IN A RUT

Mary and I are in a serious rut. This picture shows her having to get out of the pool for some misbehavior or another. It is pretty much how she spends her days... being rude to someone in many and various unbelievably inventive ways, laughing at the correction, screaming like a maniac when forced to comply. She laughs at me, claps her hands in my face, screams "YOU JERK, POOP FACE MOM... I HATE YOU... JERK JERK JERK." She makes one eye wander around the socket while squatting over jabbing her finger towards her butt, laughing and calling me a jerk. She escalates and kicks it up notch by notch, desperately trying to get a reaction out of me. I practice my deep breathing, desperately trying NOT to react. She reaches out, kicking or hitting or tripping any person stupid enough to wander into her area. Then she pulls out her trump: the pee up dance, screaming at me about her immobilizing need to use the bathroom.... yah, except I have done that one with her 756 thousand times. If she actually had to go (or wanted to for that matter... she has been able to call up pee from the cell level and flood an entire car seat, running over onto the seat of the vehicle directly AFTER having used the bathroom), she would just wet her pants at this point. It doesn't work, so she stamps over to where I am reading, filling out FAFSA stuff, whatever, trying hard to GET IN MY FACE while screaming at me.

The face you see in this picture can be turned off in a nano second and I'm not kidding. Practically everyone who sees it (outside of this family) races over to her, scooping her up, "Oh honey, are you ok? What happened?" She sobbingly informs them of her problem, all the while tears popping out of her adorable little face. Then when they are saying whatever kind of sweet, encouraging words to her she turns the two year old, seriously hurt look off instantly, informing the unwitting sucker, "I'm cute!" To which the unwitting sucker instantly agrees and assures her, "You sure are cute, you are just adorable sweetie. You just sit here with me, honey." UGH.

I am reading a book, which I will post about later, that tells me these type of attachment challenged kids need a new approach from the "traditional" Nancy Thomas-type attachment therapy. It is not about control, or consequences this book informs... In fact, consequences are supposedly NEVER going to solve this kid's problem... And herein lies the rut I am in: I just can't get past the urge to dish out consequences. And seriously, the urge becomes more of a compulsion when faced with a sweet little 4 year old pointing at her butt hole and calling me a "piss wiener."