Sick child, cranky parents, and a security tomato - H
(FYI - So, I'm just telling some stories, not trying to get any sympathy. If you know me, I don't really know what to do with sympathy and compliments. They just make me nervous.)
J is sick. I swear she must have cried for at least half of her waking hours today, including during those hours before the sun came up. This means bad times since it is utterly exhausting for me b/c I 1) don't get enough sleep (which means cranky mommy), 2) have to deal with a cranky, crying child who can't communicate what she wants and maybe doesn't quite know what she wants either, 3) am weaning this cranky child which makes her even crankier, 4) hate letting her cry and can hardly stand to hear her pleas to me that I then have to refuse, 5) have a hard time enduring it for 2+ hours at a time. She's not a crier, so hearing her cries is doubly hard simply for that reason. When she does cry it is with tenacious passion too. She throws her whole being into it, and she just sounds so sad and desperate. It's really hard to take.
Apparently, when E was putting her down to sleep, she was nodding off to sleep while she was sitting up and crying b/c she refused to lay down. E had to watch her and try to catch her when she fell asleep. She wanted to go out to play...and maybe be with me since I'm usually the one that puts her to sleep, and I wasn't in there. This is just a glimpse of her tenacity. She's just like me. Lord, help me! How do I raise a child just like me?
Someone once told me that stubbornness isn't a bad thing if you're stubborn about the right things. How do I steer her in the right direction and teach her how to choose her battles wisely? Do I even know? Man, parenting myself is going to be quite a challenge!
We had some tense moments today. While we were feeding J dinner, neither of us was really talking, and while she was relatively quiet and not crying, that line was tenuous and the slightest things would set her off. That fact only raised the tension b/c I was trying to be super sensitive to her, trying extra hard to read her b/c I didn't want to set her off. I was intensely interested in getting some time away from J and in silence since she's been up a couple of times during the night, was cranky a lot of the day, and was extra clingy through it all.
Well, while J was eating, she was holding on to these cherry tomatoes, one in each hand. She didn't want to eat them just hold them, and if there was something she wanted to grab, she'd exchange the tomatoes for it so we could hand them back to her when she was done. She's been asking for and holding these tomatoes on and off for a couple of days. Well, this particular time, she didn't want to let go of the tomatoes. I was getting a little aggravated b/c she needed to eat. She hadn't eaten much all day, and that fact was stressing me out. Then E says something like, "J, you need to let go of your 'security tomatoes.'" Amid all the stress and tension, I just cracked and was cracking up to the point of spraying my underwear. E was cracking up at this latter fact. It is absurd, but these were indeed J's "security tomatoes." She even took them into the bath with her today and was sad and crying when she popped one in the bath. I replaced it with another, but when I tried to replace that one after she'd cracked it open, this third, replacement tomato just wouldn't do. She wanted that one, the one which (so she thought) was the original "security tomato."
My baby is so ridiculous! Hehehe.
J is sick. I swear she must have cried for at least half of her waking hours today, including during those hours before the sun came up. This means bad times since it is utterly exhausting for me b/c I 1) don't get enough sleep (which means cranky mommy), 2) have to deal with a cranky, crying child who can't communicate what she wants and maybe doesn't quite know what she wants either, 3) am weaning this cranky child which makes her even crankier, 4) hate letting her cry and can hardly stand to hear her pleas to me that I then have to refuse, 5) have a hard time enduring it for 2+ hours at a time. She's not a crier, so hearing her cries is doubly hard simply for that reason. When she does cry it is with tenacious passion too. She throws her whole being into it, and she just sounds so sad and desperate. It's really hard to take.
Apparently, when E was putting her down to sleep, she was nodding off to sleep while she was sitting up and crying b/c she refused to lay down. E had to watch her and try to catch her when she fell asleep. She wanted to go out to play...and maybe be with me since I'm usually the one that puts her to sleep, and I wasn't in there. This is just a glimpse of her tenacity. She's just like me. Lord, help me! How do I raise a child just like me?
Someone once told me that stubbornness isn't a bad thing if you're stubborn about the right things. How do I steer her in the right direction and teach her how to choose her battles wisely? Do I even know? Man, parenting myself is going to be quite a challenge!
We had some tense moments today. While we were feeding J dinner, neither of us was really talking, and while she was relatively quiet and not crying, that line was tenuous and the slightest things would set her off. That fact only raised the tension b/c I was trying to be super sensitive to her, trying extra hard to read her b/c I didn't want to set her off. I was intensely interested in getting some time away from J and in silence since she's been up a couple of times during the night, was cranky a lot of the day, and was extra clingy through it all.
Well, while J was eating, she was holding on to these cherry tomatoes, one in each hand. She didn't want to eat them just hold them, and if there was something she wanted to grab, she'd exchange the tomatoes for it so we could hand them back to her when she was done. She's been asking for and holding these tomatoes on and off for a couple of days. Well, this particular time, she didn't want to let go of the tomatoes. I was getting a little aggravated b/c she needed to eat. She hadn't eaten much all day, and that fact was stressing me out. Then E says something like, "J, you need to let go of your 'security tomatoes.'" Amid all the stress and tension, I just cracked and was cracking up to the point of spraying my underwear. E was cracking up at this latter fact. It is absurd, but these were indeed J's "security tomatoes." She even took them into the bath with her today and was sad and crying when she popped one in the bath. I replaced it with another, but when I tried to replace that one after she'd cracked it open, this third, replacement tomato just wouldn't do. She wanted that one, the one which (so she thought) was the original "security tomato."
My baby is so ridiculous! Hehehe.
posted by haed at 8:33 PM
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