waiting on wednesdays
My week goes as follows:
Wednesday = Saturday
Thursday = Sunday
Friday = A holiday Monday
Saturday = Tuesday
Sunday = Wednesday
Monday = Thursday
Tuesday = Friday
In other words, my weekend goes from Wednesday to Friday. This is because my three year-old, ONE, is at preschool on those days. I call it preschool to make myself feel better. It’s really daycare. We put her in daycare when she was 10 months old and I went back to work. Since the birth of TWO, I’ve stopped working (at a workplace other than my house) but she stays in school three days a week.
I tell myself it’s because she’s already learning more than I could teach her, that she’s accustomed to her friends, teachers and the constant stimulation of a classroom. This is somewhat true, as we seem to bore her quickly since she can’t boss us around the way she can her friends (again, a lie I tell myself). But it’s mostly because I don’t think I could stand being home with her seven days a week. The idea alone makes my stomach turn.
She’s a good kid. Most of the time. Sometimes. Really, it goes in cycles. We can have four or five great days when she is an absolute joy. Funny, charming, super smart. The kind of kid you dreamed of someday sharing the world with. And then she wakes up in a shitty mood. These moods have gone on for days without pause. While getting dressed and playing. Before and after naps. At home, in public, during meals and in her sleep. During these “periods” she’s only happy when watching her movies, and since we restrict her time in front of the television, that doesn’t afford much quiet.
And by “shitty moods” I don’t mean kind of attitudes teenagers wake up with every morning because they didn’t go to sleep the night before or their love is unrequited. I’m talking screaming in her bed (which she is free to climb out of, but prefers to yell from beneath her sheets), whining through breakfast, slamming Grovey around (more about him later) and being just downright rude to anyone who has the unfortunate lot in life to share a living space with her. Which, at the moment, is me, my husband, TWO, my father-in-law, my 19 year-old brother-in-law, a grumpy Doberman and an inbred Golden Retriever (more about them later as well).
Extra love, support and understanding don’t help. Routine, structure and discipline don’t either. Even distractions, activities and exercises are useless. Once she’s in a mood, the rest of the world is irrelevant. And then it disappears with the turn of a head and all is well in the world.
For her, that is.
For the rest of us, it’s life on Excedrin. Waiting for her moods to shape our days.
Or waiting for Wednesdays…
.
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March 15, 2008 at 11:05 pm
I have a two-year-old who is exactly the same way. I feel your frustration. It makes for very looooooong days.
Good luck! I hope the restrictions you talked about in your most recent post help. (I need reassurance it won’t always be like this!
)