Pity Party

My baby hurts my feelings.

There. I said it. It's not rational or mature, but it's the truth.

It hurts my feelings when I walk into her room to wake her up for the day and she immediately asks for Daddy. When she wants milk and I try to give it to her and she says, "No. Daddy milk," and will only take it from him. When she wants Daddy to read her a book and won't come snuggle with me. When she gets hurt and wants Daddy to comfort her. When Daddy walks into the room and she immediately reaches for him, no matter how contentedly she'd been snuggled in my arms until that point.

It makes me feel like my baby doesn't love me. Like she and I are already positioned for impossibly strained mother-daughter interactions for the rest of our lives. Like that vision that I had of her and I being close like my mom and I are is nothing more than a naive fantasy, like reality will be what all those girl-haters have been saying all along, that they don't want daughters because of how tumultuous the experience and relationship is.

What about TH? What role does he play in all this. Nothing really. He's not doing anything to encourage it per se. He's just being himself--fun, loving, and for the most part totally unwilling or unable to maintain any kind of boundaries or discipline for her. So I get stuck waking her up in the morning (hard) and getting her dressed (hard) and then he swoops in and feeds her breakfast (yum!), plays games until it's time to leave (fun!), and then takes her to school (she's great in the car). In the evenings, I pick her up from school ("Time to stop playing with all your friends and come home!") and bring her home to wrestle some kind of dinner into her (hard), and then he swoops home from work right about the time dinner ends and play time begins. I feel like I'm stuck with all the chores, all the discipline, all the "sorry, you have to do this" crap and he gets all the fun.

No wonder she likes him better. Of course she does. Dad = fun while Mom = work.

Suck.

Is my perception of this accurate? Undoubtedly not. I am tired and hormonal. I cry pretty easily these days. I know I've heard her ask for me, too, when they are together.

But does that make it any easier? No. The reality is, perceptions aside, that she begs for Daddy when she's with me. That she reaches for Daddy when she's with me. That she wants Daddy to do things with her and to play with her and to give her things and to comfort her. She says "bye-bye" to me easily and cries when Daddy leaves.

And that breaks my mommy heart.