Put the Glass Down

Picture credit: scienceblogs.com

I found this by chance when I was browsing on line and I thought it was quite clever.  Like most simple things are.  Now all I have to do is remember it.

“A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the “half empty or half full” question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: “How heavy is this glass of water?” 

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz. She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter.
It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.” 

She continued, “The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything.”

Remember to put the glass down.”

Another Happy Birthday.

This day 6 years ago, our second boy came into the world at 9.30pm.  An hour and a half after reaching the hospital. 

Born on New Year’s Night.  Not the best time in the world to be born. 

Having a December birthday myself, I spent much of my youth trying to figure out if it sucked or was a blessing in disguise being born so close to Christmas.

He’s not doing too badly for himself. 

He has had a family birthday celebration already and he will do it all over again with his school pals in a couple of weeks. 

To mark his 6^th birthday, he very kindly allowed me to interview him. 

Allow me to add in the odd photo of him growing up as he answers his questions.  I would like to start with his very first picture ever, taken when he was approximately twenty minutes old.

Let the interview begin.

How old are you?  

5

What is your favourite animal? 

Great white shark.  Because he has sharp teeth and can tear down prey.

What is your favourite food? 

Apples.  But my teeth are falling out and a bit sore so I don’t eat them now.

What is your favourite game?  

Lego Lord of the Rings.  It’s on my Nintendo DS

What is your favourite thing to do? 

Play with my brothers but not all the time coz sometimes they are a bit mean.

What was your favourite holiday? 

 When we went to Rosslare.  Because there was a beach.

Where is your favourite place to go?

 Swimming.  I love that place!

What is your favourite restaurant? 

I think Barry’s.  (J-1 Cafe in Emily Square, Athy)

Where would you like to go on holidays?

To Legoland.

What makes you happy?

When you are around.  (I swear I did not prompt him on that one.  But I may have wanted to cry when he said it.)

What makes you sad?

If someone whacked me. 

What do you want to be when you grow up? 

Maybe a scientist.

If you had one wish, what would you ask for?

I would ask for a big motorbike!

What does your daddy work at?

In an office.  He does jobs for other people to get money.

What does your mammy do all day?

Makes dinner.  And stuff.

What are you most excited about doing this year?

The summer because we can play with the sprinkler.

Happy 6th birthday, Iarla.  You still rock my world.  xxxxx 

The Toddler Strapped to my Chest

World Health Organisation

So this toddler strapped to my chest is not a real toddler.  It is my way of describing how I feel when I’m a bit stressed.

I was a bit stressed some time back.  A good bit.

There.  I’ve admitted it.

The toddler I mentioned above was the pressure I felt and the vice grips that sometimes made the breath catch in my throat and rendered me unable to speak.

I had been feeling this pressure ever since the boys went back to school after the summer break.  I would wake in the morning and within five minutes of rising, feel the steady and ominous tightening starting up.

It relaxed a little after the school run but returned at the thoughts of going home.

Home.

To the kitchen.  The cooking.  The cleaning.  The fights.  The noise.  The relentless serving of others.  The next school run.  The school bags.  The homework.  The snacks.  The changing of the uniforms.  The cleaning up.  The next school pick up.  The lunches.  The fights.  The demands for food. The bedtime.  The pairs of pyjamas.  The teeth cleaning.  The washing of faces and hands.  The uniforms again.  The laundry.  The last minute bed time snacks.  The bathroom visits.  The bedtime stories.  The eventual silence.

But my mind would still race. 

I would spend the day watching the clock so I could finally get to bed to catch up on some sleep; knowing the next day would bring it forth again.

So when I was in my GP’s I noticed a poster for a 6 week course in How to Control Your Stress. 

Kismet.

It was great.  The counsellor giving the lectures spoke a lot of sense.  A lot of common sense.

Be comforted in the knowledge that stress is important.  We need a certain amount of it to function. 

It is when it gets out of control and we begin to ignore the elephant in the room, avoiding social events, meeting with people and isolating ourselves, that it becomes a problem.

