Adoption & Fire

It seems as if my daughter has entered back into a difficult phase in her development.  She turned three in May and I noticed that she started transitioning into this tumultuous time a couple of months before her birthday.   While I understand no child is a complete picnic to parent, it seems as if I have an especially feisty, spirited child.  It has taken me this long to adjust to her personality and just when I think I might have it somewhat figured out, she throws me a curve ball.  The sweet, easy-going girl all of sudden sprouts an attitude and a temper to boot.  To put it mildly, most days are rough.  Most days one or both of us ends up in tears.  Most days I wonder if I was even cut out for this mothering gig.

Last weekend both John and I had a not-so-proud parenting moment.  Our church was having a family day at a local wildlife park.  We piled in a little tram that would give us a tour of the park and allow us to feed the animals as we rode around.  John, Catherine and I sat in the same section as the pastor’s wife and her daughter.  Now, mind you, Catherine has been to this place several times and loved it every time.  But for some reason, this time she was a bit more subdued.  She also insisted on crawling all over me, standing on me, writhing around and just all in all would not give me an inch of breathing room.  I finally made her sit on the bench with John and the pastor’s daughter.  She absolutely refused to sit next to John and started sitting on top of the other child.  I assertively told her to sit in the middle and to give this girl some room.  She shot me an evil look and shook her head.  I shot her ‘the look’ back and she still refused (I guess I have not perfected the look just yet).  I didn’t want to make a scene in front of everyone, but especially not in front of the pastor’s wife.  I calmly reached over, still giving her ‘the look’ and scooted her over.  She then conveniently started having a temper tantrum, which for her, is crying as loudly as possible.  Luckily she doesn’t throw herself on the ground.  I tried every which way to get her to stop.  I threatened, I ignored, I counted, I even told her she was going to scare the animals but none of these tactics worked.  And usually they do.  So, here we were stuck in this tram with a fit throwing three year old who would not calm down and John and I acting like total lunatics trying to get her to stop.  I was completely embarrassed.  Once we ended the tour, instead of having a picnic lunch with the rest of the group, we quickly hauled our still hollering child back to the car and took off back to the house.  I was fuming!

Unfortunately, we have had a lot of these melt-down moments lately.  For some reason they are really difficult for me to handle.  Most of the time I try to ignore the tantrums and the incessant whining but more times than not she gets the better of me.  I try not to show it, because I don’t want her knowing she is pushing my buttons, but secretly I start getting angry and frustrated inside.  And that is when I detach.  It’s hard for me to switch gears quickly like she can.  The weird thing is, in most life situations I can switch gears quickly, but for some reason with her I can’t.  Maybe because I have never been in the situation where we go from a 10 on the frustration level back to a 1 within a 15 minute time frame….several times a day.  It takes me a while to recover.  What ends up happening is that I get caught in a loop of having a good time, getting frustrated, feeling withdrawn, feeling okay, getting frustrated, feeling overwhelmed, feeling even more withdrawn, feel at peace because she is napping and then we start it all over again until she goes to bed.

I started thinking about how difficult this time with her is right now, and I began to notice a pattern.  It seems that a couple of months before she has a birthday (mind you we have only had three of them), she starts getting cranky and her difficult behaviors usually lasts throughout the entire summer months.  Last summer was horrible and so was the summer before that (but I chalked that summer up to her just being home).  Now here we are into our third summer and every…single…day is a battle.  I am thinking that it has to do with her developmental milestones.  I hear rumors from other parents that their children were difficult during these stages.  I have to believe that this is the same for her as well.  With this belief in mind, I have to do several things: fake it until we make it, allow both of us to have more breathing room, take more time for myself, give myself a time-out when needed, pray, pray, pray, and give more grace to both her and to me.

This parenting gig is way, way harder than I ever imagined it to be.  I am not perfect.  My daughter is not perfect.  My husband is not perfect.  I am trying to learn a bit more patience and to give us all room to fall.  I am getting lots of practice time right now.  I know I am going to need it even more in about 8 years when she enters her pre-teen and teen years.  Oh, I don’t even want to say that out loud.