Tides

I'm stressing (again) over jumping on (breaking) furniture/beds and sugar/pop. Funny how these things seem to almost have a rhythm to them, a pattern, like the tides. Is it me or is it the way of the path of RU?

I know there are things that if I focused on them, I would obsess, stress or freak-so I tend to ignore those kinds of things. Funny-I seem to generally be an "all or nothing" kind of person. Take my house. Please. Ba-dum-bum--tssss.

But really, there are weeks where I'm calming Dave, telling him its deschooling (or de-pop-ing?), that every comment he makes adds time to the "gotta have it" mindset. Then there are weeks that I want to take every last crumb of anything that could be vaguely considered candy and throw it far, far away... pour every drop of no-nutrient drink (koolaid, pop, etc.) down the toilet with relish!! Truly, there are moments when I literally have to stop, figuratively get ahold of myself, wrestle with my better judgement in my head and slowly, reluctantly, T-E-A-R myself away from the room/situation and go wipe my brain of any traces of candy and pop. Then I'm back to blissful oblivion. Maybe that's my problem. I can't actually go into full, 100% acceptance that this WILL eventually balance out (I have faith, but is that the same as belief? or maybe its belief I have and am lacking faith...???), so I go in tides of ignorance and fearful muteness...??

Crap. There's days when I feel we are SO RU... that we truly GET it... that we are well on our path to respectful parenting... Then I'll read something or some ugly "old tape" kind of thing will rear up in my head and I'm back to square one, thinking, "We did all this hard work, twisted our brains around all this stuff and we've not gotten ANYWHERE?!?!" Ugh. I wonder if any of my mentors go/have gone through this kinda crap-does ANYone else take this annoying, self-defeating, frustrating, hills-and-valleys (pits??), potholes and lovely scenery kind of path?! Are we the only ones who are doing this in what seems like The Hard Way??

I know a lot of my problem is that I come from years of "rules and regulations", "step-by-step instructions" and its hard in something that is THIS important to guess and figure which bolts go in what holes and how many washers to use with what kind of nuts... Dave likes to put things together like that. I like to play video games like that. But for IMPORTANT stuff, for expensive stuff, for stuff that a misstep could ruin the whole thing, I like, I *need* step-by-step instructions-preferably with diagrams and pictures. Sigh... I don't know if I can ever see my relationship with my kids & effecting their young lives as fun and carefree as a video game... its just too important, too easily mangled and deformed... That delicate bubble too easily popped.