The New Girl

Remember That One Kid I Had? Almost Two Years Ago?

He is, in most ways, the opposite of his sister. This is more common than not, I know. The second one is looking for a place to fit, after all. Where my daughter is...full of 90 degree angles, let's say, The Boy is round. And squooshy. He fits...anywhere. Snuggly.

We laugh that he is The Mayor everywhere he goes. Everyone loves The Boy. He is so, so easy to love.

He's also just easy. Period.

He's recently started to talk with real enthusiasm for the sport. Stringing three, four, even five word sentences together, with this adorable little two-beat pause in between words.

"Tank you----Mommy."

He's showing the first signs of potty interest (OH PLEASE) which culminated in him SITTING IN THE TOILET WHILE FULLY CLOTHED at the gym's kid's club. He's also started to require "Poo-pate" for his tooth brush, which, I gotta tell you, mature as I am, makes me snicker. He's car-obsessed. OBSESSED. One day, The Man and I were saying how, at his age, TLNG was crazy about Elmo. (Remember that shit?) And how The Boy has no interests and what the hell is wrong with him and what are we going to have for 2nd party decorations? And the next day, it's like some kind of little boy switch got fucking FLIPPED up in here and it's all, "START YOUR ENGINES! RACE-RACE-RACE-MOMMY-I-WINNNNNN!"

He's coordinated and swings a baseball bat like he MEANS IT. He has a little lean-to-the-side stance and EVERYTHING. Crazy. He climbs and runs and jumps and not a single person who knows us in real life can believe TLNG ended up with stitches before he did. We got a [giant monstrosity] swing set in the back yard. It's huge and I imagined that The Boy would be able to navigate it independently by next summer. At a year-and-a-half, that kid climbed the ladder, went down the slide and was able to sit straight-backed enough for a big-kid swing. He uses a scooter. He's just...pretty cool.

And here's the thing: he melts my heart. Completely.

The connection that I've had with my girl, since the minute she came out, has been crystalline--amazing. Sparkly and intense. Rock hard and indestructible. As she's gotten older, she's gotten easier in some ways and way more challenging in other ways. I fully expect this trajectory to continue. Ahem. (Send help. Or chocolate.) But there is an intensity to her, to us. Our relationship is rife--fraught--with strong emotion, with a degree of struggle. Part of it is stage. Part of it is personality style. And while I love her and really LIKE her, even admire her spirit, sometimes it's kind of hard to be her Mommy.

But my boy. Oh, my boy. I don't know how to explain it, really. If it's the product of age and stage or gender or birth order or temperamental style. Or, most likely, all of the above. He sneaked up on me. He came into the world sleeping in four hour chunks and self soothing and before I knew it, he was walking and eating and playing and snuggling. He was easy. So easy and quiet, I could all of a sudden understand how someone might forget they had a kid in the car. Started to believe people who said their kids slept through the night at 3 months, because omfg, he DID.

It took a while to feel like I really know him, I think. The volume of his personality is a little lower and it was a while before my ears could adjust to hear it. But he seeped into my bones along the way and it seems that, like his car obsession, my intense maternal love for him got flipped and all of a sudden I'm crying because one day, he's going to have whiskers and be taller than me. Our connection is there. But it's so different than that to which I was accustomed. Softer and more pliable. Looping and elastic and comfortable. And beautiful, too.

VROOOOOOOM!

Scarred.

I just knew something was wrong--in that awful way you just know. She was running, having been sent to her room, and she slipped and fell. Whacked her face. She got up, crying, and continued to her time out. And I just knew.

So I followed her to her room.

"Did you just hit your face, baby?" I asked.

She held her face in both hands and I sat on the edge of the bed and looked down.

Blood.

Big, fat, crimson, drops on her purple sheet.

"Are you bleeding?" I asked, prying her hands away.

Flowing. Pouring. In a way that was so, so, wrong, I instantly knew beyond any doubt, we were headed to the emergency room. And stitches.

The beautiful ingredients for my dinner were all prepared and laid out, ready. I'd baked a cake for my sister's birthday. And just like that--our plans changed. In an instant, everything was different. Upside down.

