What a roller
coaster weekend we had at the homestead.
I was on an
independent-adult high going into Sunday. I had a rare day Saturday all to
myself, and spent it in the best way possible: With a bunch of friends, and a
bunch of drinks, floating down a river. By the time I dragged myself home
Saturday night I was exhausted, but felt ready to conquer the world. I was
refreshed. I was ready to have The Munchkins back and get a fresh start on our
week together, sure that everyone’s moods would be improved with a little time
off from each other.
Good Lord, was I
ever wrong.
I spent Sunday
morning dragging cranky Munchkins out of bed, squeezing little arms and legs,
sausage-like, into church-clothes casings. I pushed, prodded and dragged them
all the two blocks to Mass, where they sat/squirmed/whined/half-knelt/eyerolled
their way, sweating, in sticky wooden pews through an hour of church. The
promise of the routine post-mass doughnut was the only thing that kept us from
killing one another by the homily. And then? No doughnuts. Isabelle burst into
tears. Sophie nearly did. Heck, I
nearly did.
We were set to
have one last practice/walk-through for the elder two’s First Communion
directly after mass. Sebastian was ready to get it over with. The Monkey was
stoic, but entirely ready to go home. The Biz begged off for a moment to run to
the bathroom.
And promptly
Locked. Herself. In.
No shit. She
locked herself in the church bathroom. On Purpose.
Once I realized
what she’d done (because we thought she might have fallen in she was taking so
long) I spend a good solid few minutes trying to cajole her out. After that
didn’t work I had to appeal to several people still milling about to find a way
to force the door open and force out a panicked, crying, screaming kid.
Regardless? NOT a great morning. We spend the next hour discussing and
punishing and crying our way through it at home. Isabelle was never talking to
me again. I was never trusting her again. She was angry and I was grounding her
faster than you could say boo. It was not pretty. It was more punishing than
parenting. I was humiliated and taking it out on her. And once you start
sliding down that slope, I’ve found that it’s nearly impossible to claw your
way back up.
So the two of us
spent the next few hours sulking separately. The Biz in her room, and I in the
kitchen.
By the time we
needed to leave the house again we were on speaking terms, and I’d received a
very grown- up sounding, non-prompted apology. And, by the time we returned
home from 2 hours at the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra orientation we were on
functioning family terms again, for the most part, although she clearly
preferred her grandmother’s presence to mine (and who can blame her?). So it
took me a bit by surprise when she crawled into my lap near bedtime for some
advice.
“Mom, there’s this
girl in my class and she doesn’t speak any
English” she starts out.
Apparently one of the new students in her class is undergoing the trial-by-fire version of learning English in the third grade. Poor kid. I can’t imagine. I know the experts say that there is no better time to soak up a new language than when you’re young, but I can’t even imagine walking into a place, not only full of new faces, but of new faces speaking a language you didn’t even understand.
And Isabelle, as
this little story unfolds, has taken this little girl under her wing. She
sought her out at lunch last week and sat by her every day. She’s helping her
learn her English by translating her lunch for her (This is a sandwich, these
are pineapples, this is a French fry, etc).
“And Mom? She
didn’t even have anyone to play with on recess on Thursday? And I made all my
friends come with me to play with her”
And suddenly this
little girl, who’s not really so little any more, isn’t just the kid that
locked herself in the bathroom at church anymore; she’s the kid that’s brought
me to tears I’m so proud of her.
That’s the thing
about parenthood, gang. It’s a roller coaster. Children have this amazing
ability to go from furious to elated in 2.8 seconds flat. And if you can’t keep
up? You’re going to miss out. On everything.
So I looked her
right in the eye (hard as that was to do what with the sniffling and the nose
blowing and all) and I told her that even though we didn’t get along very well
that morning, I was so proud of her. And when I asked her how it made her feel,
to be the one who made sure this little girl didn’t feel lonely at lunch, at
recess; she said it made her heart feel good.
And that made my heart feel good. To know that,
despite the fact that this kid is so ornery that she locked herself in the
bathroom at church (see how I’m having trouble letting that go just yet?) we
must have done some things right along the way, is encouraging.
So I told her to
hold onto that feeling. To help her friends have that feeling. And above all,
to keep doing what she was doing. That she’s learning what’s important about
school, not just the math and the science and the spelling; but how to treat
other people. She’s learning how to be a good person.
And I suppose I’d
better hold on to that feeling, that surge of pride that nearly brought me to
my knees that evening, because I’m fairly certain we haven’t see the last of
our locked-bathroom-door days with that one.
