control

wow, getting to write again! it's been a while, and i've missed it. so let's see how it goes this time.

things are good with us. lots of things on my mind these days, lots of discoveries and re-discoveries that i'm making about living life. no way to sum it all up, so i'll just be random.

one issue i'm dealing with these days is my interraction with Sena. she can be very challenging and defiant some days, and a lot of times i reaspond to her in ways that i later regret. i find that some days all i do is tell her don't do this and don't do that, or i yell at her. this makes me sad.

like yesterday for example. yesterday was when her defiant behavior towards me pretty much peaked. we woke up and got a bad start in the morning. i was tired, having been up at 4am with aiyana. when sena woke up, aiyana was still sleeping, so i was trying to tell sena to keep quiet as not to wake her up, but she spoke loudly anyway, and aiyana got up. then, sena told me she had to go pee, and i told her to go. she's fully potty trained and goes by herself all the time. yet this time, when i got to the bathroom, there was a huge puddle of pee on the floor, and in the hallway. i was not pleased. i felt groggy and hungry, and now i had to clean the floor instead of eating. anyway, i put sena outside, and cleaned. when i finished, i went out to see what she was up to (aiyana was pretty content all this time, entretaining herself w some toys). i opened the front door to find sena covered in poop. there was poop on her hands, face, arms and legs. she had gone right in front of the door, and then smeared it everywhere, including herself. so now, i'm starving, tired and am faced with at least another half hour of cleaning. i was pretty livid at this point (although now i have to admit that it's funny). i took sena and hosed her down right there, trying to get the poop off her forehead, etc. the water was really cold and she was crying, but a part of me really wanted her to cry and suffer. then, i felt her pain and stopped the hose, and went to get a bucket of hot water in the house.

eventually i got everything cleaned up and we went on about our day. but i really was not happy about how i had dealt with the situation, how i yelled at her and washed her with cold water. not that i wanted to let her off the hook. i definitely wanted to make the point that this in not acceptable. but i think what i did was more than that. i think it's almost like i wanted her to suffer, and this really bothers me.

later in the day, when things were calm and aiyana was sleeping, i talked to sena about what happened. we often do this. i told her how i felt about what she did, and i also told her that i didn't like the way i acted with her. i said that i was sorry and i told her that i'm working on it. she's only 2.5, so this may be a bit much, but i think she understands a lot, and in any case, being honest w her cannot hurt.

when she went down for a nap, i thought more about what's been going on. it became clear to me that part of my reaction, a great part, is attributed to being out of control. it's like i try so hard to have things go a certain way, and when they don't i get really frustrated. sometimes i react so much that it's almost like a new person takes over and it hits me, like "wow, where did all that anger come from?". it's usually over in a flash, but i don't like it nevertheless. yet not liking it is not a solution, and it's not going to help me solve this. i realized that i have to accept what's happening and try to work with all these crazy feelings as opposed to pushing them away. the more i thought about it, the more clear it became. what i need to do is do my best, and then let go. i think that's a much more realistic way to go about things than expecting to be in control. it's not like i'm giving up on things completely. i will continue to do my best. but the key is to do that and at the same time to let go. which is kind of paradoxical, but hey, that's life.

i felt much, much better afer my "discovery" (you know how things could be right in front of you for ever and ever, yet you won't really see the truth until you are ready to). i think all my experiences in the recent past have prepared me for this, and i have to say that i am looking fwd to seeing how things turn out with this different attitude.

enjoy the heat

peace