Eye Don't Even Know

As I mentioned in a previous post, Sadie has become particularly pissy with me recently. That's a daily headache, since it means I can either cater to her every whim (and believe me, she has a LOT of whims), or steel myself for enraged, tearful screaming every time I have to deny her something she wants.

Like to continue to play with plastic bowls when dinner has been cooling on the counter for 20 minutes. Or to use me as a stepping stool so she can climb onto her bed, just so she can slide back off and then demand to climb back on again. Or to NOT get into her carseat. Or her stroller. Or her highchair. Or onto her changing table. Or out of the bathtub.

Sigh.

Last night Scott told me, "I'm sorry she's so rough on you," and I told him it was okay, and a second later I realized something: I'm a Martyr Mom now.

"It's okay that she punches and hits me when she's frustrated. I ONLY CARRIED HER IN MY BODY FOR NINE MONTHS."

"It's okay that she screams at me when I try to stroke her hair and shoves me hand away. I ONLY ABANDONED MY OWN SAFETY, VANITY AND SANITY THERE ON THAT DELIVERY ROOM TABLE."

I guess I really do understand that this is a part of it -- that this, like everything else, is a passing phase. I'm reading a really good book that a friend of mine loaned me, T. Berry Brazelton's "Touchpoints." It covers the emotional phases of kids from infancy to the age of 3, and it's allowed me to see that what Sadie's going through now is common to most kids of her age. She's beginning to understand that she's a separate entity from her parents. She has her own wants and desires, and she wants to enforce that independence -- even though she's still heavily dependent on us.

Knowing this makes it a lot less confusing when she's bestowing kisses on our noses one minute and shoving us away the next.

(No less aggravating, but less confusing, at least.)

So anyway, yesterday morning the tantrums were worse than usual. She woke up in a foul mood and stayed that way. I canceled the play date she had scheduled with Sam and waited out the worst of the storms, and when she finally seemed to have calmed down some around 10am, I took her to the library for story time, which she always loves. Miss Barbara, the children's librarian, alternates reading aloud with singing songs.

Usually Sadie gets really active during story time, standing up with the other kids do and crawling back and forth to flirt with various people. But this time she mostly wanted to stay in my arms. She took a long nap when we got back, and I finally had to wake her up in time for toddler group, and let me tell you, she was NOT happy about getting out of bed. That should have been my first sign, but I got her dressed anyway and drove to school.

When we got there, she was rubbing one eye, which looked red. I wondered if she'd gotten something in it, and then I wondered if she might be having some kind of allergic reaction to the peanut butter in the sandwich I'd given her for lunch. Whatever the reason, it seemed to be itching her but not otherwise bothering her.

We went inside and she began playing on the floor with the other kids...and a minute later, one of the moms said loudly to me, "What's wrong with her eye?"

(As an aside: what kind of person expresses concern about a child's health by yelling "What's wrong with her eye?" I kind of hate these moms.)

When I looked at her, I noticed that the redness had grown worse. She looked like me after I've pet a cat, all puffy and watery and pink. I took her into the bathroom to wash her hands, in case there was some sort of irritant on them, and by the time we came back in, her other eye had grown as red as the first. At this point, if it had been socially acceptable for the other moms to make the sign of the cross and hurl holy water on us, that's what they would have done. Instead, they all studiously avoided eye contact while the school director gently suggested that I take Sadie to the doctor or anywhere else far, far away from the other kids.

So damn it, I took her to the doctor. And guess what? She has pink eye. Guess what you do for pink eye? You put antibiotic drops in the eyes. Three times a day.

Guess how that went over with my already cranky child? If you guessed "Not well," you're close.*

*I thought about ending this entry here, but I wanted to end it on an upbeat note. After literally having to wrestle Sadie to the ground to put the drops in her eyes last night, today we tried a different route: explaining it to her. I showed her the drops, telling her that it was "medicine for her eyes" and that it was going to make her all better. She seemed to get it, and when I put the drops in just now after lunch, she squinted and whined a bit but seemed otherwise resigned to it, and afterwards she earnestly explained to me, in Baby Babble, that she had allowed me to put the drops in her eyes only because she understood there was no other choice. Progress!