Mr. Active Alert

The Parenting Pit is a fabulous website authored by an Aussie (named Arun) who stayed with us this October. I'd loved/appreciated his humor filled unschooling wisdom many a read, but (obviously) never met the guy... until he came to NY! P Adored him, his sweet gifts, thoughtful ways and respectful responses. It was a life expanding visit and we were happy we took the plunge and opened our couch to him and his kind soul.

One night, Arun and I sat up chatting into the wee hours. At one point he called E's and mine parenting experience "pretty intense." I've thought a lot about that conversation over the past month... That conversation and realization led me to a book that led me to peace :)

Many of the mums I'm friends with here co-sleep, homeschool/unschool, skip the babysitter deal (kids aren't interested) and forgo videos as a babysitter too. The typical crutches our society uses to get by since we're sorrowfully lacking in tribal culture. This alone could warrant "intense parenting" labels from some (that's one of the nicer labels, for sure:). E and I have always assumed our harried heads were due to our parenting choices and particular personalities. But our visitor wasn't referring to the lovely life that comes from spending a slower, more contact laden day with your kid. He was speaking about the contact required by P in particular. What? Someone else thought it was "more?" Because E and I've felt that way for four years - but just figured we were wusses :)

I mean people have vaguely pointed out differences, sure. My mom has sweetly wondered aloud about his, um, excessive movement. Extended family often remark on his Energy and Alertness. (But were you to ask most mums up here about P (unless they've spent quite a bit of time with him), their descriptions vs my parent's would paint a Jekyl and Hyde portrait. He's quietly angelic in most groups and any new situations. Gravitates to my lap, rarely speaks and looks the perfect part of innocence. At least for the first few Hours -but I've mentioned his "hard to transition" ways before. Turns out, this dual persona is normal for an active alert child...)

But I think what our visitor was referring to in particular was the constancy. The need. The requests. The energy. I am Not going to bitch about my wonderful child on a blog dedicated to honoring him, so I don't mean any of these words as negatives. They are just truths. And they are truths that have, honestly, drained E and I for the last four years. We have thought ourselves enormous pussies. Slackers. Obviously less strong than our parents who had 11 kids between the two families. Cuz, at the end of the day, one is just plain ol' kickin' our ass.

I usually avoid any inclination of "woe is us" here, for want of sounding, of course, fabulous. Who wants to sound like a whiner? But I'm coming clean tonight. I can say quite honestly that from the moment he wakes me until the time he goes to bed at night I have about 5-10 minutes of alone time in my head each day. Some days, (the ones that feel lucky to this artist that used to stand at a wall, alone, for 10 hours a day, perfectly content in the silence), may find a combined 30 minutes over the course of the day, but this is very rare. I pee alone about once a week :)

Now I can hear the critics in my (spacious, after bed:) head as I type. Just tell him its "quiet time" once or twice a day. Hah. P and I've had chats about my head needing some space. Quite frankly, he takes it as a lover who has been told they are no longer wanted. He would happily spend every waking (and sleeping) second with me and it breaks his heart that I would feel any differently. And for a child that feels things sooo deeply and so heavily (and can't fathom why Mama would want to be away from him (because that's all me being alone is to him) it is too much, too heavy of a load for me to lay at his little, non-understanding feet. I'd choose busy over guilt any day, and so it goes :)

So after a typical morning in our house (I started to describe it in this post and it was too embarrassing, too unbelievable for all of its honesty. Mornings are difficult for P, transitioning back into the world, out of bed, into the day. Add in my need to quickly cook less he melt from hunger, combined with his hatred at letting loose of me as a playmate after fasting from play all night, and its a daily dance of drama!) But I digress... The typical morning was followed by me accidentally piercing the back of my freezer (yah, the monthly defrost went awry there!) and we ended up with the landlords in our house before we were even dressed. And I looked around at the laughable state of my morning. The house starts clean each day, I swear. Its my evening ritual. E reads P books, I tidy and clean to help meet the next day. But standing amidst the smell of compressor fluid and freon soaked towels covered in "icebergs", you would never have guessed this fact. It looked like a house filled with 7 children. And I swear, I felt like I'd had seven different kids pulling at me all morning too. And I, once again, wondered, how the hell did our parents do it???

The typical worries follow this sort of embarrassing moment. What have I done to create such a need filled, high energy, child? There was that one time that xyz, or perhaps when he was little and I (fill in the blank). I go round and round with a chicken and egg scenario. Is he so in need of attention and interaction because I always gave him attention, or... Then I smack my head and remember, oh yeah, I always gave him attention because he's requested it since he was born. Is he so high energy because of the way we play with him? But we follow his lead... Is he so against groups because I've pushed the issue? And on and on I go... when my head has the space to go, that is;)

But tonight I feel reborn in peace. Seriously. I recently read about a little book called "The Active Alert Child." I'm not one for labeling kids really, but there's a lot of helpful resources out there with labels on them, so I decided to give this one a try the other day. And holey schmoley, the book is about my kid. Every quote from every example in the first chapter has occurred in our house. It was amazing to actually recognize my kid in a book instead of constantly thinking, um, no, that's not us... I won't try to summarize in this already lengthy post, but its nice to finally feel like we're not crazy. We can stop glancing at each other with the "people have more than One of these?!" expressions. We can stop wondering why the parenting books we've read seem mostly ludicrous when applied to our child. I can quit the "is my child really a bit "more" or am I just a huge wuss" dance. I've tried so hard to love my child as he is, not to judge, manipulate or mold him to an ideal I have about what a child "should" be. To honor him, for who he is. To let Phoenix be truly Phoenix. And yet there has been this gnawing worry that he was slightly different, and it was All My Fault. Inherently different I can handle, hell, I love truly different :) But actively or accidentally screwing my kid up, not so much:) Apparently, according to this book, I have not inadvertently messed him up (not that there aren't plenty of ripe opportunities just ahead for me to do so ;) He is one of many Active Alert kids, perfectly normal, if not slightly different than the Hollywood stereotype of normal I expected to birth. So I look forward to meeting him tomorrow morning, in our dark, white noise filled sensory deprivation chamber, er, bedroom, knowing he is just who he is, a perfectly quirky boy who naturally needs me constantly around and just has to climb door jambs. Long story short, if you really want to understand P, forget the fucking blog and go get this book ;)