But here I am, double smacking the mosquitos in the house out of shear meanness.  I mean, they're dead after the first direct strike, yeah?  Yeah. 

What's going on here?   Good stuff.  Gooood stuff.

1 - leaving tomorrow for the Lake Eden Arts Festival.  I'm sure packing will be a snap so why get right on that?

2 - hubby is working nights thanks to the Pig Flu, so I'm a single mom for a while.  Not really, but it sure feels that way.

3 - I've just upgraded my teaching certificate significantly.  Having passed two exams handily, now I've got 5 additional certification areas.  Rock on!  If you happen to remember my excitement from, oh, AUGUST about the imminent new job, then you may or may not (me -- not) be amused to hear that thing is still stuck in red tape.  A whole freakin' school year.  But I've learned enough in the meantime that, yeah, I'm willing to concede it was good it happened this way.   But still.  The upgraded certificate also means I'm now officially qualified to take the job if it ever comes through. 

4 - I've applied for and will be interviewed next Thursday in hopes of starting the parent coaching program in June with the Parent Coaching Institute.  Woo hooo!  Distance learning, here I come.

5 - new haircut due next week, too.  Finally. 

6 - I'm working through Christine Kane's Uplevel Your Life program.  New a-ha's every single day.  Worth every   single   penny.   Except that I'm super tired as a result.

7 - Also paying some attention (not enough) to the Awakening Joy program.  Lovely, lovely stuff.

8 - And still really enjoying EFT.  Some days I think it's a total crock.  Others, I do two rounds of tapping on some bit of obsessive thought tape and then realize 10 hours later that I haven't thought of it again. 

9 - I'm learning to cook!  I've been trying a new dish or two every week since the new year, often with Romanlily.  Paying attention to what and how I eat makes a bigger difference than my former Wendy's eating self would have imagined.

10 - I had a round of brainspotting with my therapy group back in November?  December? that changed my life.  No more waiting on the other shoe to drop.  I don't even remember what happened in the session, really, I just know life is much, much happier.  But it's also just possible that my need to air all of my inner work here vanished at the same time.  I don't know.  Still in process on that.

10.5.  My brother moved to the arctic circle.

Time to pack.  Love from the giraffe!

(Not my photo, but lovely.) 

I went to a memorial service today at a church I left more than 4 years ago.  The service was to honor a pair of friends who helped me through all kinds of things when I lived alone and closer to their homestead.  Bill and Gay were killed a week ago Friday in a car accident, instantaneously, together, and holding hands.  Their daughter put it aptly when she said they would have appreciated going out this way, but would have been pissed at the news stations labeling them as "elderly."  At 66 and 65, it's seriously hard to imagine two more vibrant folks. 

I've got thoughts running rampant on several aspects of the 2 hours I was there; I'm curious to see how I might better organize them.  (Well that, and I got the nudge from Centria... how do you turn one of those down?  Even she may regret this one -- it's a looooooong one, and mostly just about the convolutions of my psyche.)

The need for a savior. 
When I went back to this church a couple of years ago for another goodbye service, I was wound pretty tight.  I was ready to defend my decision to leave, and I wanted to prove to them -- as if they'd given it great thought each Wednesday before bed -- that I had gone on to a happy life of simple paganism.  But today, as I sat through the hour-long service, there was much greater expansiveness for me.  Maybe it's that Bill would have been the first to question the doctrines I saw playing out.  I found I couldn't say the prayers printed in the bulletin, and that that was perfectly acceptable.  More that acceptable, it was a relief.  When I left that church, I left because I just couldn't find myself there - perpetual stranger to myself and others.  On some level, I've been afraid that I left out of fear (heh), and that in a different frame of mind, I'd see a need to go back.  No, instead it turns out that I just can't buy what they are selling.  They are good folk living their religion, and I completely wish them well. 


The people I failed. 
I was a youth counselor in that church and went on many a youth mission trip.  I only saw one of those "kids" today, but she was exactly the right one to run into.  She had confided to me in Costa Rica in... 2000?  wow... that she was carrying a water bottle full of vodka to school every day, and that she pretty much stayed drunk.  Her father was a rough-and-tumble police officer and very well respected in our church.  In hindsight -- shoot, I knew even then at that time -- I should have done something.  Instead, I was completely paralyzed by fear of what would happen to her at her father's hand, and by my fall from grace as her confidante.  So I did nothing.   <hangs head in shame>

She appeared behind me today for such a beautiful hug.  That she lived through that time brings me intense joy.  She's working, has two kiddos of her own, and took down my phone number that we might reconnect.  Most excellent.

