on trying to be seen as adequate

Miss A has maintained pretty decent behavior for a few months now, but she is losing her mind again. She's super-nasty to everyone, can't remember why she's in trouble even 5 minutes later, denies things she said and major conversations we've had even just sentences later... I wish I could describe it better but it's weird and borderline creepy and basically she's every creepy little kid in every scary movie that features a creepy little kid.

She is 9. Staring down the barrel of the teenage years, this is scary and depressing. One or both of us needs serious medication.

I had her parent-teacher conference tonight and I decided I really like her teacher. Miss A is as gifted in academic as she is in emotional abuse and manipulation, and the teacher's only concern is in how to inspire Miss A to be neater without crushing her sensitive spirit. Her teacher told me intensity is a common trait of gifted children. I silently prayed that my other children are not gifted. Miss A's teacher also told me she was 17 months old when her mother had twins, and she already had two older siblings. At that point, her mother had 5 children 5 and under. According to family lore, Miss A's teacher said no words except, "Me too" until she turned 3.

This morning Miss A screamed about the house being too cold, and berated us for our stupid suggestions and our failure to produce her robe from thin air. Mercifully, she was out of the house all day because of school and conferences. Tonight when we got home, she screamed at us because she dropped a quarter in the toilet and we refused to reach in and fish it out. Then she screamed at Haney for being in the bathroom. Then she complained about P screaming. There was so much more snotting and screaming but I'm tired.

I need some sort of support community. Is there one, blog world? In my conversation with Miss A's teacher I heard her little girl self, needing to be seen and held and babied and heard. I see that she's always dressed perfectly, with her hair and make-up done perfectly. She has the one child, which could be an accident just as my having four children is an accident, but it could also be the result of planning carefully for a neat and manageable life. Her communications home certainly show that she values neatness and careful planning.

I am so insecure around people like her, who seem to have it all together and have all the answers. I get that their answers aren't mine, but I spend a stupid amount of time wondering whether they know that. Why should it matter? I just want to measure up.

In the last year or two I've made some really good friends here. Over and over I see in myself or hear from other women about the worry that we don't measure up. If I put forth this confident persona, someone else sees it and feels crappy about herself or her children. Two of my close friends here intimidated the heck out of me when I met them, because they didn't seem overwhelmed by their children. Now that mine are a little older I think I manage to look that way too, sometimes. But at the time I felt like I must just be an awful parent, because my kids were so overwhelming we rarely left the house.

It makes me sad to think of Miss A growing up and working very hard to have a quiet and well controlled life. It makes me sad to think of her teacher as a little girl, yearning to be included with the "big kids," or the babies, or anyone. It makes me sad that so many of our interactions are overshadowed or underpinned by a longing to be seen as worthy, or equal, or good enough. I wish I understood how to get the message across to Miss A that she is good enough, more than enough, not lacking. She doesn't need to be defensive or to make a preemptive strike. She can relax into who she is and float along without the need to blow anyone else out of the water. But I think the problem is deeper and broader than Miss A's specific issues with being usurped by twin siblings at a tender age. I don't know how to let her or anyone else know that they are *already* seen and accepted.