The Amusement Park I Call Home

Really, just about anyone could describe life as a roller coaster. And although around here it's more hilly than most terrain, lately my head is spinning. And if that isn't a mixed metaphor, nothing is.

We've always had the "make some ground, then turn around and go back" scenerio. One of the weird things I often chant to myself is "steps forward are permanent; steps backward are temporary." I imagine there are certain people, if they've seen me on a bad day, who are sure I have conversations with a voice in my head. The ups and downs have never been so close together, though, as they are now.

Princess is literally on an every-other day schedule lately. Her good days are phenomenal. Her bad days...well, I usually need to lay down after she goes to bed.

Yesterday was a good day. An up. She had an appointment an hour away at 9:00 and another 20 minutes away (in the opposite direction) at 1:00. Basically, there wasn't any (good) reason to take her to school in between. She would have been there for two hours, and one of those would have been lunch and recess. The cost-benefit analysis revealed that two extra transitions in her day would not- no way!- be worth it. At any rate, I could say being with me all day without all of the other three might have had something to do with it, except the first appointment involved talking about her at-home behavior (hates), and the second involved a shot (hates more) and the doctor touching her (super-hates!). So that ought to have balanced out the alone time.

Except it didn't.

I mean, of course there were things. When homework time ended, she held up pages from a notebook to show me that she used her homework time to draw and copy words from a book

(This is where, by the way, that I take deep breaths, take a drink of water, and remember that she is likely learning as much from the notebook and the books as she is from the homework. And also that I do not "care" about the homework anymore. Stop it. You don't care. I mean it- you don't care! There.)

                                                                                                                             and when I gave her permission to take her skip rope to the soccer field playground (1. No leaving the playground. Not with anyone. Not with a kid. Not with someone you know. No one. 2. Do not walk or run with the skip rope around your leg, you will fall and break your face. 3. The skip rope stays on the ground. It does not go on the climber where the ball will swing around and break someone else's face. 4. I will not hold it or remember it for you) she did/did not do EXACTLY TO THE LETTER everything I told her to not do/do. But really. She took the consequences without falling apart and trying to take me down with her and let's face it, that's all I really ask.

But after we had our her-and-me bedtime, she shot me the hugest smile I have ever seen from her. As in I have NEVER seen that smile before. Not even once. It reminded me of puppies, or when a baby thinks you're so funny she wiggles all over. That kind.

That was yesterday. We'll see what happens next. That smile will carry me through a lot. And we are going to dance tonight. If I get whipped in the face with a leotard, well, I guess she just won't be wearing one.