I Want Something And Only Something.....

My parents were spending the past two weeks with us here and they left this afternoon. While they were here, my daughter went through various mood cycles - sometimes too happy and excited and only jumping around, sometimes cranky, sometimes conscious and shy, sometimes angry and rebellious, sometimes deciding not to speak at all, sometimes her love would be too much to handle.

She went through a whole set of varied emotions through these past two weeks. And seeing her, I could already make out that this time would be a tad more difficult to handle her once my parents would leave and the house would be left to just the two of us again for the entire day and almost always till after she was in bed at night.....

As predicted, she cried and sulked the moment she knew her grandparents had returned. No amount of cajoling or picking her up in my arms was helping. She cried, sobbed, pushed me away, hit out at me for letting her dadun-dimma go and leave her like this...she took it out more on herself than she did on me.

She was so angry she told me she would not speak to me "baby will not talk' came the little threat from those pink puckered lips. And since she was not speaking, she only pointed out things to me, so that I could still get her whatever she needed. Like, she spent the entire evening sitting on my lap, shoving me but still sitting on my lap, and not talking to me, instead, pointing out the water bottle, the sketch pad and crayons, the doll...as and when whatever was needed !!!!

Finally, she was a little pacified and agreed to lie down with me and go to bed (after picking through dinner on her own!!!) :(
(I had always thought I would be happy when she would start eating independently on her own, but strangely, when she did not let me feed her today, it only made me feel sad and want to take part in that regular routine once again)

As she put her head on her new pillow (my husband picked up a Barney pillow from HKG for her as it is her current darling) I told her to turn to mamma and hug me and sleep. She refused, not even talking to me, still lying and sobbing in between periods of being still. I wanted to cheer her up then.

"What happened? Tell me...are you angry?" Shaking her head to show no.
"Are you hungry?" Shaking her head again to show no.
"Are you sad?" Nodding her head to show yes.
So I sat up.
"Why are you sad? Do you want something?" I asked.
She thought for a moment and then nodded her head again to show yes.
"What do you want. Tell me, let me see if I can get it."
"I want something."
"Okay, what something?"
"Something?"
"Yes darling....but what something?"
"SOMETHING...I want SOMETHING..Only SOMETHING."
Oh no, I realised what I had done....!!!!!!!
I tried all other methods and tricks, but she cried for the next half hour for something.
Finally - "See, today something has finished. Mamma will go to the market in the morning and get something. Then you can have something tomorrow. Okay? Is that fine now?"
She nodded her head again to show that it was fine.
And after about fifteen minutes she was off to zzzzzz land.......