Letter B

Critical Thinking

For Father's Day this year I decided to give Matthew a secret gift. I promised myself that I wouldn't say anything to him that would sound critical for the entire day. Even if I felt that the family would be in peril if I didn't correct the way he loads the dishwasher, I swore that would not say a thing. I thought that it would be no big deal but I found myself biting my tongue about every five minutes. I couldn't believe it. I had no idea that I was that bad. He does complain that I am very critical, and I know that I can be but it seems I am not just critical but that I am an f-ing b*tch.

It's an inherited tic. I come from two families where criticism and put-downs are ingrained in the natural speech pattern. Take-You-Down-A-Notch is the favorite family pastime, like the Kennedys and their touch football. I don't know if it's an Irish-American thing but there was rarely praise doled out that wasn't laced with a little ridicule lest you get a big head. As a result I am aware that I tend to point out the things that I think are wrong a little more frequently than the things that I think are right. Add to that a serious case of control-freakism that is in flare-up mode due to stress and voila! You've got yourself a raving harpy. The thing that is so upsetting though is how hard it is for me to control. While I was able to get through the day it took serious effort. It was nice that the world did not end when Matthew was deprived of my sage and worthy advice for one day. No one was maimed, the dishes got just as clean. But I still feel the urge to train him to do things my way and I still lash out at him when he resists. And I still do this about every five minutes. This makes me so sad because I don't want to be that way with him and I don't want to be that way with Lowell. I want to be more generous and empathetic and kind. I want to stop feeling like my family's survival depends on my constant vigilance. This is a really high-stress time obviously, I don't want to be even harder on myself, but I really wish I could change this one thing about my personality.

More random things with no organizing theme from which to form a pithy title.

I'm not finding as much time to blog now that we have access to cheap babysitting. A whole new world is open to us. One where we don't have to fork over 75 dollars plus carfare at the end of the night. Add to that several channels showing MLB games nightly, well, i'm a little distracted. I also find that when you have so many new things happening in your life it's really hard to focus and just write about one or two things. Every time I sit down at the keyboard these days I feel completely overwhelmed.

Speaking of overwhelmed, yesterday we went to IKEA. Now, before I commence to bitching about it let me first just say how happy I am that we have not one but several IKEAs within driving distance of us. I love, love, love their products. However, when you need so many fricking things the place is a torture chamber. It just has too much stuff. Too many choices and too many items that are just out of our purchasing range. And after making some hard decisions about what to get they ended up being out of half the items we wanted. Why? Why do they do that to you? On a good note Matthew and I actually had fun there this time instead of arguing the entire way through. And as long as we give Lowell a sheepskin to love at the beginning of the shop and feed him some meatballs halfway through he's pretty good to go. Matthew remarked that the showroom maze must be a lot like the chutes that Temple Grandin, the autistic livestock-whisperer, designed for cattle going to slaughter. It really did stun us just enough to take the sting out of the ungodly amount we were able to rack up at the cash register. We just calmly handed over the credit card instead of screaming and soiling ourselves in an attempt to escape.

Bowling was also on the agenda this week. Matthew saw an alley near us called the "HoeBowl" and was instantly obsessed. We went with my aunt and uncle as part of the continuing June festival known as Matthew's Birthday and had a lot of fun. The next day Matthew informed me that he wants to join a league. My f-ing God, what is going on? I'm off to search for pods.