Yes, He Really Is Autistic

Thursday was not a good day. It started off all well and good, but by the end of the day - for the first time in my parenting history - I was alone in my bedroom sobbing. Things just hit at the wrong time.

Mister Man is autistic. He's very high functioning, and he attends Catholic school with no support, but he's still autistic. That's why I pick him up to take him to twice weekly therapies. And yes, when he's playing or when you observe him long enough, it's obvious that he's "different" from the other kids. Most of the time, I can, unconsciously perhaps, pretend that all is well and that maybe he doesn't truly have autism. He does.

Thursday afternoon, I got an email from his teacher. His teacher doesn't like email and only sends email if there's something brewing. Apparently he's been "making decisions that are having a detrimental impact on his ability to do his work effectively" although there was no other specific information behind that. He also had disappeared on the way to Mass on Wednesday, then jumped out from behind a pillar to scare his teacher on Wednesday. The teacher had provided him with a life learning lesson (part of their discipline) to talk to me about, but he had failed to do so. And Thursday a boy at recess took a ball he was playing with, so he had started hitting the child. Repeatedly. He spent time with the assistant principal and was told he was staying in for recess on Friday and perhaps again today.

I had thought the new year was going well. On Tuesday, Mister Man came home so excited because he had earned four tickets (rewards for outstanding "something" - generally behavior) that day, something he had never done before. Wednesday, he hadn't earned any more tickets, but he told me it had been a great day and went into detail about what he'd done and who he'd played with. Apparently not. The email burst the bubble of my day. We have talked to him more times than I can count about how he is not allowed to hide and try to scare people because - as part of his autism - he doesn't get when it's ok to do that and when it isn't, so most of the time he tries it, it's an inappropriate time or place. And he isn't a hitter. He's never been a hitter, but this year, behaviors like this are coming out, and I don't know where they're coming from.

That afternoon was also to be Mister Man's first day trying out the "big kid" class at tae kwon do. His dojo has two programs - a little kid program where they start at five years old and learn a lot of the basic moves and the first form, but also start to learn to listen and follow directions well and begin to develop a sense of responsibility before moving to the big kid class at around age 7, once they've completed the "black belt" and all its stripes in the little kid class.

When Mister Man tested for his black belt in the little kid class early this summer, there were three kids testing with him - two moving to a red belt, the belt below him, and one moving to a black belt with him. At the end of the test, the instructor asked the other black belt if she wanted to move to the big kid class because she was ready. Mister Man wasn't even though he's eight. He's had all the stripes on his black belt since mid-October, and still the instructor waited. Her goal was to move him over with two or three other students at the start of the new year. Now.

And so he had his first class in the big kid room on Thursday. It was a standard class, plus him, a brand new student to tae kwon do who was obviously younger than him, and a child who is a purple belt (two below where Mister Man is) with only a couple stripes there. As I sat and watched the class, I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes. He didn't belong there. When the class did kibon - the first form that they learn, and one Mister Man has known for over a year now - he was moving in one direction by the end of it while the entire other class was moving in another. He didn't have the strength still to keep his knees bent while standing in various positions and awaiting instructions. Between punches, he would have his arm almost straight up in the air, looking around him - even after an instructor would walk to him and manually correct his arm position. His kicks were less kicks and more a foot swatting at something near his ankle, again even after an instructor demonstrated specifically for him and worked with him on them. And when they played the "belt game" at the end of class? That was the worst. Each child was given two very short white belts, which they were told to tuck into their existing belts - picture flag football. Every child did as instructed, except Mister Man. He removed his belt - the only one to do so - and tried tying the short belts, which didn't work. Then he tried wrapping the belts, both of them at once, around his waist and putting his original belt atop it. The instructor eventually had to come and fix all his belts for him. If he had the awareness to look around and see what the other kids were doing, he could have saved himself this. But looking around and seeing what others are doing is essentially his problem - he doesn't have that instinct or understanding, and my explaining it to him does nothing.

As the students exited the class at the end, the owner stopped the purple belt. She handed him the new uniform for the big kid class and told him he was going to those classes from now on. Mister Man wasn't handed a uniform. She told me that she would talk to the instructor of the big kid class to get his feedback. But really, I knew. By the end of the class, I knew what the response from the instructors would be. He doesn't belong in the big kid class yet. He needs to return to the little kid class - the only child there who has his black belt with all the stripes. He doesn't need to gain any more skills there, but he needs to continue maturing. And that breaks my heart.

