We are at the zoo, Baby Girl is having a screaming fit in the souvenir shop. She’s clutching a blue and white striped stuffed zebra and weeping, wailing and moaning that she wants a decoupage owl as well. She knows she only has twenty dollars to spend – her birthday money. She knows the two items together are way over her budget and she has been told she has to choose.
We spent time discussing how much money she would have and what she could expect to buy with it in the car on the way to the zoo. She has been looking forward to going for a week, every day asking if it’s the right day yet. I do everything I can to prepare her for the day. I tell her we will do the water park part of the zoo if there is time, but that we are going to see the animals first. She insists on giraffes (of course) and zebras and a snowcone. She wants to ride the train. I pay $8 for a two minute train ride. We do everything she wants to do.
Then we get to the water park and look at our watches. There really isn’t time to enjoy it and with COVID they are only letting a certain number of people in at a time, so there is no way to tell how long the wait will be. It does NOT seem that they applied this same theory to the zoo itself, though, as it was crowded and plenty of people in my six foot space bubble at any given time.
Baby Girl sees the picture of the water park – she points and yells for us to look! She’s excited beyond measure. She’s also exhausted. She only slept eight hours last night and she always needs at least ten. There are two reasons she doesn’t get enough sleep – one is that if I have lessons or we do anything out of the ordinary she will not go to sleep on time. She has classic FOMO syndrome – Fear of Missing Out. She fights sleep like a two penguins fighting for the same rock. She’s NOT GIVING IN. She gives me a hard time every single night over every single thing. And it makes me tired, and angry. I don’t understand her willingness to piss me off just to play up and be silly at bedtime. She definitely doesn’t take the easy, compliant road. Melatonin is our best friend. Her sleepy pill wins the day every single night. 99% of the time she falls asleep right beside me and I end up moving her to her pallet on the floor.
The second reason is that she wakes up too early. I wake up early every day. Usually it’s because of the cat yowling at me. The cat is 14 – surely they don’t live much longer right? But if Baby Girl senses that I am awake she jumps up and follows me. She will not lay back down – she will not relax and go back to sleep. Therefore, more often than not, she does not get enough sleep.
So back to the water park. I lean down to explain that we will save the water park for another day. You can imagine the response. Eyes roll back, crocodile tears well up and she is bawling – noooooo I wanna swimmmmm….. – I try explaining every which way I can and end up just turning and walking away. Which is very hard to do when you know that she clearly has a fear of being left and also when you have a fear of her being snatched. But I safely walk away and she does dry it up and follow me. Yay I think – crisis mostly averted!
Which brings us to the prize shop…… I am standing there completely bewildered. I know why she is acting this way. I also know that I am embarrassed and that I am not very sure what to do. She screams loudly when I grab her arm to tell her to cut that shit out. Anytime you grab her arm she screams and tries desperately to free herself – at home, at the store, in the damn zoo shop. It’s the worst possible thing she can do to me. I am certain someone is going to think I am abusing her, or worse, kidnapping her. I make her pay for the zebra and we’re out.
We leave the gates and she tells me she has to pee. SERIOUSLY KID?!?!?!? I know she’s going to fall asleep the instant we get in the car (she does) and before I can find a bathroom. I drive in peace for thirty minutes. Then she starts to cry. She starts to cry before she wakes up. She then wakes up fully and is crying even louder. She has to pee. I know!!! I know, Baby Girl, I am working on it! It takes me twenty minutes to find a bathroom – y’all know the stretch of I-35W where there is absolutely nothing for miles? That’s where she woke up.
At any rate we finally do find a bathroom and some doritos and we drive the rest of the way home. I turn the TV on for her and lay down on my bed – I pass out for thirty minutes. I often feel like most Mama’s would be able to handle all of this way better than I do. I often feel weary and inept. I tell myself most Mama’s must have more patience, or more alcohol, or something. I cannot deal with Baby Girl’s temper. It frustrates me at the best of times. She is also always wanting MORE. Do I chalk this up to wanting to explore life at a record pace? Do I indulge her passions? Do I think wow this kid wants to learn and do and I should encourage that?
Yeah… no I don’t think any of those things. I think how exhausting she is. I think about how she is never satisfied. I think how do I make her more grateful? I think how do I make her SLOW DOWN?! I think when can I just relax?!
Have a moment with me, mama’s. Life is hard and passionate children make it harder. I pray that someday all this drama and persistence will turn into something positive for her and into a nice shady front porch with a drink in my hand for me.
