Superstition

I always worry that if I mention that O had a good potty week that we’re doomed to have accidents daily for the next month.

Or if I say that the girls are sleeping well, in their own bed (ha!) that suddenly, they’ll both need me right next to them in my bed, which would put me in the middle and I detest being in the middle for at least a week, which is too long these days for sleep issues.

Then there’s the thumb-sucking/hair pulling issue. If I mention that O seems to have stopped either or both habits, she’ll pick them both back up with a vengeance.

So I try not to mention any of the above, especially if we’re having a good run on any, some or all of them.

Yet, I want to celebrate the girls’ accomplishments. I want to shout it from the roof tops if either of them goes more than a few nights without drenching their pull-ups. I don’t want this blog to be all bitching, all the time.

And honestly, I know the superstition thing is silly. It’s just the law of averages. If we’ve had a good week or even month, by the time I realize that and say something about it, we’re probably due for a rough patch because that’s the way of childhood.

My nephew has had a sleepy few weeks. He’ll sleep for up to 14 hours a night. My mom mentioned that he’s probably going through a growth spurt.

I scowled. Why are his parents lucky enough to have a child who sleeps BETTER when he’s going through a growth spurt and I ended up with kids who have horrible sleep interruptions when they grow or have a developmental spurt?

Now, I realize the experts would probably say that it’s my fault that we have these issues. They’d say that I respond to my girls’ cries for attention too quickly. I haven’t taught them to comfort themselves.

To that, I say whatever. I honestly don’t think you can spoil a child by responding to their needs. Sure, it’s good for them to learn to comfort themselves but that’ll come with age and maturity. I do not think either one of my girls will still be crying out for me when they’re 18 years old and away at college.

Ha! Now that I’ve written that out for all of Karma to see, I’ll get a call at 3am in about ten years from Alyssa, who will be away at college. She’ll be calling because she had a nightmare and needs my comfort. See how it is with superstition? I should probably go delete that paragraph about them not needing me so much when they’re older. But I’m not going to because I like to live on the edge.

But let me stop here and say that for those parents who don’t respond to their children’s need right away, that’s not wrong either. It works for those parents and their children. It just doesn’t work for me. Yes, if my girls had different parents it might work for them too. But they’re stuck with me and I’m a responder. I can’t help it.

So I won’t stop responding but I also won’t stop bitching about how needy my kids are. I fully accept that their neediness is mostly my fault even as I reserve the right to resent that very neediness. I know. I probably need help.

But I also reserve the right to retain my superstitions even as I flip them the bird and write all about the girls’ successes. But again, I will probably continue to complain when we backslide because of my bragging.

The thing that has bitten my butt this week (rather than kissing it, thank you very much Olivia) is the thumb sucking and the hair pulling. She’d been doing so well for about four months. I kind of expected it to come back once school started but it hadn’t so much and we’re almost six weeks into school and so I thought, ahhh, we’ve managed to avoid that one.

Except we haven’t. Just this week, the thumb has made its way back into her mouth and the left hand is rising back to her hair. As of right now, she’s just rubbing her hair but I don’t think it’ll be long before it starts to yank again. And that saddens me more than I’d anticipated. The left side of O’s hair is actually longer than the right these days because I gave her a trim right around the time she stopped pulling and the right isn’t growing as fast as the left. There are these sweet curls around her left ear and I want them to stay. But I know this isn’t in my control and so I’m trying to let it go. I’m trying not to say anything when I see her thumb corked in her mouth and the hand at her head. I know she can’t help it and thus, I know I can’t either. But I’m so sad about it. Just so sad.

And while I admit that the sadness is partially about me, because I love her hair, I’m also very sad for Olivia herself. I know how badly she wants long hair. She wants it to be long enough to put into a pony tail, into pig tails, long enough for her to whine about tangles. She wants what her sister has, long girlie locks she can flip and curl and play with. But she can’t help the pulling and that just makes me sad, for both of us.