It doesn't matter how much yoga I do or how prepared I think I am, sometimes I lose control.
This is what I did-
Checked in that she was planning to leave for school.
Brought up a bag for the sketch book.
Told her when school was about to start (in 15 minutes, in 5 minutes) and that she had to go because the art teacher was expecting the book.
When I was told that I had to stop and I was making her not go I shouted up that I would take the book to school and she could follow.
I got dressed, put my hair up and put my shoes and coat on.
I went to her door and when she still told me no I took (grabbed? ripped?) the bag from her hands and went downstairs and out to my bike.
I stopped as she begged me not to go and asked over and over why I was doing this and said she had been about to go. We shouted at each other, horribly. When I came back in she grabbed the bag back and I tried to get it back, for a moment, then stopped. I followed her upstairs and pushed my way into her room.
The gist of the things I was saying was that at some point 'the train leaves' and everything is too late, she always says she's about to leave when I come upstairs yet when I don't she doesn't leave for ages, if at all. I did not want the teacher waiting any longer not knowing whether this book would come in which was worth 40% of her mark.
I left when I could see that neither of us would otherwise back down and that we both needed to calm down. I sat on the back door step, cried and called Husband.
I left it 10? 20 minutes then I took her a glass of water, I had one and made contact at her door. She took the water, placed it somewhere then followed me out. She started going back over everything that had just happened from her point of view. She was outraged and disgusted, no wonder she was how she was with a mother like me. This verbal outpouring went on for another 20 minutes I should say and I think I will write about this separately because it is becoming a feature and is not what it first seems. I'm going to call it an Unceasing Character Assassination. I tried several times to leave and to interject. I took responsibility for what I had done, I was sorry that her fingers had got hurt, I accepted I had behaved unexpectedly and that I had lost my temper. I tried to tell her this was because I was human but she told me a wasn't trying. I was trying to do some calm breathing and distance myself from what she was saying, and not to cry. I was calm when I told her in a matter of fact way that I was trying, just then I was trying not to throw the glass in my hand at her head - not right, I know, too honest. I wasn't meant to be threatening, mostly I was very sad. She'd been talking down to me, quite literally, from the landing so I went up to the top of the stair and told her that I was not a monster and I was a good mum and if she wanted to keep talking to me like this she would have to come down to the kitchen with me because I was going to have a cup of tea.
I took my tea out to the garden office and talked to Husband and good-friend-parent-of-teenage-girl.
This is what Lily did.. Lily was up and dressed by 7am and painting her last piece into her sketchbook.
At 8am she assured me she was nearly ready to go, agreed a bag for the sketchbook was a good idea and also accepted some greaseproof paper from me after worrying that the paint was still wet.
Lily started on hair and make-up ( I assume) but as I started to stress the need to go she became cross and combative.
Lily's main accusation was that she had 'literally' been about to walk out the door when I grabbed the bag. Everything revolved around me not knowing what was going on in her head and judging her, not giving her time/allowance and therefore I was the reason she was not already there, or may not ever get there. For Lily, I had gone from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds with no reason and this was just like Lucas. She became utterly enraged when I continued to argue back that more often than not she didn't leave. She removed her glasses and screamed in my face that she did. That was after I had pushed my way into her room and before I left.
After I had given her the water she wanted to drive home how wronged she had been. She said I didn't listen, didn't try and didn't giver her any support or consideration. She said Husband and I gave her none of the allowances after her diagnosis that we had given Lucas. She was very distressed about how I had hurt her fingers when I had taken the bag and again when I had pushed my way into her room. There was a lot of judgement to do with how I treated her, ' a child' and, in contrast actually to Lucas who liked to tell me I wasn't his mum, she kept emphasising that I was her Mum. She told me how we don't understand her school day and how she is there on time even if she isn't there for daily announcements or sign in which are pointless anyway. She went over everything at least twice, telling me what I did and what I do, maybe with a rhetorical 'what are you thinking' type question but certainly with no room for answers or conversation.
My announcement that I was going to the kitchen finally was greeted with distain, 'That's right, you go and have a nice cup of tea'. At some point in the next hour or so, she left for school with the sketchbook.
These are the things which I think made a difference to how I reacted:I had come to the conclusion that Lily could get her nose on the finishing tape and still not make it over the line. I was starting to see how often it looked like she would make it, how she would go through the motions of getting things ready, prepared and we would think, well she must be planning to go, do it, whatever. Yet there were consistently things, like coming home early on the second day of the art exam, which meant she just didn't make it.
The stress of these unknowns at the beginning of the week had got to me. Also, I'd come back from Yorkshire with a throat infection.
image by Dids
The art teacher had rung me on every one of my phones, and emailed, the day before to stress the importance of the sketchbook coming back into school and how Lily shouldn't really have it at home. She had managed to get Lily on the phone at home and Lily had told her she wasn't in school because she was very ill. I said that wasn't true. By the following morning I was convinced that Lily would find a way to drag the whole art exam submission on and on. Either that or there would be a shout from her room that she had spilled coffee over everything. I just wanted to get that book away.
I had in mind that after she left I would just give myself an hour's 'me' time and watch some silly TV or go back to bed. Always a mistake to think this.
So there you have it, and where do things stand now?
Well the sketch book is handed in, which is something, I do not know about the exam piece itself and there is another sketchbook due in on 22nd May. Joy.
Lily went to school. Tick. and in fact also came back, although only after Husband and I had gone out for the evening. She did join us for dinner last night but there are no niceties and we are generally avoiding each other.
I have learned that there really is nothing I can do to help ensure she makes it to school on time for her exams so I will withdraw either to the garden office or out all together next week on exam days.
Husband has gone away for a week and Lily has already sounded me out about 'dropping' the first subject she has on Thursday so we wait and see and hope for the calm after the storm.
by pixabay
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