I realized today, in the middle of a blinding headache, that I’ve been withdrawing gradually from my friends - both real and online.  It was a day of epiphanies for me, which means I should get a headache more often. 

The morning started out with Lily complaining about her stomach. She’s a big hypochondriac, so I generally ignore it so as not to feed into it.  However, she actually did have diarrhea today.  She had a few rounds before we left the house this morning, but I figured it was out of her system.  I was wrong!  While I was sweating and grunting during my On The Ball class, she had a little accident and was mortified.  She was especially mortified when Arden announced, at the top of her lungs and in front of about 15 kids, “Lily pooped in her pants, Mommy!”  I thought Lily was going to deck her right then and there.  Yes, this is how important to my life the Y has become - I take my squirting 5 year old to child care there so I can work out.  I felt really bad on the way home.  Ooops. 

We got home and we all settled down to watch a movie together. It was pouring rain out and no one seemed to want to do anything, so I figured some tv wouldn’t hurt us.  Unfortunately, Arden ended up slugging Lily over not having enough room on the couch, I began to yell, and the television was turned off.  Arden had one of her epic fits - this one lasted 52 minutes. I know because I timed it.  That was even with me checking in on her and trying to calm her down halfway through it.  At one point, I started to cry but at least had the sene to go into the bathroom and get it together.  Lily put her hands over her ears and sung to herself.  She already has her own ways of dealing with Arden, and I must say, they are healthier than mine. 

So I was reflecting, during naptime, on what was so different about working. I had lots of really bad days at work - why was that easier for me to handle?  Then it dawned on me.  When I worked full-time, I knew I was good at my job.  I sometimes even felt smart, and I got a lot of good energy from being able to help other people succeed in their careers.  I’ve been doing marketing, in one form or another, since I was 20.  If I hadn’t been good at it, I probably would have stopped long ago.  The reason my bad days at work were bearable, whereas my bad days a home are not, is because when I worked, I knew that I could rock the marketing world.

Here at home, I don’t seem to be rocking much of anything, other than myself, in fetal position, on the floor.  This job I’ve got now is really freaking hard.  I approached being Lily and Arden’s full time mommy like I would a project at work. I scheduled, I arranged, I planned, I executed.  However, Arden isn’t in a place right now to be “arranged”.  My strictly planned days have fallen apart at the seams since I got back from Vegas.  Why? Because I am becoming more and more afraid to leave the house.  Arden’s temperment, her embarassing behavior in public, has put a serious damper on what I’m willing to do with both of them. With one child, you can manage.  The two of them, though . . . .different story. Yesterday I went to Ashland Berry Farm to figure out why all the fish in my pond had died, and the two of them were like wild animals, running around the pond displays, falling INTO a pond (Arden, thanks), grabbing tadpoles, being kids.  I realized that I had become “that” mother - the one with the out of control kids, the one who interrupts the salesperson to scream “GET DOWN FROM THERE JOEY!!! We don’t SWING from the RAFTERS!”

I’m doing a lot of reading on rages and tantrums.  I bought John Rosenmond’s New Parent Power - and it reinforced to me that at some level, I am doing things right. He had an interesting suggestion for kids that scream (Arden has probably hastened my hearing loss by at least 10 years).  He had a “Scream Room” for his daughter, and every time she went nuts, he put her in the half bath and let her scream it out.  That at least is better than listening to it bounce off the hardwoods and high ceilings.  I know what I shouldn’t be doing:  yelling, spanking, pulling my own hair out.  So I just wake up every morning and breathe deeply and hope that Arden will crack this phase soon.

It also pains me to write this.  I don’t want to hear anyone talk about my “difficult” child.  I want things to be easy and calm and sweet, but right now, they aren’t, and I am not about to start lying on my blog about motherhood. Why start now?  Talking to my sister has helped a bit - she has had plenty of good advice for me and I have a new understanding of some of the things she went through with her own son.  A couple of days ago, someone mentioned to me that another parent I know saw Arden crying, and said, about Arden, “That child is always having some issue or another. What is it this time?” It cut me to the quick.  This same child can be the funniest, kindest, most endearing child.  To have another parent (and one that knows me, and my family, fairly well) say that about her made me want to crawl into a hole.  Other than my sister, I have really pulled away from everyone, including Mike, probably.  I don’t like to greet him every night with, “It was a rough day.” I don’t want to lie to my husband, either. I just want to be good at this mothering thing, dammit!