As I climbed into the car, I was already fighting back tears. All I want for my children is for them to find what they're good at and to be happy. Mister Man adores tae kwon do, and he was so excited to move to the big kid class. Except that he isn't, but when I asked him, he had no idea that he'd done anything that didn't warrant him staying in the class. Instead, I had to prep him that maybe he would have to wait a little longer and tried to give him some examples of why.

What's so frustrating for me is that he is almost a completely neurotypical kid. He's so close to fitting in and getting it, but yet he doesn't. He's a smart little cookie and as sweet as pie, but there are things that he just can't do, but because he looks and acts so "normal" most of the time, everyone raises their expectations. Coupled with the issues at school, my expectations were fully dashed, and I was crushed.

As we drove home, he told me about what had happened at school, too. When the child took the ball, his first instinct was to hit. He didn't ask the child for the ball back. He didn't involve a teacher. He didn't walk away. All the social stories we work on about what to do in various situations flew out the window, and instead he hit the child. In my head, all I could hear was "What more can I do?" ringing over and over. And for that moment in time, I had no answer.

When we got home, my mom was just arriving with Little Miss. My mom blew off my concerns of the tae kwon do after a sentence with an essentially "oh well" type answer. And then there was a misunderstanding over her pronouncement that Little Miss's coat was dirty, and my mom refused to tell me the story of why it was dirty. And then she tossed out a catty, "When I make a commitment, I keep it" - something I knew was a dig directly at me.

And my day was done. Fortunately I'd prepared dinner for the wee ones - although it hadn't finished cooking when I had to leave for tae kwon do, so in desperation I had put it in the oven on a timed cook in the hopes that it would be done when we arrived home. Check it out. Another failure on the day on my part. I put the dinner on the table for the wee ones and excused myself, something I've never done before. I couldn't sit with them. I couldn't eat dinner. I was just done.

And for the first time in my life as a parent, I went upstairs and closed myself in my bedroom and sat on the floor to cry. I was absolutely and 100 percent feeling sorry for myself, but knowing this didn't change it. I was so frustrated and so ... done. It seemed that no matter my efforts, nothing I was doing was the right step or the right path. By the time the wee ones had finished dinner and started getting themselves ready for bed, I was able to face the world again. I wasn't happy by any stretch, but I could at least give them their requisite hugs and kisses and tell them I loved them before again retreating to my bedroom for some solitary - because my husband wasn't home yet, of course - self-pity time.

On Friday, the day dawned bright and sunny. And the good news is that it was a new day. A different day. Nothing had changed but me. I had a good discussion with Mister Man about what he needed to do when he stayed in for recess, and I braced myself for what the instructor would say on Saturday when we went in for our tae kwon do class. I talked with Mister Man with the understanding that Wednesday and Thursday had been really hard days in school and that might have led to some of his issues with the new tae kwon do class. I learned that he was really excited about trying the new class and that he was also very nervous. Put all that together with an autistic child, and of course you have a recipe for disaster. I prepped him that he might have to stay in the little kid class for a bit longer, but I also explained that he could show maturity in talking to the owner and telling her what he had told me, which might grant him the opportunity to try the big kid class again.

Thank goodness for sunny days. Thank goodness there's always the dawning of a new hope and another try. Thursday is not a pit that I want to live in, nor could I. Because yes, Mister Man does have autism. And I can't forget that. That was my problem - pretending in my head that everything was "normal" when it wasn't and can't ever be. And that's ok.

It's One Of Those Days....

There are days when I am full of life and ready to go out and conquer the world. My to do list doesn't hold me back and amazingly shrinks as the day goes on. I love those days.

Then there are the days where I look at what I need to do and just groan. I start a project, only to find that it takes me many times longer than it "should" take - if it gets completed at all. Mentally, I'm dragging, and frequently physically I am, too.

Those are the days I hate, but I know they happen - and I've come to learn I don't always have control over them. Sometimes they're the days when it's been too long since I've seen the sun in Chicago. Sometimes it's because I've committed myself to too many things and I'm paralyzed trying to figure out what needs to be at the top of the list. And sometimes, I'm just physically exhausted.

Today is one of those physically exhausted days. I volunteered to help at Mister Man's Field Days for his school. It was a hot and sticky, very sunny day in the mid-nineties. And I was outside, trekking from station to station as the official photographer, for almost five hours.

