your daughter, who is so mature in some ways, flat out refuses to take medicine that is necessary to stop that cough, that at one time in 2006, turned into mild pnuemonia?
This would have to have been one of my worst parenting moments. Here we were, 9.30 at night, standing in the kitchen. Me, medicine in hand, willing her, asking her, pleading with her to take the medicine that the doctor had given her to stop her cough - and she WOULD NOT DO IT! I did everything I could possibly think of. I was beside myself. I spoke softly, raised my voice, pleaded, felt guilty, raised my voice even more and ended up shouting at her. And of course, after that, I felt so guilty, I had to go have some time to myself to convince myself that even though I make mistakes, my kids are still better off with me here.
I just didn't know what to do - how could I not know what to do? In the end, she took it. I was telling her to think of happy places that made her feel calm, the park or the swimming pool and she answered me back with "All I can think about is a pool full of medicine" - and I cracked up! I laughed because I didn't want to cry. I was at the very end of my resources and just didn't have anything left - so I laughed. She laughed too, she eventually calmed down and took the medicine after I bribed her with a spoonful of sugar to help it go down - really, just like the movie. Incidentally, the movie (Mary Poppins) was on tv the next day, so we enjoyed that together.
She's so sensitive and yet at times, she can be strong and mature. Sometimes I think I forget that she has the right to react like the age she is - a little girl. I'm sure it's as confusing for her as it is for me.
Today, we went shopping in Malacca - just me and the kids and their older cousin. It was a good day. I got to buy my cleanly packed, fresh meat, some new t-shirts and some clothes for the kids. The kids got to buy a toy each with their "hong bau" - red packet money from chinese new year. She bought some Barbie clothes, her brother bought another engine for his Thomas Tank set. They had fun. There was no stress and I loved the independence of it all. Ex is away for the weekend, but he always leaves me the car now so I'm able to take the kids out and busy myself with making some nice memories for us.
I had told ex that if I was going to stay here, I'd need my own car. That's not going to happen because he just can't afford it. I do, however, have free use of the car to go to work and do the things I need to do outside of the house. Ex is always surprised by how often I go out, but I've got things to do and sometimes, I just want to go out. It doesn't make any difference to me whether I've been out to drop the kids off at school - to me that's not going out. To him, it is. He could never understand my need to go out and see people, be with friends etc.
You might get the impression that I have a lot of friends who I meet up with, but I don't. Just a very few and it's always been that way. Being rather shy and quiet, I tend not to make a lot of friends anyway, so I really appreciate the ones I've got. Anyway, that's not the point really. What I'm happy about is that now we're separated, he doesn't get to comment, criticise or otherwise talk about that part of my life to me any more. It's my life and I will live it the way that suits me. My choice - not make-a-choice-then- change-my-mind-when-he-criticises-me type of thing. I can recall countless times that I'd make a choice, he'd disagree with it and I would change my mind about it, thereby making it his choice. So I was living his choices, not mine.
Now I live mine, and I'm glad about that.
Giving my time everyday to the austistic centre - my choice.
Teaching english at night when I'm not doing anything anyway - my choice.
Staying out til 1am with friends - my choice.
Going to Malacca to buy fresh, clean meat - my choice.
I make it sound as though ex made all my decisions for me - he certainly didn't - I worked, went to see my family, went on holidays sometimes with friends and made decisions on a daily basis. But there were times when I'd want (or not want) to do something, and he'd talk me out of it and I'd resent him for it. Over time, the resentment built up and I'm sure I'm making much more of an issue out of than it needs to be. And I absolutely know that he wouldn't remember it this way. He'd remember stuff like:
Want to buy a house? OK.
Want a baby? Sure ok
Want another baby? sure.
Want to get married? OK, lets do that then.
Want to move to portsea and get a fresh start? OK, we'll do that too.
Want to publish software together for kids with disabilities? yes, OK.
Move to malaysia? that would be nice, OK - I do wish he'd have talked me out of that one.
Now there's a little perspective. Looking at the above list, I see how trivial all my arguments were and my perspective is changing. All the above are true - he did agree with me a lot of the time - or let me have my way, especially on the big things, so it's probably time to let go of the resentment over the (lots of) little things. It's amazing the stupid little details that I can remember... I really need to give them up because if I focus on them, it's going to be an issue forever and life is just too short for that.
3 comments:
i'm thinking jilian is old enough for her to have told you why she wouldn't take the medicine? maybe i didn't read properly but it might have been useful to just walk away from the situation at that heated moment. it wasn't going to matter that she took it THEN or one or even two hours later.
i know what it's like to be both backed into a corner so it's a one-person wins and the other loses situation which invariably makes both people miserable. so i've learnt to try and ask myself questions:
why is this so important?
does it have to happen right now?
can we both calm down and return to this a bit later?
can i give in?
if i can't, how can i go about this a different way?
will a bribe help?
but you got there in the end, good on you. sometimes, oftentimes, being a mother means being responsible and doing something the child doesn't want or doesn't like.
and that's tough shit for both child and mother unfortunately!
x
ps i see it was 9.30 at night, so that's hard because you would have wanted her to go to bed.
did you try the hold the nose trick? it stops the taste, because if you can't smell, you can't taste.
remember that for next time. and then you can laugh at how funny she sounds when she's crying with her nose blocked!
Thanks Melba! She didn't want to take the medicine because it tasted really bad (it was a tablet and they didn't have the syrup in this medication) I did need her to take it then because it was getting late and she would have carried on til midnight and I wasn't going to accept that. But I will ask myself those questions and we'll try holding the nose and see what happens. Thanks again.
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