Defiance or Defense?

Sorry for the horrible blogmanship :) The little man and I have been busily celebrating our good fortune. Plus, my camera is still dead, and blogging just isn't the same without some photo back-up :) E says to use my phone camera more, to which I remind him that such an act is semi-painful to a camera snob ... nevertheless, thank gawd for the camera phone...

Back to the good fortune. The third speck came out of P's eye the day before his surgery! All on its own!! We went to sleep, stressed beyond belief about doing something the child Did Not Want Done (again) and when we woke up and looked, it was gone. I wish you could have seen his face when I told him his eye was clear :) He told me he had let it go - imagined it flying out of his eye. And so it did.

The doc said to leave the rust ring alone, since he's still seeing 20/20, and to do a check-up in a YEAR. The kid liked the sound of that. "Did you hear that, BB? I don't have to go to the eye doctor until I'm FIVE."

The changes in his little persona over the last month have been extraordinary. P doesn't dally in defiance land. Sure, when punchy from high energy play or overly tired, the kid could have a hard time hearing requests or reason. But typically, he's pretty willing to work with us to achieve his goals. He certainly has a "strong" personality, but I'd never have used the word "defiant" when describing him, ever. Then he was held down against his will and "scraped" (as he puts it.) Then there was the eye cream that he hated, every night. And you know what? When you feel the need to defy something, apparently you become a bit defiant :( He began doing things we dislike. On Purpose. The child who would discuss a situation for an eternity to reach a solution ("let's talk, mama") didn't want to talk anymore, just Do. Unfortunately, such sadness beget more sadness. An unreasonable four year old with a knife is never a pretty picture. And so his original loss of autonomy bore behavior that required him to loose even more control in crazy scenarios and it was a nasty spiral. We did everything we could to avoid sticky situations, but vacations and life go on. Our mantra at night was "just three more weeks, just two more weeks." We figured when his eye cream was done and his autonomy restored, so would be his will to cooperate.

That third speck just about derailed our lighted tunnel :) But here we are, just a few days after the lingering threat of doctors and the nightly cream battles have stopped and he is P again. Strong-willed and independently minded, but thoughtful and reasonable again too. Can ya'll hear the sigh of relief coming from our house? It just makes me think of all of the kids going through Real hospital woes and how the hay their parents help them overcome their feelings of powerlessness and fear. Yah, we're feeling pretty blessed around here....