Future Lawyer or Hostage Negotiator...

I have decided my daughter stands a pretty good chance of becoming either a lawyer or a hostage negotiator.

From the time I pick her up from day care in the afternoon it begins. "What are we going to do tonight?" My answer is usually the same, go home, make dinner, eat, take a bath and go to bed. When you live an hour away from work, there isn't much time at the end of the day to really "do" anything. The negotiations begin; "can we go out to dinner", "can we go visit XX person", can we go and do and go and do... I am afraid she is in for quite a disappointment when she finally realizes that life is not about going and doing all of the time.

After we finally come to terms with going home and eating another boring dinner, the negotiations begin in earnest. "Do I have to take a bath tonight" - Yes, "can I sleep with you tonight" - No. "Please, oh please, oh please for tonight, just tonight, just this once, I promise." I usually let her sleep with me one night a week on the weekend. That way I am not as concerned about lack of sleep or disruption of the daily routine. Even with that, every night we go through this.

"My room is ugly", "I'm scared" or "you are so far away it feels like you are in California" are a few of the arguments I get. Now, my daughter has one of the cutest rooms I have seen for a kid. She has a super comfortable bed and I even let her sleep with the light on. She just hates to be alone. I don't blame her, I hate it too.

Personally, I would let her sleep with me every night if I could get her to sleep without me having to be in the bed. I have my evening ritual of face washing, futile exercising, getting things ready for tomorrow, etc... Which means I am not in bed until at least 9:30. That is way too late for her to be up as we get up at O'dark-thirty every morning.

After having the same discussions, night after night after night, I wonder how she manages to keep after it. She never gives up. She never stops trying. Her attempts at negotiating become more and more sophisticated as the weeks go by. She has even tried black mailing me a time or two and she is only 5. I am in BIG trouble!

Moody Monday...

Woke up this morning trying to figure out which day of the week it was. I actually slept soundly through the night, had some steamy dreams about Richard Gere (move over Julia) and felt well rested when I woke up. I was even in a good mood, then I realized it was Monday and the whole thing went south from there.

I am normally a pretty cheerful person but I just couldn't bring myself to be in a good mood as I slunk out of bed and into the bathroom where I was greeted by a ginormous spider of epic proportion. It was really about the size of a silver dollar, but when it is unexpected, it is bigger x10. I had to sneak past the spider to get a shoe and the poor guy didn't even flinch as the smack of death came down. Then I grumbled some more as I cleaned off my shoe, wiped up the spider and flushed him off to a better place. Better than on my bathroom floor that is.

Next I decided to torture myself some more by stepping on the scale that lies like a five year old caught with her hand in the candy jar. Cussing at the scale never seems to lesson its lies. Next into the shower I go to wash the sleep from my mind and by the time I got out of the shower I am almost in a good mood. Off to the kitchen I go for coffee that is hot and ready, I love having a programmable coffee maker!

Once I have donned some clothes, slapped on some makeup and attempted to organized my disheveled hair I mentally prepare myself for the waking of the child that hates Mondays more than I do. Up the stairs I go, smile on my face and clearing my throat for the morning song which I sing off key no matter how hard I try.

Good morning to you, good morning to you, good morning, good morning, good morning to you. It's time to wake up, it's time to go to school. Good morning, good morning, good morning to you.

Followed by...

Get out of bed sleepy head, it's time to get up and get out of bed.

No wonder my daughter hates getting woken up in the morning! I am secretly hoping she remembers this with fondness when she gets older. I am able to overcome her normal Monday grumpiness with the promise of getting to wear shorts today (it's gonna be 92 this afternoon). She's up and in a great mood. Whew!

Drop her off at day care, sit through endless construction zone traffic and channel surf on the radio because nobody is actually playing music this morning only to arrive at work when something good finally comes on. UGH!

Thus begins the week with an up, down, up moody Monday morning...

Eternal Optimist...

