Attention seeking missile

I have no idea what I did when I was a four year old with a baby sister, looking all cute and sweet and delicious as she was, to get attention.  But I seriously hope I was not working the moves that Lily has going on.  While I stress on a regular basis because I was once a four year old with a cute and sweet and delicious baby sister, that both girls are wonderful and special and precious and valuable to me, Lily is determined to win my attention by any means necessary.  And today, that meant urinating on the floor in her room, through her underpants and then coming to tell me, "I have no undy-bundies because I peed in my room because I didn't remember where the bathroom was and I am...(wait for it)...really sorry."  Say what?  Excuse me?  You didn't remember where the bathroom was? 

I walked outside.  Of the house.  To regroup.  She was looking at me through her bedroom window crying for me to come inside and give her a hug.  I told her, with my lips snarled and my teeth clenched in a position only a mother with TMJ could assume, that I needed a minute to think because I was so angry I was purple.  This, of course, brought her to tears but seriously, am I not expected to be peeved out of my face?  I had just put Virginie down for a late nap.  Lily had spent a good time with two of her girlfriends swinging and running in the mud, and jumping on the beds in her room with muddy feet, and laughing and playing and swinging some more, only minutes earlier.  Had she taken some peyote and actually forgotten that her bathroom was right next to the room in which she had chosen a corner to pee?  Oh, wait, no.  She is four years old. 

This incident is just one in a series of late where Lily does something completely outlandish and ridiculous and then says she is really sorry and requires a hug for her transgression before I even get the chance to fully understand what has taken place.  Drawing on her sheets in gold marker.  Writing on the wall.  Leaving the refrigerator open.  Washing her body with a washcloth and then using that same cloth to wash the wall, the floor of the shower, or better the toilet.  Refusing to give toys, pacifiers, whatever to Virginie.  Telling on Virginie for doing A, B, C to her and then crying because I do not punish the little thing. 

I tell both girls, all the time, that I love them and that they do not have to show off for me.  That they can just be their curious little selves without having to impress me because I am already impressed.  I know it is difficult for Lily as Virginie right now still demands so much of my attention.  Virginie is still a baby.  Still needs diaper changes.  Still needs a cuddle or two to convince her of certain things.  But I offer Lily the same number of cuddles.  The same of everything.  I am aware of her struggles for independence, street cred, and the need for Mommy's love and affection.  I know that I am home alone so much that it does seem like she needs to compete for the only adult in the house, rarely do we have two parents and two children together at the same time.  When we do, they just jump through fire hoops to get Didier to notice them. 

I have a target on my back.  Lily the attention-seeking missile is headed straight for me and though she drives me completely insane at times and the urine on the floor sent me screaming into the jungle to cool my jets, I love her madly.  I guess I just need to find a way to guide, show her how I love her without all the craziness, all the show, all the bad-attention-is better than-no attention attention.  I feel her pain and I remember it well.  Maybe going through this, I can heal us both.


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

Battle of the Boobs

There is a war going on in our household and it is waged mostly at night on the battleground that used to be my gorgeous, perky breasts, but is now a flattened landscape with pulls, chews, and scratches.  Virginie, my wee little person, who can talk and asks to go potty (though is not fully trained, of course.  I know what that does to babies doing it too early, anal retention.  Her father trained before 2 years.  No more to say.), refuses to give up the boobs.  She is still nursing is what I am so crudely trying to say.  I swore to myself and anyone who would listen that she would be off by the time she was 12 months old, even earlier than I'd weaned her sister.  But Lily moved on on her own, fascinated by purees and those tiny Cheerios she could pinch between her little fingers.

There has been a battle of wills raging here and our horns are locked.  She is an Aries/Taurus and I am a Capricorn.  We go head to head on this nearly every night which has involved screams at top pitch, head shaking, shouting, pinching, biting, and finally everyone in tears.  I have moved her for the past three nights from her shared room with Lily, to the guestroom where she can shout it out loud until her little voice gives out and that is often two to three hours from when we began.  Her favorite time of night seems to be 2-2:30 am.  I hate it.  I am exhausted.  But I have hunkered down and will meet her there every night until she gives them up.

In my mind's eye is that scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's genius film, The Last Emperor, when a nearly pre-teen Puyi, the last emperor of China, son of Heaven, removes the blouse of his mother/wet nurse and begins to suckle.  I have terrifying visions of a yammering three year old Virginie talking about something to some other children, or worse yet, some adult, and then turning to me and saying,"I am ready for my boo boo's," our current term of endearment.  Like much else that goes on over here, I am doing this alone.  My sister reminds me that plenty of single mothers found a way to get their kids off the teet, so I should figure it out my damned self, thank you very much, hence the early morning showdowns between Virginie and me.

