Like a roller coaster...

Yesterday I rolled out of bed and grumbled…I am not and never have been a morning person. Then I launched myself into the mindless task of getting myself and my five year old ready for the day. Out the door we went, off to school and work.

Work was pretty non-eventful. I even had a decent day. I got a lot accomplished, everyone was nice to me today and I felt good about what I had been able to contribute. Then the downhill part of the roller coaster began.

I had to leave work at 4:30 to be to the elementary school by 5:30 to pick up frozen cookie dough, pretzels and cheesecakes that had been purchased for a fundraiser by my coworkers and friends. I have pretty strong feelings about these activities so this started me on a rant…

Why the hell do I have to pimp out my kid to my coworkers to sell crap for the school? Where are my tax dollars going? What will they get from the $1 they make doing this fundraiser? I would gladly just give them $50 to keep from having to sell their crap. Not only do I have to guilt everyone into purchasing a $16 box of cookie dough, but then I have to collect the money, pick up the crap and bring it back to work. Of course that is AFTER I have had to rearrange everything in my freezer to hold these items overnight so they don’t thaw out. I had to throw out that kidney I was saving for a future surgery.

The school gives us one week notice that the only day the crap is there to pick up is on the 25th and it has to be picked up no later than 5:30. I live out in the sticks. Nobody lives close enough to the school to make that happen unless they are a SAHM or SAHD. I guess because the PTA arranged this and most of them are SAHM’s they think 5:30 should be plenty of time. I’m just saying…

Gosh, I am sounding a little bitter here….

Then I pick up my beautiful child from her after school program. I hug her tight and kiss her little smiling face.

The roller coaster has headed up the next hill.

We walk out the door and I ask her about her day and she tells me how great everything was. We get in the car, I close the door then I open her backpack. It felt a lot heavier than it should so I was curious about what was in there. In it I find her boots, with the toes completely torn up on the front. The same boots I just paid to have new heels put on because she tore those up. The same boots I told her to be extremely careful with because I had just paid to have the previous injuries to them repaired.

And the roller coaster plummets…

“At least I got a green today Mom” she says. I told her that was a damn good thing because I was pretty ticked off about the boots and a yellow would have been pretty disastrous for her.

Off to the grocery store we go to purchase food for dinner. She is uncharacteristically well behaved and isn’t asking for anything until we are about to leave the store. “Mommy, you didn’t buy me ANYTHING at the store today. Not even a chocolate bar and my feelings are hurt”. I asked her if she thought her actions today were those of a child that deserved a chocolate bar to which she responded with a very sullen “No”. Then she went on to admonish me for still being angry about the boots. “They are just boots” she said. Just boots? JUST BOOTS? I realize at this point that the best way to win is not to play. If I get into it with her, it will end very badly, so I silently walk to the car, put the groceries in the car and drive home. When we get home she asks if I am still mad about the boots. I tell her it is in her best interest to not bring them up again…

My dinner guests arrive, we enjoy our meal, they leave and I start getting things ready for the next day. I open the backpack again and take out the binder to see if we have any homework and then I see her behavior paper. Yellow. She got a G. D. yellow. My mind flashes back to our conversation in the car. “At least I got a green today Mom”. The little shit lied to me about the green. Not only did she get a yellow, the third one in two weeks, but she lied to me about it as well. She’s only five I remind myself before I roar loud enough at her to rip her head off.

I sat her down and asked her why she thought it was okay to lie to me. Did she think I wouldn’t find out? Mom always finds out. She always knows the truth, that’s what mom’s do. We have been grounded from the TV and all video related products for the next two days. The reason I say “we” is because I won’t be watching TV or anything like that for the next two days either.

I wonder to myself if I let my emotions get the better of me. Did she lie to me because she knew how disappointed I would be to see another yellow on her paper? Did she lie because she didn’t want to get in trouble? Do I make it okay for her to fail in our home? These are all questions that I have been pondering today.

Overall, she is a really good kid. She isn’t really being a bad kid at school; she just has a hard time putting something away that she wants to play with. I think she is pretty much like every other five year old that wants to play until they drop. How do I keep myself from blowing up when I see that she wasn’t perfectly behaved at school that day? How do I help her understand that her poor behavior affects the other children in her class? I don’t know, I just pray that isn’t a tunnel I see up ahead…