RADtastic Saturdays

Ahhh, Saturdays. A day of family fun. Togetherness. Laughter and joy.

Ummmm, yeah.

At best, Saturdays around here are sketchy. When Princess is "going through something," however, they are absolute minefields.

I think it's the actual essence of Saturday that is the problem. Saturday is a day to get out of your routine. A time to do something out of the ordinary. A day without the usual demands where you can relax and do what you like. For a RAD child, Saturday is a black hole of fear and uncertainty.

Today was worse than usual because I have a cold, and colds make me whiny and needy. The record in my head kept playing, "can't I just have a day off? I'm not really in the mood for therapeutic parenting today. I don't feeeeeeel goooooooood!" So I slacked and didn't do the prep work needed to help her structure her time, and since Princess still has not gotten the hang of engaging herself in an activity she chose, of course it was a disaster. Der. After the second fight erupted, I assigned her to the room in which I was curled in a ball on the couch and played Queen of Social Interactions. Whenever Princess convinced someone to play with her, all would be well for a grand total of five minutes, and then I'd intervene and rephrase her responses or *cough* mildly threaten her.

There were two major fights during two phone calls (during which the Queen of Social Interactions was unavailable for intervention services) and a dispute over whether a person with pants full of pe(e) should be allowed in the fort. Then it was Homework Time. I left the room to play with the laundry and another fight broke out. Now, of COURSE I couldn't have known who started it, and it was certainly NOT Princess, so it was NOT FAIR that I called her to stand next to me in the laundry room and I was JUST TRYING TO WIN by not LETTING her do her homework, but I guess sometimes as a parent you just have to make your best judgment call. A-hem. Next she threw her homework across the dining room and insisted I wouldn't let her out of her chair to get it. Then she pretended to not hear me ask if she wanted to have sauce on her chicken sandwich (which is the kind of culinary delight you get around here on these kinds of Saturdays) and had a fit about having a sandwich with no sauce. Currently she is in bed with a plain chicken sandwich in a shirt and nothing else. Why? Because she is "not allowed" to go to the bathroom, and "not allowed" to change and clean up, and it's "too dark" to walk to her dresser and get out underwear and pajamas. Yep. Cause that's how we roll around here. Uh-huh. *

I'm thinking Saturday night should become date night. So don't pass this post around to any babysitters. I think it would be best if they didn't know what they'd be facing.



*After reading this post, Josh felt the I should add for those "not familiar with my sense of humor" (I believe that's a direct quote), that most of that paragraph is sarcastic and does not directly represent my parenting style.