There's no reason why anyone should stay in an abusive relationship. If you're in an abusive relationship, you don't "have" to stay.
Unless the abuser is your kid.
Then you stay. It's the law.
Round 1
Yesterday, Rain beat me up. I'm not proud I got smacked down by a toddler, but there it is. I was holding her on my hip as I took away some contraband she had in her hand. I seriously can't remember if it was a rock, pencil, or stolen iPod because in a moment, as you'll see, she knocked me senseless. Anyway, when I pulled the object away--whatever it was--she started flapping about. She jerked her body backwards (the typical toddler arched back) in disapproval. This wouldn't have been a problem, except when she came back towards me, she knocked her head into my cheek and eye. Her skull got me right on my cheek bone and eye.
It hurt. Real bad like. I had to kneel to avoid dropping Rain on the floor. Her forehead was red, but was she crying? Nope.
First of all, Rain's head is ROCK solid. (FYI: regardless of what our parents claimed, there's almost no way kids will ever "crack their heads open." Trust me, Rain's tried).
Second, Rain was too busy staring at me. She was fascinated by my pain/anger.
There I was trying to keep her safe, and she had hit me! Ok, sure, it was probably an accident, but if she hadn't thrown a fit, she wouldn't have slammed her head into my eye. My eye!
I was holding the side of my face, and giving her a "See what you did??" look. She knew I was hurtin', and that she had done something very wrong. She walked away at first like, "Don't care 'cause I'm mad at you." Still sitting on the floor, I turned my back to her. I wanted her to know she'd caused me pain. When I peeked, I saw Rain had grabbed hold of a foot ladder I had been using to paint a shelf. I guess she figured, "You're going to turn your back on me? Well, then, I'll climb this ladder you're always taking away!"
I kept my back turned as I rubbed my face. Finally, Rain came toddling over. For a few moments, she sat next to me. She was kind of sympathizing and seemed a tad remorseful. After five seconds of humanity, she realized she was a toddler with short-term memory loss, and was all, "Hey, is that your laptop open over there?" The glowing screen was too much for her. She was up and out in a second, assumably to beat my laptop.
Round 2
I've been told by my sister that when Rain gets mad at her older cousin Syrene (who is almost 5)--you know, when they fight over toys and the like--that Rain takes it out on Syrene's little sister Madi. This has happened about 3 or 4 times, but I've never seen it myself.
Until today.
Today Rain and Syrene were playing together (my sister was out on an errand). Most of the time, they have a lot of fun together. Eventually and inescapably, they'll decide that there's only one cool toy in the room, and they must both play with it at the same time. At this point, I usually check my pockets for what kind of parental phrases I might have handy.
"Why don't we take turns?" Check.
"Toys are meant to be shared." Check.
"If you don't learn to share, no one will want to play with you." Check.
I was bouncing Madi on my leg when Syrene decided to hit Rain to get a toy. Before I could intervene, Rain hit Syrene back. I was a bit surprised (mind you, Tim & I never hit each other & Rain isn't allowed to watch TV, so I was a bit, "Where did you learn that from?"), but still, I was determined to end the madness.
Well, now arms were flying, and somehow Rain seemed to get that she was in no way going to whip up on an almost-five-year-old. So, she turned around and SMACKED Madison on the head. I'm thinking:
1. How does Rain know that hurting Madison is like hurting Syrene? Isn't that a little too clever? In a sinister sort of way?
2. Stop!
At this point, I switched right into intinct mode. Forget the parenting books. War manuals do you no good when you're in the trenches. I was so instinctively mad at Rain for hitting an infant that I took her hand, and said, "NO!" with Death in my voice.
Rain quickly raised her hand again and hit Madison. I grabbed Rain's hand, and with all the sadness building up in me, I smacked her hand and said, "I SAID 'NO'."
We stared at each other for a moment. Rain was shocked (I've never hit her before), and I was mad. More than that, I was so, so, so very sad that I had to put the smack down on Rain. But I promised myself a long time before Rain was born, that no matter what, if I have to chose between being her therapist-friend or parent, I was going to have to suck it up and be a mom.
I should've just stayed mad.
The minute Rain saw that change in my eyes--from anger to sadness--my advantage was over. She got all huffy, walked off, flung herself on the carpet, and gave me a sassy look.
"Don't hit Madison," I told her again, trying to sound firm.
If you've ever seen a Wallace & Gromit flick--the clay animation stuff--then you know how expressive eyes can be. Gromit doesn't talk; it's all in the eyes. Anyway, if you've seen Gromit in action, then you know what it's like to deal with a toddler. They search your eyes for all kinds of information and offer the same in return.
Well, I could tell from Rain's eyes that she knew I was defending Madi. She huffed for half a minute longer, then begged to be carried.
Neither of us raised a white flag, to be sure, but we did opt for a truce.
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