My emotions went wherever they go when there's a crisis. Away. I become super calm and organized. Getting the directions to the best ER and heading out with a panicky pre-schooler, leaving behind my husband, son and our soon-to-be-arriving dinner guests. Luck was with us and the hospital was great and we were in and out in under an hour. I know. I KNOW.

They swaddled my baby and stuck her with a needle and sewed her lip back together, while she cried and yelled, "I want to leave RIGHT NOW!" and, "EVERYONE TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" and my belly got woozy and my heart broke into a bazillion pieces, even when my head was all, "It's only four stitches. Get over yourself. SHE'S FINE."

And she was. Is.

Fine.

There's something about it, though. About the knowledge that one minute you can be fixing an awesome dinner and the next minute, things can, well, change. Something about those tense moments, that time when realization blooms and you know--know--things aren't going the way you thought they were going to go. For whatever reason, for me, it dipped right into the place where the memories surrounding my mother's dying live. The place where tragedies alter not only your plans, but your life. That place is hard to find when you're looking for it but you recognize it in a flash, when you're passing through it.

I know a woman whose son was attacked by a dog. He required stitches all over his torso, arms and legs. His mother grieved for his skin, for the scars that would mark him now, forever. Even though I was childless at the time, I understood her sadness, her sense of loss. On the way to the hospital with my girl, I remembered her. I remembered her grief as I thought about my daughter's face. Flawless up until now. This will be her first real scar.

When I got home, I ate the take-out The Man ordered after he'd butchered the dinner I'd intended. We sang happy birthday and cut the cake. I ate a piece as big as my head. And when everyone went home and the kids were snuggle-buggle in bed, my feelings came back from wherever it is they go in a crisis.

And I bawled my eyes out, even though she's fine.

She'll have a scar.

And so will I.

By The Time You've Finished Reading This Post, I Will Owe You For The Hour Of Therapy. You've Been Warned.

Ah, you guys.

I don't even know where to start. I've been struggling with Parenting Issues in my little [hidey hole] corner of the internet and it's been...a struggle. It's a teeter-totter-roller-coaster up in this piece and I debate even how much to write about it, since the internet is all PERMANENT and someday, my beautiful girl will be able to read and do internet searches and well, I wouldn't ever want her to stumble on something that would have her feeling like I didn't Like her all the time, even though, I feel like, well, like I don't Like her all the time.

Oh my word.

Seriously.

There's nothing that makes you feel more reptilian than admitting there are moments that you don't Like your own offspring.

And by you, I mean me.

This is a fairly new occurance around here, actually, but it's not at all new to me. I see it in my job occasionally. Worn-out, anxious, exasperated, parents of a child who has a 'Difficult Temperament' or other challenging behaviors will come into my office for help. They sit on the couch and discuss their child and his behaviors and list all of the books they've read and the techniques they've tried and the meetings they've had with school personnel, counselors, therapists, and doctors. They tell me about the frustrating, irritating, and even humiliating situations that have resulted from these behaviors. And what is abundantly clear, as they are talking and confiding and crying, is that they Love their child. That much is so obvious, it goes without saying.

But equally obvious, and almost always unspoken and (I imagine) carried in the pits of their stomachs like a stone, is the fact that they are having great difficulty Liking their child. And I'm not talking about the flash of anger or resentment that comes with the territory of your kid being an ass. I'm talking about an ongoing, chronic disconnection from feelings of fondness, tenderness, or anything else resembling a Warm Fuzzy.

And so it is for me, internet, these past few weeks. My girl, my feisty one, has always had a tough temperament. She is not terribly flexible. She is tenacious in all the most challenging ways. She is easily frustrated, sometimes anxious and overwhelmed. She needs about 748576 feet of personal space around her or she starts whacking people. She's a little wired and a lot sharp and likes to rattle cages. Kind of like her mother. Go figure.

The interesting thing about temperament is, objectively, there's no such thing as a difficult or easy temperament. They just are what they are, kind of like feelings. It's the context that decides what's easy and what's not, see. Parenting or teaching a flexible, regular, generally contented, movable child is just....easier. (And, uh, I know that from personal experience, as well.) I've always known this stuff about my girl. Re-reading that post I linked was a little mind-bending. It seems that Four is a recycled Two but with more vocabulary! And horse-power!

