Growing Pains

I feel like every post I write should be named this, lately. Bea is going through a  rough patch at the moment. I’m sure this is due entirely to that fact that Sean and I were discussing, just last week, how sweet, compliant, and happy she has been recently. We even went so far as to make the stupidest of all stupid remarks that the “terrible-twos” seemed to be behind us. Then we patted ourselves on the back for being such good parents, being so firm in our discipline and weathering the storm together. Let’s just say there was a lot of speaking too soon going on around here.

Sunday rolled around and despite the beautiful weather (for once), I had a sense of doom when I awoke, which is probably that “mother’s intuition” I’ve heard so much about. Bea woke up screaming, and kicked me in the face, kind of on accident/mostly on purpose, which is the surest way to put me in a bad mood. The rest of the day was downhill from there with a lot of screaming during Mass and some more screaming after and then a lot of NOT napping to top it all off.

Every day this week has been in the same vein as the one above.  Even Monday, which consisted of a play date with her best friend, story-time, and a trip to the park, still managed to earn me a slap in the face, literally. Really, anything other than watching The Muppets or going on the swings at the park causes enormous meltdowns. In the past, I’ve noticed that these rough patches seem to precede some sort of growth spurt. We will have a few days of poor behavior, not eating and not napping and the result will be that her vocabulary has doubled or she’s grown 3 inches. By the time we come out of the current ditch we’re in, I’m expecting her to be doing long division, in her head, IN LATIN, or else it may not seem worth it.

Of course, it is worth it. There are even moments of sweetness between the slapping and kicking her sister (while pretending she was kicking something right next to her sister). Today, for instance, we made scones and while eating them she said, “Mommy, I wasn’t crying at all when we made these.”  Even she had to admit how remarkable it was for her to go a spell without crying/screaming/whining. This made me feel bad for all of my grumbling, because I forget that as hard as these growing pains are for me, they are much harder for the one doing the growing. She’s trying to figure out her place in this world and it’s (obviously) overwhelming. She needs her mother to provide firm boundaries, lots of love and more patience, always more patience. So, I’m working on that. But first, I have to go upstairs and lay down the law because the doggies and their towel (who were removed from her bed because they interfere with nap time) have been sprung from their jail (Mommy’s room) and are singing the song from The Muppets.