Parenting is hard...

I have to say, I have felt really lucky to be SRs mommy, as far as parenting goes.  She has been a relatively easy baby (after the first two months when she finally separated day from night), teaching herself most things, being very easy to guide, and a rule follower.  She is affectionate and articulates herself clearly so I always know what she is feeling or thinking.  And she's generally very happy...except when she's throwing a pretend tantrum (it is the terrible twos after all)...especially when I pick her up from school - she loves school.

But yesterday I picked up a very sad little girl.  Well, at first she was happy:

23 degrees Celsius - it was HOT - two long sleeved t-shirts, a fleece sweater, scarf, hat and down filled winter jacket.

I arrived and wondered why she was so heavily overdressed - especially seeing the other children in sweaters only.  I must admit I laughed quite hard as they described to me how they put on her sweater, as they did the other kids, only to have her admit she needed her jacket on and zipped up, and her scarf and her sweater.  They tried to convince her otherwise but she wasn't going to have it...poor thing was so sweaty.  I did convince her to take off the jacket before going into the car with me but the hat and scarf stayed on.  The morning was still very chilly so she needed the winter jacket in the morning.

Anyway, after I had a good chuckle, the teacher told me that SR had bitten another child and that child reacted by scratching SR's face.  They knew the behaviour was not characteristic for SR as she has never shown any signs of aggression no matter what is going on around her.  I know that as well...I have seen some of the other kids in the class in action, triggering each other, and screaming at each other, and acting like toddlers.  SR is easy going...she will give up a toy and cry rather than fight over it.

They told me she had no reason for biting, and said she had no reason for doing it...she has also been chomping away on her finger for about a week now, I think a molar is coming in...maybe she wanted to give her fingers a break :)

In any case, I bent down to her level and said softly, "SR, what happened at school today?"  I think that was my mistake, not waiting until we got home.  She immediately started to cry and said, "I want to go home!  I want to go home!"  She never wants to go home after school...we always have to stay for another 30 minutes while she plays with everything.  Add to that, she was probably feeling extremely overheated.

We came home, her crying and moaning the whole way, and we had our talk about biting.  I cried privately b/c I know that as a parent, I can only do so much, but then in the end, SR has to make her own decisions.  This is probably the first of many bad decisions to come.  I don't know how Moms who have children who do terrible things can possibly cope.  I also felt so sad b/c she kept saying, "Is mommy happy?"  And I said, "no, mommy is sad."  But after our talk she said, "Now is mommy happy?"  I told her I was.  I also told my mom not to bring it up with her as we had discussed it.

My mom was babysitting yesterday evening for a bit, and as I walked out the door I heard her say to my mom, "Suvta (grandma), today I bite ___________", so I told her she could let SR talk about it.  She obviously was still thinking about it to bring it up with my mom.  Hopefully today is a better day.

Very quickly (b/c it's 7am and I need to get dressed and get SR up and ready for school), I thought SR was going to be able to stay at her current daycare part time (even though it's not a part time centre) after the baby comes...I have a spot at a different centre (same company) where her kindergarten will be the following year (and she'll be in the daycare for before and after school), but I really wanted her to stay with as little change as possible.  One of her current teachers had said she would share the preschool spot with us...but now she's saying she wants full time daycare for her child.  This means, that when SR vacates, the teacher gets priority to the spot over another child moving up from the toddler room.  I know in the end, SR will adjust to her new school - but I can't help thinking this new baby may be a very hard adjustment for SR.  She will stay full time in her current daycare for July and August while I recuperate from my c-section.  But it's sad to think she'll leave her "friends" and teachers and familiarity to go somewhere else.

I just don't want my decisions to hurt her as she grows up - everything I do could impact her future.

Okay, she's mumbling and she knows her clock says 7 and time to get up...I better hurry.