Stronger

Preschool graduation.  She was in this class for 2 years, with the same teacher and aides.  I still miss them.

This cuter-than-words kid in the tutu skirt and star sunglasses wants to be stronger than me.  Sometimes she is.  Taylor goes through pockets of time where her sole goal in life is to be the boss of this house, and we face off repeatedly.

We are currently in a pocket.

She will argue about everything.  She will fight me on everything.  She will scream things at me from behind her door, and cry buckets of tears.  She takes forever to calm down, and many times she can't even remember what started the episode, all she knows is she is hysterical, Mommy is to blame, and she wants Daddy.

These episodes drain me, and yet I am so proud of my endurance.  When she was a toddler, I was strictly in survival mode and my sole goal in life was to make Taylor happy.  Because most of the time she wasn't - now we know it's because of her sensory disorder and we had to learn how to meet her needs - and an unhappy Taylor would bring the house down.  It was so depleting to wake up to her crying first thing in the morning, which lasted sometimes for hours, and I didn't truly ever rest, even at bedtime, because I was waiting for her to wake and cry.  I would try to relax, and yet in the back of my mind would be, any minute she may wake, and the cycle will start again of trying with all I have to calm her, and feeling like the worst mother in the world.

Sometimes I wondered what was worse - feeling like I couldn't help her, or the feeling of being such a bad mom.

Anyway, that time in my life is over.  Our home has such joy in it.  Taylor can rip around and have fits, but they are a part of our life, not the soundtrack of it.  And I can stand up to my little girl, and remember that I am the mother, and she needs limits and boundaries.  As much as she may fight me on it, I make the rules, and I know what's good for her.

And God knew what was good for me, by giving me Taylor.  He knew I needed to learn some lessons, and He knew my life would be blessed beyond measure with the gift of her.