oh this is hard

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.

Cheetah

Some pictures and a memory from the archives.

On December 22nd, 2005, we woke up thinking Whit had chicken pox. I was excited, and had big plans to put Grace and he in bed together so they both got it (I would love to have avoided that vaccination which seems unnecessary to me). I took him to the doctor that morning and was told it was, in fact, an allergic reaction to amoxicillin. Apparently Whit had a textbook presentation of this allergy: second course of amoxicillin, day 8 or 9. Precisely.

He was covered in red spots which were rapidly swelling and growing. The doctor switched his antibiotic and sent us home. Friday morning Whit was worse, with well more than half of his body covered in hives. I went back to the doctor who diagnosed Whit with Stephens-Johnson syndrome. My wonderful, relaxed, calm doctor told me that it was best to think of the syndrome as a spectrum. On one side, he said, is a “mild rash.” “And on the other?” I asked, obviously. “Um, well, death.” Great. Thanks. He sent us to the Children’s Hospital ER.

To make a long story short, Whit and I went to the Children’s ER on the mornings of both the 23rd and the 24th of December. In each case they observed him, took temperatures, and sent us home.

When released from Children’s around noon on the 24th I thought Whit was improving. He had shown no appetite at all and had barely taken any formula. He seemed quiet and listless but not unhappy. As I got the children ready for Christmas Eve dinner at my parents, he threw up violently. I paged the pediatrician’s office, nervous about bothering them on December 24th. One of the other two pediatricians in the practice, not my own, called me back. She told me to watch him, to give him pedialyte in whatever way possible (turned out that the baby Motrin syringe was the only way) and to call back immediately if he threw up again. He was at this point running a fever of about 100 and was about 80% covered in raised red welts.

At my parents’ house that evening I was preoccupied and nervous. I kept injecting his mouth with teaspoonsful of pedialyte, one at a time. He was quiet, almost unnervingly so. Around 7, as everyone prepared to sit down, I took him to my parents’ bedroom to change his diaper. He threw up all over me. I called the doctor as advised and she told me to go immediately to the Children’s ER.

Hilary came with me and Matt stayed with Grace. I drove like a bat out of hell. The Children’s Hospital ER on Christmas Eve? Pretty close to how I imagine Calcutta. Let’s just say we were not the only people there. If you need attention in this kind of setting, just throw out Stephens-Johnson syndrome. The seas parted and they took us immediately to a room. Whit was put back into his third hospital johnny in two days and they decided to start an IV. No easy feat with a very dehydrated baby.

I consider myself a fairly unsqueamish person, and have watched my children endure all kinds of injuries, have personally held Grace down while she got stitches in her face, etc. But this was too much for me. After they had tried unsuccessfully four times to insert his IV I had to leave the room. Hilary stayed with him. They finally got the IV into him and he spent most of his first Christmas Eve at Children’s Hospital.

Whit did not have to go back to Children’s after that. The rash receeded, though slowly. We stay away from all – cillins. Whit is officially my “allergic” child. While Whit has no memory of this, Grace does, referring to the incident as “when Whitty was a cheetah.”

Around the bend

The reason the earth is round is so you can’t see too far down the road. – Isak Dinesen

To have courage for whatever comes in life – everything lies in that. – St. Theresa of Avila

The first step on the journey is to lose your way. – Galway Kinnell

That photo of the curving bench reminds me that we can only see so far. And that attempting to plan beyond this horizon – as I so desperately try – is a futile effort. Consider this a new effort at rolling with the punches; hearing my own daughter say that was like a reminder from the universe. Oh these unintentionally funny, occasionally annoying, endlessly entertaining children of mine can be wise!

Still Life with Peonies, Tired Six Year Old, and Sauvignon Blanc on the Rocks

Still life of my evening, 5/9/09 (happy birthday Courtney and Justin!)

Grace’s sleepover last night was a huge success. So much that as I pulled up to the house this morning at 8:45 to collect her she and Clemmie saw me from across the yard, turned tail, and bolted away from me. She was sad all day long not to be with Clem anymore. She had a great time. But she was, predictably, fried from staying up late and waking up early.

