Scrambled Circuits

This morning finds me feeling lost in the quantity once more. No advice please. I already have too much to sort. As the 5th of 11 siblings raised in more small towns than I can count, I should be used to that by now. I s'pose I am, but being used to pain doesn't equal liking it. The electrical grid analogies have been sizzling through my overloaded neural pathways for most of this week of father/child bonding amid the STBX chaos. Again I am amazed at how deeply parental influence changes the dynamics of child behavior. There is no Grand Time going on. Grandparents are a secondary influence in a child's life. I doesn't know, but I does believe that is an all-natural pecking order. For sure, I feel deeply compelled to respect it as is, but all those cutural yaddahs sure do muddy the natural simplicity. The other grandparents call us, "Gringos," so. . . Does that make it a cross-cultural complexity? Both parents grew up in the same social circuits, but. . . 

Where's the circuit-breaker? The electrical current surge in progress. . .

Somewhere around 2k when my youngest son was in HS (class of 2002), he started looking more like the cute neighbor I married than my husband does 38 years after the fact. Pictures of my adult son, my husband and my FIL look like time-lapse photography. The genetic heritage between them is unmistakable. People who have never met any of them can pick up on the family relation instantly. Yesterday, both men had a different list of worries, but the explosive body language was distinct on both of them. The time-lapse photography effect had me egg-shelling like . . . Insert analogy of preference here.

Have we found that circuit breaker yet? ? ?

Yesterday began with the children and I responding with semi-hysteria to the body language of both men. My flight instinct wanted me anywhere but here soon after sunrise. Was I right to stay for the sake of the grandchildren? I hesitantly believe so, but I amnae willing to risk the sin of pride over how I handled it. Skipping over the gory details of the adult politics, we ended up with a drive thru breakfast at the same park where GD began acting out to her, "I scared" mantra a couple of days ago. Both children were delighted and the weather was ideal for a day in the park. Drive thru breakfast was followed by drive thru lunch. Both grandparents had plenty of space and opportunity to wander off to calm their own voltages while the children kept Daddy under jealous observation. By the end of the 6 hours in the park the children were relaxed enough that even Daddy got take a leak without GD needing to go with him. Her "I scared" mantra was beginning to end in conquering the child-safe playground without Daddy to rescue her. After a bit more sibling rivalry, both children were exhausted enough to sleep through the night. I amnae certain if Daddy ever got the opportunity to wander off and calm his own neural pathways, or not. If he did, I was busy with the children while he slipped away. Lord knows he has an unemployed STBX shitload to sort. I hope he got some personal quiet time out of it.

And I hear GD raising the pre-dawn alarm in the other room. It was a brief alarm. Can I take that as a sign that Daddy handled it well? There goes another squawk. Should I put on my supercape and investigate?

How was my Thanksgiving? Fine. I spent the day chasing turkeys on Buffalo Creek. And yours?

I am being literal on the Buffalo Creek part. That is where the park is. Honest Irish.

Think I'll go scrub floors in the honey barn. The conversion is far from complete, but the doors and windows are hitting my personal radar as the sexiest thing on the ranch compound this morning.

Stepping small, praying big and holding the love sacred.

Have we found that circuit breaker yet?