Hobson's Choice

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tantrum

When Eleanor was a baby, Chris's grandma would tell me that I was allowing her to manipulate me by tending her whenever she cried. I maintained that she didn't have the cognitive skills to manipulate; all her wee baby brain and minimal synapses knew to do was cry.

Those days are over. Yesterday was such a wretched day as I watched her purposefully set out to annoy me at naptime. I watched her face, and she watched mine. I saw her start something, like banging the storybook I was reading to her with a cup. When she saw that this behavior was indeed driving me up a wall, she escalated it and added a new variation. I came as close as I have come to spanking her because I just wanted to lash back at this creature who was deliberately trying to get at me.

She was just back from Grandma's house and as always just had to make sure that she was back in Unconditional Love Central Mommy Land. This was the worst as she systematically tested just how far she could go.

Today is a better day. I'm glad I didn't hit her.

But I remember watching her nurse when she was a baby and thinking how hard it was to believe that she would one day do wrong things on purpose. And yesterday, when Chris came home, I told him that he had ever treated me as she did at naptime, I would have been moving out.

Another reason why I believe that working with the severely mentally ill has been my best preparation for parenthood. You can't take it personally. Be aware of your surroundings.

3:05 p.m. - 2005-02-02
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