January 8: Socks, Screams, and Tiger Logos

We had an easy drive home from visiting my family…. Until we walked into our house. Before we left for our trip Sarah had wanted to order Goodnight Moon socks for my brother, to match her own. As I ordered the socks, I also found a new pattern of Goodnight Moon socks and ordered two pairs for Sarah. She seemed interested in when they would arrive, but at peace with the information that the package would not arrive at any of the places we were visiting. I said they would arrive after we got home. Oh no!! Error!! Alert! Alert! I should not have said that. I should have lied and said I had no idea when they would arrive. I didn’t know the specific date, but it didn’t mean anything to me because the socks would arrive whenever they would arrive. Meanwhile, Sarah was fully expecting the new socks to be waiting for her when we crossed our threshold. They were not. The screams and upset from Sarah were monumental and lasted for maybe an hour? I'm not sure. I stuck around for unloading our rental car and then drove out to return it and get our car from the airport. Carl stayed at home to deal with the screams. 

As I drove away, grateful for the peace but also still upset about how upset Sarah was and how mad I felt in response, I was thinking about how I would have survived the moment if Carl hadn’t been there. I know I have lots of practice with dealing with Sarah’s upsets, but I didn’t have the capacity on this day. I could understand why people sometimes do violence to their children and that scared me. I reminded myself of the friends and neighbors nearby that I could have called or gone to to ask them to step in while I stepped out. Or I could have just left the house and Sarah could have screamed on her own, with Amy probably staying in her room. I’m gad Carl was there and his usual calm self so that I didn’t have to think about it, but it is still a good reminder that I don’t have to push past my limits when there is a village to help.

Sarah had school on Tuesday and the bus came even earlier than ever before. She didn’t even have time to brush her teeth, but she did make it on the bus. Amy didn’t have school until Thursday so we spent hours on Tuesday and Wednesday searching a multitude of stores in person. We were looking for cozy fleece-lined leggings that would actually fit my long-limbed daughter. She is 11 but needs size 14 to get the length, but that often makes the waist not fit right. Target has stopped making this legging product that they have made for at least the lifetimes of my children. When I have tried getting things online they often haven’t worked, so I was determined to find the things in person. Nope! Some close possibilities and lots of total strike-outs of stores that didn’t really have anything Amy-ish at all. In the end I did order some online from two more stores. Fingers crossed. We did at least find pajamas that fit Amy instead of showing 4 inches of leg above her ankle. The pajamas are size 14 of course.

Yesterday Carl and Amy went skiing while Sarah and I had a cozy day indoors. Amy had lots of practice getting up from falling, because the hill they went down was bigger and harder than any she has done before. Still, Carl said she persevered impressively and overall they both had a good time. Sarah talked about going to the zoo and I kept offering and asking, but she kept saying she wanted to go later. 

Sarah has been talking a lot about an episode of Caillou in which the dad is wearing a baseball uniform with a button-down shirt with a tiger logo on it. Sarah really wants to be Caillou touching the tiger logo or to be the dad wearing the logo. While her school sweatshirt has a tiger on it, that apparently doesn’t fit the bill. Last night Amy quickly drew a detailed tiger head with a roaring speech bubble and taped it to Carl’s shirt. Sarah was delighted, pointed to it many times, and later taped it to her own shirt. 

May you have the socks and shirt logos of your dreams.