A sad girl and a mama without a map

It's almost 10 pm and the two year old is still awake and crying. She's had some troubling settling back into the swing of things the past few days ... I think she's just plain overloaded from all the excitement of traveling, holidays, new houses and the whole deal. And for her, it really comes out at bedtimes.

At one point, I checked on her (for the fourth time) and she collapsed in my arms, hysterically sobbing, "I don't like my new room, Mama! I don't!!"

Well. What do you do with that?

I gave her a long, eloquent speech about how the tree we painted above her bed watches over and protects her all night while she sleeps, with its branches outspread out in a permanent hug and its dropping leaves raining down like paper kisses.

She bought it in the moment but as soon as I tried to leave, became hysterical again.

In all fairness, she comes by it honestly. I don't like change. I THINK I like it, rush in headfirst and then end up sobbing in someone's arms, "I don't like my new city! I don't!"

But how do you handle it, as the parent? I just plain don't know what to do. She's tired, she's overwrought but that doesn't mean her feelings aren't legit. It doesn't mean the whole thing hurts any less.

But you still have to draw a line. I'd love to curl up with her in bed right now (and that's exactly what I did the first few nights we slept here) but I can't do that every night and isn't inconsistent parenting worse than being a little strict?

But how do you let your girl cry? How do you turn your back and walk out the door, when your little one is huddled in a ball, crying, "Mama, don't leave, Mama!"

I've finally had a bit of time lately to do some parent-book reading (a little late, you may say) and while some are really helpful, it seems like 80% of parenting is made up of specific situations like this.

Off-road style, where you just go by instinct and gut feeling and wing it the whole way and half the time, you change your mind the next day or the next month or you look back and say, "How could I ever have done THAT and thought it was the right thing?!"

Hopefully you have a mom (or mom-in-law) of your own to ask for advice, although invariably, they only have dim memories of the early years of parenting (cognitive block, perhaps?) or had completely different kids.

Which is the kicker of having more than one, of course: chances are, a good deal of what you learned with the first one just plain doesn't apply to the second.

For example, I have an EXTREMELY sensitive first child. Will someone back me up on that?? She still cries at the sound of the vacuum and she's 2.5 yrs old. Don't get me wrong, she's gotten way better but still. Sensitive.

And my second is an extrovert. The other day, he actually chased the vacuum and tried to poke it to see how it worked. He actually hugged a vacuum in public today.

When my first has to go to bed, it's the end of the world. We break her heart almost every night. If she's in a solid schedule, it's not bad, actually, but after any kind of disruption (e.g. new teeth, travel, moving across entire provinces), we can end up right back at square one of sleep training.

Then there's the Dude. He's cool. If you try to put him down and he's not actually tired, he will blast your face off but as long as the timing is correct, he pretty much goes down without a care in the world. The other night, we were rocking together in the cool dim light of his room, with a lullaby playing and warm blanket snuggles and I whispered, "I love you, Nate." He pointed at his crib and said, "Bed."

I put him in and he rolled over with his back to me and closed his eyes. Like, I'm done with you now, mother-person. You may go.

So nothing I learn with her will apply to him. And vice versa. (If he'd been my first, I'd probably attribute it all to my superior wisdom. Haha.)

Of course, if we all lived in yurts, I could just ask a fellow mom for advice right now. I'd also be freezing cold.

The girl has finally stopped crying now. Funny, you'd like think that as they grow older, you'd mind the crying less but somehow, it's almost worse. Because when they cry now, it means so much more.

And because sometimes, you kinda feel like crying a little bit, too.