Shut Up

Today I had one of those mornings with my daughter where we had a difficult interaction and then had to part for four days when I dropped her at her Dad's. Not only does it hurt extra when that happens, but I think there is a correlation between our difficult interactions and switch days.

I can see so much of myself in my daughter, and when I heard this song today after she was gone, I thought of her with her hands over her ears this morning as she was refusing to listen to me, and I thought how these lyrics could also have been the soundtrack in my own head when I was eight years old and my parents were trying to talk to me:

Shut up

Just shut up

Shut up [3x]

Shut it up, just shut up

Shut up

Just shut up

Shut up [3x]

Shut it up, just shut up

It's good for me to tie these sorts of interactions in with me as a little girl, because I think that one of the reasons I get so worked up sometimes has to do with old feelings that didn't get to come out then and need to come out now.

It doesn't feel good when I've parented in a manner of which I am not proud. But I'm taking the steps: I'm letting those old feelings come out (in appropriate ways); I apologized to my daughter; I'm reading a new parenting book to arm myself with new strategies; and we're changing our custody schedule in a way that I think is going to work better because I won't always have the end of my time with them coincide with the end of my work week (when I'm already really drained)...

It's all going to work out. I know that it working out might still mean she puts her hands over her ears sometimes and hears this song inside her head, but that's part of being a kid. What it's not going to continue to include is me overreacting to things she says and does because of my own exhaustion or residual anger. Mark my words!