Ours merely involved three business-y appointments with three over-excited children; being stuck in a broken-down car; going to pick the essential paper we had been told would certainly be ready "tomorrow," and finding out that "tomorrow" actually meant "some vague time in the future, unless it isn't"; and copious amounts of vomit. This is in addition to the current daily norms of violent sibling rivalry, continuous inability to communicate in the same language as our children, and about fifty tear-storms a day. Most of the tears come from one particular child, but the reasons are varied.
Tears are good. They mean that there is emotional processing going on, instead of just bottling everything up. Currently, we have violent tears and wails for every teeny tiny hurt and pain, violent tears and wails whenever a sibling accidentally or purposefully does anything that could be construed as negative, violent tears and wails any time there is any disappointment, violent tears and wails if she thinks about eating and is does not have food in her mouth, and most of all, extremely violent tears and wails any time her parents don't do what she wants. Since she is concurrently engaged in scientifically proving exactly how she can or cannot make her parents do what she wants or stop doing what she wants at any given moment, this last cause of tears is pretty much constant.
For instance, her scientific observation has produced the hypothesis that her mother wants her to eat her food at the table. This hypothesis is supported by understanding most of the English words that her mother uses to talk about food and table, as well as the fact that her mother can also explain the concept in her own native language. So, this obviously begs the following questions: can she eat her bread while wandering around the room? No. Can she eat her pancake on the couch? No. Can she eat her carrot in bed? No. The results are inconclusive, and currently the theory needs to be tested approximately twelve times a day in order to be able to reach any dependable results.
Actually, there are a great many things in daily life which do not go exactly the way that might suit Hibiscus the very best at that particular moment. To determine exactly how she can make everyone, especially the all-important parents, do exactly what she wants, she is trying every variation of noise, collapsing, pathos, hitting, assorted other violence, and anything else that might come to mind at that moment. Of course, violence of action and emotion just breeds greater violence of emotion, and this usually leads to extended writhing and crying with no particular object in mind.
Combine all this with a long day of appointments, and just imagine the result. I had thought that we would have the chance to see some cultural sites, which would involve looking around and running around, but we kept having just enough time between having to be in the next place, to have to much time to do nothing but not nearly enough time to do anything at all. Once we actually drove to the potential fun location, and left without entering so we wouldn't be late. Of course, this is also way too much stimulation for children who have possibly not gone beyond a few buildings and a few blocks in their lives, and no one has ever entered into any kind of study of manners with these kids.
So, on the positive side, no one ended up in the hospital. Evidence is growing every day for Buttercup's increasing attachment. And Mark met the people he had to meet, and he has excellent grace and social skills while his children are busy hitting each other with leather elephants. And we had a pleasant lunch, for the portion of the experience that there was food on the table and headed into the children's mouths. There was a significant downturn once the food was consumed. Also luckily, only two of the three children are fast enough to actually escape the building when a parent is actively running after them. On a definite positive note, we arrived home with the same number of family members that left home in the morning. And sometimes the sibling rivalry takes the positive turn of informing parents of dangerous and forbidden activities, although the sibling usually sees this as reason to follow with the crying and hitting and then more crying part.
When I am not trying to focus on the positive..... wow, the vomit part was pretty overpowering.....
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