I've instituted a bit of a crack-down on certain behaviors that have gotten out of control.

One of them is Theo's habit of opening up DVD cases and playing with the DVD inside.  I'm just as happy for him to destroy Thomas and the Cranky Bugs as not, but I don't want him ruining library DVDs, right?  So, now, he gets a time out whenever he does it.

"Oh, how cruel!  He just doesn't understand.  He's too young to control his impulses yet."

Uh-huh.  Too young.  Doesn't understand.  Yup.  Sure thing.

Yesterday afternoon, he came into the study while I was writing.  He went rooting through the closet and came up with a Thomas video.  "Remember you're not allowed to open it," I said.  "Just look at the pictures on the outside."

"Okay, Mommy!"

He played around with it some, looking at the pictures, turning it around, banging on it, whatever.  I watched through the corner of my eye.

Then he looked at me--directly at me--and put his little fingers on the edge to open it.  He waited until I looked at him.  (Because he didn't understand that he was about to do something wrong, right?  Because he was just doing it accidentally, right?  Because he can't stop himself, right?)

I, of course, gave him my patented You Must Be Joking Me look.

He moved his fingers away from the Danger Zone.

He played around with it some more, looking at the pictures, turning it around, banging on it.  I watched through the corner of my eye.

Then he stood up and left the room.  He was out in the hallway for about four seconds.  He came back and said, "Mommy, I just going to close your door."  He closed the study door.

What do you think he was doing when I went out into the hallway?

Rule of thumb: if they understand enough to try to deceive you, they understand enough to stop doing it.

After three days of the world's nastiest cough (and a day and a half of the world's nastiest cough medicine), I have perfected the throat-soothing Hot Toddy.  I have also consumed a goodly portion of the whiskey Certain Very Nice People left at our house and have urged Stephen to reconsider his aversion to curtains--at least in the kitchen, the window to which which faces our next-door neighbors' living room window.

Would you like the recipe?

There's actually a daytime version and a nighttime version.  (Think DayQuil/NyQuil.)

For daytime, you heat almost to boiling:
1/3 c water
2 tbl fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tbl honey
while stirring well to get the honey good and dissolved.  Then you put 1 1/2 tbl bourbon into a good china teacup (mostly to fool the neighbors, but also because using the right cup can make the medicine more effective), and pour the almost-boiling lemony stuff over it.

It makes a very small but moderately effective serving.  I wouldn't drink more than two of those per day, especially if you plan on a nighttime serving.  Also if your neighbors monitor your recycle bins.  Or work for CPS.

For nighttime, you halve the honey, double the bourbon, and increase the water to a scant 1/2 cup.

Because getting a good night's sleep is half the battle, right?

I know parables, metaphors, and figures of speech rely for their effectiveness on their clarity, brevity, and simplicity.  But sometimes, they're just two simplified to be illuminating.

Take the "glass is half full/empty" figure of speech.

I don't think I know a single person who would look at the proverbial glass of water and say either of the two proverbial options.  I don't know anyone who is, simply, a glass-is-half-full kind of guy, nor a glass-is-half-empty kind of gal.

Now, me?  I look at the glass and say, "Wow.  We are so lucky that this glass is half full of water--do you realize how many things could have gone wrong with getting the water into the glass?"

Stephen?  He's more likely to say, "The glass is already half empty.  We need to think about what we're going to do with the rest of the water--what are all our options?"  Except for when he says, "Well, the glass is half full.  But do you realize how many things could still go wrong and then where will the water be?"

Isaac?  "Water!!  Can I have it?  I'm really thirsty."

Mom?  "Okay, this is a good start.  Water is at the lowest level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  We do need to move on from here, though."

Tia Marleny?  "Mom, I got this glass of water for you!  I only filled it up half way, because I knew you were exactly this thirsty.  That's why you like me best, isn't it?"

Dr. Hall?  "It's only because we're trapped in an ethic of scarcity that we would even worry about questions of whether the glass was half empty or half full.  What we need to be able to see is that there is more than enough water to meet our needs."

