Bad Morning

To be completely fair to my family and my readers, I feel like I have to share the bad with the good. Today we had a BAD start to our day. DD #2 is 8 and 3/4. She has always been a high need child, ALWAYS. She has always been very emotional and sort of volatile. She's a lot like her mother, poor thing.

So last week she had a whining fit in the middle of the grocery store and I decided I couldn't take it anymore. I have some how given her the impression that this is acceptable and it's definitely not. I have taken drastic measures to remedy this behavior and step 1 was taking away fun activities. Today is the first day of gymnastics class, and guess who is not participating! She refused to get dressed this morning and cried and whined some more until she lost gymnastics for the whole month. (This is a fantastic homeschool gymnastics program that we pay for on a monthly basis and has open enrollment.) I finally ended up calling her dad to motivate her to get dressed and stop the whining.

DD#1 is 10 and is known far and wide for her lollygagging skills. She was dressed and ready to go, except for her shoes. She's coloring with DS at the dining table while #2 is having her fit in her room. I tell them to make sure they are ready to leave when their sister is dressed. We are ready to walk out the door when #1 says, "Just a minute." We had to wait for her to get her shoes on.

THEN, as we are heading out the door, the dog escapes to the front porch. As we are attempting to corral the dog back in the house, one of the kittens escapes. So I'm pushing the dog in the house, holding a squirming squalling 4 mth old kitten in one hand while #1 stands in the doorway!!! Honestly, its a small miracle that any of us even got out of the house today. I managed to make it to the office right on time. Whew!

On the way to work I kept thinking that there would be many missed busses in our lives if we were a public school family. We have quite a bit of flexibility in our morning and we still barely make it most days. Thankfully I have a very tolerant boss who doesn't watch the clock too closely.

I am also extremely grateful that DH was available to talk #2 down and get her moving. I had lost all patience and would not have been a pretty person. Definitely not the kind of mother I've always wanted to be.

Off to work and learn something new!