Good #1: Awana-based Soccer Camp. I LOVE YOU, AWANA-BASED SOCCER CAMP!!! You are my best friend. You have taken three of my children for four hours each day of the last five days. You have preserved my sanity. You have made it possible for me to continue on. You have even lied about enjoying having them there. I. Love. You.
Good #2: Princess and Peanut got lip glosses after therapy, and Princess's was in the shape of a cell phone. She left it in the same room with Peanut for a few minutes, and Peanut (accidentally but she shouldn't have been touching it) broke the clip. Princess was mad, but stayed reasonably calm and asked me to fix it. I looked at it, but told her that plastic can't be fixed once it breaks. Then she yelled at Peanut to fix it and stuffed it into Peanut's hands. Peanut fumbled it, and it shattered. Princess started yelling at Peanut; I pulled her over and reminded her gently that I had told her it couldn't be fixed, and she tried to make Peanut fix it anyway. It took a couple repeats, and then she stood back and cried. No lunging. No verbal threats. Cried. So I pulled her on my lap and empathized a tiny bit. She wanted Peanut to pay to replace her lip gloss. Normally that's how it would work, except Princess is in deep debt to EVERYONE for breaking their stuff. I told her I couldn't make Peanut replace it for breaking it on accident because Princess has broken so many of her things on purpose. Again with the repetition, but she accepted it. She did! I told her that it was hard but she did it, and tossed her a handful of Skittles.
Good #3: The house purchase is rolling along, we quite possible have already found renters, and I have thus far been able to talk myself off the anxiety-attack roof by reminding myself that moving into a fabulous house at a fabulous price is not a good reason to waste a perfectly good anxiety attack.
The Bad is, of course, related to the Good. The Bad is that, while Peanut seems to be ok with moving into a new house, she is not ok with someone else moving into this one. Josh wanted the kids and I to meet the perspective renters (no matter how fervently I tried to talk him out of it), and for an hour before they came until and hour after they left she became a whirling dervish wearing an invisible Darth Vadar mask that gave her a Darth Vadar voice at three times any sound level previously noted on this earth. She knocked over people. She knocked over bikes. She knocked over herself. She moved at the speed of a bullet train, keeping up the LOUD!LOUD!LOUD! with unquenchable energy. Today she told me she didn't want to move because this house is bigger (it's not) and more toys fit in it (they don't). I said, I know.
The Ugly. Princess is perfectly fine with people moving into our house. She's just through the roof about living in a different house herself. So last night she spent from 8:00-10:00 screaming about bug bites. I gave her the itch medicine to put on before bed. Then she washed it off. Then she screamed. Then she got out of bed to tell me she needed medicine. Over. And over. And over. At 10:00 she switched to I'm Scared and I Need All the Lights on So I Can Play Instead of Sleeping and Oh I Want the Cuddle Bear to Play With Me, Too. Which did not fly. I tried everything, and nothing worked. Finally I threw on my swim suit, pulled off her clothes, and got in the shower with her. We stayed there while she moved from screaming to fussing to moaning to telling me she was going to have the light on and read books to finally acquiescing to staying in bed, quiet, with the radio on. It was 11:00.
The thing is, she probably was scared, though even she probably doesn't know of what, because she had worked herself up to the point of delirium. Regardless. This is the third night in a row she has experimented with some form of "I can't sleep" and stayed awake until 10:00 or later. This child, that until now has needed 12-14 hours of sleep. What I don't know is if she really can't sleep, or if this is just a new thing for attention and to drive me out of my mind.
So this afternoon she'll get "ready for bed" and be graciously granted a chance to redo last night's bedtime. I'll start up Ye Olde Six Mg of Melatonin again tonight and see if it gives me enough peace to unknot my intestines.
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Hmmm the really ugly is really ugly hey.... we have times similar to this with Bop... and that child needs loads of sleep cause If not she is a real state the next day.... I Pray today's bed time is smoother for you and Princess
ReplyDeleteMy most regulated (really, calm and sweet, but adopted) child and I were having a conversation about houses and wishes, etc. as we were driving along. I was wistful about living in the country and the house we'd just visited which was big - and nice. I asked him, "What would you do if you had all the money you wanted?" and his response was: "I'd build a house exactly like the house we have now. JUST THE SAME, not bigger or anything, [emphasis his] only newer with not so many things broken." Our house was built in 1919 and shows its age here and there....but though he clearly doesn't like the "broken things" I was really staggered by this boy's (age 16) attachment to our home.
ReplyDelete@ Annie: I know. I shouldn't be surprised, since each one of them (including the bio and the non-RAD adopted) have stated previously that IF they decided to have their own houses as adults, they will build them in our backyard or side lots. I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and push through, I guess.
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