What part of punching you in the face do you not understand?

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Ack.

A whole *week* without an update?

And what a week it's been. Long story short, both girls start at a new school on Wednesday. It's one of those eeeaaassseee into it deals, where on Wed they will be there like 9-11 or so, Thurs 9-12, etc. Annoying as *hell* for those of us who have to work for a living, but it is what it is, I guess. Dave and I checked out 5 places, and this was the only one we felt good about. I was prepared not to like it, and to have warmer fuzzies for a few other places, but this place just felt good.

I'm not sure what to expect from Bean, though, and if I can be brutally honest, I'm not holding out high hopes that this will be all that much different. We had a hellacious day yesterday, and sometimes I wouldn't be surprised to find her in a corner pulling the legs off bugs or throwing stones at baby birds. I swear that she sometimes seems like a total sociopath. She spit on a kid at the playground yesterday because he was following her everywhere, even after she screamed at him to stop seceral times.

Now, granted, because I am under an obscene amount of stress right now, my responses and patience have been less than stellar. So I've been feeding into the vicious cycle with really high-caliber parenting moments, but still.

I think that until we fully understand and start "fixing" the sensory and emotional components of her behavior, it's going to be a very rough road. Filled with moments/hours/days that put parents and teachers alike on edge. She's just *not* like other kids, and switching schools isn't going to change that, I don't think. Her dad and I are each going to have to reach deep, deep into our reserves to parent her, and keep reading and implementing new mindsets and approaches. And it's going to be frustrating. Because I've found that the higher the high, the lower the low.

She's capable of such greatness, so much love and such humor and fun. So while I'm describing the weekend, be aware that there is a lot of good thrown in, much more than the "bad". And 99% of the time, I see her as a magical, loving kid that happens to require a lot more skill to parent than a kid who doesn't have her unique makeup. That is, I cut her the slack, I cut myself the slack, and we have a great time.

The 1% of the time where we're both mired in "the suck", well, weekends like I'm experiencing happen.

All weekend has seemed like an exercise in "no good deed goes unpunished" for me. Take her to Sportfun and lunch, she freaks out at Ikea. Get more food in her and try to help her understand the choices she makes, be rewarded with a screaming freakout in the car, complete with throwing things at me. Because Miss O has had a great day and is begging "park!" over and over, reward a good choice of Beans' with a stop at a playground, have her scream at a kid and spit on him for following her around. Bring her home and resist throttling her and lecture instead, listen to her tell me she doesn't love me, that she hates being at my house and wants to go to her daddy's. Forever.

At some point recover (myself) from all that, talk gently about how bad the day was for both of us, shake on both of us making good choices the next day, then have her wake up and refuse to quiet down when I ask her not to wake her sister. Take a do-over and get a few good hours in.

Then have her violate the deal we agreed on, that if I ask her to do/not to do something twice and she doesn't do/not do it she has to go to her room, and have her screaming or laughing at me as I try to calmly enforce the rule. Take yet another step in her direction and talk with her and soothe her as she is in there, then indulge in 5-10 minutes of the rough play she loves, where we can roll around and be silly. As I wrap that up, she lick me. I ask her to stop. She licks me again. I ask again, and reiterate that the game is over. She licks me again. I explain how she can't do that, that people think it's gross/freaky. She licks me again. I remind her of our deal, and how I have given a little extra latitude but that this is my last request. She licks me again.

I tell her she'll need to stay in her room for a little while to think about what I asked and why she couldn't do it. She screams bloody murder and starts kicking the walls. I ask her to stop, she screams more. I take Miss O and leave, Bean commences histrionics. I wait a little, then go in and try to explain to her that she really just needs a nap - that I want to be able to take her places this afternoon, but I can't unless she sleeps. She keeps screaming at me. I leave again, trying to calm O down so *she* can nap. Bean's still screaming, so I try again to talk to her, and explain that I'd be happy to hug/rock/hold her if she can calm down, but that O needs to nap, and I can't bring her in the room if Bean's freaking out.

Finally, *finally* get Bean to settle herself down, then go in and try to lay with/snuggle with both girls. Herding cats would be a more satisfying task at this point. Then Bean freaks out again, because in the course of the 15-20 minutes of histrionics, I have threatened that if she can't calm down, we won't go anywhere, and now I have to stick to it. I then threaten that she will stay in her room all freakin' day if she doesn't nap, and we get into a very mature discussion, culminating in her laughing in my face as I threaten, me swatting her tush and her laughing at me again.

I'm fairly certain my head did at least one 360 at that point, and I may have thrown up a little pea soup in my mouth.

So finally, they're asleep, I'm blogging and pretending my house doesn't look like a tornado hit it and trying to get my heart and my head to a "clean slate" place for her and I to start over from. I'm also trying to decide if I have to stick with the "we're not going anywhere!" ultimatum I threw out, or if I can gracefully back down because she napped ...

Oh yeah. I'm *that* good a parent.
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