I feel like I am always blogging about my middle child. One day, when she is not 5 and is online and can, ya know, READ, I'll have to delete most of this I suppose. Until then, I will enjoy having somewhere to rant about the challenge that is parenting the Bean. I am also hoping that someone else will read this, and say, "Oh, girl. I have to do the saaaame things with my daughter."
First of all, I give up getting her to stay in bed all night. Thanks to our new BFF melatonin, she is now falling asleep with less jerking, twitching and tossing. Like 30 min less. And to be honest, most nights I don't even mind sitting with her while she goes to sleep. She's a good cuddler. And she makes really cute faces when she catches me peeking at her to see if she is awake or not. (And in case you're wondering, I DID try the Super Nanny method. To the letter. And I am convinced that even Super Nanny herself couldn't get it to work on Bean. And if she reads this and wants to try, she's welcome to my home.)
But I digress......she goes to sleep, but she doesn't stay there. And when she wakes up, she does try to fall back asleep, can't, and then gets in bed with me. I have tried charts, bribes and begging. I just tell myself that if I were in Europe, this would be normal. So I give up. Maybe when she's 18 and she's still coming into our room, I'll get her professional help. Until then, I'll just be grateful we now have a king sized bed.
So there's the update on sleeping. Oh, rooming alone was a great idea, but didn't help either. It helped my friend's child who is A LOT like ours, so there must be truth to the idea somewhere.....
The other thing that has been a source of challenge for us lately has been her playing soccer. She begged for a year to play, and I didn't sign her up last spring because I didn't feel like she was ready. She was still having a lot of anxiety, and Gabe and I both felt like it would be setting her up to fail. This spring, we thought she was ready.
She will not go out on the field without me. Period. She cries, shakes, gets clammy, the whole 9 yards. And it's not like the dropping her off at her church class where she gets over me leaving in less than 30 secs. I guess because there is more going on and more people 'looking' at her, so the pressure is more than she can bear. It's a terrible thing to see. I really feel awful for her. Her coaches are soooo nice and always give her lots of encouragement. And they are okay with me being on the field WITH her. As in running up and down the field during practices AND games. The first game Beanie had a death grip on my hand, and I really thought she was going to crack my little finger. She has eased up a bit and now I can just be near her but as SOON as the play is over, WHAM, back to my side she comes.
We considered dropping out, but she REALLY likes it. She gets excited about her games and begs me to play soccer with her at home. And she's actually pretty good when she is focused on the game and not upset that I am not as close as she wants.
And I'm going to be honest here. I hate being out there with her. I feel out of place and like the other parents must think I am over bearing or over protective or both. It's embarrassing, honestly. It's the feeling you get when your kid has a meltdown in public and other moms are watching (and probably judging), but it lasts for 45 min. Every game I pray I won't have to go out there with her. But I do. And tonight she was in a terrible mood/funk, and wanted me to hold her hand. Being close wasn't enough. I try and be nimble and get out of the kids' way (and I NEVER kick the ball or interfere), but I tried to scoot one way and she stayed put and we managed to clothes-line a couple of kids from the other team. It was awkward.....
During Saturdays game, I tried every trick in the book to help her be calm. I let her spin, I squeezed her (where she thinks it's a big, silly bear hug but really I am trying to put pressure over her whole body) and while she was drinking water waiting to play I squeezed a pressure point on her hand. (I have no real proof that helps anyone other than my kid, but I can tell it helps her chillax.) Nothing. It helped for about 15 seconds and then she was back to her borderline panic.
So I am at a loss. All I can do is what I know to do and pray one day she will be past this. I'm grateful every day that her issues aren't worse. And I'm pretty sure if I couldn't home school her, she'd be on medication. And I hope one day she will look back and think "Wow. My mom did that? How cool is she?!"
That will be about the time I have to delete my blogs ;-)
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