Know that everyone suffers from stress.  Everyone. 

But everyone is affected differently and not everyone deals with it the same way.

I learned not to over-analyse everything.  When something happens, feel it, deal with it but move on.

We cannot change the past, have no power over most of our future and only to a certain extent, can we alter the here and now.    

On a personal note the things that tend to cause me the most stress are unavoidable.   

Those things would be my kids and their noise levels and the fact they are time consuming leaving me with little or no free time to enjoy my own hobbies.

Like a lot of things, all the hints and tips looked great on paper but didn’t translate so well in real life.

But that was my problem and I just needed to find a way around it.

So I wrote down a list of everything I do and listed them all in order of importance.

Then I removed the bottom three from my life.  It helped me enormously.

Unfortunately some stresses cannot be removed from our lives and in situations like these, we need to learn how to manage them.

Ultimately we are responsible for ourselves.  But I also think it is vitally important that we are kind to ourselves. 

Incidentally the toddler on my chest seems to have clambered down at present.  As much as I enjoyed the course and found it hugely helpful, it occurred to me that perhaps it was the ninety minutes of alone time I benefited from most.

Looking back I also found the transition from summer holidays to back to school difficult.  I seemed to be busier and always in the car.  Maybe it took a few months to adjust.

Either way, my chest feels a lot less tighter at the moment.

Long may it last.

I would like to leave you with a little clip about The Black Dog which is another metaphor for depression.  This came up during the course of my 6 week course and a lot of people identified with it.

The December Slump

I see your 3pm slump and I will raise you a December slump.

There is a bit of a contradiction going on at the moment.  The kids are slightly more hyper than usual, if that is even possible, yet harder to get out of the bed in the morning.

When I say harder, I mean normally they are the first ones up.  I haven’t had to set an alarm clock in years. 

A couple of mornings ago, however, my eyes popped open at 7.28am.

Yikes!

The December slump has hit. 

The boys didn’t wake until almost 8am and I had to rouse Lovely Liam after that again. 

What’s more, they were in bed and asleep well before 8pm the night before.

Our earliest riser would be up at 6.30am. His step outside my bedroom door on his way downstairs always wakes me up.  Across the landing, Smallest Boy usually hears too but will lie quietly for a few minutes.

Lovely Liam will put in a curly, shaggy haired appearance twenty minutes later but it is Oldest Boy who needs to be woken at the last minute due to his night owl reading and Lego playing habits. 

Did I mention the December slump?

I think everyone experiences this in some shape or form.

It is the end of a long year; Christmas break is looming but there are still two weeks left until the schools get their holidays.

Excitement levels over the man in the bright red suit are vomit inducing.  Countdown charts to Christmas aren’t working.  Endless adverts and countless Santa’s in the shops just add to the confusion that the day everyone is talking about still isn’t here. 

We are waking up to the dark and going to bed in the dark.  The lights are put on at 4.30pm.  Food is of the comfort variety and if you are anything like me, exercise has taken a back seat.

The kids are going to school, coming home, doing homework, eating, going to bed, getting up the next day and repeating steps one through to five.

It does become a bit monotonous.

And of course everyone is saving and watching their pennies because goodness knows Santa isn’t cheap.

So you can see where the December slump comes in.

It’s not unusual to feel a bit low at this time of year.  Add to that common ailments like winter colds and the odd cough.

If our minds are not crying out for a break, our bodies certainly are.

My sister told me she notices it year in year out in her crèche.  The kids get cranky, hyper and just harder to manage.

On a sub-conscious level they know the year end is nigh and they need a break.

At the time of writing this, I had bathed the boys, made hot chocolates, read bedtime stories and tucked them in.   All before 8pm.

Even Oldest Boy isn’t roaming about on the landing as is his usual wont.

All four of them were out for the count within minutes.

Catching up to do it all over again tomorrow. In the meantime we will just continue as normal because what else can we do?

In an attempt to bring the festive feeling a bit closer, this evening we had some Christmas chocolates and we chatted about where we would put the tree.

The December slump might be upon us, but I will do my best not to let it win.