Without going into the grizzly gorries because, oh my holy hell, she's four years old and her worst isn't that bad, suffice it to say it's bad enough. Bad enough to make me feel like I'm standing off to the side and watching myself watching my kid. With no smile, no tenderness, no warm fuzzies. It feels cold and a little scary to be here at four.

I'm getting my wits about me and we've embarked on the latest round of lollipop rewards, sticker charts and positive reinforcement (all of which usually end up working for us). We've got family meetings and loving talks to counter-balance punishments and frank rage, fueled by my helplessness and fear.

I understand my own feelings pretty well. I know I'm not a reptile. I know it's a normal part of parenting and it waxes and wanes and that, if I'm feeling it, others are too, somewhere. Maybe, one day, I'll be on someone's couch, crying and listing and hoping it all comes out right enough to convey the intensity of my love for this kid.

Because it's like the blazing sun in the desert, you know.

It really is.

What Am I Doing Here, Again?

Don't worry. It's not YET ANOTHER post about how I feel like I have so much going on and so much to tell you and yet I feel YET ANOTHER log-jam in my brain and so I go on and on about THAT before I get to the real point of my...

Oh, wait.

Shit. I'm sorry.

Anyway.

Let's start over.

I have a lot cooking right now. Some on the front burners, some on the back burners but it's sizzling and smoking and if I don't pay attention to it all, it's going to boil over or burn the fuck up and well, I'm tired of this metaphor already. The point is, I'm working out consistently, laundry is piling up and threatening to take over, the toilets need to be scrubbed, I have a new job opportunity developing, I'm trying to do a professional website, my kids are crazy-insane, The Man is way less available and way more stressed due to a number of factors unrelated to any of the aforementioned issues and well, it seems I'm tired of this even when it's not in metaphor.

The working out is good. I have been experimenting with counting calories (!) using an app (My Fitness Pal) on the Ipod. It's a great app, really. It factors in your goals and activity level, giving you a STARTLINGLY LOW (at least to me) calorie limit for each day. You enter in your food intake and it calculates automatically (obviously, or it, uh, wouldn't be very effective, I suppose.) You also enter your exercise and it adds the calories burned for you to eat.

Those are some very tasty calories.

I have found the value in this experiment in a few ways. One, it just forces me to pay attention. For me, not paying attention to my physical self (not exercising, mindless eating) is the NUMBER ONE culprit. So, just applying the gentle but consistent pressure on my Will to focus on what I'm doing is, in and of itself, helpful. The second is when I started keeping track of calories, there were two behaviors that, as my dad would say, came to a screeching halt. Eating while I'm cooking or preparing food and eating from my kids' plates.

Seriously. Cold Turkey.

It's also kind of a fun little game to get in under the goal for the day. Strange fun, maybe, but fun nonetheless. 

Anyway.

The last thing I want to get into one of those horrible, internet misunderstandings that go along with weight discussions. I normally put all of this kind of thing over on Balancing The Scales but, eh, I don't know what I'm doing here or what that blog is for, anymore. Is it a food blog? A weight issue blog? Fitness slash baking blog? How INNOVATIVE!

The other stuff, I don't have time to tell you because the one crazy-insaner is hiding all her toys and then going to find them ("We're playing HIDE AND SEEK!") and the other is in his crib, bouncing up and down, up and down, waiting for me to come in there so he can immediately tell me he wants his "COARS."  (OMGCars.) (Some kind of Boy Switch got flipped and all of a sudden? It's ALL COARS ALL THE TIME.)

Vrrrrroooooomm.

 

*Do I even have to mention that this isn't a sponsored post? No. I didn't think so.

Fun Fact Friday!

* My daughter, TLNG, is going to be four on Monday. FOUR. Ohmymothereffinghell. I can't believe [we made it this far] it. Four seems, well, it seems like a little kid without any baby left and although there will always be that *residual baby* of mine who resides in there, she is longer of limb and more sophisticated of speech and just generally kid-like.

