Scrub Days.

Some days, all my best laid plans and ideas for the day just. aren't. working. Getting little minds and hands corralled into any activity is like trying to herd drunken cats. Or juggle them. It's difficult.

I used to end these days crying after everyone was asleep, in my favorite "comfort" pajamas over a carton of vanilla greek yogurt, asking my cat questions like: "Why is this so hard? Why can't I get them to follow this awesome plan? Am I failing all my kids completely? Why do I SUCK?! Do you even care?"

Then, on one of Those Days, I noticed something. I'd stuck everyone in the car and released them into a big park with a field, in effort to not yell at anyone harshly out of frustration. (Don't pretend now. We all do that sometimes. ;oP ) They meandered into a giant pavilion with a sandpit and so immersed their minds in play and their toes in sand that they stayed there happily for 3 full hours. It struck me that this is probably what they needed all along.

So now, when a day's just not working, I scrub all plans. Done. There's now nothing on the docket, except sitting and waiting for the day to tell us what needs to happen for us all to find our balance again. The answer always presents itself, eventually, and it's usually the youngest of us that discovers the truth first. (More often than not, if you let the youngest member of the family set the barometer for the day, things are bound to be more successful all around, in my experience, which sort of flies in the face of conventional wisdom I suppose.)

Sometimes, the solution is a day doing nothing but reading in bed together. Sometimes, we have an impromptu trip to the park. Often, it's building elaborate tents and tunnels with quilts and chairs and tables, and pretending until people fall asleep under a hideout or indoor makeshift hammock. Another favorite go-to is gross motor movement activities like tree climbing or building dams in streams with rocks or scaling giant wood chip mounds. Almost invariably, sour moods are put right again, tempers stop flaring and the pointless urgency of the atmosphere drains lazily out of the day like water out of a long, luxurious bath.

Grace and Lark's bear cave

Sometimes, we simply toss pillows in the floor and watch movies together while eating popcorn (everyone gets their OWN bowl.) If we need to run out and grab snacks just to get through that day, so be it. (And who says anyone needs matching shoes anyway? There are days for nice outfits and matching shoes, and then there are days to celebrate the hilarity of being a little ridiculous!)

Most importantly, there's no pushing through or powering ahead when everyone's got a bad case of "the stupids" (you know, the days when every instruction is met with a blank stare), or the grumpies, or when the whole family is just restless in general. There's only stopping and trying to find our bliss on Scrub days. And that's OK.

It's OK because Scrub Days are about finding something our routine made us leave behind. Relationship. Connection. Alone time. Fantasy. Imagination. Our inner monkey. When we give ourselves time to honor the part inside us that's screaming for air and sustenance, so that we can become balanced people again. Then we can move forward and think about words like "accomplishment" and "rhythm" and "planning".

 All work and no play makes Jane a dull/grouchy/spaced out/whiny/incomplete girl. So instead pecking away at the impossible, we relax and let our Muses carry us effortlessly to where we needed to go in the first place. Does it look indulgent and lazy to others? Sure. Who cares! We know it's wise. We know it works. And that's really all that matters.

Getting lost in wonderland.

Empathetic children.

While most people are relatively aware of the general surface-level emotional state of others, and can take it into account, some people are sensitive to the subtle moods and feelings of others to the point of taking on that emotion themselves, even from childhood...

So I thought I'd share my experiences as an emotionally sensitive child here, in case it resounds with anyone, or helps anyone who has a child who seems more sensitive than most! :O)

Most children have the ability to identify basic displays of emotion from others (if they can slow down their busy play long enough to notice! :D), and to respond with a kind and socially

appropriate response (often with a little coaching and training for more logic-oriented kids).

Being a really empathetic child is a totally different life experience, from my own life observation. An empathetic child runs into a room with her friends at a playdate, and all the other kids are honed in on getting their needs met, saying hi to mom, or continuing the sword fight...but the empathetic child has been plunged into another emotional world entirely.

All at once, s/he is aware that the grandmother in the corner is lonely and feeling irrelevant, mom's friend is acting tough to hide her insecurities, mom is overwhelmed with pride for her new baby, father is anxious at having his space invaded by so many people, auntie needs to feel important...however, being very young, the child, of course lacks the vocabulary to express the specific ideas. But, the emotions, being emotions, are felt and understood, even though immaturity limits the ability to understand why or process it appropriately.

Obviously, personality, culture and age probably dictate how the child responds to the information overload. As a child/teen/college student, I was often accused by my friends of being aloof, "ditsy", quiet, meek (I still guffaw inwardly at that one), head-in-the-clouds, quirky, mysterious, weird, snobby or distant. :P (Somehow, though, I managed to have no shortage of friends, probably because I was really good at anticipating their emotional needs!)

The thing that I did most often (and probably still do) appearedto be dawdling/procrastinating/daydreaming on the surface. Indeed, getting me to make it on time to ANYWHERE was almost impossible.

The reason for this was usually that I needed massive amount of time to process (often through play, talking to the mirror, sleep, rehearsing conversations in my head) all the emotional information I was receiving. Trying to explain that to anyone else was like trying to nail butterscotch pudding to the wall; all the action and logic and intelligence was not only happening on the inside, but I also was processing things that others didn't observe easily. I may as well have been trying describe a platypus to a martian in Russian. :OP

Empathetic children can appear inflexible or inexplicably moody, because what's effecting them emotionally doesn't always originate from them or observable interaction. They wear out quickly in large crowds or in intense emotional situations, and can burst into tears or grumpiness seemingly out of the blue.

I lived with the constant nagging terror that others were as aware of me and my emotions as I was of theirs, which led to all sorts of funny self-talks and rituals and self-protective efforts.

Trying to pay attention to verbal instruction was near impossible as well; the speaker would be instructing away about a specific set of concrete directions, and the information I was receiving was their emotional state at the moment. I was getting information LOUD and clear, but, unfortunately, what my brain naturally honed in on wasn't the information they were trying to communicate. At the end, they'd say, "Do you understand?", I felt, "Please, please understand so I don't have to say all that again", and so, I'd agreeably nod yes to their feeling, not their words. If I could sense that they honestly didn't mind repeating it, or if they actually enjoyed hearing themselves talk, I'd ask for them to repeat it, go through the whole scenario again, reach the end again, and think, "DAMMIT! I missed it AGAIN!!" Frustration. :P

Books were my friends. :D

I've noticed that my own daughter often responds by ignoring me, if I'm emotionally keyed up myself. We've talked about it, and here's her reason: she feels like I'm invading her emotional space when I'm upset or angry, because she senses it in her own body so strongly. It's a self-protective measure..not because there's anything wrong with her knowing that I have feelings, but because she feels them so acutely, she doesn't yet know how to process them and set appropriate emotional boundaries. (Fwiw, with this particular child especially, I make an effort to not be demonstrative with my anger or raise my voice...she's honestly just that sensitive.)

In short, people were both the bane of my existence and the beauty that my world revolved around. Even when I appeared to not be listening or at all connected, I was possibly more connected than most...though it probably took some time to come to fruition. I smile and cringe when I see similar traits in my own daughter, and am thankful that I at least have something useful to pass on to her-the empathy of what it feels like to be empathetic. ;P