By the time I got home with Mister Man, I was done. Yet I still had to empty the dishwasher. I had to make him a substantial snack before his OT and get him there on time. I had to run to the store to get some critical items I'd forgotten on Saturday while he was at his OT. And I had to figure out dinner, feed the wee ones by myself, and get them into bed - once I'd unpacked their backpacks and ensured that all critical items had been addressed.

By the time I finished cleaning up the kitchen and putting everything else in the house away, it was after 8pm. And I have a post due for the From Left to Write book club. I haven't posted since last Thursday, and I'd really, really like to just take a book upstairs and go to bed. I know my limitations, but I also know my commitments, and I'm not going to simply blow them off - fun as that might be.

Is this the best post I've ever written? Absolutely not. Is it where I'm at right now? Yep, and I know I'm not the only one. And most importantly - this post is perfectly inspired by the book The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. That's what counts. Tomorrow will be a better day though. It always is. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm taking my book up to bed with me.

Win a Kung Fu Panda 2 Prize Pack here
Win a $50 Wal-Mart gift card and a Cooking Matters gift bag here
Win a $100 gift card to Lands End here

In the interest of full disclosure, I received a copy of "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating" for purposes of writing this post for the From Left to Write book club where we write posts inspired by books rather than traditional reviews. All opinions expressed are my own, and I received no compensation.

As an aside, would I recommend this one? Probably not. It really didn't speak to me and was difficult to push through to the end.

I'm Not An Alcoholic

I have a trio of fun giveaways going on right now:

Family calendar giveaway from BusyBodyBook right here.

JumpStart Get Moving Family Fitness game for the Wii right here.

Spinbrush MyWay! (for girls) battery operated toothbrush right here.

***

I may have just drunk a good portion of a bottle of wine by myself, but I am not an alcoholic. Let me explain how I got to this situation in the first place.

1) I am on day three of being a single parent, and I forget how hard it is when you don't have any support at home. Sure, it's nice that when I put things a certain way they stay that way, but when I need a break, I no longer have one. No, my husband didn't leave me - he's in Vegas with a friend for five days. Yes, I'm that nice a wife.

2) I agreed to watch a friend's two children for five hours a day three Sundays in a row. While her kids are fine and mine like them, having four kids in the house while trying to avoid crying and other drama can be somewhat traumatic. Today was our third week of the three...

3) ... so I decided to take all four children by myself (see #1) to the Kohl's Children's Museum today. On their 25th anniversary celebration. A free day. To say it was crowded was a bit of an understatement. I will admit that the day went far better than I thought it would as I started out, but my grasp on sanity has obviously left me - proof being the idea in the first place.

4) I have certain rules in my car - like no throwing of any objects by anyone - that I tend to be fairly strict about. I pulled my car to the side of the road to reiterate that one on the way home after four overtired children couldn't quite manage to listen to reason while the car was moving. Once I mentioned that things like throwing items in my car (and punching each other) were the kinds of behaviors that I would need to tell my friend when she asked how her children behaved and explained to my wee one that they would be cleaning out the car entirely and all books were being removed from it once we got home, all was fine.

5) Once I got home, I was proactive and did a load of laundry. After glancing inside, I saw that Little Miss's pj bottoms from the night before were in there, so I decided to do darks. (Quick backstory - with our overnight p0tty training issues and my husband out of town, I decided to put Little Miss in Pull-Ups outside her pjs. She'd still have to stay dry, but hopefully the sheets wouldn't need to be washed twice a night. Friday night she was dry all night. Last night, not so much.) What with it being summer and my husband being out of town, we had slightly fewer darks than normal, so I took a look through my closet to see if I could toss anything extra in. Bad idea mixing Mommy's nice clothes with the wee ones' wear.

6) Once the wee ones were in bed, the washer finished at exactly the right time. As I started pulling clothes out, I noticed that there were little white things in my load of darks. Ugh, I thought, Little Miss put one of her dirty Kleenexes in her pocket and forgot to take it off. (She'd had a little runny nose for a couple days.) As I continued to pull items from the washer, I realized that no... this was in fact a Pull-Up explosion. Although I'd asked her this morning when I saw her in different bottoms what she'd done with the bottoms and Pull-Up (and ensured that she put the bottoms in the washer instead of her dirty hamper), she had "accidentally" put the Pull-Up in the washer, and I hadn't seen it when I'd peeked inside.

