Occasionally, we do make it through an entire bedtime without anyone throwing a king-size fit. We had a night like that last night, and I basically described the routine in my Wrapping post. We also.... actually, I can't remember another time that it's happened. Maybe we're making some interesting stories, though.
(Large pause in which the girls rearrange themselves sideways on the bed, which gets Buttercup closer to me, and I guess Hibiscus imagines that's she's closer than she was. And needs more "go like this," which is getting tucked in.)
The first night they stayed with us, I don't remember all the details, but after all the excitement of getting ready and having toothbrushes and things like that, somehow we ended up reading books while Hibiscus sat on the opposite side of the room, screaming like a feral animal. She just sat there on the floor, staring at us from ten feet away, and screamed. I don't actually remember why she wasn't in bed with us, and how I got her calmed eventually -- either I have PTSD or too many nights of screaming have melded together in my mind. I do remember worrying that Buttercup would get distressed and think that this new house must be terrible if her sister were that upset, but she looked back and forth between us, tried to pat her sister a couple of times, and snuggled closer to me to listen to the book. Maybe that's when she decided to throw her lot in with New Parent rather than Insane Sister. And it is a definite benefit of knowing the children for so long before they moved in with me; that Buttercup's trust was not so easily shaken.
That first night, I was surprised and worried when Hibiscus actually threw up. A few days later, when Daddy was here and she was screaming hysterically while he held her down, she threw up all over both of them, and it startled her into pausing her crying. She has this "off" switch which gets engaged at various stimuli, such as trying on shoes, and the vomiting switched it. However, her tolerance soon increased, and she was screaming until she threw up every night. In fact, I have my suspicions that sometimes she does it on purpose, for dramatic effect. In fact, it's been a full month since that first overnight, and nightly screaming fits have lost a lot of their natural dramatic effect as we all habituate, which is a reasonable excuse for more vomit, I suppose. Now I just hand her paper towels and ask her to clean it up. (The dramatic-effect style vomit isn't very copious, and she never cleans it up anyways, so you don't need to worry that I'm committing child abuse.)
(One child out, plus Emerson in the other bed. Why is the little one so wiggly? Did we get her nap wrong today?)
Then there are the nights which Hibiscus graciously allows Emerson a turn in the spotlight. One evening Daddy was starting bedtime routine with Hibiscus, while the other two children finished their fruit dessert and I was cleaning up. While I was in the room, they somehow mutually got the idea to throw the fruit instead of eating it. I heard a lot of whispering and giggling from Emerson, and in the very few moments that it took for my mama-radar to go off, Buttercup had thrown ALL of the fruit from both plates ALL over the room. I had not the slightest doubt that Emerson had told her to do it, and I whisked her off to the bathroom and told him to clean it up. He didn't yet know that he could be held responsible for fruit-throwing that involved his head and not his hands, and flipped out. That night he did a great deal of yelling, and hitting and threatening, which are his specialities. They are both pretty good at throwing and smashing anything nearby, although I see Emerson pause and think for a moment, wondering how much lasting trouble he will get in for breaking it. I don't think Hibiscus has had that much logical cause-and-effect in her life yet.
(Pause. I've relocated in order to put Buttercup in a front carry in the wrap. She calmed down, but now has resumed squiggling again.)
But most of the time, the drama is Hibiscus. Some little thing will set her off: she wants something extra, or doesn't want to do what she's supposed to do, or a sibling is playing with her drawing or steps on her toe, and she just loses it and goes into Feral Mode. I try to keep the expectations and routine absolutely consistent, but with three tired and wild children there are always changes. Maybe I need to examine these details and make sure that more of them are rigid. Who gets their teeth brushed first is a huge drama, and why putting one of the big kids in the wrap can avoid a big fight.
The first time I put Hibiscus in the wrap for bedtime, I thought it was brilliant. She pretended she was falling asleep in the wrap, and lay against my back blissing out while I got the other children ready. The occasional squirrel-like movement alerted me that she was actually nowhere near sleep, but pretending to sleep is a pretty good for a solo mama of three! When I finally had everything else ready, I could tell her always-poised body had actually reached relaxation. I rolled her out of the wrap into her place in bed, while she pretended to be asleep. I offered that she could go right to sleep where she was, and I'd read books in the other bed, or she could get up and I'd brush her teeth and wash her face, and we'd finish the normal routine. She had to think about it for a few minutes, but chose the second option. Meanwhile, Emerson was jealous and wanted to go up in the wrap, and was asking very politely. Hibiscus's turn was done regardless, which I pointed out to her as I put Emerson up. In the same wrap and the same carry, which he insisted on.
She was having none of it. She went from doing a pretty good job of faking sleep to raging hyena within seconds.
(Not so much wiggling there any more. She's still adjusting herself around, but the breathing is getting slow.)
