Are you happy?

I was holding desperately on to my daughter with one arm that I felt giving way, trying to keep her from reaching over the side of the cart toward the candy aisle at the grocery store. She sits in the big basket because she is getting too big to fit in the seat in the cart.

She usually helps me unload the cart on the belt but lately she has been getting distracted by the hoards of chocolate that sit just within reach if . . . only. . . she could . . . reach . . . one more . . . and that’s when I try to help her realize that the cart is about to roll out from under her and land her square on her head on the floor. I am going to admit that sometimes this comes in the form of yelling. I am never proud of having to scold her in public but sometimes the message has to be fast and forceful and I am sure that to other people it sounds horrible.

She is an adventurous child. She has been trying to free climb the bookcases since before she could walk. Even after she slipped into a pond, she still stood with her toes hanging off the edge of the bank of the lake later the same day. She has no sense of danger most of the time. The only thing that seems to scare her is the Grinch but even then, it is her favorite movie.
I know she is at the age where defiance is normal.

I thought the level of defiance she exhibited at two was relatively mild. She has done really well, until recently. When we moved here I placed her in this daycare. I have been in awe of the way being around other kids her age has helped her with her speaking abilities. Unfortunately, she has picked up some other bad habits. The whining. And this is why the A&SQ frustrates me so much. When she would have difficulty accomplishing some task, it used to be really easy to get her to stop, assess the situation, work out a solution then try it. It used to be really easy. Now she has learned that when you have trouble with something, you are supposed to whine until it magically gets done.

I know why it is so tempting to just reach over and do it yourself. The whining is worse than fingernails on a chalk board. Especially when you can’t do or say anything to get it to stop. I had been lucky, until now, that my kid was responding well to the way we accomplished things. I don’t know how to change it back because I don’t know if she has just hit “that stage” or if she has learned the behavior from the other kids at school. They have decidedly more hours of influence on her than I do in the day.

She is asserting that she wants to do things herself. So I let her. When she wants me to help her with the same things, I help her. She is at the magical age where she doesn’t know if she wants to be a baby or a “little girl” (she insists that she is not a “big girl” because I am a “big girl”.) Most of the things she does that are dangerous or unacceptable (behavior-wise) she is looking to entertain me with them. I am usually NOT amused. But I can tell when she is proud of what she is doing because she will ask, “Are you happy, momma?”

This slays me. Overall, yes, I am happy. I am happy that so many things in my life have improved. I am happy that I am able to provide for my child. I am happy that she is able to communicate with me. I am not happy that she picks up a bag of snack popcorn and dumps the entire contents onto the back seat of my car. I am not happy that she takes the entire contents of her toy box into the living room and dumps them all over, then refuses to help pick them up when she is finished playing with them. (She picks up at school all the time, just refuses to at home.)

I am not happy that I can’t fix one problem without there being three or four more problems waiting for me when I finish that because there is no one to absorb her energy or distract her or . . . or . . . any number of things that would be more positive for her life than me getting frustrated because I don’t get to hold or play with my child because I have to clean up after her constantly at an age where she is capable of helping or at least not causing more chaos. I can’t spend the time I need to, breaking these habits by modeling better behavior because I want to pull out my hair and scream – and yes, whine. I finally understand the Calgon commercials.

That is the lot I have in life though. Balancing those things. Trying to control my frustration so that I don’t damage my child emotionally for life. I don’t get to complain because it is a situation I chose for myself. The harder part that I am having trouble with is trying to explain to the child whose first word was “happy” that there are other emotions, it is ok to feel them and there is a right and wrong way to deal with them. That every person deals with their emotions differently and that the answer is not always to try to make the other person be – happy.

It will be tough to explain also, that what makes her happy is not always what makes other people happy.I think I am doing ok with teaching her this because every once in a while she will cry, for seemingly no reason. I tell her there is nothing to cry over, that whatever just happened is not an event that requires tears. She flatly tells me, “I need to cry”. I forget that. I forget that she is not numb to that emotion like I am, that sometimes other people do need to cry.

I am known for my stoicism. I was asked by my aunt to deliver my grandfather’s eulogy because I am more stoic than she is, and she is also known for being particularly callous. I am proud though that I am teaching my child that she needs to speak up sometimes when she “needs to cry” and ask for what she needs to make herself feel better. Most people get bogged down in life because they don’t know how. That is a skill most people never develop but one I hope she never loses.