I have an almost six month old - who still isn't sleeping well at night, a two year old who has decided that she needs to be in physical contact with her mommy 24/7. She is now waking up screaming at night for hugs and cuddles, demanding that I not hold the baby and does not want to leave mommy's side. In fact she screamed on the kitchen floor the other night for an hour while I made supper - because I could not hold her hand while making pizza. I tried all of the techniques that I draw upon, I offered to let her help me, I took 5 minutes to sit with her and cuddle before going back to the pizza, I offered daddy as a cuddle substitute, I tried to distract her with music to dance as I cut the veggies...there was no success - so she wailed on the cold ceramic kitchen floor.
Which got me thinking about time-outs, mommy time-outs to be specific. For a child the recommendation is that they take a minute for each year of their age to be still, think about what they did wrong and give themselves a chance to retrieve their sense of inner calm. So my daughter gets two minutes in front of the basement door. Then we talk about what went wrong, we hug and she says she is sorry (well actually lately she has been saying "No way, not sorry," but that is another post).
But, what about mommy time-outs. I can't take a minute for each year of my age, don't get me wrong, I would love to sit in front of the basement door for 30 minutes, reflecting, centering myself and trying to think about where I went wrong. I don't even balk at then hugging who I offended, most often the dictator herself, saying I am sorry, and telling her where I went wrong. But, 30 minutes - that is impossible, I can't even eat a piece of toast without holding one child, while the other is in all likelihood up in arms because they are not the one being held.
So do you shorten it to 1 second for each year of your age? Because if that is the case, I would like to age at least another 30 years pretty quickly. How does this work? Where is the manual, the book that tells you how mommy time-outs work? I need more than a deep breath, I could step outside and scream - which is what I would like to do, but I don't really want my neighbours to think I am crazy. I need to find my happy place, and it needs to be somewhere in the house and attainable with two children screaming - I am not sure where it is, and people keep swearing this gets easier, but I want a date. I want to circle it on the calender, and know - that I can hang in for however many more weeks, that when set period of time is over, I will be calmer and I will be able to be the parent I want to be, the parent that I want my children to know.
Maybe I should just take a red marker and circle a random date on the calender and convince myself that from that day forward it will be easier. Maybe I should choose today, to encircle and decide that from this day forward, I will find my ohm place and go to it, when all I really want to do is throw myself on the floor and have a tantrum with them. Or maybe, I will just throw myself on the floor and out tantrum my two year old.
