“I hate you.” That’s how she opened the day — at breakfast, over what I honestly can’t remember, because it wasn’t really about the toast or the wrong cup or whatever the trigger was. “Nice way to start the day,” I said, not even trying to hide the sarcasm. “Love you too, honey.” It was 7:15am and we hadn’t even left the house yet.
Then a meltdown leaving the house. A meltdown at school drop-off. A meltdown at swimming. By the afternoon I’d lost count of the meltdowns — and I hadn’t even gotten to dinner yet — thinking, wasn’t this supposed to be a two-year-old thing? Didn’t we already do the no phase, back when she was small enough to just pick up and carry away from whatever she was refusing?
And then — because five-year-olds contain multitudes — her 2-to-1 Mandarin lesson that afternoon. An absolute angel. Focused, sweet, funny with the tutor, not a single “no” in sight. I told my husband afterward, half-joking, that the Mandarin teacher can come every single day if this is what having her around does.
I don’t think that’s a coincidence, and I don’t think it’s really about Mandarin. Since the preschool switch — the one that closed on us with five days’ notice, no less — goodbyes have been the hard part. Drop-offs. Handoffs. Anything that means being left somewhere without me. The Mandarin lesson happens at home, no leaving involved. Everything else this week has involved a door closing behind me. I think that’s the actual pattern, not the subject matter.
Then Sunday night into Monday, she was sick — we suspect food poisoning. Up in the night, throwing up, that particular kind of miserable that makes a five-year-old go quiet in a way that’s almost more unsettling than the meltdowns. Holding her hair back at 1am, you suddenly remember how small she still actually is. How breakable. Twelve hours earlier she’d been defiant enough to make me want to walk out the front door myself, and here she was, all elbows and ribs, asking me not to leave the bathroom.
That’s the part of raising three kids nobody quite prepares you for — not the tantrums themselves, which everyone warns you about, but how fast they sit next to the opposite feeling. She can trigger something in me I don’t love admitting to, and then twelve hours later remind me, stomach flu and all, exactly how much of her is still baby. Both things are true in the same week. Sometimes the same day.
I don’t have a tidy ending for this one. We’re still in it — still doing drop-offs, still occasionally getting an “I hate you” over toast, still hoping the new school routine settles before I run out of patience for the no phase, round two. But I’m holding onto the Mandarin-lesson version of her, and the version asking me not to leave the bathroom, as proof that both are still in there. Somewhere under the meltdowns.
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