1/1/24

 Day 1 of the new year. We all slept in. We puttered around, completing small projects we were working on. I decided to empty my change jar and roll it. I knew that Ethan would want to go through my coins. He likes weighing the coins and examining them for imperfections. Some of this change has been sitting around for at least 15 years or so.  Lots of stuff from the 60’s, 70’s 80’s and 90’s….which is ancient to Ethan.

This is another pre-transplant hobby that is surfacing again. Ethan had bought a gram scale to weigh coins to look for coins that had different weights etc. he couldn’t find his gram scale. 

He had looked and looked. He asked if I had seen it. I didn’t offer to help right away. But as the minutes flew by, I could hear the frustration of him looking for it, grow. He started slamming things, dropping things and some huffing and puffing.

I stopped working with the coins and asked him if I could help him look. He was frustrated and a little bit snarky. Instead of coming from a place of judgement, I came from a place of curiosity, a skill my leadership group has been encouraging us to practice.

It could have been easy for me to snap back at him when he was snarky. 

After a little bit, he shared that he was frustrated. He feels like he is behind his friend group. It bothers him. He feels depressed a lot of the time which makes it difficult to keep his room in order. Now he has lost something and he is frustrated. Those are all valid feelings. 

His room did look like a bomb had gone off in there. There was stuff everywhere. He and I cleaned it together. There were things he didn’t want me to touch, and I respected that. 

I did feel like we had a moment of growth with this interaction. 

Later I went down to the livingroom and turned on a movie. I watched Stepford Wives. I had never seen it before. The kids watched it as well as Avery and I rolled up coins.

We then turned on the 600 pound sisters. That is a crazy story about two obese sisters and their weight loss journey. It was a family activity.

It was a relaxing day.