Cotton-Pickin’ Days

Deborah Lipsky:

A meltdown is when behavior is beyond the individual’s control. Things have been spiraling out of control. They are overwhelmed at the situation and they have no control. Generally with a meltdown the person is not looking for a direct response from you. Afterwards there’s often a sense of remorse and regret.

A tantrum is a manipulative behavior, a scheme for a person to get their own way. Once the person gets their own way, there’s often a sense of satisfaction. It’s really hard to distinguish between a meltdown and a tantrum because sometimes a tantrum can lead into a meltdown.

…As a general guideline, if there is a true meltdown there should be no reward or consequence at all. If it is a behavioral tantrum then there should be an extreme consequence.

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From The Explosive Child by Ross Greene:

For example, dogs don’t  have language. So if you were to step on a dog’s tail,  he’d have only three options: bark at you, bite you, or  run away. But if you step on the metaphoric tail of a  linguistically compromised human being, he’d have  only the same three options: bark at you, bite you, or  run away. From this perspective, swearing can be  thought of as nothing more or less than the human  “bark.” It’s what we humans do when we can’t think of  a more articulate way to express ourselves.

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Nice. Marv has a lower risk of divorce than me. What does that mean??? 

From Marriage Calculator.

For me:

People with similar backgrounds who are already divorced:  32%

People with similar backgrounds who will be divorced over the next five years:  8%

For Marv: 

People with similar backgrounds who are already divorced:  32%

People with similar backgrounds who will be divorced over the next five years:  3%

*  In general for the five-year divorce prediction rates, those with less than 3 percent are at lower risk, 3 – 7 percent are of average risk and more than 7 percent are at higher risk.

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Maybe Marv and I should try this because neither of us have a clue about what the other does for work.

From On a Short Leash: Did you hear about that Buddhist couple who’re never more than 15 feet apart? Well, we tried it. By David Plotz and Hanna Rosin in Slate

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This season’s UK Apprentice started last week and already I’m totally disgusted by the behavior of one of the contestants – Jenny Celerier. Her profile says:

…she has combined her maternal role with a successful sales career.

If her bullying behavior on this week’s show demonstrates her “maternal” side, I shudder to think how her 17-year-old son was raised. Check out the way she, acting as project manager, treats one of her fellow team members in this clip – Be quiet, I haven’t finished!

In Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, he writes about the damage insults can cause in boss-subordinate relationships:

In a relationship among peers, an affront can be challenged, an apology asked for. But when the insult comes from someone who holds all the power, subordinates (perhaps wisely) suppress their anger, responding with a resigned tolerance. But that very passivity–with the insult going unchallenged–tacitly confers permission to a superior to continue in that vein. [emphasis added]

I can sort of understand why the other team members didn’t stop the Tyrant Jenny from berating Lucinda further. Better to stay in “good” graces with Jenny than to risk being called into the boardroom. But by staying silent, they made it seem like Jenny’s bullying was acceptable. And it was NOT. Someone should have put a stop to Jenny’s outrageous treatment of her teammates. This time it was Lucinda, next time it will be one of them. No doubt about it. That is, unless someone manages to give Jenny what she deserves and boot her to the curb. There’s always next week!

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Stephen: You’re called Mama, Hsien, and Hsien-Hsien
Me: That’s right. What about Baba (Chinese for daddy)?
Stephen: Baba, Marvin, and Husband.

I didn’t realize I said “my husband” so often!

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You all know I love toys and one thing Stephen lacks is a decent playhouse but I’m not so sure if the Detacho Playhouse is a good choice for us.

The Detacho Playhouse is a re-configurable toy house which can be separated and made into multiple homes to replicate issues such as divorce and the changing make-up of many modern day families.

Not only are the houses modular, you can get a range of “Personal Figures” from casual women (?!) to step-grandfathers.

Top picture: “Separate houses for each parent.”
Bottom: “Magnetic parent dolls kiss when the head is turned to smiley face; parents repel and cannot be pushed together when turned to sad face.”

Brilliant!

via Neatorama

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The Economist released a special issue this week to celebrate Marv’s birthday and our 13th wedding anniversary! At the very top, you can see mention of the special report on air travel that’s just for Marv (if you didn’t know, he’s worked in the airline industry for over 10 years). And the cover story is about molecular biology, which is obviously for moi. And look how kind they were to symbolize our love with two outstretched hands connected by a single strand of RNA! Definitely the best gift we’ve ever received.

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Are you keeping your blog secret from me? I just found out yesterday that my friend Lilian, who I’ve known since I moved to London in January 2006, has a blog. And it’s not a new one either. She started it last year and had apparently kept it invitation-only, but her invites must have been routed to my spam folder because I never saw a single one. All this time, she never uttered a word when we were together while I went on and on and on about blogging. Why didn’t you tell me?!

Lilian’s Wrong Side of Thirty is so much fun. She writes about the science experiments she does with her two boys, crafts, cooking, and life in London. Best of all, she shows lots and lots of pictures. Lately, she’s been making cupcakes so be prepared to drool.

Go say hi and tell her I sent you!

If you’ve been lurking and keeping your blog secret from me, I demand to know!! Don’t be shy. I’m really very nice and will leave you lots of comments.

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Marv isn’t too bad about remembering our anniversary (easy peasy because it’s the same day as his birthday), but he isn’t great about remembering Mother’s Day. His big excuse is that I’m not his mother. Uh huh. Try selling that to me again and he’ll be getting this Remember Ring from Goldsmith Gallery.

24 hours before your special day, the Hot Spot? on the interior surface of your Remember Ring? will warm to 120? F for approximately 10 seconds, and continue to warm up every hour, on the hour, all day long!

Hot enough to cause discomfort but not hot enough to burn-the Remember Ring? is impossible to ignore!

via Metro.co.uk

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