I pride myself on being fairly successful in many of my endeavors – doing some consulting, running Detours&OnRamps, even staying in shape, keeping my house together, etc. And of late I have been brought down by one very skinny, often cute, almost always squirrelly just-about-5-year-old.
For the purposes of this blog I will call her by her nickname, Roo, given to her at age 1 week because she wanted to be in my pocket all the time, even so young. The Roo is a super-thoughtful child, a “deep thinker”. She plays really, really well by herself. She makes up cute little games; she loves things smaller than herself…babies, animals, and the like, and shows a huge degree of caring for them. When given the “appropriate” amount of attention (meaning, 100% all the time) she is a perfect child.
OH! Also, she has to be fed constantly. She basically has negative body fat and a metabolism that is the envy of any dieter, so like a gremlin, she needs to be fed every hour or so or else dire consequences result. So I walk around with Special K bars in my purse and random snacks leaking out of pockets.
Anyway, this child, when properly fed, would be just perfect if she was an only child. However, she’s not. She’s one of three, soon to be four, and is a TWIN no less. Thus, the chaos ensues. And it’s been getting worse, and worse!
How, I think, can one four year old bring down an entire working house? It is possible. The meltdowns are insane and began occurring with greater and greater frequency. One sister (the twin) would bend over backwards to do whatever she needed, to the point of ridiculousness. The other (the big sister) went out of her way to push buttons. My husband, with a zero tolerance policy, would put her in time out for 30 minutes, 45 minutes at a time. We all waited for not IF the next meltdown would occur, but just when would it – what would set her off? Someone looking at her funny? Someone mentioning her name when teasing someone else? Her twin waking up in the morning and not waking HER up – or, the very next day, her twin waking up in the morning and waking her up. She was unpredictable in cause but always predictably able to blow up at any given moment.
I found myself exhausted and bordering on full depression. It was literally like walking around on eggshells, constantly bending over backwards to try to make her smooth out or not scream. And everything started to spiral. I was so exhausted I could barely keep up with my work and even worse, could barely keep up with my summer reading (trash books) and summer shows (equally trashy).
So I started working on my own plan, that wasn’t extended timeouts (that didn’t work) or star charts. I was encouraged that in moments of lucidity – ie, not in the midst of a breakdown – the Roo would spout out things that I’d said…”Mommy, that isn’t worth crying about, it’s not the end of the world”. “Mommy, [big sister] should know that when we tease her it’s because we love her”. I knew she was listening, at least. I started trying to just calm her down before full-blown freak happened. And, I got her two coloring books that were hers alone, and her own markers, for quiet time. (IE, the “magical place” where she could be an only child). The second she started getting into it with her sisters or anyone, I pulled her aside without her being in trouble and got her coloring. That time on her own really started to help.
Ok, so two weeks of this, still fairly exhausted. Still walking on eggshells. But we’re at her birthday party bbq with lots of people and she came up to me, on her own, and said “I think next time I should bring my coloring book for quiet time”. She recognized she needed it – before a breakdown. So I just held her hand and she stayed with me for a bit and got away from all the people. And was much better.
I felt like it was such a giant step forward. Go through another week, and I realized there were entire days that she didn’t have any freakouts. That one day when she did, and I scolded her, she actually CARED that I scolded her and pulled it together instead of just screaming for an hour till I gave in.
So here I am, having been moderately successful at professional things – feeling cautiously optimistic about this little Roo finally not being the straw that brings this family down. My uncle, a child psychologist, gave me a book about stopping meltdowns, and I started reading it, and I am finding that many of the things I am doing are what the “pro” says to do – that makes me feel good about my instincts. It is crazy to me the impact one small child can have on everyone. And how I can say, and mean, that I am the mother and I am in charge…and yet, so quickly, one small but mighty little kid can take over everything.
Anyway it is eye-opening. Frightening, to think what our house will be with 3 (maybe 4) teenage girls on the loose, some day. And also gratifying to watch her not have her freakouts, and sing her songs, and let the sweeter side of her personality out.
And right now I’m off to stem a meltdown in the making.
