Acting as Single Parent

Tonight we had a blow-up of epic proportions. My little doll was kicking at me and screaming that she was going to throw hard things in my face. I took her to her room and blocked her in there with my body. We decided a few days ago to come up with some house rules and their consequences. We did it together and I felt confident that they would sink in and set a precedent as to what we expected out of each one of us as a family.

I thought it would make sense to her. We posted it on the refrigerator where she could read it whenever she got out of line and I thought we had an understanding. I'm not sure if it worked or not tonight. I like to think it had, but threatening me brought everything to a whole new level. I am proud that I stayed calm in the midst of the turmoil, but nothing I said or did managed to calm her down.

Finally, after about 15 minutes of the fracas, I managed to get her into bed when I told her I would hold her while she cried.

It is in the moment that we are in the most despair that our walls come tumbling down and we finally hear what the other person is saying. My sweet little girl finally got into bed, after telling me she was in no way going to bed again, and let me just hold her while she cried. A lot came out then. She is missing her daddy as much as I am. She is missing him more. (I am not knocking my husband, just stating my truth. I know this will change as life progresses) He is her rock and her strength in a way he will never be mine. I rely on him, but my dad is the person who talks me off of the cliff because he knows just what to say and how to say it. My mom is my best friend, but my dad is my safe harbor in the turmoil that is this life. I know that is how my husband is to my daughter. I don't know how to reassure her when she feels her life is falling apart. I don't know how to be the rock she stands on when the seas get too deep. I can only hold her and tell her I know how she feels.

I don't know if what I do is enough. In fact, I know what I do isn't enough. I don't have the strong arms that give her so much shelter when she is in despair. I don't have the deep voice that can calm her hysterical crying. All that I can do is hold her to try and shelter her from the storm of emotions she is facing.

I have a small sense of what she is feeling, and I only hope I can convey some of my remembrances to her when she misses someone. My parents divorced when I was 9 and I only got to see my dad twice a year and we only got to talk on Sundays. We lived in Germany and he stayed here in the states. I guess in a way I was lucky because I had a father figure in my step-dad to make up for it a bit. He was someone I could go to for the male companionship when I missed my dad and the strength he could provide me. I was fortunate in that I had my dad for 9 years and then my step-dad came immediately into the picture. I never missed the strength that a man could bring for the family.

I have to be both parents. I read recently about a military wife that said she never tried to pick up the place her husband left when he went to war or training. I don't understand how she felt she could only be the 'mom' and left the 'dad' figure to dissipate in the breeze and the hole that he left behind. I think you have to be both parents when you are on this journey. You have to give the love and cuddles the mom gives and be the strong one when things fall apart, like a father would do.

It's very hard. Sometimes the children resent a parent for trying to fill in where the other leaves off. Sometimes they like to feel as if the balance is still there. I think it must be hard for a parent to come home and feel left out of the decision making. I think it must be hard to be away for so long. I may get really upset at my kids, I may think things I later regret, but I am so grateful I get to be there. I am so grateful I don't miss graduations and recitals and all the other things that come in between in which you have the ability to show pride in your children.

When I have to spend an hour calming down a child who wants to physically harm me, I have to understand where they are coming from. I have been there. I know what it's like to feel all alone in this world and that your only ally is the one person who can't be there when you need them. I wish my husband were here (and not only for the help with diaper changes - peee-ew) to help me out on this roller coaster of parenting. I wish he could put his strong arms around us all and tell us everything was going to be okay. I understand why he does what he does. In the meantime I need to be strong and caring, which is a bit overwhelming at times.

I will hold my children when they cry; the despair they feel needs me to heal them. I am the only one here. I tell them they feel like their hearts are breaking. But, like a scar that needs to make extra skin to heal, their hearts are growing bigger. When the heart grows bigger, unfortunately there is more room for hurt. It's what you do with the extra space in your heart that makes you special. You can fill the space up with hate and hurt, or you could fill it with love and compassion. I prefer the later. There may be something to the world if we have the compassion to understand why people do what they do, and the understanding of what it is that causes them to do it.

I hope I can teach my children that. Despite the loneliness and despair when someone you love isn't there to hug and be with there is hope for happiness and everything good that comes from that.

Until then, I hug the tears away and hope anything I say or sing to them helps them somewhere along this journey of life.

