Obsessions

Rachel's bus comes about 7:05 in the morning, so we're usually in a hurry. I only get her up 20-30 minutes before she needs to leave because I want her to get as much sleep as possible. The easiest answer would be to put her to bed earlier, but that doesn't work because she doesn't go to sleep if I do. She gets up and plays, or lays there in her bed and talks to herself, which is honestly really cute, but not very restful. The biggest problem that I have with her in the morning is that when she's tired, her obsessive compulsive nature kicks in overtime. This morning when she got out of bed she wouldn't go in to the restroom until she had carefully laid her bunny, monkey, and dog that she sleeps with on her pillow. In a line. And it had to be straight. I kept telling her it didn't matter because I was just going to move them to make her bed, but she "couldn't" let it go.

She has gotten a lot better at dressing herself again. I can lay out her clothes and she will usually get them all on in the right order relatively quickly. At night I can even just ask her to go get ready for bed and she will go use the restroom, find her pajamas under her pillow and put them on. She even puts her dirty clothes and shoes where they are supposed to go, and hasn't even had too much trouble if her pajama top was wrong side out. She was able to fix it and put it on by herself. I am thrilled and happy for her. It certainly makes my job easier, but even more important, it gives her a sense of accomplishment and independence that I know she enjoys. So this morning she was getting dressed, but it was taking forever. I finally went in and watched her and realized she was doing the "pull up, adjust, pull up again, readjust, pull up again, adjust once more" thing with her underwear, pants, socks, pretty much every item of clothing. I finally sat with her while she dressed and finally got her fed, her hair combed, teeth brushed, etc., just as the bus pulled up. I was trying to grab her coat and backpack to put on her, and I realized she had disappeared. I found her in her room, trying to hang a balloon on a knob on her dresser. She brought a helium balloon home a week or more ago, and so we looped it on the knob so it wouldn't fly up to the ceiling where she couldn't reach it. It's been laying on her bedroom floor for awhile now, and I was trying to decide when I could get rid of it without making her sad. This morning she was determined to hang it on the knob so it would float again. How do you explain to someone who can't really understand, why a balloon won't float anymore and that their bus is here and they have to leave right now, when she's obviously having an obsessive compulsive kind of a morning and "needs" to have the balloon put away to feel comfortable? I finally got her coat and backpack on her and got her out the door. She wasn't complaining on the way out, so hopefully she mentally moved on and can have a happy day. It's so tempting to keep her home when she's not super happy. I don't know if I'm trying to protect her or the people with whom she will interact, but I feel the need to be the one responsible for her if her world isn't in order. I've had to let go of that a lot because she needs to get out and be with other people. It's not healthy for her to be home with me all day, and I love that her horizons are broadening, so I give her a hug and a kiss and send her out the door and hope for the best. For everyone. She waved goodbye, so I'm hopeful.

Connections

This morning while getting dressed Rachel said "My shirt is jello!" She was quite excited about it, but quickly moved on to something else, and I was left to try and figure out what she meant on my own. While things she says seem completely random, usually there is an explanation. If I can get her to keep talking about it long enough I can usually figure it out. For instance, the other day she said "my pants are frosting!" Obviously, her blue jeans are not made of frosting, but as she continued talking, I picked up on words like "Cookie Monster," "blue," and "cake," and I realized that she was referring to the fact that her jeans were blue, just like the Cookie Monster cake we had seen, and it made perfect sense. We don't eat jello that often, but usually when we do it's red, and since her shirt was red this morning, that was probably the connection. I can't be sure, however, because her thought processes aren't always that direct and easy to follow.

