Happy Birthday Baby Girl!!! Blow out your Triggers *cough* I mean candles….

Remember that blog post …oh say like three days ago..and my fear of jinxing myself?…Stupid head…I should have like knocked on salt, thrown a black cat over my shoulder …er sumthin’.

Cause we’re a BA-AACK.

Can you hear the 1980’s slasher film sound track in the background of this post?

Yeah…not pretty.

Stuckville, ID /Podunk, ID is again my address….which I refer to with my closer friends a B*$%#-ville…but I’m being “therapeutic” right now.

Our birthday is this week…and chronologically we will be 18 yrs old, emotionally, I am betting on a solid 11.

Recently "we" lost our newly reinstated cell phone. It took 2 weeks. It cost me to the bill of $450, that was *after* “we” called the phone company and reversed the parental controls in Mom’s name and made 26 phone calls to random boys in Haiti. There is a back-story a mile long…and am I going to share it….a NOPE….but it’s juicy. Sigh.

So we have been pouting, throwing grand maul tantrums, silent treatment up the ying-yang…and generally stealing all of the good air out of the room…

So the “empathetic, curious, lovely, understanding Mama…came in for a sit down, talk it out and validate session….no sarcasm here, seriously….

Once the “real reason” we are sad is, here comes a deep heart bleeding sigh, “I am not getting a 2011 Blue Land Cruiser for my birthday”…."and I want a lap top, and my cell phone back"……and this so called empathetic, curious, lovely, understanding Mama….gots NUTHIN’….and I mean I sat there with my mouth open with no tangible words able to come out…I wanted to validate, and be understanding..and all I could do was have the cash register add up in my brain, the 100’s of things I have had to replace, reimburse, fix, and live with trashed, between these birthdays…..the fact that my bedding has rips, my home has been flooded (on purpose 3x)…and so so much more…and these last 3 days of hell are about a blinking Land Cruiser?....when we don’t have a drivers license, nor could pass the drivers test?

“Bro-OKEN TEAD”

Every birthday I take my kids to JC Penny’s (I have a Platinum Card, it’s total debt, whatever)…I had taken Cookie out last fall for his annual pick a b-day shirt and jammies, it was a BIG DEAL…and our first time since he came home in a department store.

As we were walking down the aisle, I heard very softly in his thick-adorable accent. “Bro-OKEN TEAD”, ….we would walk a little farther and again…he would say “Bro-OKEN TEAD”….Finally I realized he was looking at the mannequins and all of the bodies were HEADLESS..and so he had figured they all had “Broken Heads”….

That is what I was thinking as I sat there with no words. “Bro-OKEN TEAD”

And…in moments like this …when I can STOP, not flip a-lid…and REMEMBER our heads and hearts have really been broken. That deep down her fear and defiance and generally Hellish behavior is not about the ”stuff and things and entitlement” …but REALLY about the fear, the triggers, the memories, and sadness this anniversary of her birth surfaces. The loss of so many birthdays not being valued. The family and memories that hurt. The fact that we are not chronologically fitting up to our peers. The fact that as much as we “want” these so called things …deep down we know we are not safe with them yet….so it makes us idealize them and want them more..to the point all is lost if we don’t have them…if I can get that far in my thinking, I can remember I am not dealing with a spoiled, mean, selfish 18 year old, but a scared, hurt, broken/healing 11 year old in a very mature body….and I can breathe…and find the words….and I can be sensitive and validate, without agreeing to her unrealistic wish list.

Papillion is sitting next to me right now. Her arms are crossed, her face is sad…but she is sitting next to me, which means she wants closeness, but that is as far as she wants to go right now...and that's O.K. cause THAT would not have been an option months ago.

We have sat quietly on her bed. I have probed a little, guessed a little, “seems to me” a little, and gotten some big and little things out of it.
Even THEIR BIG DAYS can be triggers, weeks and days up to the “Big Event” can and most likely will be sabotaged, the good is so scary. Setting herself up for dissatisfaction is a safe way for her not to be too disappointed… I get that.
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt my heart. Doesn’t mean I feel sad knowing whatever her birthday brings will be painful, but still necessary to celebrate.
I hate this. I hate that all “good, fun Mommy things” are generally pooed on. You Mommy’s that can throw a fun themed birthday party for tons of well coifed youth..and not have the day end in a RAGE..good for-freaking-you….I used to belong to your club, whatever. Now, I figure if a holiday goes by without a trip to the ER….I consider it a success…just sayn’.

But, it is what it is, and by me recognizing the trigger that her birthday is …might, just might keep me and her from totally losing it…..and remember I said “might”.

Sigh,
“Bro-OKEN TEADs”.