Update on My Friend....

Things are smoothing out, but she's still having difficulties, of course. She indicated to me that she won't be coming to spin night much anymore because she doesn't have a sitter. She tells me...

"I have a 14 year old daughter, who is perfectly capable of watching the two smaller ones, but they end up fighting, and the 14 year old can't seem to deal with it."

I drew cards to find out why the 14 year old is having such issues with the two younger ones.

I drew:

Knight of Cups Reversed (Movement)
4 of Swords Reversed (Rest)
Major Arcana-Initiation card 16

in the Sacred Circle Tarot. When I asked How to Proceed--I drew the Queen of Cups Reversed (Intuition) and the Lovers.

Basically the fights are happening because there's no adult male figure to step in, and they know it. The fights are passive-aggressive results of the situation that my friend finds herself in. The 4 of swords indicates much needed rest from the issues that isn't forthcoming because the children are "acting up". And card 16, Initiation, says that these are the "growing pains", yes, indeedy dee..the result of the actions taken and natural flow of things...but also there is learning and growing along the way. In other words, the children are being initiated into the walk that my friend has decided on.

What the Queen of Cups Reversed says, is that the older daughter is trying to "lord her position over the younger sibs" over them, and they aren't buying it. Counter that with she must learn not to try to deal with the younger sibs as if she were mother, because she's not. The younger sibs will only resent it. What needs to happen is the younger sibs need to be presented with choices--in other words, reward for "good" behavior--a favorite movie, or getting to choose the movie watched--and the older girl needs to learn how to present those choices--things to do when the arguments start. Perhaps a special treat the following day--brownies are a wonderful motivator. Since the evening is only a few hours, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out what to do to make things work.

Long ago, I remember being left with my boyfriend (I was 16 at the time.) to watch his younger neices while his sister and brother in law went out for an anniversary date. This was a real eye opener for me. As long as I was involved with the children and what they were doing, things went great. If I stopped and began to do things with my boyfriend, they vied for my attention, and we all began to fight. Things worked out eventually, and they apologized for making the evening such a disaster, but I wouldn't babysit after that. Looking back, I probably should have seen that as an omen--that I wasn't meant to have children! Seriously, I am too much of a kid myself (even still at 51!!).

For sure, I'm not having any children now, even though I have considered adopting--for fleet moments when my husband acts up and I'm trying to figure out how to make a bit more money so that I can leave him...these are fleeting moments of fantasy, that's for sure. I'm glad that those moments don't last long--I might actually act on them! GOD FORBID!

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Well, we got the fireplace flue cleaned out. What a mess. The trash bag on the end was a really good idea. Afterward, we decided to install Jeff's WiFi controller and driver, which worked, but now we need to figure out the router part, and there's where things get fuzzy for me--as my guru set mine up, and it was a difficult procedure--and it hurt me a lot--sweat and swear words, if you get my meaning.

So tomorrow, Jeff's guru is coming over, but I'm pretty sure things will be worked out before then should my guru get hold of me.

And my husband smells like the fireplace.