There were other warm welcomes, genuine expressions of love, and earnest suggestions that I return.  To most of the later I said thank you, and in one appropriate case, said, "no, thanks, I am enjoying life as a simple pagan." 

The stories. 
There were many stories about Bill and Gay, of course, and all of them were wonderful.  I have a slew of them myself.  Bill helped me lay out my labyrinth garden at my previous house; he nearly fell off my roof when cleaned off the leaves; he was my massage therapist, my photographer, a confidante.  He brought me flowers from his garden, loaned me his tiller so I could grow flowers myself, regaled me with stories from his very rich life.  He helped me connect my computer to the web, and he had a vision for how I might remake my attic into a master suite.  His wife cooked me dinner in exchange for a ride to handbells rehearsal and back.  Both asked innumerable questions.  Both offered more advice than you can shake a stick at. 

Bill and I fell away from each other for a time when I (accidentally) got pregnant by my current husband, then boyfriend.  He felt I had just truly messed up my life and told me so.  I couldn't bear his criticism at a time I felt so completely vulnerable.  It was his emphatic statement that our lives would now be going in different directions, that he wished me well, that we might as well not speak any more.  It was confusing and painful.  It was also in line with what I knew about Bill, but that didn't stop me from being hurt.

A couple of years later, I sent him an email on his birthday.  He responded with bright joy, and we made plans for me to come see his current garden and projects.  It was awkward but good.  I showed him and Gay pictures of my family, talked about the joys of parenting, saw all the new stuff, and went home.  There were sporadic emails after that; he was right that our lives really had gone in different directions, and that was fine.  At least there was peace in that now.  Given how quickly he and Gay were taken, I am exceptionally grateful for the reconcilliation. 

So hearing all of the wonderful stuff, I started wondering how crappy a person I must be to let that kind of heart leave my life.  I didn't let the daggers penetrate too deeply, but they were there.  I learned at the reception that Bill and his son had an argument last Thanksgiving, and that they haven't spoken since.  Sigh... that, also, is the Bill I knew.  I am so sorry that that pain persists for his son, that it will be so very much harder to rectify now.  I am grateful that Bill and I were able to repair on any level. 


My triggers and some thoughts about life in general:
Early in the service, I remembered that Bill was the one to introduce me to contra dancing.  When I start tracing that back, I see him as a sort of fulcrum.  Through contra, I have my dearest friends, my husband and child, my support system, my therapist, and a source of joy.   Bill completely changed my life with that one offered invitation -- though I didn't accept it for about a month. 

I also learned at the reception that that story -- how I accepted Bill's invitation to join him in a diversion he and Gay had found and were enjoying -- was not what I thought it was.  There was Bill and Gay, and a third dear friend named Dyana.  According to Dyana, Gay called her to say, "We need to get Halal out of the house.  Come up with a list of options."  Dyana came back with the requested list, and contra was at the top.  Bill was shaking his head "no" at the idea that he would actually have to dance to pull this one off, but in the end, he agreed, saying, "I'll do it for Halal."  That Gay was frequently the engineer of things Bill carried out was the point of Dyana's story.

I have extreme gratitude for the fact that Bill and Gay gave me the gift that looms largest in my life at the moment.  Simultaneously, I feel pissed that all of this was plotted out behind poor Halal's back.  Sigh.... Dyana went on to give me other examples of stories I thought originated in Bill's spur-of-the-moment thought process, but were instead carefully crafted situations to change my life as it then stood. 

My ego is loving this conflict, I gotta say. 

Fab Slice talked me through the possibility that Dyana never had to share those stories with me, and that she did says more about her than the stories say about me.  I'm calmer now (I can imagine that anyone still reading this would wonder why the heck I needed calming in the first place -- there's perhaps no obvious issue here), and I feel a general trigger behind situations in which it seems Halal is the puppet or, at least, the one with the least information.  It stirs something mean and old, something I'll take to group in the coming week.

