Exclusively from the Howler

This post is all about the Howler. She's "exuberant", according to her Kindergarten teacher. I think she's just plain spiffy.

Her langridge skills never cease to amaze (and amuse) me:

langridge: what she speaks, how she speaks it

dependix: what's in your tummy, and if it goes bad (and we all hope hers doesn't) you have to get it removed in the hossible

hossible: where you go to get better when your dependix goes bad

threeth: the place after two-th

Open House was Tuesday. Her teacher, no lie, says that she's exuberant and enthusiastic. I refer to it as a "social bulldozer", but her teacher clarified that she's also very loving. It's a very nice way to explain having to teach the Howler to keep her hands to herself.

Also, the *positive attitude* thing--Daddy was half right. The Howler does have a tendancy to want to do things perfectly the first time 'round: she'll try two or three times and then give up, pronouncing herself unable to "get it". But it's also, says Mrs. W, a tendancy to roll her eyes when she's asked to do something (or stop doing something) that she doesn't want to. Apparently, the Howler really is 5 going on 15 because the eye roll is also a mental/body langridge thing. (Mrs. W knows what this is--she has teenagers herself!)

All in all, I'd say that, yes indeedy, we've got us a spiffy girl.

Tiny

The Howler had a little chicken

Her feathers were fluffy and gray

And when she called "Here Tiny Tiny!"

That chicken would come right away.

epiph·a·ny *

i-'pi-f&-nE
3 a (1) : a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b : a revealing scene or moment

Much like the prophet Jonah, I am heading to my very own Nineveh. Lucky me. Usually, when threatened with being swallowed by the fish, it's because I need to do something that is a continuation of what I've already been doing, or it's stretching out into an unknown area, but one in which I already know I have the skills or the knowledge to accomplish it. It's generally just something I do not want to do.

This time, I'm being told that I need to do the cliche "Let Go; Let God."

It comes from having spent the last few years raising a teenager. It comes from my knowing, without a doubt, where he is to head--where he is to end up, what he is to do with his life. It comes after yet another instance of the boy's blatant stupidity, arrogance, and sheer determination to do the wrong thing.

On Friday, September 7, 2007, I had an epiphany. One that was so clear on intent and so vague on details.I have to let the boy go. I have to stop trying to get through to him, I have to stop trying to teach him, reach him, better him, guide him...you name it. The only thing I am to continue in reference to him is to love him.

The epiphany went like this: I got in the shower. I started thinking about the latest round of stupid.I had a vision that was of the boy, in a church, being ordained to something. I was not in the picture--in any fashion. I was glimpsing this from the very back of a church, dimly.

Stepping out of the shower, I was crying. It was clear to me that whatever it is the boy is to accomplish, it is to be totally without me.

Basically, I saw God gently showing me to "sit down, shut up, and get out of My Way."

I choose to listen, although I'm sure God knows (better than even I do myself) how hard this is going to be for me. I have control freak tendencies, and I do have an inordinate amount of emotion attached to this boy.

And, said boy is being a total screw up.

For the last three days, I have been concentrating on NOT barking, shrieking, screaming, yelling, offering advice, giving instruction, trying to explain, asking for explainations...and it's killing me. So I am also, at the same time, concentrating on not clenching my jaw, neck, and back muscles. Mostly because that ends up being a physical manifestation of my emotional pain. Both of which are intensely stupefying.

I am comforted by the fact that I have peace with this. And that peace is how I know that this is, truly, what I'm supposed to do: If I get out of the way, the Toad will eventually cease being a Toad, and become the person he is intended to be. I need, to quote the cliche, to get my oar out of it, and let it ride.

Having a strong tendancy to be a control freak (and the obligatory being-nearly-always-right that goes with it) isn't helping him, or me, be who we are supposed to be. Or, if truth be known, continue to exist on the same plane with the other.It will, I'm sure, prove to be the single hardest thing I've ever had to do.


*found at: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/epiphany (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

What If?

Shel Silverstein once wrote about the "What Ifs." He must've known the Howler.

