Separation

Charlie never really had separation anxiety as a baby.  Despite being the holy tornado that she is now, with a temper to match the hair and Irish heritage, she was actually a very happy, easy going baby.  She slept well, loved to be held and talked to, and was just generally content.  Then she started to move and learned about rage when things don't go her way, and it has gone to hell in a hand basket.

But I digress.  Happy Charlie.  Yes.  She never really went through those stages, even as a baby, where she would cry whenever I left the room.  I used to wonder and worry...is my child not developing object permanency?  Is she cognitively delayed?  Is she autistic?  My mind went a hundred thousand miles a minute in the way that only the severely anxious amongst us can understand.  I researched social delays online, convinced that this one aspect of her personality was going to doom her to a lifetime of institutionalization, medications, and therapy.

Yeah.  It is in full bloom now.  The separation anxiety, not the need for therapy.  That will be coming years down the road.  She cries every morning at drop off at daycare.  She follows me around the house like there is an invincible force field pulling her into me.  She panics when I try to close the door to poop.

It is so funny how OPPOSITE she and Alexis are in that regard.  Alexis was born with separation anxiety.  She hated everyone until about the age of two, when she figured out that being her cute stuff made people want to pay attention to her and give her stuff.  Then she was off and running like a good little con artist.  Charlie was pretty much OK with anyone who had a pulse and the capabilities to cuddle her as an infant.  Now that she is emerging into toddlerhood, that fierce independence that she always had is checked a little bit.  She needs that secure base to come to now, the way that Alexis as an infant needed it at that point in her life.

The therapy...well, as I have said before...she is the child of a therapist.  OF COURSE she will need it.  I am just relieved it is not because of whatever a lack of separation anxiety implies.