Last thing: looking out over the congregation today, I wondered why it is I have so much trouble simply loving those who believe differently than I do.  I guess that's a common problem, but I can't see any reason for it to stand.  Not that knowing that seems to let it dissipate.   If my boundaries are clear, why does another person's belief that they need to be saved have any thing to do with me at all?  Why does it matter to me that others may believe I'm not living my life well or right?  (This of course assumes they are thinking about me at all, which I really do get they are not.) 

Simply loving others.  It sounds so simple, but I can earnestly say I'm not there.  I judge.  I expect.  I place conditions.  And all of it, all of it, comes out of a baseline fear of something I can't name. 

So.  Thank you, dear Bill, for your many hours of work and leadership on my behalf.  Thank you for getting me off my ass when I was too depressed to walk.  Thank you for living in such a way that I wanted to come back to wish you well today, and for the reminder that ego is a serious trouble-maker when given the reins.  Thank you for asking me to look at how and why I love.  And for all my preconditions, I love and will miss you and Gay. 

Best -
Halal

I've been avoiding Gaia for something over a month now, and was headed in that direction for a month prior to that.  Why?  I still don't really know, but I know that it started in a way that makes no sense to me.  I had the truly wonderful experience of meeting Centria at the Atlanta airport... I mean, really, if you've met her, you know what I'm saying -- delightful.  I felt loved and accepted immediately, I felt loving and accepting in return, and I just enjoyed the hell out of meeting her.  So isn't it just natural then that I'd slowly taper off the easist means of contact -- Gaia?  What?

Then, I got two actual show-up-in-your-mailbox Christmas cards from two more lovely souls here --  one from DebYemm, one from Yertle.  Lovely families, sentiments I cherished, kindness, creativity in sharing the essence of the season.  Surely that was the breaking point -- no more Gaia at all now!  What?

I don't know, folks.  Maybe I was feeling subconsciously overwhelmed by the concept of maintaining more real-world friendships.  That's all I can think of, as I do poorly enough with the friends I have here and now.   Actually, emma leaving was part of it, too.  I miss her, and her last post haunts me a bit.

It's also possible that life just got busy and somehow I wasn't ready to write about it all here, but I do think it was a bit more than that.  My goal in writing here was to break my own silence and see what happens!

So.  Centria, Deb, and Nicci, bless you for your kindness and for putting up with this nonsense coming from me!  Several more of you have prodded my grapevine, and I'm so glad.  I may not be back fulltime, but I miss having this wonderful place as an outlet to write. 

Time to fold laundry or I'd dribble on some more.  Happy Sunday, everyone!

This is my annual letter to the Universe, saying a bit about last year and a bit about the coming year.  My next entry will say a word about why I've disappeared for 2 months, as best as I understand it, anyway. Thanks for reading!

January 16 and February 1, 2009

 

Dear Universe,

 

When I look for themes in my list of 2009 accomplishments and events, I see drastically increased community involvement (PLAIN, Lakefest, regular Sat morning community breakfast attendance, playground work, and co-facilitator of the community listserve), clarity and assertiveness in asking for what I want (new car, Conscious Discipline (CD) practices at home, much less resentment and drama, gratitude Christmas tree), manifestation (statement that I am ready to stop doing music therapy, refusal to take D.H. personally, Parent Coaching, PreK Diagnostics, CD at home and work, life-changing Brainspotting session with Deva), and tools (EFT, CD, Brainspotting, Clean Sweep questionnaire, vision boards, gratitude, intention and food).  Though I find the events of the year to be a blur, I know that it was an important year of growth.  I am peaceful, far less fearful, and manifesting exactly the life I envision.

 

My word of the year was Juicy.  As a purposefully chosen adjective, it is hard to attach specific actions to the concept.  Given the chance to speak from that point of view however, Juicy would say, “I allowed more choices into Halal’s life, and I encouraged her to choose the less-safe options.  I gave her more color and more joy in her wardrobe, more acceptance of messy moments, more freedom to create new options.  I was not a continuous burn for her, but I served her well, too.  More than she gives me credit for.”  I can say that it was a joyful, non-stressful focus word, and one that felt very integral to me. 

 

I know that you want for me what I want for me, Universe, and what I want for 2009 is fast-forward movement.  I am burning to dream.  Since Christine Kane’s retreat in December, I have plugged emotional/mental energy leaks like mad; cleaned the basement to the point that it begins to feel like intimate, sacred space; painted the study and hung fairy branches over my desk; joined Audible.com; watched Kevin get a new job with a significant raise; bought a new stove; gotten excited about cooking and exchanging EFT sessions; challenged my “lack mentality” by choosing to enjoy small extravagant purchases; completed the program work for SER in 12 days; worked on my dreaded To-Do list from the old cluttered (and now manageable) desktop; and pulled out the old everyday china to sell.  I am a woman on the move!

