Monthly Archives: April 2015

Finding truth in play

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 There’s no greater mirror into your parenting style than hearing it parroted back through the playful games of your children. Our oldest two girls (yes, I have to say that now that we have three!) love to play house and they take turns being mommy and baby (and assigning me to be either “nana,” “grandpa” or “the dog,” and assigning my husband to be “brother” or sometimes just “boy”). Usually playing house looks pretty similar to any other game they play, with the added label of “mommy” and “baby” being yelled at the top of their lungs. But every once in a while there’s a golden nugget of truth mixed in.


Last weekend, I happened to overhear a particularly special game of house wherein my older daughter attempted to discipline her sister currently posing as the pretend baby by giving a warning and then counting to three before a supposed time-out would ensue. I had to remind my well-meaning eldest that even though they were playing, they should stick to the fun and let me do the mommying. A few hours later, as they continued their game, she came out of her room with her bottom lip quivering and announced that she tried to give her little sister consequences because she wasn’t listening and playing “the right way.” Not surprisingly, the consequences she tried to give didn’t go over so well.

 

 As I’ve continued to listen to their games of house, I’ve heard them parroting phrases we say in everyday parenting, everything from telling each other to chew at the dinner table, to elaborate explanations of why the other should follow directions, to an exaggerated bedtime routine that mimics most of our frustration at their stalling techniques and few of our loving phrases and snuggles.

 

In this time of transition, with a new baby at home and everything that goes along with it, I’ve been trying to stay in tune with each childs’ emotional needs. The baby, of course, is easy to decipher because she needs everything. Our middle daughter is caught between being a baby and becoming a big girl. She swings between the two worlds, unsure of where she belongs and where she wants to be. And then there’s our oldest, verbal and mature, completely aware that she is a big girl and trying desperately to not wish she were still a baby. While she can’t verbalize those feelings in a direct conversation, the truth seems to come out in play and gives a window into her emotions. Who knew a game of make believe could offer such accurate insights in reality?

 

Kids really do say the darndest things and I’m learning that if we listen, really stop and listen, to what they’re saying out loud and “in between the lines,” we can tend to the needs they, and we, didn’t know they had.

Finding inspiration at 2am

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Inspiration might be a strong word for what I’m finding right now… Blogging material might be more accurate. Or sanity in writing. Or solace in readership. But, for purposes of prose, we’ll call it inspiration.

It’s 2am and our 4.5 week old baby is confused by day and night and has them conveniently switched in her head. More so, tonight she has decided to try her hand at staying up for hours at a time… Something she hasn’t really done before and not exactly something I’d like her to be experimenting with between the hours of 10pm and 2am. I’ve tried everything – rocking, swinging, feeding, burping, shhing… And after a minor meltdown (mine, not hers), we’re trying the repertoire again.

This is compounded by our oldest daughter, age 4.5, getting out of bed mid meltdown (still mine, not hers either) to tell me she misses me and wants to spend time together. Though time together at two in the morning is not my idea of quality, I understand her sentiment. My first baby has had to mature twice in order to be a “good big sister” when each of her sisters was born. And even though she has been wonderfully loving to her sisters and forgiving of my absence when they were newborns, the feelings she’s having of missing mommy are real and warranted. But not something I can solve at 2am, much as I’d like to try.

And this is compounded by our middle daughter, just shy of 2.5, stirring from her fever-induced sleep where she lay burning up despite the dose of Tylenol she had before bed and the eye drops we gave her for the pink eye that developed over the course of the day. She is uncomfortable and wants to snuggle in our bed, where she slept last night as her fever began to set in. She’s in need of love and attention too, and it’s coming out in an actual physical response.

Three sweet, beautiful girls, each needing time, love, and attention. Each craving it at 2am, when we are all at our most vulnerable. As I sit nursing the baby with tears streaming down my face from sheer exhaustion and my husband negotiates the older two girls’ needs and requests when they should really just be sleeping, I find myself overcome by the simultaneous overwhelm of it all… The good parts and the hard, the tears (theirs and mine), the endless exhaustion, the reality of “holy #$*@, there are three of them,” and the deep unfailing and unconditional love I’m filled with.

None of that changes the fact that it’s now nearly 3am and I just want to go to sleep, but it’s comforting to know all those feelings and emotions are there and they’re real.

So thanks, readers, for keeping me company during a particularly rough night and for giving me an outlet to express those emotions… It’s comforting to know you’re “listening.”