So Emotional

The other day I was in the middle of folding laundry when String Bean came rushing to me, in tears, so hysterical that she could barely speak to tell me what was wrong. I asked her a few times what had happened, and finally she was able to choke out: “Your paper fell into the dog’s water!” Apparently, the little notepad I use to jot down my grocery lists had fallen off the counter, and into the dog’s water bowl, where she found it floating, and this is what sent her into tears on my behalf. When I laughed it off, she looked shocked. “I thought you’d be sad!” she sobbed. “I get them four for a dollar at the dollar store,” I told her. “I have two more of them in the drawer.” She stopped crying, but kept looking at me with such a pained expression that I had to stop folding towels and give her a big hug. That finally seemed to do the trick, and she calmed down.

What is it that makes some kids so emotional, and others so even-tempered? Peanut wouldn’t shed a tear over the loss of any material object, no matter how big or small. She’d just shake it off and move on instantly, although she’d want to talk about it every ten minutes for the next three days. Never in any sorrowful way, she’d just marvel at how something she once had no longer exists, the way she’ll tell total strangers that we used to have two cats, but one died, so now we only have one. To her it’s all just conversation. String Bean, on the other hand, left a sticker on one of her sweaters, and it went through the wash, deteriorating the sticker into a sticky gray mess. She literally broke into tears when she saw it.

I’m hoping that as she grows up, String Bean will become a little better at filtering the true crises from the little speed bumps and won’t break into tears over quite so many things. But I can also appreciate that as the more emotional child, not only is she more likely to yell, cry, and gnash her teeth in anger, but she’s more likely to tell me she loves me, beg me to spend just a few more minutes cuddling before leaving her in bed for the night, and overflow with gratitude at a new pair of pink socks. Peanut isn’t as quick to cry or become angry, but she’s also not as affectionate, clingy, or easily impressed with little gestures of kindness. Peanut’s a live-in-the-moment child, and her basic mood is calm-leaning-toward-happy. She’s a giggly little girl, can be amazingly stubborn, and hurts herself about ten times more often than String Bean, but she never gets terribly excited or bent out of shape about anything. Maybe String Bean will learn a little from her sister about patience, resilience, and self-control. I kind of like that idea, that while String Bean usually falls into the teacher role, as she brings Peanut up to speed on recognizing her letter, numbers, and expanding her vocabulary, Peanut has her own lessons to offer her big sister.

The Good Side of the Pillow

Peanut has been having nightmares pretty regularly for a while now. Night terrors might be a better description, as she’ll wake up screaming and thrashing around, tears streaming down her face, calling me, even after I come into her room, where I have to fight against her bucking body to get her to open her eyes and see that I am already there. Sometimes, even after she’s seen me and talked to me a bit, she still keeps screaming and crying like the nightmare is continuing, and maybe, for her, it is, and it just looks to me like she’s awake.

String Bean also has her share of bad dreams, real and faked, which prompt her to call me into her room to reassure her. I can tell when they’re real by her description of them. If it’s real, she’s specific: “A bad witch with a red hat was trying to get me.” If it’s just a ruse to get me to come visit her when she doesn’t feel like sleeping, her description is more like, “Um, it was about a dragon. And a lion. And a bad man. And a…robot. Oh, and there was a monster. And it was raining. And there was…a…dinosaur.”

Some nights I get up three or four times to soothe the girls back to sleep from night terrors, nightmares, and pretend nightmares. By 4am or so, when I’m running on only a couple of hours of sleep, I become a lot less sympathetic to the whole thing. I give them both pep talks, that the bad dreams are only in their heads, that they are safe from real dangers because the dog downstairs will protect us, that I won’t let anything bad happen to them. And then I start threatening them, that I need some sleep if they don’t want a cranky mama the next day, and that I won’t be coming back no matter how many times they call me.

The other morning, String Bean proudly announced that she’d had a bad dream, but hadn’t called me in, because she wanted me to get some sleep. I gave her lots of praise and asked how she soothed herself, and she said, “I just turned my pillow over to the good side.” She then went on to explain to Peanut how, if you have bad dreams, it’s because your pillow’s on the “bad dream” side, and if you flip it over, you’ll have good dreams from then on. It was a very sweet and helpful concept, and I can’t figure out where she’d heard it, or if she could’ve made something like that up on her own, but wherever it came from, I’m grateful. Now if only Peanut’s pillow had a “no night terror” side, we’d be set.

Warm Milkshakes

So, one day per week, on our way home from school, I take the girls to get milkshakes and French fries to have with our lunch. But now that the cold, wintry temperatures are upon us, it really hasn’t been milkshake weather. String Bean’s all about the hot chocolate these days, with a heap of whipped cream on top (I use Carnation Instant Breakfast warmed up, for a little more protein in there). And even though Peanut loves hot chocolate just as much as String Bean, she’s still hooked on the notion of milkshakes. After a few half-tantrums in protest as I passed by “the milkshake store” on our way home from school without stopping, I offered to make String Bean her precious hot chocolate with her lunch, and to make Peanut a “warm milkshake” instead. You can probably guess that they’re both hot chocolate, and I’m sure Peanut has noticed that I prepare them exactly the same way, but this silly little distinction is enough to get Peanut in a better mood about the whole thing. If there’s one thing motherhood is good for, it’s teaching you to bend reality in the most creative ways. Anything to keep a stubborn little kid happy.