She is fundamentally a walking, talking "What If."

She started Kindergarten recently, and has spent at least a short time every evening going over some of the "What Ifs" that run, unsupervised, through her head. (She has begun to worry about 1st grade, 3rd grade, and 5th grade simultaneously. She isn't sweating going to high school--yet--because she knows she's not as big as those big kids--yet.)

Anyway, she stresses about things that have happened; about things that haven't happened; about things that will never happen; about things that are going to happen. She will get in a jag about it...and go on for hours, talking incessantly about all the stuff that's in her head.

Good or bad, all those real and unreal events stroll through her consciousness like a never-ending badly edited movie.

Last night was the best one yet:

She had filled her sandbox with water from her pool, and Daddy said that we wouldn't cover her sandbox so it could (hopefully) dry out.

The Howler about had a heart attack.

"What if a raccoon POOPS in it?" (Keeping in mind that in the 39 years I've lived here, I've never even heard of someone seeing a raccoon, let alone a raccoon POOPING in, on, or near anything.)

The morning, Daddy looks out the kitchen window and notices that her pink gators had been left out on the patio. Now, it's 6am, and there's not enough oxygen out to be kidding around...

He says, "Uh-oh. Howler shoes on patio. Hope a raccoon didn't POOP in them!"

(and then, tonight after supper, she raced out the door to play with Blondie--whom the Toad refers to as "the twin" because their given names are similar--we tell her to get her shoes off the patio...but be careful putting them on. They may have raccoon POOP in them.)

Not Really Funny

But we couldn't help but laugh. We're horrid parents. We're probably really horrid people.

The Howler has been told, repeatedly, to not go into the Toad's room. She takes his stuff, and usually either loses it (role playing game dice, Magic, The Gathering cards) or she breaks it (sleeping bag zipper, RC airplane). She's been warned.

The Howler and her friend, Blondie, were upstairs playing today. They ventured into Ass Caverns.

Toad had caught them, and they, of course, scampered to the Howler's room. We were on the patio, and can hear them telling him to "stay out!" and "get out!" and "you're not allowed in here!"... and the Toad telling them calmly (yes, calmly) that he'll be gone in a minute.

He proceeds to tell them off, quietly and rather more politely than usual for him, about going in his room. When he's done, he leaves.

As he leaves, the Howler tells him, "Yeah, get lost, Loser."

We laughed.

We did, I hope, redeem ourselves when we told him that he was right, and that how he spoke to them was okay (he usually gets really worked up--and then they actually fight. Someone always gets hurt then, and it's not always the Howler.)

Stop Me If You've Heard This One

Did I ever tell you the story about how the Howler actually became the Howler? It's a funny little story and it perfectly defines who we are (and how much we laugh at ourselves).

Before our daughter was year old, I worked full time--and that included a good number of Sundays. Those days were stressful for Kevin, because our daughter is certainly an independent little red hen ("I'll do it myself!").

Anyway, even after I dropped to parttime, I still worked a lot of Sundays. One Sunday, back when we still closed at 6pm, I got home a little before 6:30. Kevin met me at the door, and while getting our daughter's shoes on her to go outside and play, he says, "Hi, Honey. The howler monkey missed you today."

As if on cue--as if they practiced this greeting--the little girl lets out with an "oooo ooooo oooo" and a make-yer-ears-bleed shriek that, did, sound remarkably like a monkey. His eyes rolled involuntarily and he announced, "Yeah, that. ALL DAY LONG."

The nick stuck, and in a few short weeks, we made reference to her by saying "The Howler."

We didn't (and don't) call her the Howler as a nick. We just refer to her as "The Howler." The really funny part is, on the forums I am members of, at work, and even with family, she is "The Howler." (Yeah, with the capital 'T' and all.)

If you call her "Howler" and think she'll answer you, she would politely, but defiantly, inform you that "I not 'Howler'." Her grammar has improved, but she still tells people that--hand on hip, finger waggling..."Don't call me that. I'm not a howler."

Oh, but you are, baby. You are.