Growing Up

Parenting is both a delight and a challenge, as well as an interesting way of studying the evolution of relationships.

K has a friend across the street. She's older than K, but again I'm seeing the same dramatic swings of love/hate, dominance/submission with this girl that I watched with her other friends all the way back to her first day care. Let's see if I can record them right.

There was Patrick - who regularly pushed her off the fire truck but was the ONLY person she wanted to invite to her birthday party. That was the reptile party, not sure if that was her 3rd or 4th party. 4th I believe.

There was Carley - who was alternately mean to her (by K's statements) and K worshipped the ground she walked on. I still hear about the things Carley has taught her.

There is Rowan - these two trade off with who's in charge in their relationship and who calls the shots. Sometimes one of them will storm off in a huff, and they have to play separately for a bit. Generally they work things out but man, the DRAMA!!

Now there is B - across the street. On the blackboard, from Thursday and it's attendant drama , is "I HATE B****".
B was with us from after school friday to after 5:00pm and there was no problem! They played well.
I discussed with B's mother today, looking after K when I go back to work and K was THRILLED.
Today she was very excited to go over and spend time with her. After about an hour and a bit, she came STORMING back with tales of how she "didn't want to be in that situation" and "so I left". There were bits of the other girl "told me to leave" and a myriad of arguements. As she talked, the story changed.
I told her friendships are hard and it's ok if they need a break right now. She said "I hate her' and took the christmas card she had JUST written and hid it, saying "she may never get it."

About 15 min later, my phone rang. B called to talk to K. K took the phone upstairs and came back down with the card saying she was going over to B's house "RIGHT NOW, cause she had to eat 5 muffins and B had to eat 5 muffins". I told her that was fine.

These two children have STRONG personalities, and very different strengths for independance, time management and have clearly been parented differently. They grate on each other at times, but sometimes can't stand to be apart. They are both basically only children and seek companionship, comfort and challenge from each other.

I can't help but sometimes be reminded by what I remember of my own friendships of childhood, and even the relationships I have today at times. Learning to assert yourself, negotiate boundaries, and share stregnths is a difficult thing in any relationship.

Plan: make butter chicken with the thawed chicken and left over rice...

Thwarted: child insists with tears that she is cooking and butter chicken is yuck....

negotiation: butter chicken in freezer for next week, her dinner concotion tonight...

I swear, my mother may have had something in stiffling my personality as a child!!

I was looking after the kidlets last night.... They outlasted me by several hours!!!

Though having the wee one fall asleep on me was the most delightful sensation, and chatting with her folks at 2am on the front porch giggling was nice, I'm gonna pay for it this week.


Sorry to all that hoped to see me at the BBQ, but I simply couldn't have after the day/evening with the girls!!!

Today, involves some park time, hopefully putting up curtains in Kat's room, and even more hopefully SLEEP.

I went to the shower.

I came out to find my daughter has handcuffed her ankles together...

Oy vey!!!

My daughter told me tonight she's going to be an astronaught. She said she'd come back to earth to visit her daddy and me (if I'm still alive).

She talked about the aliens she is going to meet and that she's going to travel on the "gaseous" planets...

I told her I'd like to travel in space too. And she said.. >Well then, mom you'll have to come with me.

I said there's a lot we have to do before we can go be astronaughts...

she said...Yeah...like PACK!!!!

I'd like to request that I re-start this vacation day, with the added ability to FINISH sleeping through the sleeping pill effects in order to  wake up feeling rested and not groggy.

I figure if I can re-do that, the rest should be fairly easy.  NOT having to fight with K about wearing her "summer weddings' dress to school, NOT having to argue with K about eating her breakfast and NOT having to argue with K about getting in the damn car to go to school.

If I can do that, then I could have showered BEFORE the home appraiser got here.

*sigh*  I'm shifting gears, really I am.  NEW PLAN (just to prove I can, indeed, be flexible).

