My daughter’s nickname is Minnie; she gave it to herself because she had issues saying her name when learning to speak. She is my diva, my dancer, my artist, my light on dark days and the person who drives me to the brink of insanity at least once per day. She doesn’t know that of course, but she is thin skinned, emotional, argumentative, stubborn and draining. In short, she is an extreme version of me. I might have been exactly the same at her age, but I don’t remember.
I am an only child, and no, I was not spoiled. I know, I know, all only children say that as adults; but I have proof: My father was an only child, he was a navy brat and I mean BRAT. Both of his parents dotted on him as if he were king, both he and my grandfather admitted to his level of spoilage. My mother has a brother that is 7 years older than her, my grandmother had many miscarriages in between her two children and had almost given up having a second child when my mother came along. She was spoiled as well, as was told to me by her and all of her side of the family. So, I had no chance as it is apparently impossible to be the spoiler when you have been the spoilee. As a teenager both of my grandfathers independently apologized to me for spoiling their children, who in turn treated me like the hired help.
As far back as I can remember, my mother and I have never got along. I loved being alone in my room, where she would leave me be for the most part. I have promised, and so far succeeded in not being a parent like mine. Minnie loves spending time with me, and I love it too; but lately she has started being my shadow. The suggestion of playing alone in her room brings an emotional meltdown. She hates being alone. Now I think I need to address the obvious: she is not afraid of anything in her room, she is not attention starved nor is she a brat. She is well behaved, well mannered and knows the meaning of ‘no’. I do not give in to her when she argues and she does not have me wrapped around her finger.
My family is lucky, I get to stay home to raise our kids and focus on my education, my husband has a sweet schedule that is 3 on/3 off, so he gets to be home half the time. We make a point to spend time together as a family, we are not perfect by any means but there is a lot of love in our home. So, cut to this morning, when we were running a few minutes late; I like to have both kids ready to walk out the door 5 minutes before we have to. This actually happens about 30% of the time. I am the first to admit that I am not a morning person; I am grumpy and impatient for the first hour of the day. The fourth time I asked Minnie to put her socks and shoes on was the exact moment we had to leave, so I yelled for her to “put your damn shoes on so we can go!” Like I said, I’m not perfect.
I have to drive a mile down the road for my kids to catch the bus, one of the cons of living a country life. On the way to the bus stop I hear Minnie crying in the back seat. I told her I was sorry for yelling but she needed to do things the first time I asked so I don’t have to yell about it. She cried harder, so I asked her what was wrong and she said “I just think that you will cut off my head with a knife”. My head spun. I have never said anything remotely like that to her, or around her. She doesn’t watch violent TV and she doesn’t know violent people. What the fuck is going on?!?! My son and I had matching jaw-dropped looks of disbelief. After telling her that there was no way that would ever happen I asked her to please stay home from school today and have some girl time with me. She agreed.
After a long talk she told me that she has bad dreams a lot. Not about monsters or other imaginary scary things; she dreams about who she knows doing scary things. Some of the dreams she has are vivid enough that she has a hard time distinguishing what isn’t real. At 5 ½ years old, that is understandable. I have no idea what to do for her, and I feel like a failure because of it. Now I feel extra horrible for asking her to play alone in her room because she was driving me nuts. If I couldn’t separate my real family from the scary psycho family of my dreams I wouldn’t want to be alone either. If she keeps having these dreams I will find her a counselor to talk to. I have worked so hard to give her the loving, spend-time-together-family that I didn't have and she still ends up thinking everyone hates her just like I did? Is the universe that cruel? Well one thing is for sure, I'm not gonna stop looking for ways to help her until I get my carefree diva back.
It is so obvious in your writing that you are a very loving mom. I don't know what to say about your daughters violent dreams, but I am sure they are not because of anything you've done. I can tell you that my son used to have terrible night terrors when he was her age. He would wake up screaming and thinking someone was trying to hurt or kill him or me. Like you, I was at a loss as to why it was happening. As he has gotten older the night terrors have become less frequent. He still "sleep walks" his way into our room once in a while, talking gibberish and never remembers it later. But nowdays his dreams are less vivid and he goes back to sleep easier. I felt so bad about it when he was younger, like I had done something to bring them on. One trick I tried, that worked sometimes, was to give him a stone or coin at bedtime and tell him it was magic and would protect him from bad dreams. I think it made it easier for him to sleep after he had one of those bad dreams.
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