Lyla has a breakdown brought on by the divorce, which brings Jo and Alex to take her to the psychologist.
"Lyla, come eat your breakfast. Your dad's gonna be here any second and you guys are gonna be late for the show if you don't get in here and eat." I stir her Fruity Pebbles to make sure every shard of cereal gets covered by milk and put the bowl down on the placemat in front of the chair she always sits at. Alex is off today and tomorrow so even though these aren't his days, I'm letting him keep Lyla for the next two days. He's letting me have her this weekend because I'm off this weekend. Alex and I have a pretty good communication system and I admit that I'm pretty proud of us for that fact. Disney On Ice is local for the last time this afternoon and Alex bought Lyla tickets to go. He's taking her to see Disney On Ice up in Olympia, then he's taking her out to dinner at Dave & Buster's and she's staying the night with him. She's been talking about her quality time with her daddy for the last three days. I'm glad the day has finally arrived so I don't have to hear about it anymore.
Lyla happily skips into the kitchen, her long brown pigtails bouncing lively as she moves. This year's theme for Disney On Ice is "Princesses & Heroes" and as soon as she got wind that Elsa, Anna and Sofia the First were going to be there, she had her outfit picked out. Of course, I tweaked it a little bit because I always have to send my baby out the house looking her best. She originally picked out a frilly pink church dress to wear but we negotiated with a frilly pink skirt instead. She has on a long-sleeved white t-shirt with a heart made of rhinestones on the chest. Her skirt is light pink with hanging parts that sort of look like jellyfish tentacles. Underneath her skirt, I put dark pink leggings on her and completed her look with her black UGG boots. I tied her hair back in two perfect pigtails and maybe I'm biased, but I swear I have the cutest little girl in the world. "Mummy, when I stay ovuh daddy's...I...I sleep...bedduh." She climbs into her chair and sits at her breakfast bowl.
"Really honey? Do you?" I pretend to be very interested in what she's saying to me as I check through the pink and purple zebra print bag that she always takes when spending the night over Alex's. I just want to make sure she has everything she's going to need while she's away for two days. I'm going to miss my little brat but it's always nice to have some quality time to myself when I come home from work on the weekdays. I sift through the bag and check the things off the mental list I made in my head. Pull-ups, check. Extra panties, check. Alex asked me to send more socks with her, so socks; check. Her favorite stuffed "wolfie", check. "Bubby, do you know if your daddy-" I stop talking when I look up from her bag and see that she's straining the milk out of her cereal bowl and dumping it on the table. "Lyla Isabella Karev, what are you doing?!" I put her bag down.
"...I want...dwy ceweal mumma." She stops mid-movement and gives me the deer-in-headlights look. Her little green eyes are apologetic and she looks so guilty. "I no want milk in it." She shakes her head, sending her pigtails flying in a frenzy all over her head.
"Well you don't dump the milk all over the table to get dry cereal, Lyla!" I snatch a dishtowel off the rack hanging by the stove and rush over to the kitchen table to clean up the mess she made before she can make an even bigger one. I can't stand yelling at her because she's just so adorable and she's really not a bad kid but Alex already lets her get away with murder. She's not naughty, she's just ornery and she likes getting into stuff she knows she has no business getting into. I snatch the spoon out of her hand and put it back in the bowl. I push the bowl away from her and wipe the milk off the placemat and wipe her hands as well. "You're gonna get milk all over your outfit and then you're gonna get a spanking if I have to change you." I put the bowl of cereal back in front of her. "Now eat, Lyla. I'm not playing."
"I want dwy ceweal!" She pushes the bowl away from her and shakes her head. I just ignore her request because when I ignore her, she knows that I don't care what she wants. When I ignore her, she knows that it's my way or no way at all. I'm not Alex and the demands don't go over with me. I walk back to the counter to finish checking her bag. When I look back up to see if she's eating like I told her to, I see that she's back at it. This time, she's taking the milk out of the bowl by the spoonful and dumping it on the floor.
