I'm human, she's five, everybody poops {A lesson in motherhood}

  Caitlin is OCD.  It's not really news to those that know her.  I mean she was the walking definition at two and a half when she lined up every pot and pan in my cupboard from the kitchen to the living room.  She also did this with books, cups, dolls, crayons.  I just laughed and thought it was cute, and said that she would just be highly organized and self motivated.  But really I was worried she would turn out like me.    I'm not as OCD as I once was.  When I was five, I spent an entire month constantly washing my hands, until they were raw and chapped.  All in the name of washing away the germs that would kill me.  Yes, I told my mom I didn't want to get germs because I would die.  Have I ever mentioned that my Mother is a saint?  So that OCD carried on with me for most of my life until I became a mother.  I had to check a lot of that shit at the door.  But I'm still OCD about germs, poop, and dishes.  I'm not really sure why the dishes made it, but a sink full of dishes just about sends me to the loony bin, and I get a sick satisfaction in loading a dishwasher.  I know, you don't have to say it.   So now that I've set the tone, my kid is type A, OCD, just like her mother.  Since I'm nothing like my mother, this has turned into a situation.  I don't have the patience.  I don't have the empathy.  I forget what it's like to have to have something done a certain way.  I forget what it's like to have irrational phobias.  Then I look at her, crying and telling me she is scared and then it clicks.    Oh, Crap, that's me.  That's all me in that little body.   What do I do now?   Last week we had to tackle just how alike we are head on.  I didn't handle it well.  There was a lot of yelling, a lot of tears, and then a lot of talking, apologizing, and then more crying.  I'm not the kind of mom that is calm and collected.  It's sad, but true.  I'm a yeller.  I always have been.  I've tried and tried, but....    The situation is this:  A few weeks ago I lost myself over poop.  Yup, poop.  Caitlin was doing her thing and for the first time in months needed my help.  For her privacy, now and in the future (sorry, love), I'll just say that it got everywhere.  Like everywhere.  Not her fault as she is only five.  I know, I forget too, that five year olds still have a hard time with the basics that we all take for granted.  But back to the poop, it was everywhere and I lost it.  I yelled, I was accusatory, I was disgusted.  I can admit it, I was way overboard, I was way out of control.  In my defense (if I have one), I was in the middle of dinner, and Mac had just done her own business a few minutes before, so I felt I was up to my eyeballs in poop.  Still, my freak out had a major impression.   Fast forward to last week.  My poor little OCD child, who takes declarations and freak outs in the literal sense, was "holding it in".  She was saying that it was going to hurt to poop, that she couldn't do it, but after two days of trying, Miralax, and crying, we figured out she was just holding it.  It was awful, I was frustrated, she was scared.  And we went back and forth like that for an hour.  Then when I collected my self (a little), I was able to calmly ask her why she was scared, her response, "If it's messy will you be mad?".   And I broke.   Because isn't this what Mommy Dearest was made out of?  I mean it doesn't get clearer than that.  I was waiting for the phone to ring to get the "Lifetime Achievement for Motherhood" award.  What is even the right response to that?    I felt like this was my "no wire hangers" moment.   I excused myself and called my BF, who saves me every time.  When I told her the story, with a cracking voice she said, "You are human.  You are human before you are mom.  You make mistakes.  And they can be fixed".  Then she proceeded to give me the correct dialog to apologize to Caitlin, to calm her fears, to help me admit my actions, and to open the conversation.  Thank God, right?   So that's what I did.  I got down to Caitlin's level and laid it all out.  That Mommy makes mistakes.  That poop isn't the worst thing in the world.   That poop is messy, but we can always clean up.  That everyone poops, and it's because it's the healthy thing to do.  And that Mommy was very, very, sorry.   Then I called my mom, to cry and say, "Oh my God she is just like me".  And my mom said to just talk to her, reassure her, but to know that I can't change her or what she believes the first time out.  That it will take time.  It will take patience.  It will take everything I've got.   Have I mentioned I'm not patient?   Like with most fumbles in motherhood there was a lesson to be learned. But did I learn it?   Yes.   I'm human. She's five. Everybody poops, eventually.