Happy New Year

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This should be a more cheerful post.

It's the new year, new beginning, fresh start, tabula rasa ... all that stuff. It should be an optimistic, hopeful time.

Unless you begin your year with my kids, that is.

I so badly want to be a great mom. I want to be calm, compassionate. I want to be able to love and accept these kids at face value, not holler, not threaten. I truly do see being a mom as my most important job. I want my kids to see me with trust, love and that idealistic sparkly-eyed wonder that children see their fictional parents with. Fictional, because I just know that truly, every parent ends up being "real" and not "fantasy" after awhile.

But every single day, those aspirations are dashed before the sun even rises. Bean badgers her little sister nonstop. She has to one-up or correct her on everything, she has to dominate play, she has to speak in an ugly, aggressive way and just destroy any semblance of peace. Miss O is now just a hyper-reactive kid, so any injustice from Bean means she'll start her whining and crying and then it's like talking a jumper off the ledge. Unless your words are chosen perfectly (and this varies every. single. time.) you make a volatile situation worse.

Then there's the absolute inability to do what they're told, when they're told. It can't ever be a "please put that back" // "okay" exchange. It's always drama, negotiation and freak outs. I pick my battles, but even with a somewhat laissez-faire approach to my expectations, everything's a battle. Everything. There is not a single exchange with my kids that isn't a battle.

I don't know how I'm supposed to be a good mom in the face of all this. There are small lulls, where they can play nicely together for 10-15 minutes. And I can usually get some peace if I park them in front of the TV, but the majority of each day is just hard. Really, really hard. And it breaks my heart not to enjoy my time with them more than I do.
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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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I don't play well with others.

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Thank god it's Thursday.

I am so tired of the way my kids have been acting lately; the fact that they're both tired and extra crappy this a.m. is just icing on the cake. If it wasn't Thursday, I'd be contemplating a Swirly of Doom for someone ...
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They're obnoxious. Professionally.

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Been keeping busy at work: we wrapped up the Career Fair Friday; the Pink Slip Festival is a week and a couple days out, and there's still a ton of details to handle for that; the day after the Fest I have another two classes to coordinate ... I'm looking forward to August - when Dan will be on vacation for a week and I'll be sitting around with my thumb up my butt. Comparatively speaking, at least - there will still be tons of copy writing, web site maintenance, Tweeting and status updating on his behalf, brand-building ... the things I do and have learned to do on this job are so awesome for my resume and future employability. Assuming I ever leave this job :)

I had a dinner meeting Thursday (I am starting to gain weight from all the dinners and drinks lately ... lunches weren't that bad for me, since I could make good choices - but dinner and beer ... ugh.) to start the ball rolling on the next event Dan's thinking about - a golf tournament. More on this later, because I really can't take all of that in until I wrap up the Pink Slip dealie. But yeah, a golf tournament. Thankfully I know rules, etiquette and terminology since I've dated a lot of golfers. I even understand *how* to play; I just wouldn't subject anyone to playing with me.

Bean's b-day party is Sunday the 19th at a drop-in daycare place, Wanna Play Playcare. They do private parties on Sundays so that should be a nice change from the flashing lights, loud noise and frantic chasing around at places like Chuck E Cheese - I'm anticipating this being a lot more laid back and less stressful because the kids will be locked in a couple thousand square feet and the parents won't need to watch their every move.

Although I won't be running my usual zone coverage on the girls - Dave and his parents will be there, as will my folks. With that kind of support watching the girls, I could hold the party at the beach in heavy surf and feel a bit more relaxed than I do when I'm on zone defense. I just usually never get to talk to anyone because I'm tracking Bean and O; it'll be nice to have them both confined and to have extra eyes on them.

And speaking of Bean, who sent her and O the Sherlock McBiscuit book? Too, too cute!

Bean's behavior the past two nights has been horrible. It's like she can make good choices and be well-behaved until like 6:00, and then it all shuts off. She won't listen or do what I ask, she runs away laughing, she ignores me ... it's enough to make my tiny little brain *snap*. So there's hollering, screaming, threatening and, sadly, sometimes a spanking - that she laughs about and then ratchets my blood pressure up like a bazillion. And then right when it's time to lay down, tearful apologies and promises to make better choices so she can have her stories back that she lost, get to change out of the pajamas I put her in when she wouldn't listen, etc ... like that makes it all okay and that gets her everything back. She can't act like a sh*t for an hour and then say "sorry, I'll make good choices" and *poof* get everything back. I actually took her new Ponies away and 'threw one in the garbage' last night. Seriously. Well, 'seriously' in that she thinks it's in the garbage, but I really went that far in an attempt to get her to listen and behave. It worked for 3.5 seconds.