7) I took the entire load downstairs and outside and proceeded to spend the next thirty-five minutes shaking out each individual piece of clothing to get as much of the nasty Pull-Up goop off the clothes as possible. Interestingly, stretchy fake type materials, silky things, and velveteen don't hold onto the goobers nearly as well as regular cotton items.

8) After that thirty-five minute period, I looked like a snowman with bad dandruff. Although I had remembered to close my mouth and nose and turn my head while shaking, I was covered in the Pull-Up goobers. On the plus side, having gone through an hour long wash cycle, at least they weren't quite so urine-soaked as they had been previously. And yes, I've since taken a shower.

9) I then spent the next twenty minutes cleaning the Pull-Up goop from the washing machine itself. You'd think a Pull-Up explosion would essentially disintegrate, but no, it adheres to any and all surfaces of the washing machine, in addition to the clothing. It was not easy to get the stuck on goop off the metal in the washing machine. Every time I thought I had it all, I found more. In the end, I practically needed to crawl inside my slightly urine-smelling washing machine (whee!) to get it all removed.

10) After putting the shaken clothes back into the washing machine for a double rinse cycle (in hot water with vinegar), I still found some of the little white goobers attached to the clothes - not nearly as many, but some. Oddly enough, I almost didn't care after having drunk my little bit of wine.

On the plus side, the wee ones were so exhausted from the activities of the day that they fell straight asleep once they tumbled into bed.

It's All In How You Look At It...

Earlier this week, I was having a really bad day. It seemed like no matter what I did, things were just going wrong and it was going to be a horrible day. I could sense my attitude slipping, and that's never a good sign for anyone.

Then I took a deep breath and reminded myself of what I tell Mister Man whenever something goes wrong. Hey, things go wrong sometimes. Don't let it ruin your whole day.

Because of the huge rains that caused flooding, "everyone" was traveling on the main road we take to get to school, which meant our usual 16-18 minute ride took over thirty-five minutes, and everyone was late for school. But we made it there safely.

As I got close to Little Miss's preschool to drop her off (fifteen minutes late due to the traffic above), the street was flooded, and I was not about to risk stalling out in the middle of the road. Her school is in a neighborhood filled with twisty streets that go all over, making it easy to get lost. But I turned around and found my way through.

When I finally arrived there, the power was out in her school. The teachers met us there with flashlights, and the basement had flooded in several places (again). But they were still holding school, and Little Miss thought it was a great adventure to have school in the dark. My plans for the remainder of the day didn't have to be cancelled - and power was restored less than an hour and a half later.

When I finally arrived home, the person I was meeting at my house had already arrived... because I was running late. But she totally understood and it worked out just fine.

I was heading to a location I hadn't been before but was pretty sure I knew. The GPS in my phone (btw Google Maps, I'm talking about you - in the short time I've been using you, I have reported lots and lots of errors. You are not engendering my confidence!) had me turn somewhere that surprised me, so I assumed we were going to a different section of the town. Nope, we were going exactly where I thought we were going, except that I had to turn off the main road and go through back streets that added another seven or so minutes to the trip. That made me late - along with the person who was following me, who hates to be late, making me feel guilty. But we weren't the last ones to arrive, and we didn't miss anything.

Running out of my house to get to the event, I'd forgotten to bring the requested jacket. But the nice people kindly lent me a jacket, and I was nice and toasty in the cold areas.

When I returned to my car, the dummy light that had turned on first thing in the morning scared me. It had started with 38 miles remaining, which was plenty to get me through my locations - although I would have stopped for gas anywhere earlier in the morning had I not been running behind because of the stupid traffic that threw my whole morning off - but due to the traffic wasting gas idling and the GPS taking me in the wrong direction, the range on my car was down to three miles. Then two before I left the parking lot.

I knew where the closest gas station was, and it was more than two miles away. I started planning who I could call to help me. I watched the range tick down to one. I was being as gentle as I could with the accelerator trying to conserve what gas I had remaining. And then it showed zero, and I was nowhere near the gas station. My heart was pounding, and the refrain of please please please kept repeating in my head. Please, just let me get to this turn so I won't be on a main road. Please let me get to this next street where I'll at least be able to walk on sidewalks to the gas station. Please just let me coast into this parking lot so my car is somewhere safe.

The most appalling part for me is that I am a fanatic about keeping my tank over a quarter full, and I generally keep it over a half tank. Unfortunately, I've been so swamped with a number of things going on in my life that my routine has been off and I didn't made it to a gas station.

