Storm Fronts

Well, I think the storms blown back out. We had enjoyed a couple of days of Princess Pleasantness when Josh went and did it. I had taken some kids to soccer and he kept some with him, and when I got home he was tucking in Princess. However, when I took Peanut up to bed, things were clearly not well with Princess's soul. Princess came down about six times to tattle on Peanut, things like Peanut reading her book too loud or having too many stuffed animals. Then Peanut came down once to tattle on something legitimate like Princess dancing on her bed. Then Princess came down another six times. Finally Peanut came down and asked to sleep in her sleeping bag in my room (where the Cuddle Bear goes to sleep). I allowed her to, which did not sit well with Princess. Josh came back from the barn and I asked him what time I got home, and said whenever it was, it wasn't an early enough bedtime for Princess. He said,

"shoot. That must have been my fault."

Josh went on to say that after he read her a story, he commented on how well she'd been behaving and how pleasant she had been and how enjoyable she was to be around the past few days.

Deep. Long. Groan.

So, for the past four days she's been hell-bent on proving she will NOT behave and she is NOT pleasant, and she is NOT enjoyable to be around. And, boy, is she good at it.

She went at it strong from 9:00 this morning to 1:00 this afternoon. She's had eight time outs and a nap. She's pretended to not know where the dryer is, where her laundry basket is kept, what her clothing looks like, and where it goes. Somehow, and I haven't figured this one out yet, putting her laundry away involved taking much of Peanuts clothing out of the closet and burying it under Peanut's laundry. When required to put Peanut's clothing back in the closet, she lied, tantrumed, and lied again. She came clean when I insisted she think up her own consequence for the lie, but by then I was no longer asking if the job was done, so that didn't end up working out for her. The consequences she generated involved cleaning already clean rooms, so I assigned her the entryway. No likey. That was where the nap came in.

She was quite a bit more compliant when I went back up to get her; she did a good job on the entryway efficiently without complaining. But when she was done she found me and asked me if she could have a plum.

"Princess, I think before you ask me for stuff, you should probably do the stuff I asked you to do this morning. Check in with me after that, ok? Because I love to say yes to you."

"Can I go outside?"
"Princess, I thing before you ask me for stuff....blah blah blah blah blah."
"Can you tell me what it is?"
"That sounds like a mystery for you to solve, Princess! How fun! To find the clues, you'll have to think back to the job you lied about. Let me know when you've solved it."

Anyway, she went and did the rest of the stuff in about 20 minutes. It saddens me. Here she spent FOUR HOURS not doing something that would have taken ten minutes. And she needs to be outside. But if she's going to sabatoge herself, she GOING to do it, and there isn't always a whole lot I can do to stop her.

I did tell her at one point when she looked regulated enough to receive it, that the pressure was off. I said, "Princess, I know Daddy told you we were really enjoying being around you. I think you misunderstood something, though. We don't expect you to be enjoyable all the time. We know you're going to need to push us away and be unenjoyable. It's ok. We love you both ways. Be unenjoyable if you need to. We can take it. We'll still be here.