Survive
You know, thus far, 18 months is a challenging age, to put it mildly. And yes, I know I know, all the “Just Wait!” people are going to come out and be all, wait until she’s two! Wait until she’s three! Wait until she’s a teenager! This is nothing!
Ask Moxie’s in my corner here, is all I’m saying. So is Kakaty.
It’s not that she’s not wonderful — God, the highs are so high, full of moments that simultaneously lift and shatter my heart. She’s developing a sense of humor, and is starting to do things deliberately, for no other reason than to make us laugh. She dances like a little fiend. She raises her arms to the sky and yells a toddlerese version of “TO THE FLY BOAT!” when the Wonder Pets are on. Almost every morning, she’ll walk right up to Adam and have a deep, completely garbled conversation with him about … well, we don’t know about what, because she’s shouting absolute nonsense, and the funniest part is that she’s deadly serious. She cannot be cajoled into breaking into so much as a smile when she’s on what we have begun to lovingly refer to as her Tiny Hitler Rants.
(Adam: “I’m starting to seriously wonder if this is what Hitler was like as a baby. It doesn’t make me feel good when I think about it.”)
The best/worst part is that her arm gestures are entirely mine, and her inflections rise and fall in the same intonation that I use when I’m angrily tearing into something. Reflections of ourselves are sometimes a little scary, especially wrapped in a tiny body that we’ve been referring to as “Fuhrer.”
She’s a snuggler, and when she’s tired, she likes nothing better than lying next to me on the couch, a sippy cup of milk in hand, zoning out to the dulcet sounds of Moose A. Moose. She wakes up with a smile and says, “Hi Mama!” before launching into a discussion about the zebra on the wall.
She’s the cutest little person I’ve ever known, and sometimes I am so stupidly overcome by how lucky I am to have her, because oh, what richness and joy she’s brought to my life, truly.
But. Dear God, this blows. I’m sorry, friends, this sucks horribly, and I don’t know how else to say it. The tantrums! The fits! The foot stomping! The insistence upon doing EVERYTHING herself, but with the complete lack of ability to actually follow through on that desire! Her language comprehension is sometimes startling — I’m amazed at what she understands, and the complex commands I’ve thrown at her, assuming there’s no way she’ll be able to follow through, and yet there she is, picking up the garbage, putting it in the can, giving her daddy a high five and THEN putting Mr. Mouse in the baby carriage.
If only her expressive language was remotely close to that, because let me tell you, the futile pointing is getting VERY OLD. She points! She yells! When we don’t deliver precisely the object she was pointing at, either because we misunderstood or worse, because she can’t have it (I’m looking at you, wine glass), she begins to scream and stamp her feet to such a degree that I’m surprised the walls haven’t melted from sheer sonic force.
She wants to drink out of a big girl cup — no sippies for her, thanks — but when, a) I won’t give her one because it’s glass, or b) she gets one, and promptly spills the contents down her front, you would be wise to run. Run as far away as you can get, because your face is about to be shattered into little bits from the yelling.
She wants to dress herself, but YOU try putting on a hooded sweatshirt when you have the upper body strength and coordination of a person who’s just downed seventeen tequila shots in less than an hour. Failure is invariably followed by screams of frustration and more foot stomping, along with — oh my God — occasionally CLAWING AT HER OWN FACE.
And then there is the sleeping. She’s so tired, and yet … she wants to be awake, because she’s got SHIT TO DO, PEOPLE. Baby carriages to push, and blocks to stack, and sippy cups to reject, and snacks to demand and … oh, we are all so tired.
We went to the Cape this weekend — a lame attempt at our first family vacation — and while it had its moments of wonder and delight, when I tell you this next part, you are going to wonder how such a statement is even possible.
We were promised a room that would be TWO rooms — an actual suite, if you will, and let me tell you, I asked no fewer than nine times if the rooms were separated by a wall and a door, A WALL AND A DOOR, and was repeatedly assured that yes, there was a WALL AND A DOOR.
There was no wall. There was no door. So we made a wall with a bedsheet, thinking that this! This would stop her from seeing us and want to be awake in the night! HA HA! FOOLED YOU, SAM!
She woke up at 2 a.m. FOR THE DAY. TWO DAYS IN A ROW. FOR THE DAY. You think I’m kidding! OH HO HO! I am not! I am not kidding! We drove to Provincetown at 4 a.m., hoping to score some breakfast, only to be horrified and irritated when NO BREAKFAST PLACES WERE OPEN AT SIX AM. We drove around in circles, desperately trying to get her to sleep, only to find that we were too tired ourselves, so we PULLED OVER AT RANDOM REST STOPS AND SLEPT IN THE CAR.
It was a nightmare. It was. A nightmare.
There’s a part in Alexa’s wonderful book where she talks about the things people say to you when you are going through a rough time with your children. And though I never experienced anything remotely on par with what Alexa did, in terms of day to day instability and uncertainty of the life of my child, I did experience a similar sentiment from well-meaning friends and acquaintances when Sam was going through her 10-hour-a-day screamfests. I was constantly regaled with, “I could never do that,” and “Oh, I would simply not do that! I couldn’t!” or “I could never sit there holding her for all that time! I just couldn’t!”
Alexa accurately points out that much of it is tinged with some unpleasantness — the underlying smugness that THEIR child isn’t the one going through this, that THEY somehow drew the longer straw, by fate or design, or that THEY would have figured out a magical solution much sooner than I did. In my more generous moments, I like to think that the real message is that they are afraid that they could never. Afraid that they would shrivel up and die and not survive such adversity.
The thing is: we all can. We all would. We all do. A few years ago, I’d have been saying to someone like me that I could NEVER get up for the day at 2 a.m. — I just simply couldn’t. I could NEVER endure a kid who didn’t sleep and screamed all the time. I could NEVER deal with a kid who, after not sleeping for three consecutive days, I’m afraid may be coming down with roseola like the rest of her little friends (OH DEAR GOD PLEASE NO). I could NEVER deal with a tantruming kid who’s throwing a fit for no other reason than the Play Doh is the wrong color and JESUS, LADY, I WAS POINTING TO THE OTHER PINK ONE. THE OTHER PINK ONE. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
But I can. And I did. And I will, whatever happens. So will you.
It’s crazy, right? We just DO. And the paradoxical thing is that it is both better and worse than you ever imagined it could be.
*Probably many people, but right now, I’m thinking of Jimmy Buffett
41 comments August 30th, 2010