Somehow - somehow - I made it to the gas station without running out of gas, and my tank was quickly filled.

That was the point where I realized that it truly was all about my attitude, and as "badly" as things had gone so far that day, it had all worked out. It was all ok. And there was a silver lining everywhere.

And from there, it all turned around. Now if only I can keep that attitude in the right place, my life will be much less stressful - even though nothing else changes.

Can I Get A Redo?

I had Wednesday all planned out perfectly -- because this is what I do.

7am - Wake up
7:10 - Wake up the wee ones
7:30 - Everyone dressed and ready and downstairs
7:50 - Breakfast done, lunches made, and backpacks packed
8am - Mister Man is out the door on the carpool
8-8:25 - Finish getting Little Miss ready; read some books if we have time
8:25 - Little Miss gets on the bus
8:25-9am - I prepare for the day and get all my materials together and organized
9am - Drive to elementary school to sign paperwork for Mister Man's language group
9:30 - Sign paperwork and drive to preschool
10-11:40 - PTO meeting
11:40-12pm - Drive to high school
12-2pm - PTO Presidents Council meeting
2-2:30 - Drive to pick up Little Miss from my parents
2:30-2:50 - Drive home with Little Miss
2:50-3 - Unpack backpack, eat snack, and grab coupons
3-3:30 - Drive to Mister Man's school for pickup
3:30-4:10 - Drop off carpool
4:10-4:40 - Drive to Chuck E Cheese for fundraiser
4:40-6:15 - "Enjoy" fundraiser
6:15-6:40 - Drive home
6:40-7pm - Get wee ones ready for bed and into bed

Phew. From there, it's the usual nighttime routines of getting ready for the next day, going through email to ensure I have everything done that needs to be done, etc.

So.

7:50am. I receive a phone call from the carpool partner saying that her daughter is sick and that she won't be going to school. She offers to drive Mister Man to school anyway. I think about it for a nanosecond then decide that it would be somewhat nuts to put Mister Man into a small, enclosed space with a known sick child.

I swoop in and get everyone to hurry, especially Little Miss. I grab as many items for the meetings as I can. Oh, and I grab the fixings for breakfast for myself and stick them in a grocery bag.

We get into the car seven minutes later than I wanted to (remember that time warp in my garage?) and get Mister Man to school two minutes late -- but we aren't the last ones in line to drop off. Phew.

I drive Little Miss to her preschool and make it there just by the skin of my teeth. I walk her in and hang up the signs directing people to the PTO meeting. I let the office staff know that I need to run but will be back.

I head to the elementary school where I still have to sign the paperwork. Note that this is within a mile of Mister Man's school, but the therapist wasn't available when I was there earlier in the morning. I also discover that the road between the schools is now under construction (seriously? It was fine twenty minutes earlier!), so I'm five minutes late. But it's ok.

I turn around and head back to Little Miss's preschool. I call my treasurer to let her know that I'm running late but will be there as quickly as possible. I leave a message for my secretary and the office staff telling them the same thing.

I'm late for the PTO meeting, but fortunately, I'm not the only one so starting late isn't a bad thing. Phew.

I head over to the high school. Where the road down to one lane for both directions, which means I wait for seven minutes (yes, I counted) until it's finally our turn to go. While I'm late, other members are later -- including some coming from the opposite direction who live three miles away and needed forty-five minutes to get there. Yikes.

I head home since my parents insisted they'd keep Little Miss until I picked her up for the fundraiser, which happened to be near their house. I stopped at home where I cleaned up the black rice that had spilled all over the floor (did I neglect to mention that I knocked out that container while grabbing breakfast items for myself but didn't have time to pick it up? No? Oh, and no, I didn't have time to actually eat my breakfast).

Back on track, at 3pm, I left the house to pick up Mister Man at school. The road that had been clear a half hour earlier on my way home was now down to one lane, and I'm stuck. I'm stuck where I can't even turn around and try a different way. I sigh and pull out my phone to call the school to tell them that I don't think I'll be there by 3:30 at this rate but that I am coming.

We get Mister Man and our preschool buddy into the car, and I cannot for the life of me get the booster seat buckled in. And I find out that Mister Man had a yellow day, which means he doesn't get to go to the fundraiser.

I call my husband and find out that he will not be home for me to drop off Mister Man. I detour on the way home and drop off Mister Man before handing off our preschool buddy to his home and heading to my parents' house.

