Just reward

Tonight I gave Lily a pink bracelet with little silver studs entwined as a reward for not throwing up in the car for five days in a row.  We have also done stickers and made a rewards chart that is posted on her wall because I want to honor her process in every way that I can.  For nearly two weeks, Lily would vomit in the car somewhere en route from our house to her primary school in St.Michael, a thirty minute drive on good days, an eternity on the bad ones.  And there had been plenty of bad ones due to a traffic detour set up on the bumpy, semi-paved roads of Bridgetown for the past few weeks. 

I did consider car sickness and searched the house frantically for the motion sickness bracelets I wore while pregnant with Virginie who had me spinning like I was on a dingy in the middle of the ocean in a hurricane, but to no avail.  I gave her Gravol, a motion-sickness medication before we left for school, but got concerned that she would have to take it indefinitely.  Finally, we went to the doctor to have her ears checked because I was sure that either her equilibrium was off, that her not eating enough, or eating too much, or drinking too much citrus on an empty stomach (a glass of OJ), or inner ear damage, was the culprit.  But as I kept talking to the doctor I realized that the vomiting episodes happened only in the morning, never in the afternoon.  That we never had the problem on weekends or if someone else besides her loving parents was taking her to school.  I had thought perhaps I should not go on the school run, as maybe I was the catalyst for the show, Mommy always being the best audience for illness or freak out or loud singing, burping, farting.  But she'd begged me to come with her every morning and I liked the idea of the family going together in support of Lily, however she needed it.

Lily was in completely good physical health, but emotionally, mentally, she was feeling down.  It seems that, though she loves school, she thought that when she was dropped off, Virginie and I were at home sealing the deal on being best friends in the world and that she, Lily, was being left out completely.  When the attention was sent back in her direction, via the no throw up countdown, with the potential for prizes and gifts if all was well played, she stopped.  For the last five morning school runs there has been no vomit.  No Mommy jumping over her seat to grab the hurl sack and pin it under her neck.  No more rides in ratty t-shirts to prevent her uniform from getting stained.

When I gave her the bracelet tonight, wrapped in pink tissue paper and sealed with a sticker, her eyes lit up.  She was so excited that I had remembered and honored my promise.  As her little fingers peeled back the paper and she saw the bracelet, she smiled so wide and deliciously.  A little something special.  Just for her.  Opened in front of Virginie who exclaimed, "Oh Mimi (the name she calls Lily)!"  She wore it to bed and curled her arms around it so as not to lose it and for a brief moment, maybe just even for tonight, Lily felt good and secure.  I will keep trying.

(c)  Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.