"It's Freaking Hard"

About a year ago I was at the playground with Ben, who I was carrying in the sling, and Sophie, who was toddling around doing her thing... just having fun.  We met another mom whose kids were about 3 1/2 and 1 1/2, and in the few seconds she could spare to talk while running back and forth between her two kids, she said, "it's freaking hard!"

Yeah.  At the time, I felt like things were going unexpectedly well with two very little kids so close in age.  It's not that I didn't believe her, but I could still hope that maybe I would get luckier than she did... that whatever made it freaking hard to take care of her kids wouldn't be true in our family.  And we have been pretty lucky in many ways, so I'm reluctant to post anything too negative.  I want to be clear that I'm not complaining.  But every morning I wake up thinking, "here we go again."  And by dinner time, I feel like a failure.  This is the first time since Sophie was born that I really feel clueless about how to get her where she needs to be.  These blogs weren't only meant to be about the cute moments, the successes, the things that make me laugh -- so I'm going to go ahead and enter for the record what things are like these days.

I started feeling discouraged about being Sophie's caretaker a little over three weeks ago when she stopped eating by herself.  Most people know about that already: I noticed Sophie wasn't really eating for a couple of days, and eventually we figured out that the only way she would eat was if we put each bite right into her mouth -- we had to feed her individual Cheerios.  Originally I had no intention of doing that, so I tried to wait her out -- "they'll eat when they're hungry," right?  Well, she starved for three days, despite having all her favorite foods and treats put in front of her.  She wanted to eat so badly, but couldn't, so she would cry desperately, begging us to feed her.  Finally we felt we had to help her eat, and at least then her mood improved quite a bit.  After three weeks, I think she's mostly back to feeding herself, although the episode isn't completely behind us.  But this behavior struck me as very bizarre, even for a 2-year-old.  I'm convinced it's more than just the normal stubbornness of this age.  It's not that she wouldn't eat, but that she couldn't.  What could explain that?  I still have no idea.

Even though things have been getting better at the table, we're having a big problem with screaming.  This behavior isn't new or even particularly strange for her age, but it is emotionally exhausting for me (and her too, I have to think).  We've been bothered for a long time by how often her reaction to things is screaming, but I kind of thought it would get better as she got older.  For the moment, at least, it's getting worse.  When a door is closed and she wants it to be open, her very first response is to scream as if the world is coming to an end.  When I don't follow her outside quickly enough so that she can close the door behind me, it's like she's being tortured.  When we ask Ben a question and he doesn't say the answer right away, you really don't even want to be in the same room as her.  So you can only imagine what it's like when things that are really frustrating happen to her.

On one hand I feel sorry for her.  It must be hard to be that angry for so much of the day.  On the other, I'm really starting to think this behavior is completely ridiculous.  At least half the time, the source of her frustration would be eliminated if she would just ask for what she wants.  It's almost never about something she can't have, but something that she can't do yet that I can easily help her with.  But she just isn't getting it, and I just don't know how to make her understand.  I've tried everything I can think of and seen almost no change.  I made a list of "house rules" that she really paid a lot of attention to, and #1 is "No screaming.  Use words instead."  Our current strategy is to give her one warning reminding her of the rule, a second warning about having a "time out" -- which is just being in her room -- if she can't use her words, and then following through with the time out.  But I'm not sure I can continue this strategy because she has started to have an accident on the carpet in her room EVERY time I put her in there for time out... even if I've just had her sit on the potty!  It's almost like she's saving it for the times when she's out of control.  And as far as I can tell, the time outs are ineffective at getting her out of her screaming habit anyway.

So far the only thing that really works to snap her out of a screaming spell is if I scream too and drown her out.  But of course that is not something I want to be doing 10 times a day.  And I hate for Ben to be around that.  He must think we're crazy.  And honestly for those five seconds, I'm pretty sure we are.

I don't mean to give the impression that Sophie is unhappy ALL day, or that I don't enjoy being around her.  She's coming up with more and more of her own things to say, which I love to hear.  Many times throughout the day, she'll say "good job, Mama!"  That right there is enough to wipe the slate clean.  She's also talking a lot more to Ben, playing with him, and giving him things.  But her mood does a complete 180 the instant something in her world isn't just right.  Now add Ben to the equation: he has always taken the word "no" really hard.  He acts like he has been betrayed somehow.  Well, these days he needs to be told "no" quite a bit, and he expresses his devastation about it very loudly.  So it's hard not to feel like you're doing it wrong when your kids spend that much time screaming at the top of their lungs.

Another problem is that it's very hard to take them places when it's just me and them.  Ben immediately takes off running when we get to a new place, but Sophie just likes to dawdle.  I can't get them to stay together, so we can only go places where it's safe for one or both of them to be relatively far away from me.  Walks don't qualify, since there is always the danger of a car or a bike hitting them.  Stores are out, although I can still take them both grocery shopping if I bring some good snacks as bribes for Ben to stay in the cart.  Some playgrounds can work, but often Sophie wants to be pushed in the swing while Ben wants to climb the absolute tallest structure.  Obviously I have to follow Ben, and then Sophie gets upset and screams, and then we have to leave.  On the best of days at a playground, I spend much more time than I would like unable to see my daughter.  This summer, a lot of our friends will be taking outings to swimming pools and beaches, and we'll be missing all of that since I can't safely watch both kids when there's a drowning risk.

I know we're just at a low point right now.  But it's freaking hard, and I need to say that.  I wish I would see that mom again a year later, and she could tell me how it's going to get better.