I like who I've been around D the past few days without exBF here. I don't know why I've been different - but I have been really loving and patient with her and communicative and stable-feeling.
It's odd.
Tonight, i just did what came natural to me, I spent time reading Corduroy over and over. At some point she talked to me about the characters. She said one of them was "sad" (I don't know how she understands this word) and I asked her about why. She said he had a boo boo and that he had fallen. I said, well maybe the bunny kisses the boo boo and makes it better. She said NO. Then she pointed to another doll on the toy store shelf and said "Mommy." And I said "that's the mommy?" She said yeah. And then she pointed to the sad guy again. I didn't want to read anything into it, but I was just trying to communicate gently with her.
Later, I laid with her in bed a while and got in touch with what I wanted - I don't want her in bed with me. I do want the freedom to move about when I sleep and I thought, down the road - I want to be available for another relationship - and not be the single mom cosleeping with my kid who doesn't get out ever.
So I explained to her that we all sleep in our own bed. She has a big girl bed, mommy has a bed, and that all the people who came to our house (I hosted a family halloween party) have beds, and that she needed to sleep in hers. She said no, and tried to get me to lay on the floor with her. I said I would love to and that I love her very much, but that mommy needed her own space to sleep, and that if she didn't get into her bed, I'd have to sleep in the other bed in the back room. She protested, a bit, but then got into her bed, and hung off it. I said, "Please lay all the way in your bed" And I explained to her that god is always with her and around her. I said even if mommy is here, there is so much love in this room -
I didn't talk down to her, but I think she got the gist of what I was saying, even if she can't fully understand it and, for the first time in a long time, it just felt "right" to me- like this is me parenting my child. This is who I am. This is what I can and can't do. No guilt, no questioning.
I saw clearly that i can get this child to sleep, to comfort her, and to let her know it's all going to be okay. I felt proud of that, and happy to have reached that place myself, finally. And actually trusting that I can get her to sleep and staying asleep at night.
And then I got the email from exBF. It's been pretty empowering not having him around.