And then when it's all over she wants me to hold her and apologize to her. And then tells me I'm bad when I won't apologize. Good times.

I've got a tired, crying toddler to deal with (up at 4:45. Joy.) so I'm just going to wrap this up so I can post something ... I've been working on this since the 9th!
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Fine, go. Leave me here to stew in my impotent rage. I'm also gonna pee, so you *should* probably go

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I had the worst day yesterday. Even Bean went to bed saying "we had a really bad day today."

It was just a crap-fest from wake-up to bedtime. I think there were 10-15 minutes of good when we first started out, but between O's latest need to scream and throw her full-on hissy fits at the slightest provocation (kid needs to learn to talk already), and Bean just being her usual strong-willed self, I was willing to drown myself in a toilet by about 9 a.m.

My dad came over and changed my tire, and when the flat one came off it had a huge honkin' hunk of metal stuck in it. I picked it up on the bridge near my house, and it was a good couple inches long by an inch wide. This was not a fixable flat. So I'll be out buying tires today.

Miss O spent most of the tire-changing time in a backpack, as she was wandering around screaming and tired, but I couldn't get her nap done because I needed to be sure Miss I didn't wander out and help grandpa with the tire change. She ended up with an hour and a half nap when it was over, and that was a decent hour and a half. Except I wasted it reading Bridge to Terabithia. But there was no screaming for the whole baby-in-carrier stretch, so even tho it was a long 2.5 hours to tote a not-so-tiny one around, it was a quiet 2.5 hours.

We had lunch when she woke up (can you believe Miss O loves liverwurst?) and then I rallied the troops for a quick outing before Bean's physical therapy. We had planned to attend N's first b-day party, but between the flat tire and Miss O being super congested and snotty, we couldn't make the party. So I picked up Bean's new orthotics (how many 3.5-year-olds can say orthotics?), and we stopped at the library for 30 minutes. Yeah, I suck for letting Miss O spread her cooties, but my sanity was already stretched beyond thin and I needed them out of the house. Shoot me. (Please?)

Trying to contain O while Bean does her hour of PT is increasingly difficult. But we managed, then Bean completely and totally ignored everything I said while I talked to her PT. And then when I was getting my purse to leave, she actually ran all the way to the outside door, let herself out and started messing around on the stairs, ramp and near the parking lot.

At that point, I was ready to pitch her beloved Clarice into the garbage as retribution, but managed to stop myself from doing that and instead let her know she was going to be without Clarice for a few days, until I was satisfied her listening and her responsiveness had improved. Of course, I didn't use those exact words; it may have been more along the lines of "If you can ever stop being such a total turd ..." But I believe my point was made and she got the gist of it.

We finally made it home (I more or less stayed on all the highway access roads so I could go slower on my donut), I made the dinner she said she would eat - peas and rice. We had had a conversation about veggies earlier, and she said she'd eat peas. Well, of course she wouldn't eat the damn food, and was all whiny and crying about it. I gave the ultimatum: eat it or go to bed hungry and without any animals or dolls to hold. She wouldn't eat it, but kept saying she'd eat just the rice. I relented to 'eat the rice or go to bed hungry and alone' (alone was her word for not having anything to hold). She balked again.

With a final warning that if I threw her food out there would be nothing else and there would be no animals to snuggle, I threw it out, then nagged incessantly for her to get ready for bed. After a few stories, I was nursing a very tired Miss O down, and getting her close to sleep, when Bean started getting all whiny about her night splints, and then when I finally got her to lay back down and wait, she started a pretend snoring thing that took my last nerve and severed it.

After I yanked off her splints and threw them, and finally got O to sleep, I came out to my office to chill and Miss O woke up 3 more times in the first hour. Then Bean woke up around 9, and was running a fever. I medicated her and told her I'd be in shortly, took an hour to myself and the went to bed with them.

It was just a day and night that had me mumbling to myself all day long about drowning myself in a toilet. Miss O has discovered the miracle or the flush, so I figured I could just stick my head in and allow her to practice me right into Swirly Enlightenment.

But there was no amount of Swirly Enlightenment that was going to fix the day, nor was the small quantity of alcohol I'll allow myself when I'm 'on duty' worth drinking (a glass of wine was no match for an Epic Fail like yesterday), and that my only recourse was sleep and the hope that today would be better.