Boarding School: Revisited

I am seriously considering revisiting that boarding school idea I've had rolling around in my head. We had another breakdown tonight. This one involved violence. I haven't experienced that before. Today was my daughter's first day of first grade (we have year-round school here) and I should have known better than to let our neighbor come over because my daughter would be tired, but I allowed it because they have so much fun together. The girls were making up a game, playing nicely together, and the little guy was running around crying (screaming, really) because he was hungry, tired, and he's been sick for the last couple of days. I was losing my mind because loud noises send shock-waves through my nervous system and the sound in the house was an almost unbearable level. When the little guy tried to get in on the game they were playing, my darling daughter screamed at him to get away from her. I had enough at that point and asked her to pick up the game (and the non-washable markers they were using to colour it with) when s**t hit the fan.

Being the sweet girl that she is, that little girl screamed at me that she wasn't going to do it and she didn't have to. I asked her again, and when she refused to pick everything up I told her to go to her room. If I thought the poop hit the fan before I was sorely mistaken. I didn't know the poop could fly as far as it did when it hit it the second time. I again told her to go to her room because she needed a break. She promptly backed herself into a corner, yelling at screaming at me that she hated me. When I went to grab her to remove her to her room she pulled a wrestling move of some sort and managed to get past me.

It was at that moment that I regretted this open floor plan that we have. She ran all around the house but managed to get stuck in the laundry room. I was trying to carry her up the stairs when she wrapped her scrawny, yet surprisingly powerful little legs around the rungs. I managed to pull her up the stairs, she was hanging on for dear life the whole way, and get her to her room.

Then the poop started flying at a completely new level... When I tried to leave the room things started flying at me. Literally. When I felt the shoe hit me that was it. I shut her in the room, holding the door shut to keep her from escaping. She told me she wasn't going to stop throwing things until I let her out. When she was younger I had to turn the lock around to keep her in there. I won't do that now, because she no longer needs to be locked in for her own safety at night, but gosh darn it, I sure want to!

After about twenty minutes she calmed down, and until I put her to bed she was calm in there, perhaps realizing why she was in there, and the rest of the evening progressed smoothly. I've decided instead of sending her away to a reform school, which would be the easiest choice, we are going to do some counseling. I hope that living in a military community, where people are experienced with deployments and the fallout left on the young children, that we will be able to get her some help. Until then she is grounded until Sunday. This will be WAY harder on me than it is on her.

Boarding School

At what point do I get a break from an angry, yelling, stomping six year old? When do I finally say "Enough!" and call the farthest (furthest??) boarding school away from here? Just kidding. Kind of. Sort of. Maybe... We are on day three of horrible behavior time from Missy Mad Mad.

I feel like this is all because her dad is away for some military training. She always brings her worst to me when he is gone. I know it is because she misses him terribly and it's hard when he isn't around. She doesn't know how to articulate her feelings very well because she doesn't have the words. The poor girl has really only spent about 3 years of her life with him; interspersed throughout the six years she's been alive. The longest stretch was a year and a half, which isn't saying much because that's when she was 2 1/2 to just-turned 4 (literally - he left four days after her birthday to deploy) and it's hard for her to remember all of that time.

It's hard to know what to say to her when she gets like this. I've been to all of the military classes that supposedly teach you how to deal with this behavior and what to do about it, but I have yet to find something that helps right away. I have found it just takes time, sometimes a long time, but the toll it takes on the parent left at home is definitely difficult. We have the Daddy Dolls * (which are fabulous, might I add - the link is below), but they obviously aren't the same as Daddy being here. I tell her we will see him soon, that he is only a drive away, but she doesn't really understand geography and it feels like it will be forever to a child who has a different sense of time than an adult who can process those things better. I try and be an understanding mother, but eventually the tantrums wear through my patience and I get sick of them.

It's then that I start looking for boarding schools. I found one in Australia that looked really nice right after my son was born and my daughter was a holy terror. She was almost 4 1/2 and my husband was deployed on his third tour. I (wisely) decided against sending her there. Her dad probably would have been a tad bit angry at me when he got home and she was gone, or when he saw the money coming out of the account... But, oh my, how I wanted to sign her up and ship her out! Maybe he won't be so mad if I look for one a bit closer, like London, or Switzerland... nah, he'd still be upset.

Instead, I have come up with a solution. I will put her in a box, with breathing holes, of course (come on, I'm not cruel!!) and ship her to him. I'd had that thought while he was overseas during the other deployments, but I thought that the flight would be a little long and she might get a cramp in her leg, start yelling like a banshee, totally blowing my cover, and I'd be stuck with her again. (not to mention child protective services) He's not so far away now, only a two hour flight, so maybe, just maybe it would work... Hey, a frazzled mother can wish, right?

*https://www.daddydolls.com/