Things seem to have managed to right themselves these days. The insurance adjuster agreed my roof was a complete loss, the contractor finally provided me with all of the paperwork that prevents me from going to jail for Insurance fraud and my new check is on the way.

The furniture that the BF won earlier this year has been successfully delivered to my living room (his apartment was too small for a sectional so I win) and the old sofa has been moved upstairs to the playroom. The new sofa has recliners on both ends and I have decided that reclining while watching TV is a luxury I am willing to get used to.

I did have to limit my time in the playroom as my daughter has WAY too many toys. She has stuff that she has never played with, played with once or twice and plays with regularly. I have tried in vain to talk her into parting with group A and B so that we have more room for the stuff she really plays with but it always results in crying. If I get rid of the stuff when she isn't home, it always ends up becoming the latest of many traumas in her life. (I can foresee years of therapy in her future because pretty soon I am going to go crazy and clean it all out - damn the consequences!)

Work is going well, my major project has reached another important milestone and I didn't lose any hair on the way. Very excited about this one getting closer to completion as it is HUGE.

Now, I need to figure out if my mood swings from bliss to despair back to bliss again require medication or if it is just a natural occurrence due to outside circumstances. LOL!!

The horror of it all...

Got a call from the BF last night after he had dropped his daughter off from softball practice. When they got there, her mother was so out of her mind drunk that she walked from her house to the liquor store to buy more wine. The good news is the Breathalyzer machine in her car prevented her from driving. The bad news, her daughter had to bear witness yet again to how out of control her mother is. The mother started yelling at the father because he wouldn't take her to get more to drink then threatened to call 9-1-1 if he didn't leave the house immediately. She said she would tell the police he was an intruder if he stayed. Personally, I would have stayed the line on this one and handed her the phone and said go for it. I have no idea why he left. Hind sight is 20/20 I guess. Instead he waited across the street until his daughter called him to say the mom had passed out, she was safe and was going to bed.

The BF went to the Attorney General's office this morning to see what he could do to about getting his name added to his daughter's birth certificate so he can get the ball rolling on custody for his daughter. Sadly, he cannot do anything without the mother's signature stating he is the father of their daughter. I am sure he is really kicking himself right now for waiting all of these years to do anything about his name not being on the birth certificate.

Now it is on to an attorney. I pray for him and his daughter both that they are able to find a solution to this mess. The mother continues to drink so heavily that she either passes out or blacks out. The next morning she has NO recollection of anything that happened the night before. It is insane. He can't even call CPS because he is afraid he will lose his daughter completely.

I know the laws are there to protect the children, but there has to be a better way handle this. Give them a DNA test to prove paternity then rock on. I hope he finally sees the writing on the wall and realizes that he has to really do something. If not, he will have to go because I can't be involved with anyone that would leave their kid like that. I still can't believe he left her there last night.

In the details...

So I just found out my contractor has a form they give you that states they will do the work for what they settle with the insurance company for. It also has in writing the 1% deductible discount for allowing them to put a sign in my yard. I went back and forth with one of the reps for days about how I felt this wasn't right and that I needed this information in writing.

His partner called me today.

Him: You have that.
Me: Have what?
Him: Have that form.
Me: No, I don't have that form.
Him: Yes, you signed it.
Me: All I signed the form was an agreement to allow you to talk to my insurance company and I didn't get a copy of that.
Him: The agreement is on that form.
Me: No, I read the form, it wasn't on there
Him: It was supposed to be. Let me get it fixed and I will send it right over

Sheesh! Good help is hard to find! I am just ready to have my house restored!

You hurt my feelings...

A couple of weeks ago my daughter started this new thing where when she gets in trouble, she says "You hurt my feelings". I have been trying to figure out where she learned this. Maybe they are discussing feelings in school, but I haven't seen any progress sheets showing that on the curriculum lately. I have tried asking her but she is not giving it up. My guess would be that is comes from my well meaning Mother who often wears her feelings outside of her body where they are easilty injured.

