My fifth job: Child Psychologist

A ways back, I wrote about the perils of having a small piece of Velcro sleeping in my bed. I had hoped that the introduction of larger mattresses would help with my Velcro problem, and, for the first two nights, it worked.

But last night, my little blonde Velcro came in in the middle of the night and crawled in between us, announcing, "I'm scared."

It wasn't a dream, a noise, or a monster. It was just fear that could not be put into words.

While we were gone to Baton Rouge, Melody behaved rather monstrously. Some were behaviors we'd seen peeking out at home that magnified in the absence of her usual parental authority. Some of it was defiance on a whole new level. From five hundred miles away, I tried to figure out what was going on with my most long-term patient in my practice as a child psychologist. (Fortunately, this practice is full at only three clients and the youngest is still too little to do anything overly weird . . . yet.)

As I wrestled to figure it out, I realized that I had no idea what was going on in her head.

I would like to point out that I have always understood the inside of Melody's head. Dixie has taken some real head-scratching and pontification to figure out and Charlie is pretty true to the 'for every action, there is a reaction' approach and I can usually do the physics required for that one. But Melody? I have always felt like I understood implicitly.

Not knowing what was going on in her head didn't feel so good.

When I got home and finally saw my babygirl, she was just sad. She was the saddest child I've ever seen. She snuggled in and didn't want to let go. She quietly begged to not go to school and for mommy to not go to work. I wish I could have gone along with that plan.

My crazy schedule and multiple jobs are really taking their toll on us. Throw in two funerals in four days, and the patients are starting to revolt against the asylum.