* She is also currently driving me 100% completely insane. Well. Not 100%. But CLOSE. You know how when you have a newly-minted two year old and everyone is all TERRIBLE TWOS! TWO YEAR OLDS ARE CRAZY! TWO WILL KILL YOU!! and they are and they almost do but then your two year old turns three and everyone is like, OH MY GOD, THREE IS WORSE THAN TWO! WHY DON'T PEOPLE KNOW THAT?! THREE IS TERRRRRIBLE!! and then your three year old is turning four and you think 'PHEW,' but yet, she's still wreaking fucking HAVOC in the library? and having complete temper-fits in the grocery store? and pulling kids' hair and pushing them in the gym kids' club?

Yeah. THAT.

With the added benefit of the ability to annoy you...ON PURPOSE.

I'm not going to make it.

* I find, though, that her development comes in waves. That every six months or so, I'm dealing with a week (or a few weeks) of destabilized behavior. For her that means acting out and doing things that she hasn't done in a long time. Pushing kids. Trying to hit me when she's mad. Getting super-duper frustrated with things. Then, as whatever her little brain or body is trying to accomplish gets worked out, she settles.

*Even though I know this, it's increasingly difficult (for ME) to tolerate behavior like the gym-club pushing, taking swipes when she's pissed and the darting behind the desk in the library. I start to wonder whether the behavior is *normal,* if you know what I mean. I know she has a tough temperament and I would be lying if I said I can't imagine where she gets it.  Ahem. But it's one of those things you see out of the corner of your eye and when you turn and look at it full-on, it's gone.

* What a nice birthday(ish) post, eh? I'll write a better one for Monday. Maybe. But still, let me say, that whatever intensity my girl has in these more, er, difficult traits, she carries the same dazzling intensity for her more desirable ones. She's sharp with a memory that would astound you. She's witty and funny and loves to make people laugh. She's affectionate and caring and has a shy vulnerability that makes my heart ache to see.

When she's not screeching like an owl, just to rattle my cage.

Plus, look.

Beauty.

That never changes.

Maybe I'm From Crazy World. Because It Sure Feels Like It Sometimes.

I can't BELIEVE that it's been, oh, over a MONTH since I've posted. So, so, SAD, isn't it? I think at this point, I've basically re-virginated myself, in the blog-publishing sense.

Hey look, everyone! It's a brand new blog!

I vacillate between, 'Yes! I need to post and keep chug-chug-chugging along, until I get to a point where I can/will/want to/could post more often!' and 'Oh, holy mother of Whatever, what is the fucking POINT of all this?'

Is that weird? I don't think there has to be any Meta-Point to it all, really. Blogging, I'm saying. I can/will/want to/could write what I write, to have it down and to get it out and to put it out there and people can read it or not read it and it's all Cool and The Gang so, wtf? Right?

I've had this blog for a little over 4 years now and I've loved it, hard. I came out of the gate strong, even with a difficult pregnancy and a [crazy ass] challenging infant. I worked on posts and loved putting them together and hitting publish. The feedback and community were a bonus. A fantastic bonus that made the two trips to BlogHer, like, Trips, as in, 'It was a TOTAL TRIP to see these people in person. To hug them and eat cupcakes with them,' and all that. I read blogs and commented on blogs and kept up with what you were doing and what was happening in your lives.

I don't know.

After my second baby, I had less time. And more overwhelm. It was harder to read and harder to write. And the Waxing of the business side of blogging makes me feel a little...small. To be completely honest, the business of blogging is beyond me. And I mean that openly and without guile. I don't really understand how it works and it is beyond my scope to participate in it. I don't know my PR from my HR or my Advertisers from a hole in the ground. And while that is perfectly okay and I am infatuated with those who do--I feel a little...out of my depth when the latest Big Deal has to do with things of which I know not. If you can feel me. (This is total derailment, right here, folks. Get out now. RUN WHILE YOU CAN.)

When I started to write here, there were so many other bloggers who were anonymous. Almost all of them. As I write this today, I can think of only a few. Not that it's any big deal in the scheme of things but I think it's an indication of how things continue to morph and change, especially online, right? I blog as a hobby.

I'm a Hobblogger.

A Bloggbby.

Something.

