Week 9

Written By Krista Harrison

View from the houseboats

It's been a tough week at our house. A couple days of grey/rainy weather, ongoing tough readjustment, feeling demoralized, etc. Most of our family energy has gone to learning about better/alternative ways to help stressed out kiddos, which includes speed reading parenting books (highly recommend this one, which aligns with what we do on our best days and all the leadership training I've gotten) and talking to child psychologists. To be less cryptic, Theo's feelings seem to overwhelm him at times and it manifests as 20 minute tantrums complete with biting and other destructive efforts - plus 5+ wakeups at night. It's going to take awhile to undo some of the impact of less successful parenting advice we had been following previously, but at least thus far it seems totally within the realm of normalcy. I'm trying to remind myself we have better tools for our family now and a lot of practice with positive methods of reactive dog training (our rescue Aussie/border collie is a tiny bit insane), we just have to be patient with progress. Indeed, I think we are making progress with the tantrums, if not the sleeping.

The situation is hard and frustrating and also completely unsurprising, given the pandemic, being age 3, all the changes (including to Boise and back), nevermind all the household loss and grief over the last two years. This morning out of the blue Theo said, "I miss Grampie Jack. I wish he hadn't died." Me too, kid. We watched some videos of them playing together for a bit, which gave me a likely-needed excuse to cry. Earlier this week he wanted to read a book about visiting my mom and stepdad in Florida, which was also hard on me and another chance to discuss being said about Larry dying. We are about to order some kids books on grief and loss, including The Rabbit Listened which a pal care colleague introduced us to.

Sam and I are also drinking a ridiculous amount of coffee, whereby we are supporting local SF businesses when we buy lots. Unsurprisingly, it's been hard for the adults to focus on work or feel motivated. We feel punished by our employers for being parents, left behind by colleagues in different circumstances, both afraid of and hoping for change because change brings more transitions. Lack of sleep is definitely impacting exercise motivation too. These are feelings, and they will pass - some truth but not the whole truth. It's the perfect time to focus really hard on gratitude for small wins. So I'm skipping learnings/observations this week to spend more time on gratitude

Gratitude & appreciation

  • I'm writing this on the deck in the sun right now while Theo eats frozen mango and watches videos of the Neutral Buoyancy Lab.

  • We invested a lot of time this week in trying to get Theo shifted from his focus on superheros (which involves a lot of talk about fighting bad guys) back to prior interests in scuba divers and astronauts, and its paying off.

  • We are teaching Theo about how to compromise (letting him make suggestions) and about learning from mistakes, and he seems to be catching on.

  • The plants that I repotted before we went to Boise are mostly doing better and I'm seeing a lot of new growth.

  • Speaking of, the orchid the Division gave me after my dad died has TWO new flower buds growing.

  • Sam got me peonies and they've been gorgeous.

  • Sam was able to rescue Theo's Batman mask that flew off the laundry basket and into the water and sank a full tide later (ok I included this mostly because I figured it might make you chuckle, but also we had fewer household meltdowns about it than I expected).

  • I reached out to connect with a few other parents associated with Geriatrics who said they needed more support.

  • I was feeling really down yesterday, but I let myself mope a bit while I kept Theo company as he napped in the car (another source of strife this week) and message with supportive friends. I set a small goal - continue reading a manuscript for a journal review - and by the end of the night I was on an academic roll and made huge progress on a couple things that had been on my to-do list, and I felt a lot better for having been productive.

  • A mentee received a conference abstract award and a conditionally accepted manuscript based on our collaboration last summer - I am so proud and happy!

Things we made in our house (aka quarantine hobbies)

As in past weeks, I invite you to report in on your wellbeing, share 1-2 small goals you are hoping to work on next week (especially related to our collaborations, if we have one), and report in on your progress from last week's goals

Thinking of you and hoping you and your loved ones stay healthy and safe.

-Krista

Krista Harrison
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Week 10
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Week 8