Woot woot climb aboard, we are riding The Emotion Locomotion here!
For some reason my daughter Aly loves doing the plays, but seems to become overwhelmed by it all when she is in the middle of it. The hysteria that swings in either direction during this time is very hard to handle.
As we sat at our yummy turkey dinner last night, I could feel myself bracing for the down swing. Aly was riding pretty high, and both her and Avery were having a great time laughing and talking, but there felt like just a wisp of hysteria in the air. I just felt that any minute the tide was going to turn and I was just not looking forward to it. I think some of it is that when she is working on the show, she is in constant motion. Go, go,go! Aly's personality is pretty emotional anyway (I have no idea where she gets that!) so when she is tired or overwhelmed any mood she has intensifies.
Aly is also a very high achiever. When she is working so hard on the plays, she gets very frustrated if she cannot maintain her usual standards of school work. She normally does very well at maintaining the standards, but she puts a lot of pressure on herself to do it. In a way it is a blessing for me that I do not have to hound Aly about her school work, because she is actually a much tougher task master then I am.
Somehow through this next few days I wish I could help guide Aly to a new way of handling her emotions. I wish that I could help her see that every high has a low, and vice a versa. There are so many things that I could say to her, but reality is that she will learn all of this on her own. The most I can do is gently prod her out of the lows and help her keep moving. When it comes to the highs, I might have to come up with a new plan, the running out of the room is only a temporary fix for me, and I sometimes leave Mark and Avery behind to be her victims when the pendulum swings.
All in all the truth is that Aly is a great kid. She has her challenges, but I am a very lucky Mom to have three great girls. Each one with their own unique personality. Aly will climb off of this Emotion Locomotion at some point in her life, and when she does, I will be there ready to give her a great big hug. This whole growing up thing is never easy. I know, I am still working on it myself.
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