And The Theme Is...

This week's theme is...jealousy! 

It's here! It's there! It's everywhere! 

Can you be jealous of a sock? 

Can you be jealous of a rock? 

Can you be jealous of your brother and your sister and your father and your mother? 

Yes! Yes, you can! 

You can be jealous here and there and everywhere! 

You can...drive your mother bat shit crazy with your incessant, unceasing, unrelenting, whining and crying and whinging and pouting every moment of the live long day.

She is never, ever grateful. She is always, always wanting more. On the car ride home from school she starts telling me that other kids at school have little stuffed animal toys clipped to their backpacks but she has nothing clipped to her backpack. 

I wait till we get home. I wait till we're alone and I gave her a favorite snack to eat so our chat can feel special and cozy and non-judgmental. I explain things simply: other people will always have things we don't have. We can never buy enough things to make us happy. Things can't make us happy; things can't give us love. I see things all the time that other people have but I don't have and I make the choice to be happy with what I do have instead of being jealous of others. 

The talk goes swimmingly. She's sad once she realizes this talk means she is not getting a little something to clip to her backpack, but she's been over this theme a hundred bazillion times already in the past two years so she knows the script and she likes scripts full of rules and she likes to know things so she gets enthused about reciting it. This time I ask her to supply examples and she's flattered that I ask her opinion and she likes that part of the talk. We end with hugs and smiles and her chanting about being grateful for what we have and not wanting what we can't have. 

Two hours later we're leaving a super fun filled 1.5 hrs at the park on a beautiful day. The kids found two other kids to play with and they ran all over the place laughing and giggling and loving every second. She got to be 'it' when they played tag and she was giddy with delight. They were truly tired when I gave the 5 minute warning and came happily when I said it was time to go. We were all walking out, the other two holding my hands and bouncing and laughing and shouting about all the fun they'd had. 

We got to the park gate and I happened to be looking at her face and I literally saw the smile drop off and she looked--wanting--is the only word I can think of to describe this "I'm never satisfied" look she wears so much of the time. She turns to me and demands, "are we gonna get ice cream?!?" 

It wasn't a happy request. She wasn't asking hopefully. She wasn't reveling in a good day and suggesting a way we could continue the fun. Nope. She was already angry. She was already wanting something and feeling bereft if she couldn't have it. She was anticipating the disappointment and already living in the jealousy of that unfair loss. This is all in her own head. She manufactured an entire negative scenario that hadn't even happened yet and was already turning towards me in anger about it.

It ruined the moment. Her tone and look sucked the joy from everyone. Then I was instantly fighting to control my temper. Kate turned whiny. I was so disappointed that nothing from our earlier talk of just a few hours before had stuck with her. I contained myself and didn't lecture or yell. I just said, "No, because you haven't practiced gratitude for the good thing you already got." Then I made myself re-engage with James and Kate to recapture their fun mood. I got them talking and laughing again while Jane trudged along angrily behind us.

As they all got into the car I stopped her and looked her in the eye and said, "I would've gotten you ice cream but I'm not going to now. You didn't say thank you for the trip to the park. All you could think about was wanting something you didn't have." 

The whole way home she had her lips pursed in this way she does when she is white-hot pissed but not gonna show it. It's her 'tell' and I know it well by now. She's deeply, furiously angry. And not gonna show it, talk about it, or deal with it in any way whatsoever. 

After these interactions with me today, Theo says that at bedtime she pissed him off in two separate ways with whiny demands. And what made him most annoyed is that she was already demanding the thing that she always gets before it was even time for it. Example: the kids get candy after dinner as long as their Halloween candy holds out. Nine days of this routine. But, about 10 minutes before she would always, always, always get it, she's already angrily demanding it as if it's been denied to her. 

Gah, this mood she's in is unrelenting. She is an un-fillable vessel perpetually thirsty, and angry at us about the thirst. Except, we see she's standing there holding the cork she pulled out and we can't understand why she won't put the cork back in and allow herself to be filled.