Daughter 2 has two personas here recently: Her Compliant-School personality and her Fit-Throwing-Eye-Rolling personality at home. This bothers me in a way nothing else in my whole entire career as a momma has!
Daughter 2 has always been the textbook child. She nursed like she came out of the womb knowing what to do! She crawled for four weeks before walking. She used her fingers and hand - daintily - to learn how to independently eat and then she promptly began using a spoon and fork. (Daughter 1 and The Dad still have issues with this!) She likes everything I make for dinner and uses kind words like "please" and "thank you". When she was 2 years old, I was sick and said to her, "Momma's too tired to keep changing your diapers. You have to start going pee-pee in the toilet." And she sweetly said, "OK." And I haven't changed a diaper since!
THIS was the child I wanted interviewed when I won my Nobel Peace Prize for Motherhood. (What? It's a real prize!)
Noticed the verb tense in that sentence... WANTED... Since starting back to school, she's been one hard pill to swallow. I checked with her teacher - who happens to be my good friend, FloJo - and got a report that she's picture perfect at school. In fact, I believe FloJo's exact words were, "I'm in love with her." I'm sure that if she'd seen her at home the past few weeks, her exact words would be, "Call the priest and grab the holy water, sista!"
One thing FloJo does with her classes is teach them character traits...let me rephrase that desirable character traits through various animals. For example, the zebra represents compassion. When one of their own is injured or weak and a predator approaches, the zebras band together and cause an optical illusion to protect their fellow tribe (pack? herd? group?) member. This is compassion as shown by the zebras. Great lesson, isn't it?
Too bad Daughter 2 thinks it only applies at school...
Last week, Daughter 2 got to choose a prize out of the treasure chest because she listens like a white-tailed deer. Apparently FloJo snapped twigs in her classroom and watched to see which first graders froze in their seats and slowly turned their heads toward the sound. Daughter 2 must have not only turned toward the sound, but must have leaped over her table and hidden among the classroom library to earn such a reward!
Again - this is her school-behavior... at home? She's been listening like a stampeding rhino!
Case in point: This weekend, we were returning from The Wal-marts and Daughter 2 (carrying a yogurt container) stopped in the doorway, right in front of me carrying 4 reusable shopping bags which I had instructed the cashier to "load those puppies up!"
"Excuse me," I said to Daughter 2, who was looking through the trash to see if anyone had eaten any unauthorized snacks. She made no moves.
"Daughter 2!" I said a little louder. "Move please!" She was still as a opossum... which is not such a great character trait when I'm holding onto approximately 89 pounds of groceries.
"Hey!" I yell - forgetting character traits and manners, "I need you to MOVE!" Still nothing.
I put the groceries down and made sure my palms weren't actually cut through and through. Then I physically picked her up and moved her.
All of a sudden Daughter 2 is back in this moment, "Momma! What'd you do that for?"
And ... the fit began. Her legs were locked and unlocked in a rhythmic fashion and her hands were flapped to and fro straight out at her sides and the whining was shrill! Shrill like the hyena.
I picked her up again and carried her to her room!
"What are you doing, Momma?" She yelled while kicking her feet on her bed.
"You will not throw fits!" I said, in a voice that would make Dr. Spock pop goose bumps.
"But you didn't have to move me!"
"Oh, yes, I did. I asked you to move three times and you didn't move."
"So you're sending me to my room?"
Ahhhh--- I had to end this convo quickly before she totally convinced me I was wrong. I played the FloJo card: "Daughter 2 - you were not listening like a white tailed deer."
- Silence -
Yes! I had won! I had 4.2 seconds of Momma-glory before I heard it...
"Well, you are not compassionate like the Zebra." I sigh then Daughter 2 continues, "Wait! Compassionate means 'nice', right?"
I can't wait until Flo Jo teaches "crazy like a loon" - that one, we can relate to in our house!!
