melt downs

Some afternoons are just ill-fated. Thursdays are very long days for all of us, as we begin the day with a 7:30 a.m. staff meeting. It's good to keep this in mind when I reflect on this afternoon. Maybe it was the long day. Maybe they remember that I'm going out of town this weekend. Maybe I'm already halfway out the door and they can sense that. Lord knows I've been looking forward to this just a bit. And a few bits more after Happy Sad put me through the ringer and Nananananbatman! destroyed everything in his midst. It's only a few hours we have together at the end of the day, but why the heck are they so tough?

We try to blame blood sugar lows, but my golly does my girl know how to flip the heck out around 3:30. She lays into me like it's nobody's business. Today it was over the Capri Sun she didn't get, as I picked her up too early from after-care. Of course, I gave her the kind and calm option to stay in after-care. Told her that I'd come back after snack, after I had retrieved Soli. Pretty nice, I'd say.

But the choice didn't work. She wanted me. She wanted the damn silver bag of sugar. She couldn't have both.

So often my immediate instinct is to satiate. Maybe I should just ask the teacher for the drink. Maybe I should just stop at the store and buy a dozen of them. This, obviously, is not the answer.

And I dealt with it like a good mama. I showed empathy and I smiled and I drove calmly. It was sunny this afternoon and I turned up the radio and rolled down the window. I held her on the way into Caroline's and told her I loved her. Of course, the whining and crying and It's All Because Of You's! and It's All Your Fault's ceased when we were in the company of others. She is, after all, a pleaser. So we made it over Hump A. Hump A was, of course, followed by Humps B, C, and D, all related to either sugar or the television. Yeah. Admitted. Bad news, both of them. But so part of our vernacular now. We've lost our sugarTV virginity big time around here, especially in the post school hours. Time for a cycle breaker.

The sugar thing is subtle. We don't have many sweets. But the Halloween and Christmas candy made their marks big time. Even without buying anything, she can usually scrounge something up. And TV. She has had so much stimulation all day, that an hour of Angelina Ballerina doesn't seem to be a big deal. But it is when Soli wants Elmo. And then he hurls himself on the floor, his giant head pounding the hard wood. Elmo! Elmo!?! He's a man of few words, Big Sol. I do love him to pieces. But he's physically exhausting while his sister is the queen of the drama scene. Don't know where I'm going with this. Looking for empathy, perhaps? Looking for, hey, that's so normal, don't sweat the small stuff, you're swell, chin up. Looking for closure to round out these big, full past few weeks.

Closure I can hold on to: Eliana in bed saying, Actually, Mama, it was all my fault. I'm so sorry I yelled at you today. And me saying something about how not everything has to be any one person's fault like a good mama. And Soli actually going to sleep instead of screaming his head off in his crib, yelling MAAAMMMAAA! bloody murder while trying to tear down the bars that confine him. Separation anxiety seems to be pretty insane right now. Right now while he approaches two. My little big man, finding his voice. Peace man. Man of few words, staking his claim.

So I will leave these two incredibly complex beings for the next two nights. I will only have to hear the laughter of my girlfriends at bedtime, turn the pages of my journal, of my novel, push my legs into my skis, push my skis through the tracks, through the white forest, soak my body in warm water, talk and talk and talk some more, drink and eat and soak and play.

Phew. So glad to be thinking about that again.

Thank you world for my two precious creatures. And thank you world for the gift of beautiful friends with whom I can commiserate and share. For these holy mountains and thermal waters. For my full and eclectic life.