I just finished Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, which is a pretty neat read, if you like that kind of book, and I do. A lot of the content is on her blog but I liked the coherence of the book format.

A few interesting or surprising tidbits:

-Happiness and personal justice often conflict. She found in her research and her experience that the score-keeping that happens in marriages and other relationships (I did this, so you do that) does not add to happiness, in fact it inhibits it. There’s probably a big however to be had here about abuse and other gross inequities of power in relationships, but basically this seems right to me. One reason it doesn’t add to happiness is because of the “fundamental attribution error,” which is the tendency to overinflate our own contributions and downplay the other person’s.

-Novelty and change generally increase happiness more than routine and consistency. Again, I can see how this would be true. Good luck getting certain institutions to see it that way though (cough*congregations*cough). She doesn’t talk much about the fact that people are generally bad at predicting what will make them happy (e.g. people who buy a nice house in the exurbs that requires a three-hour commute each day)… but that idea seems to be relevant here.

She also is big on resolutions, but picked a few each month and rotated them regularly, which seems sensible. At the beginning of the project, she identified her Twelve Commandments, a longer list of Secrets of Adulthood, and Four Splendid Truths for herself. I couldn’t really define the difference between these, other than the fact that the Commandments are central, and the Secrets are a little more playful, and the Truths go a little deeper.

It got me thinking about what my Commandments/Secrets would be. Hers included things like “Be Gretchen” and “Do It Now.” Here are some of mine, including things I am good at remembering and things I’d like to be better at…

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
When in doubt, reframe it.
Process, not product.
Spend it all.
Be kinder than necessary.
Practice “yes-and.”
Do small things with great love.
Love what is.
Put on your oxygen mask first.
Eschew the generic.
Love God, love others, love yourself—
and realize that the boundaries between them are permeable.
You can choose.

…what would yours be?

I also finished reading Parenting with Love and Logic, which I’d gotten from the library, and am pretty much on board with that. In fact, I’d like to write a spinoff, Pastoring with Love and Logic, because so much of the stuff in there is applicable to the church…! The basic idea is to find a middle ground between helicopter parenting and drill sergeant parenting—to be ‘consultant parents,’ which help kids solve their problems themselves and not be subject to our rescue. This approach is big on letting kids own the problem and not blowing up about stuff but letting them feel the consequences of their decisions. I also like the approach because it comes from a place of balance between parental assertiveness (i.e. my needs as a human being matter) and kindness (empathy over anger). I have some quibbles here and there (some of the consequences would be seen by our sensitive kids as over-the-top harsh, especially with no warning beforehand). And a few of the approaches are problematic when you have kids of such different ages as ours, but it’s generally pretty solid. If there is interest from others and/or time on my part I might write a longer review/reflection on this book.

I’m also reading Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity, which is quite good and started especially strong, although the middle chapters are dragging a little. Part of the issue is that he’s mainly writing for recovering evangelicals, so some of his stuff I’m like “yeah, this part isn’t for me.”

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The divine miss M is very reflective lately. Jerome Berryman identifies four existential questions of childhood, which deal with aloneness, the nature of freedom, death, and the meaning of life. M will sometimes withdraw to the side of the room and start tearing up. When we ask her what’s wrong, she says, “I don’t want to grow up,” or “I don’t want to have to leave home,” or “I wish I could be a baby again,” or “I will be so sad when you die.”

No comment on that, just something I want to recall. I don’t remember C doing this at all.

She’s also in a very sweet/empathic phase. We’ve had some pretty bad sleep in the reverendhousehold—it’s rare when we’re not visited by at least one child in the night—but three nights ago everyone slept all night long. Everyone except me, that is. I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep until after 5. Grrr!!!!!!

I was telling M about this yesterday and explaining how much I was looking forward to a good night’s sleep. This morning when she came into our room the very first thing out of her mouth was, “Mommy, did you sleep well or did you wake up at 4:00 again?” Such a sweetheart.

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Just a few notes on C: she appears to be stabilizing and is not as anxious. The Love and Logic stuff seems to help, as well as a few more minutes of sleep in the morning and the chance to do big-kid stuff.

Speaking of, she rode her bike without training wheels today. Woot!

Also, she and R are working on a model rocket. Today they painted it colors of her choosing: neon pink, neon orange and gold. She also gave it the name “Gold Nebula.” Awesome.

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Not much to say about J. He had the croupy cough last night and has had a very high fever. He also has been requesting that we put a ponytail on top of his head. He will wear it all day long.

I, too, am sick. Just a cold, but I feel pretty wiped out. So I’m off to bed soon.

That’s “Poem to Prime the Pump” — lots of writing to do this afternoon.

for sweet baby j

tower

a wooden square on the bottom,
two or three teetering rectangles,
and something fancy on top:
the block with the bell inside it,
or the clear plexiglass pyramid.
it doesn’t really matter,
it’s all crumbling down
as the stout wooden airplane
finds the sweet spot
every time.

i’ve rebuilt the tower three times
before i realize.
let’s make it a fourth; for him
it’s just physics.