I dragged myself out of bed at noon today feeling dehydrated and horribly hungover, and without the memory of even a little bit of fun to have made it all worth it.

As I mentioned a few days ago, Petra is something of a challenge for us lately. At first we chalked it up to her having been sick for a couple of weeks, but now we’re admitting to ourselves that a large part of it has to do with the arrival of the baby. She doesn’t seem to have a problem with the baby herself — she loves to hold Brynja and talk to her and try to play with her, and she doesn’t seem particularly jealous when one of us is tending the baby, but otherwise her behavior is unmanageable.

I think most of the problem is that she doesn’t have the ability to express her feelings about the changes in the family and the way they affect her, and the resulting frustration throws her completely into a tailspin. She is so contrary, so committed to being contrary, that I hesitate to ask or offer anything, for fear of triggering a tantrum. Even the slightest thing, like turning off the light or throwing a diaper into the trash myself instead of asking her to do it, can set her off.

Last night it took more than an hour to get her settled and into bed, and as soon as she’d slept off the worst of her exhaustion she was awake again and raring to go. We did the one-to-two-hours-awake, one-to-two-hours-asleep bit for most of the night, until she finally fell solidly asleep at around seven this morning. And it’s not like she’s just awake, either. That I could deal with. No, this “awake” is awake with sobbing and screaming.

She wants us to lie down with her, she doesn’t want us to lie down with her; she wants a bottle, she doesn’t want a bottle; she wants her blanket, she doesn’t want her blanket; she wants me to hold her, she doesn’t want me to hold her. And all at the top of her voice, crying and flailing, shrieking and thrashing. Nothing we do–neither coddling nor ignoring, neither gentle lovingness nor no-nonsense sternness–is the right thing. She stops when she’s worn herself out, and not a moment sooner.

Hardest of all for me, though, was just before five a.m., when she was finally lying peacefully drinking her bottle. I lay beside her and as we both breathed easy for the first time in more than an hour, I stroked her leg and whispered, “I love you, baby.” After a beat, she took the bottle from her mouth and whispered back, “I love you, mom,” before turning back to her bottle and falling asleep.  The poignancy nearly undid me.