The cupcakes were mini Shepherd Pies. Which Mia enjoyed thoroughly despite what these pictures would lead you to believe.
and for dessert we had pizza aka sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting and fruit toppings. After dinner, the kids came with Fernando and I to weed our yard. The kids were promised 5 cents per weed. This allowed them to earn money for various toys Fernando and I weren't going to purchase. After 2 hours of yard work (mostly as time Fernando and I put into weeding, mowing and edging), Mia pulled 100 weeds and Tiago had a full bag that he prompting emptied into the garbage. Night was falling and the kids needed sleep, but still wanted the promised sugar. The joke was on me. The half of a pizza was met with screams and blame throwing such as "It's your fault we were weeding so late." etc Luckily, the sugar assuaged them long enough for me to recenter my chi.
Sadly, the bad humor spread to the next day. The walk to school turned into a big power struggle and anger management issues. Mia was bawling and screaming almost the whole way. Then she would stop for long periods of time making a tardy seem unavoidable. I tried desperately to distract her with questions about upcoming activities or told her to find 5 beautiful things. I pointed out the flowers. All of these were flops. Then I reminded her that we would have to run for a long time to avoid being late if she didn't hurry up. She could have cared less. Finally, I pulled the Thumper advice and told her to zip it if she didn't have anything pleasant to say. This set off an explosions of "I can't stop" and "It's too hard" excuses. A neighbor, noticing the time and struggle, offered to take Mia the rest of the way. Mia wouldn't go without me (strange she made it seem like my presence was less then desirable). We made it with 30 seconds to spare. I gave her a pep talk and a hug.
The whole walk home I felt embarrassed and very hypocritical. Here I was grumping at my grumpy daughter who was really just tired from working the night before. Why didn't I do a better job looking for beautiful things in Mia instead of pointing out the obvious annoyances.
On a more positive note, Tiago started out the walk with the same attitude, but decided to just enjoy being outside. Talia, who was in a baby backpack due to our broken stroller, was giggling the whole way. She loves being outside.
5 comments:
I remember what my student teaching supervisor told me after a particularly poor performance. She said, "Remember, you can't make a perfect student in a day, and you can't ruin a student in a day, either. At the end of the day, no matter what, you're an amazing mom!!!
hey, can i come to your house and earn 5 cents per weed? that sounds like a pretty good deal! i need spending money for my trip to utah.
I was a lame mom for April Fools Day. I did nothing funny or silly. Good for you for at least making a silly dinner. Mia will recover from her bad day and so will you. You're a great mom. :)
rachelle i know you and i know mia and well i don't think this is going to be the last battle. just wait until she is a teenager. remember that time we went to ikea and mia started acting like someone sawed off her left arm?? {i am dying of laughter as i type this because, man was that dramatic :)} anyways, on the way home remember what i said to her?? i said and i qoute, "i really miss my happy mia. i miss her smile and her laughter and i don't know where my beautiful mia went." remember??? and she sorta stopped but it really didn't help much. i said all the "right" things but she was still in a bad mood...so we ignored her. and you know what happened?? when she was nice again i said, "mia, your back! I missed you so much!"
anyways...the whole point of all of that was to make you remeber a funny story and also to make you see that sure maybe you could have been less frustrated but honestly rachelle all you can do is say what needs to be said and then let her decide how to take it. she is growing up now and both of you have to learn how to deal with eachother...good luck ;)
Oh good.....Alexandra is not the only one to throw tantrums on the way to school.
Loved your April fools dinner idea. I might have to do that next year......
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