Kael, as a newborn, had been ravenous always, easy to feed, dropping to sleep as soon as he had his fill. Kora refused to eat in any time interval that made sense, leaving Lurielle painfully overfull and pumping constantly, her body utterly confused — responding to the sound of her crying baby as it was meant to, the baby in question incensed that she was beingresponded toat all. She treated sleep with suspicion, acquiescing in short, fitful bursts only when exhaustion from screaming overtook her little body, a battle from which she’d not yet retreated.
Kael had viewed his car seat as a treat, the perfect place for a mobile nap, a throne for the little prince, while his sister regarded it as though it were a torture device, a moral injustice, a straitjacket from which she was determined to escape, and Lurielle her jailer.
“She’s a different baby, Lurielle,” the doctor had said kindly at the six-week check-up, when Lurielle finished reading from the notes she’d brought, cataloging a month and a half of parenting failures. “Colic usually resolves itself around this time. She’s gaining weight. She’s growing. You have a color-coded chart of her bowel consistency. You’re not doing anything wrong. Look at this way — you had one easy one. That’s more than some parents can say.”
An easy one.
Reclassifying Kael as aneasybaby only served to underscore what she’d already begun to suspect — that she wasn’t that great of a mother. She’d simply lucked out. Gotten off easy.Thiswas the true test, and Lurielle was certain she was failing.
“Darlin’, I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish with all these comparison charts. You windin’ yourself up like a clock for no reason.”
She’d scowled at Khash from across the room, gasping in pain when Kora dug her nails into Lurielle’s breast, evidently displeased with the face she was making at her Big Daddy.
“Don’t even pretend you’re not exhausted too. I just wish we could figure out a way to get her to—” She never even had a chance to finish her thought before Khash was shaking his head, clicking his tongue.
“Lurielle, why don’t you shit in one hand and wish in the other, and see which one fills up first. She’s a different baby. And there’s nothing wrong with her. Demanding, that’s what she is. And you know whatthatis? The mark of a glorious future. She’s never gonna settle for no dusty mama’s boy who thinks taking her to Blinxieburger is a night out. So you think about that every time she opens her lil’ mouth to holler. She settin’ standards.”
“Yeah, well, right nowI’msomeone’s dusty son not meeting expectations.” She handed Kora off, not even giving him the opportunity to recalibrate from the turkey sandwich he’d juststuffed in his mouth. If he wanted to flap his gums,hecould attempt to feed his princess. “AndIwould love a milkshake from Blinxieburger right about now, so why don’t you and your little princess go take a ride?”
She took the sandwich he’d made for her from the counter before he could protest, and stomped out of the room, leaving them both behind.
All the ease of those first six months of being home with Kael was viewed through different eyes, now. She had begun to reclassify all of her wins as statistical outliers, unlikely to be repeated, best removed from the data altogether. With Kael, she had felt ahead of the curve, slightly smug. With Kora, Lurielle couldn’t hide from the reality that every day was a negotiation with a tiny terrorist who refused to come to the table. Even though she knew comparing them would be a losing game, Lurielle reasoned that she didn’t have another data set and was using the only material available as the weeks passed.
Kael rolled over at four months. Kora was content to glare at the ceiling fan as if it owed her money. Her son babbled happily, banging his spoon, delighted in making noise for the sake of making noise. Her daughter startled at sharp sounds, erupting into furious tears, glaring at all present once she was settled. Kora did not self-soothe or adhere to schedules. Sleep training was a bluff, one that she was happy to call them on.
As she stared at the ceiling one night, listening to her daughter rage in Khash’s arms, Lurielle admitted to the universe that she had merely been the beneficiary of temperament, lucky to have had aneasybaby, and that she hadn’t crushed anything at all.
The weeks continued to pass. Her tiny, furious girl’s crying fits lessened, but her obstinacy only increased. By five months, she refused her fruit purees and mashed vegetables. It was poison on the spoon, and Lurielle could not trick her. Kael had opened his mouth obligingly, like a trusting little bird. Kora, not to beconfused with her brother on any day of the week, clamped her mouth shut, as if her tiny jaws came equipped with a lock, refusing to be bullied.
She would only eat if she could hold her food in her hand, squeezing avocado slices to pulp and smearing them on her face like war paint as she stared Lurielle down.
“She’s strong-willed, Bluebell. We’ve got ourselves a future CEO here.”
“That or a dictator,” she mumbled as Kora gummed down her dinner with an air of insolence. Lurielle grinned in spite of herself at her little warrior. She knew what the world said about strong-willed women, no matter the species. It wouldn’t be long before “strong-willed” was reframed as “difficult”.We’re not going to let that happen.
Even through the daily trials that were her daughter’s personality, there was something she needed to recognize, Despina urged her. It was hard. They were different babies; Kael had been easy, and this wasreallyfucking hard.
“And even though it’s hard, Lurielle, she’s still doing great. You said it yourself. You haven’t had an ‘I don’t want to be like my mom’ spiral since the day you brought her home. Why is that?”
“Because I don’t have time for that!” she blurted, her face heating. “I’ll never have time to catalog ‘the ways she’s disappointing me.’ I’m too afraid of her! I could never get away with treating her the way my mom treated me, because she’d probably pull a little switchblade out of her diaper.”
Despina raised her hands in defeat, laughing. “Well, you know what? We’re still going to count that as a win.”
Counting it as a win became her new strategy.
You’re raising a strong-willed girl. And the world is going to want to knock her down a peg. It’s your job to make sure she’s high enough that they can’t reach her. Despina was right. Thiswas still a win.Hermother had been her first bully. Lurielle was different.She’dbe her daughter’s biggest hypeman.
She stopped looking down at her tiny daughter’s face, wishing that she saw the same perfect trust that she witnessed from her son. Kora didn’t trust anyone. And Lurielle would be her co-conspirator, she decided. Strangely enough, once she stopped trying to wrestle her strong-willed little girl into the submission of a predictable routine, things grew easier.
When Kora screamed, Lurielle no longer hurried to quiet her. Instead, she crouched like a frog, impressed that she was still able to do so at all, and looked her little tyrant square in the face. “What’s up?”
At first, Kora was befuddled, her little brows lowering, as if she were trying to determine if Lurielle were setting a trap. When neither the car seat nor crib were immediately imposed, she would make another pterodactyl-like shriek, and Lurielle would shake her head. “You’re very loud,” the same as she’d once told her joyous little boy, earning a volcanic explosion of mischievous-sounding laughter, as if Kora already knew that, thanks.No shit, that’s the point.
The first time she pulled herself up to stand, she did not immediately look to Lurielle for approval, the way Kael had. She simply stood up and made gravity her bitch. Lurielle clapped anyway from across the room, and when Kora met her eye with a gummy, conspiratorial smile, it felt like being inducted into a secret club. Once she began to talk, her declarations took on a sharper clarity. Yellow cup, not green. Mama, not Dada.Now, not later.
Lurielle wondered if she’d ever possessed the same steel as her daughter, before she’d been chipped down to a nub.
Kora’s first birthday was the same small party at home with the whole clan on the screen as they’d had for Kael, watching and laughing as Kora demolished her little cake. There wasno wonder on her face when Khash blew out her candle, extinguishing the tiny flame before she could reach for it. She glared at him as if he’d robbed her, letting loose another pterodactyl screech in response, smearing frosting in his hair as his sisters laughed uproariously.
