Paging Dr. Freud
Vista, at the ripe old age of 4, is a master manipulator.
She’s smart. Waaaay too smart. And she knows exactly how to play people.
I watch her do it with her therapists when she’s not in the mood to work with them. She’ll play dumb, bat her eyelashes, cock her head to the side, smile, and give a ‘I don’t know’ shrug. At which point we’ve now trained her therapists to glance over at me, where I can give a slight nod to indicate ‘yes, she knows this. She’s just fucking with you right now.’
The other day she was throwing a fit while getting ready for school. It was only 7:30am and I had already had it. So I looked at her and told her to drop the attitude. She stopped, cocked her head to the side and gave me the biggest smile. In return, I rolled my eyes at her. ”Nice try. That might work on some people, but it doesn’t work on Mama.”
Without missing a beat, she let the smile drop and told me, “It works on Daddy.”
*snort*
Yeah, my kid’s no dummy.
This morning she was being a typical four year old, running around and not listening to a thing we had to say. After 5 hours of this, Bil was understandably tired of it and told her “Enough. You need to start listening to Mommy and Daddy. You haven’t been listening at all this morning!”
Again, without missing a beat, she turned to him with a straight face and asked him “Why do you think that is?”
That *boom* you heard was Bil’s head exploding.
What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate
It’s hard when you’re trying to discipline your child by telling her that she’s lost TV privilages for the rest of the night and she helpfully suggests you should take away her dinner too.
*headdesk*
Trying to figure out a way to discipline a special needs kid who is completely oblivious to the fact they’re being disciplined? Well, lets just say it’s an exercise in futility. No matter what you say or do, there’s only one loser in the situation and it’s ALWAYS the parent.
It’s hard not to get even more frustrated trying to get them to understand they’ve done something wrong, when it’s obvious they have a complete lack of understanding around the entire situation.
Sometimes it makes me wonder if my kid will grow up to be a complete sociopath. How can you have remorse when you don’t get that you’ve done anything wrong?
All this came up today after she purposely broke another one of her toys. Why? Because she didn’t want it anymore.
This is a common occurrence and it frustrates us to no end. We’ve tried to explain to her that if she doesn’t want to play with a toy, that she can bring it to us and we can give it to another little boy or girl who doesn’t have toys. But that hasn’t yet sunk in. We’ve tried making her throw the toy out after she’s broken it, but she’ll happily do it. She just isn’t that attached to anything.
And midway through the discussion on why she broke her toy, she burst into hysterics because she wanted her old white bed back. Yeah. Six months after we redecorated her room and moved her into a big-girl bed and we’re still experiencing fallout from it.
Oy. There are days when being a special needs parent is, well…special.
There is no Mommy…Only Zuul
Vista tends to be a tad… emotional sometimes. I have no idea where she gets it from. Really. *cough* shut up *cough*
Add that to her penchant for taking things very literally and it can make for some… oh… say, interesting situations around here.
This evening was a perfect example.
We had been butting heads all day, so when Bil came home from work I quickly tagged out of the ring and took a breather.
But she wanted mommy, Mommy, MOMMMMMMMMY!
Bil tried his best to distract her and find out what she wanted, but nope. MOOOOOOOMMMMY.
I finally looked at her and replied “The mommy you have dialed is no longer in service. Please hang up and check with your father again.”
Did I mention my daughter is also stubborn? Again. No idea where that comes from. (shut it)
She gave a big huff. ”But Moooooooom….”
I looked at her with a smile “There is no Mommy. Only Zuul”
Instant. HYSTERICS.
She ran sobbing to her room. I raised an eyebrow and looked at Bil. He shrugged and followed after her.
I could hear him trying to decipher the source of the waterworks.
Vista: ”I waaaaant mommy!” *sob* *hiccup* *sob*
Bil: “OK. Well, she’s in the living room”
Vista: “No. That person said there is no mommy. Only Zuul. I don’t WANT Zuul. I WANT MOMMY!!” *more wailing*
Bil: “What person?”
Vista: “That person in the living room. They said there’s no mommy”
Bil: “Wait… you’re talking about Mommy? What Mommy said?”
Vista: “But there is no Mommy…..”
By this point I had to step in and intervene. I crawled onto her bed and picked her up and explained that yes, Mommy was here and we were just joking and there was no more Zuul, and so on. ZOMG… the DRAMA.
Half an hour later we finally got her calmed down enough that she would go play.
Me: “OK, lets go play before Mommy breaks your bed by sitting on it”
Vista: “Mommy’s going to break my bed?!? Waaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh”
Me: *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*
Bil: *glare*
I’m pretty sure I’m banned from saying anything for the rest of the night.
Therapy. We Needs It
Conversations in our house are never normal. Sometimes they’re weird. Sometimes they’re scary. Sometimes they’re borderline psychotic. Kinda like me.
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*standing in the kitchen talking to Bil while I fill a glass with ice*
Me: “Do I ever scare you? I mean, do you ever worry that one day you’re going to come home to find I’ve finally totally and completely lost it?”
Bil: “There’s an ice pick in the drawer over there….”
Me: “Right. Okay then.”
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Bil: “God… another damn email with Microsoft trying to convince the world how awesome SharePoint is.”
