An Imperfect Week

Sunday night we got back from our trip south, and checking in after four days away from the internet resulted in me finding out/being reminded of all the things I had going on this week.  They were all good things, but they made me want to crawl in bed and pull the covers up over my head.  I'd just spent the past several days peopling, and I couldn't people anymore.  I spent the week channeling Rabbit and crying, "Nobody!" anytime any of my well-meaning Winnie the Pooh's asked "Isn't anybody at home?"  I would apologize, but believe me when I say it is for your own safety that I recuse myself at times like these.  

Still, stuff did happen this week.


It snowed, which means we busted out the snow boots, which means this happened:

Which means I was like,

Except I most likely won't kill anyone as a result of my frustration.  I'll probably just go buy them new boots to outgrow in another six months.

Derek and I dragged Caedmon around most of the day Tuesday shopping for new appliances (a post all its own for next week- I know, appliance blogging!  Things are about to get cray-zeeeee!), which prompted him to desperately ask, "Are we ever going home?" right around noon and our fourth stop of the day.  I remember being goose-stepped around Lowe's with my parents when I was a kid; I did not handle it as well as Caedmon did, possibly because I did not derive joy and entertainment out of opening and closing and opening and closing and opening and closing washer and dryer doors.  The salesmen loved us, I'm sure.

The above gif has nothing to do with Caedmon, but is instead the way I imagine each of your faces looked when you read the words "appliance blogging."  You guys are hilarious.

Wednesday.  Oh, Wednesday.  

Wednesday I broke the fridge.  Don't worry, Derek fixed it Wednesday night.  It turns out our fridge is like those divas who insist on Evian And ONLY Evian, Do Not Bring Me Any Of That Ozarka or Poland Spring Water, I Can Tell The Difference, except with the water filter.  Or it might be that I'm supposed to pay attention to the giant arrows on the fridge and filter and line them up.  Whatever.

Our fridge after the Water Filter Incident.  Thank goodness our fridge doesn't read this blog, or it would know I went from calling it a diva to a genocidal dictator, and then there would be no living with it.

Wednesday I also forgot our children.  But only two of them!

See, what happened is this:  Every Wednesday the school has an early out, and I spent the morning thinking it was Tuesday, so when a friend called that afternoon, I assumed she was asking me to pick her daughter up from the bus stop along with our kids, but her first few words, "It's Wednesday, and the kids have an early out" had me springing off the floor and freaking out because IT'S WEDNESDAY AND LIKE 15 DEGREES OUTSIDE PAAAAAAANIC, but thankfully she came to the rescue and Atticus and Adelaide were delivered to our front door via the safety of a warm car maybe 90 seconds later, which is better than they would have gotten if their own mother had been on top of, you know, their survival.

It's nice to think that this is the kind of thing I would Mother Torture myself over but the kiddos wouldn't even think twice about, but I can already tell that's not the way this is going to go.  That night at supper both the A's Worst Things involved that day's abandonment (every evening at supper we do Best Thing, Worst Thing where everyone gets a turn to share the best and worst part of their respective days, and oh, yes, the word "abandoned" was actually used).  

The one redeeming part of Wednesday was this book I got from the library:

It's WWII historical fiction whose narrative flip flops between a blind French girl and a German orphan boy fascinated by radios.  I'm about 100 pages in and it's excellent so far.  Thanks for recommendation, Deanna!


And just to round out the week:

This guy's spent the week in his snow pants, foam sword tucked into the back of his shirt, princess wand safely in a belt loop for easy access, running around the house yelling, "Fierce!  Fierce!  Fierce!" while brandishing the bedazzled wand at imaginary foes.  This makes me collapse in helpless laughter, because really, Fierce + Glittery Wand Accessory can only equal some sort of Project Runway Superhero and I know this is the very antithesis of the effect he's going for, especially when he tells me the wand shoots dragon fire at bad guys and BURNS THEM TO DEATH (emphasis his).  

How I see Caedmon this week:

How he sees himself:

The end.

"A Cry For Help Unless You're Busy In Which Case I'm Good"

A few months ago, Derek signed up for a work conference up in Minnesota.  Between then and last week, he would occasionally mention aloud about how it would be great if I were able to go with him, and I would agree, but we were already taking our big ten-year anniversary extravaganza trip to Charleston over the summer, so it just wasn't feasible.

Then about a week and a half ago, Derek decided that he would go ahead and ask his parents if they would maybe perhaps possibly be willing to come stay at our house for four days to watch the kids and all around hold down the fort, but hey, don't be afraid to say no, just thought I'd ask, not a big deal if you can't/don't want to/whatever.

Derek can do this because he is not afraid of asking for things.  His philosophy seems to be "you don't know if you don't ask," whereas I hate asking people for anything so much I could literally be on fire and would still shuffle timidly up to my closest friends and family to say, "Hey, I don't want to bother you, but the flesh seems to be melting off my bones, so if you were already going to get some water for yourself, maybe you could get a tiny bit for me, but I mean if you weren't then don't even worry about it, it's not that bad.  Actually, you know what, never mind, I'm completely fine!  No really, I'm good!"  My personal version of hell is asking people for references over and over for all eternity.  I feel nauseated just thinking about it.

Anyway, they said Yes!  Don't remember what I was talking about?  Neither do I!

