Regaining The Throne

illustration by Maurice Sendak

What I didn't know about, back when I was single and making all kinds of pronouncements about how things would be with my kid, if I ever even had a kid, was the insidious affect of a toddler's screaming on a parent's stamina and self-esteem.

I watched badly behaved kids of all ages in the restaurant where I waited tables, and at the end of those shifts, sitting around with my girlfriends (who were also childless and mostly unmarried) we would swap tales, and pass judgment on the nightmares we had witnessed: Kids who threw fits and food. Kids who interrupted, or didn't bother to respond when asked a question. Kids who didn't say please or thank you. Kids who demanded their parents' attention. And so on.  Then there were the parents…they seemed so weak, so spineless, so pathetic. Why didn't they insist their kids behave, or get them the hell out of public view?

I'll tell you what, I might've been heard saying, my kid would not behave that way! I had a powerful certainty of what I would be willing and unwilling to tolerate as a parent, and of what my expectations would be of my child. I had a clear vision of how I would deal with my child in plain, unequivocal and undeniable terms. My kid would be polite, reasonable, and in control.

Nineteen months in, a time I've heard other parents describe as "blissful," I am reduced to hoping for these things. Right now, as surprised as you might be to hear this, things are not going as I had planned.

At the beginning of 2012, I told myself I would start getting real in this blog. I would stop making Sam look like a hero all the time, because he's not (not all the time). And I would stop all the dreamy-mom stuff, because it's not all dreamy. And I would get down to the business of exposing this whole challenging situation for the mess that it sometimes is…So, here are a few illustrative snapshots (I apologize in advance if you read only for the dreamy-mom stuff...come back soon and I'll tell you about Quinn's first haircut)...for now, back to business; here goes:

• Quinn knows how to say cock-a-doodle-doo, but she brazenly refuses to say please.

• One day in the grocery store, one of the cashiers came around the corner of the aisle and saw Quinn standing in the back of the cart, gripping the metal sides, thrashing back and forth and screaming at the top of her lungs. The cashier, with a genuinely friendly smile, said this to Quinn: "I thought that was you! I recognized your voice."

• Another day I picked Quinn up at daycare and Beth, one of the daycare providers, said "Quinn had a bit of a meltdown today…I asked her not to sit on the steps because I didn't want someone to open the door and hit her…she was so mad…it lasted so long…" Beth owns the daycare…she takes care of many children…yet she was impressed by the intensity and duration of my kid's fit.

• Quinn threw a fit one morning that was so intense that she threw up all over herself.

• When Quinn throws fits, sometimes Sam does too.

• 12:30 p.m. is one of my two favorite times of the day*: that's when I drop Quinn off at daycare.

• One day last week I was in town a bit early for the daycare pick-up. As I imagined Quinn's inevitable temper tantrum in the entryway as I tried to get her shoes on, and then I imagined the wrestling match trying to get her into her car seat, I started to feel desperate; my pulse raced. I drove past the turn for the daycare, and pulled into the parking lot of the movie theater and just sat in my car taking deep breaths so as not to have to pick her up any sooner than absolutely necessary. (Full disclosure: I actually made a call to my friend Erin to beg her to meet me for beer, but she couldn't.)

• We have two dogs. They never leave our yard. They spend most of the time lying on our front porch. Recently, one of the neighbors from the other end of the road, half a mile away, drove by our house. He saw me in the yard, with Moses, our black dog. He stopped and said, "Oh! This is your dog. He's been lying on my front porch a lot lately."

Lately, the wheels have been coming off the bus. So much so that when people ask me how I'm doing, I forgo politeness and I actually tell them, because I'm desperate for advice..."Things are not awesome," I will tell people eagerly. "My kid isn't nice. Actually, she's a monster! I don't even think I like her…she's so willful…and so stubborn." At this point in any given conversation, lots of people smile those "knowing" smiles…"I wonder where she got it from?" they'll chuckle, pretending as if they're really asking.

