But I want to keep this up, and to catch you up a bit.
Z is charming, funny, smart, sweet, and stubborn as a mule. She can also be a little dramatic and emotional. For example, one day this week, she burst into tears because I didn't feed her oatmeal. The next day, she burst into tears because I did. It's not a constant sob-fest around here, though. Those episodes are rare.
I don't know if I even wrote about it at the time, but when Z was around 2, I started worrying/wondering whether she had some sensory issues. She fit the profile -- hyper-kinetic, unwilling to wear certain kinds of clothing, kicks the blankets off -- but we just worked around it, and it sort of slipped from my mind. Recently, we've been dealing with a lot of touching issues. Not inappropriate stuff; she just wants to hug everyone, put her arms around them, sit so close to others that they're touching... And some of the kids in pre-school are fine with that, but I think some find it off-putting. So there have been some talks in the pre-school class about personal space (and there've been a lot of talks at home about personal space). It's kind of funny -- I think personal space is a perfectly normal thing to talk to a kid about, but if we're out in public and she needs a reminder, I'll say "personal space, Zade!" and some adult nearby is almost sure to laugh. I don't get it.
Anyway, recently at school, one of the teachers was talking about how if you turn around with your arms out, that's your bubble, and lots of people don't want you to be in their bubble. Apparently Zadie announced, "I want EVERYONE to pop MY bubble!" And that's just about the truth -- she really does.
Then I was at ballet, and she was in there hugging children while they were trying to dance, and I gave the old hand-to-the-forehead gesture out there in the hall, and one of the other moms sympathized. But then what was interesting was that she told me her older son had been the same way -- always had to cuddle, sit right on you, hug people, sleep with them, and he seemed really unaware of his and others' personal space. She was telling me that sometimes she wrapped him like a burrito in a blanket and told him he was a caterpillar and had to wiggle out. She also pulled gently on his fingers and toes and his joints to give him a sense of his body and where it ended. It sounds so weird, but that burrito thing is actually exactly like a technique I read about for kids with sensory issues. It made me wonder if the finger-pulling thing was potentially related.
I tried it that night as we snuggled before bed. I was only on the second finger when she sighed and announced dreamily, "That feels GOOD." None of that is particularly conclusive about anything, but it does make me think that she does have some mild sensory issues, and they just changed the way they presented themselves. And that's okay. We'll work around that.
Another thing we're working around is the sleep issue. We had a nice long stretch of Z sleeping in her own bed. Then about two weeks ago, she was sick. We had established that she could sleep in our bed only one night a week, Thursdays, unless she was sick. Well, when she was sick, she slept in there every night, and now we can't get her out again. Honestly, I'm not trying too hard. Yes, it's disruptive and uncomfortable, but if she needs it for a while, she needs it. Plus, letting her crawl in and crash out does allow me to fall back asleep a lot faster than arguing with her about staying in her bed, waiting for her to fall asleep and then picking her up and carrying her back, or laying in her tiny bed until she falls asleep and then sneaking out.
Plus, as a parent, I'm trying to not be so problem-solution oriented. (I think some of you at this point might note that I'm a Capricorn.) I have a tendency to be like, "Here is an issue! Let me brainstorm. Aha! Here is the plan in roman numeral outline form." And I'm learning, however slowly, that raising kids isn't really like that. A lot of raising kids seems to be waiting stuff out. And there are phases and backslides and progress and ups and downs, and it's all okay.
One thing that's been slow and long-term but also is showing signs of working is the family meeting. I read about it in the book Positive Discipline, and the author suggested that if a kid is old enough to sit in circle time at pre-school, they're old enough for meetings.
We sing a little song, open our hands like a book and announce "family meeting is now open." We give each other "compliments and appreciations," then read last week's minutes. Then we all bring our agenda items to the table and talk about them. Then we close the meeting.
The first couple times, Z was really restless and disengaged. But over the course of several meetings, she has gotten into it, rarely gets up from the couch, and she likes to do the opening and closing gestures. Her original agenda item was "bouncing." But last meeting she announced that she was going to try not to run away from us anymore.
Running away had been an agenda item from the week before, and as far as I can tell, it worked. We didn't have any running issues that week. When we started the meetings, they were a lot like that. "Thanksgiving is coming up, so my agenda item is that I'd like us all to use our best table manners." They were sort of behavior-directed, and sometimes I think we came off a little heavy-handed. But as of this week's meeting, we had a lot of positive things to say, and one of my agenda items was that I hoped we could all be a team during the next few stressful days. For example, if Mommy got a little high-pitched with the "Come on! Let's go! We're supposed to be there at 7! Where are your shoes?" stuff, that hopefully Daddy and Zadie could remind me to chill out.
One interesting development lately has been that she's making a lot more sense all the time. When kids are very small, there seems to be little separation between reality and fantasy, and sometimes whole conversations are abstract, stream-of-consciousness fantasy things. And you get used to it. You start absently saying "Dog on the moon? Sure. Oh, the princess had a fire extinguisher. Yes..." And suddenly Zadie is very rooted in practicality and seriousness. I mean, she still pretends, but she knows she's pretending, and she hardly ever gets pretend and reality mixed up. But to be honest, I haven't completely caught up with her yet.
Here's an example. We are driving in the car down a major street near our house. She's talking about China. What it's like there, what the weather is, what they eat, how someday she will go there. Then suddenly she says, "That's where Hudson lives." I answer, somewhat absently, "Oh no, honey, Hudson lives here in Sacramento." "No," she insists. "I was pointing at Hudson's house!" And sure enough, we had just passed it. She didn't think Hudson lived in China -- she was changing the damn subject. And I hadn't kept up with her because I still expected her to think her classmates might be secretly commuting from overseas.
We do have a lot of fun around here. We read books, dance, watch the Muppets (Zadie always wants to watch ones with a female guest star, so it's been all Sandy Duncan and Candice Bergen around here), bake, do craft projects, watch music videos... She plays Barbies with her dad, and yesterday they spent nearly all day riding her bike down the street. As I knew because I got this:
