Tornado in the living room

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Our children are our best teachers. 

Yesterday, in the midst of continuous meltdowns, back to back battles and torrid tantrums, and immediately following a particularly nasty spitting sound that expectorated (good word eh? my mum was an English teacher) from my toddler as she resisted YET ANOTHER thing, I made the decision to shout. I very rarely do, but I thought that she needed to snap out of this powerful little vortex of chaos that she was causing, and I essentially said to myself "fuck gentle parenting" and I shouted "YOU DO NOT SPIT AT ME!" which cued (as I knew it would) a torrent of tears, to which I instantly responded by enfolding her in the biggest softest longest cuddle I could muster, while murmuring loving things into her hair. I know, I'm a sucker for tears. They undo me. 

While I was murmuring, between her gasps and sobs, she kept wailing "Be HAPPY mummy!" I thought about it. This was a new phrase I've not heard her say (or wail) before. Be happy mummy. Was it just her spontaneous plea for me not to be angry with her? She certainly was crying because she didn't like the feeling of being shouted at. I am usually really playful with her, and try to maintain (or put on a really good act to maintain) a positive attitude when she is around. I am very hands on whenever I have time, and will play with her endlessly. We have so much fun together. So it can't be that. Maybe she sees how tired I am and wishes I was "happier" ie: "had more energy". I'm not sure. Maybe she senses that when she has been stripping us layer by layer throughout the day until we are but shells of ourselves by noon, she demands that we be better, be more than that. BE FUN! Maybe I need to laugh more. I don't know. 

Whatever the reasoning was, the point is that it made me think. Her words aren't just cute funny words. Her pictures aren't simply random lines and scribbles. Her play isn't only mindless play. She processes her life through her activities and her language. It gives me a real insight into her little mind, and it gives me a better understanding of how to support her, how to play with her, how to be there for her and love her. SHE is teaching ME. 

A quick example of her processing through play. She was constipated, really, really badly the other day. It was hurting her so much that she was screaming, shouting strange things that didn't make any sense and wandering around like a caged animal. It was awful. We did all the necessary things and she's fine now, but the morning after, she decided to take one of her babies on our bike ride to daycare. The entire way there, she re-enacted her episode with that baby. I heard her saying "I know it hurts sweeties, but you have to try and have a poo now." as she "changed the baby's nappy". She was normalising it in a way that made sense to her and didn't seem so scary and hard.

Being a parent, I have realised, is a perpetual education, as you graduate, shakily and in a daze of shocked confusion, from infanthood to babyhood to toddlerhood to little girlhood and beyond. Every single stage brings a blaze of new and completely uncharted challenges with which you have no navigational resources. Every few weeks there is another one, or two, and quite honestly, when they arrive, like a tornado in the living room, my husband and I look at each other blearily as if we've just stood too close to the blast, and, in a state of panic, try to react correctly. 

My little one has, I have to say, taught me that it is, however cliche, about the process, not the product. With small children, at least, it is almost all process, and rarely product. A perfect illustration of this, was when we were "playing" a card game. We had a pack of snowmen playing cards, and before we started the game, she was arranging them into colours. Nothing to do with the numbers on the other side of course; this was all about the snowmen. This pile had green hats, this pile had red scarves, etc. I was helping her here and there, but she was really enjoying the sorting aspect. At some point, I said "When are we going to play the game?" to which my tiny teacher stopped, turned to look at me as if I'd just asked the dumbest question imaginable and responded "Mummy. This IS the game!" Case and point. Set and match. I'd just learned a whole life lesson in those 5 words. From a 3 year old. Here's life. We are doing it now. Stop waiting for something to happen. This IS the game.

Before I go, a lovely thing she said to me the other day that I cannot forget. Recently we were talking about our hearts - where they are on our bodies, what they look like, feel like, why we have them. I have a small vein in my neck that sometimes pops out a little and bounces slightly when I laugh really hard. The other day when we were laughing together, she noticed this vein and she said "Mummy! Your heart is laughing!" 

Kids are amazing.

Thanks for reading x