I've been deliberately putting off blogging for awhile. Blamed business, migraines, the common cold. I have felt completely exhausted as a mother lately. "Dog tired". Every day has seemed to be a new struggle. I'm battling wills with someone smaller, more energetic, and undoubtedly smarter. I have no idea how some parents wait until they're reasonable ages and have responsible careers underway before having children. If I hadn't accidentally had a baby at an irresponsibly young age, I'd be (more) grey-haired and decrepit by now.
First came Dano's return to classes and Lilah beginning preschool. She's on the waiting list for her preschool, so Dano has been spending 3 half-days a week on a schedule that mimics her future preschool's. They spend 5-10 minutes on each subject. I plan the curriculum a week ahead of time. Her body, mind, imagination, coordination, and tummy all get nurtured. We're not focusing on rote memorization. She has her whole life for that. As usual, we're focusing on learning-through-play, language arts, communication, handling emotions, and coping mechanisms. Science is hands-on experiments (Pouring hot water on ice cubes to watch them melt into water), math is usually environmental ("Find 5 squirrels in the backyard."), and imagination runs wild (bear dens built out of pillows and blankets to prepare for hibernation). She is loving it and learning a lot. Dano enjoys is as well.
However, upon instituting scholastic pursuits for the family, Lilah began having accidents. Being the nurse I am, I took a sample into the office. No UTI. We took her potty every half hour. Still puddles. I was at the end of my rope. Dano and Lilah were in near-daily shouting matches over potty use and my water bill was astronomical from loads of laundry. Out of desperation, I went to her doctor and one of the other nurses with adult children. Both smiled knowingly at me as I described our problem and my concerns over her bladder and my husbands sanity. Both suggested that Miss Lilah Rose was exercising control in one of the only ways she was able. She had control over what went into her body and what came out. I had a very hard time believing it. That is, until the night I had to take a quiet phone call, so I locked myself in the bathroom for exactly 6 minutes (Come on, fellow mothers. You've all done it). I came out to an angelic smile.
"Her hands are dirty. You should wash them."
"Whose hands?"
"Eloise's hands." The doll lay in a puddle outside the bathroom door.
"...Lilah Rose Marie. Why are Eloise's hands dirty?"
"Because I peed on them, Mama," she beamed at me. I put her in her room and shut the door, telling her Mama needed a time out so I wouldn't lose my temper (i.e shake her silly). I cleaned everything up and took the advice of her doctor. Dano and I sat down with her.
"We made a mistake and thought you were ready to be a big girl. Big girls pee on the potty. It looks like you aren't ready yet, and that's just fine. We're putting you back in pull-ups until you decide you're a big girl again." We effectively took the power away from her and placed it back in our hands. Barring a few incidents, the problem was solved. We kept her in pull-ups for a month.
A short time later, Lilah and Ephraim were upstairs in her room and quiet (silence: what a parent fears most). When they were discovered, they had taken her "Forest Friends" (the wall decals I bought her as a special present) off her wall. They were reusable only if immediately placed on another wall. Their sticky backs had been placed on the carpet. Lilah knew she'd done something wrong because she hid them in her skirt. When everyone left, Lilah's lower lip quivered as I tried to put them back on the wall. No luck. I was angry she had destroyed something special I'd done for her. I was disappointed she'd been deliberately destructive. Dano saw how upset I was and tried to reassure me he'd only learned not to be destructive to his toys after breaking one beyond repair and being very sad it was gone. I slowly, sadly, threw her Forest Friends away. Lilah was aghast.
"Where are they going?"
"In the garbage."
"When are they coming back?"
"They aren't. You ruined them. They have to go away forever now." She paled. Her blue eyes filled, her lips quivered, but she didn't shed a tear. I was actually fascinated with her composure and that her tears could possible teeter on the brink of her lids so perfectly.
"Well can I say goodbye to them?" I was taken aback.
"Sure, sweetheart." Dano and I had to watch as she sat by the garbage cradling her cardboard box of ruined friends.
"I'm very sorry I ruined you. Ephraim and I were just trying to move you. I love you. Maybe if I'm a very..." she choked. "Very good girl, Mama will buy me new Forest Friends at the store one day. Goodbye." She hugged the box and I threw them away. She nodded and allowed Dano to walk her solemnly upstairs to bed.
When he came back down, he said, "That was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever seen." Neither of us could hold back tears.
Several days later, Max was over and we were putting Lilah to bed while Dano was at class. I forgot to tell him to make sure the cat exited Lilah's bedroom before shutting the door. She'd only been up there 5 minutes before a tympanic-membrane-perforating scream came from the upstairs bedroom. The cat (who enjoys waiting until Lilah is hovering between sleep and waking, then pouncing on her in the dark) flew down the stairs and skittered downstairs and into the shadows where all demons go. I was left to calm my hysterical child. Dano got home and tried to calm her as well.
