code rugrat

my little rugrat lover

Oona is a very loving, intelligent and strong-willed girl. I don't worry about her the way I do my son, because I think she's got a strong enough sense of self that she'll never let anyone push her around. She is going to set the world on fire, I knew it as soon as her head popped out of me. I can swear that her body wasn't even out of me all the way yet and she let out a surprisingly hearty for a newborn cry. Is that even possible? I feel like the RN in me should know this stuff, it would seem unlikely but that's the way I remember things. Needless to say once I heard her cry a part of me thought, 'uh oh.' like what have I gotten myself into?

She slept most of the first year, slept a lot. We would wake her up, and she wasn't our first baby so we knew better than to chance things like waking a baby that might then be up all night but she was unbelievably easy and very well rested that first year. I think she was preparing. Storing her energy, like a caterpillar biding her time before she burst out of the cocoon of infancy. Look out.

She has a very different personality than Owen. She has been able to charm the pants off of anyone since she was two or three. She's got incredibly big, beautiful brown eyes framed by long dark lashes and the sweetest little angelic face, I feel like this is some genetic compensation that allows her to unleash her fury and not get harmed as a result. Oona knows how to throw a tantrum. Oona knows what she wants and when she doesn't get what she wants heaven help anyone keeping her from getting what she wants.

I talked to a 'talk doc', Owen's name for a wonderful therapist my ex and I took the kids to during our separation and when Owen had some issues after my dad's death and more recently with a kid whose a bit of a bully. The talk doc thought Owen was doing great so I asked her about Oona because, well certain women can take one look at Oona or briefly interact with her and see just what a challenge Oona will be as a child before she takes over the world as an adult and the talk doc had Oona's personality down from the first day she met her. The talk doc suggested getting a box or basket with items of Oona's choosing to help her soothe herself and preemptively avert a tantrum and I would then give Oona much positive feedback for deescalating on her own.

I discussed the self soothing box or basket idea with Oona and Owen in the car, it's seems we're always in the car, while bringing them home one day. Oona embraced the idea, if only because she was quickly filling that box or basket up with so much stuff that it sounded more like Martha Stewart's craft room. Kudos to Oona for at least thinking to put books in her self soothing container. Owen quietly asked if he could have a box and I said sure, knowing he would never have reason to need this box. When I asked Owen what he wanted to put in his box he said, a hole puncher. He didn't even ask for paper at first but after some prodding said he'd like paper and a hole puncher that makes special shapes. Then he said he'd also like a lighter, not because he's a 9 year old pyromaniac but just because he likes to look at flames but he also knew my parenting skills well enough to realize that there was no way I was putting a lighter in that box. I passed the idea along to Toby and his wife and she said maybe they could download the app for his iPhone (he and Oona have their older iPhones at their house). That sounded safe and clever.

So a few weeks later Oona, Owen and I are in the checkout line at Whole Foods and we're trying to figure out a code that I can call, sort of a secret phrase, when I think Oona's getting close to a meltdown. Oona loved this idea, while I was explaining about codes at the hospital and she kept rattling off every color in the rainbow and then it was code lemon meringue pie and then she hopped up and down (the checkout lady was an older non-tattooed whole foods employee, the less than 1%, and was having a good time just watching Oona in action with this idea and, fortunately, there was no one behind us) and said, I've got it! Code Rugrat! We made our way over to the orchid forest (aka the booths where the they've propped potted orchid plants all along the wall the cordons the section off) and I thought maybe this is just what I need to get us through Oona's next few years until the tantrums end, they have to end eventually right? To my way of thinking 6 seems old for tantrums but what do I know some adults continue to throw them and get away with it.

Thus Code Rugrat was born and damned if I can remember to call that code when Oona starts heating up, in her prodromal phase. I really feel that I need a code (code ennui? code apoplexy? code maladroit mom?) because after getting the kids today from Toby's house (they were away for a week in which I did fuck all around the house, aside from sleep in on the day or two that I could) Oona had like three meltdowns and when she wasn't doing that she was being disrespectful and talking at me with attitude, complete with hand motions and eye rolls, absolutely revolting behavior in anyone but especially my 6 year old daughter. And dealing with that all day all does not make me a happy or  nice person so I'm definitely close to a meltdown of my own after enduring that all day. By 6:30 I was count the minutes until bedtime, a huge headache blossoming on the right side of my head.

the unfortunate outcome  if a code rugrat is not called