 

All of the above has been accomplished by way of Intention, my word for 2009.  In 2008, I experienced the power of intention during the 45-day Challenge, which allowed me to move from dread to joy at work, and again at Christine’s retreat.  I now want to harness intention’s power for dreaming up a bigger life of joy and easy accomplishment – travel, redecorating aspects of our home, new work, school – as well as for deciding how I will show up for parenting, relationships, a dreaded IEP meeting, sex, cooking and sleeping.  I intend a bigger life, and so it shall be.  I intend a joyful life, and so it shall be.  I intend a life in which I challenge my beliefs about what I can have and be daily, read more and gossip less, cook and exercise more often, enjoy my family and friends deeply, and attract even more of these and all kinds of wealth into each moment. 

 

I said I am already manifesting the life I envision, and this is happily true.  Now, I intend to envision more.  It’s not even clear to me what it is that I deeply want –yet - but in 2009, I intend to find out.  As always, Universe, thank you for your lessons, your guidance, your support and your love.  Thank for the gifts of my family and friends, the birds outside my window right now, health and healthy foods.  I remain very, very grateful.

 

 

With love,

Halal

 

I found this photo here.   I love the open, airy, blowy feeling of it. 


I am content.  I've got a 7 or 8 year history of beginning to freak out around this time of the year, the beginning of the holiday season.  I can't say exactly why, but it is related to divorcing my first husband and letting go of a massive load of naivete'.  I've not put up a Christmas tree since then, nor relaxed into happy gift-giving. 

This year, however, I'm reading Unplug the Christmas Machine, I'm dreaming of how I want Christmas to feel for my child, and I'm increasing my intention- and integrity-quotients around the whole dang season.  It started yesterday, right?  I'm ready, and I'm content.

Here are a few of the things I am particularly grateful for right now:

• my husband loosening up and appearing to have an authentically good time with my family the last few days
• the fact that giving my dad a new monitor for his computer made him very happy!
• seeing my grandmother happy and healthy today
• my cat following me around and maneuvering into my lap, even when it is already full
• a new approach to this holiday season
• plans to put up a tree for the first time in 8 years
• girlfriends - Jean, Carissa, Sarah, Adina, Kathryn, Pam...
  
• therapy group
  
• Anne Merkel
• having already completed about half of my holiday shopping, with no plans of breaking the bank
  
• hearing my favorite songs playing in the next room
• easy, happy times with my hubby
• the $45 I spent today at a half-price consignment store sale for 16 itmes of clothing -- that I really like.  My closet is again a friendly haven. 
  
• even though I'm not on Gaia the way I used to be, it's here when I want to connect and I trust it's intentionality
• telling mom I'm learning to knit, and having her take that as an early Christmas gift (exactly as intended)
• Mint.com
• this child

Life is good.  If you feel so inclined, share your wealth here, too.  Why is life good for you?

Happy Halal

(Not my photo.)
I went to the funeral of a friend's 22 year old son this morning, and the viewing last night.  What I notice, and what worries me, is how numb I feel about the tragedy of my friend's loss.  I worked closely with Debbie for 5 or 6 years in the same office, and it is paintful to see her so fragile and broken in this time.  And yet, there is also this curious lack of feeling for her situation.  Certainly, it's one that any mother would dread... but I can't even connect to it there, as a mother of a son.

When I was growing up, and perhaps still today, I was repeatedly annoyed by the way in which my mother seemed to take something akin to pleasure from these inevitable life dramas.  There was excitement around going to the funeral home or reporting on the terminal illness of someone close to the family.  She seemed to make it more about herself than the person central to the situation.  When I get honest about it, I can say that I also feel that excitement -- the little buzz that comes with some change, or with being the one to pass on such news.  And that leaves me hugely confused and conflicted.  I do not want to be an ambulance chaser.  I do not want to take anything like joy from the pain of another's situation.  I judge like mad the people around me who seem to be making it about them, and I've recently been judged for doing the same.  Oh, mirrors, mirrors...