Little Miss and I make it to Chuck E Cheese. And they have dairy free items. And it isn't the noisy hell that I've seen when I've been there before (go figure - Saturdays and Sundays are a madhouse, middle of the week is relatively sane).

We have fun. Little Miss has what she describes as a "magical time." We earn tickets, and we use few tokens. Little Miss loves feeding the tickets into the machine that eats them, and she doesn't even notice that we can then turn the tickets in for prizes. Am I a bad mom for not pointing it out to her?

We got home, and she went straight to bed, and I finally started catching up on the day.

And then I got the call from the carpool buddy that they won't be going to school again on Thursday. At some point, I'll have this down pat, right?

I Feel Like A Heel

Today was not my best day. I didn’t intend for any of it to be bad, but sometimes you just know it’s a bad day, and you don’t do anything to ensure it turns around.

This morning, I dropped Little Miss at daycare after Mister Man’s bus came (early for ONCE instead of 10-15 minutes late, which meant instead of sitting outside reading, he was still putting his shoes on). As I see every single day when I am at the daycare, there is a car parked in the handicap spot. Well, mostly in the handicap spot anyway. He was parked somewhat sideways to ensure he took up most of two spots.

The daycare the wee ones go to has two other businesses in the complex. There’s a Christmas tree business in the building behind is and something generic on the close side of the building by the drive up to the complex. The Lexus parks in the spot closest to the drive with no handicap tags or sign every single day that I go there. Granted, it’s unlikely that the handicap spot is going to be truly needed by someone, but it’s still wrong and illegal (and obviously a pet peeve of mine). It isn’t like there aren’t other spots nearby. In fact, the non-handicap spot next to where he (and I assume it’s a man) parks is usually open.

So today, I looked up who does the police for that town, and I called them and let them know about the car. The woman I spoke to seemed irritated by the car being there and promised to send a car out to take a look. I feel somewhat conflicted about doing that, but I’m still going to look to see if the car is there when I take Little Miss to daycare on Monday.

But before I did that, I had a bad mom incident – completely accidentally, I swear. Mister Man asked for a bagel for breakfast. Since they’d both slept in somewhat this morning, and I knew that the bus driver had “promised” to be early today (as opposed to picking Mister Man up at 8:51 to get to a preschool 20 minutes away that starts at 9am after picking up two additional kids…), so we had to hurry.

I put Little Miss’s waffle in the toaster and quickly cut a bagel in half and put it in, too. Then I fixed some granola and yogurt for myself – oh, who am I kidding, everyone shares with me because it’s yummy. As they cleaned up the front playroom, I set the table with their milk cups and food, then called them in.

We were having a lovely conversation, each intend on eating our food. About halfway through his bagel, Mister Man broke it in half. It was then that I saw the outside of it for the first time. And realized that it had spots of mold growing on it. The bagels were purchased only four days ago, so I was definitely surprised to see the mold. I quickly grabbed the bagel. Then I thought about it for a minute. He only had about four minutes to finish eating, and I didn’t exactly have time to make him a new breakfast. So I ummmm improvised. I tore off the pieces of mold and gave him back the bagel to eat.

And then there was tonight…. I’ve always known that Little Miss was going to be the more difficult of the two children. She’s far more headstrong, and she seems to think the world revolves around her – no idea where she got that notion!

Tonight, as we were getting ready for bed, Little Miss decided to start acting up. As she took off her socks, she started rubbing them in my face. I politely explained that this was disgusting and that it wasn’t a nice thing to do. So she did it again, at which point she got the raised-eyebrow-you’d-better-stop-it now. So she threw the sock at me. As I was explaining that throwing things isn’t really allowed, she started kicking me (like she was swimming, not standing like kicking a soccer ball). When I asked her if she wanted to go to the naughty step, she said yep and ran to it. And proceeded to play on it and have a grand old time.

She thought it was a grand game every time I picked her up and put her back on the step. Finally, I asked her if she was going to stay on the step or lose Baby Coco. And I took had to take Baby Coco. When timeout was over, I asked her if she knew why she was on the naughty step. She insisted she had no idea and started kicking me again.

When asking her if that was an appropriate thing to do, she giggled and said yes. I asked her to stop and explained that if she didn’t start behaving, she wasn’t going to have time to listen to Timothy read a Bob book. She laughed, jumped off the naughty step and proceeded to start kicking again. No Bob book tonight for her (Mister Man, however, read one of the books to Daddy).

