Ever heard the phrase you can’t pour from an empty bucket? I have. Mostly from therapists. I hate it, it’s such a stupid thing to say. We’re not containers with a finite amount of ‘stuff’ also what is it that we’re pouring? Love? Energy? Sarcasm? That last one I promise I have an endless well of not a bucket.
Besides which if we are going to run with this bucket analogy mine is still not empty, it’s full to the brim – practically overflowing the only thing preventing a tidal wave at the moment is limited movement and surface tension. The problem is that mine is full with desperation, stress and sleep deprivation. So when anything goes even slightly awry my ability to cope is in fact non-existent. I remember a time when I had patience, I was in fact prepared to practise gentle parenting and remind my fae that she can use kind hands (until she told me she only had one set of hands and they were the ones she was using), or that she could put her own toys away without following it with the statement ‘because if I do it they’re all going in the skip outside’. Those days are long past. Now I just try to practise silence and 7/11 breathing (in for seven scream out for 11 or something) and try to limit the psychological damage I am doing. No doubt she will be relating some of this to her own therapist in the fullness of time but at least it will be different from the stories I have about my own childhood.
What brought all this on is my inability to deal with her latest meltdown after school. I picked her up and as is routine on a Wednesday the intent was to drive her to the gym for dinner, and the two hours of sport classes she has. As it was she got in the car and demanded to know where the red bag is. Confused? I was. It turns out the red bag was a back pack she had constructed for her doll, that through either telepathy or precognition I was supposed to know she wanted to take with said doll to the gym. Did I know this? No. Was this mentioned today? No. Could she have put the bag in the car this morning before school? Absolutely. So whose fault is it? Correct mine.
Now either we can go home and get the bag – which means we will be late to the gym, and she will get no dinner, or we go to the gym as normal and she deals with the lack of bag with imaginary food for the imaginary baby. She wants to go home. I tell her if we go home we aren’t going to the gym, queue meltdown.
I just stare at her because every comment, everything I can think to say is not age appropriate for an 8 year old and definitely not appropriate in this situation. Honestly since she woke me up at 1am today all I want to do right now is recline the car seat and have a nap.
So yeah is the bucket empty? No, is it full of anything useful also no.
Raising the Modern Fae 