Feral Mode usually involves the following: Hibiscus screaming in rage and trying to grab or hit or push her way into something else. Me picking her up by the elbows and moving her away while she thrashes and screams. Her across the room, or at the foot of the bed, screaming in rage, perhaps making dramatic eye-popping-out faces or retching sounds. Me saying something like "when you finish going potty, you can come read with us" in my most pleasant voice at various intervals. Her stamping or throwing pillows or trying to smash something, which I remove from her. Me settling down in the bed with books and the other two children, all of us pretending that everything is normal as we pick out our first book. Her realizing that we actually are going to go on and do something pleasant without her, so her screaming re-enrages, and she flops and thrashes over on the floor in order to scream at us in close proximity. Me debating whether it is worth getting up, picking her up by the elbows, and moving her to a more tolerable range, but which would mean disturbing the other children, who are relishing the comfort of mama's arms amidst the chaos. This debate comes out on different sides on different nights, depending on her current enthusiasm for driving us out of our skulls. Emerson might cover the ear on the side closer to her, and Buttercup's forehead wrinkles as she tries to concentrate on the book, but otherwise they ignore her entirely and focus on enjoying a special moment of the day. Hibiscus might start listening to the book and forget to scream quite as loudly, but I hold it carefully so she can't actually see the pictures and pretend that nothing happened except for perfect getting-ready-for bed. If the volume diminishes enough, I repeat my "when you finish going potty, you may come snuggle and read books."
After five minutes or fifty minutes, she is worn down. She lays there for a little bit, exhausted. Then she stands up, trots off, goes potty, and slips back into bed with us. I try and make space and put my arm around here, although with three children and two sides of the body and two arms holding a book, they don't all get the exact same proportion of arms and shoulders, which might set her off again. I say "thank you for going potty" and we go on with our night.
(Little one out. Transferred to own bed, and I transfer to the couch. Now it's my bedtime, and I have zero kid-free minutes accumulated.)
Every night. The details change, of course. And it's getting better. My main "discipline" is the when-then statement enforced, as above. She spills at dinner and refuses to clean it up? I put her bowl on the counter and say calmly "when you clean up your mess, you may keep eating." She's starting to trust that I mean it -- that both, I really will give her the bowl or let her read books when she does her part, and that nothing and no-how will she get it until she does. Some of her fits and sulks are significantly shorter than they used to be, even the bedtime ones. Some of them aren't.
I think that usually when she "loses it" she really is losing it, and she feels as feral and out-of-control as she looks. However, at some point she's making choices whether to keep escalating the hysteria or to calm down, conscious or not. There is an ebb and flow to the tantrum, and each ebb is a decision point. I am becoming more and more of the belief that a large percentage of her screaming and tantrums are to generate attention and reaction. People say this so dismissively, "oh, he just does that to get attention," but all of us human beings deeply NEEDS attention. Our spirits cannot survive without it -- as those who work with orphans and abandoned children know, as we see those children who no longer even expect or crave it, and the emptiness in their eyes. I can understand that Hibiscus needs an awful lot of attention. And that's why I ignore her.
Maybe there is another possible way. If she were my only child, I might find out if there was a way to let her cry in my arms, or if I worked at it long enough I could distract her, or if I could sit beside and repeat "I love you but I don't like it when you hit" a thousand times in a row or something else. But as it is, I have three pairs of eyes and three little hearts focused on me, and I don't want to teach them that the craziest behavior gets the most of the gold-standard attention. Most importantly, I don't want to teach Hibiscus herself that she can get my attention that way. And maybe if she were my one-and-only and I were trying so hard, I would get a lot more tantrums than our current allotment -- who knows.
I don't know if she's off a cliff and feeling as confused as I am. I don't know if she had this pattern of being "bad" and getting attention with one of her birth parents, and she's trying to repeat the cycle with me. I don't know if that's the dynamic she observed, quiet and afraid, that her parents played out with each other. But I know as her emotion and her rage and her terror all escalate, her main goal is to get me to escalate along with her. The more boring I am, the less rewarding throwing a fit becomes -- both consciously and subconsciously. I think I am setting up a lot of messages in her subconscious, about goodness and badness and love and consistency. But even in her logical mind, it's really not that much fun to spend an hour screaming at the top of your lungs while everyone else reads books and ignores you. And at the end of it, your throat hurts.
And that's also why I ignore the tantrum once it's over. Once she goes potty or cleans up her mess or puts on her shoes, it's all over. I try really REALLY hard to not show that she has put me out in the slightest; I include her back in the middle of the family, and I touch her hair and her face, and I look in her eyes and smile at her. She needs that attention, and I try so hard to fill up her deficit when she's acting reasonable -- but that hole is so so deep! Some times I can't stir up any more loving feelings towards her, and I think of what to do and go through the motions. Sometimes I can't manage to keep the tinge of irritation out of my voice, so I try to touch her and not say anything at all. Some times I really am not mad at all, just tired.
Some times my heart hurts with love and sadness for her. And I don't show that, either. I just let her snuggle in and find the right places for all her sharp corners and bony edges to settle against my body (and then wriggle around and re-adjust herself a dozen more times), and I pet her wooly hair and I stroke her soft, soft cheek.
And our lives go on.
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