and the Bad Mother of the morning award goes to....
I'm having a rough moment....a series of rough moments, really....strands and strands of rough moments, tangled as a yoke of Mardi Gras beads. Luckily, I'm good at knots - the daily pluck-and-pull, untangling of knots....It's just that right now my hands are shaking, and my damn eyes keep filming over with almost, almost, almost tears.
THREE is tough. Trying to maintain Buddha calm, cooing dove Motherlove in the face of tantrum-spiked defiance is tough.....and I hate it when I lose patience - when my breaking point response is to grab, to sigh, to glare. I realize Anna's only three years old, and that three means testing, testing, push all buttons at once, then test some more, but....damn it, this weeks-long, changing from shoes into school slippers drama is wearing me down.
Each morning, when Anna and I arrive at school, we face the same (excruciating to me) routine: before going inside, she wants to "count tiles" -- to walk along the outer wall, s-l-o-w-l-y touching and counting the stone rectangles from entranceway to buildings edge. There are 63 tiles. 63 slowly, carefully counted tiles. Once this ritual is over, we can finally move inside to "trial #2":
In the hallway outside Anna's classroom, a series of low shelves containing clear plastic bins hug the wall. Each bin is clearly labeled with a child's name and corresponding animal sticker (Anna, by sheer coincidence, was assigned a rabbit as her identifying animal). Each child is expected to remove the plastic bin containing his or her school slippers, carry it to a seat, and then sit down to change from outside shoes to inside slippers. And each child does this, with varying degrees of quickness and parental assistance, but all of them sooner, and usually with less concomitant drama, than my child. First, she has to make sure that all the bins (20 or so) are facing forward and lined-up to her satisfaction, and then she has to approach the dilemma of selecting THE seat, the perfect one for her, out of the six or seven child-sized yellow chairs in a row against the wall; this often entails switching seats three or more times, and then becoming frustrated if someone else dares to sit in the chair Anna has finally decided is the one meant for her. Sigh. And god forbid she should have any difficulty at all with one of her (especially chosen because they are easy to slip on and off) velcro shoes....or a crooked sock seam (oh lord, the drama of the offending sock seams). Either of these will result in immediate frustration: scowling, shrieking, leg-flailing, shoe-flying frustration. Luckily, she hasn't hit any of her classmates with a heavy-soled, air-borne mary jane. Yet.
Of course, some days are better than others, but most, this morning included, involve the routine of putting one slipper on, and then pulling it off, and then purposely putting it on the wrong foot, and then pulling it off, and then placing it at last on the right foot, all the while wickedly grinning at me with what can only be called "testing eyes" as she pretends to forget how to close the velcro sections together....this is how it goes, unless, of course, she's distracted by the comings and goings of her classmates, in which case she'll stop what she's doing altogether.
Just last Friday, another father, witnessing our routine, commented, "You must be a very patient person". To which I responded, "Not really. I'm pretty much just faking it."
And then today, my flippant response proved to be true: when Anna simply balked and balked and balked, I lost my cool and tried to "help" fasten one of her slippers myself. Bad idea. She immediately hurled herself to the floor, sobbing. And when I tried to pick her up off the floor? She shrieked, "Ow, you hurted me!" Mortified, I knelt and hugged her close as wide-eyed children made their way around us, and polite parents pretended not to notice the bad mama drama at their feet. Moments later, after more hugs and whispered words of apology and comfort, Anna collapsed limply in a chair while I tried to quickly slide her foot back into its slipper. "OWWWWW! You hurted me again!" she wailed, even louder this time, and all I wanted to do was scream, "Stop it, Anna! I DID NOT HURT YOU!" Instead, I took her by the hand and rushed a few steps to the relative privacy of a bathroom stall, overwhelmed by the feeling that I probably looked to all the world like a horrible, child-abusing, Mommy-dearest bitch.
Kneeling beside a tot-sized toilet, I tried to temper the look of shame on my face and to soften the anger in my eyes. I also tried my trembling best to sound calm and in-control as I explained what just happened in terms a three year old could comprehend. I talked about tomorrow, and how we could have a good time together, putting on her slippers....right? We could make a fun, quick game of this time in the future....blah, mommy-fix-talk, blah blah blah....
Maybe it was just my own, over-wrought, self-conscious, bad mom feelings of frustration and paranoia, but I swear that when we finally made our way to her classroom door, Anna's teacher was far more sweet and solicitous than ever to my girl....and all I could think was: she's not abused, she's not abused, she's not abused, I swear. The band-aids and the scrapes and the bruises are all....she falls down, climbs rocks, bangs into things....I love my daughter....I'm usually really good with her.....it's been a rough morning....
But I kept silent. Patted Anna's back. Stooped quickly to kiss her forehead.
"Bye, sweetie. Love you. Have a good day at school."