resolution of sorts

So how did it go yesterday?  Aharon screaming about eggs, Chana sniffling about rashis, Chana being emotional in general, Mommy being negative and lacking confidence and feeling grouchy and burnt out?

I dragged Chana on an errand.  She didn't want to go and I put my foot down.  She said she wants to be alone, I said I was concerned about her emotional state, and I insisted.

We spent the first part of the drive with her saying how she is so angry in general, and me saying that this is normal, at which point she asked me-- if it's normal, why am I concerned.  I didn't know what to answer her.

(When I discussed it with my husband later, he intelligently said that just because something is normal doesn't mean we ignore it.)

We went on the errand (by very happy coincidence, two of the boys were on a playdate and Aharon was pretty low key) and it was just time spent together, being physically next to each other.

When we came home, Chana was much calmer.  To the point where I was tempted to try rashi again.  But I've made that mistake before!

We left rashi alone for the rest of the day.

This morning, Chana came over to me first thing and asked to do Chumash.  We did new pesukim, and then started rashi.  She immediately began to get emotional.  She was crying quietly, and tears kept running down her cheeks.  (They reminded me about my mention about the skill of working while experiencing very strong emotions.)  She was upset, but in a place where a part of her was noticing her upsetness.  She commented that her voice sounded like Jack when he whines, and we smiled.  And we had a conversation about her tears.  (And we took a break to look at the pictures floating around the web recently about the different chemical composition of different types of tears.)

We also tried talking about different approaches to handling these rashis.  She said there were too many, and I suggested a few different ways to make them manageable (we'll only do a few a day, we'll focus on some skills but not all skills, etc).  She had problems with all my suggestions.  I pointed this out, and she agreed.  I suggested we celebrate when she got through the rashis, perhaps by going to a restaurant, and she refused.  Why don't rewards work?  I suggested she agree since she'd be doing the rashis with or without sushi, and she still refused.

I read all the rashis to her and translated them.  Although there are a lot, I don't think the concepts are too hard and I do think they are interesting and useful and straightforward to read.  As we went through the rashis, I think she saw that was the case.  It also helped that we waited until she was in a better state of mind.