The Chebs muddles through

There is just no way around it, it is HARD being displaced as the family baby. Chebbles is valiantly going through all of the stages of grief while loving her baby sister as best she can.

Yesterday was the depths of sadness (so far) for her. Seeing Baby V nursing in my lap filled her with RAGE. She never directed her anger at Baby V, but just yanked and yanked on my arm, weeping with grief and begging me to stop nursing the baby. She did this twice yesterday, and both times I started to cry myself. She's been kind of bratty ever since I got home, but this was an all-time low.

Luckily, Hub-D has kept a cooler head than I have. I keep thinking back to my own sadness when my sister was born. My sister came home, but then went back to the hospital with a staph infection that kept her (and my mother) away until after Christmas. It was the first real tragedy in my life (...only to be trumped a few months later by the moving truck running over my tricycle.)

Anyway, Hub-D doesn't put up with Chebbles' crap. He doesn't see his own life tragedies in Chebbles' tantrums. He doesn't cave in to her demands, as I do, making excuses for her bad behavior such as (a) she's got the croup, (b) she's still traumatized from missing her mom last week, (c) she's got low blood sugar, (d) she hasn't slept well because of the croup... etc. etc.

NOPE. He just tells her to put a lid on the dramatics. And it works. Hub-D has got that kid's number. His being home from work today made a huge difference in her attitude. She knew that her shenanigans wouldn't be tolerated as long as Daddy was in the house.

She was so freakish and horrible yesterday, it was nice to get our good kid back after stern old Daddy laid down the law.

How freakish and horrible had she been? She blew her top at everything, and I mean everything. For example, I was on a campaign of reading books to her all day long. This gave us an excuse to cuddle up while Grandma R. took the baby for awhile. Good idea, yes? Except that everything we read about or talked about made her mad.

We were reading Rapunzel, as retold by Paul O. Zelinsky. It is a truly badass book with infertility and morning sickness frankly discussed, AND great paintings of cats and horses, so we both enjoy it. She was interested in the herb that Rapunzel's mother was eating, and I told her it was called "rapunzel," and that sometimes little girls are named for herbs, like Rosemary or Heather. Then I said, "Actually, Mama's name is an herb too!"

And she blew up. Her body convulsed around on the sofa, kicking against me and crying, "NO MAMA! YOUR NAME IS NOT AN HERB! DON'T HAVE YOUR NAME BE AN HERB!"

So you see, we were pretty screwed no matter what we did.

But Daddy told her today that he expected her to stop crying about stuff.

So she did.

They jumped on the trampoline together, she and Daddy, and she gracefully shared her toys with a little boy who visited our house today (one hopes she did not also share the croup...). This evening, she even washed her greasy goldilocks, kissed Daddy goodnight and hopped into bed with a smile.

Oh Chebs, it's nice to have you back.