Post Boom

Friday night was a tough night for me.  The boom had been lowered in the afternoon and I expected little to no reaction from her.  Or if there was some reaction, I was hoping for her to be sad and perhaps a little bit of pleading that she wouldn't do it again or something along those lines.  Instead she walked over to the closet, opened up the doors to see empty bookshelves, told me I was rude (no big deal) and then said, "Oh here's a book that you forgot." in this snotty sing songy tone of voice.  Gotta love it.

That night I just had this sinking feeling that I'm losing her, already at age 6.  I talked to V. about it, my fears, frustrations, and had a good sob.  These constant problems are taking a toll on our relationship, at least on my side.  She's so Jekyll and Hyde that one minute she can be flipping out and fifteen minutes later, she's hugging on me.  For me, it's hard to let it go especially after 3 months of what feels like daily problems over the same stupid things.  By the end of the day, I just want her in bed NOW because I'm done, I've used all my patience for the day and if I don't get her in bed NOW, I'm risking losing my temper. Of course, when V. is here and I'm not juggling trying to keep D. out of trouble as I'm trying to get I.'s hair washed and books read to her, it's not a big deal and I don't feel that same sense of urgency, that I'm about to lose it.  This is why there is no way I could ever handle another child.

The weekend brought better behavior from I. and I thought she seemed more relaxed, affectionate, and happy.  Go figure!  This morning was the worst school morning we've had in over a year.  As usual, in her room she had gotten out 5 different games with millions of pieces along with a bunch of other stuff and then waited to start putting it away.  She kept coming downstairs to get a plastic bag for this and that and while I can admire the effort, I would tell her how much time was left until we left.  I guess she didn't really listen (big surprise there) because it came to the time when we needed to leave and not only was she not done, she wasn't fully dressed and hadn't eaten breakfast.  I didn't get mad about it since she's the one who was going to receive consequences from it (tardy slip).  Of course, she came downstairs and started blaming me for her lateness (I should have told her to clean up, I shouldn't have made her clean up etc.).  I handed her breakfast to eat in the car and got in the car to wait for her because she had forgotten her socks.  By the time we got to school everyone was already in the classrooms so we had to get a tardy slip for the first time for her to take to her teacher.  She asked what it was and I explained what it was and that it counted against the behavior grade.  We get to the closed door of her classroom and she starts saying she doesn't want to go to school, she's not going into her class until I finally had to open the door up, get her teacher's attention, have her come out and get I.  As long as I was there, I. was not going to get better so I left.

Now it's time to go get here and I'm hoping that her day got progressively better and that perhaps she will have learned her lesson not to take out a bazillion toys at once in her room.  We'll see.