Me: “Isn’t it awesome?”
Bil: “Have you read my blog and twitter stream??”
Me: “Well…why do you specialize in it, then?”
Bil: “You can still specialize in something if it sucks.”
Me: “Good point. I want to specialize in something that sucks too…. What sucks?”
Bil: “Pauly Shore?”
Me: “Perfect. Going to watch Encino Man now.”
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*Vista’s playing with her toys and she has Little People horse. She’s making neighing sounds that are progressively getting louder and angrier sounding*
Me: “Vista, it sounds like you have a very disagreable horse there. Maybe he needs to be put down.”
Bil: “I wonder if they make the Fisher Price Glue Factory? *in his best announcer voice* Now with real glue sounds!”
Me: “I meant she had to put the toy down, not kill the horse…”
Bil: “Oh…right….”
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So, yeah… if anyone can recommend a good therapist…
Tastes Likes Chicken
“Vista! Leave the cat alone, already!” I said for the umteenth time today.
Vista: ”But he’s a chicken…”
Me: “He’s not a chicken he’s a cat.”
Vista: ”No. He’s a chicken!”
Me: “You were not thinking of putting him in the stove in your kitchen, were you?!?”
Vista: “No….. I was going to put him in the microwave…”
Me: *facepalm*
It’s A Match
I woke up this morning to the sound of Vista sobbing hysterically.
A glance at the clock told me it was a smidge after 6am. In other words, too damn early to be awake. Ugh.
“Vista, sweetie, what’s wrong?” I called out dragging myself out of bed.
She came crashing into my room at the sound of my voice.
“I can’t find it!!!” *sob, hiccup, sob*
*sigh* ”Sweetie, what can’t you find?”
“I can’t find the matching sock. I can’t find ANY socks that match!!!” *cue fresh sobs*
“Are you kidding me? Really? You’re crying at six o’clock in the morning because you can’t find a matching sock?”
By this point I was resisting the urge to slam my head repeatedly on my night table.
*sniffle, hiccup, sniffle* “Yeah… cause they DON’T MATCH!”
“Vista, I love you, but your OCDness drives me nuts sometimes.”
I get myself out of bed and head over to her sock drawer. The offending missing sock that matched the other one she had pulled out, was of course sitting right there on top.
I picked it up and handed it to her. Immediately she was all smiles.
It makes me think back to the days when my dad used to call me ‘Jekyll and Hyde’. I’m pretty sure Vista is karmic punishment for my mood swings as a teen.
On the bright side, she was actually able to put on her socks by herself.
This is a new skill she’s acquired recently, so we’ll celebrate that instead. Is it too early for champagne?
Who’s Your Daddy?
Part of Vista’s nature is her need to control her environment.
That means constantly asking me “Who we going to see today?”. Over and over. All. Day. Long.
It doesn’t matter if I give her the same answer over and over, all day long. She still needs to ask the question.
The other question I hear all day long is “Who was that?” after every single phone call.
Now, I wouldn’t be the mother I am, if I didn’t take these opportunities entertain myself at her expense. Because, really, that’s what parents are for, right?
So by the eleventy billionth time I’ve been asked ‘Who we going to see today’, rather than giving her the same answer I’ve been giving all day long, I’m more likely to tell her that we’re going to see the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and after that the Ghostbusters might make an appearance. Heh.
But I don’t only use these opportunities to educate my daughter on the finer points of ’80′s comedies. It’s also the perfect time to discuss religion.
*I hang up after talking to Bil*
Vista: “Who was that?”
Me: “God”
Vista: “Who is your God?”
Me: “Excellent question. Daddy is.”
Vista: “Daddy is your God? Bil is my daddy God.”
That’s right. We’re teaching her to worship us as deities.
Hey, it worked for the Egyptians.
How To Argue With Yourself
There are times when watching your kids is waaaaay funnier than any sitcom on the television.
Vista is a constant source of hilarity in our lives (when she’s not acting like demon hell spawn, of course).
We had a good laugh the other night after Bil introduced her to an iPad game that has a cat that you can interact with. The best part is, it picks up your voice on the microphone, runs it through a filter, and then plays back whatever you say in this squeeky cat voice. So to a 3yr old it’s like the cat is talking to you, which V was immediately fascinated with.
Until… she said my name. Which of course the cat repeated. And then the argument started. But basically, she was arguing with herself, because all this stupid cat is doing is repeating what she says. And, OMG, we just about died laughing.
Really, there’s no better way to explain this than to show you
Chee-Yos
Me: “Vista, what do you want for breakfast?”
V: “Uhhhhh…..Fishy crackers!”
Me: “Hrmmm, yeah, no. That’s not a breakfast food. How about some Multi-grain Cheerios instead?”
V: “OK muddy-gain-chee-yos.”
Me: “No. Mul-tee-gr-… Oh never mind…”
*hands her a bowl of Cheerios*
V: “Mmmmmm….deeeeelicious! Fresh from the garden!”
Me: “Ummmmm…. *sigh* … Yup mommy picked them special for you”
+++++++++++++++++++++
There are some explanations I can’t get into with her before my morning cup of coffee. The fact that ‘chee-yos’ don’t grow on trees would be one of those.
