I always thought bad days had a formula. Like if you could figure out what made it a bad day and avoid those things, you can always have good days, or at least have better days.
Par example: Weird piece of hair that won't stay behind my ear + cranky 2nd grader who won't stop spinning in a circle during reading + angry parent phone call = bad day. SO: According to the laws of physics, if I make sure I never have weird hair and never answer the phone then I only have one bad thing in my day. And resist the urge to call your days funny alliterations like "Mania Mondays" "Wild Wild Wednesdays" and my favorite, "Tsunami Tuesdays" because they always always always come true.
I think it took the whole school year to figure out that this doesn't work. But it's easy to think applying data to your day will fix it. I've always been given the advice to "keep good data" to "analyze" when it comes to kids' behaviors. If Sammy freaks out during reading everyday, then find out what's going on in reading that makes him freak out. I'm pretty sure I've let that spill over to my life. It doesn't help that I want everything to be perfect and easy all the time.
When I was 19, I was visiting Ypsilanti after I moved home for the summer and we were at Stephanie Says Monday night dance party at the Elbow Room and after dancing to ABBA and David Bowie and things only people who dye their hair black listen to, I remember walking, real sad and 19 year old world-problems-on-the-shoulders kind of walk, with my hands in the pockets of my second hand trench coat, probably black eyed Twiggy makeup to emphasize my sorrow, and my dancing partners started singing "look for the silver lining" real Judy Garland like, but when you're sad you don't want to look for silver. You want to wallow in your Twiggy, Margot Tennanbaum makeup. But maybe I get it now.
I've been trying this thing that my dad is helping me with. It's called "trying to enjoy my time that I have left without wanting to be somewhere else every minute" and it's working well this week. I'm pretty sure I had a terrible day today but I'm kind of okay. I think this day would've had me in tears by 8:45 a.m. but today I just rocked it and listened to the kids funny story and I realized something.
For every freakout, there is another kid that's doing something great. For every unkind word, there is a really funny story that makes me laugh. For every behavior intervention that's going south, there's another kid that hugs me and tells me they miss me when they go home. This is true and it is true every day.
Like the story problems we were making today:
6 cats were jumping over the moon.
4 cats left to get married.
How many cats now?
"What's that?"
"A monster who eats cats. You can buy it for $1100."
"Here Ms. Ronau. I made you a tiny man out of paper."
*Insert a tiny soggy-glued pile of paper with a tiny square smiling head and my Grinch heart melting*
I thought the formula for getting through this next piece of life was to not care and survive and keep my head down. But maybe it's to try and block out the knuckle heads and write down the ridiculously crazy-cute stuff. And eat more Snickers bars and give Oatmeal more carrots because he tries to eat the middle first. Silly baby.
Par example: Weird piece of hair that won't stay behind my ear + cranky 2nd grader who won't stop spinning in a circle during reading + angry parent phone call = bad day. SO: According to the laws of physics, if I make sure I never have weird hair and never answer the phone then I only have one bad thing in my day. And resist the urge to call your days funny alliterations like "Mania Mondays" "Wild Wild Wednesdays" and my favorite, "Tsunami Tuesdays" because they always always always come true.
I think it took the whole school year to figure out that this doesn't work. But it's easy to think applying data to your day will fix it. I've always been given the advice to "keep good data" to "analyze" when it comes to kids' behaviors. If Sammy freaks out during reading everyday, then find out what's going on in reading that makes him freak out. I'm pretty sure I've let that spill over to my life. It doesn't help that I want everything to be perfect and easy all the time.
When I was 19, I was visiting Ypsilanti after I moved home for the summer and we were at Stephanie Says Monday night dance party at the Elbow Room and after dancing to ABBA and David Bowie and things only people who dye their hair black listen to, I remember walking, real sad and 19 year old world-problems-on-the-shoulders kind of walk, with my hands in the pockets of my second hand trench coat, probably black eyed Twiggy makeup to emphasize my sorrow, and my dancing partners started singing "look for the silver lining" real Judy Garland like, but when you're sad you don't want to look for silver. You want to wallow in your Twiggy, Margot Tennanbaum makeup. But maybe I get it now.
I've been trying this thing that my dad is helping me with. It's called "trying to enjoy my time that I have left without wanting to be somewhere else every minute" and it's working well this week. I'm pretty sure I had a terrible day today but I'm kind of okay. I think this day would've had me in tears by 8:45 a.m. but today I just rocked it and listened to the kids funny story and I realized something.
For every freakout, there is another kid that's doing something great. For every unkind word, there is a really funny story that makes me laugh. For every behavior intervention that's going south, there's another kid that hugs me and tells me they miss me when they go home. This is true and it is true every day.
Like the story problems we were making today:
6 cats were jumping over the moon.
4 cats left to get married.
How many cats now?
"What's that?"
"A monster who eats cats. You can buy it for $1100."
"Here Ms. Ronau. I made you a tiny man out of paper."
*Insert a tiny soggy-glued pile of paper with a tiny square smiling head and my Grinch heart melting*
I thought the formula for getting through this next piece of life was to not care and survive and keep my head down. But maybe it's to try and block out the knuckle heads and write down the ridiculously crazy-cute stuff. And eat more Snickers bars and give Oatmeal more carrots because he tries to eat the middle first. Silly baby.