Liliana and I have an early morning ritual, where she toddles up to our room at about 6:15 (she has a sun night light that illuminates when it’s time) and climbs into bed in between Dan and me, snuggling up to both of us.  “I love you so much, Mom.  I love you so much, Dad.”

When Dan goes to take a shower, Liliana and I have a few more minutes to share before we have to get ready for the day.  She turns to me.  “Mom,” she says.  “Tell me a really, really evil story.”

What she means is: tell me a story with the evil witch in it.  Tell me a story where the evil witch tricks Liliana the Princess and coaxes her to eat the poisonous apple.  Tell me a story where the mama and the papa come save Princess Liliana from her deep sleep.  Tell me a story where the mama kisses the Princess and all is well.

I could tell her the same story over and over again, and she’d never tire of it.  It’s the same during a movie.  I let her sit on my lap, so I can whisper tidbits in her ear, helping her along as the story gets complicated.  During Toy Story 3, she started to hyperventilate and cry when the toys began to descend into the fiery furnace of trash.  So, I whispered, “Wait.  Something will happen.  Maybe they will be saved.”  This seems to help–calming her for a minute, to wait and see.

One of the most exhausting things about being a parent (I think) is the number of questions a child can ask in a 30-second period.  I’ve begun analyzing the sorts of questions I’m getting, but oftentimes, it’s the same one, repeated ad nauseam.

These things I’ve discovered:

1. Your child is not deaf.  She heard you the first time.  She’s seeing if your answer will be the same.  She wants consistency.
2. Your child is processing.  Always processing.  What this means is that she wants to revisit a certain scenario to see what else might happen.  It’s her way of ordering her world.  When you change a few details, it’s uncomfortable at first (in fact, the tears well up), but soon she understands that it will all work out in the end.  There are multiple ways of solving a problem.  [Although life does not always work out so beautifully, it’s important at this age to show them it does.  It’s a safety and security issue.]
3. Your child is learning trust.  Are you really going to do that series of activities, in exactly that order?  For example, Liliana will continually clarify.  “Mom, we’re going to drive to the cities.  Then, we’re going to go to the hotel and check in.  Then we’re going to the nice restaurant, right?  Then we’re going to go to the circus.  Then we’re going to go back to the hotel to sleep.  Right, Mom?”  This is the order we’ve told her.  If it happens that way (which it does), then she can trust us the next time.
4. Your child might be asking for solutions to problems.  That’s why we do a lot of practicing.  I had to laugh yesterday.  One of Liliana’s teachers said they had just finished a short group talk, encouraging the kids to keep their hands to themselves.  Immediately, Liliana turned to the boy next to her and hit him in the arm, saying, “Let’s practice, kay?  Now, what do you say to me?”  After his look of shock, she said, “You say ‘no thank you!’”
5. Your child loves hearing herself talk…and questions are part of that.  Liliana will oftentimes change her own questions into our answers and make a song out of them.  It’s comforting.

Just as I’ve realized life is an amalgamation of evil and good, messiness and orderliness, heartbreak and joy, Liliana is learning it as well.

And because I won’t always be around to protect her from the evil witch, I hope I’m giving her the tools to fight back and to stand up for herself.

It’s easy in theory…harder in real life.