People always comment on how different my two girls look.  One is fair, blonde, blue eyed - the other is olive skinned, dark hair, brown eyes.  Their personalities are often as different as their hair color.  Lily tends to be more easy-going and has a sweet nature about her.  She’s also prone to over-sensitivity and the need to always be right (even when she’s wrong).  Arden is hilarious and energetic; she’s the life of the party and is also prone to wild mood swings and difficulty adjusting to even the smallest obstacles (imagined or real). 

Way back when Mike and I were splitting up, both girls went to counseling.  It was a great experience for the both of them.  Lily’s counselor was fine, but I really loved Arden’s.  She had just enough of an edge to her that Arden knew she couldn’t get away with anything, but tempered her edge with a nurturing and kind side.  In a way, I got more out of Arden’s counseling than she did.  I tried to emulate her therapists finely-honed skills - being both the disciplinarian and the person you’d most like to hug you.  She showed me the two didn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

The biggest thing I learned from her was that I needed to stop holding onto my emotions.  Children can be ungodly frustrating, and Arden definitely knows how to push my buttons.  There are so many times she’d whip me into a frenzy, and the more I lost control, the more she reacted and pushed.  Sometimes I almost felt like she was trying to push me over an edge, just to see if I’d really come back every time.  Honestly, there were times I didn’t want to come back.  I felt like I didn’t deserve what was being dished out.  It was too much with everything else.  Her therapist spent a lot of time with me explaining that I got the brunt of it because Arden felt the most comfortable with me - she could let it out and know that I still loved her.

While that was great to hear, I still had to learn to deal with her tempests.  The problem was, when Arden would throw a fit or defy me, I’d get angry.  I could pretend I wasn’t, but she saw right through it.  Not only did I get angry, I’d hold onto it for an hour or two.  I just didn’t feel like she deserved forgiveness so quickly.  But her therapist demonstrated, over and over again, that you could allow your child to get out “the uglies” without getting personally involved with it.  Making noise in a restaurant or being awful during a playdate?  Calmly remove her from the situation and let her kick and scream somewhere away from others.  Wait it out, even if it takes a while.  When it’s over, enforce whatever is enforceable and LET GO of the emotions. 

I practiced, a lot.  I tried to ignore people who told me I was letting her “get away” with whatever “it” was.  Slowly, her tantrums slipped away and I felt closer to her than I had in a year or more. 

We’ve been back sliding a bit lately. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because I’ve stopped being consistent.  Maybe it’s because I’m tired when I get home at night and I don’t have a lot of patience or interest in being patient with her bad mood as she transitions from after-school care to my care.  I forget that she too is adjusting to me being at work all day, and that this may be her way of letting me know she misses me too.  I’d much prefer a hug and a sentence like “I miss you, Mommy,” but this is how she expresses it right now.

Today was kind of awful.  After half hour of being her normal cheerful self, she slipped into one of her dark moods.  She was rude, belligerent, and when Windsor came over for lunch, Arden refused to eat and speak to anyone.  I stayed calm, had her food packed up, and took both girls home.  I sent Arden to her room to recover from whatever she was mad about (because she won’t use words to tell me when she’s in that kind of mood).  I stuck her food in the refrigerator and hung out with Lily.  After about 20 minutes, I went into Arden’s room. 

She was playing on her bed, but as soon as she saw me she frowned and turned away.  I knew better than to think she’d talk to me, but I told her that her behavior was unacceptable and rude and that Windsor’s feelings had been hurt (probably not - Windsor gets Arden like no one else in the universe, but it was nice being able to point out that a non-superhero like Windsor might have had hurt feelings).  I hugged her and told her I loved her and she could come out and join the rest of the human race when she felt better.

About 20 minutes later, a paper airplane flew into my room:

I heard Arden giggling, so I opened it up:

She had finally admitted she was hungry, and drawn me a picture to illustrate she was ready to eat. 

As I got up to reheat her lunch, I got hit in the back of the head with another airplane:

(to translate:  she wanted to cuddle like I had been with Lily)

On the back of the airplane, she’d drawn this:

We sat together while she ate her very-delayed lunch and she smiled at me.  I realized that I hadn’t held onto my emotions, and when she made the effort to draw me a picture - and say sorry in her strange little way, I was in a place where I could hear it and move on.  She still received her punishment from lunch (no ds for the afternoon) but she was good-natured about it.  Tomorrow she says she’s going to call Windsor and apologize.  For me, those paper airplanes were a big step in the right direction.