The last week or so Polina has been having a hard time emotionally.  A really hard time.  She starts screaming at the slightest annoyance.  It could be something as simple as me putting a toy in a place she does not want or my husband correcting her placement of a puzzle piece.  Sometimes I don’t even know why she’s screaming.  It has been really irritating, to say the least.

Today, when I returned from a training in time to put her to bed, she was very happy to see me.  Then when it was time to get ready for bed, another side came out. She screamed because I took off her Hello Kitty shirt to put on a warmer shirt.  (We are still sleeping in layers and using electric blankets out here in April.)  I kept telling her that she can wear her Hello Kitty shirt over the warmer shirt, but either she didn’t understand or she didn’t believe me.  (This is a shirt Polina fell in love with at my neighbor’s garage sale last week and which she did not take off for the next four days.  I hid it in the laundry basket and finally washed it today.  As soon as it came out of the dryer, Polina put it on.)

Polina was inconsolable.  She kicked.  She screamed.  She reached for her desired Hello Kitty shirt and tried to pull it over her head.  She refused me putting on a sweat shirt.  She is one strong, willful, determined kid.

Perhaps I would have acquiesced to her demands if she didn’t already have a runny nose the past two weeks, probably from me acquiescing to her demands to run barefoot around the house. I don’t know how other people are affected by a child’s screaming, but Polina’s screams tear at my insides.  It is difficult to bear.  My mother would have left her alone to cry it out.  Peter’s mother would have spanked her a long time ago.  Neither one of these is appealing to me.

It occurred to me that there is a third way, and that is to surround her with love until she calms down.

I tried to do that.  She pushed me away.  She kept screaming.  I was at my wit’s end.  Love and irritability are not compatible.

“Please stop,”  I said.

She gave me the sign for “owie,” tapping her head with her fist.

“Where is the owie?” I asked. She pointed to me.  I was giving her an owie because I took off her Hello Kitty shirt.  Or maybe it was because I was telling her to stop.

This was ridiculous.  My child has a runny nose and I wasn’t going to let her sleep in a short sleeved shirt. I finally got her other arm into the warmer shirt, pulled out the Hello Kitty shirt and put it on.

And just like that, she stopped crying.

She got what she wanted.

“Night night,” she said calmly.  If it wasn’t for her red face and the beads of tears under her eyes you wouldn’t have known that she just had a fit.

I lay down next to her as she fell asleep.

“I love you,” I said.

Polina pointed to the ceiling and said something in her own language.

“I love you,” I said again, and kissed her head three times, a nightly ritual, and put her hand in mine.

A few minutes later, she fell asleep. I don’t know how much love it takes to quiet someone.  In the end it was the Hello Kitty shirt that quieted her down.  But I hope one day, she’ll know, and it will be enough.