Ooh... here's part of it... I've been on the verge of numb in general for a while.  When there is something that breaks the monotony, perhaps there's an underground hope that some feeling will get in and wake me up. 

I learned something else today at the funeral.  Debbie has been with my school system for 35 years, and understandably has a huge network of support.  I doubt there was anyone left to hold down the fort today, as the office building must have emptied during the service.  This school system has undergone tremendous upheaval in the last 5 - 7 years, with the result that the "brain trust" that was in place when I came on board 14 years ago has largely now moved on to other counties, or retired.  Many, many of those familiar and well-respected faces were there today.  It was like a mini-reunion. 

Which was exciting, except that I wasn't really participating in it.  I don't want to linger here, for (said) fear that it appear I am making this more about me than Debbie, but I saw how I haven't really brought myself into that fold.  I don't bring all of me to my job, and maybe haven't for 13+ years.  It's not that I don't want to laugh -- and my interal image of myself is of someone who laughs easily -- it's that I haven't found (created?) huge fun there. 

Interesting (to me).

Where is my passion?  My voice, or my joy?  What is it I would have to do to feel them?  What is it that I really, really want to do? 

Something else I'm seeing a lot lately is the vast disconnect between who I believe myself to be on the inside, vs. how I behave and am perceived on the outside.  I'm not sure there is much relationship between the two. 

I'm beginning to have the sense again that I am "broken."  Or, at the very least, ungrounded.  I haven't been to therapy group in a while for this and that other reason, it's canceled tomorrow and I'm out of town the next week, so it'll be a while yet.  However, running right along side this list of reasons why I'm a mess is a comfortingly frequent reminder that these are merely thoughts, that I can choose other ones, and that simply believing I am ok is a wonderful and huge step forward. 

I am looking to live into this stance that I can imagine must exist.  

Not mine.

I haven't blogged here in a while, which was pointed out to me by my friend Gooney Bird this weekend.  (I was touched that she mentioned it.)  I've been on Gaia somewhat frequently, but am participating in a second round of a 45-day challenge, this time hosted on Gaia itself in a private pod.  (Want to join us for another round?  Let me know!)  So I'm here, and yet not.  Ah well. 

My challenge, which we're about half way through, is about reconnecting to the word Pleasure.  I'm reading a fun, light read referenced below, and though I can't say I'm all about pleasure, it is rewarding to have some part of my attention focused there.  I am increasingly recognising the validity of just experiencing the state. 

The following is a cross-post from my challenge. 

Book Quote
"Mama wants to teach you the art of adding pleasure to your day.  You will give yourself glow is you do.  You will be a woman amongst women, noticed for her aura, her clarity, and her flair.  Glow creates beauty in women of all ages, all body types, all backgrounds.  Glow is the thing that people who go for face-lifts and tummy tucks and implants all want, but never get, from a visit to the surgeon's office.  Glow comes from internal approval, not disapproval.  Pleasure and fun create the environment where self-esteem and self-worship flourish. 

You want glow --- you gotta have fun." 

p 56. Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts, by Regena Thomashauer

Recent Pleasures
I'm at home today, having spent myself on our community's arts festival this weekend.  I could write for hours on the juice that came from it for me, but I'll limit myself to a bulleted list of recent pleasures.

• I love event planning.  I love knowing the details of a thing and seeing how it can all potentially work together, while dreaming of the next one.
• I enjoyed feeling my power this weekend.
• I enjoyed having the structure I needed to sit down and be with the artists who came to be vendors with us.
• I got a henna tattoo on Saturday -- the kind that starts at the tip of one finger and runs up the arm -- and my face painted with a large colorful and glittery butterfly on Sunday.   Loved both. 
• I enjoyed hearing that those who were setting up a booth for the first time ever were figuring out how to make it all work in an atmosphere that felt safe.  
• I enjoyed buying beautiful handmade jewelry and cards for myself.
• I slept 11.5 hours last night.  Glorious!
• I am not at work today.  
• My son's increasing grasp of language cracks me up.
• RL, my husband and I sat by a fire on our back porch this weekend.  Nothing better!
• There is a small break in the pressure of all that needs accomplishing right now.  That break allows me to sleep in and read Gaia and comment as I want to.  
• I see that I am becoming truly integrated in this community by way of showing up. 

Today's intention:

• Go outside to work on lesson planning
• maintain this sense of well-being

Not my photo - attribution here. 

