This morning Hila came in to the kitchen where I was and gave me the following instruction:
“Mom, make something I can open up and it will surprise me.”
So I got down her bag of candy she collected at Mema’s egg hunt yesterday. She was not pleased. She then clarified,
“No mom, I wanted you to make a chain of paper dolls.”
Huh. Isn’t that interesting. So I’m wondering if I’m modeling this kind of vague instruction and disappointment when people fail to read my mind? Or was it just that she thought her initial instruction was clear. Either way I see myself doing that all the time. At least BJay says I do. Unless I specifically spell out everything that I want I have to get used to getting his interpretation of what I want. And the interpretation is never very close.
(I just found that was an interesting little exchange. I don’t usually let Hila get away with bossing me around.)
***
I’m troubled that Hannah seems to have developed some separation anxiety. I was planning on doing my RAI in the beginning of May. This means that I’m supposed to be weening Hannah right now and that in May I’ll have to separate myself from my children for a week or so. The weening isn’t going great. I fix Hannah a bottle, and she somehow knows that it is her food and gets excited up until the moment she tastes the formula and then she scrunches up her face and is very displeased. When she is hungry enough she’ll take about 2-3 ounces. Between her distaste for formula and her anxiety about other people holding her–I am very uneasy about the prospect of having to leave my darling baby.
Interestingly though, no one is putting pressure on me to do the RAI. I’ve made my own timeline based on our medical insurance. I’m scheduled to switch insurance in May so I was hoping to finish my treatment on my “good” insurance. If only money weren’t an issue I would feel fine about putting off the RAI a little longer. But it seems absolutely insane that money is what is driving this very unnatural early weening. And I wonder if my baby senses how I dread leaving her with someone else every time I hold her? I’m so conflicted. Part of me wants to get it over with so I can stop stressing about it. And part of me wants to put it off as long as I can so I don’t have to think about it and my life and my children don’t have to be affected. Sigh. My girls haven’t been sleeping well lately either. Is it intuition? And if it is, is there any way to shield my girls from my anxiety or my crazy logic or my paranoia? Or are we just doomed as women to be like our moms?
