Mommy Mambo

Ever since Anonybabe's fever broke (did I mention the fever? 24-hour stomach virus immediately followed by another bug that gave her scary high fever, all during heat wave. My dehydration fears were in full swing but I didn't break down and give her Tylenol...just monitored her constantly to make sure it didn't get up to 104...am I becoming one of those Christian Scientist types who gets mocked and berated for avoiding modern medicine until a completely avoidable incident in which their child dies? No? What was I saying? Oh yes, since Anonybabe's fever broke) she's had an extremely short fuse. If things don't go her way, she gripes. If we don't understand what she wants, she fusses. If I don't read her freaking mind and her cryptic cock-eyed pointing the right way, she hits me dead in the face. And then "wah"s and hits me harder when I tell her to stop.

After just a couple of days of this (granted, a couple of days after taking a 6 hour road trip with a sick child and then days of caring for the child alone while I listened to my husband wretch unassisted into a trash can by the sofa) my own fuse is short. And I worry that this is a semi-permenant personality shift. What if she's like this for the foreseeable future? What if she's like this forever? Am I going to even like my daughter from here on out?

I thought I was a patient and kind mother, but that seems to be only when my daughter acts perfectly. When she's trying I jump from beatific to bitch as quickly as she jumped from docile to grouchy.

So I'm trying to make a shift in my mind, to think in terms of what my daughter needs and what she's really asking for when she hits me in the face instead of being single-mindedly obsessed with making her freaking stop already and fantasizing about being away from her.

It takes two to tango. I don't have to like it when she hits me in the goddamn face, but if I want to move things in another direction, I have to take the lead. I'm just not sure what to do. Telling her to stop has not alleviated her angst or mine. Just being nice about it certainly isn't getting us anywhere. Time to come up with some creative and fancy footwork.