Mental Parenting

I did a little mental exercise last night. The boys were working independently to make it very difficult for us to sleep, so I had some time to think in the darkness.

I wondered why I don't write glowing blog posts about my time with Alice.

There are the obvious reasons: 1) she's only home on evenings and weekends when I'm rushing about trying to do everything else, and 2) she doesn't generally enjoy doing the same things that I enjoy doing.

But I felt some other kind of emotional wall. Something is holding me back from truly enjoying the girl she's become.

I remembered earlier this week when Buddy and I could finally unroll all the windows in the car because Alice wasn't traveling with us (she says the wind makes it hard to breath...she's never been a fan of open car windows). I felt free!

Do I feel oppressed by Alice? No, that's not quite it. She's simply a careful, thoughtful, sensitive kind of person who reacts strongly to noxious stimuli. I feel like any turn of events can suddenly result in a meltdown. A loud, dramatic, and extended meltdown. It's tiresome. I dread it.

But I think there's even more. She's my first child. Every new experience with her is weighted with setting expectations and precedents. There's that constant struggle within me trying to balance her independence with her dependence. How much do I push her? How much do I wait? My mental exercise last night was to remove Alice from her unfortunate birth order placement and swap her with Buddy. She was free! The grapple hook of expectations and uncertainty just opened up and let her go. I saw it clamp hard onto Buddy, though, poor guy. I've got to work on removing that grapple hook.

So, it stinks to be first. Different personalities and interests complicate the matter. Having little to no time every day to work on that relationship makes it truly frustrating.

How do I work on this? Summer is coming, of course. Maybe I could carve out some girl time for us that doesn't involve girly stuff :) Alice really enjoys reading the scriptures with only me, but it comes at the very end of the day when I'm out of steam. I see her disaster of a room around me and just can't wait to leave ASAP. Maybe that's where we'll start. Strike a deal? Daily scripture study in exchange for an environment I actually want to spend time in? I'll think about that more.

I've tried Girls Night Out dates with her, and enjoyed them, but going out isn't really my style. It's hers. Maybe we could trade off. Gotta think about that more, too.

Now some questions for you:

--Other suggestions?
--Do you feel a grapple hook of expectations for your first kid(s)?
--Have you successfully built a relationship with a child whose personality is fundamentally different from your own?