on the breast. Looking back now I can see...she was trying to tell me something. The good I was trying to give her did not make her feel good. Looking back now I am tearing myself apart for making her eat just because I thought she needed SOMETHING.
Well..finally the solid food thing caught on but she changed. She was fire and MORE. She was fire and rage and anger and spite. I thought...well God delivered. I got what I asked for. Her personality became the butt of the family's jokes. People at family get togethers would pick at her just to get her fired up....but they also used to do that to me when I was a kid...so I let it go. She is a resilient little girl after-all. Things, just have gotten worse though. She is the classic sweet and sour kid. She is so incredibly loving in between the most hateful rages you've ever seen. I always tell my husband...I am so sad that a person that small can hold so much anger. I blamed myself.
This morning things came to a head. Paisley turned down dinner last night. We operate on an eat or go hungry premise in this house. I am not a short order chef...nothing will change about that. She didnt want her dinner. SHe got a glass of full fat milk and went to bed. This morning I let her nom on these nifty new little bars we got. Filled with delicious vibrant red filling. They were labeled natural. Totally fine. No biggie (foreshadowing...I ever over looked them in my frantic search for the offending ingredient because it said NATURAL). Paisley and Aidyn were laughing and loving all morning. She slept well, woke up happy, everything was fine. She ate this bar, went off to play and then out of nowhere she started screaming at me for a treat. I had no idea where it came from because I didnt offer one. She wanted one right now. I offered her a raspberry and she slapped it out of my hand. I offered her some "ice cream" (frozen vanilla greek yogurt) and she just lost it. She threw herself on the ground. She was kicking the floor, screaming so hard she was gagging, she kept saying she wanted 2 and 3 and different colors. It was like her brain was firing in all directions. I got her attention..I got really close to her face and I said "Paisley what is wrong with you?!" and she cried for a moment and hugged me and then suddenly the rage started again. She started throwing things around the house, grabbing at her legs, pulling at her shirt. She walked into the laundry room and started slamming the door over and over and over and over. I got her attention again and I said "Paisley, come here...lets talk about this" (that usually works) she took a deep breath and wiped her tears away and sat on my lap for a minute....less than a minute even before she shoved me away and started taking off her clothes. She was so mad. I didnt know what to do. She started opening the cabinets that had all the pots and pans and I thought...I need to send the other two kids to the neighbors. I dont know what I am going to do. I kept guiding her toward an open area of the house.I was so scared she was going to hurt herself. I kept laying her down on the mat in the playroom so if she threw her head back at least the mat would give a little bit. I just got Aidyn and Macie on the couch and went back to Paisley. I picked her up and tried to hold her...like linebacker style..so she would stop flailing and hugged her as tight as I could and just cried with her while she screamed for me to let her go. She started screaming about a treat again. She was hurting me so I let her go. I laid her on the floor and walked away. This lasted 21 full minutes. I started to decide if I needed to call 911...and finally she stopped. She seemed so defeated and upset with herself. Like she was almost having an out of body experience. She started taking really deep breaths. She came over to me and I picked her up and we went to a nice dim lit room in the house. I wrapped her in her favorite blanket and talked to her in a nice calm voice. I held her so close and told her I was here. We had a long conversation after that and she started to calm down. She was still in a terrible mood for a few hours but not violent. Here we are...2pm she has crashed on the couch. Bottle of water in one hand...apple slice in the other and I see my sweet little girl again. I just want to cry for her.
I have been toying around with the idea of eliminating food dyes for a while because I have friends who have kids whos mental state is offended by them. I was willing to try anything. I started trying to rehash the last 12 hours...looking through all of the food we have. I could not find red dye 40 in ANYTHING. We eat really well. I went through the morning step by step. Wondering what triggered that. I walked through the new natural cereal bars she tried and skipped right over them. Later on....I looked back just to check and there it was staring right back at me "yellow6 and red40". That had to be it.
So today I commit to removing food dyes from our home. For the sake of my daughter. Her self esteem, her relationship with others, for me, for everyone. We are going to change...for her. Just like we did for Aidyn. Just like we would for any of our kids. I am so deeply looking forward to the progress we make. She is a sweet girl...with a touch of fire. I dont want to extinguish her completely. I really dont. I love so much about her. But I cant see her hurt anymore. I just cannot.
I love you little girl
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