I've been traumatized. Consider this a note slipped to you from a hostage. I'm sure, I know as a therapist, other mommas and daddies are challenged by their own tough dramas with their small kids too. I'm not alone. Sometimes knowing this fact is comforting.
Sometimes, however, my children...comment se dit?...screw with me in ways for which no degree in counseling seems to prepare me. I cope only as I can. I strike a yoga pose alone in the back yard, deep breathing, run a mile: all the correct jazz. Processing the nuttiness (like blogging!) can bring down the blood pressure too. But today...today....
I blame myself, of course, because that's what parents do. I had three babies in four years. I know the look that came over your face reading that last sentence, too. Insanity, I realize now, only too late. They're seven, five, and three. So, being educated in child development and trained to coach parents effectively, I know: there will be intense times. I did it to myself. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.
But recently the bar has been raised. My daughter in particular, the three year old (I'll call her Paris to reflect her current level of perceived entitlement), has taken on the surliness of Christian Bale on a movie set. She has become Impossible. For some strange and woeful reason, among her demands is that her father not look at her, touch her, or basically interact or serve her in any way. He is Not The Mommy. Egad.
Add to this the lung capacity of Pavarati and a will of iron, and I'm telling you, it's a shellacking. Allow me to paint you the picture: bucolic family Saturday afternoon. Naptime, as it does every day of her waking life, arrives. She screams her intent of having none of it. There are tears. There are dramatics. And the toddler acts up too.
I mean, did anyone else today keep their howling toddler in a basket hold for twenty minutes while she decided if she wanted to go to bed with stories or no stories and turned purple screaming? Only to go finally limp in my arms and say, "I love you, Mommy. Cuddle me." My blood pressure is just now regulating. The kid's going to kill me.
"Grow," my husband squints, wiggling his fingers before the children as if to age them with magic. I know it's wrong to want everyone to go ahead and get five, but wow. Just wow. You just don't see it coming when they hand you that cute little swaddled thing in the hat in the hospital. I hear it's worse with teenagers. I'm thinking about hopping on the back of stranger's Harley here pretty soon.
So, let's huddle together, hostages! Here's to the parents of small children: I salute you, unseen soldier. I salute your lack of sleep. I salute your Job-like countenance in the face of fire, your lack of adult movies and beverages, your fate to discuss consistency and frequency of poop in place of Truth and Beauty. The Earth is continuing to spin on its axis, though, darlings. Time will pass, and we're gonna look back on this and laaauugh....
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