This isn't the post I wanted to write today. I have a great one in the works about Asher and his latest accomplishment. But for today I'm feeling guilty enough that I need to write and sort out my parenting battle of the day.
I'm the wicked stepmother today. Amelie is assigned to stay in her room today because she is "sick." Mysteriously she has no symptoms but a stomach that needed a yogurt stick and more mysteriously her sickness cleared up after swimming lessons were scheduled to start.
We've been battling her involvement in swim lessons for a week and a half. When we at the pool but not in lessons, she is a fish. Entire head under the water, kicking up a storm, attempting back floats. But when we arrive at the pool for lessons, she becomes a girl terrified of the water.
"Too young for lessons."
"Scared to get my knees wet."
"Need to blow my nose."
That kind of girl. We are the family. I am the mom who drags a screaming girl from beach chair to waters edge twenty times in twenty minutes. Asa is the boy stuck in the beach chair slats screaming for his mama while mama tries to settle daughter in the water. And topping it off yesterday, Asher was that boy who managed to stub his foot on the concrete at just the right angle causing blood to gush out of his toe.
Oh yes. We are that family. And today I am that mom who let her daughter stay home "sick."
I battled my intense desire to stay home and not be embarrassed at the pool again and my fierce stand that my daughter will not be a quitter.
My pride tugged on by a dramatic daughter won today and so today we stayed home playing the sick game.
It's a game because I'm convinced she is not sick and I believe she also realizes its all a big story. But yet she is spending the day content with her room confinement as I grow more and more scared of how easily I can play this evil step mother thing out. More and more good ideas to make the day miserable pop into my head as the day goes along.
When she seemed too eager about the idea of me bringing lunch up to her bedroom on a special tray. I changed plans to seat her at the kitchen table far away from Asa so she "doesn't get him sick."
And so we spend the day. Me having to pull out more and more stops to make the day awful while not really sure what parenting lesson I'm accomplishing through her room confinement. And my girl singing and playing with the ponies and kitties in her room.
As the day goes on, I'm more convinced she possesses this genetic stubbornness that refuses to budge.
The game of me treating her as sick and her accepting the confinement of being sick plays on and this mommy knows she has to win!
Just so no one thinks I actually am an evil step mother, and to ease my increasingly guilty heart, I'll share a picture of my girl and me from a happier day.
I'm the wicked stepmother today. Amelie is assigned to stay in her room today because she is "sick." Mysteriously she has no symptoms but a stomach that needed a yogurt stick and more mysteriously her sickness cleared up after swimming lessons were scheduled to start.
We've been battling her involvement in swim lessons for a week and a half. When we at the pool but not in lessons, she is a fish. Entire head under the water, kicking up a storm, attempting back floats. But when we arrive at the pool for lessons, she becomes a girl terrified of the water.
"Too young for lessons."
"Scared to get my knees wet."
"Need to blow my nose."
That kind of girl. We are the family. I am the mom who drags a screaming girl from beach chair to waters edge twenty times in twenty minutes. Asa is the boy stuck in the beach chair slats screaming for his mama while mama tries to settle daughter in the water. And topping it off yesterday, Asher was that boy who managed to stub his foot on the concrete at just the right angle causing blood to gush out of his toe.
Oh yes. We are that family. And today I am that mom who let her daughter stay home "sick."
I battled my intense desire to stay home and not be embarrassed at the pool again and my fierce stand that my daughter will not be a quitter.
My pride tugged on by a dramatic daughter won today and so today we stayed home playing the sick game.
It's a game because I'm convinced she is not sick and I believe she also realizes its all a big story. But yet she is spending the day content with her room confinement as I grow more and more scared of how easily I can play this evil step mother thing out. More and more good ideas to make the day miserable pop into my head as the day goes along.
When she seemed too eager about the idea of me bringing lunch up to her bedroom on a special tray. I changed plans to seat her at the kitchen table far away from Asa so she "doesn't get him sick."
And so we spend the day. Me having to pull out more and more stops to make the day awful while not really sure what parenting lesson I'm accomplishing through her room confinement. And my girl singing and playing with the ponies and kitties in her room.
As the day goes on, I'm more convinced she possesses this genetic stubbornness that refuses to budge.
The game of me treating her as sick and her accepting the confinement of being sick plays on and this mommy knows she has to win!
Just so no one thinks I actually am an evil step mother, and to ease my increasingly guilty heart, I'll share a picture of my girl and me from a happier day.
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