Transitions for a spirited child

Who actually likes change? I thought I did... I thought I thrived on it ... until the events of this past year hit seemingly all at once and we were left a little breathless, like in the aftermath of a sudden storm where you're left thinking, what just happened here? In the course of a few months we bought a new house, moved to a new town, had a baby, started going to a new church, and HJ started preschool.  According to those life stressors scales, we were off the charts.

Now for my daughter, all kinds of transitions, big and small, are potentially stressful. I know lots of little kids have a lovey or security blanket that they like to carry around with them to help ease transitions from home to wherever they're going, but HJ is a little bit different in this way. Every time we have to leave the house (or go to a different room in the house), she needs to gather all her "stuff"... sometimes it's just putting random little toys into a bag, other times she wants to take a little more "baggage" -- clothes, books, food, whatever makes her feel safe and comfortable at the time... So when someone at church asks me why she's holding five pairs of her socks and a bag of chips I just have to shrug and say, that's my HJ...

So for my daughter, this past year has been rough to say the least. For the most part, she dealt with the changes amazingly well. We were especially thankful for the way that she adjusted to baby L, being more protective of her than jealous, and always wanting to make sure we were physically "all together" as a family. Sure, it made things a little uncomfortable when someone wanted to hold baby and HJ freaked out because she couldn't see her, and yes, it was inconvenient when we ALL had to go together to HJ's swim lessons, but overall we were really proud of the way she was handling everything.

That's not to say that there haven't been some crazy moments in the past few months. The book Raising Your Spirited Child mentions something called "spill-over tantrums" and explains how spirited children are often the "emotional barometer" of the stress in your home. HJ has always been sensitive emotionally, but it took me longer than it should have to realize that a lot of her tantrums and emotional outbursts were really indicators of how stressed we all were with the changes in our lives. When I remember that, it helps me to have just that extra bit of patience when we're at the end of a long day and it feels like we're all going to lose it. It makes me think, what's triggering this tantrum, rather than, oh Lord, here we go again...

There are other things I should remind myself of more often. Like how happy she is when I drop her off at "Miss Susan's school"... Even now when I zip up her pink and blue Dora jacket before I send her off in the morning, I sometimes tear up a little. I thought the day would never come when I could just wave and say "Bye, see you soon!" and she would go off with a big smile. 

I don't know if it's because she's our first child, or because she's adopted and it seemed like we waited so long for her, or if it's just because I'm an emotional mom...but everything we go through with HJ always feels so much MORE heart-wrenching than I expected. My husband recently said to me, "You really didn't think it would be like this? That it would be this hard?" I don't know what I thought before we became parents, but I definitely wasn't ready for the intensity and complexity of every emotion and decision involving our daughter... I guess my husband was a little more prepared than I was :) But yea, I guess that's why he's asleep right now and I'm up writing this blog...