I should be in bed. But I wanted to write this down first.
This week has been SO much better. Last two days have been great, what seems to be perfectly normal days at daycare. She was only in 2 time-outs today. One involved pushing over a basketball goal. It was a near-miss for some of the kids, but it wasn't intentional on her part. Oh, the pushing-over was, I'm sure. But she wasn't doing it to hit the kids. So she had a brief time out just to reinforce that we don't do that, and all was well. I think her teachers are learning her style, too. Which is mostly, "If she acts up, ignore her". It seems to be the best way she learns.
To wit, the nights. Last night we put her to bed, and not wanting a repeat of Monday nights Chernobyl-esque meltdown, we bit the bullet and engaged Cry It Out: The Sequel.
The only problem with this cry it out was that it started with nearly a full hour of begging. All your favorite hits, like:
"Pat my back! Pat my ba-ha-ha-haaaack!"(when she was sick and having a hard time at night, I indulged this desire of hers - despite the fact that she asked her teachers at school not to do it to her at naptime)
"Mommy! Daddy! Mo-ha-ha-ha-mm-eeeee! Da-ha-ha-ha-ha-deeeeee!" (repeat x 1,000,000,000)
"I need go pee-pee! I need go poo-poo!" (this stalling tactic tops the charts at #1!)
and my favorite, the emotional-knife-in-the-heart, standing by the door crying:
"Daddy, where are you? Daddy, where are you? Daaaaaddddddeeee?? Where are you?!?!"
Oh, man, that's tough stuff right there. If any country singers are out there listening, there's your Grammy-winning hook right there.
Standin' at the door cryin',
Don't think these tears are dryin'.
And my heart's wrapped up in bluuuuue,
Daddy where are you?
The hardest part is that the few times we've let her sleep in our bed and she's actually slept were very sweet and adorable and I loved them. And would happily repeat them...
Except that dear GOD, I don't want to open that particular box from our lady Pandora. The long-term implications of that chill my blood like a liquid-nitrogen I.V.
So, last night was a 60-minute onslaught of begging and pleading intermingled with crying and occasional freezing rain, which then turned into a full 30 minutes of lung-bursting, throat-grating bawling. Which we endured by putting on a strong, seemingly unaffected face. That was a complete facade. An utter deception. That I'm sure fooled no one. No one being the one other adult in the house at the time.
Tonight, the crying began before I even left the room, because despite the fact that she's getting up so much earlier, napping less, and going to bed later, the girl just hates for the day to be over. Which I'm pretty sure she gets from her father, considering who's up at midnight writing instead of engaging in the far more productive act of sleeping.
(Last night, for instance, I stayed up watching Stranger Than Fiction which I found to be a very different and much, much better film than I had envisioned, and extremely sweet, and I cried at the end. Well, teared up, anyway. There was no sobbing. As far as you know.)
Anyway, tonight the crying began before I left. By the time I got back to this room, she was out of bed and at the door begging and crying. She just decided to mix the two right from the start tonight.
And yet... the whole thing only lasted about 15 minutes tonight. SHE CAN BE TAUGHT! If it continues to improve like this, I may allow myself to envision a day in the future that doesn't end in tears - hers, her mom's, or mine!
For now, I'll be happy settling for less torture.
