On Whining

My daughter has entered week 5 of Operation Whine Incessantly Until Mama Sticks Forks In Her Ears And Twists Them Repeatedly. I don’t know why she’s doing it. Perhaps that last molar that broke the skin some weeks ago is still causing her grief. Perhaps she’s testing the boundaries. Again. And again and again and again. Perhaps she’s just feeling discombobulated. All I know is that it’s making everyone in our family miserable. Except for the cats. Because one of the cats is always miserable, and the other one has popcorn for brains and can’t be made miserable even when you hogtie her so that she stops chasing random small objects around the house so we can all get some damn sleep already. Not that I would ever hogtie my cat. Because I don’t actually know how to hogtie anything. If you happen to know would you mind leaving detailed instructions in the comments? I mean, just for hypothetical situations, of course.

So back to my kid, who will shortly be enrolled in yodeling instruction. She’s miserable; we’re miserable; everyone’s on edge, and we’ve all spent way more time tantruming than what is normal and natural. Especially me. Since according to Doctors Without Licenses, or some other such reputable establishment, the norm for someone pushing 30 is roughly two throw-yourself-to-the-floor-and-kick-and-cry-until-someone-gives-you-your-way tantrums per day, right? And each morning we start out happy and optimistic and great until whine after whine after whine my patience level plummets into nonexistence and we fall into an awful cycle of her whining and falling to pieces and me losing my shit in a totally undignified manner which only causes her to get more upset. Which then makes me feel guilty. None of you could POSSIBLY relate to this, right?

After all this time as her mama, I KNOW that she responds better to frustrating situations when I make light of them and work to get a smile out of her rather than get frustrated and annoyed. I KNOW that if I do this, she’ll usually snap out of it, and we’ll all just go along our merry way. And under the best circumstances, I can hold it together like that for days on end, even if she’s having an especially long rough patch. But after several weeks of this and the added good times of some PMS to boot, I fail at doing what I know will diffuse the situation and what I know is best for all of us. Can I just tell you what a hard thing that is to say? Especially out here in the big wide open internet where anybody might see it and, heaven forbid, judge me for it? But there it is, in all its truth. I fail at acting in ways that are the most beneficial for my family sometimes. We all do, but oh, how I hate that. I hate to fail at anything, let alone failing to give my daughter room to have bad days without mama getting all freaked out, too. And really, although I don’t think I’m a terrible parent, I do think there are parenting skills I can definitely work on. For my daughter’s sake, for my own sake, for our family’s sake.

Let me tell you what I’m thinking. When I first started a job at a local hospital some years ago, I made myself a set of notecards on which I wrote down critical information for my job: elevator passcodes, what types of patients (oncology, med-surg, OB-GYN, etc.) were housed in which wings, doctors’ names and pager numbers, nurses who could make my life hell, all kinds of random stuff. I kept those notecards, held together with a metal binder ring, with me in my lab coat pocket AT ALL TIMES. And I used them constantly until one day I realized that everything on those cards had become second nature to me. Of course I would never suggest that motherhood could be so simply summed up on a set of cards, but there are things I forget, things I need to be reminded to do. So I’m making myself a set of cards to keep with me as we go about our day. Reminders of things we can do when we get bored. Activities we can do around the house when it’s crappy outside. Reminders about how best to handle stressful situations with her. Reminders about things I want to teach her and things I think she needs to know. Does it seem a little neurotic to do this? Maybe. Does it feel necessary for me to make the effort? Absolutely. I’ll let you know how it goes.