We did manage to write a thank you note to Clemmie:

Grace was super whiny and tearful this afternoon, driving me to the wine at 4:30 (see above). This reminded me, incidentally, of a day in early November 2002. It was in the first couple of weeks of Grace’s life, and Mum stopped by late afternoon one day to say hello. I was sitting in the family room nursing Grace and nursing my own tumbler of wine (red, back then). Mum took one look at me and said: “Driving you to drink, eh?” That’s how I felt today.

But then, with the cat-landing-on-all-fours-after-being-thrown-out-of-window self-preservation instincts I believe all children have, Grace switched on the charm as I was reading to her before bed. She turned to me, eyes all woeful and apologetic.

“Mum,” she said, “Remember how you told me after a sleepover I was going to be really tired?”

“Yes, Gracie, I remember.”

“And how it would be hard to roll with the punches?” (where she got this expression I don’t know but I suspect I must have used it)

“Yes, Grace, hard to roll with the punches.”

“Well, I really have been trying. It’s really hard. But I am trying.”

I fought tears as I listened to her. We then had a long conversation about how rolling with the punches is hard for me too. And indeed, it is.

Pushing forward and holding back

Lisa Belkin’s blog today is thought-provoking and articulately states something I’ve been inarticulately thinking about. She writes about the tension between pushing forward and holding back that seems to define so much of current parenting.

Today’s parents, critics tell us, are managing to mess up our kids in two contradictory yet somehow simultaneous ways. On one hand, we push them to grow up too fast, proud that they are reading before they are walking, pleased that they are taking college-level math in middle school. On the other hand, we keep them from really growing up at all, helicoptering in to solve all their problems well into young adulthood.

Is it possible that the answer lies, as most answers do, somewhere in the middle? Maybe if childhood was time to be, well, a child, the rest might sort itself into place?

On the pushing forward, I am not sure how I am doing. In terms of media and entertainment I am definitely holding my children back, probably to their detriment: witness Grace still watching Berenstain Bears while her classmates enjoy Hannah Montana. This is probably some deep commentary on my own inability to grow up, I’m not sure – I do know that as she gets older and more exposed to media and stimuli, the questions grow more complicated. I also know that I’ve probably overreacted to this stuff; more than one friend has pointed out that by making Hannah Montana and High School Musical and their ilk off-limits I’ve only made them that much more appealing and seductive to Grace. I’m actually cautiously optimistic that I may have dodged the bullet here, as the American Girl Doll Obsession has taken over. Ridiculous pricing aside, I am enthusiastic about AGD.

On other kinds pushing, it’s too early to tell. I’m excited about Grace’s early reading, admittedly, but that’s for two reasons that have nothing to do with her emergency as a prodigy:

(1) I have such vivid, happy memories of early reading and can’t wait to relive those books with her – Terabithia, Trumpet of the Swan, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Tuck Everlasting, Phantom Tollbooth … oh I could go on!

(2) I have fantasies of Grace spending all afternoon in her bedroom reading, alleviating me of the actual parenting that currently eats up so much fo my weekends. Oh I kid … but only sort of. I was that kid, reading alone at every chance. Actually, I still am: at the littlest opportunity I am in bed reading. I dream that Grace and Whit will do this too. Sounds like a recipe for a relaxing, quiet afternoon and maybe a nap.

I don’t think I’m otherwise pushing her (or him) in terms of skill development, but clearly the private school community is rife with this and I need to be vigilant.

On the holding back, I have a clearer picture. I strive so hard to avoid the helicoptering, the leaping in to solve Grace or Whit’s problems, as anyone who knows me knows. But perhaps I overcorrect here as well. While I don’t ever want to be one of those parents who hears about a child being disciplined at school and assumes the teacher was incorrect, I also don’t want to be disloyal to Grace and Whit by always thinking they are in the wrong. I want to love them and support them while giving them enough room to fall and learn to pick themselves up. Resilient I am not (more on that in a later blog post after long, interesting conversation with Hilary), and I am desperate that my children learn to be.

Regardless, interesting to think about for all parents. Have just ordered Lenore Skenazy’s book, Free Range Parenting, and am eager to read it (on the topic of not helicoptering).