Totally Random

"It's Random Man".....to quote Kidd Kraddick.
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I have a whole bunch of nothing to mention here today.
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I swear I saw a (or an?) UFO this morning on the way to work. Could have been a low flying slow airplane, but it's more fun to imagine it was a UFO.
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Light of my life has her dance recital tomorrow night. Thank goodness that's over for now. She loves dance and has been taking it since she was 2. As long as she wants to take classes, I'll keep signing her up. It's good exercise after all, but I hate the whole dance recital part. All the costumes and changes and hair and make-up (yes, I put a bit of make-up on her, not Jon-Benet, crazy rouge-hot pink lipstick-blue eyeshadow-pancake makeup base crazy, just a little color on her lips and that's about it). Drives me crazy.
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We got our new stove delivered Tuesday. We call him "Bernie"........for obvious reasons. Hopefully he won't burn in the same way as the old one.
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Light of my life and my mom made peanut butter cookies yesterday afternoon in the new stove. Boy, are they tasty. Just perfect.
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I had to go to Wal-Mart yesterday to get some stuff. Yeah, nothing I really needed (except for light of my life's tights for her dance recital) but I had been hearing advertisements for a Coca-Cola t-shirt that Wal-Mart was selling. See, I'm a Coke collector. Not so much lately, but I have some good stuff that I've collected over the years. It matches perfectly with my yellow, white, red and black kitchen. Anyway, the advertisement was for a recycled t-shirt. They make the t-shirt out of the 20 oz plastic Coke bottles. The t-shirt I got was made from approximately 4 Coke bottles (says so right on the shirt in the tag area!). It's pretty cool. Feels softer than regular cotton tees. I like it.
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When my tax refund arrives, I'm thinking of buying a picnic table. So I can entertain and stuff.
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Did I tell you guys I had to ground light of my life? Only 8 years old and she's had her first grounding. I'm probably being a bitch, but I had just had it.

On Monday, the day after the big exciting fire, we had to get take out because we couldn't cook. Yes, I know, we could have microwaved something, but really, we just wanted to take advantage of the no stove to get take out. Anyway, light of my life's friend, M, was over playing. I went outside and asked if she had to be home at a certain time (if she didn't, I was going to see if she wanted to eat with us) and she said, "No, mama will get me when the hamburgers are done". They were having hamburgers that night and that's what we were getting for take-out as well. Anyway, light of my life did the big puppy dog eyes and begged to let me eat with them. I've been trying to teach her that you don't invite yourself to dinner at someones house but that you have to wait to be invited. I explained to her that, no, you can't eat over there, I'm already ordering you dinner and you haven't been invited. She got upset but seemed to get over it quickly.

I left to go get the food and when I got back, mom said that light of my life had gone over to M's house. I gave her a knowing look and said, "I bet she ate over there". Sure enough, when I got over to B's house, she said that light of my life ate dinner over there. I informed B that light of my life wasn't supposed to do that and that she had specifically been told not to do exactly what she did. B was apologetic but it wasn't her fault at all. She didn't know. Light of my life is old enough to retain the information I told her about NOT EATING AT THEIR HOUSE! I had already BOUGHT her dinner. Light of my life has a way of conveniently "forgetting" to tell people that she can't or isn't supposed to do something I SPECIFICALLY told her not to do. This is not the first time it's happened.

Anyway, to make a long story....well, not so long.....on the walk home from their house, I informed light of my life that she was grounded for the rest of the week. That meant she couldn't play at M's house and M couldn't come over to play at our house. The first time she could play again would be on Saturday. Boy, was she pissed. I also informed her that she had to eat her hamburger and tater tots I bought her on Tuesday night no matter what. She was so upset.

This was the perfect week to ground her though. She had dance class on Tuesday night, she was over at my grandmother's last night, tonight she has full dress rehearsal and tomorrow night is her recital. It's not like she had time to play anyway. Of course, she doesn't realize that. This morning she said "I'm so glad this week's almost over. My grounding ends Saturday". At least it weighs on her mind.

Was I too harsh or was that just right? I don't want her growing up taking advantage of other people and she needs to learn to do what I tell her. I figured this was an appropriate gesture and figured she was old enough to grasp the implications and consequences that a grounding brings. What do y'all think?

Anyway, that's all I got for today.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Starbucks Mug

Light of my life is currently on candy restriction. She’s not allowed to have it at all….period…..end of story. She can’t bring it home and she’s not allowed to have it. I know I can’t control her eating candy when I’m not with her and I accept that.

