I began this blog to voice my opinions in the most diplomatic way as possible, and hopefully make a few “friends” along the way. Right now, however, diplomacy and friendliness are the last things on my mind. I just need to BITCH!!!
As a couple of you have noticed (and thank you for your concern!), I haven’t been “present” in the blogging world for the past week. Instead I have been working very hard to keep my composure and refrain from making my kid a front page headline… “Child Dies After Butting Heads with Parent”.
My baby turns 6 tomorrow!!! She is by far the smartest, wittiest, and caring 6 year old I have ever known. Really! She is also the most difficult, hardheaded, and uncaring 6 year old I’ve ever known. She was the perfect angel til the age of 2. We never even had to tell her “no”, so the issues associated with discipline and punishment never really haunted us, as it did so many other parents. Two to three was wonderful. We just didn’t experience those “terrible twos”.
THEN SHE TURNED THREE!!!! And she’s still alive and well! And I haven’t done anything that I could be put in prison for. And I pray every day that I won’t! Emma has sleep issues and major rage issues. We saw a behavior therapist at 4 who told Emma to “picture purple ballerinas and take deep breaths when she got angry”. I wasn’t sure whether she should do that before or after she was throwing books and shoes at me while I was driving down the road…neither was Emma. Then, we went to a well-known hospital here in Nashville to see a psychologist who suggested a behavior chart.
I explained to this person that although I certainly do not claim to know it all, I do have a degree in Child Development. I thought I explained to him that if a behavior chart had worked, we could have solved this ourselves. He informed me that our charts weren’t colorful enough, the rewards weren’t sufficient enough, and we’re just idiots. Okay he didn’t say that, but PLEASE!!! So $650.00 later we’re still in the same boat. She has wonderful days, then she has horrible days. Unfortunately, we never really have any so-so days. So, when she’s off at 8 in the morning, we prepare ourselves for a day of HELL! And when she’s on at 8 in the morning, we prepare ourselves that she’s likely to snap at any time (but hopefully she won’t).
So, I picked her up last Thursday from school, and we journeyed to Wal-Mart (it should be noted here that we make a conscious effort to keep her out of public situations as she tends to “snap” in these situations). I took her to pick out swim shoes so she could go swimming in the indoor pool at the hotel…the one that Patrick’s mom spent a great deal of $$$ getting for us this past weekend just so Emma could swim for her birthday. We had a cart ready to go. We were headed to Target because Walmart didn’t have any girl swim shoes in stock. Then she saw a hat she wanted. I said no. THE END. NO…Just the beginning. I sat in that store in the rug isle for 2 hours because I literally could not overpower my child to get her to the car. She scratched me, she pushed me, she kicked me, and she screamed like someone was pulling her toenails out one by one…because I would no longer buy the pink rug for her room. I finally got her home, where she cozied up to Daddy all night. BLAH!!! Friday evening she went nuts because of dinner…she doesn’t like my meatloaf, or anything I cook! We offered her cereal…she doesn’t like our spoons. And so on, and so on. This weekend in Alabama was insane. She whined the entire time because she could not go swimming in the outdoor pool. Yep…the OUTDOOR pool. Yes, it was open. No, it was not heated. Yes it was less than 20 degrees there on Saturday night. That didn’t matter. We said no. She went nuts!
Adding to the stress of the matter were the two children under 3 that closed the indoor pool for a total of about 16 hours while we were there. One vomited in the pool, the other pooped. And the parents were both out of the pool not paying a bit of attention at the time. Hey, accidents happen. But thank God those little girls didn’t drown. Their parents would have noticed about 10 minutes too late.
We got home yesterday, went to dinner, and had a good night. But Emma couldn’t get to sleep. She finally went down about 10:30. I dropped her off crying this morning, where one of the awesome EA’s walked her in talking to her. The EA later told me Emma said, “I feel gross, I don’t feel like doing anything, I don’t want to be here”. At least the kid’s honest. This afternoon went very well. On the way to the bakery to pick up cookies for school tomorrow, she asked me if Patrick was still going to take her out for her birthday tomorrow evening. When I said yes, she responded, “Do you have to go?” I told her I’d stay home, but she said, “I guess it should be a family thing, so you need to go!”
So, it’s fair to say I’m soooo tired. I’m hoping for a great birthday for her tomorrow. She tries really hard and has a very hard time understanding why she does the things she does. I have so many hopes and dreams for her, but first and foremost, I want her to be happy.