Oh, Lorelei

Lorelei in her happy place: shirtless, sippy of milk, chocolate smeared all over her face.

 
Lorelei Belle Hofmann. She brings me infinite joy, makes me laugh, melts my heart with her hugs and kisses and snuggles.

She has also been driving me bananas.

Oh, the terrible twos have hit the Hofmann household. Hard. Lorelei is willful, easily enraged, not easily mollified, and seemingly tireless.

To boot, it seems that I, Mommy, have a natural gift for eliciting her most undesirable behavior. In the past couple of months, the child has driven me to tears. The constant crying, tantrums, "NO! NO! NO!" have led to Mommy bawling in the living room (after the toddler has gone to bed), asking Chris, "What am I doing wrong?!"

At Lorelei's 2-year check-up, I sought advice from the pediatrician who, lucky for me, is highly interested in toddler behavior. I described my trials and tribulations, even admitting that when I travel for work, Lorelei behaves angelically for Daddy.

Dr. H smirked. "Yeah. Really, I would've been surprised if you weren't the one she reacts so strongly to." Well, great.

A contributing problem is that Lorelei wants Mommy. If Daddy takes her upstairs, she screams for Mommy. This leads to the very tempting option of Chris dumping her (yes, I use that term--that's how it feels at the time) on me. "She wants you," I'm told. The thing is, she still cries and screams. She's just not necessarily screaming "MOMMY!" any more. 

Dr. H recommended some "positive parenting" techniques that have helped a little. (Actually, I've used them on Charlotte too, and they've made a bigger difference with her than Lorelei.) I thought I was doing things right by consistently having Lorelei live in time-out, but apparently I wasn't supporting the good behaviors enough. Okay, good plan. I could do that, I thought. And it HAS helped.

I have not been a perfect mum. I have lost my patience repeatedly, which usually leads to commentary from the fathering half of our parental unit as he annoyingly points out that I'm "snapping" at the child.

Once said child is (usually) out of earshot, this leads to a heated exchange in which I point out that perhaps I too could keep my cool if I had the option of dodging evening or morning routines, bath times, and other highly charged situations. Although I am right (I am an Opp--I am always right), this is usually not the best thing to say to diffuse frustration.

To his credit, after a Come To Jesus conversation in which I informed Chris that I had entered into the heartbreaking territory of not even wanting to be around my youngest child a lot of the time, I think he finally understood that having a screaming cling-on was not the funnest thing ever. With our new schedule and routine, I am solely responsible for the entire morning routine. He has since worked to ensure that lunches are packed up and ready to grab on the way out in the morning, and he has increasingly taken over wrestling a bellowing Lorelei into her jammies at night (I have to wrestle her in the mornings--I'm more than happy to skip the evening wrestling match). Charlotte and I have worked out a system in which our morning wars have been 90% eliminated (perhaps I'll blog about it later), so I'm thrilled about that. (She too was a big problem in the mornings there for awhile--the queen of dilly-dallying and "I don't want to wear that!")

So, the weekend came. On Friday night, we did pizza (picnic-style on the floor) and a movie (Pocahontas), both of which Lorelei loved. And it made me happy. On Saturday, I took the girls to gymnastics, which actually went very well. Lorelei is in a parent-and-me type of class, and after a couple months of going, she has determined that it's FUN and has a ball, fully participating and grinning like bonkers after every new accomplishment. This weekly hour of somersaults and climbing remind me what a spunky, ballsy, hilarious girl she is. I treasure it, because as soon as we leave, all hell typically breaks loose during the drive home, because I didn't bring The Little Mermaid soundtrack.

Lorelei did particularly well at gymnastics and only cried for a short time during the car ride home. Progress, right? I then spent the afternoon with Charlotte (and learned that Lorelei had been a perfect angel on her trip to Whole Foods with Daddy--figured). I did puzzles with her and Charlotte on the floor until bedtime, which she loved doing. She was just happy as can be, even though she occasionally got frustrated when a piece wasn't fitting correctly or whatever. (Quick tangent: This is why I LOVE puzzles for kiddos--the trial and error, and necessity of sticking to it and continuing to try in order to to get the gratification of the final picture, the spatial and analytical skills it fosters. Puzzles are awesome.)

Then Sunday came. I was scheduled for nursery duty at the church. Since typically only my kids show up and Charlotte is old enough to handle grown-up church, Chris agreed to hover around the nursery in case other kids came (they didn't) and then took Charlotte to church. I stayed home with Lorelei.

I vowed this would be a fantastic morning with my littlest girl. I stayed in my PJs until noon. We had nowhere to be, and we were just going to have fun. Lorelei and I did a dance party, read about a thousand books, did several puzzles, played forever in the playroom together, did a bit of laundry, and so on. My Lorelei was a delight. So stinking funny and loving and spirited. She happily ate lunch and then went down for her nap without a fight. After, she played gleefully with her sister and later went on an adventure (walk) with Daddy and Charlotte while Mommy got some work done at home.

As I put her to bed, I found myself lingering with her, singing silly songs, tickling, and snuggling. I didn't want to leave her, and I was overjoyed that I had gotten a full weekend of a happy Lorelei. Oh, sure, she had her moments--tantrums and one visit to time-out. I mean, she's freaking two. But even Chris commented that she was "back" to our normal Lorelei, the jolly, wry, goofball we know her to really be.

As I closed her door, I heard her say, "I wuv you, Mommy." Oh, my heart! My sweet, sweet Lorelei!