Derek's parents, who just watched our three favorite vortices of pure energy for a week in July, said that they would absolutely come to our house and feed the children and dress the children and get them on and off the bus and help with the Kindergarten homework and quell the squabbling and go to the storytimes and do all the exhausting things so that I could go to St. Paul with Derek for four blissful days.

I wrote down a blog post everyday in my little notebook while I was there, so I have a lot to catch you all up on.  Next week:  Derek and Kristy Take St. Paul!  (Subtitle:  Derek goes to conference sessions and does legitimate work while Kristy spends half the trip hiding in their awesome hotel room just because she can.)

Those are photos of two people who simultaneously can't believe their good fortune and are trying to get a good shot of themselves and their gorgeous hotel lobby.  Hotel 340, we miss you already.

The Book That Both Took Over and Explained My Brain All At The Same Time

I just finished the book Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain.

This book is fascinating.  This book is insightful.

This book is messing with my head.


I'm seeing everything and everyone in terms of extroverted or introverted tendencies.  I hear Atticus breathe a relieved, "GOOD," after I tell him that no, we're not going anywhere today and think, Hmm.  I don't know that I would previously have classified him as an introvert, but now, I'm not sure...

I tell Caedmon the same thing on Thursday- that we're not going anywhere that day- and he begs and begs and finally places my phone in my hand, begging me to call Paige so he can see the Other Atticus or get ahold of Cheryl so Mason can come over.  We've been out of the house every other day that week, but apparently even one day at home with just Mom is not enough stimulation for our possibly-extroverted Cade.

It's like being a psych major all over again, mentally diagnosing someone at the grocery store with a personality disorder because of the way they picked out their bananas.

If an extrovert is someone who is stimulated or draws energy from being around people and new experiences and an introvert is someone who is exhausted by the same, I've long placed myself deep into Introvert Territory on the introvert-extrovert spectrum.  This is not news to me.

What was new in the book were all the little things about me that are apparently strongly associated with introversion.  "I don't enjoy multitasking," "I often prefer to express myself in writing," "I prefer not to show or discuss my work with others until it's finished," and "In classroom situations, I prefer lectures to seminars"- just four of the twenty statements in an informal assessment within the book.  It reads, "The more often you answered 'true,' the more introverted you probably are.'  I answered "True" to 19 of them.

So many different sections were incredibly, helpfully enlightening:  Adelaide's complaint about how she's seated at school, in a group of five other kids, desks all facing each other.  The way she won't tell me much about school as soon as she gets home in the afternoon, but will instead begin to offer up nuggets during bathtime or at supper, after she's had time to decompress and read alone for awhile.  Her extreme, emotional, and very negative reaction to the possibility of being advanced a grade.  You'd think that I, an introverted mother to an introverted young girl would have been able to read all these signs for what they were, but nope.  I gained so much insight just into our daughter's behaviors and school day struggles to make this book worthwhile.

It also had a small section entitled "Does God Love Introverts?  An Evangelical's Dilemma."  It featured a meeting Cain had with introverted evangelical pastor Adam McHugh, author of Introverts in the Church:  Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture.  Common Household Mom praised this book in the past on her blog, and it was one of those that I wrote down (somewhere, on some scrap of paper that I could have sworn I left right there), fully intending to read, but it got lost in the mire that is my To Read list.

After reading just that small section in Quiet, McHugh's book has shot straight to the top of that same list (especially after reading this article).  Our family goes to a large, boisterous, loud, wonderful and overwhelming church, and I leave every Sunday exhausted and depleted.  Now, I love a lot of things about our church:  their vision, their mission, their teachings, their children's program, their transparency.  But the format of the service and the culture within the church provides constant stimulation from a hundred different sources for close to two hours, turning me into a quiet, seemingly reticent and somewhat wild-eyed woman who can barely form a coherent sentence because she's being asked to attend to too many things at once.  My one goal every Sunday morning, from the time I enter the massive parking lot and take a deep, bolstering breath, whispering an encouraging, "Here we go," to myself, is to make it to the sermon, because then I can deeply concentrate on one thing, which is where my strength lies.  I'm hoping this other book provides as much wisdom and advice as Quiet did.

There was so much neurological research and so many stories and so many different psychological outlooks contained within this book that I know I'm going to need to read it again at some point; just paging through it right now I'm going, "Oh, yeah, and that part," "And THIS part," and "HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS?"  I highly, highly recommend this book for both introverts and extroverts who are struggling to understand their introverted counterparts (such as Newly Married To Me Derek, who could not understand why our early marriage arguments took the format of- Derek:  Makes a point/ Kristy:  Stands silently for 90 seconds before making her point/ Derek:  Volleys his counter-argument back immediately/ Kristy:  Stands silently for 90 seconds before making her point/ Derek:  Quickly states another point/ Kristy:  Yet again stands silently for 90 seconds before speaking, while Derek seethes in frustration because he does not understand that Kristy has to think and think and think about every possible angle before she will utter a single word.  This is difficult for quick-thinking, rapid-fire response, extremely extroverted Derek).

via

via dilbert.com

via Hyperbole and a Half

via 61musings.com

via Cyanide and Happiness

I meant to just include one Introversion cartoon, but I found so many funny ones.  Just like I meant to post a short, glowing review of the book.  How did you even make it this far?  This was the longest post ever.  Take the rest of the day off.  You're done.