I have noticed two things though. One, she reacts strongly to the emotional atmosphere of the house. Two, she always has a reason (in her mind) for the way she feels. Today was no exception.
Dano had left the house upset over something last night. As soon as he closed the door behind him, Lilah ran to me and burst into tears, burying her head in my lap. He hadn't left shouting or breaking dishes against the wall. He was just clearly frustrated and had a lot of restrained anger in his voice when he said good-bye. There was nothing particularly dramatic going on. It didn't stop Lilah from wailing for a full ten minutes, asking what was wrong with her daddy and when he would be back. We always try to explain things to her as best we can in terms she can understand.
"Sweetheart, sometimes the hardest things for grown-ups to do is to talk about how they feel and tell the truth. It's especially hard for Daddy to just say what's bothering him instead of keeping it inside his body. If he keeps it inside, it hurts him and he gets angry."
"He should just say that he's feeling upset. He should take yoga breaths."
"Yoga breaths don't help everyone, little bird."
"They help me."
Today we were still sorting out the leftovers from the night before. By no means are Dano and I the ideal couple, and we get in plenty of fights where one or both of us don't play fair. I can say, though, that for the most part our disagreements are pretty civil and above-board. Those types we sort out in front of Lilah. I want her to see adults fight, hash it out, disagree, and still love each other at the end of the day. There are too many conflicts that go on loudly behind closed doors. There are too many "No, there's nothing wrong," conversations. I want her to learn to be frank and open, not sneaky and passive aggressive. It's a tall order in a house full of sarcasm and a world full of backbiting.
We were at Panera eating lunch before Dano went to work, still discussing things from last night. Emotions were escalating (as much as they can in Panera). He was saying something and I was tuning out, looking around at a 2 year old slapping his mother because she took her Pepsi away from him (she promptly gave it back when he slapped her). There was an enormous black man having lunch with a petite woman that could have been his daughter (by enormous, I mean towering, broad-shouldered, and wearing a beret. Somehow that made him seem even larger. Or maybe it was the fact he was hunched comically over a tiny bowl of salad). I looked back at Dano as he scowled and accused me of not listening to what he was saying.
"No, I was too," I lied. We got more heated until hushed comments were coming out more like hisses. Dano got up from the table and grabbed his coat. I tried to stop him. "Don't go to work mad. I'll feel awful all day." He shook his head.
"You might deserve it." The room swam and my eyes filled with tears. I took deep breaths to avoid the mortification of crying in public. Lilah had been involved in the discussion the entire time, asking questions about why we were feeling a certain way or another. He came back over and looked contrite. He finished the conversation with a kinder tone and didn't once glance at his phone to check the time even though I knew it was getting late. I admitted I hadn't been listening as well as I should have, and had messed things up the night before but had only been trying to help. He conceded that he would try harder to make me feel like he was on my side and that he knew my heart had been in the right place. The tense lines around Lilah's face relaxed and she smiled calmly. Dano kissed me and went to work. He left and Lilah recited one of her favorite lines from Spirited Away.
"Aww, that's love for you." I laughed and we talked about other things for a moment. The man in the beret took his tray to the garbage, then came over to me, looming there.
"I was going to come say something, but I was waiting for him to leave." A hundred thoughts ran through my head. Maybe he was going to say we shouldn't have argued (however quietly) in public. Maybe he thought we were awful for disagreeing in front of a child. Maybe he'd overheard our earlier conversation where Dano had described how Lilah had spent the whole morning bawling because she thought I hadn't said goodbye to her before going to work (I had, she just didn't hear) and thought we were bad parents for talking about her in front of her. Maybe (thought the vindictive part of me) he was going to tell me he'd been eavesdropping and he thought I was totally in the right and Dano should have been much sweeter to me. My whole body tensed up to brace myself for whatever this massive man had to say, fully aware he was easily 3 times my size and if he admonished me in any way, I would probably cry. "I teach middle school, and my sister here teaches kindergarten.We see a lot of kids come through the schools and can always tell what kind of parents they have based on how they behave." Here it comes, I thought. He's going to criticize our parenting and I'm going to have to lose my shit at him. Maybe I should direct him toward the slapping 2 year old. "The parents who were involved from the time the kids were tiny, those are always the best, smartest, happiest kids by the time they get to me. We can always tell the parents that don't care. Just...keep doing everything you're doing." All the tension had melted from my body, the critique I had braced for had never come. "She looks like she's got a lot of fight in her, and I can tell she gets that from you." I laughed, maybe a little bitterly.
"Poor her. But thank you so much." He laughed and tipped his beret at me. They packed up and left.
I had to recount his every word to Lilah Rose, with a line-by-line breakdown of what everything meant. Only when she had received an explanation to her liking and had digested everything, she let me wash her hands and face and get ready to leave. I left feeling like we were on the right track. Our foundation was solid, no matter what bumps we hit.
