Remorse

At a family picnic last summer, I remember Jason's aunt from Texas telling me, "I never knew I had a temper until I had a toddler." At the time, with my precocious two-year-old and my new-ish baby, I nodded knowingly, as though I understood what she meant. But not until these last few days and weeks have I really known what it's like to be furious with someone else, so upset and beside myself with helplessness and disappointment that I have had to hold myself back from doing unspeakable harm; so mad that I have wanted very, very badly to slap something or someone. I have not done it, but I have wanted to. And I feel horrible just for wanting to because this is my daughter I'm talking about, my firstborn, my adorable, clever, enchanting child who I love beyond measure. Yet the things she has done and said - intentionally, with the goal of being horrible - these last two weeks have been unacceptable, and nothing that Jason and I have done or said has been able to halt the progression of more and more bad behavior.

Tonight in the bathroom, she was on a tirade: "Mom, no. No! You are not going to give me my bath tonight. Daddy is. Stop! You are not allowed to give me a bath. I don't like you. I'm going to let you die."

When I asked her what that even meant, she pulled her shirt up over her face and wouldn't look at me for a minute. I took her her shirt off and put her calmly in the tub where she proceeded to kick Jemma. I scooped her right back out of the tub, soaking wet, and told Jason, "Just put her to bed." When I went in to kiss her good-night, she was smiling cruelly. I handed Jemma off to Jason (thank God for Jason), and went for a run, the only thing I knew to do. I was fighting tears for most of the route, wondering if this is something that all parents go through, wondering if this portends the kind of teenager she'll be, wondering if I put my own mother through such trying times.

My biggest frustration is that she seems to feel no remorse for her mistakes. We tell her, over and over, "Everybody makes mistakes, but then you say you're sorry and you try not to do it again." At which point she does it again, just to be naughty. Just to test us. As though, after two years of consistency in discipline and following through on consequences every single time, we might let something this big slide. I tell her, over and over again, "We don't care how smart you are, how fast you can run, how good of a singer or dancer you are; the most important thing is that you are kind to others." And she smiles, she laughs.

I don't think Jason feels as devastated as I do by all this. He's around plenty, to be sure, and he sees lots of our daily situations, but I am still the leader in our at-home scenarios, and I feel this failure very keenly. I feel as though I am doing something very wrong, but I look around and I can't quite figure out what it is. All I know is that I have ended one day holding her by the wrist, shouting, "That's enough!" over and over until we were both crying, and now one day running down Cambridge, tears in my eyes.

Her birthday is in 5 days, as she will tell anyone who will listen. I want to make it magical for her, with caramel cake and princess napkins and special presents and breakfast at a restaurant. But right now, I just don't know if my heart will be in it. Right now, I just want my sweet little girl back.