Tuesday was Viv's 5th Birthday!! Wowzers, our little mini is older without seeming to have grown. Oh, I know she has grown A LOT and there are A LOT of milestones to mark for this remarkable little one. We made sure that this birthday was particularly a day of celebration of all that is special about her. She got a trampoline (which was not wrapped on the table for obvious reasons) to celebrate how hard she has been working at gymnastics and her amazing abundance of bouncy energy. She also received this beautiful dress to celebrate how beautiful she has become in our eyes. Inside and out Viv has become stunning, vibrant, fun, and just precious. A neon pink flowered tiered dress just seemed to fit the layers that we have been discovering of this beautiful girl. She also received some thoughtful cards from family that celebrated how kind and sweet she is.
And now for the rest of the story. This picture (of her opening her cards) kinda sums up how the attitude of the day started. Unfortunately, birthdays are a bit of a trigger day for Viv. Damn those triggers. I hope to heaven that after a few more years of learning and experience we will not repeat all this at every birthday. You see, as told by the very sour and disappointed look on Viv's face how thrilled she was with her gifts. A candid contrast shows how delighted Danny and Faith were for Viv with the dress and excited anticipation of opening special cards. To Viv, it was just not enough.
Viv's past training had ingrained a different attitude to gifts. In her short three years before coming to our family, she had learned a lot about gifts; they were her right and she deserved as many as she demanded. We can assume, validly based in representative patterns we saw during a year and a half of visits, that gifts were given to make up for guilt. What does that shower down on a small child? A completely wrong idea of what a present is for. Thus began a new window of learning for the week.
My day began on October 16th much as it has been for the last few months- waking to an angry voice emitting from my darling Viv. I sleep in a bit in the mornings hoping to make up for a night of interrupted sleep, and my darling ducks are good at quietly playing together after Daddy has left for work. Viv is usually the last to rise and the first to make the loudest noise, she has a louder dial. She is also still learning how to negotiate situations, particularly in the morning, with others in a kind way. I generally hear out of my subconcious ear all those early disputes and recognize that a Mom-iator is needed and open my eyes to seeing Danny or Faith there to plead their case. Viv slinks behind like a guilty pup with its tail between its leg - I am still not certain in every case if she realizes that she may have done something wrong or if she just knows that she can expect to be in trouble any time Faith or Danny complains (I have been working a lot on making sure I don't 'get her in trouble' with every accusation). On the morning of her birthday, no sibling had to hail the problem I intereveened in behalf of the chance for change.
What did I hear?
Earliest signs that this was a day started with triggers: rustlings and whisperings as the kids moved about the house with directions such as "there has to be more gifts for
me, it is
my birthday, you find them!" That had a whole subsequent kindly retaliation from her siblings that really were trying to make it special for her. In the end of her frustration of not having found anything more were the bossiest little words I have heard from her: "Then
you go in to my room and decorate it for
my birthday!" That's where I had to pull the plug. Not for protective reasons, I am sure Danny and Faith would have done a very creative job of decorating the bedroom, but for the amount of unknown associations I heard in that bossy declaration.
I called Viv into my room. "Happy Birthday Darling!" I said in the happiest voice I could muster during the early morning revelations and fast heartfelt prayer. She sulked in the room in her practiced kicked dog demeanor. "What a special day this is. Can you tell me why birthdays are so special?" Through her muffled lips she said "cuz it's my birthday." "Yes, and why is that so special?" "I dunno." "Because this is the day that we get to celebrate all that is so special about you!" Viv began to perk up a bit. "Do you know what is so special about you?" She met my eyes. "That you are kind, beautiful, smart and a good learner." By this point, of course, Faith and Danny had appeared on the bed as well, can't miss an opportunity to be in on the crowd. Perhaps noting a moment of power, Viv added "Yeah, and when it is my birthday I get to be in charge." "Oh. Is that something special about you that we can celebrate?" "NO!" Interjects Faith, "that is being a brat!" (thanks to the Oompa Loompas and Wonka's description of certain children we have had a very candid conversation in our family as to the implications of the word brat.) My reply, thanks to some great suggestions on
How to talk so your kids will listen and listen so your kids will talk, was the short "Oh." They all sat in suspense for a bit thinking about that. Feeling a need to protect herself, Viv defended "Well, Faith told me that I could be the boss...." "No. I don't think that is true Viv." Boy when Viv lies it is like seeing the lights of Sin City ablaze at midnight in her eyes. She resumes kicked dog.
Supposing this was the best time of any to have this conversation for ALL the kids to hear. I then cautiously proceed to explain that birthdays are a wonderful day of celebration. Everyone deserves a day that we can celebrate just for them. When we celebrate we get to recognize everything that is so special about that one person. However, if you do not show us anything special on your birthday, what do we have to celebrate? From a mother's heart this mini lesson was riddled with difficulty. How I wished that I could just jump up for joy and wrap my little darling brown-eyed daughter in my arms shouting hurray for this special day. Yet there I was with three round eyed little ones teaching about the consequences of acting greedy and selfish on a day that should be special no matter what. After all, does my love have qualifications or expecations? NO! But love carries with it the parental responsibility to teach, and to teach in the moment that it will carry the most impact. That moment was early on the morning of my five year olds' birthday.