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I'm not sure what a 4 a.m. wake-up portends, but let me tell you, it doesn't make me think "this is going to be a great day!" The only thing it makes me think is "thank Bast for Starbucks drive thrus."

And - especially - thank Bast it's a school day and Bean awoke fever-free.
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I didn't jump. I took a tiny step and there the conclusions were.

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Bean's new word (and it's used properly almost exclusively) is "apparently". As in:

Mommy: Bean, what are you doing?
Bean: Eating my lamb, apparently.

Apparently so.

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Yesterday was a long day. Just long.

The pre-5:00 wake up led to a pre-9:00 nap for both girls, with both sleeping a good 1.5-2 hours. I had promised Bean that if she napped, we could go to Chuck-A-Cheese (there's no point correcting her on the "E" part). Since she did, we did. I have like a quadrillion tokens left over from her party and other parties, so it was just the pizza cash outlay and thus a cheap date.

It started on a banner note when she freaked about the monster truck that had been, until she sat in it, her whole damn raison d'etre. Then it started, and so did the freak scene. I lifted her out, she and Miss O rode the very tame roller coaster simulator, then we ate. While we were eating, O was laughing and clapping about the bigger roller coaster simulator, so I decided to take her on it.

Cue freak scene numero dos. Bean is crying hysterically that she doesn't want us to ride it, and figuring it would abate quickly, I just told her we were and got on. O loved it. Bean stood outside the ride and cried/screamed/yelled the entire time.

The rest of our time there was better, although watching Bean and Miss O play air hockey would have made up for just about any other badness that occurred. I had O in a high chair (oh, Bean did a mini-freak about me not putting her in one) so she could at least see the table, and they both scored points by absolute accident. I wish I'd had my camera ...

Leaving Chuck-A was yet another horror scene, with Bean running away from me - at least she stayed on the sidewalk - and refusing to get in the car. I threatened to leave her, no dice. I took her beloved reindeer Clarice and what was a freak out ratcheted up to what probably looked like a full-on abduction by the time I got her in the car. She was screaming and crying, so I screamed back at her and stopped the van at a furniture store and told her she could either stop or I'd just let her out here because they had comfy beds she could take a nap in.

Not my finest moment, but she was freaking O out and my wafer-thin patience was at that point stretched to breaking. It got her to calm down enough for me to talk to her and give her logic and rationale, as well as an idea of when and how she would get Clarice back.

Like an idiot, I made another stop on the way home. And endured yet another public freak scene and this time a few judgy looks as I struggled to cope. One of the women got into some ad-magneted car advertising some granola-minded kids thing, so I'm sure she's gone back to the other granolas and told them about the awful mom at the consignment store. I keep checking (hoping) she posts to the local AP list about me, since there's always a handful of folks on there who feel it's their place to make assumptions about the quality of mothers they see in public.

When you hear a mom total demean and berate their child, tell them (in so many words) they don't like or want them, and/or really hit their kid in public, that may be an opportunity to mount your high horse and take your tiny step to your conclusions. Hell, I do it when it's painfully obvious. But parenting Bean and trying (and often failing miserably) to be a card-carrying AP momma has taught me the value of the benefit of the doubt. Now, unless I see something egregious, my first instinct with a frazzled mom and kid that's being a turd is "I wonder how long that kid has been acting like that?" I actually assume they've been rock-solid good moms all day, in the face of total turdery from their kid(s), and I just happened on the straw that broke the camel's back.

And since O's naps were all messed up yesterday, she was absolutely faklempt by the time the evening rolled around, and I was treated to no fewer than 5 of her latest Oscar-nominated meltdowns. We're talking a collapse to the floor and screams that would be more apropos were I doing some sort of torture combined with all the cats ignoring her. Meltdowns that are like black holes of communication, where there is nothing verbal that can reach her. You have to stop everything, pick her up and console her. And don't even think of putting her back down once the waterworks have shut down and she's smiling. Dinnertime, after dinner clean up, bedtime prep and Bean's story time are not at all conducive to the level of response that O requires when she's reached her zenith, so her drama queen evenings just suck.

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Fortunately, today is an easy day for me. Bean has school, Dave's taking Miss O to her urologist appointment and then keeping her and Bean tonight, and I'm attending another job-related seminar about using LinkedIn to maximize job search results. And then I believe there will be a glass of wine, a hot bath and a good night's sleep in my future.
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