Can You Hear Me?

They say insanity is doing the same thing…

…over and over again, but expecting different results. Okay, well then, I am insane. Totally and completely.

It seems every time I have one of my “talks” about how our family is a team and team members are responsible for helping each other. Not just one team member helping everybody else.

Right? I ask my 8 and 10 year-old boys team.

Yes, they both say emphatically. Definitely.

And I genuinely think when we are done (I will spare you the full talk as it can get rather lengthy): They have heard me. This time, I have finally reached inside their sweet little heads and turned on the light of awakened responsibility.

I am an idiot.

Insane would imply some kind of reasonable, possibly chemical explanation. But the fact is I am just dense and unreasonably hopeful.

I have kind of reminded myself lately of the chronically optimistic, terminally naive mom from Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

I read Long Haul to the boys at night, and think, as they are laughing their heads off at the mom’s hilarious notion that offering her boys “mom bucks” will actually help her sons get along better that my internet “game bucks” awarded for doing their chores hasn’t exactly been a home run.

Hmmm.

The talks are usually my follow-up to the full-out ranting that precedes them. I am not particularly proud of these parenting moments. And I think it is a sure sign my mindful awareness course is not working miracles quite yet.

Of course, I’ve been too edgy and irritated to actually practice sitting still (a terrifying thought) and breathing mindfully (that would mean putting my highly organized chaotic thinking on the back burner).

June is going to all about mindfulness!

Meantime, there’s a similar breakdown mode that occurs when the boys say, Done with homework, mom and I discover again that they’ve barely begun or done it all wrong because to read the two lines of directions would have taken too long.

My heartfelt yelling is usually followed later by my “Personal Integrity Talk”.

This is a big winner too.

There’s lots of nodding and yessing and a real meeting of the minds, a real sense of this time we have really come to a genuine understanding.

The redundancy is deafening.

So, my options are 1) put the kids on e-bay and see what kind of response we get 2) accept that there will be no change and slip into a deep depression 3) start drinking wine in the middle of the day or 4) love myself for the idiot I am.

I do really like Sancerre.