Friday, January 7, 2011

Looking Up

Well, things are looking up in my world again, now. Lin and I had another argument on Wednesday over practicing her flute (she was goofing around instead of actually practicing, then got mad at ME for getting frustrated by the goofing around... Grrrrr).

So... I wallowed in self-pity for a good long time. I ate ice cream for lunch. I put off doing household chores and caught up on a couple TV shows (I only get to watch what I want to watch on TV about once a month, maybe less).

And then I came back to my senses. For one thing, Lin is a teenager, and she's going to be a little stinker sometimes no matter how she came to be my daughter. That's the role of a hormonal teenage daughter. And I just have to learn not to take it so personally. And for another thing, she has only been playing this role of "daughter" for six months. I think I got too comfortable with how well everything has been going, especially over Christmas. It's easy to forget that she still has a long way to go in her transition to having a family. It's my job to teach her what "Mom" is, not get frustrated when she doesn't understand.

I also started re-reading an adoption book, The Connected Child (by Purvis, Cross and Sunshine). This is the best book I've read for adoption issues, and it calmed me down immediately. I began picturing myself as the kind of mother I'd like to be -- calm, soft-spoken, loving. I don't need to be the "fun" parent. I'd like to be the quiet parent. The one person you know who gives the greatest hug you've ever had. That's who I want to be for my daughters.

So with that in mind, I came home from work. Normally I pick Lin up from school and then go get Ruby from day care, but yesterday Dave picked up the girls because I had a meeting in the afternoon. So when I got home everyone was outside playing in the snow. It was the first time I'd seen Lin since our rough night on Wednesday. She came around to my car-door and as I got out, she held out her arms for a hug.

And we hugged each other for a long time.

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad to hear things are going better. The Connected Child is my favorite adoption book.

    We are having some of the same issues with our new-ish teen. She has recently started getting mad at me and giving me mean looks and stomping away when I correct her. She didn't do this for the longest time (here almost two years). I've had to remind myself that she is actually acting normal! I can remember doing the same things as a teen. The hard part for me is since she is my first teen, I am a little clueless as to how to parent her when she acts like one! :-)

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