So that is the first part. I have distanced myself from people right now because I don’t have a lot of nice things to say, and I don’t want to be negative or down.  So I don’t blog as much, and I’m consumed with figuring Arden out while making sure Lily gets enough attention.  I have also gotten used to being lonely, which is not a good thing for me. I am a highly social person.  I have suspended, for now, any hopes of finding other moms to hang out with. I just can’t deal with making new friends right now.  Between the mothering thing, learning how to work the online businesses without killing myself has been another challenege entirely, and something I’ll explore in a different post.  There isn’t much left at the end of the day for anyone.

The second part is that after I returned from Vegas, talking to my online friends became increasingly difficult.  I was so bummed out about none of them living here. I got spoiled with the immediacy of conversation - being in person, being able to read body language, or just sit quietly near one another.  After Vegas, keeping those friendships up felt so entirely difficult.  I didn’t want to just talk to Amanda on the phone - I wanted to have lunch with her, or go to the pool with Ava and my girls.  I didn’t want to send Jess a stupid card when she had surgery - I wanted to take care of her boys for her.  This went on and on.  I used to pick up the phone a lot and call - I don’t now as much.  Jess was going to come out this summer but for a variety of reasons she can’t, and it made me really sad.  I’m still planning on visiting Alicia in June, but I have to get off my butt and make the reservations and get my head around travelling all the way by myself with two girls, one of whom I can barely control at home.  I’m not even going to apologize for how much I miss my online friends, and in some ways, it would have almost been easier had we not met. Or, met, and realized that we all hated each other in real life.  Unfortunately, we got along fabulously.  These are people that, if they lived near me, would become like family to me.  In the meantime, I have to make due with phone conversations and IM. 

That is where I’ve been lately.  I know I have neglected my friends, and I’m sorry.  There has been a lot of change for me over the past 6 months, and it’s finally hitting me.  I am writing all this down in an effort to force myself to stop isolating, and reach out more - get out more.

What a day.  Seriously.  If the army, navy, air force or marines is looking for a new secret weapon, let me introduce them to Arden.  The 3 year old who can kill with sound. 

Imagine, if you will, a tiled, public bathroom.  Add Arden, exhausted from swim lessons and hungry.  Introduce the idea of changing in the cold, aforementioned public bathroom.  Add the shrill sounds of her high-pitched screams to the tiled, public bathroom.  I’ve never seen other people exit a small area so quickly in my life - and nothing was on fire, I swear.  Kids running from the bathroom, hands over ears.  Even my mother, who never yells at the children, yelled at Arden.  We were all just hoping she’d shut up before my ear drums burst into a million tiny bits. 

Why was she having a fit? No idea, really. She can’t articulate during her rages.  She just screams louder if you try to talk to her or worse yet, reason with her.  She is definitely “one louder”.  She definitely “goes to eleven”.  She is definitely killing me with her “I’m transitioning to life with mommy full-time and I’m going to let her know about it by screaming a lot during the day” attitude.  I have become the mother who yells. I am now “one louder”.  I now “go to eleven” on a regular basis. Someone turn me down please. 

It’s the final week of my business life with Jennifer, at least for the foreseeable future.  We’ll still get together a few times a week for shipping and packaging and gossip, in the evenings.  But I am fully aware that this is the last Monday we’ll be working full-time together.  It’s weird for both of us - it’s like the end of an era. Wait, it’s not “like” the end of an era.  It IS the end of an era. 

I can remember her first day, and we plotted our takeover of the marketing consulting field in Richmond.  We both networked like fiends and realized we could both sell.  We also had a lot of fun.  Maybe we had too much fun.  Even though there were a few days throughout the years sprinkled with tears of frustration (and occasionally rage) over the ways things could go, mostly we laughed our way through it.  From the attorney who screamed at Jennifer to “cut the crap” (and believe me, he hadn’t even BEGUN to see the kind of crap Jennifer could dish out) to the psycho who heckled me during a new media presentation (she called me an “ageist”), we managed to find the humor in just about anything. 

