Grace

Yesterday, Gracie and I both rode segways for the first time. Very cool. It boggles my mind to remember the over-heated press the segway received when it was invented: the item that will revolutionize modern life! The single most important invention of this century! I don’t agree with that. But they were fun to ride. And Grace got the hang of it very fast.

She’s had a rough week, my girl. She has been tired and for some reason unable to recoup her sleep. She’s been wired and whiny, exhausted and explosive. She has been rigid and unable to bounce back when something doesn’t go her way (any of this sound familiar?).

Today was a tough day. She was difficult during the drive home from NH, and then a trip to Bread & Circus was full of whining and complaining and heel-dragging. We got home and she was, in her nails-on-chalkboard way, expressing her displeasure about something (I don’t even remember what) when I snapped at her, loudly. She looked at me in surprise and immediately burst into tears. She ran upstairs and, in a few minutes, surprised me by being able to turn it around.

She came downstairs and cheerfully helped me make dinner, set the table, put away clean napkins, etc. She was frankly a delight for about 45 minutes. Then, after dinner, she wanted to blow out a candle (that she had dipped yesterday at Clark’s Trading Post). She blew it out and wanted to make a wish but Whit started talking and she started crying that she could not concentrate on her wish when someone was talking. I relit the candle and we tried again, two more times.

Finally, with Grace in floods of tears about her inability to make her wish, I blew my top and started full-on yelling at her. I sent her upstairs crying and cleaned up the kitchen, feeling miserable and guilty. She went straight to bed at 6:20 but spent at least 45 minutes on and off screaming/wailing/crying in her room. I went in several times trying to calm her down to no avail. She wanted the candle up in her room to make her wish again. I said no.

She finally went to sleep but I still feel awful about it. I know that all of the behaviors she exhibited tonight are ones I still demonstrate at 35. I can be inflexible, unable to cope with people not doing what I want, emotional, and hair-triggery. She is acting out behaviors that she inherited from me: they are probably both innate and learned. In both cases, clearly and utterly my fault. And if I am any example, she’s got a lifetime ahead of them.

So I yelled at my child because she aggravated me, but even more because I hate knowing that it is I, and only I, who has given her this baggage to carry. Her inability to cope when the world won’t bend to her will is my responsibility. Oh, what a poor legacy I have given her. I am ashamed at my own immaturity; she was behaving badly but she does not deserve to be yelled at and I ought not take out my own frustration about my weaknesses on her.

Oh, Gracie girl, you deserve so much more than you have in me. I will go into your room tonight and smother you with kisses, and I will sleep with a heavy heart.