Week Six: Holy Tantrum Batman!
How, may I ask, was I able to sound so smug and chipper last week about the whole "parenting two children" thing? Because this week Emily threw a tantrum of epic proportions, and she's almost five!
Will was asleep and I take a second to straighten the towel cabinet, so I don't know, we might be able to actually find a towel instead of using our beach towels for bathing. I'm sitting on Emily's step stool on the floor of the bathroom and Emily unsuspectingly walks by. I had just noticed how disgusting her nails had become, caked with dirt and sand from playing and how desperately they needed trimming. So I call her in the bathroom and proceed to trim one hand with no problem. I get to her thumb on her second hand and she starts howling about how I'm going to hurt her. Okay, now I have on occasion trimmed a little too close (probably to aviod more frequent trimmings), so that's where her concern comes from, but this time it was going great, and in my defense, I haven't even nicked her recently. The howling tuns into a full tantrum as I try to pin her down to get that nail, and I send her to her room. The screaming continues about how she doesn't want to be in her room, so I start to lose it as well and say "Fine, then you can stand in the corner!". As you can imagine, only amplifies the tantrum and I find myself phisically holding her up in the corner repeating "Your time out starts when you stop screaming" (she doesn't want to stand because her legs hurt).
Fast forward a half hour later. The tantrum is finally over. She's had her four minute time out. We're sitting at the top of the stairs discussing why mommy was so upset with her. Emily has returned to some semblance of a happy kid, and then she poses this question, "Do you like my baby brother better than me?".
Oh *&%$.
My mind flashes through a montage of me nursing will, us leaving the park when Will gets fussy, Will staying up later than Emily, Will being held constantly, me telling Emily not to wake the baby... you get the idea.
I quickly reassure her with every cliche in the book - I love you both exactly the same, I'll always love you no matter what you do, I always love you, but I don't love how you were acting. Again, you get the idea. We've really tried to pay a lot of attention to Emily in the last few weeks, we usually do an activity together, just the two of us everyday. But I really can't help the fact that Will is a newborn and does need a lot of attention, especially from me.
So what am I to do? Emily seems to have put the whole episode behind her, as only four year olds can do. Meanwhile I'm feeling pretty guilty, not only about how she thought we liked Will better than her, but also about how I handled that whole situation.
A friend loaned me a book called The No-Cry Sleep Solution, in which the author talks about why the "cry-it-out" method for "teaching" babies to sleep is, well, just plain mean. She asks, what it teaches our children about care and trust, that no matter how long you cry, I won't comfort you? As I was reading this, I had an Aha! moment. With all my focus on comforting and soothing Will, I've overlooked the fact that this other kid, this baby sometimes needs to be comforted and reassured as well. Even though she rolls her eyes and talks back, and acts like such a big, big kid out there on the playground with her friends, the world is still a scary place. She needs to know that she can trust us to guide her through it.
Sure sometimes a tantrum is a tantrum, and sometimes she can be quite difficult, and she does need to know what her limits are, what is acceptable behavior. But just as much, as both kids of these kids grow into adults, they need to know that they can trust us to comfort them and love them no matter what they do. I guess there's a reason it's a cliche.
Will was asleep and I take a second to straighten the towel cabinet, so I don't know, we might be able to actually find a towel instead of using our beach towels for bathing. I'm sitting on Emily's step stool on the floor of the bathroom and Emily unsuspectingly walks by. I had just noticed how disgusting her nails had become, caked with dirt and sand from playing and how desperately they needed trimming. So I call her in the bathroom and proceed to trim one hand with no problem. I get to her thumb on her second hand and she starts howling about how I'm going to hurt her. Okay, now I have on occasion trimmed a little too close (probably to aviod more frequent trimmings), so that's where her concern comes from, but this time it was going great, and in my defense, I haven't even nicked her recently. The howling tuns into a full tantrum as I try to pin her down to get that nail, and I send her to her room. The screaming continues about how she doesn't want to be in her room, so I start to lose it as well and say "Fine, then you can stand in the corner!". As you can imagine, only amplifies the tantrum and I find myself phisically holding her up in the corner repeating "Your time out starts when you stop screaming" (she doesn't want to stand because her legs hurt).
Fast forward a half hour later. The tantrum is finally over. She's had her four minute time out. We're sitting at the top of the stairs discussing why mommy was so upset with her. Emily has returned to some semblance of a happy kid, and then she poses this question, "Do you like my baby brother better than me?".
Oh *&%$.
My mind flashes through a montage of me nursing will, us leaving the park when Will gets fussy, Will staying up later than Emily, Will being held constantly, me telling Emily not to wake the baby... you get the idea.
I quickly reassure her with every cliche in the book - I love you both exactly the same, I'll always love you no matter what you do, I always love you, but I don't love how you were acting. Again, you get the idea. We've really tried to pay a lot of attention to Emily in the last few weeks, we usually do an activity together, just the two of us everyday. But I really can't help the fact that Will is a newborn and does need a lot of attention, especially from me.
So what am I to do? Emily seems to have put the whole episode behind her, as only four year olds can do. Meanwhile I'm feeling pretty guilty, not only about how she thought we liked Will better than her, but also about how I handled that whole situation.
A friend loaned me a book called The No-Cry Sleep Solution, in which the author talks about why the "cry-it-out" method for "teaching" babies to sleep is, well, just plain mean. She asks, what it teaches our children about care and trust, that no matter how long you cry, I won't comfort you? As I was reading this, I had an Aha! moment. With all my focus on comforting and soothing Will, I've overlooked the fact that this other kid, this baby sometimes needs to be comforted and reassured as well. Even though she rolls her eyes and talks back, and acts like such a big, big kid out there on the playground with her friends, the world is still a scary place. She needs to know that she can trust us to guide her through it.
Sure sometimes a tantrum is a tantrum, and sometimes she can be quite difficult, and she does need to know what her limits are, what is acceptable behavior. But just as much, as both kids of these kids grow into adults, they need to know that they can trust us to comfort them and love them no matter what they do. I guess there's a reason it's a cliche.
posted by Kate @ 2:44 PM
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