The first time she used this statement, I tried not to laugh. After all, she was getting in trouble for something she had done wrong. How did that hurt her feelings? I asked her if me disciplining her was hurting her feelings and if she thought that I should just let her do everything she was not supposed to do because preventing mischief was hurting her feelings, to which she naturally said yes.

Last night as we were snuggling on the couch watching DWTS, she started kicking the dog lightly with her foot. I asked her nicely "please stop kicking the dog". She immediately acted like she had no idea what I was talking about. "I'm not kicking the dog". We repeated this process several times and finally I had to ask her "does that foot belong to someone else and/or are you currently under the control of aliens". Her response, "you hurt my feelings". I told her if she kicked the dog again, she would be off the sofa. The dog kicking immediately stopped.

Next, we had a dance-a-thon where she whirled frantically around the room trying to imitate the dancers on TV. This is a normal occurrence during this program so I wasn't overly concerned until she did a Flying Wallenda leap onto the dog who was quietly sleeping on the sofa.

At this point I snapped. I hoisted her off the dog and sofa and asked her just what in the hell she thought she was doing. I know, I know, strong language but sometimes that will get her attention. Immediately, I get "you hurt my feelings" followed by copious amounts of tears. I think I really scared her more than I hurt her feelings. She wasn't expecting to be flying again quite so soon.

I knew I had to put a stop to this attempted play on my emotions. I asked her how she felt about hurting the dog. The dog had run away and was hiding under the bed at this point. Poor thing. He is not a big dog in any way. He runs about 15-16 lbs and most of that is fur. She responded by asking me how I felt about hurting her feelings. I do deserve some extra "good mom" points for not throttling her on the spot.

I redirected with my concern about her lack of compassion for her poor dog that had just been traumatized and asked how she felt about hurting him AND his feeling. I think I got her attention here as the sobbing started to subside. Then we talked about the Chihuahua she wants me to get for her (which she has already been told "NO WAY") and how tiny and fragile a little Chihuahua is and how irresponsible she had been with the dog we already have.

In the end, she coaxed the dog out from under the bed and apologized to him, but I could not get her to understand that saying "you hurt my feelings" was not how we deflect away from what we have done wrong. Sometimes your feelings are going to get hurt, but before you blame someone else, you have to look at your own actions first.

Then it hit me - EPIPHANY

How many times have my feelings been hurt as a direct result of my actions? How many times have I blamed others for responding poorly when my approach was at fault? In the end, I am the only one responsible for my feelings and I can choose whether or not to be hurt by the actions of others.

We had a long talk about feelings after the calamity of the situation had died down. I think we are both onto a better understanding about the responsibility we hold in deciding which emotions we are going to use. The good news is that before the last good night was said, we had settled our differences and promised to be more careful with the dog. I am sure HE is happy about that too.

With a heavy heart...

I woke up this morning listening to the rain pummeling down outside my window. I would have loved to have shut the alarm off, rolled back over and stayed in bed. Instead, I slunk my way out of bed and started my day. The power went off in the night so I spent the first 10 minutes of my morning fixing clocks, making my forgotten coffee and trying to shake the sludge out of my brain.

After a much needed shower I was starting to feel more alert, getting a positive mood on for the day and then it hit. The morning news announce that Osama bin Laden was killed. At first I felt a huge sense of relief but then was quickly horrified when the news showed the crowds celebrating and shouting U-S-A...U-S-A. No matter how much I feel that it was necessary for Osama to be taken out, I cannot bring myself to celebrate his death in that manner.

We have to remember that even though the head is dead, the body is living and now is going in multiple directions. We will have to be ever more vigilant from all sides as there is sure to be retaliation.

So, I pray for all of our soldiers and their families that we are able to remain strong and stay the course until there is freedom for all. I pray that we remember how we obtained our freedom and don't insult the efforts of our forefathers by disrespecting our military. Last, but not least, I pray that God will guide President Obama in his days to come. I didn't vote for him, but he is our Commander in Chief and has a tremendous responsibility for the safety of our nation.