Six Maile Chix

My right eyelid is twitching and won't stop. Yesterday the twitching was in the muscle that works my left thumb. I'm trying my hardest to push through all this pain, but my body is showing me in small ways that it is still suffering. I'm extremely tired. I look around me and am surprised to still be able to see things, which must mean that my eyes are actually open instead of closed. I'm shocked because inside mentally and emotionally my eyes feel closed, or they feel the equivalent of what closing your eyes and checking out for a while would hope to feel like.

I can always tell when something is bubbling over the top inside of me because of the way I eat. If I'm able to continue to make health-conscious food choices, things are going pretty good for the moment. The minute that I eat an entire bag of those whopper eggs, or chips and dip, or cheescake, or chocolate raisins, or juice and crystal light, all one after the other all day, always with the option of anything else I can get my hands on thrown in there, it's a big heads up that I'm trying my darndest to cover something uncomfortable up. Today I'm just so tired of it all. I just want to have a day of carefree nothingness, if that even makes sense. More accurately, a day of my old life combined with a couple of things from my new awful life. I guess I'm actually saying that I want a day of a perfect life. No one ever gets that, I guess. Not if you really think and examine your life. Nothing here is PERFECT. There are perfect moments in all our imperfect lives. I won't experience any days like that for quite a long time...because they don't exist here on earth. Am I wrong? Am I even describing what I'm feeling in the words that will best draw a picture of my wish? I just want him back, and knowing that will never happen is still something I'm struggling to accept. I want to be like an ostrich...stick my head in the sand and not come out until it's all over, whenever that will be.

Today an odd thing happened. Lose and Eli asked me to take them by Naki's grave. None of the girls have ever asked me to do that before. The option is always open, and I've made plans for us as a family several times, but this was the first time that they asked me unprompted. It was short (the wind was blowing and it was freezing) and when they walked up there they jumped up and down on his grave several times yelling, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!", as they would if they were playing with him on the floor. It was sweet. It was miserable. It was good.

Can I run away? I just want to run away. Lose almost did. Well, okay. I'm being dramatic when I phrase it that way. This little girl has always pushed her limits and my limits, all at the same time. Her biggest strength is also her biggest weakness. She consistently speaks and acts without thinking. It's such a gift because she is constantly lifting up people around her, making them feel better about themselves, without even realizing it. Today a mom at dance came into the observing room at the studio and asked which little girl was mine. I pointed Lose out and repeated her name a couple of times to the sweet mom. She then proceeded to tell me that her little girl didn't know any of the other girls in the class, and had been feeling awkward about it. Her mom then asked her, "Who is that little girl, the one who always yells out your name, and says goodbye to you?" It was Lose, of course. It would never occur to her to be self conscious and process through in her mind which girls to say goodbye or hello to, but to be friends with one and all. She sees no one's strengths as a reason for her to feel insecure, and thus acts and speaks without fear of rejection or offense to all the girls. She seems all of them as her friends. Such a gift.

However, last week when I was a couple of minutes late picking her up from dance, she got herself in so much trouble. I actually lost my voice yelling at her in the car on the way home...it helped a bit that I was already hoarse from my sinus/coughing thing. As I pulled up to the studio imagine my surprise to find her in someone else's car. They had asked her if her Mom was a couple minutes late picking her up from class, and did she need a ride home. If I didn't deserve it before, now I know I should receive the award for the Mother of the Year. Yup. I was in fact a couple of minutes late picking her up. But we have rules about that...if you do not spot Mom and the car as soon as you leave class, then you are to go right back inside, and wait for me to come and get you. She broke that rule...she stayed outside and was playing on the hill by the studio. Lucky for her and for me, the person's car she'd cozied herself into was a Mom from dance class that I actually do know, but it could have been much much much worse.

Let's be perfectly clear. We have few yet extrememly firm rules about how to keep yourself safe. We have reviewed such rules many many times. Lose could repeat them to me in her sleep. The problem lies in the fact that she either doesn't stop to apply the rule that she knows, or she does apply it and decides that she doesn't care about the particular rule for whatever situation it applies to, and decides that the rule didn't know about how much she'd want to do what it said she can't or shouldn't.

Does this scare anyone else besides me? Do you realize what kind of future I have ahead of me, all by myself, without Naki around to help?

Lose's found herself in other safety rule-breaking scenarios many a time, but this one took the cake. I've used the following tactics on her thus far:

1. Calm Talking, helping her retrace her steps to see where her choices could have gone differently.

2. Crying, as I explained how hurt I was that she disrespected herself and I with such disregard to our family rules.

3. Calm Talking, refer to #1.

4. Crying, telling her how scared I would be if ever something were to happen to her.

5. Calm Talking, refer to #1 and #3.

6. Punishments. These have taken a wide range in their level of creativity, but obviously they hold no significance for her, since she's blatantly told me that she would prefer being punished as long as she can first do what it was that would require breaking the safety rule.

7. Crying, refer to #2 and #4.

8. Spankings, my least favorite. This. Does. Nothing.

9. More Calm talking, refer to #s...oh, you get the picture already.

10. Finally, screaming and yelling at her on the way home from dance on the day of her offense. This resulted in her telling me that she was in fact the worst and stupidest child ever. Her self berating lasted so long, I will never do that method again. Besides, Ane's, Eva's, and Eli's eyes were all so big with shock to hear me screaming like that, and the need they felt to tiptoe around me from fear for the rest of the evening was awful.

So, as you can see, I'm kinda running out of options. I even asked the therapist about it, and he told me that he can see this part of her personality in her sessions, whatever that means. He also told me the fantastic news that in his experience, which is vast, that children like her almost always have to have an experience on their own that will help to reinforce the teaching that they're struggling learning. I would assume it's not usually a happy experience. Oh Joy. I am NOT looking forward to any of this. Seriously. I want to be an ostrich now more than ever.

At church on Sunday a dear friend of Lose's was in her personal and mental space. She was becoming frustrated with her situation, and instead of communicating with him to explain that she needed her own space, or that she was simply frustrated with him, she proceeded to threaten him. She convincingly told him that she knew some kid at the school where they both attend that would beat him up and then flush his head down the toilet. Where is the thinking before you speak in THAT conversation? Just like the other girls and some of their tendencies before Naki died, Lose's impulsiveness has been exacerbated beyond what I thought was possible. She had these difficulties before her Dad died, but they're now under the microscope, all enlarged and awkward in their appearance. Can anyone say "Grieving Child"? How can I help her? I've run out of ways that I can think of. I feel spent, and the girl is only 6 years old.

Someone please make my eyelid stop twitching. I'm going to bed.