oh this is hard

A day in the life

See this charming boy delivering flowers to his mother? Oh he was very dear this morning, for about an hour or two. Slept until 8 (after a 5:15 am wakeup crying that I had forgotten to put him to bed – so exhausted was he last night that apparently he blacked out during the extended prayers/ghosts-go-away-dance/repeated requests for water, etc, etc, etc that I did in fact perform).
As you can see by lunchtime things were going downhill precipitously. Whit and Grace played “dog” for a while, including putting Whit’s Halloween costume from 2006 on him (which still, alarmingly, fits). I was making lunch and I could hear her ordering him around upstairs, and I asked, “Gracie? Are you playing dog?” And she answered cheerfully, “Yes! Whit likes this game!” Okay. I had some flashbacks of similar bossing around I did of Hilary – Hils, I’m sorry!
During “quiet time” I just wanted to read my excellent book. The children kept on emerging from their rooms with requests and issues, each one smaller and more ridiculous than the last. I kept getting more and more annoyed. I was reminded of a woman my parents knew when we lived in Paris. Every afternoon she took to her bed to read for a while. During that time she kept a wet washcloth in a basin by her bed. If any of her children ventured into her room, interrupting her reading, she would smack them in the face with a cold, wet washcloth. I thought this was horrifying for a long time and now think it’s somewhat genius (in much the same way “you must be mistaking this for a democracy” has gone from statement that makes me cry to rallying cry)

After quiet time, while Matt played tennis, I took both kids out on their bikes. They wanted to go to the “dog park” which has a big paved circle to ride around. They quickly ditched their bikes in favor of climbing the tree. Whit began to scream randomly at Grace every few seconds. I told him if he yelled again we were leaving. He yelled again. We left. I walked down the street trailing a crying, screaming 4 year old, face red and wet with tears. It was awesome. I gave him one more chance at another playground nearby, which he promptly forfeited by screaming/whining/crying (who knew such a fantastic hybrid existed? oh believe me, it does). I then dragged him by the hand, pulling his bike with the other hand, down the street to the car.

I’d say he conservatively wailed “Mummy!” about 400 times in less than an hour. As I was getting dinner ready and he whined my name yet again I finally snapped on him. “Whit!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, “If you say my name one more time I am going to go absolutely apeshit on you!” He was visibly startled at my screaming (which makes it seem like more of a rarity than it sadly is). But then I could see the little wheels turning and he said, “Mummy?” He continued right through my blowing up, “Argggghhhhh!” asking, “What is apeshit?“

He ate almost nothing at dinner and then screamed some more. Finally he fell into a spellbound stupor in front of Scooby Doo and was asleep in his bed by 7. He regained a little ground with me tonight by choosing “Goodnight Moon” as his bedtime story. Oh that book makes me ache with nostalgia and awareness of how fleeting it all is. Plus now he is sleeping which we all know is my absolute favorite state for children.

Still, not my finest day or his. Am hoping those catlike, land-on-all-fours-after-jumping-from-roof, Darwinesque reflexes kick in tomorrow. The ones where he throws me a bone when I think I can literally take no more. I imagine those of you reading this who are moms know what I mean. After four straight nights of hourly waking he’d suddenly sleep from 10 to 4. After days of screaming (like today), he’ll be an outright charmer for a day or two and make me forget the incessant whining. I chalk it up to sheer survival instinct.

Happiness and sadness as they arise

Be open to your happiness and sadness as they arise. – John M. Thomas

I love this (also yet another sky photograph). As my Landslide post described, happiness and sadness arise for me out of thin air sometimes, swamping like an unanticipated wave. At other times they come up with a steadier drumbeat, reaching a more conventional crescendo.

This is, I believe, one of the major tasks of my life: to learn to ride these various swells and ebbs without fear, to honor each moment as it comes, to trust that sadness will eventually make way to happiness again as firmly as I already know that joy will fade away to melancholy.

And after all, the happiness means nothing without the sadness. That is another of the few things I know for sure. I don’t much care for The Prophet, finding it slightly hackneyed, but one of Gibran’s lines encapsulates this more perfectly than I ever could: The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Gracie girl

Gracie girl,

No matter what, despite my mistakes big and small, spectacular and mundane, I adore you.

I always will.

Stomping around

It has been a difficult parenting week for me. Grace and I have been at each other’s throats, each crying on and off and yelling at each other. I have thought for ages about this old topic, mothers and daughters, since my college thesis. My 21 year old self surely thought my 35 year old self would have it figured out better by now. More control over her reactions, more maturity (ah how many realms of life that is true for, not just parenting my daughter!) Despite all of my thinking and all of my efforts I still don’t have answers as to how best to navigate the eddies and slipstreams of this particular river.

But one of my favorite bloggers has sage words today that, while not providing solutions, reassure me that I’m not alone. (Jenn of Breed ‘Em and Weep). This is not the first of her columns that has spoken to me like this. I am so grateful for writers out there whose words console, comfort, and create community. I know so profoundly the feeling of screwing up, sometimes spectacularly, and then of picking myself up and trying again. Thank you Jenn! Please keep sharing your journey – I am learning much from you.

“Today was a hard day for Sophie. Today was a hard day for me and for Sophie, together.

She raged. She pouted. She stomped. She ran. She howled.

I raged. I growled. I yelled. I chased. I threatened.

This is the way.

*****

In the end, as we usually do, we wind up sitting on her bed, working it out. It is never easy. We lurch, she and I. We interrupt each other. We raise our voices, and hiss at each other in blame—always! The blame! Bouncing off pink walls!

But: I have been a daughter before; she has not. I know that mothers and daughters, even the most loving, hiss more than snakes. There is always hissing, posturing, growling. It’s an animal relationship. The first step to surviving it is to entering the deal knowing there will be battles. This is how I see it.

Sophie is still deciding how to see it, this mother-daughter relationship of ours. I hate that occasionally it must come to this, but somehow, I am sure it must. There is something to this cycle of love-hate-love-hate-love that makes me sure I am doing something right.

I tell her I am sorry we had one of our rough days, but that it’s my job to teach her responsibility, to show her that the sun does not revolve around her and the moon will not pick up her laundry.

I tell her it is my job, as her mother, to teach her rules and limits, and to expect—no, demand—more of her, when it comes to her role as citizen of the world….

At bedtime, I smush my face against her cheek in an exaggerated mushy kiss. I freeze like this. She first ignores me, then sets her book down.

“You’re giving me a bruise,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“I’m giving you love. So you can’t miss it. So you can’t say your mother didn’t love you.”

Grudgingly, she smiles.

I like to think that I am giving her a safe place to duke it out. I like to think that our squawking has a purpose. That our fighting teaches her that love can endure fighting, a good scrap now and then.

So I will take grudging smiles, the eye rolls, the heavy sighs, the “everybody elses” and the “nobody elses” that plague her already ruined existence (if you listen to her).

I can take grudging. I can bear grudging, if the conclusion—eventually—is a grudging, “My mom was nuts, but she loved me. She does love me.” I don’t know that that is what the conclusion will be, but my gut tells me—in spite of everything, the “other things” of which my father spoke—my gut still tells me that something of my intuition, my instinct, has remained intact.

So I wait. I watch. I holler my head off. I am mother. Hear me roar, then hear me soothe. Watch me screw up, marvelously. Then watch me try, try, always try, to make it better.

Take it from the top, Maestro Mama. Again. Again. Again.”

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.