It’s 10 pm. Baby Girl is fast asleep in her own bed, in her own room. I turn out my own light and start to drift – ok that’s a lie, my brain is going a mile a minute as always. Anyway. Somewhere around 10:30 I hear a sound. Wassat? O Shit please don’t be awake. A snuffle. A head next to my head whimpers “mommy?” I sigh. What do you need? “I need to go to the bathroom.” Ok let’s do it, I get up and escort her highness to the royal throne, turning the light on as we go so she won’t have to pee in the dark.
She’s still sniffling like she’s going to cry. She starts in with the “wahhhhh, wahhhhh, wahhhhh.” WHY are you crying? “Can I sleep with yoooouuuuu? Please Mommy!” And just like that everything is shot to hell. I know what’s coming, she knows what’s coming. But it doesn’t stop her. I brace for it and say NO.
And the screaming starts. Now I don’t mean screaming like a wild boar is chasing you, or a man with a bloody knife. What I am talking about is a crying-screaming, more like “WAHHH” less like “AIIIEEE.” Either way it’s hard to stomach at close to 11 pm. She immediately lays into her unique way of just driving me insane with her refusal to listen to anything I say. Her refusal to stop screaming long enough to hear me. I try to be calm and speak in low tones. God knows I try. I am the epitome of patient and loving. Not really, I almost immediately resort to pretty much screaming right back.
Because I’m tired of this shit. It happens all the time. I implore her to stop screaming. I tell her it’s unnecessary and ridiculous. Any time I open my mouth to speak she cries “I just need to tell you something! You won’t let me tell you something!” She knows I’m going to say no to sleeping in my bed so WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY Oh my GOD WHY does she do this to me?
She won’t stop scream-crying. She’s still on the toilet. Truly, I’m not making this shit up. I finally smack her bare leg because she won’t listen and won’t stop. Of course this just intensifies the hysterics. I’ve already offered her to sleep in my room on the floor but she will not consider it. After I smack her leg she screams “FINE I’LL SLEEP ON THE FLOOR.” She’s still on the toilet. I walk away. She calls out “Don’t I get a hug and a kiss?!”
I mean, really. Y’all. She’s five. She’s beyond exhausted and crying like there’s no tomorrow. And I do TRY to figure out what to do for her. I try to follow the advice of the various books I’ve read. One book says you must “spank the willfully disobedient child.” Another book says you must try to figure out the underlying cause of the disobedience and try to solve the problem not the symptom. My instinct says she is tired and doesn’t like to sleep alone. I’ve forced a situation on her she’s not comfortable with or happy about. And this is my payment.
But the sheer manipulation here undoes me. OF COURSE I want to hug and kiss her. But should I? In this moment? She does this all the time. It isn’t a new manipulation. Anytime I get upset with her this is what she resorts to. What is she telling me? What am I supposed to do?
As she lays down on the floor she implores me to lay down there with her – which I won’t. I’m right there! I say pointing to my bed. But she cries “I don’t want to be alone down here!” I’m like, Baby Girl, you sleep alone in your bed all night, every night until 5:30 when like a damn rooster you wake me up with your crowing that you need to go potty. What makes tonight different? Why, exactly, did you start this whole thing? One of the books says that you have to “be aware of when you are entering the Red Zone and try to keep from doing that.” Well Shit, Sherlock, her Red Zone starts at ground zero and I don’t have a hope in hell of “re-directing” her. My own Red Zone starts the instant she starts screaming. So you see we don’t really have a “yellow” or neutral zone. It’s zero to ninety in less than one scream.
Today her voice has been scratchy from all the scream-crying. I did finally get her to settle down and go to sleep. In my room on the floor. She slept til 5:50. I got twenty extra minutes.
We’re a mess y’all.
Send wine and positive thoughts.