Archive for January 14th, 2010
So how did Ava do?
Well, that depends on how you look at it, I guess.
D-Day itself was fine. Despite our rocky start at daycare drop off (which is sadly not unusual when I take her) she was fine. She spent the evening with her friend, Izzy, and J had her home and in bed not too long past her normal bedtime. Thanks to an occasional business trip here and there she actually doesn’t freak out anymore when I’m gone for a day or two so it wasn’t a big deal when she didn’t see me that night or even the next morning.
We maintained her daycare routine in order to keep things as normal as possible – J dropped her off in the AM and picked her up at the regular time. Once she got home J would bring her into the room where I was camped out several times a day so she could at least see me but he suddenly became the sole provider of hugs, food, kisses, cups of milks, baths, books, and all the other things we both normally handle. I was either too out of it or too sore to do much for the first 3 days but she was always thrilled to see me when J brought her in for a while.
By the 4th day I was feeling a little better so I asked J to pile some pillows around me to make sure I didn’t get toddler tackled in the belly and to leave her with me for a little while so we could bond over some Sesa.me Street. She was thrilled to be able to lay in mama’s bed and watch TV since this is a rare treat for her. Thrilled, that is, until J left the room and all hell broke loose because she did not want a) J to leave and/or b) to be alone with me.
My heart sustained some permanent damage, I’m certain of it. She screamed so loud that J came running back upstairs to see what the problem was. I had him comfort her for a minute and then told him he had to leave so we could sort this out. She yelled some more, wept quietly once she figured out J wasn’t coming to save her, refused to let me touch or soothe her, and scooted as far away from me as she possibly could without falling off the bed. I tried really hard not to take any of this personally but this was the first time she’d flat out rejected me and it smarted a bit. Of course, I also had to worry that this might resurrect any latent abandonment issues and have a negative impact on all the work we’ve done to ensure that she develops a secure and confident attachment. While I think her attachment has been fantastic, there’s a tendency toward anxiety in her that I need to keep an eye on and manage and it scared me to death to see her reaction when J left the room. She was in anxiety overload and was struggling so very hard to control this situation.
Thank goodness for Elm.o, Steve Jobs, and whoever invented YouTube. Between the temptation of that little red monster and my web enabled cell phone I was able to coax her back over to my side of the bed and to forget for a little bit that Daddy left her to the evil, disappearing mama. A few more rounds of the lipdub version of “I Gotta Feeling” and she was putty in my hands.
Actually saying that I was putty in her hands would be way more accurate. I would have done almost anything to be back in her good graces even if it does involve annoying puppets and the Black Eyed Peas.