Lately, the whines, demands, all of the things that trigger me have really been triggering me.

I feel it build, like a bubbling volcano.

Sometimes it explodes out of me, I scream.

At my three year old.

That doesn't feel good. Okay, it feels good for a moment until I realize how scary a large woman screaming sounds. Mostly though, I see how ineffective yelling is.

Time and time again I see how effective staying calm, staying boss, CEO, tree like, sturdy like a post, a street lamp, is. But how? How, when the levels rise again to a new level of whining, demands, and triggers every several months?

Stepping back I can see that these new levels are a time when the boss, CEO, and tree are needed most. It's also the hardest time to be sturdy because I am meeting a new bubbling of volcano at the same time. To meet yourself like this, many times over these years of parenting is/must be continuously, exhausting, wavering, unstable, unconfident. How then, does one reach deep within to calm a righteous volcano of real human lava?

I am not sure.

But, I was telling Bea that patience takes practice after she asked what patience was. And  along with that, we are helping shape a real live person here. So the need for sturdy is very desirable and that helps.

More parent breaks.

Janet Lansbury helps me stayed focused.

Kenny. Star Trek. The Peanut Gallery. Friends. The shaping of a real live person. Goodnight.

Friendship

And just like that she is almost four.

Bea is big and she is beautiful in every way, even when she's angry. She towers over many her age. When she smiles, she gives her light generously. One of my favorite things is watching her interact with people. She offers stories to strangers all of a sudden, "Do you know why we are laughing," she starts with a stranger we pass in the neighborhood, laughing gaily and goofily tromping along.

I always saw the lightness of her in there, in between uncomfortable tantrums and explosions in the middle of the night when she was little. Explosions that took both parents and long daddy hugs to calm her.

She never seemed to fully connect to the kids we played with regularly.  I have had many experiences of waiting out Bea's big feelings described by screaming and body thrashing, at these group hang outs because another kid took something she was playing with or sat too close (we're talking ten plus minutes). It still happens occasionally and not for as long. Now, a little more relaxed about it all, I look at parents and insist, "It's okay. She's okay," because they look to me concerned, like, do you want us to go play somewhere else? No way and that won't help in the long run. Now that we are a few years in, I know the suggestion of pretending to be airplanes will be more appealing than screaming and thrashing. We wiz around in semi circles, feeling fresh air on our cheeks, relaxing as our arms stretch outward, running, running out the angst.

Bea likes small groups and one on one play time with friends, we've discovered.

Now, Bea has her first friend. The first one she picked out by herself, someone she connected to outside of our family friends, someone she adores and sees many times a week and this someone happens to feel the same way about her, Ellery.

The mom's in this friendship get teary eyed over it, regularly.

Ellery and Bea express kindness and give freely. They offer suggestions for turn taking when times get tough. They give hugs and drawings. When it's time to say goodbye, each of the girls on a side of the window pane draws out love in condensation.

Ellery and Bea have similar dispositions. They're both dynamic and energetic, a little shy at first, and brazen in time. Both of our homes are filled with art taped up about 4 feet from the ground and tables with pens and pencils are a part of our furnitures and of course, kittens, the shared love for stuffed kittens is beyond measure, so cuddly, so cute.

The mom's connect and lean on each other because they, we, believe so strongly in respecting our daughters, showing them kindness, while setting clear boundaries. We like to be confident mamas.

We are confident mamas with such big, important people to help raise.