So we have taken turns being jealous of each other. Listening to her talk about the kick butt shoes at DSW makes me a a little green with envy.  Listening to me talk about play dates does the same for her.  We both want the same thing, however - a little bit of work mixed in with a little bit of family.  Neither of us is getting exactly what we want, but we’re doing what we’ve always done - making the best of it and laughing a lot about it. 

Thursday we will drink adult beverages in the middle of the day and make Sara drive our tipsy butts back to the office to sober up.  It’s our last hurrah - then it gets hard.  We have a schedule of how we will run the online businesses when I’m a full-time mom and she’s a full-time employee.  I’m going to try not to covet the extra money she will earn; I’m sure she’ll try not to covet my mornings at the library. 

For now, though, I have two feet in two places.  The weekend was full of birthday activities for the kids, and whether it is self-imposed or not, I feel out of sorts suddenly with the women I’ve gotten to know over the years.  I feel that “otherness” creeping in, no matter how much I push it back.  I literally feel like I’m having a panic attack when I think about not working.  I say this without meaning that I don’t WANT to stay home. I do. In fact, I’m a little fired up about the challenge of it.  This doesn’t mean that I don’t feel terrified about it.  I am rarely at a loss for words - this is one of those times.  The only analogy I can give is my feelings mirror what I think jumping out of a plane with a parachute feels like.  I’ve never done it, but my heart is in my throat, and although I know I’m going to be fine - full confidence in the chute opening - stepping off the ledge is scaring the crap out of me. 

I promise that eventually I will stop writing obsessively about this at some point in the very near future. For now, though, I need to cope with it by turning it around, back and forth, in my blog, so I can look at it.  When I’m done examining it, I’ll get back to the blogs about my parenting mistakes and my customer service nightmares.  Until then, please standby.

Dear Arden,

How can such a small, puny, white body contain so much feist? 

This morning, while daddy lay sick in his bed, your heart was broken when George did not appear. And then the rages came.  I am so sorry that I cannot control Public Television - and force Curious George to come on instead of Sesame Street. I am also sorry that I had to mess with your morning routine by getting you dressed BEFORE breakfast, instead of after.  You screamed your head off through hair brushing.  You nearly bit the end of the toothbrush off during teeth cleaning.  More snot came out of your nose in a 10 minute period of time than an entire day of 3rd graders at school. 

Unfortunately, my darling, I was late this morning.  I hadn’t slept well. I had two nap mats, a laptop computer, a briefcase, a cell phone and a purse to carry. This meant I couldn’t carry you either.  It also meant that I couldn’t, even though I knew I should have, stopped and held you until you calmed down.  You let me know how you felt about being hurried along by letting loose the most ear-piercing, glass-shattering scream I’ve ever heard. It went on for a good 30 seconds. The garage door was still closed, so your voice bounced like a rabid racquetball off the concrete floors and walls.  Lily covered her ears, looked at me with a pleading glance, and whispered, “Mommy, Arden is LOUD.” 

In the car, I opened your granola bar for you.  Mommy lets you eat in her car, which is why Mommy’s car looks like a garbage dump and Daddy’s still looks like it could be on the lot with a “gently used” sticker on the windshield.  Then the real disaster came - the granola bar broke. In half.

For the 20 minute ride to school, you screamed, wailed, kicked the seat, and threw chunks of Nutri-Grain bar in my general direction.  Lily sat in silence, fingers in ears, eating quietly.  I turned up the music. I begged. At one red light, I think I might have turned into Satan and screamed at you to Please.Stop.Screaming.  Because, you know, I always teach by example.  By the time we got to school, you were beet red and exhausted.

Arden, I love you a ton - but honey, you have got to get it together. It’s my job as a mother to prepare you for a life that isn’t always going to give you exactly what you want, exactly when you want it.  You are now 3 years old plus 4 months.  I try to remember that you were given to me to teach me as well.  I am learning how to stretch my patience beyond any limit I ever thought I could.  I’ve been doing what others have told me.  I try to ignore your tantrums and not feed into them. I try not to yell (sometimes I fail).  I try not to get upset, or take it personally, when you rebuff me.  I have tried to avoid kissing or hugging you when you don’t want it (but sometimes I kiss you anyway).  So can we call a truce?  I don’t want my mornings with you full of tears and rage.  And I know that tonight when I pick you up, there will be another argument - this one possibly over you putting your coat on, or wanting to go to Chick-Fil-A for dinner and realizing that instead you will be eating my mediocre cooking.  I am doing the best I know how.  I surrender - white flag is up - and I will work harder on my patience. 