Christmas, Part One

The in-laws have arrived, and Christmas is officially underway at our house. The tree is up, the railings and banisters are wrapped in Christmas lights, the TV is playing an endless stream of holiday specials, and grandma and grandpa came bearing a suitcase full of gifts, which they have been doling out a little at a time to keep these two girls excited and entertained. Together they’ve made potholders, played princess bingo, done kitten puzzles, and tomorrow they’re tackling a gingerbread house. As if that wasn’t enough, their suitcase is still full of pretty and sparkly clothes for the girls to be wrapped and put under the tree, and today the grandparents took them toy shopping. While String Bean led them around pointing out everything she wanted (in short, everything, although everything purple or decorated in glitter or sparkles ranked just a little higher on her wish list), and Peanut drifted from display to display, lingering a moment longer on some items than on others, their grandma strolled behind them and put things into the shopping cart, which their grandpa then took up front to pay for and stow in the car. It’s funny to think that the girls saw every item they’re getting for Christmas, hand-picked each thing, and yet have no idea what exactly came home with us, overwhelmed as they were by all of the possibilities in the store. We escaped from toy-store over-stimulation just as the girls were beginning to crash, got them home and fed and down for the naps they didn’t take, and then, while the in-laws wrapped gifts and monitored the restless non-nappers, I got out for a couple of hours of writing time while the rain poured down outside and a mocha warmed me up inside. So, that’s part one of my Christmas, as well. There’s nothing like leaving rambunctious kids behind, getting to work on the next chapter of your novel-in-progress, with a hot cup of coffee, surrounded by finals-stressed college students, and getting some uninterrupted stress-free time for yourself.

The Month of Christmas

String Bean is all about Christmas this year. Before Thanksgiving was even over, when those first Christmas catalogs started arriving in the mail, she started hoarding them in her room, gazing wistfully at them by day, requesting to “read” them together as her bedtime story at night. She wants, in short, one of everything. Sure, there are things that are higher on the list, like the Princess bike (in purple) and Tinkerbell roller skates (ditto) and a doll-house style princess castle, complete with mini princesses and a horse-drawn carriage for them to share. Lower on the list (but still on the list) are a baby doll that crawls, a little robot dog, a dinosaur that walks, and a remote-controlled helicopter.

The other day I was telling her to be patient, because Christmas isn’t until the end of the month, and she gave me one of her impatient looks and said, “Christmas isn’t a day, it’s a month.” I tried explaining that, like Halloween and Thanksgiving and Easter, Christmas is just one day per year, and that the month is December, but she wasn’t having any of it. I guess it’s hard to believe all of the ads, TV shows, movies, decorations, music and festive clothes are about a single day rather than an entire month, so I let it go.

Also adding to the confusion is the fact that between her three sets of grandparents she’ll have three separate Christmas celebrations, plus a gathering with my step-siblings and their children. So maybe having four family-gathering-plus-Christmas-present-opening sessions in a span of eleven days renders the whole concept of Christmas Day irrelevant. Let the month of Christmas begin…

Hurray for School

I was worried that the girls would have a rough re-entry into school after two weeks off, but instead, they were so excited to go back and see all of their friends, tell them all about Hawaii and Thanksgiving, that they couldn’t sit still this morning. Drop-off was easy, with barely a kiss goodbye as they rushed in to see their friends. When I picked them up, String Bean told me she wasn’t too good at listening to the teacher today, because she was so excited to catch up with her best girlfriend. I’m sure I was supposed to admonish her for not paying better attention to the teacher, but I was actually glad to hear she was busy being social. I consider that part of her education as well. Peanut’s teacher told me she was going for a Miss Congeniality award today, being her sunny and chattery self with every student in the class, laughing and playing with everyone. It was great to see them both so happy to have the routine back in place. And those two and a half hours to myself to drink coffee in silence at home this morning were just perfect. I had a list of chores to do and I didn’t do a single one. I just relaxed and enjoyed the quiet.

Family Time

Between our Hawaii trip and Thanksgiving week, the girls have been out of school for two weeks. While I have certainly enjoyed this quality family time with them, sharing them first with my dad and step-mom for Hawaii, then with my mom for Thanksgiving, I think I’m ready for the old routine to return. The kids have been off schedule with naps and bedtimes from our travels and from having family over, and it’s taking its toll on both of them. The fighting has reached a new, more serious level. After years of mild pushing and shoving, they are now biting, kicking, and ripping each other’s hair out (literally) by the fistful.

On Thanksgiving I dug out some old baby toys to pass on to their cousin, and the girls had fun showing her how each toy worked. Then they started wrestling over the toys, screaming, punching, and biting each other for the privilege of giving their little cousin a demo on how to put Noah’s animal pairs into the ark or how to slide the triangle-shaped block into the triangle-shaped hole.

Basically, I think we’re all a little fed up with each other’s company. It doesn’t help that I’ve been sick all week, so not really up to taking them out to parks or on energy-burning outings. That’s another reason I’m looking forward to school on Monday. Maybe I’ll actually get a few minutes to rest while they’re there, and I’ll finally get on the mend with this cold or whatever it is that is just dragging on and on.

But first, we have two more days of together-time to get through…