I am tempted to try the aloe on the nipples.  While it is non-toxic, I hear it just tastes awful to the babes and that Virginie will be so turned off by me that she will roll over, never to return to suckling again.  I hate to consider it, but I have been losing sleep, a whole lot of sleep, and I just don't think Virginie NEEDS it anymore.  I think she wants it and that it brings her some comfort, but it is no longer necessary.  She has a pacifier, her nose and ear and now toe paper.  What more can she do with my poor shrunken mammaries?

I know this is not over and it will not be until she is off and as happy about that as I will be, but I must see this through.  It does make me feel good that this little one has such incredible willpower, that she can handle her own and takes care of business, but I fear our not being on the same team.  She is really a force to be reckoned with and my soon-to-be 41 year old self is not sure she can handle these little skirmishes.  I intend to win this war, but Virginie is kicking my ass in the hand-to-hand street fight.  Stay tuned.

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

Monkey see, monkey poo

As we slowly tried to settle ourselves back into real life after Tomas, the toll of the moving about and the heat and the exhaustion and fatigue started to set in with everyone.  Talking to our family doctor, I heard stories of all kinds of sicknesses and under-the-weather feelings with people all over the island.  Lily and Virginie shared their pent up stress one morning on the way to school through crazily detoured Bridgetown by vomiting, one after the other all over their little bodies, clothes, and carseats.  After turning around to get them both back home and in bed or on the couch or jumping from one piece of furniture to the next, you know, to recuperate, neither one of them looked worse for the wear once we were actually home and they were naked.  (Naked being the state preferred by all household members, save me.)

I'd had a call from my landlady asking me to take some bleach from the laundry room so that she could clean the moss growing on the side of the house near the rain pipes and gutters, a task I'd insisted was so simple I could do it any time but still had not managed to do so.  No problem, I'd said, feeling instantly guilty that she was going to have to drive over to do what I'd promised to do, but hey, my kids were sick.  As Lily drove her tricycle and Virginie her big wheel around the patio, I made my move towards the laundry room which is on the outside of the main house but still in view.  The girls could see me clearly, but they insisted on tagging along.  As we made our way across the stone path, I looked up and saw a group of monkeys in the trees.  Only one adult in the pack and she was rather oblivious to the antics of her charges.  She was probably just too tired of shouting, "Sit down, Monkey!  Stop doing that, So-and-so!  Keep up, You-Know-Who!"

Now as has surely been previously noted, I am no real fan of the monkeys.  I do not want to see them harmed or injured, but I would just as soon have them on someone else's property.  The young ones are always excited by Lily and Virginie and today was no different.  They got to hopping and dancing for the girls' entertainment and the girls gave it up so easily, squealing and laughing and shouting in return.  So this made me nervous.  I had to walk under the tree they were hanging in to get to laundry room and I was holding Virginie, but Lily was walking alone.  The monks were moving in closer and closer and I just wanted to get the bleach.  At the entrance to the laundry room is an outdoor shower with an attached hose.  Against my better judgment, I reached for the hose, in my mind's eye envisioning myself spraying the monkeys and their fanning out to parts dry and safe.  Well, they did run away for a minute and then immediately returned.  From the sounds of things, I dared not look up after spraying them just in case they decided to jump on me they would not get to scratch my face and make me drop Virginie.  (I do have quite a number of escape scenarios for all kinds of potential events here, most involving monkeys, lizards, or toads.)  I heard what sounded like rocks or stone being pelted to the ground, so I told Lily to run and we hightailed it back to the house.

During our regrouping session where we all discussed what went right and what went wrong, well, really just I discussed these things out loud and the girls looked at me like I was insane, I said, I never should have sprayed them.  They thought they were under attack and retaliated.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tail against one of the windows and saw that the mother had come to take a peek at us.  The girls were now beside themselves.  When Mommy Monkey left the side patio to walk to the girls window and jump up, I thought the two would swoon.  Both girls laughed and tapped on the window which excited the next generation.  One came over and made faces with the girls which caused Virginie to tire of the game and cry.  Both parties seemed to get bored looking at each other, so the monkeys walked on to parts unknown, and Lily and Virginie went to the couch to watch Discovery Kids.

Finding myself now able to go to the laundry room to get the bleach without being encumbered by a 22 pound candypie, I walked out, broom handle in hand.  And then I saw it.  The monkeys had not been throwing rocks at us.  That thud I'd heard was the sound of poo hitting the paddling pool below the Aki tree, favorite haunt of the devil monkeys.  Poo.  These people were trying to poo on us after the water attack.  Left on my own, surely I wasn't going to ask the girls to help me clean it, I was forced to don some plastic gloves, take my hose, and clean that shit off the pool before my children saw, touched, smelled, or face painted with it.  Recuperating.  Slowly.

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