MM and Mommy Ride the Slide

MM and AJ have been showing signs of needing a little extra attention.

For MM, the honeymoon is over. Finally, after 8 1/2 months of adoring her baby sister, MM has decided that having a baby sister isn't so cool after all. Baby E is crawling and pulling up on things now, and she's Taking! MM's! Toys!

MM not only doesn't want Baby E to so much as look at MM's toys, she does not want E to TOUCH anything in the house that is not specifically a baby toy. That includes furniture, dishes, bits of paper and possibly even the walls.

Both MM and AJ are doing quite a bit of yelling at each other, pushing and hitting, crying, and antagonizing each other and the baby. They've spent much of the last two days crying and whining because one has a toy the other wants, because MM is "following" AJ, or because AJ is looking out MM's car window(!!!). The "boohoo, she's looking at me!" arguments are getting old fast.

I think it's a combination of things--my ankle, though I only had to stay completely off it for a couple of days, has seriously hampered my activities and interactivity this week. It's to the point where I can walk on it again now, though still sore. (I ditched the crutches after one day, actually--the crutches were worse than crawling, hopping and limping around the house.)

We have, of course, been talking to them about their actions and giving them consequences when they do things like pinch each other or push over the baby. But it's obvious that what they really need is something deeper.

So tonight DH stayed home with AJ and Baby E while I took MM out on a date after dinner, just the two of us. She wasn't too keen on the idea. She wanted Daddy, not me.

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I said, "Don't you want to have a special time out with just you and me, just the two of us?"

"No. I want to go with Daddy."

The promise of ice cream brought her around somewhat grudgingly.

We had planned to go to TCBY, but the space where it used to be was empty, with a "For lease" sign in the window. So we went through a drive-through and got strawberry shortcake with soft-serve frozen yogurt, and went to a nearby park to eat it.

We sat on a bench near the playground, companionably chatting and enjoying our food. It was chilly, and I wondered if we should have sat in the restaurant or the car to eat--especially when several children started longingly eyeing our treats.

Then a little girl headed purposefully toward us, calling out across the playground, "Guess what? I'm five."

She parked herself two inches from my knee and stared us down, demanding to know what we were doing and why we were there, what we were eating and whether I had a husband. We chatted with her for a few minutes, during which MM said almost nothing and the little girl told us all about herself and her family, asked questions, and ordered me to remove the ponytail holder from my hair. I told her no and she argued with me about it for a while.

It was obvious that MM was uncomfortable with the girl's infringement on our time together, as was I. Avoiding eye contact and saying as little as possible to her didn't work to discourage her.

Finally, I said, "MM and I are having a special mommy and daughter time together, and we'd like to talk to each other now. Why don't you go play, and when MM is done eating she'll come and play on the playground too."

"No."

"Please go play now. MM wants to finish eating her shortcake, and then she'll come and play too."

"No. I'm gonna stay here." She leaned in defiantly, her stocky body stiff and her unbound hair dangling almost in my sundae.

I looked around. No adult hovered nearby or seemed to be keeping an eye on her.

"Where are your parents?" I asked.

"Over there." She gestured toward a family at the other side of the playground. Mom, Dad, an older brother and a baby a little older than Baby E.

The girl's gesture seemed to attract the mother's attention. She called to her daughter 3 or 4 times. The girl ignored her.

Finally the brother, who seemed to be about 7, came toward us. "Is she bothering you?"

I wanted to say yes, but it didn't really seem appropriate to me to complain to a 7-year-old about his sister's behavior or expect him to rein her in when the parents were unable or unwilling to do so. So I just said, "She's talking to us."

At that point the mother called the girl again, saying, "I said come ON! It's too cold out here for the baby; we need to go."

"No."

"What did you just say to me??? Come here!"

"NO!"

Then the father chimed in: "Let's go, (name). Come on."

"No."

After several more repetitions of this, the girl finally took a few steps toward her mother, who was putting the baby into a swing. MM and I finished our food and went to play.

Some time later, as MM and I were playing on the slides, I saw the family on the other side of the park. Everyone except the girl were in or headed toward the car. She was lying on the ground, staring up at the sky while her parents endlessly repeated her name and told her to come on.

The other mother at the playground decided to leave a few minutes later. "Come on, Honey," she said to a little blonde who looked about two.

"Noooo, I don't wanna go!" The child threw herself on the ground and wailed.

"Come on, it's getting dark and cold out here. It's time to go home."

"I wanna stay here!!!"

The mother thought for a moment. "I'm going home; bye!"

"Noooo!" She was flailing about, howling.

"The park closes when it gets dark, honey. If we don't leave . . . the police will come and arrest us!"

That quieted the little girl and she followed her mother away.

I turned to MM. "Don't worry, the police wouldn't really arrest us, I don't think. They'd probably just tell us we needed to leave. But it's not dark yet, so let's play!"

We had the playground to ourselves then, and we had a fabulous time. There was a double slide with space for two people to go down side by side--a long slide with a hump in the middle. I'd forgotten how much fun a slide can be. We climbed the ramp, went down the slide, slid down the fire pole, and went down a smaller slide together. MM rode the springy bounce toys, then I pushed her on the swing while she laughed, hair flying in the wind.

I'd warned her ahead of time that we wouldn't be able to stay long, and gave her a five-minute and a two-minute warning that we would have to leave soon. After she got off the swing I said, "Okay, one more time down the slide and then we'll go home."

We went down on our bellies, and it was so much fun that I whispered conspiratorially, "Do you want to go just one more time?"

She nodded, eyes sparkling, and shouted, "Yeah! Let's go down togethew again!"

We climbed up again, stopping on the drawbridge to hold hands and bounce on it like a trampoline. This time I went down on my back while she went on her tummy, both of us hooting all the way.

Then she said, "Okay, Mommy, let's go now," and headed for the car. "Can I wun, Mommy?"

"Sure, you can run! I'm going to walk, though . . . my ankle hurts pretty bad." I had twisted it in the wood shavings, but it wasn't as bad as I thought at first. I think I turned it the opposite direction this time or something, because it almost felt better after the first initial agony than it did before we went to the playground. My muscles, however, have seized up from the arch of my foot to my thigh--it feels like my entire leg is in a vise. We'll see if I can walk on it tomorrow. It was worth it, though.

As we were getting close to our car, a man and his daughter drove slowly toward us in a white car, window open.

"Is that your car?" he asked.

"Yes, it is."

I was expecting him to tell us we couldn't park there, but instead he pointed to a pile of broken glass two spaces away from our car and told us that his car had been broken into while they played at the park. He'd been trying to find his wallet or anything that would lead him to the culprit, and was just leaving when he'd seen us coming back toward our car. He'd come back to make sure we and our car were okay.

Since it was getting quite dark by then, I thanked him and asked if he'd be willing to stick around for a few minutes while I got MM and myself into the car.

It was nice of him to stay and make sure we were okay. I hope everything will work out for him.

On the way home, MM said to me, "Mommy, I really like spending time with you. That was fun. The most fun was going down the slide next to each othew. Wasn't that the best?"

When I told AJ that next time I would take her somewhere special and MM would get to stay with Daddy, MM wailed, "No, Mommy! I want to be with you all of the times, just you and me. I don't want to go with Daddy and E."

I'm glad she had a good time.