster's and the manager was concerned they may be lost so she called us."

"Are they being a bother?"
"No, they're totally fine. She just reported two kids about 7 and 9 who looked lost. If you claim them and you're fine with them being here I'm fine with that too. Like I said, I'm just checking in because the manager was concerned."
"Ah, well, I appreciate it but we're actually happy they ventured that far. We're about half a mile away in L&J Gardens. If they're acting up, you can send them home."
"Nope, they're good. I appreciate your time, ma'am."

I always wondered when I would get a call from the cops about my kid. I figured it was only a matter of time, I just thought I had a few more years until he was at least double digit age. 

As I hung up, Shrop called Rooster's to talk to the manager. "Hi, this is Shrop. I'm the black guy on the Harley that's there all the time. Our kids are up there. Are they acting right?"

The manager said the kids were acting just fine but she was just concerned because they didn't have an adult with them and they looked lost. I later realized that since Ian literally had two overnight bags with him, he did look a little homeless. She apologized for bothering us and said the kids were very polite. She had fed them grilled cheese and fries for no charge but the kids decided to take them to go. Shrop said they would most likely be back again another day and they should be expected to pay for their food and tip the server. 

About 30 minutes later, I noticed Ian and Maylee coming back down the street with doggie bags in hand. They turned towards Maylee's house and I left them alone. 

Once they did come back to the house we pieced together the rest of the story. They had gone to the fishing store and Ian had bought Maylee a Pepsi with the money from his wallet. After she drank that, they decided to rest and cool off before walking back. They went into Rooster's (where Ian had been not four hours earlier) and ordered two waters.

The manager asked them if they were hungry and wanted grilled cheese and fries. They accepted. I mean, it would be rude not to, and it was lunch time. This would also save them the trouble of walking home for me to make them sandwiches. That's when the cop showed up and asked them where they lived and if Ian could call his mom. Ian said his tablet didn't have wifi so he couldn't FaceTime me, but he did know my number for the cop to call. And that's how I got the phone call. 

Ian was concerned I would have been mad the cops called me but we were all fine. I'm so grateful that the cop was reasonable and didn't give either my kid or me a hard time. And I'm perfectly happy that the Rooster's staff wanted to make sure my pack mule child was not actually trying to run away from home. 

To add to their adventures today, I took Ian and Maylee with me to collect stones with Brigit and Reid behind the granite countertop building. We were filthy after that, covered in dust and grime. So of course we all three headed to Chick-fil-a for dinner. There were more cops in line getting their own meals while we ate ours at a table. Maylee wondered if they would give us a hard time but figured that my presence made them safe. I told her that we were all dirty enough, the cops may actually think we all had run away from home, myself included. 

While I was at yoga this morning, the instructor repeated that we should all be "finding the point between effort and ease." We should be putting forth effort for the pose but not doing so much that our hearts were racing. She also reminded us that the point is different for each person on any given day. Yesterday, Ian couldn't even hear about a child being alone in a book. Today, he set off to buy a soda for his lady friend and ended up having a lovely chat with Virginia Beach police and a free lunch. 

I'm so grateful he found his point between effort and ease today when it came to being out of my sight. Tomorrow, they will have another adventure. Maylee's suggestion was to go deliver a tip for their server from today. 

Ian and Maylee digging through the trash at the end of an exciting day.