Anxiety

My daughter is a worry wart. She internalizes this worry, until it finally bursts out in a completely unprovoked screaming fit.

I just hope she finds better ways to communicate her anxiety before she hits puberty.

Having raised her up to this point, I have a built-in anxiety meter, that gauges her level of worry based on her manic/psychotic behavior. When she starts to act like she's PMSing I know it's time to talk.

Tonight she finally broke down, and it was time to talk. I gave her an opportunity to vent all the things that were festering in her head and admit to me that she gets jealous when I'm with Mags because she doesn't get as much attention. She admitted that she was worried about not knowing anybody at our new home. And, she surprised me by voicing my own thought, "I would rather if you didn't tell me about us moving until two days before we left cuz then I wouldn't have time to worry".

Very grown-up of her to be able to express that feeling. I couldn't put it in words until she already had. That has been my biggest problem the last two weeks: knowing that I'm going to be leaving, but not knowing what will happen after that, and not being able to speed up the process so that I can get to the unknown and tackle it sooner. We are get-up-and-do-it people, we lose momentum when we are forced to wait, we start to doubt ourselves when we wait. I hate waiting.
Apparently Mina does too. She's very frustrated with the fact that big changes are going to happen and all she can do is twiddle her thumbs until then. I agree. I've had time to pack up half the house, deal with a bunch of household administrative duties, and still stare at the ceiling and worry. Do I have a backup plan in case all else fails and we find that we can't stand to live together? No. That's my biggest worry, I don't have a backup plan.
A part of me, the part that's floating on a cloud of joy because this total catch of a man actually wants me to live with him, keeps insisting that I don't need a backup plan, that everything will work out fine, and that we'll get along great.. like peas and carrots. But the rest of me keeps yelling at that part and telling it to go back home to Neverland, because this is real life not a fairy tale. It's completely against my nature to just jump into something without an escape plan. I'm too stubborn, too desperately needing security, and too independent to sit back and meekly accept that from here on out it'll be smooth sailing.

So instead I'm twiddling my thumbs and waiting. I'm just gonna cross my fingers and see what happens. Scary though that is.

I reassured Mina that it's my job to worry about these things, that I worry enough for the both of us, and she just needs to relax and be a kid. I'm the Mommy, it's my job to do the worrying.
She went to sleep in a good mood, we'll see how tomorrow goes... I'm hoping that this little talk did the job though, and that we won't see the Evil Mina rear her ugly head again any time soon.