Baby Girl is having a day. Once again, she is in tears and screaming because she isn’t getting her way. Multiple times a day we face the same road block. I would like her to do as I say and she would like to do what she wants. We are not polite about this. She screams, I shut my eyes and count. I try to speak. She screams some more. She cries big elephant tears and tries to negotiate. I try to wait her out. This is stupid – I have never been able to wait her out. She has more persistance than the squirrel from Ice Age. She has a neverending supply of tears and snot and air in her lungs. How is she as little as she is?
I give her The Look. She sees it and cries louder and longer. She covers her backside if she thinks a swat is coming. Daddy steps in and she screams louder. I try every way possible to tell her if she would just STOP screaming we would be able to get somewhere. Daddy wouldn’t step in, she wouldn’t get a swat. She wouldn’t get sent to her room (where she will cry “I don’t want to stay in my room FOREVER mommy!!!”) which is hilarious as well as heartbreaking.
She already yells “FINE” and stomps off if she’s angry. Fine I think. Go to your room, give me a damn break. I can see in my mind’s eye a 13, 15, 16 year old yelling FINE at her Daddy and I get more determined to stop this behaviour while she’s young while at the same time being almost positive that it’s impossible.
I am also certain that a lack of sleep is the root cause of her meltdowns and tantrums. I had her allergy tested a few months ago. We sat through twenty minutes of pure Hell after they stuck her back with needles and she screamed and cried and wasn’t allowed to scratch. I had to hold her arms, facing me, so the stuff wouldn’t be rubbed off prematurely. I wondered why they don’t provide alcohol to the parents holding the child. It turns out…. she isn’t allergic to anything at all. I was astounded. And a little bit pissed off. What do you mean she’s not allergic to anything?! She’s been getting allergy medicine since she was six months old! Well, the allergist explains, people don’t actually start showing allergies to things until they’ve been exposed to them for about three years. Um. WHAT? Shouldn’t her pediatrician have known this for Pete’s sake? Why exactly have I been giving her medicine she clearly doesn’t need?
We had to go get ice cream after that. Both of us were totally traumatized.
Next step – a new pediatrician. We’ve been seeing a lovely NP for about two years, ever since I decided her old pediatrician just wasn’t getting the job done. And she’s great. But she couldn’t do the four year well visit or whatever it’s called. So she recommended someone and we went. Baby Girl warmed right up and was happy and talkative. I explained all about her tonsillectomy and her adenoids and her ear tubes and how she still doesn’t sleep. I explained about the allergy testing. I said the allergist recommended blood work. He raised his eyebrows. He kindly said don’t be ridiculous. And the whole time we’re sitting there Baby Girl is trying to lift my shirt up. The poor doc was trying so hard to avert his eyes while I was trying to push her off my lap and keep my shirt down at the same time. He probably claimed hazard pay for that visit.
So he checked her out and told me she’s fine. We discussed her sleeping schedules and he agreed she isn’t sleeping enough. He recommended a clock that lights up a different color when it’s time to get up in the morning. I went home and ordered it right away. It’s still sitting on my desk, un-figured out as of yet. Because I had to get up at 6 am this morning when my Pet decided she was awake. Because I’m too damn tired to read the fine print and figure the thing out. Because I just handed it to Daddy and said would you please do this for me.
Then the nurse asked her to lay on the table which she quite readily agreed to. Then the nurse tricked her into counting something while she jabbed the first needle in. Baby Girl was so shocked – you should’ve seen her face. All happy and giggly and counting and then her eyes go wide and her mouth opens and she screams like she’s being attacked by a grizzly bear. She tries to push the nurse’s hand away. Which makes me sort of laugh because I try to do the same thing to the chiropractor because it hurts. Well at any rate, we survived the checkout process after the shots and went screaming to the car. She did get some pretty nifty pink camo bandaids out of it. Once we got home I let her go swimming and she told me I had to carry her because she couldn’t walk because her leg hurt. So for the rest of that day, whenever she remembered that her leg was supposed to be hurting, I had to carry her around.
It’s almost sleepy time. I am downing wine and bracing myself. This will go well I chant in my head. It will be fine. She’ll go happily to her bedroom and put her pajamas on and she’ll cheerfully brush her teeth and climb into bed and shut her eyes and promptly go to sleep.
And then I laugh and laugh. Better than crying.
Be strong. Better now than later