Sure, sure, I'm stubborn and a bit determined, but it's not just me. Sam has most people fooled because in public he's so composed. But try arguing with him sometime—it lasts for days.  (I hear Beth's voice echoing in my ears, "…it lasted so long…she was so mad…")

One time Sam and I were driving home from a party. We were fighting. A couple of miles before our house, I stopped the car and told Sam to get out. "Get out? I'm not getting out!" It was December; I don't think he had a jacket on. "Oh yes you are! Get out of my car." He got out on the side of our dark dirt road miles from home. I drove the rest of the way feeling victorious. "Ha! I showed him," I thought. But when I pulled into our driveway alone, I came to my senses…what am I doing? I turned around and drove back down the hill to pick him up. He was nowhere to be found. Eventually, after searching for half an hour or so, I realized he didn't want to be found and I went home to bed. The next morning I found him sleeping peacefully in the basement. He had hidden in the woods whenever he saw the headlights. Sam, needless to say, is also pretty willful.

So, Quinn has it from both sides. And, if my math is right, that makes her twice as strong as either one of us.

If you've already had your kid(s) and they are grown and not in jail, you might not have had these troubles, or you might not remember them.

If you haven't had a kid, you might think I'm pathetic for being so easily cowed…I scoffed at people like me too, before I knew…

What I know now is that Quinn screams a lot of the time. When she can't do something, or communicate something, or have something…she screams. And I don't actually care whether she's happy or not in these moments, but I do care about my own sanity, and at this point I can't handle too many more of the screaming fits because they suck.

My point is this: all those times I saw parents and kids behaving badly, I didn't really know how bad it could be. Inevitably there was some other much-worse behavior that parents were trying to prevent. Sometimes, if Quinn and I are in the grocery store, I give her what she's screaming for just because I'm so embarrassed, and tired, and I give it to her in spite of the fact that I know it will just keep happening if I keep letting her win.

But we're at a turning point here, I can sense it. I'm done being embarrassed. I'm sorry to my friends in the grocery store. I'm sorry to my friends who might still call me on the phone. I'm sorry to everyone I know, but from now on, when Quinn throws a fit, I'm not going to rush to silence her, even though I will feel bad that you have to witness it.

I'm bigger than she is for god's sake! And I am determined to repossess my expectations and some basic self respect. But as I attempt to do so, I will do so without the burden of my former self-righteousness…I really had no idea what I was talking about...but, many of you knew that already, didn't you.

They are formidable despite their size. Q is no longer for Queen.

thanks for the photo Corey

*For the record, my other favorite time of the day, on most days, is 5:15 pm when I pick Quinn up from daycare and she runs over to me, climbs into my arms and immediately turns to wave to everyone else she's leaving behind, "Bye bye!" she yells…as if to say, See you later, Suckers! I'm outa here!

What Is At Stake

I used to think of myself as fairly adventurous. I jumped out of an airplane once, launched myself over a waterfall or two in my kayak, climbed eleven pitches of a rocky cliff in Mexico. Doing those kinds of things made me feel alive. At the peak of that time in my life, risk had more to do with what I would lose by not taking chances than what I might stand to lose by taking them.

I measure risk differently now.

A couple of weeks ago there was a memorial service for a young woman in a nearby town who was murdered by someone who plowed her driveway in the winter. The details of what happened to her are horrific, and yet what upsets me the most is that her two-year old son was in his car seat when she was pulled out of the car. Hours later, he was found by a friend who went looking for the mom. The little boy had been there in the dark by himself. He had cried himself to sleep.  The car was still running, and his mother was long gone.

My calculus of risk used to be fairly simple. I used the life is short method and usually went for it, whatever it was. Now it is more complicated. Now it involves a need, a physical need, to protect my kid. The thoughts of what could happen to me don't bother me so much. The thoughts of what could happen to Quinn are what keep me awake at night. No adventure that involves the real possibility of risk seems worth it to me anymore…or at least that's true for right now. Nothing seems worth it because it is life with Quinn, and life with Quinn is inevitably going to be even shorter than just plain life would have been.

And this way of thinking feels risky in and of itself. I want Quinn to know the best me, and my sense of who the best me is, is the one who hucked herself out of an airplane. At the same time, I don't want to miss a day in her life. I want to be within earshot when she calls out for her mama. To do this involves not taking risks. And herein lies the problem: I can't have it both ways.

Nineteen months into this project, I'm still trying to figure out who I am…whom I'm going to be. There are plenty of days when I miss my old life. And even though the mornings can be excruciating, and the temper tantrums embarrassing, and the sacrifice of self some days seems too much for this small family to ask of me, the fact is that the thing I care most about is being there when she needs me…or even just in case.