I'm going to go shower now, call up trinshadow , go there and get the scoop on picking up my 2nd child this afternoon.  Come back, do some cleaning (mostly basement & cat stuff), go pick up 2nd child, pick up my own child, and depending on the time, MAYBE going to a work goodbye party for a colleague in Guelph.  Returning to have dinner (which is ham/potatoe/creamcheese soup and in the crock pot) with knotty_mark and possibly zagatto if he's interested.  Turning all this into a low-key evening, that may or may not involve a meditative state of zen and possibly a movie.

*sigh*  Guess that means shower   ....  Now.

I'm feeling up to going to work...TIRED cause K has been up A LOT over the course of the night. I spent most of it rubbing her ankle. My throat is sore but not intrusive.
I'm looking for votes..

Never mind. I know what I have to do.

I'm home again. My child needs to see a Doctor today about the ankle if nothing else. 4 days on my time card SICK days and today as a Family Day. I get 5 a year, and this is #2 I think I will have used.

But I feel better. Maybe I can also get some of the house cleaned up a bit. Thank GOD I wasn't receiving new files this week.

2 doses of Neo-Citran last night to get me any sleep at all.

Throat STILL feels terrible, but I can move.  Perhaps a hot shower, then I'll decide. 

Responsible me, says "don't take the virus to work" on the one hand, the other says "have work to do".  I don't believe there is anything on my dayplanner for the day other than unscheduled Home visits to track down my avoiders.

I think it's a shower, then back to bed day.  Someone want to come be the parent?

Hrm...the day started slowly. With K wandering in around 8am to crawl into bed with me for a snuggle. We talked about getting ready to go to church.

I think we talked with her daddy on the WebCam for a bit before I headed to the shower. She picked out my clothes for the day. Black Pants, Black Velvet Top, underwear and striped multi-coloured TOE socks!!! I added a bra and bright blue short sleeve shirt under the black velvet and was set.

Off we went. K wanted park time, so she ran off there and I drove the car up to pick her up. She picked a whole handful of dandylions for me.


A trip through the drive through for a cookie and a coffee, then over to the GIG. They have a new room for the "giggles" that I didn't konw about so K was with me for the first little bit. There was talk about mother's and images playing which she liked. Then a music video of a little girl and her mother arguing about being the perfect family, it made me sad. At the end of the video, K turned around in her seat and said "I love you mommy," and pursed her lips for a kiss.

We headed back to the coffee table as it was getting boring for her, and someone told us there were other kids in the giggles room and took us down there. I gave her a hug and went to enjoy the "sermon."

The talk was about "love relationships" and the influence our parents have on them. They talked about "a man leaves his family, cleaves with his wife and they become one" as 3 separate things. I really took home, the part of "leaving the family." A recent discussion about the baggage we get from our parents that impacts our current love relationships really emphasized to me how much we bring forward from our past. The couples (it was the 2 pastors and their wives" leading the talk, shared how hard it sometimes was for them to realize when they were acting as their parents would and not within the relationship THEY have chosen to have... It was interesting. As ever, a trip to the GIG both inspires me and depresses me!! I'm inspired to make change and depressed that I have not made all of them yet... *sigh*

From the GIG, we collected k_calypso, and off to Canadian Tire for my mom's day gift to the household!! I bought pretty dishes!! I had a rain check from when they were on sale and so that was happy making. We got home, K & k_calypso played in the park, while I sorted out an upset stomach...

Then K settled into a movie (POM POKO again), and the painting began in earnest. I know have no more green hallways. The laundry room and insides of closets are all that remain of that horrendous colour!! Around 3pm, K was downstairs sobbing... I investigated only to find that she was hungry... SO we had lunch.

After painting, we three walked to the "big park" with the BEAMO. A spirited game was begun and joined by other random park enthusiasists...then it was a wander home to make supper. k_calypso made a brilliant salad (with dressing) while K put the flyers in a bag for recycling. I tackled the grilling of Pork Chops. A candelight "rotic" (romantic without the man) dinner was had!!! Then dishes and off to DQ for a treat.

I had promised K she could sleep in my bed last night, but she walked in the door and stumbled to her bed. I pulled the blankets up over her and it was the end of our mother's day. *smile*