Monday, April 16, 2012

thinking about "progress"

today i'm thinking about progress. pretty much since Miss A turned our world upside down, we've looked for any inkling of progress to indicate success.
  • from hardly sleeping to sleeping mostly through the night.
  • from refusing to eat hardly anything that grows from the ground to willingly tasting a few fruits, and not even noticing the "ninja veggies" that often get mixed into dinner.
  • from being unable to be alone in a room, to choosing to play in her room by herself.
  • from saying "me scared" any time a room seemed darker than necessary, to deciding "me like dark". (some might call this brainwashing. i like to think of it as pep-talks, when i respond to "it's dark." with "it's a good thing we like the dark, huh?")
  • from no manners to occasional manners.
  • from unable to communicate needs when emotional to using "big girl words" to tell us what's wrong.
  • from some serious hesitations about matt to deciding he's her best friend, and choosing to hold his hand instead of mine.
this morning, i thought about how i was up in the middle of the night 3 times. two were to deal with temperature (i think) and one was to convince her that 6:20am is "not quite morning yet". i realized i was discouraged by this, because i was looking at how it affected me. obviously my goal had been to sleep through the night myself (can you blame me?), but the reality is that if long, restful nights are our goal in life, we ought not become parents.

instead, i need to focus on how she is affected, and call that progress. sure, she woke up. but did she scream at me? nope. did she require 2 hours in the rocking chair at 2am? nope. did she kick and sob? nope. did she demand that the lights be turned on? nope. did she require matt and i to sit in dining room chairs in her room and carry on soft, meaningless conversation, in the middle of the night, so she could fall back asleep to the sound of our voices? nope. (that happened once. true story.)

did she wipe away her tears and use big girl words to tell me she was hot? and later, cold? yep. did she climb back into bed willingly and go back to sleep, instead of wanting to sleep on the couch? yep. (well, mostly.)

that's all progress. so yes, i'm tired today. but she's bright-eyed and sunshiny, as usual. she's proud of herself for being a big girl and i'm proud of her too. she's getting what she needs. she's making progress. that's what matters. (and i can sleep later. like, in 15 years or so.)

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