Scary Ella
No no people, I haven't gone insane, but my three year old has. Actually, that's not entirely true. Just her behavior has. Because of this, my parenting strategies, if they can even be called that, have recently gone to rehab.
I guess it was Mr. Einstein who said insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So true, and yet we hardly put this into practice. I always expect that if my gas tank is almost empty, it will stay almost empty forever. When it doesn't, I curse the Gods of petroleum. I believe that buying the same items at the grocery store will miraculously result in new and inventive meals each week, but nope. I also have this belief that if I sit long enough on the sofa each night watching reruns of modern family and drinking wine, the baby weight will just melt off. Insanity I tell you.
It seems that this holds true with parenting strategies as well. Lately Ella has been HORRRRRRIBLE. That's not fair. She's been a stomping, screaming, crying, cackling MONSTER, who has been scaring us around here. When she shows her raging monster teeth, we respond like tough parents and put her right in time out. And, when she doesn't stay in time out, we do what Super Nanny taught us, and put her back there, OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I'm talking up to 50 times or more. We are taking water breaks in the kitchen and changing our shirts, and all the while, she's laughing and running around the house stripping her clothes off. It's war, and we've been losing, so we had to take out the big guns; the fairies.
The match went something like this....
Me: "The next time you move from time out, your fairies are going time out."
Ella: Scooching on her butt away from the wall.."mommy, I moved from time out, you have to take my fairies".
Me: thinking WTF??? But I made my most somber mommy face and said, "Okay, that's so sad", I put the fairies in time out, and put her sassy butt back in time out as well. She continued to get up and run around 25 more times. When Anthony and I started snapping at each other about who had the better time out tactics, I decided to turn my frustration back to Ella.
Me: Panting..."The next time you move from time out, your dress up dolls are going to time out"
Ella: Runs from time out laughing. "Mommy, you have to put my dress up clothes in time out".
At this point, I was totally ticked off for multiple reasons, the least of which being the fact that she wouldn't stay in time out. The real problem was that I had just taken away the two toys that keep her occupied by herself for the longest period of time, and give me the most opportunities to refresh my facebook page and play word games on the Kindle. Now that the beloved toys were in time out, we were all going to suffer. I wanted her to understand that this was not going to be fun for anyone of us, and straighten out her behavior, but apparently, three year olds don't think long term, or reason well. Then again, maybe she was, and I just wasn't aware of how her little brain wheels were rotating...
So, as a last ditch effort, I told her that if she didn't stay in time out, she was going straight to bed for the night. NO DINNER - I could hear myself growling, my inner mommy wolf coming out for battle. The second these words rolled off my tongue, I wondered if I had lost my mind though. It was two hours before bedtime, and I knew there was really no way to keep her in her room for the next 12 hours. Not with this routine obsessed child. We can barely do it for 6 consecutive hours. But, as the pattern went, she moved from time out, and told me she was going to bed. Again, WHAT??? But I couldn't show my confusion, so I marched her into her room, put her in pjs, and shut the door. To this, she wailed and screamed "I have NO SNACKS!!". If only I had threatened to take away snacks for her lifetime, we could have avoided this whole bedtime mess.
I walked into the kitchen, looked at our kitchen table of half eaten dinner, and collapsed onto the counter. With my head in my hands I admitted to Anthony what was obvious...I had no idea what I was doing.
I laid in bed that night wondering what the heck was going on with my child. In the past when she started pushing the boundaries, all we needed to do was get a little more consistent with our discipline, and within a few days, she was a new child. This time we were being nothing BUT consistent and firm, and she was getting worse. Was this a case of acute onset bipolar disorder, or could it be something else... It was time for parenting rehab.
I've learned that every behavior serves a purpose. As I thought about the past five months, I began to realize the purpose of Ella's behavior. The more she frustrated me, the more she got me. The more she angered me, the more she got me. The more she bugged me, the more she got me. When I widdled it down, it became clear; my little girl missed her mama. She was just tying to get whatever bit of me she could get the best way she knew how. She didn't know how to say "hey mama, you've been acting mighty staaraaaange lately, and it's kind of scaring me". or "when you cry through my Tinkerbell story, it kind of FREAKS ME OUT", or "I love my little sister to pieces, but sharing you has been pretty tough", or "why aren't you that much fun anymore?"
So, I thought about God. I thought about the times that I've been broken, and needy, but unable to put a voice to that need. When I've been so far away from myself that my actions seems completely separated from my heart. It seems that when we are most broken, we are most hurtful and most heartless. We try to make the world feel as bad as we are feeling inside. It seems that it's always at those times that we forget all about God, and quite honestly believe he has not only forgotten us, but has chosen to remove us all together from his agenda. It's usually at that point that we become angry at Him.
In truth though, these are the moments that God chooses to love on us the most. I think sometimes He looks for these moments in particular to show us that even when we are at our worst, we are lovable. Because, what does being at our worst really mean? I think it means that we have a need that we are too afraid to admit, so instead we act mad, scared, frustrated, angry, resentful, jealous, and revengeful. Yes, I think God is proud of us and loves us when we are being good, and righteous; but I think God loves us in an entirely different way when we are flawed. I like to think he embraces us and says "you keep on punching me, and I'm just gonna hold you until you're done, even if it takes an eternity".
As parents, there is this pull to "be in control", and sometimes that makes it hard to "just love" through those horrible behaviors. The fear is that if we "just love", then what are we teaching our kids? Will they think that they are the boss and we are just wusses? Will they get the message that they are in control? Yeah, I think if you just hug on your kids all the time when they are being rude and disrespectful, they will learn that you are a punching bag. But didn't we all have those times when we were kids, or teenagers, and we were acting like complete jerks to our families? We were slamming doors, and talking back. Maybe we threw a toy, or ignored curfew. So then when it came time to face the music, what worked better? Parents who yelled at you from across the table or parents who told you they were disappointed, but held you and let you know you were loved? I realized I had been doing a lot of "yelling across the table" and less of "holding you and letting you know you are loved". This realization made me SO very sad. It's not in my nature to be that kind of parent, but the combination of daily migraines and post partum garbage had turned me into someone I hardly recognized. I decided to take my cue from the big guy, and try to love her through the punches. I also decided to get some help for myself, for the sake of my poor family.
I stopped time out, and started time in. I made a conscious effort to skip across the parking lot while holding hands, and to let her pick a special snack at the store (even if it was total crap). When she wanted to listen to a song on the way to school, I actually let her listen to the WHOLE 2 minutes while we sat in the parking lot, instead of telling her we didn't have time. I made more effort to get one on one time together, even if it's just going to the grocery store, or washing the car together. I thought it didn't matter, but it does, of course it does. It took a lot of energy, but I made it my priority to get back to the mommy I used to be. I learned again, that in relationships, you get out of it what you put into it. Who would have thought my three year old would be teaching me all these lessons?
So, we're back to our old time outs, and I am pleased to say, they are working with only a few wardrobe changes for mom and dad. As for Ella, she is still happily streaking through a few of them. I am happy to report that the migraines are down to maybe once a week, and the depression fog is lifting! Love to report good news :-)
