aiyana

we've been having a hard time with aiyana lately. actually, she's been having a hard time in general. she seems to be very moody these days, easily frustrated when things don't go the way she expects them to. she's a very intense person, and her intensity comes out in all kinds of ways. she can be so happy and bouncy and buoyant; she can be such a joy to be with and watch; and she can also be very demanding, relentless, exhausting.

one major source of frustration for her at the moment is not being able to express herself as much as she wants to, and not being understood. her language is progressing really well, she's learning so many new words all the time, putting together sentences and all of that; but i don't think it's fast enough for her, because i feel that she just can't express everything she wants to through language, and so she has to resort to whining and crying. she gets very frustrated when she says a word and we don't understand it. she'll repeat it for us patiently 5 to 10 times, but after that, if we still don't get it, she starts to cry and shout the word at us. she doesn't let go, and she can be upset about it for a while, even thuogh we try to distract her, etc.
sena's actually been really helpful in this respect, because she understands aiyana's words the best, and so many times when ed and i are having trouble, sena will spare us all a blowout by translating what aiayana's saying.

unfortunately, sometimes what makes the situation more difficult is the fact that ed and i don't agree on how to handle it. especially in the heat of the moment, when things are falling apart, and aiayana's screaming, if ed and i disagree on how to handle it, things feel SO much harder. this happened this morning, for instance.

aiayana and i slept quite poorly last night, so we were both tired waking up. sena and ed were already in the kitchen. aiayana got out of bed and went into the kitchen to be w them, and right away started being very demending with sena. she insisted on having the exact toy that sena was playing with at the moment. sena gave it to her, but when she picked something else to play with, aiayana again started whining and demanding it. she whined for a while, then ed offered ayiana some other toys but she wanted nothing to do with anything except what sena had. by this time she was crying and screaming, and all of us were standing in the kitchen.

ed's preffered approach in this situation is to let her have her fit, and ignore her until she comes down. my approach, drastically different, is to try and offer her a bunch of things to make her happy, and simply to just try all kinds of things in an attemp to find whatever works. this morning, ed didn't believe that we should take sena's toy away and give it to aiyana, and we agreed on this, but only this.

ed thinks that by catering to aiyana and trying to do whatever it takes to soothe her, i reinforce her behavior. he thinks that i should be more firm with her, and let her know that this is not an acceptable way of getting what she wants. he is probably right to some extent, but, i have a few issues with this.

one, it is simply impossible for me to ignore her and go about my business unaffected. maybe it's a mother thing. all i know is that when she's upset and crying, something inside me, which is more than my mind or reason, something very primal and instinctual urges me to help her. this urge is very strong and overrides every other thought, so i have to follow it. if i don't, i experience tremendous anxiety.

another reason for my disagreement w ed is that i really don't believe that ayiana is trying to manipulate us. i just think that she's an intense kid, and she needs help dealing with her strong emotions, especially when they come out as frustration. i think that it is our responsibility as parents to help guide her thuogh theese difficult times with compassion, as much as possible, and not just shut her out, or try to make her behave like "a good kid", whatever that is. i can really see that the same intensity that makes her be so funny and adorable, is what drives her to be so demanding at times like this morning.

fortunately, and i mean really fortunately, ed and i can and do talk about these things when things get calm again. so even though in the middle of a flareup we may disagree on how to handle it (and this can be so difficult), eventually, when things come down, we will sit down and have a thoughtful conversation about what happened, and what we can do to better work with the situation. we are both open to finding a solution that work for everyone, even though it may not be our solution. so we read books, talk to people when appropriate, and simply search our souls for the answers.

i do think a lot about how i am with aiyana, whether i should be firmer with her; whether i am not in fact doing our whole family a huge disfavor by being too indulgent? i don't know.
i do know that it's very important for me to be compassionate twds her. so it's a fine line to walk between showing compassion and being firm in a loving, supportive way. at the moment, i am stumbling.

ed, on the other hand, i think is starting to figure out that there are no set answers. that you can't just make up the rules and stick to them no matter what. that we're dealing with a child here, and that we don't want to suppress her personality or make her shut down. i think he's realizing that each child is unique and what works for one will not for another, so the rules do have to change, and adapt to personality, temperament, context, and whatever else is going on. it takes a lot of sensitivity to be this way, and i am glad that i'm with ed on this one, because if anything, he is a sensitive person.

when i left the house this morning, to go on my time off, i was crying. i could hear aiayana also criyng in the house. the air was cold outside, and it felt nice to come out into it, but i could not stop my tears. i felt sad for aiyana, frustrated for not knowing what to do, and mad at ed for not supporting me during the whole incident. i fumbled with the car seats for a while, as i did not want to go to the cafe in tears at 8 o'clock in the morning.

then ed came out of the house, and i knew that he wanted to comfort me. aiyana had temporarily stopped crying. ed and i talked for 5 minutes, and i got to tell him a little about how i felt. he did too, and it was still intense btw us, but it felt like we were making progress. he had to go back in the house soon enough, but by that time, i was feeling a lot better for having talked to him. there's a lot more to talk about still, but i can tell that we're both open to listening to each other and finding ways to work with this.

at the cafe, i read a book that my sister gave me yesterday: raising your spirited child (what a coincidence! or maybe not, maybe she noticed that i could use it...the term "spirited" certainly suits aiyana. and me, for that matter).

so after some reading, and some interesting ideas i took out of the book, i feel refreshed and enthusiastic about working with this situation. my thought is that i don't want to give up on aiyana, in the sense that i don't want to force her to fit into some mold of somebody she's not. i want to honor her personality, in all its intensity, and at the same time, i want to find ways to work with her and redirect her energy into expressions that will fit harmoniously (at least most of the time) into all of our lives.

phew, i feel better for spewing out all that.....