1 - meeting Centria in person today!

2 - a neighbor gave my son a hand-me-down train table last night.  Oh, the joy for him!

3 - I'm not going to work tomorrow.

4 - In the middle of a crazy, broken day at work, I remembered that it's the system that's broken, not me.

5 - lighting tea candles just because

6 - my son hasn't found the fairy door yet, which means my own excitement is still building

Kevin has been working on this for months.  He shared with me a website he found ages ago in which someone was doing these little mini doors and windows for their grandchild to find, I think.  (This is not the original one, but it does show you what some others are doing with the idea.)  One of the things I remember from those pictures was that there was a little porch light by the door that was sometimes on, sometimes off.  Anyway, Kevin's created this one to match our actual front door and steps.  The windows have little scenes of (tiny) domestic life in them.  There's a broom leaning against the door. 

I CAN'T WAIT TIL MY SON FINDS THIS!!!  And I just pray I am home for it.  :-)

Not my photo - original attributed here.

I've really grown accustomed to my space at Ning.com. Something about its visual set up pleases me so much, but my heart is here at Gaia.com. Hard to choose! I will cross-post this entry, then I'll figure out where I'm going to be. Much as I love both, my energy has been split for the last month and a half.

It's been a big couple of days for me in ways that seem indicative of the BLC work completed at Ning. I'm recounting the last day or so for my own benefit, as a reminder to how "empowerment" feels.

Two days ago, I set a limit for myself with regard to some committee work here in my small town. I defined what I was and was not willing to do, and then communicated that limit to the necessary folks. The limit was called into question, which gave me a chance to stand by it. The result was an increase in available energy.

Yesterday, I intentionally brought the brewing discord with my coworker into the open, only to have it explode on his end. I was very upset at the time. Thankfully, my department chair was present and had my back for me. Even when I know someone is unconscious and acting out of their own issues, I still find it very disconcerting to hear how bizarrely I am seen through their eyes. It's a helpless, hopeless feeling to be in close, daily contact with someone so unaware of my role of Mirror. Anyway, I took good care of myself afterward, yet was still surprised later in the evening to find that letting myself be vulnerable in the safety of my own home was difficult. The event affected me more than I wanted to admit.

Today, I went to our community's pancake breakfast and interacted with folks in ways I have not been able to in the past. Conversations felt easy and comfortable. That was different and wonderful. Driving out of town an hour later, I got a glimpse of how important feeling comfortable in my community is to my sense of well-being. Horizons are larger, my thinking more spacious.

My destination was the public library, where I'd heard there would be a parenting class and a reading of a new children's book designed to teach parenting skills. I was the first arrival and, meeting the author, introduced myself as a future Parent Coach. I started shaking right there. The author seemed to be seeking my approval (?) for what she was saying throughout, and she essentially told the rest of the group that I was already a Parent Coach. When someone in the back of the room asked questions, I had potential answers but didn't give them during the class (not my show).

In talking to this woman-with-questions afterward, however, she said, "You know, I don't need marriage counseling, I need a parent coach! How do I get one?" "Well, would you be interested in talking with me?" "Yes! How much do you charge?" "Nothing right now. I'm not actually a coach yet. But I would love to get some experience, and if turns out what I have to say is not helpful to you, there's nothing lost."

I don't think I would have put myself out there like that if it hadn't been for BLC. And I've already given myself permission to be unskillful at it. :-) (Thanks, Nicci.)

There were many other things I learned from that brief hour. One parent in the room was hyper vigilant about her child acting appropriately, and she eventually left with her child. I didn't see her child doing anything at all that was inappropriate, but I also recognize that every person's feel for what is ok and what isn't is different. So, how do you set a class up so that parents relax enough to learn something with their children present?

Second, in talking to the woman-with-questions, I realized that even though she was there to find other possible solutions to her behavioral woes at home, she felt a need to defend what she had already been doing. That's a tough one to manage.  But I'm glad to see clearly that it will be part of the mix.

Third, when my child was flipping out in the Kroger an hour later, I saw this thought go by: "How can I call myself a parent coach if my child does stuff like this?" It's a crazy thought, really. I think parent coaching isn't going to be about "fixing" the kids, it'll be about giving the parents more tools for handling situations which they currently don't feel prepared to handle. Kids will be kids.

Speaking of kids, mine is up from his nap. I'm off - and I'm happy to be alive!