In the meantime, I beg of you to channel that wonderful mind of yours, that great strong will of yours, into something positive. Like art. Or playing outside.  Or reading, so that if you can’t allow me to love on you, you can read these words and know how much I DO love you - even when you are jamming your finger on my very last button. 

I’m talking about Arden - my second-born, my youngest, my blondest, my most challenging.  I think later on in life I will be diagnosed with a ulcer - and I will name it Arden Jr. out of love and respect for my 3 year old. 

Arden. What to say about Arden.  As I explained to Jennifer this morning, the easiest way to say it is, my ego gets kicked from morning til night with Ard.  She has personality pouring out of her, she’s funny and sometimes very kind.  She’s also incredibly hard-headed and feisty.  I’m sure we butt heads because I am also a bit hard-headed, and a bit feisty.  However, I finally know what mothers mean when they say, “I don’t know how to handle my child.”  I usually feel like an idiot when parenting Arden.  Sometimes I get so tongue-tied I can’t even speak.  Like yesterday, when she was wearing her snowboots while she was supposed to be sleeping. She was STOMPING on the floor, as if to say, “You hear that, mommy? I am awake, in my closet, and it’s time to get this party started!”

Last night I was putting her to bed, and Mike had gone back to work. We played for a few minutes, read a long book.  Everything was fine.  Then I tried to get her INTO the bed. She literally took off running.  She loves to scream “NO” in my face, often accompanied with a wagging or pointing finger.  I gave her three warnings.  Then I picked her up, potato-sack over the shoulder style, and put her in her bed. She kicked the covers off. She turned her back to me. She refused to look at me.  She refused to say goodnight. I eventually gave up trying to “love” her, which is so important to me - and left the room.  About 10 minutes later, I tried again.  She allowed me to give her a kiss, but then said, “I want you to leave now Mommy.”  She’s quite articulate when she wants to be.

I have two children who are so very different. Lily is all over you. Hugging, kissing, petting.  She usually listens and she usually isn’t very sassy. Lily has other issues - she’s not perfect.  However, Arden’s issues push all my buttons. And because she doesn’t normally allow me to comfort her by holding or touching her, I am at a loss for how to do it.  I’ve tried spending time alone with her, away from the barnacle known as Lily, and it helps momentarily.  She is very attached to Mike, and will take me as a distant second choice when she has to. 

Why does this bother me so much? Do I have to be the best-loved by everyone in my little foursome family?  Apparently, yes, but there’s more to it than that. 

I WANT Arden to feel loved.  And without being able to express love the way I am accustomed, I fear she is going to feel left out. Right now, she doesn’t appear to care, but I miss her. I miss holding her and snuggling with her.  I miss spending time with her where she isn’t screaming NO in my face or sticking her bottom lip out in a perfect pout.  So maybe it’s all about me.  I don’t know.  I am trying to be a good parent - it’s my job, and Mike’s, to help her learn to temper her expectations.  She is not very patient, and she is quite demanding. Life will beat her down if we don’t help her learn to manage her frustration levels.  By 3 1/2 I was noticing big strides in Lily’s ability to hear the word no, and understanding that her bad behavior would have consequences.  The truth is, some days with Arden, I don’t feel like any of it has done any good.  I feel like a failure during those moments. 

Part of it is purely selfish. My sister Risa will be the first to tell you that not everyone is warm and cuddly.  I love to kiss and hug my sis because she hates it   Perhaps Arden just needs more space than I’m accustomed to.  As a mother who works outside the home, the 2 hours I get with my kids at night are extremely important. Because Arden won’t tolerate just cuddling with me, I desperately miss her.  She is, as I said, a very hard nut to crack.

However, because she’s so particular about who she gives her love to, it really means a lot when she calls for me or needs me.  I am just trying to cherish those moments, and focus on them.  I am also hoping that she will grow out of some of this bad behavior, and very soon, before I have to start naming my ulcer.