Her insults tend to be calling someone something that they aren't, for example, calling her brothers girls, or calling me a grandma. She loves her grandmas, and usually girls rule in her world, but she understands enough to know that she is mislabeling us, and since that is usually not a good thing, it's a way for her to express her displeasure. When she is unhappy about herself, she calls herself a boy. I am truly grateful that she has found a way to express her feelings. She may not be able to pinpoint exactly how she is feeling, but she is able to at least let us know when she is having a hard time. When she went through a phase of being totally uncommunicative/passive it nearly drove me crazy because I would try everything I could think of to make her happy, knowing full well that I could be having just the opposite effect on her, and I had no way of knowing.

She frequently assigns colors and animals or characters to people. The other day she was a blue princess and her brother was a green frog. I don't have any idea how she decides these things, but very seldom does she assign the same color or character to two people at the same time. If she's annoyed with someone they get the animals and colors she doesn't like as much. Since her favorite colors and characters change a lot, it's not always easy to tell if what she says is positive or negative, though. Frogs used to be yucky, but she really likes The Princess and the Frog now, so sometimes they're good.

On a completely different note, she was talking about her birthday (something she does almost constantly) and has made a fairly consistent request. She wants a new boyfriend. Typical twenty year old girl? She also has a guest list for her party. It includes Frodo, Anakin, and Data. I didn't realize how truly nerdy (or is it geeky?) our house is. Those guys are her favorite heroes. I think it's interesting that she chose Anakin over, say, Han Solo (my choice), but I think she is referring to the little boy Anakin. He really appeals to her. I'm not sure why Data is her favorite of the Star Trek actors, but I agree he's fun to watch. Growing up with all brothers has definitely influenced her. She can talk about Star Wars fairly readily, but doesn't even know who Mr. Darcy is (how completely sad is that?).

I am sincerely grateful that she is talking. Sometimes the constant stream of words coming out of her mouth make it difficult to concentrate on something I am trying to do, but it sure beats silence. Hands down.

life is good

 Fortunately, life has been great around here lately. Rachel has been talking and eating (her pants are even fitting again) and messing up her room. Unfortunately, I haven't bothered to write about it. Apparently when things are going well I just enjoy them, and when things aren't going so well I write about them. I am trying to change that and document the good times as well as the difficult ones.

A few days ago Rachel, her dad, and I had to go run some errands. She was in a good mood and enjoyed looking at things at the store and commenting (loudly) on a lot of them. One of the things she does frequently is comment about people. "Look, there's a boy. He's a cute boy." Sometimes she talks about clothes and colors, and sometimes she'll say things like "He date me" or "He marry me." That gets some looks occasionally. One thing she does often that is either super embarrassing or super funny (I choose to see it as funny, since I can't seem to get her to stop) is commenting on specific clothing items. She frequently says (again, loudly) "Look at that boy. He's wearing pants!" as if that is such a novel idea she's never even seen it before. I instinctively want to explain to everyone in the vicinity that yes, we do indeed wear clothes at our house, not just occasionally or frequently, but all the time! However, I think that would just make things worse, so I just smile and agree with her and move on. She makes me laugh.

Throughout this trip her dad had been teasing her and tickling her a bit. When we got home I was helping her take off her coat and hang it up and she leaned close to me and said with a very teenage-girl-conspiritorial-look "Mom, Dad's being weird." She had the cutest smile and was so happy, it just melted my heart. She is such a daddy's girl. Always has been. I love it when she is in a good mood and interacts with him.

When I get her up in the mornings I usually get comments from her lately. Mostly things like "it's not my turn" or "it's not my job" or "I can't do it" or "I'm not ready." The other day she didn't say anything until she got to the door of the bedroom. She then turned around and with a very serious expression said "We don't say 'pee.' It's (dis)gusting." Then she turned and walked out of the room. I wish so much I had been able to record that. It was the funniest thing she's done in a long time. Having been raised by a mother who had a dislike of anything crude, I very seldom use words like that (can't always say the same thing about my boys, but even they monitor their language fairly carefully since their mother also has a dislike of crude words), but I don't think I've ever had a conversation about it with Rachel. It must have come up at school, but it was just so random to hear first thing in the morning. I love having this awesome little girl in my life!