Dad S: "You know, this reminds me.  I went to school with a guy named Fred Hammersmith, and he got married and moved to Nebraska and had three kids.  Well, one of them worked at a water bottling company for about four years after he finished college--he went to Kansas State on a lacrosse scholarship--and the last time I saw him (I think it was at a Christmas party at his parents' house) he told me an interesting story about how they measure the quantity of water that goes into each bottle."

Dr. Hauerwas?  "Who was it that taught you to measure the water by the glass that it's in?  Why is the value of the water correlative to the glass of any importance to us?"

Grandma Jackie: "Oh, look at this, Jane!  This glass is half full, but I only paid twenty-five cents for it, because I took it to the guy at the counter and I said, 'Hey!  This glass is half empty!'  And he gave it to me for twenty-five cents!  It was three dollars, Jane, and I got it for twenty-five cents!"

Theo: "I can put my meatball in my water, Mommy?"

See?  There are so many kinds of people in the world.  You really can't limit yourself to those two options.

Memoirs of a Geisha struck me as a terribly Western movie.

That's really all I have to say about it.

It looked beautiful and exotic and foreign (just as geisha look to Westerners), but it felt Western--the emotion, the story, the motivations, the behavior.

There.  That's not much of a review, is it?  But that's all I got, after watching it.

Have you ever come home from work, or school, or . . . from . . . home after a mediocre day and started recounting all the bad things that happened that day?  And then started to notice--hey, it wasn't just a mediocre day, it was downright crummy?

Or if you can remember a scene in your mind, and then try to describe it--have you ever noticed that your mental picture becomes a lot less detailed?  It starts to look like a caricature of all the things you were able to describe, and the things you couldn't (or didn't) put into words start to disappear from your mental picture.

Or, maybe you've told a story, and it gets stronger with every telling.  The surprise becomes a shock, and then the shock is just overwhelming; the annoyed tone from your co-worker becomes a snotty insult, and then it's practically a shouting match.  It's not that you're consciously exaggerating--it's just that once you name that surprise as a surprise, it actually becomes, in your memories, more surprising.

The technical term for this is narrative framing.

Psychologists have started to recognize that memory is deeply affected by language--putting words to something changes the way you remember it.

(Actually, I have no idea what the technical term for this is, nor if there even is one.  Did I fool you?  You believed me, didn't you?)

This is not a mental activity you can change.  Your mind will do this, whether or not you want it to.  When you start to say things out loud, or even try to put words to them in your own mind, your brain will rearrange your memories to look more and more like your words.

But it is a mental activity you can harness.  You can make a conscious decision to use the unconscious and involuntary activity of your brain.

How 'bout this: if you have a contentious relationship with someone, try making a point to say three true, good things about him every day.  Sometimes, you will only be able to find the most innocuous thing about that person and turn it into a compliment.  ("Omigod, what did you think of that dress?!"  "Uh . . . well, um, . . . red really goes well with her hair!")  Other times, or maybe with a little practice, you'll be able to say something with a little grit to it.  ("You know, he is really good at getting his classmates to fight with him--it's great for class discussion!")

Start talking differently about him.   You'll find yourself thinking differently about him before long.  And then you might find yourself acting differently toward him--and him toward you.

Or, maybe you're a little dissatisfied with your job, or with your family life.  There's nothing illegal or destructive or immoral going on--you're just a little irritable, a little immersed in the tedium, a little too ready to be insulted or ignored or unappreciated.

Try making a point to say--out loud--three good things about your family or your job.  When you get home from work, instead of saying, "Oh, what a lousy day I had.  Do you wanna know all the things that went wrong??" try, "Well, it was a pretty yucky day, overall, but I have to tell you about the sweet thing my co-worker said to me after our meeting."

Or when your wife gets home from work after you've been with the kids all evening, instead of, "Oh, I was never so glad to put those cretins in bed as I was tonight," try, "Whew!  It's good to be able to rest at the end of the day.  Hey--guess what!  I gave the baby some peas, and she liked them!"

You don't have to lie.  You don't have to make things up.  You just have to look hard, at first, for something positive to say.

And then you'll find that it doesn't take quite so much looking.  And, eventually, you'll notice all the good things that you've been missing.  They're there.  They're just waiting for you to name them.