How Much Can You Bear?

They say that God never gives us more than we can bear but then I wonder why it was that he gave me a child that I couldn’t parent.  Not because of her, because of me.  I don’t have the patience or the skills to deal with her.  She makes me so incredibly frustrated to the point that I want to hit her.  I have to walk away. 

My husband isn’t much better.  He walks around with a frown on his face because he thinks I should just stop talking and wants the yelling to stop.  Yet, I hear him do all the same things when I’m out of the room and he will add in a few choice four letter words to boot. 

If I so much as grab her arm she cries abuse.  If I say something and mix my words up, she’s on it like a hawk.  If I say something that gets her really upset and I see that it upsets or was more important to her than I thought, I will try to come up with a compromise but she holds fast to what I first said. 

She hits her brother and than has a complete hissy because he marks up her shirt with lip balm.  Her uniform shirt that costs like $28.00.  The lip balm is the colour of grapefruit.  Over and over it’s how much she hates her brother and refuses to acknowledge that she prompted the retaliation by bugging him. I ask her to put her shoes on it’s a five minute rant about how I don’t need to tell her over and over again, why do I do that, can’t you see what I’m doing, I can only do one thing at a time, you tell me to do everything, what I’m supposed to stop putting my jacket on to put my shoes on and on and on and on it goes till I want to scream. 

I had to listen to her rant about how she can’t find her school fleece and come quickly to the deduction that her sister must have worn it and that she must have lost it at school and that’s why E can’t find it.  It’s only after her father says he’s leaving with or without her and walks out the door that she finally goes outside.  I walk over to the coat rack and in two seconds I had found the jacket, under another jacket to be sure but there just the same.

When she’s like this, I can do no right and every resolve at being patient quickly dissolves under the constant barragement of temper from her. I am not the mom I want to be.  I want to scream, I want to run away.  I am so tired.  Instead, I cry after they are all out the door. 

Then I watched this video about a lovely girl named Rosie and I am reminded of all the special things that my E is.  That she is so much more than the temper and the impatience and the irritation.  I am especially reminded from this video that I need to hold onto all the wonderful things my daughter is and celebrate those things with her. I need to figure out what helps her to calm down and how to moderate my language so that she doesn’t feel like she’s been bossed to death or attacked.

Like I said, it’s really not about her.

It’s about me finding a way to parent this child without making things worse.  Finding a way to get a handle on her and how to navigate through these tricky morning situations.  Patience alone isn’t going to cut it but if the good Lord could send an extra measure my way, I would appreciate it.

Zeemaid

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