When Your Plate Gets Too Full

In the USA, we celebrate Thanksgiving each Nov. 25^th with an enormous meal. I’m sure every country has similar celebrations that involve heaps of food. Everyone reading, then, can probably relate to plates overfilled with delicious holiday fare.

We pile more enticing goodies onto our plates than any single human could possibly eat over three days (make that four days if my mom brings her Ambrosia salad). It’s no wonder we can’t eat all the food on our plates! There is simply too much.

But then Grandma comes out of the kitchen with her delectable warm apple pie and homemade vanilla ice cream and...oooo, yum!... We can’t say no (been waiting for this treat all year!). Oh no, we find a way to squeeze in a least a few bites of sheer bliss before we keel over in a euphoric state of overindulgence.

Parents have a tendency to heap more on our life’s “plate” than we can effectively manage. Unfortunately, this doesn’t end up in such a pleasant form of keeling over. It ends up in stress, poor health, damaged relationships, and a host of other nasties.

Much of what we heap on is by choice:  our careers, our homes, our church attendance, our hobbies and recreational activities, our pets, personal wellness, the extracurricular activities of our children, our fitness goals…the list is endless.

Some of what we deal with when our children have special needs is not what we would have chosen to add to the plate, but it is necessary for our kids’ well being:  medical routines, caregiving responsibilities, doctor and therapy appointments, IFSP/IEP/ISP meetings (don't you just love all that jargon?), 438 million phone calls to organize all these activities. Another endless list.

And then enters a plateful of “dessert” that we simply can’t walk away from—a crisis, an illness, some other unexpected circumstance that demands our immediate attention.

There are times all of this gets to be just too much. As difficult as it is, we must cope with our overfilled plates. Just how do we do that?

One way is to say no to anything that isn’t critical. If the candied yams with marshmallows aren’t your favorite side dish, pass them up for another that is.

You might decide that television viewing is a time luxury that you can’t afford. You might choose not to own pets (shhhh, don’t let our critters hear that one). You might limit the number of clubs and extracurricular activities that vie for your time. You might forego Twitter and Facebook.

Is there something you are doing right now that isn’t really necessary? If you stopped doing it, even temporarily during crisis, would your world really fall apart?

Another way is to scale back your portions. Take fewer bites of the things that matter. Maybe your hobby is what allows you to keep your sanity, but it may be necessary to cut down the amount of time you allow yourself to sew or sail or spelunk.

Scaling back is sometimes much more palatable than eliminating an activity all together.

Maybe your church’s home group is enough and all the extra women’s activities beyond that could be put on hold. Instead of visiting the library weekly, maybe a visit every other week is adequate.

What do you need to do or enjoy doing that you could do a little less of and still meet the need?

Streamlining your activities might be more of a cooking secret as we prepare that Thanksgiving feast than how we eat it, but it applies to managing all we have on our plate.

It’s become almost a game to me to figure out ways to save time or steps in my caregiving tasks. I save minutes by blending up a whole day’s batch of food for my daughter’s tube feedings instead of making single meals. By storing all her medications and tube feeding supplies in one cupboard, I save many steps in medication and meal prep. I use a quick checklist to send with my daughter to school each morning that takes only a couple minutes to complete and saves hours of phone calls later to clear up confusion.

Are there frequent tasks related to your child’s care that can be streamlined to save you time? Ask your friends who face similar issues how they approach the same task and learn from them (this strategy has helped me tremendously!).

Share what’s on your plate if you can. If you can’t eat it all, maybe someone else is willing to take several bites for you.

If you are fortunate enough to be able to afford to pay someone else to do some of your work, then hire it out. Maybe you would be better off hiring someone a few hours a week to do your housework or mow the lawn.

Maybe you can trade tasks with another family. Swapping babysitting is a tough one where we live, but I hear from other moms that it can work well.

And be sure to ask. When a friend or relative asks what she can do to help, let her. Maybe she could drop off a package at the post office you’ve been meaning to mail.

Instead of trying to do it all yourself, what could you pass along to someone else? What creative arrangements might you design to make this possible?

And then, give up the guilt over what you cannot finish. No one expects you to clean your plate on Thanksgiving. No one expects you to “do it all” in life. If you expect that of yourself, you’re being a harder on you than you need to be.

Are you beating yourself up for the things you can’t get done? If so, give yourself permission to stop. Guilt isn’t going to get you anywhere.

Special needs parents have a lot piled on our plates that we didn’t ask for and that may not be favorite dishes. But this is our reality and we do have to deal with them. We have control over many of the other things we add to that plate, and we can:

chose to eliminate some,

cut back on others,

streamline our routine tasks,

enlist the help of others,

and above all, let go of guilty feelings when we can’t get all of it done.

Crystal Paine at MoneySavingMom.com has a free ebook on time management that is the single best book I have ever read on the subject of managing your time (and I’m desperately disorganized, so I’ve read shelves full!). If you need help figuring out how to deal with an overfilled plate, I recommend it highly. It’s a fairly short book written from a Christian perspective and worth digesting s-l-o-w-l-y to get the most benefit. You can download it here.

This weekend our house was hit with a stomach bug. It’s a great time for me to re-read Crystal’s excellent book and get my priorities in order for the extra heap of helpings on my plate right now. I hope you will download your own copy and join me in managing our full plates!

Here's to a lighter plateload for us all in the week ahead!

