Sunday, September 28, 2008

Perspective

I have learned that reality is often times colored by perspective, to the point that it can completely change from one person to the next.  Two people can observe the same event or meet the same person and walk away with such completely different ideas of reality that it’s unbelievable they witnessed the same thing.

I find myself consistently second-guessing my perspective to be sure I’m not misleading myself into seeing something that isn’t there, whether in politics, written communication, impressions of people, whatever.  Although we would all like to believe that our attitudes are shaped by reality, the truth is that reality is almost meaningless until it passes through the lens of perspective.

For instance, here are two accounts of my day yesterday.  Both are true.  But they have very little in common.

Koren went on a sleeping strike, starting at about 1:00 am.  I spent a good portion of the night getting up with him every hour or so.

Then Kaelin woke up entirely too early, which can result in disastrous mood swings.  She starts every day with 5 M&M’s, and each time she disobeys or is disrespectful, she loses one.  At the end of the day, she gets to eat the ones that are left.  Yesterday, she lost all 5 of them while taking her morning bath.  Then she decided to throw an all-out, no-holds-barred temper tantrum, that resulted in being carted off to her room and left there to scream it out for at least half an hour.

Koren continued to refuse sleep throughout the morning and early afternoon.  As a last resort, I piled the kids in the car and drove to 3 different locations to get various parts of lunch, thinking surely a long car ride would put him out.

No such luck.  He did not sleep.  Have I mentioned he hates the car?  He fussed every time we would roll to a pause.

When we got home, I set about fixing lunch for Kaelin and myself when I suddenly realized that Koren had been pretty quiet considering that I had left him strapped in the car seat (on the couch, not in the car).  I looked over to see that he was FINALLY.  ASLEEP.

After doing my victory dance, I proceeded to fix Kaelin’s lunch only to look over again to find my daughter, on the couch, trying to CLIMB INTO THE CAR SEAT WITH THE SLEEPING BABY.

That was the end of Koren’s nap. 

Approximately five minutes later, Kaelin managed to dump her entire plate of food onto the floor.

* * *

Yesterday morning my husband graciously watched the kids from 7:00 to 9:30 so I could sleep in and recover from a few lost hours of sleep.

Due to lack of sleep, Kaelin chose a form of ... expressing herself ... yesterday morning that would have ruined any nap Koren could have attempted.  However, he fortunately seemed unusually content to go without sleep and remained remarkably happy much of the morning.

I am blessed that the biggest health concern I have about my kids is whether or not they get enough sleep. 

After getting all her pent up energy out in her room, Kaelin’s mood improved dramatically.  I am blessed to have a house large enough that I can send my daughter to her room when she needs to yell something out, and it really doesn’t disturb the rest of the household. 

We read a story and then she went to tell Daddo that she was “ready to be a sweet girl now.” And she was a sweet girl for the rest of the day.  I am blessed to have a daughter who is generally so good natured that the occasional toddler temper tantrum catches us off guard because it’s so rare.

I am blessed to have the ability to leave the house with the kids when I need to, and money to purchase “easy food” when I don’t feel up to cooking a meal.  We went to get lunch and had fun mixing and matching our lunch combinations from various drive through restaurants.  I learned that Chick Fil-A actually has a pretty decent fruit cup.

I am blessed to have a daughter that adores her brother.  She loves to cuddle with him and talk to him, even when he’s not awake.  When he’s fussing, she gives him the pacifier and I often hear her cooing things to him like, “It’s ok, little guy, just take your passy.  Suck on your passy, it always makes it better.  You know it does.  It’s ok, I’m here.”

Since he didn’t sleep much during the day yesterday, Koren crashed pretty hard at about 4:30 and didn’t wake up for several hours.  Kaelin also took a 3.5-hour late afternoon nap to catch up on some sleep.  That gave me the chance to run an errand and Jens was able to stay home with the kids but have some time to himself after running an errand for me earlier in the day.  The evening ended on a peaceful note and both kids slept better the next night.