Monday, January 24, 2011

Now with more crazy

I was going to blame the entire contents of this post on my daughter. I was going to describe the adolescent moodiness that is 3 1/2 (almost 4): my daughter, sweet and creative and thoughtful in one moment, stubborn and willful and cah-razy the next.

But you know, it's not all about the crazy of being three. It's that crazy coming up against the last trimester of pregnancy insanity. When those two collide? Watch out.

True events that have happened in the last few weeks:

The Bookstore Bathroom Battle
Will and I are about to leave Chapters after a lovely morning when she tells me she has to use the bathroom. We go to the bathroom. She refuses to go. We start to leave the store. She says she has to pee. We go back to the bathroom. She refuses to go. We start to leave. She sits on the floor. This scenario repeats several times until I am ready to lost my shit. I drag her back to the bathroom (not my proudest moment) and tell her we are not leaving until she pees. We are both hysterical. As Will stands in the stall singing I start weeping and text my husband that I may need to be rescued from the book store bathroom.

A few minutes later? Will pees and we go home, with my daughter narrating the whole incident as we go, a funny moment that has passed. It takes me hours to recuperate.

The battle over quiet time
Lunch is over and Will is watching an episode of "Kai-Lan" before quiet time, a time that sometimes still becomes nap time, but either way must take place alone in one's room. (Um, yeah. That part is not going so well.)

The "Kai-Lan" episode ends and the DVR shuts off, but the television has been left on a children's channel. I hear the opening of "Angelina Ballerina," which is a favourite and only 15 minutes long, and I ask Will if she wants to watch the episode before going upstairs. She agrees and we review the expectations: "What will happen as soon as Angelina is over?" Will makes little snoring sounds. "Yes. You need to go right upstairs to snooze or have some quiet time."

The show ends. I ask Will whether she wants to turn off the TV or have me do it. She screams at me. I turn the TV off. She turns it back on. I turn it off and tell her she will not be watching any more TV today. She screetches, "Yes! I! Will!" and turns it back on. I turn off the cable and tell her I cannot carry her upstairs because of my belly, but I will be waiting for her in her room.

I am a little bit surprised that she does drag herself slowly up the stairs. I suggest that she pees before quiet time, but don't insist since she probably won't sleep anyway. She gathers a few books and we sit on her bed to talk about what has happened. I ask her why she won't get to watch any more TV. She knows and tells me. We talk about being rude. I ask her whether she thinks she will get to watch a second TV show anytime soon. She doesn't think so. I leave her with her books and go downstairs.

It's quiet for so long that I wonder if Will has actually fallen asleep. Then I hear her voice.

"Mama! I need to tell you something. I peed."

There is a terrible silence before I ask, "Where?"

Sitting on her bed, reading, my angry almost 4 year old just peed. Just sat there and peed.

That child is lucky I can hold it together, even when losing my shit. She tries to tell me that "sometimes things happen" but I look right in her eyes and say, "This wasn't an accident, was it?" She shakes her head. "You peed because you were angry?" She nods. I put up the gate and make it downstairs before I burst into tears.

It took hours before I could discuss this incident with my daughter. Hours. But we were finally able to brainstorm some more appropriate things to do when we are angry. Scream into a pillow. Do an angry dance. Draw an angry picture.

A few days later Will stormed up to her room and returned with this:


Will told us these people were angry, so they were shouting into pillows. Then they left the angry in the pillows and were happy again.

An afternoon of crazy wasn't wasted after all.