At church this past Sunday, before the sermon, B’s brother in law talked to all the kids (see one of the prior posts). They leave the pew and go to the front of the church and stand around while he tells them an amusing story that relates to something about God or Jesus or stories in the Bible. They all then get a piece of candy and go sit back down with their parents.

Well, since light of my life is on candy restriction I had remind her before she went up to the front that she couldn’t get any candy. Well, that pissed her off. She flounced back down in the pew and announced that if that was the case, she just wouldn’t go up there. Oh, boy. That was the wrong thing to say. I reminded her that the reason she went up there was not to get a piece of candy but to listen to what Mr. K had to say. The candy was just an extra. I made her go up there. After he got finished with what he had to say (again, see one of the prior posts), he mentioned that he had some special Valentines’ candy for the kids. Man, oh, man….did I feel like a heel then. Light of my life looked back at me with such longing in her eyes that I so badly wanted to reverse my decision and give in. However, I had to remain firm. I shook my head no and she pouted her way back to the pew. She actually sat there and cried while in church. My heart was breaking but I couldn’t do anything about it. She was crying silently so unless someone was watching, you didn’t even know she was doing it. I just let her cry.

Now, this is the amazing part and this is just one of the many, many, many, many reasons why I love and admire my daughter so much.

She kept pulling away from me on the pew and wouldn’t allow herself to lay down on my lap like she normally does during church (yes, I know, bad mommy). However, she didn’t pull away from me rubbing the back of her neck or stroking her hair. She also eventually stopped crying (without any prompting from me) and laid down on my lap. She started playing with my fingers and snuggling a bit.

She did all of this without me prompting or encouraging her. I thought that showed huge signs of maturity that she managed to get over the whole situation without me having to have a discussion with her or threatening her or punishing her.

I also thought I showed incredible signs of maturity by letting her work it out on her own instead of having a discussion with her or threatening her or punishing her.

I’m so proud of us. I think we’ll be fine. Of course, I say that now…..I can only imagine what it’ll be like in a few years when she hits 13.

She later went to Wal-Mart with M, C and their grand-parents while mom and I went traipsing through a daffodil field. I had gone to the bank to get some money for her lunch and her allowance (I never keep cash on me) and was only going to give her a $10 but decided to let her have the whole $20 to spend. I advised her that she had to buy her own lunch but that she could keep the change. She was so thrilled.

Know what she did with the extra $10 she had?

Spent it on me.

She bought me a Starbuck’s coffee mug with Starbucks hot chocolate and marshmallows. It was one of those special Valentine’s combo present things. I’m not a huge fan of hot chocolate but I do like Starbuck’s hot chocolate and I had been contemplating buying one of their mugs. It was a great present.

I just could not get over her generosity (albeit with my money).

I am so proud of her.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Bad Mommy

I am such a bad mommy.

I had an ok day yesterday. Not bad, not good. Just normal.

I work in a hospital. Once a year, we have to have a TB skin test. They stick a needle in your arm and inject this stuff that bubbles up and then you come back in 48 hours for them to test to make sure that you don’t have TB. I just got tested back in October when I started here but because it’s a new year, I had to do it again. It’s no big deal. I’m not scared of needles and I never have reactions to shots (except the flu shot).

I had to stop by Wal-Mart to pick up some things we forgot the day before or that the Wal-Mart we normally go to didn’t have. While I was at Wal-Mart, I started feeling faint and just completely out of it. I didn’t know if I needed to chalk it up to the TB test or if it’s just Wal-Mart. I get that way sometimes in Wal-Mart. I get dizzy and overwhelmed and feel lightheaded. I don’t know why, but it just happens.

Anyway, when I was leaving Wal-Mart, my car didn’t want to start. I tried cranking it 3 times and it didn’t want to work. I started to panic. It finally turned over on the 4th crank.

I had meant to go by Home Depot to pick up some scrap wood but due to the car incident, I didn’t want to take any chances.

I came home and mom and light of my life were outside. I had invited M and C over to eat dinner with us. We had been over there on Sunday night and I had taught the girls how to play rummy. They all liked it so much that I told them to come over for dinner last night and we would play some more rummy. C also wanted to work on jewelry.

I had been craving tilapia for a long time. Mom had been resisting cooking it for some reason. While at Wal-Mart I had picked up some asparagus to cook for dinner along with the fish and rice. I was glad to come home and find out that dinner hadn’t been cooked yet. I was afraid mom had either cooked something else or not cooked the fish the way I wanted it cooked.

The girls were in the house playing and I was starting to cook. Light of my life asked me something and whatever it was, I either denied her request or I didn’t answer her question to her liking. She started storming away. I could tell by the way that she was stomping that she was about to get in a snit and would be difficult to deal with for part of the evening.