It used to feel like I was a blogger with a secret identity as a therapist. I felt like I belonged to both worlds. I like to write and I like to commune. I want to tell you stories and hear/read yours. Sometimes I look at the accomplishments of people in this community. And I'm floored. I'm proud and I'm impressed and I'm amazed and I'm jazzed for them. With almost all of my heart.

But I would be being less than honest if I didn't admit that I sometimes feel like a fish out of water. I feel like my life is small. Not in the diminutive, not worth anything sense...I mean in the insular, kind of isolated sense. I'm not going to write books or be on morning television. I am not becoming famous or connected to famous people. This blog isn't a jumping off point. I am fine with that, forreal-forreal, it has just been making me feel kind of out of step, is all. And inside, with that little prickly piece of my heart, I kind of feel like I don't belong. Like this is another world, far away from mine.

This makes no sense at all. I'm rambling and fumbling. Probably because I'm all re-virginated.

I don't have a well-honed way to express what I'm feeling.

What I'm not feeling, though, is inclined to be misconstrued, so don't get it twisted. The people who are writing books and who are on morning tv and who are famous or connected to famous people, all through their blogs, are some of the people I like best in the whole world. As in, even outside the computer.

So, therapist world, blogger world, mother world, menopausal women world--whatever. I don't really know where I belong.

But here's a small truth: I am pretty uncomfortable writing a post that is all *Meta* about blogging and at the same time I really wanted to write this post, that was all *Meta* about blogging.

That, in a therapist's world, could be called a 'Dialectic Tension'.

Which sounds a whole lot better than a big bunch of 'I Should Have Cleaned The Bathroom Instead of Hitting Publish.'

Passive-Receptive.

That's the State of Mind that I've been in, friends. Passive-Receptive as opposed, to say, Active-Productive or whatever you want to call it when you're writing or otherwise creatively engaged. So, In other words, I've been Reading and Watching. I've gone back to the gym (after every kid illness is over, so--again, again, again, again, again, infinity) and so I've had time to read (while doing cardio.)

I've read so many books that I've lost track, really, but I reread the entire Harry Potter series. (Again.) (omfg. I KNOW.) (It's a problem.) I usually find something new that I missed or that I somehow forgot. This time through, I realized that the Expelliarmus curse was taught to Harry by Snape and it's the curse that saved his life and also the curse that ultimately gave him control of the Elder Wand. Hmmm. Interesting. To NO ONE.

Moving on.

I also read Room and if you haven't read it, you really should. It's disturbing in a haunting, afflicting way and I was thinking about it for DAYS after I finished. It was so good, though, imaginative and really, really, well done. I read the Golden Compass trilogy (finally) and liked that well enough, too.

I figured out how to connect my Nook to my library--LOOK OUT. No late fees! Whooo hooo! Anyway, the only books that are available without a wait are Agatha Christie books. I have one out right now--The Third Girl. And, as an aside, I had absolutely NO IDEA how many books Agatha Christie had written in her lifetime. NO IDEA. Holy shit, there are like, A BAZILLION. Where she got all HER Active-Productive, I'd like to know.

I'm always on the look-out for books. I get a kind of preemptive panic when I'm nearing the end of a book without a wisp of an idea for the next one. I like Goodreads and all but it still seems so...huge. I get a little weirded out, sometimes, when I think of HOW MANY books exist in this world. It makes finding a good one feel so...random. (I feel the same way about blogs, btw.)

On the Watching front, I'm slogging through the Six Feet Under series on Netflix (Why, oh WHY, put only two episodes on one DVD, HBO? Huh? Whyyyyy?) I'm up to the last season now.

While I fold COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF FUCKING LAUNDRY, I've started watching the new episodes of The United States of Tara. Love it so far and I *know* therapists who don't 'believe in' DID. Interesting plot-line, that. I was afraid to start watching Nurse Jackie again, with the whole..."BLOOOEEEW ME" thing. I thought it might be getting a little *too* real and well, you know, she's an addict and all. I'm hoping that's not a spoiler or anything.

ANYWAY.

What are you guys doing?

Surely you're not spending all your time Drinking and Dreaming. You're days are filled with Creating and Completing, no doubt.