We proceeded on that day with numerous reminders of how special Viv was and all those lovely qualities that make her special. I took every repetitive moment to reiterate how each gift represented what we saw in her that was special; the thing had a specific purpose that related to her positive qualities. The reader board of Viv's processing center kept registering and compiling the input, slowly, as if having to chisel over the top of something else that was already engraven on that small impressional psyche.
The next day I discovered what it was that Viv had been chiseling over the day before. While celebrating on the new trampoline, a bit of a heated discussion emerged as does frequently between two sisters. Viv was mostly agitated; Faith was noticeably irritated. As the discussion escalated, I moved from my observation perch in the house toward the door to mediate just as I saw Viv recoil a loaded punch to her sister's back (Faith had turned to walk away from the situation). Viv let it fly and Faith was not to be bettered and had her tackled to the tramp by the time I hit the back door (what a lot can happen in three steps' time). One holler halted the mounting action. Viv was sent inside and Faith ordered to cooling chair on the back porch. After sitting myself on the back steps for a moment to gather my most composed parenting mind, I asked Faith for her recounting of the situation. With a few why? questions I got only that Viv had kept yelling at her and she yelled back to ask her to stop them Viv punched her. I had only paid attention to the situation once the yelling started and didn't know what the inticement had been. I took an eye witness account from Danny before going inside to work with Viv.
I asked Viv the same non-accusatory question about the incident. Surpisingly, without having heard Faith's report, Viv's was identical but told from the first person account; "I was yelling at Faith and she yelled back so I hit her." With my mind reeling I asked what she thought out to be done about the situation knowing our family rule that you cannot enforce your words with your actions. Her response was already concocted before I had entered the room, "I will give her this bracelet as a present to make up for hitting her." From another child I would have excused that as a thoughtful resolution, but there was too much loaded behind that very very quick response. I do not believe I was reading into anything, for as I looked into her eyes and asked, "Do you think that a gift will make up for you actions?" her reaction was deeply personal. Her little countenance feel, as if collapsing in pain not shame, and shook her head with the emotion of a one who didn't even believe it for herself.
Yet another conversation ensued about gifts, actions, and what can be done to repent. More meaningful that our regular repentance conversations after infractions, this talk carried with it the weight of deeper healing. My heart was wrenching as I needed to explain to my darling daughter that gifts don't make up for behaviors, changes of behavior is the way that we show others how much we love them and are sorry for what we did. My mind was recounting in sequential flashbacks the weeks when Viv still had visits with her biological mother - how she would come home with the triumphant and inflated elation of all the new 'gifts' she had received during a one hour visit, and the hard hit reality of the next few days when the gifts were no longer new and the pain was relived in dreams and memories associated with the 'gift' giver. I hated those days. I hated those sacks full of dollar store crap and all they stood for. After recognizing their triggering effect, each week I had to find the most discreet way of demolishing them so that they wouldn't remain in our home to remind her and relapse her. And now, a year later, how agonizing it was to uncover the scars that imprinted memory had left!
Scars and open wounds then has been the reprise of this week. There have been triumphs as I listen to Viv solidify the new and accurate learning she has gained from this 5th birthday - birthdays are special because we get to celebrate was is special about her, which is not being a brat. The re-visiting of the old days of having to train and train anew in a correct pattern have been exhausting for me. Believe me, I question each day if I am doing it right. I try so intently not to read more into Viv than need be. I fight against any inclination to compare her to other children. I speculate as to whether I am taking the right approach for her moral upbringing. Somewhere in it all I do feel correct. Viv is beautiful, and becoming more so each day. She is getting older and we have entered into a new year, her fifth year, together as a family. Keeping our fingers crossed, this will be the year that everything is finalized with the adoption and there will no longer be clarifications as to where of to whom she belongs.
Happy birthday my brown-eyed darling.
I had to draw a lot out of this 'strategy' part of the war stories, and yet again was surprised by how things turned out. I would never have thought going into Alma chapter 32 that such a truly personal lesson for each of my 4 & 5 years olds could come from it - again, higher purpose here. As we did all the movements around of Moroni's strategy to get the city of Mulek and we came up with our family definition of what strategy is "using your brain to make a plan with the best choices" and it's antithesis displayed by Captain Jacob of the Lamanites "Fury, using your anger to guide your choices." So we mapped out our life strategy. I drew mine and the kids put together what they thought was best for theirs (with some parental guidance, certainly). I love the daily reference to the choices that they will make for their future.
Faith was the one that pointed out that she needed to be baptized when she turned 8 years old. I hadn't put that in my life strategy so it was purely a choice that she has already made in her little soul.
Viv added in her life strategy herself and her brother and sister and pointed out that while she was in our house it was her choice to always get along and play nice and love her brother and sister. She also said that we need to keep visiting the temple.
Danny was most intent on drawing himself at the beginning and then trying to catch up with what the girls had already drawn. He was really excited that he would be a missionary at 18 now since the prophet said he could go then. I was impressed that even though he was drawing a few of the details in a little slower, the ones he put in were impressive (his spelling of college as 'colliegl' was his own as well as adding two people getting married in the temple).