That’s when she turned on the siren, accompanied by the waterworks. She didn’t want to go to bed. She wasn’t tired. She wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t want to wear those pajamas. She didn’t want to get into bed.

Unfortunately, when she misbehaves, she doesn’t exactly get her way. She continued to scream and cry as the pjs went on, as I put her into bed, as she ran out of bed and back into the hallway, as I put her back into bed, as she opened the door and stepped across the threshold, as I put her back in her room…. It was over an hour before she finally stopped crying, but I knew that if I went in her room to comfort her or to check on her, that would only prolong it both tonight and in future nights. So I stuck it out.

Then the dilemma was whether I should go into her room and move her into her bed or leave her where she fell asleep. My husband and I discussed it for awhile. Finally we decided to go put her in her bed. But we were surprised, she’d put herself into her bed before falling asleep.

The worst part of it was that my mom called midway through the crying spell to check on the plan for tomorrow (her childcare day). She could hear Little Miss crying and wanted to know what was wrong. I explained that she simply didn’t want to go to bed, but it was well past her bedtime. My mom immediately went into the “Well, aren’t you going to check on her? What if she’s thirsty? What if she needs something?” mode, which of course is counterproductive. But now she’s all worried about my parenting of the wee ones. Hmm, coincidence that this is starting right after the return from Florida? I think not.

Here’s hoping that tomorrow is a better day all around. Of course, given that I’m headed into the office at 6:15 tomorrow, I’m not holding my breath. But I am going to bed so I’ll at the very least be well rested!

What Was I Supposed To Do Again?

I have really had a bad week. I know myself, and I know that I need “alone” time periodically – ok, sometimes more than periodically. It makes me feel like I’m a selfish person, but it’s something hard-wired in me. Without some alone time every once in awhile where I can just veg, I get … stressed. And crabby.

So why haven’t I had any alone time lately?

It’s my fault, of course. For the last week plus, I’ve been running myself ragged. I haven’t had spare minutes in the day because I’ve overcommitted myself. My brain starts to get fuzzy – did I turn in that field trip permission slip or did I lose it somewhere?

How do I get to this point? I stopped making a daily list. My daily list has two components. The A side of the list is things that I have to do before I go to bed. The B side is things that need to get done at some point (e.g., turn in the field trip form) or would be nice to do that day (e.g., read the paper).

It’s been almost a month since I’ve made a list, and I cram too many things into a day because I forget at the time that I already have things to do at that point in time. Or I do things leisurely then remember that I have more things to do and end up jamming everything together quickly.

I think it’s the jamming that does me in. That and the forgetting things or fearing I’m forgetting things that drives me insane.

It took today, a day that should have been a fun day to make me realize that. Surprising, I know, that I’d consider a day I drive into the office as a “fun” day, but frequently they are. I left the house at 6:45 and got to work by 7:45. I left work at 6:45 because I had a co-op meeting at 7pm. Do the math. Fortunately, since I missed rush hour, I was able to walk in the door, grab my calendar and co-op folder and make it to the meeting by 7:30. I was home by 9:30 and then had to straighten out the house a lot because the cleaning ladies are coming tomorrow at 8 and my husband was still grading and hadn’t started.

And of course, the reason there was so much straightening to do is because I hadn’t had or taken the time all week to do what I normally would do. I had no list that says “Wrap Hanna’s present” which means that it is still sitting on the dining room table unwrapped, and I had to put away the wrapping paper and ribbon now instead of having it put away on Sunday like it should have been. The list (no pun intended, I swear!) goes on and on.

So what am I doing as soon as I post this? (Well, right after I finally eat dinner, anyway.) I’m making my list for tomorrow. I think my blood pressure has already started to go down again.

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And apparently Little Miss was hysterical at daycare today, according to my mom. Per the daycare teacher, she had cried hysterically for a half hour, and Miss Erin couldn’t get her to stop crying. This is the girl who never cries!

Miss Erin was afraid that she had broken her wrist (ummm, so here’s my question: a daycare provider thinks a child has broken a bone and can’t get the child to stop crying; why was I not called?!). She told my mom that something was wrong with her right arm. My mom asked Little Miss what was wrong with her arm. “Devon wouldn’t hold my hand.”

Little stinker! That was it. Her feelings were hurt, and Little Miss drama queen had everyone wrapped around her little finger worried about her. I’m soooo in trouble. Tomorrow I’ll have a chat with her about how to handle herself next time. And I think there will be a call going into daycare, too.