May 1, 2014: Tears. OOOOHHHHH the Tears!!!

Is it Friday yet?

It's not is it.

Crap.

One.more.day.

Today started with tears and ended the same way.  Katherine has a Time Tracker for the morning. Why? Because the girl simply CANNOT be trusted to get up, get dressed, make her bed and get downstairs to eat breakfast in a reasonable amount of time.

So rather than fight I bought and implemented one of these.  It is green when she has time.  Yellow when she's approaching the end of time and red when she needs to really get a move on.

Today it's blinking red when I go down to check on her after getting out of my shower.  What is she doing? Dancing, with no clothes on, in the bathroom while talking to herself. 

I tell her she has until it stops blinking to be dressed.  There's not a shot in the dark she's gonna make it.  She starts to have a fit.  The tears begin.  Next thing ya know she loses a toy. 

She gets downstairs finally and eats some breakfast and is happy-go-lucky.  Like a faucet turned off the tears. 

Tonight, tears because she had a fit about taking something to a friend. There were tears. Then there were tears on top of tears because she had a booboo that was going to get water on it. In the shower. 

Sweet.Mary.Mother. 

And then she went to bed without a story because she had such a fit.  Which led to the listening at her bedroom door to her rantings and (our) giggling.  

"I demand you bring me back my toys right now!!... maybe they didn't hear me. I'll say it louder. I demand you bring me back my toys!! No one is listening. No one can hear me...." 

Oh we heard you babe. We're just not feeding into you.  

And then we wonder if our parents did the same thing when we were younger? We're going with no. We don't think they found us nearly as amusing as we find her.  

On a positive note, tonight we put together our Disney Cruise bucket.  Our friends implemented this great idea in their house.  The idea is if K is out and wants something we can give her the choice of getting the "thing" or putting that money in the Disney Cruise bucket. OR If we say no, BUT I will put that money towards the Disney Cruise.  

So far we have her $5 that she got for Easter from Grandma + all of the change from our change cup in the bucket.  Let's see how much we can collect.  She's already talking about taking the rest of her budget money (which now she says she's not going to spend all of it) from the book fair and put the rest here.  Yay!!!  

BTW - Apparently the pet rock was not a hit.  She claims her friends laughed at her. I tried to tell her they probably thought it was just silly - they weren't laughing at her.  She told me "no mom, it's the exact opposite of what you just said.  Whatever that is - it's the opposite! Trust me." Alrighty then.

Tomorrow IS Friday. Gawd Bless America.

April 30, 2014: Pet Rocks & Peer Pressure

Tonight we're told, despite the due date written on the top of the assignment, that Katherine MUST turn in her pet rock tomorrow.

She told us this at 7:45pm. 

FOR REAL?!

And so begins the (late) night before an assignment is due fun.  We argue, that's not what the paper says.  It says due May 2. 

She counters, "the teacher asked us to PLEASE bring them in tomorrow so she could show them to everyone on Friday." 

More peer pressure.  I see the image of the crack.  Okay so really I see an image of a plumbers butt crack because I have no idea what crack actually looks like.  (Thankfully)  In this instance I'm the butt crack because we come home from gymnastics and dinner and make the pet rock so that it can be turned in tomorrow.  *sigh*

Sucker. 

Peer pressure. 

Plumber butt crack.

The assignment came with little pieces of paper that could be used to glue onto the pet rock.  We took a different path.  Flash is good, right? :) 

What is your pet rock's name? Elsa 

*of course... what else? She's Frozen obsessed!!! And "there's already an Anna... They're rock sisters!!!"* 

What does your rock look like? Like a snow princess. 

*duh!*

What does your pet rock like to do? Watch a movie. 

*she used up her creativity on the creation of the rock. and it was 8:30pm. we're an hour past lights out time. let's wrap this up.*

Please note the top of the assignment says due May 2nd. 

I rest my case. 

April 29, 2014: Hate on the Book Fair

I dislike the book fair.

I like the book fair in concept.  And I like the book fair for the opportunity to look at new books.

I dislike the process that the kids are asked to pick their top three books.  Three things seem reasonable. And maybe for most kids, it is. But it isn't for mine.

Remember the $10 budget? This would well accommodate the two books that Katherine had shown us that she wanted from the little flyer. Then she gets to the book fair and can't find three books that she wants but she feels like she has to pick three things because everyone else is.  So she picks out a jewelry making kit.  Let me repeat.  A jewelry making kit. At the book fair. For $15. Needless to say this blew her budget out of the water.  Which led to tears and me being told how mean of a mother I am. "None of the other kids had a budget!!! Everyone is going to make fun of me!!" Super. I'm the mean mother who will cause her child to be made fun of.

And this is where I jump the shark. Because I take the book fair and my insistence that she be on a budget, not succumb to peer pressure and jump right to ... OMG she's going to be peer pressured into drugs. I must maintain my position and not be pressured into buying more books. Or the jewelry making kit.  No siree, because if I do she's going to end up on crack.