"You're gonna get a timeout!" I pick up the dishtowel again and go back over to her. Even though I've caught her again and I'm clearly standing right next to her, she's still dumping milk on my kitchen floor. I toss the towel down onto the small puddle of milk so I can wipe it up and as soon as I do that, I hear my front door open. Alex is here but I don't care. "If I have to tell you again Lyla, you're going to timeout. End of discussion." After I clean up the milk, I yank the spoon out of her hand again, stick it back in the bowl and complete the regime with a light but still firm slap on her hand. "Now STOP." She pulls her hands back fast. I know I stung her pretty good.
"Owwwwieeee..." Her little face turns firetruck red and tears well up in those pretty green eyes of hers. She throws her head back and screams at the top of her lungs. "Owwwie, mummy!" Tears stream down her cheeks and she starts wailing. Alex walks into the kitchen wearing a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. He goes immediately to Lyla and pulls out her chair so he can pick her up. "I want dwy ceweal, daddy!"
"Alex, put her down at that table so she can eat." I squat down so I can better clean up the milk she poured on the floor. "She hasn't eaten breakfast yet. She spent the entire time dumping milk on my floor and my table. So put her down and make her eat breakfast." He's holding Lyla on his hip and comforting her. "Put her down and make her eat."
"Well Jo, if she wants dry cereal..." He puts Lyla back in her chair.
"She's not getting dry cereal." I throw the dishtowel into the dirty laundry basket in the corner of the kitchen and zip up her zebra bag. "I know Lyla better than Lyla knows herself and I know that the only reason she's asking for dry cereal is because she's only gonna eat about a handful and then she's gonna tell you that she's hungry because she didn't eat enough for breakfast and she's gonna ask you to take her to McDonald's or something. Any other day, she has no problem eating her Fruity Pebbles with milk. Now all of a sudden, you're coming to get her and she doesn't want milk? No. She's eating that cereal with milk on it." Lyla's sitting at the table, tears still coming out of her eyes. "And I'm not kidding, Lyla. Stop crying, sit up straight, DON'T DUMP MILK EVERYWHERE and eat your breakfast. Now."
"Noooooooo...Daddy!" She turns to Alex and holds her arms up. "Dadddyyyy..."
"Lyla, eat." He puts the bowl of now-soggy cereal in front of her. "Do as your mother says and eat. We're gonna miss the princesses if you don't eat."
Lyla puts her head down on the table and screams. "Ehhhhhhhh!" She starts kicking her feet and banging her hands on the table. "I WANT DWY CEWEAL! I NOT EATING DAT!" She pushes the bowl of cereal away from her. "I WUNNA GOOOOO, DADDY! I WUNNA GO!"
"Not until she eats." I mumble to Alex and he nods, in awe that Lyla's freaking out like this. She's had temper tantrums before, especially back when she was going through her terrible twos. But she's never screamed at us like this and she's never banged her hands. "You're not getting up until you eat, Lyla."
"I WUNNA GO! I WUNNA GO!" She leans towards Alex with her arms out. Her face is so red that she looks flushed and her eyes are leaking out tears. "GEH ME DOWN! GEH ME DOWN!" When she sees that Alex isn't giving in like he normally does to her tears, she clunks her head down on the table and just cries. "I HAY YEW MUMMY! I HAY YEW!" Alex looks over at me and I just shrug. Not the first time Lyla's said she hates me, won't be the last either. Just so she knows that we mean business with her, I scoot the cereal back towards her. She lifts her head up, forcibly pushes the entire bowl off the table and onto the floor and clunks her head back down.
"That's it!" I pull her chair out and grab her by her armpits. "You're going to timeout!" I hold her by her arms and start walking with her but she starts flailing her legs. I swing her around and put her underneath my armpit so I can hold her like that but before I can secure her, she slams her face against my side and bites me.
"LYLA!" Alex finally steps in and takes her off of me. "WE'RE NOT GOING TO SEE THE PRINCESSES!" He throws her over his shoulder. "...You okay?"
"Yeah..." I nod my head and pull up my shirt to examine the damage. "...She never freaks out like this, Alex... we really need to take her to see someone. I'm kidding anymore." I feel myself getting ready to cry. I've never seen my little girl freak out and bite me like that. She's not my sweet little bubbles anymore. She's so angry...and she's been this way since me and Alex split. "I don't like seeing her like this..."
"I'll get her in with the child psychiatrist at Presby. She's really good." He nods, finally agreeing with me.