Recently, it seems, the Fae took my (reasonably) amenable child – the one that will, on occasions, do as she’s told, and that doesn’t have a complete tantrum over anything – and replaced her, once again, with a screaming whirling demon.
You’d think we’d be used to it by now, but this one was turned up to 11. For the past several weeks she has screamed, flailed and broken down over anything and everything. I have had to carry her out of her gym classes, I have been called IN to her class for the first time ever by staff because she had a full sit down protest over being asked to go to the toilet with the group. On one memorable occasion she lay on the floor of the car park (fortunately on the footpath) with hands and feet pounding the ground because I refused to let her ride in the front – because her booster seat is in the back, and the law states she still needs it. When she finished beating up the floor, she got up and hit me. She was then surprised that this was not met with enthusiasm, and she was told quite sternly that, if she did that again, I didn’t care how upset she was, there would be a consequence.
She also took herself off on walkies in the gym building, I couldn’t find her when I went down to the toilets looking for her, and she wasn’t where she said she would be. Apparently we are also horrible parents for making her leave immediately as a consequence, rather than letting her keep playing with her friends. It has also been our fault every time she lost or broke a toy.
This is all compounded by her broken sleep, and if she gets up before 6 am again, I may go mad.
We haven’t changed our responses, simply because when she pushes on a boundary, we have found the best thing we can do is hold firm on where it is. Despite the sheer exhaustion this causes – for everyone involved – all we can do is keep holding her to the standard we expect, and hope our daughter reemerges from whatever deep sleep she is in that is allowing this possession.
I take heart that this is, normally, caused by her undergoing some sort of physical or psychological change. When she comes out the other side, she has normally grown, if not taller, than her language or motor skills are better.
That is small comfort whilst it is happening, and I truly thought that this weekend marked the end of it, as we finally had a relatively nice time, and she even spent time in a friend’s house playing.
And then this morning she managed to have a meltdown because she couldn’t style a unicorn’s mane like she wanted, and then dive-bombed her father, causing his (fortunately rather solid!) head to ricochet off a solid wood bannister.
So, maybe a few more miles before we sleep?
Raising the Modern Fae 