"I'll kill the cat, sweetheart."
"DON'T KILL HER! I LOVE HER!" Nothing helped. Every time we calmed her to put her back in her bed, she would wail in fear again. It finally came out that she had formulated this weird notion like kids do, that her Forest Friends protected her from bad things at night and watched over her while she slept. And what happens shortly after the Forest Friends Funeral? The cat goes on a mischievous rampage in the dark, tossing our peace of mind into the atmosphere like the most skillfully tossed pizza crust into the air. Only this crust doesn't come down. It gets stuck on the ceiling, to be peeled down one sticky glob at a time, forever leaving a greasy mark to prove it had been there. As if to say, "I fucked shit up" for all eternity. Lilah eventually sobbed herself to sleep. After what seemed like years but more than likely was probably more like a week or two, Lilah had been especially responsible and good. Dano told me to go buy more Forest Friends. We went back and forth, but it came down to, "Aranel, I don't think 3 is the age for her to make a mistake she feels like she can't come back from." I conceded. Even with the Forest Friends in place and Lilah Rose overjoyed, it had only taken that one night of screaming for her to realize that it was a jolly way to get out of bedtime and bring her parents running.
"I'm afraid of owls! I'm afraid of the crack in my wall! I'm afraid of the cat! I'm afraid of sleep!" We decided to be hard-ass parents to salvage what was left of our sanity. We acted like everything was normal for naps, even though she screamed the entire 2 hours she was up there. After 2 hours, I peeked in on her swollen, tear-streaked face.
"Hello there! I'm glad you're up! How was your nap?" She looked totally bewildered.
"But...I was...crying...because...I was scared."
"Oh. I didn't hear that. I was watching tv. That's too bad. Want to come down now?" We repeated this every time she went to sleep and the screaming time got shorter and shorter.
"I HAVE TO PEEEE!" Dano would lead her quietly to the toilet with no eye contact or words, then take her straight back upstairs after. She got the picture that excuses weren't getting her out of sleeping anymore. I can absolutely see how parents just cave and wind up sleeping with their kids until they're in college. Something about your willpower seems to chips away when faced with unceasing screams from a tiny person you created. We both figured if we gave in now, the next struggle would be even worse and last even longer. She was trying to get out of bedtime after a legitimate scare at first, but now she was milking it a week later. Day by day, the screams dropped off minute by minute. After a total of 10 days, the sleep issues were solved. We had bags under our eyes and were biting each other's heads off, but we won. We won?
The next challenge was much shorter lived. When she realized that we had bested her in rounds 1 and 2, she pulled the last trick out of her hat. What else does a 3 year old have control over after bodily functions and sleep? Why, eating of course. And it started with her having a cold and me placing her dinner plate in front of her.
"I'm not hungry." We let it slide because she had was congested. Then night after night, if we even hinted at eating,
"What sounds good for dinner, Dano?"
"I'm not huuuuungryyyyyy," chirps Lilah in a sing-song voice while coloring. At first, we fought her on it (rookie mistake, we're finding out. It basically shows her our hand and she plays us like a violin from there). Then we bargained with her (it's like the 7 stages of death and dying, I swear to God). Finally, just like the potty, just like the bedtime, we were assholes and outsmarted her.
"Oh you're not hungry? Good, good. I'm starving. As soon as I finish my plate, I'm eating yours. I'm so glad you're not eating. But you do have to sit in your chair nicely and talk to us while we eat. But you're definitely not allowed to eat your dinner." Dano prodded her broccoli.
"This looks great. I'm going to eat this one." Lilah's expression morphed from sassy to angry to defiant. She tossed her blonde hair.
"I am going to eat all my dinner. Right. NOW." And she gobbled it up while we feigned outrage at our second helpings being eaten. She grinned, teeth full of broccoli. Problem solved, to this day.
I swear, my shoulders are droopier. I've found a few grey hairs. I'm achey where I broke my collar bone 20 years ago when there's a storm coming. I have dark circles under my eyes. All of these things are true. Brought on by stress and a busy flu season or premature aging due to excessive mental battery at the hands of a halfling? I'm sure they'll argue it at my wake. For now, I don't know how I'll ever keep up. The older she gets, the more things she's supposed to assume control over. What does that mean for us other than more limits being tested? She's a hundred times happier and better adjusted after a week of testing limits that she finds to be firmly in place. At least then she takes a few days off before inventing something else to push at. It's just hard not to feel like a loose tooth she's intent on extracting for her well-earned Tooth Fairy dollar.
