Damn cookies

There is no way for something as simple as "a day" to live up to my expectations for it.

I have been mentally counting down the days until I had my Madeline home with me again since she started kindergarten. Since August all I have thought of is the two weeks of bliss that I would get to have with her over Christmas break. 3 1/2 days in she bailed on me. She ran off to my Mom's and wouldn't come home.

Her behavior has been WONDERFUL lately. It took her a good 2 months to adjust and find her confidence at kindergarten but since she has she has blossomed. She can read. Anything. Any word, any book, any magazine. She reads. The days of me spelling secret things to her Daddy are over. Several weeks ago I told her that she would get as many Christmas presents as she had "green" weeks. She had to stay on green at school ALL WEEK to get a present. I have been hanging the green reports on the fridge. Not talking about them much during the week but making a BIG deal at the end of a good behavior week and it has worked. She has had 5 green weeks in a row. The deal was she had to be "on green" at school AND home. She gets 5 presents.

I have LOVED nearly every moment with her lately. I don't expect her to be perfect. The two of us discuss our mistakes and that we are allowed to make mistakes as long as we are learning from them. I have had a much easier time lately communicating with her and laughing through difficult times rather than fighting. Today has NOT been one of those days.

I picked her up from my Mom and Dad's at 10:15 this morning to head to our Dentist. By 10:20 she had hit her brother hard enough in the face with her jacket to make him cry real crocodile tears. I JUST (at 11 pm) got through with a talk with her to explain for the LAST time that when she hurts Tucker my heart hurts just as much as when anyone hurts her. That he is my heart too. And that he is still little and smaller than her. And that when I think about how much he loves her and copies every.thing.she.does. that it makes me want to weep. And how sad it was that he was looking forward to being with his sister and that she decided to hit him because he insisted he had his own Thomas stickers and she was adamant that he did not. She didn't understand that he was excited and trying to tell her about a gift from Aunt Lindsey. My heart just breaks thinking about his frustration and disappointment in trying to communicate something to his sister that he was excited about and her being so mean to him. This happened twice today. When she was frustrated with him for not communicating as well and properly as she does so she screamed and lashed out at him. And twice today his heart was even more crushed by her behavior than mine is.

Back to the simplicity of a day...

I know I am so blessed. This was my list of things to do today:

1.Take kids to dentist (who we are blessed enough to call a friend) for mine and Madeline's cleanings.
2. Visit with a friend and her family.
3. Go by the grocery store and pick up veggies to add to the other things I was planning for dinner.
4. Go by bank
5. Go by pharmacy
6. Make cookie dough from scratch with Madeline (something I have never done) and refrigerate it to roll out, bake, and decorate cookies tomorrow.

What an easy day. What an easy life. No war, no famine, no illness...why am I sitting her totally depleted, sad, exhausted and disappointed? The kids were great at the dentist office. Well, great for my kids. Madeline was matter of fact and communicated very well with her hygienist and with Dr. Clint. Tucker took his trains in with him and "whoo whoo'd" very loudly a couple of times but other than that was great. Our visit with friends afterwards didn't work out so off to the grocery store we went. Madeline's behavior was deplorable so so was Tucker's. I even walked out without paying for our applesauce because I could not get out fast enough. I'll go by tomorrow and throw that $2 through the drive through window and save everyone from the pleasure of another visit from the three of us.

At the bank I couldn't hear the teller because of their fighting and my headache because of the lingering effects of the grocery store trip. At the pharmacy I locked them in the car and went in by myself. I didn't mention my kids being in the car but then I was embarrassed when I asked for 2 tootsie rolls for the kids and wondered how horrible they thought I was for locking them in the car. It has one of those things where you can lock it and start the engine without the keys in it so I did that so they would have air circulating but when I got in the car I realized that the last time I had done that was to warm it up on a cold day so the whole time I had been in the pharmacy the heat was going full blast and the seat warmers were on. I guess the remote start automatically turns on whatever you had on the last time you used the remote start? The good thing was that both of them were so hot in the car that they didn't have the energy to fight with one another.

Tonight at home Madeline started screaming at Tucker for calling the fox in "The Fox and the Hound" an orange kitty cat and she physically lashed out at him again. And again, big heartbroken tears from Tucker.

I mean, I know I'm whining and belly aching over nothing in the grand scheme of things but GEEZE! At 4 pm I thought and prayed for just 1 thing to be easy today. For just 1 thing to be as simple as it should. And then the cookies...why didn't I just give up the cookies? After this day why not just scratch the cookies? Instead I took her with me to the grocery store at 8:30 to get the ingredients for sugar cookies. It was every bit the struggle that I should have expected it to be. and nothing got any better. It's after midnight now and I can't shake this day. I can't seem to get rid of the stress of it. I thought writing it all out would make me feel better.

It ended with Madeline with me making a sign that I taped over her t.v. (which is a privilege she has now lost until further notice) with 5 rules that she should know by now. And I informed her that this was it. That after this day I would not EVER say any of those rules to her ever ever again. That I was so tired of saying them to her that I was done. She can read the sign. And any time she breaks one of those rules I am going to go get the sign and hand it to her. I cannot hear myself say any of those things again after today. Tucker suffers because of it too. I expect him to understand the rules because I am repeating myself to Madeline so much. I'm not as patient with him as I was with her.

And you know that the most frustrating part of all of this to ME is? I know what it is all about. I know why I am so sad. I know that I would give ANYTHING to have my brother. I know that I would give ANYTHING to have days with him to build him up and make him feel good about himself. I know that I would give ANYTHING to still be some one's sister.

I told Tyler and Madeline that to me, in my mind, and in my soul, a family should be the people that cling to one another. Support one another. Build one another up. Be the most kind to one another than we are to anyone else. That we are stuck together. We will spend the most time together. Like it or not. We're family. And that we should love one another the most. I loved my brother so much. So so much. He was so kind to me. So patient. Days that he devoted to me and spent time with me were some of my happiest. I want that for Tucker and Madeline too.

And I know I've got to let my perfect fantasy cookies from scratch days go. Who cares. At 9 this morning as I lamented to Mom that I wanted to "just spend time today with Madeline learning how to make cookies together," she said, "Wanna know what my secret ingredient for perfect cookies is?" I asked what? She said, "packaged refrigerated cookie dough. Save yourself the time and headache." Why make everyone miserable to make fantasy cookies when the real fantasy is just having happy times together instead of scratch cookies, headaches, and swollen eyes from crying.

Okay, lesson learned. Eyes dry. Thoughtfully and prayerfully going to bed and hoping to have a better day (with no expectations of perfect cookies) tomorrow.