Photo credits go to purpleslog and Emily C. at flickr.com

Clean Cooktops – OR – Managing Situations Without Creating Crises

After a leisurely dinner Saturday night, I carried our plates back to the kitchen to discover a small tragedy on the top of our glass cook top stove. In all its dying splendor lay a melted plastic bread sack that had been inadvertently placed on top of a still-hot burner. Printed side down. The stove is less than a year old; the bag looked to be about a hundred years old in its shriveled, melted state. Not a happy combination for a mother who takes great pride in the spit-polished appearance of her new stove. The rest of the house may be a mess, but this is one thing I am meticulous about.

I froze momentarily as my heart dropped to my stomach. This freeze was nearly instantly replaced with a sense of urgent panic to do something to get that plastic bag off the stove while it was still warm. Then, better sense grabbed hold of me. I took a deep breath, remembering how easily glass cook tops can be scratched, and headed straight for my dear friend Google. After typing in a question about removing melted plastic bags from glass cook tops and quickly looking over half a dozen links to get a general consensus as to the best method (which I will share with you at the end of this post), then I was ready to act.

I wish I’d taken a “before” picture of that melted bag (I wasn’t imagining at that point that I’d be writing this out). Trust me when I say that it was impressive! It extended beyond the edges of the largest burner. Now, thankfully, the cook top looks brand new again.

Look Ma! No plastic!

There is a lesson in all of this. Panic doesn’t help.

If I had given in to my gut-reaction, I would have immediately grabbed up our razor window scraper and scratched off that plastic with gusto, leaving behind permanent scratches looking like pine needles after a windstorm. I would have been a sad, sad woman every time I looked at the stove top. Instead, a deep breath and a little research lead me to a safe and effective solution…and gave me knowledge that helps me relax when if we ever have such a mishap again.

Deep breaths and researching our options apply to managing our children’s situations as well. Panic doesn’t help here either. In fact, in a critical health or educational issue, it can be damaging.

Of course, there are times to act quickly. Sometimes we need to get our child to the emergency room right now. A flaming pan on the stove top would need to be addressed right now.

Not every situation is a crisis either, and it is critical to learn the difference. The melted bag on the stove top was not a crisis; there was enough time (even before the burner cooled) to get advice on how to correct the problem without causing more damage.

When we overreact to situations without taking a breath or getting the facts, we can set our kids up for complications that might have been avoided.

My daughter has suffered from intractable seizures for nearly twelve years. Of course they a bad thing and we want them stopped. But her variety does not compromise breathing or cause immediate brain damage. They are critical, but they do not pose a crisis.

When she first began having seizures, we panicked. We wanted them stopped right now. We raced her to the Emergency Room (endangering ourselves and every other driver along the way) where she was given unfamiliar medications that caused dangerous reactions. She’s a unique case; I’m not suggesting this is how anyone else’s child will react. But in our panicked state, we had trouble sorting out what was going on with her seizures and how the rescue drugs were actually feeding into her problem.

It took standing back, breathing, and collecting information over time (in this case, data on how the rescue drugs actually triggered and prolonged her seizures) to understand the Big Seizure Picture. Our panicked, knee-jerk reactions were creating an avoidable crisis; we needed a calmer approach to managing her seizures. Since that time, we have learned to step back and assess the situation before we intervene. This method of managing her seizures—and other health issues—has prevented some dangerous situations for her.

The same principles apply to situations at school that go awry. About the only crisis at school requiring immediate action is removing children from a burning building. After that, other situations most always allow time for breathing, for getting facts about what is happening, for researching the appropriate way to handle the problem. Pam and Peter Wright, special education advocates, have written an entire book on this very issue, From Emotions to Advocacy. Having taught special ed myself, as well as being the parent of a child receiving services, I can tell you that this deep-breath approach benefits everyone…parents, school teams, and especially the child. Knee-jerk reactions seldom solve problems. Instead, they make enemies (your child is the one who loses most then), they confuse the real issue at hand, they make you look reactionary and unreasonable (and a parent who maintains credibility will be taken far more seriously than one who is perceived as reactionary and unreasonable).

Is it easy to sort out the crises from critical situations? Of course not. That adrenalin rush makes us want to act right now. But there is usually at least time enough to inhale deeply and figure out which you are facing. I have not once regretted taking that deep breath; many times I have regretted not breathing deeply and acting without thinking instead. It’s a learning process. The melted bag gave me good feedback that I’m s-l-o-w-l-y coming along. Much as I don’t want the practice, it does help.

* * * * * * * * * * *

And now, as promised:

How to remove melted plastic bags from a glass cook top (summary of a number of great websites!)…

1. Remove the unmelted plastic from the cook top and allow the glass to cool.

2. Peel away any large chunks that you can.

3. Spray the cooled melted plastic with WD-40 and allow to sit 10-15 minutes.

4. VERY CAREFULLY scrape up the dissolved plastic with a utility knife or razor scraper. BE CAREFUL not to scratch the glass. Wipe off with a paper towel.

5. In the likelihood there is some residue left, wipe the leftover plastic and/or ink with acetone nail polish remover on a cotton ball to remove it.

6. Use a green scrubber pad and dish soap to scrub any residual. I used trusty old Cerama Bryte first, then just dish soap on a wet cloth. Voila!

7. Remind your dear ones to throw plastic bags into the trash or recycling next time, please.

May you never need these instructions...but they are a lifesaver if you do!

Acting quickly does not equal panic. We can perform swift actions without allowing our senses to take leave. Panic robs us of the ability to think clearly; we need a clear head in an emergency.