Adaline is learning about Time Out. She is 2 1/4 years old with a 6-week-old baby brother. It took a few weeks for her to start acting out. Normal temper tantrums now erupt and she throws stuff. (Directed at her mom and dad, not Atticus, thankfully.)
They consulted Dr. Sears’s Discipline Book. (Yes, that’s the guy in the Time magazine article.) In our family, we solve problems with information. Knowledge=Control, you know.
Dr. Sears suggests one minute of Time Out per year of age. At first, her parents felt so bad about punishing her that they hugged and babied her after the Time Out. I gently suggested the Time Out might not work well that way, since in the end, Adaline got the attention she was looking for, sightly delayed. It’s all going better now, I hear.
I’ve spent the last week recovering…slowly…from pneumonia. Dr. Green told me to stay away from my grandchildren.
Dr. Green put me in Time Out. Or maybe God did.
“You’d feel awful if you got one of them sick, you know,” say my daughters and my friends.
I know they’re right, but I’m in withdrawal!
Dr Green told me today that people our age (what??) can take a month to get our energy back after pneumonia. Great.
My daughters consulted and asked me to please slow down because they need me. Odd to be on the other side of care-taking.
I feel mortal today. Angry and disappointed with my body, once again. My vulnerability shocks me.
It is clear to me that I must stop “doing”. So I am taking these days of healing to assess how I balance my commitments and my energy.
I have a book called The Extreme Art of Self-Care. It is time to practice what I preach.
I want to my limited energy to matter.
Change is next on my agenda. Damn it.
Amma Ponders 
So, where is your God in all of this and what’s the invitation. dear one? That’s my ongoing question, once I’ve settled down after something’s frustrated me…and sometimes, that IS the invitation: to “get real” with the Holy Mystery and share the rant before I can allow Spirit’s peace to help me see why self-care is last on the list, and to remind myself that I need to sit still and hear what’s driving me…what’s making me run so fast…from whom or what am I running? What is the value I perceive in being “run down?” What is true service and what are the boundaries?
Thank you for the reminder to take time-out’s. Gentle peace and healing to you; may your time-out fill you with joy and sacred stillness.
Holding you in the light…
Ah, Catherine, when were you inside my head? Your questions are SO good. I will carry them into prayer and sacred stillness.
Thank you so much.
Now lookie here! You’ve got all these grandkids boiling up like Hobo Stew in a campfire. You started all this so you had better stick around and see them all off to the Air Force Recruiter, all their merit badges, bail bonds repaid and the like.
Don’t you ever forget all the horrid influences there are in the world and they are going to need a stout measure of the been-there-done-that to keep them straight.
$50 bucks to St Anthony for your full recovery. Keep us posted!
Thanks, FJ!
Robin..we are getting older. That is how we get to be grandparents. LOL Plus we are so friggin talented and smart that it takes a lot out of us. Take care of your body, mind, and spirit. You have grandkids to take care of, retreats to plan, and much more to write. 🙂
“so friggin talented and smart that it takes a lot out of us”
Thanks, Cathy, for making me smile!
It’s not easy to draw the line between staying active and involved–which is good for us–and overdoing it, which is bad for us. Good luck figuring it out! I’m hoping for a fast and complete recovery for you.
Thanks, Susan. I am recovering. Now comes the hard part–saying no to things I really want to do.
A day at a time, huh?
Having just thrown my small car in front of a truck and suffered the consequences I know about life coming to a sudden stop–and have discovered there is a lot of grace in just calling everything off for a while. The quiet pool at the center of being settles and becomes reflective again.
That said, I hope you are better by now (took me a while to get to this post).
I am better, thank you. And I have had a lot of time to reflect. I’m different, but trying to figure out what that means.
I hope you are healing well!