the worry gene

It's been awhile, I've been on a blog hiatus.  Mostly because I've been super busy taking pictures, and making mittens.  Quite the combo huh? I thought it would be a great idea to sign up for a craft fair the weekend after Thanksgiving, but I didn't factor in the time spent on pictures and making the darn mittens.  We'll see how many get made, and hope for the best!

I've debated a lot whether or not to even go into the next thing, but I've always been honest on this little blog of mine, and the girls will read it so I guess someday they might find this interesting, insight into their childhood, at the very least.

I would venture to guess that most people want their kids to be like them, at least their positive traits!  And hope and pray that the don't inherit the other things.  Like bad hair, or teeth, or in this case anxiety. Let me back up. I think I've mentioned before that I was an anxious kid.  It held me back, alot.  I didn't want to try  new things, forget about team sports and I think I was kind of a social outcast for most of my school days. Yikes huh? I had a few friends, but always felt a little off.  I would stay up at night worrying about strange things, things that would probably not ever actually happen (my mom remembers one time there was a 20/20 episode where a guy had his leg amputated because of cancer, and I worried about that happening to me for at least a week).  Or I remember as far back as 1st grade worrying I would get in the wrong lunch line. No big deal to most kids, but I absolutely dreaded it! As I got older I could reason with myself and talk myself into that fact that these things are not going to happen, and situations can be dealt with. But it took a long time and MANY nights of my mom dragging these worries out of me, to try to talk them out.

So you are probably wondering what I'm getting at.  It's Grace. Ugh. It makes me SO sad that I see myself in her.  It started one night when she had a field trip with preschool the next day.  I heard her in her room crying and thought maybe she was sick.  Nope, she was up worrying about getting on the van, and going to the fire station. In that moment I knew she got the "worry gene" we call it in my family. Now I know all kids worry about things, I'm not diagnosing her a full blown mental case (although I might be?).  I tried my best to talk her through it, went through all the steps of what was going to occur, give her something to look forward to AFTER the event, all the things that used to help me.  Because I do remember that not feeling validated, or having these feelings just swept under the rug, made it all the worse.  (Have I mentioned my mom is a saint?).  She ended up getting on the van and mostly participating in the field trip, but it was a struggle.

We had conferences last night and preschool in general is not going great for Grace. You wouldn't know that from talking to her though.  She talks about her teacher like she LOVES her, all the kids in her class by name and what they did that day.  She sings the songs they sing, is learning to write her letters, and the sounds the letters make, etc etc. But, she won't talk.  She plays by herself, only says about two words when prompted and basically forced to.  She hardly ever eats snack because she won't ask for it. The only time she will talk is on the playground. I have no idea why, well yes I do, she's anxious. I guess the fact that she has no problems going to preschool and at drop-off (which is another story with daycare which boggles my mind since they've been there since they were babies!), and looks forward to it every day should make me feel better, but I just so wish she could open up and show them the real Grace, the fun, spirited, LOUD, silly, little girl. Maybe in time.

That leads me to dance class. The girls went to 5 weeks of dance class, without a hitch, they loved it. After 2 weeks their teacher had a baby so they had a sub.  The 6th week, as we were putting her shoes on, she literally froze and wouldn't let me put them on.  All she would say was "I'm not going. I can't go, I'm not going."  She didn't cry, or throw a fit, just froze.  Klaire was already in the room and even that didn't entice her.  I admittedly did not handle the situation well and it ended up Klaire saw me struggling with Grace and started crying, the teachers brought her out and the only thing I could think to do was get the heck out of there, as they were both crying at that point. Epic fail. They had this week off, so we are going to try again next week.  I try to bring it up in passing, and get them both excited about it again, even told her Genevieve could come with,  but we'll see if it goes any better.  Did I mention I paid the year in full?  That was stupid.

Ugh, so there you have it.  I am reading a book on anxiety in kids, and am finally getting to the chapters that give some concrete things to do to try to help.  It talks about the "anxiety dance" between you and your child and how to stop the cycle, give them coping skills to eventually be able to deal with the feelings on their own.  I'm hoping this helps, because on top of all of that she has been totally defiant and naughty at home. I have a feeling it's from bottling up all that energy, etc for 3 hours at preschool and trying to deal with the feelings she's having, that's what the book said anyway.  It seems that Klaire is in the clear so far. I've asked Brian if he ever had any of this crap as a kid.  He could only recall going through a phase of worrying about death. Textbook.  I hope that Klaire can keep being more like him:) He doesn't really understand what's going on since he never experienced it, but always reassures me that they will end up ok. Let's hope he's right.