The Girl

I am fiercely in love with my daughter -truly, I am. The best way to describe her personality is to describe her birth: dramatic with an audience.
She also has a life motto. She doesn’t know it -she doesn’t know what the word “motto” means. She’s still learning basic English (this morning I had to explain to her what a “tube” was). But she lives by this theme:
It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.

I started noticing certain difficult trends in her behavior when she was just a baby.

She just LOVED doing stuff like that -pulling things, emptying things, breaking things… just to see WHAT would happen. I thought she would outgrow it. It’s been a frustrating few years, and guess what? She’s tempered it, but I still find her ripping dollar bills in half, breaking her brother’s toys, biting fingers off of her dolls… you get the point.

The past few days have left me so frazzled I can hardly think -so I don’t.
When she was a little one, I would just give her a scolding for not-so-good behavior.
“No, no” I would say, “We turn AROUND to go down the stairs. If you walk off of them, you will fall all the way down.”
“No, no,” I would say, “We don’t color on the walls.”
“No, no.”

“No, no.”
“No, no.”
I tried spanking.
I tried time outs (she loved those).
I seemed to make no impression what so EVER on my little angel. My little angel isn’t little anymore. Her independence is now working more for GOOD than evil, but it still rears it’s rotten side now and then. The past few days, it’s been rotten as a bad apple. I think I’ve found out what works.
Oh who am I kidding? What I really mean to say is that I’ve tried EVERYTHING and now I’m working with what’s left.

And I’m praying for inspiration in those hard moments when I have no clue what to do next.  After all: I’ve never been a parent to a five year old before.

A couple of days ago, she left one of her favorite books, “Green Eggs & Ham” outside -during monsoon season. She brought it in, and Dad was none to happy. Because I hold Dr. Seuss in high reserve (right there with Robert Frost. Probably higher), I bought a really nice copy of the book which meant my husband had to PAY for it.
He was not happy to see the book he’d paid for soaked, and he let her know it… especially because she had been told specifically NOT to take books outside.
I watched him get after her, and I noticed her eyes darting around. I could practically hear her thinking, ‘Can I go now? Are you done yet?’
Without saying a word, I took the book to my bathroom and blow dried the pages for a few minutes. Then a light bulb came on over my head.
I took the book and the blow drier to my daughter, taught her how to keep the “cool” button pushed down and sat with her as she blow dried all 60+ pages.
The first 15 pages were fun, you know. Using mom’s blow dryer is really, really fun.
After 15 pages?
“Mom, my fingers hurt. Mom, I’m tired. Mom, mom, mom…”
I just said, “When we leave books outside we have to take care of what’s happened to them. It’s your fault they got wet. Should we leave them wet? Or should we fix them?”
“Fix,” she sighed heavily.

“Is it my job to fix or yours?”

“Mine…”

I’ll put her in the corner only to have her try to reason her way out with excuses.
“I’m SO THIRSTY!”
“I needa go potty SO BAD!”
And she won’t let up, no matter how much I ignore her. If I really make a point of ignoring her, she’ll just walk herself out of the corner, thinking I’m not paying attention.

At dinner a few nights ago, her stomach became too physically FULL. She couldn’t possibly eat any more food… what’s more (she put her hand to her forehead) she was SICK!
I sent her to bed with a bowl -excusing her from dinner, which was what she wanted -and told her sick people had to lay down and nothing else.
“Can I watch a movie?” She asked.
“No,” I said, “You’re sick. Sick people just have to lay down. And I’m so sorry you’re so sick because Grandpa and Grandma are coming over to eat dinner.”
Oh she couldn’t stand it! Her lie had gotten her into trouble. It was all her own making! And now she couldn’t play with Grandpa!

“Trent,” I heard her say to her brother, “Go tell Grandpa that I am sick and I need a treat.”
“NO!” I called out and went into her room, “Sick people can not have treats because they might throw them up. They just have to take care of their stomachs.”
Blast.
She’d been foiled again.

These short stories are the tip-top of the ice berg, and I’m down right exhausted trying to parent this child. I have to put a lot of THOUGHT into handling each situation just right, and at the end of the day when she’s coming up with excuses to not get ready for bed and reasoning them all with me with the expertise of a professional lawyer… I just want to bury my head in my pillows and pray that the child in my uterus will be kind to it’s mother.

The dinner lie, which she finally (after coaxing) admitted was a lie, got her a day of grounding from being outside, from playing with her birdie, from watching having friends over, and from watching Netflix… for ONE day.
The very next morning, she appeared by my side with her parakeet on her shoulder… and she was smiling.
The “Forgiveness not Permission” smile.
So she’s grounded from birdie again today, and I’m TIRED.

She’s really the best. And I guess I should have known she’d be the one to test my limits and sanity to their utmost when I watched the pediatrician try and put a catheter in her when she was just weeks old (to test for a UTI). The pediatrician could NOT do it.
My daughter screamed and pinched her chubby brand new legs together… no catheter was given.
“These are the ones we like,” the pediatrician shouted at me over the screams as she put her equipment away, “The strong ones.”
I was proud of her then and I’m proud of her now.
But I need a pat on the back, or something.

Maybe what I really need is an entire pep rally… the teenage years are commmmiiiiiiiiiinnnnngggggg.