You know how you just know your child? Inside and out? Well, I know her and I know when she’s about to get in a snit.

I heard her in her room and she cried out “ouch” and started to cry. I just sighed in exasperation and kept on cooking. M asked me what was wrong with light of my life and I said, “nothing, she’s just in a snit” and I continued to ignore her. The crying didn’t sound serious, neither did the “ouch”. I didn’t hear from her for a few minutes so I went to check on her. She was sitting down in the middle of the floor holding her foot and crying silently.

I asked her what had happened and she told me something along the lines of stubbing her toe or hurting her foot. I asked her my usual questions to ferret out the BS injuries. You know, “is it broken, is it bleeding, are you dying” types of questions. She didn’t answer yes to any of them so I just told her to get over it (that’s my usual response to imagined injuries). She has a penchant for drama, hence the sharpness of my response. She usually bounces back when she realizes I’m not going to pay attention to her dramatics. This time, she didn’t. Instead, unbeknownst to me, she went to my mom to complain to her that I was treating M & C better than I was treating her. She was claiming that I seemed more concerned about C & M when they were play fighting (one of them at one time said “ouch” and I asked them if they were o.k.). Light of my life took this to mean that I cared more about them than her since I asked them if they were o.k. She also claimed that she didn’t feel she was part of the family and that I’m never concerned enough when she gets injured. In my defense of asking if the other girls were o.k., I don't know them well enough to know when they are fake hurting or have a serious injury. That's why I asked if they were o.k.

Mom took it upon herself to “have a chat” with me about this and to push off some unwanted and unasked for advice. I informed her that I didn’t want to discuss this with her and that she needed to not talk to me about this since it actually makes matters worse, not better, for her to be a go-between. If she could remain objective, I might be able to handle it, but she can’t.

Light of my life continued to have an attitude for a little while longer and I was getting sick of it. I kept on her about her attitude. I was more than aggravated at this point. All these little things were happening all at once and I wasn’t able to recover from one thing before another issue would come up.

I felt pretty justified with my aggravation and didn’t feel the need to apologize to anyone since they were all doing this TO ME!!! (I'll later regret those feelings!)

Everything gets smoothed over and we finish dinner. C was going to spend the night over at a friend’s house so we had to hurry up to work on her jewelry.

I had promised light of my life and M that I would play rummy with them. I’m feeling like crap at this point (physically, emotionally and mentally).

Light of my life at one point was lying on the back of the couch and rolled down to the seating part. She didn’t stop there and ended up rolling to the floor. She hit the coffee table and actually did get hurt. I saw this happen but even if I hadn’t, I could tell by her cry that it actually hurt. I jumped up and ran over to her. I cuddled her and checked out the injuries. I got her to smiling again and things were fine with us for the rest of the night.

Here’s when I start to realize that was I being a bad mommy.

It turns out that light of my life really did hurt her foot. I was the bad mommy that didn’t check further regarding injuries. It was a minor cut, but it was an injury. So, everything I did after not believing her about her foot, was wrong. Including getting mad at my mother (although I still feel justified for being pissed at her interference).

After light of my life fell off the couch, I whispered to her that she could sleep in my bed with me that night and that if she wanted to, we could even take a bath together. I desperately needed a bath to relax and to try to make my headache go away and she loves to take a bath with me. Light of my life' s face lit up at that suggestion.

Here’s where I started to feel like utter CRAP.

I had to take M back home. When I got back, I told light of my life to go get her p.j.’s so we could take our bath and go to bed.

She asked me “did you like what I did in the bathroom” and so help me God, my first thought was “Now what? What the hell happened now?”. I went into the bathroom to check out the situation and what I saw made me want to cry.

She had laid out my favorite robe; she had pulled the shower curtain back, gotten one of her Pirates of the Caribbean bath fizzies out and laid out our towels. She followed me in there and asked me if I wanted her to get us some rolled up towels to lay our heads back on and offered to go find my magazines for me to read while in the tub.

All this after the way I acted.

I felt like shit. I cannot believe that it took the kindness and thoughtfulness of my 7-year-old daughter to make me realize what a shit I had been. I shouldn’t have been that way in the first place.

Later that night, when we were in bed together, I quietly apologized to her and she accepted my apology. I fell asleep with my arms around her and her hand in mine. Needless to say, my headache and heartache disappeared.

No wonder I call her the light of my life.

I think I’ll take her out for a picnic this weekend. That way, we can be by ourselves together and reconnect.

We need to go to Wal-Mart anyway to replace the dead fish, so maybe we can do that on Saturday.

Later,

Mama Dawg