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 