I'm writing this in the evening of the same day I wrote about the tailspin that Hibiscus and I have taken lately. I finally had time with her completely out of the house to think quietly, but of course sooner or later she's coming back. Mostly sooner. Mid-afternoon always seems to arrive very quickly!
Last night I prayed and tried to hand this over to God, although knowing that I still have to be the hands and the mouth and the face on earth. I said that to keep being those hands and mouth, I needed more divine strength, because at the rate we were going mine wasn't enough to even get us to Friday! I think I was too tired to even form much more of a coherent prayer than that.
And today.... was a little respite. I still felt myself getting irritated with Hibiscus more quickly than I should; or rather, if I would if everything were neutral. She was still frustrating -- talking when it's someone else's turn, immediately screaming when she got hurt or upset, speaking too loudly and her motions too big, sulking -- but she wasn't putting all her energy into being defiant. In fact, it seemed like she was a little lonely for love. She held my hand the whole way home, with only mild arguments about whether or not to stop and pick flowers or if Brother had a better flower. When we got home, I fed them a snack and said they could play outside or color calmly inside. She didn't actually manage either option, but she didn't get totally out of control, either. I had to warn her several times, but she didn't want to be alone so she didn't need to get put in her bed. (She told me "I for getting calm here" as she lay on the carpet with cushions on her legs, violently batting them up and down and writhing back and forth. Not so calm, actually.) Twice she was rude or grabbed something of mine, and when I said something she cried "I for sorry, mama, I so sorry" and ran over and hugged me. She seemed to stay nearby and float in for touches and hugs, which she hasn't been doing for a while. So I hugged her bony little shoulders and stroked her furry little head.
When I finally corralled everyone at the dinner table, I started telling the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." My inspiration was mostly that Hibiscus had been screaming for about ten minutes solid after doing something like stubbing her toe; the actual injury was invisible and seemed to take place in the middle of the floor, while alone and without any potentially injurious objects nearby, and was in a line of similar injuries. So I had a moralistic inspiration, but my children love a good story, and they stared at me, mesmerized. Hibiscus was so mesmerized she forgot to eat, which is incredible, and Emerson was so mesmerized that he ate all his beans without whining about them, which is equally incredible. (Buttercup was not as impressed.) When the shepherd boy actually saw pointy ears and beady eyes and a mouth full of teeth in the bushes, Hibiscus suddenly cried out and clapped her arms over her ears and wailed "I for scared, mama!" I ended the story quickly and less dramatically than I had planned, but the children's energy skipped quickly over the moral, and directly to the possibility of wolves in our immediate vicinity.
We then had quite an animated conversation about wolves and lions, and whether they could get in the gate here or would the guard shoot them, and that the lions in the National Park didn't actually eat people, and whether they were in America and whom they might eat. "Conversation" being the operative word -- people actually said things and then listened to what other people said, and they turned their faces and their attention to different people as they listened, and their next comments were germane to what had just been said, and people acted convinced or questioning or built on each other's ideas. Like a conversation. Even small children can manage this much, at least breifly, but we haven't had any of these around here for a long time. Usually our mutual talking is entirely taken up by me having to negotiate whose turn it is to talk, and that listening means that we actually look at the person we are listening to and words stop coming out of our own mouths. And no one can ever remember what they wanted to say, anyways, since they spent their whole "turn" screaming at their sibling for talking out of place. So a conversation-ish conversation was a nice change.
And a dinner of listening and interacting allowed Hibiscus to open up a little more. Part of my helpless feeling has been knowing that I need to address deeper issues with Hibiscus, like why she is living with me and what that means, but it's awfully hard to address any deeper issues when your conversation partner is busy slamming her head into random objects while babbling non-stop. I forget what the segue is, but she started mentioning a little bit of things that happened in her "Bbunga house" and her "Bbunga daddy."
Then, after our usual bedtime chaos, we all settled into bed and snuggled together. Emerson picked out Our Family Policies to read, which I thought was a great idea. Sometimes we read through the whole book, and sometimes we end up talking about one thing in particular. Today we got to "in the --- family, we don't hurt each other." We talked about ways that I keep them safe, which is one of the phrases we repeat over and over: the parents' job is to keep the children safe. And then Hibiscus started pouring out ways that she had been hurt. Her Bbunga daddy beat her with a stick, her Bbunga daddy beat Buttercup with a stick, the children chased her and beat her with rocks, the dogs bit Buttercup, they beat her at the babies home, she fell down and hurt her leg RIGHT HERE and the blood came out at the babies home.... I listened, and I empathized, and then I looked at her passionate, angry, aching little face, and I said "it's DIFFERENT now. It's DIFFERENT in this family." And she stared and me and stared at me, and then something changed in her eyes and she gave a little nod. Tonight she was particularly fixated on the children chasing her down and "beating her with rocks," and I told her that if I had been there I wouldn't have let that happen, I would have yelled at the children and made them go away, and I would have picked up Hibiscus in my arms and kissed her and put cream and bandaids on all her bandaids. Again, a little nod, a little bit more relaxed. Solving the problem in fantasy so was much better than leaving it unresolved; she seemed to really relish thinking about getting those owies properly taken care of after all this time!
I don't deceive myself that this moment was magic and her problems and confusion is solved. I know we will have to have this conversation, and many others, over and over and over. But something came in to her head and changed, and she seemed to think about how all these new rules are also about keeping people from beating her with rocks and sticks, that at least I have been successful on that front!
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I finished up writing the story of our Sunday night the next Saturday. This week has indeed been better. Hibiscus hasn't been driving me nearly as crazy, which I'm sure is partly her behavior and partly in my attitude. .... Okay, I think it has a lot to do with her behavior! I haven't needed to spend all my energy enforcing limits and so I have had some energy left for other things. Hibiscus has been mentioning her previous lives more regularly and naturally than she ever has before, which I think is some sort of emotional breakthrough, although it's too soon to know exactly what it is!
I keep thinking about the story that is common in earlier literature, such as Anne of Green Gables: she is a teacher and has one student who is incredibly difficult and she can't "reach" with any of her loving methods, and finally she loses her temper and beats him, and then he respects and obeys her, and eventually they become friends. I don't want to beleive that; I don't want to think that she calmed down and started to respect our rules after I went too far and really got angry at her. I think it's more complicated than that. Maybe there is some truth to it, although I don't want to admit it; maybe she got afraid of losing my love and wanted to work harder to hold onto it. I wanted her to feel unconditional love, not love that she has to be good for, but I'm a human being too. Maybe absolutely unconditional love isn't really possible, or it isn't possible built on a relationship of a few months. Or maybe the "love" isn't the problem, it's the "like." I have loved people in the past after I've stopped liking them, and it isn't pleasant.
I feel blessed that we have had a little bit better week, that her emotions are on an upswing, and that we could present that side for Gramma and Bubba. Their arrival also helps make us all feel happy, and I'm hoping that will tide us over for a while. And by the time "a while" is done, we'll have moved into a whole new stage of emotional development.... and maybe after that we'll be headed HOME!
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