The Tonight Show with Eliza Mae

Oh how I love to peek into Eliza's room and see this scene! Especially because it zaps any of the energy I have left by 7pm to actually get her to this point.

Bedtime has allowed me to truly relate to the phrase, "It's like pulling teeth."

And now I'm too tired to write about it.

One of the hard parts of being trained as a therapist or social worker is that as I raise my child trying to discipline her in the "healthiest" way possible, I also have in the back of my mind, "What parts of these memories will come back to her as trauma when she's 19 years old talking to her therapist about how her parents ruined her life."

Like tonight when she screamed and cried for about an hour. It all started when she yelled from the back of the car, "Give me my toy NOW, Mom!"

Long story short, I wouldn't give her the McDonald's toy without a "Please." And although she hadn't stopped tantruming from the toy issue, I still made her take a bath and get ready for bed. The whole while she screamed, "But I'm HUNGRY! Mama! I'm STARVING! My stomach doesn't have ANY food in it!" (her stomach had chicken nuggets and apples slices in it)

So basically, I can just imagine tonight being one of Eliza's first uncovered memories as she does some Rational Emotive Therapy where she is trying to uncover the roots of her eating disorder... "I remember a night where my mother was pouring water on me while I was standing in the bath yelling and sobbing to her that I was starving, and she told me too bad, you had your chance to eat earlier, and then poured another bucket of water over me."

Fortunately, story time finally got her calmed down and relaxed in bed and asleep by 8pm. ::deep sigh of relief::

On a similar bedtime note, I think that if someone ever witnessed or recorded me reading bedtime stories to Eliza it would be INSANE because some nights I start falling asleep while I read. But even though I'm falling asleep I keep trying to read. AND I start dreaming! So I start adding in words from my dream. For example, as I was reading a story to Eliza about clams, I remember waking up to myself saying the words Japanese, fulfillment, and alcoholic. A few other times, I "woke" up to Eliza shouting at me, "I can't understand you!" even though I thought I was still reading the books to her, I guess I was mumbling unintelligibly. So sleepy...

I love you, Eliza!