Hurricanes

Araceli, Araceli.  She is a hurricane in a little girl's body.  Sometimes you get the calm eye of the storm, and sometimes the gale-force winds rip you to shreds.  From the moment Araceli was born, she was beautiful and she was loving.  And from the moment she could hold a pair of scissors or a permanent marker, I have been reading parenting books on how to bend her will to mine, to protect not only her hair and the walls, but my sanity.  If a relationship with Ari requires more effort than most, the return is a hundred-fold, if you can figure out how to get it.

I have learned many things through my journey on the Araceli Express.  First, her will is un-bendable.  Thank heavens she has a loving disposition, and strives to make her parents happy.  I have also learned that the amount of attention each child needs is not the same from child to child or from day to day, and life can never be equitable that way.  A child who comes home from school in a spitting, screaming rage because "All my friend cares about is HARRY POTTER!" requires more attention than a kid who comes home happy and gets right to work on her homework.  Ari has been both children, so I'm becoming equipped to deal with whichever one walks in the door.  Ari is like Springtime; the weather is volatile and changeable and unpredictable, but the energy in the air makes you want to sing.  Of course, there are times when the sky darkens and the storms beat down and you forget that night can't last forever.  The air is charged with electricity and no bird dares fly.

Ari waits out those dark times by creating things that I have learned not to regard as "messes."  Rows of baby cribs with dolls carefully tucked in, collages of beads, papers, glue and sticks; stacks of love notes to her parents and friends, expansive kitchen experiments of sugar, food coloring and flour.  These are outlets for the floods that course through her hurricane mind.  Yesterday, Ari got in trouble for stepping on Xanthe's sash and being a hysterical nuisance.  She was sent to her room to take a deep breath.  I heard her sobs ripping through the air, and I peeked in and said, "I hear you crying.  I know you're upset."  A few minutes later, the sobs were replaced by a chord on the cello.  Then another one.  Then a song, and another song.  I have never felt so much gratitude for music.  Through all the growing pains, Ari has never seriously demanded to quit cello, or refused to practice.  I think she knows as well as I do that her music can save her when she has grown out of the doll cradles and collages.  I am thankful to have such a creative, passionate, amazing daughter.  Without her, life would be a desert.