sunday, april 22, 2001
looking up

the good news about bad days is that they don't last forever. i'd like to think that i am more fortunate than some in that i can have my bad day and it's over and done. i don't generally dwell on it and it doesn't last longer than that day (or moment or whatever). i deal with anger in much the same manner. i get angry, i get it out and i am fine. freaks my husband out like nothing else. one moment i am a raging lunatic, the next i am asking in a calm voice, "what movie are we watching tonight?" you should seriously see his face when that happens. totally bewildered. 4 years later he still doesn't know how to respond when that happens. but i think this is far healthier than holding it in or hanging onto it even after you get it out. i fell, i get it out, i move on. oh, i admit, there are things i just rant and rant and rant on end about. these are usually things i need to make decisions on and haven't. most of the time, once i make a decision i am fine with occasional trips down memory lane down the road. long and short, yesterday i had a bad day, very bad day. nothing was going right, everything was going wrong and it just spiraled and kept spiraling.

thank goodness it stayed with yesterday.

today i slept in and, despite a sinus sludge headache, i woke up in a relatively good mood. breakfast in bed helped. (some days i just luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuv my hubby!) the day was pretty easy going, despite homework. i puttered, did homework, puttered, did homework. not really conducive to finishing the homework, i admit, but a really nice to spend the day. this evening we were even lucky enough to do the movie thing with the kids. it's been a couple of weeks because of "crazy behavior" recently. but the girls actually got their chores done yesterday and before dinner even! they went to church today and were pretty good most of the day. (i really hope this trend continues ~ the behavior and attitudes have been really annoying of late!) hey, even my hair behaved! totally amazing!

i still haven't fixed the problem with the password protection on one site, but i am working out, bit by bit, the problems on other sites. at this point, if the server can't/won't help me work out the password protection issue, i'll just move the site to a new server. i may have to deal with more limits on space and so on, but most servers make password protection a heck of a lot easier. it will take a few days to sort it out, and at this point i am willing to wait. i need the distance.

we do have a problem with froggy that i am just not quite sure how to deal with. froggy has her own wonderful, willful, bubbly, wrap-you-around-her-finger attitude and personality. i don't mind this so much, she is a doll (ok, so i am well wrapped!). however, we're having difficult with obedience as she tends to go her own way no matter what. she has been told repeatedly not to run up and down the stairs. she has fallen down those stairs at least 3 times as a youngster. guess what? she STILL runs up and down the stairs. cleaning her room and putting her clothes away are a chore. she dawdles. i mean she's turned dawdling into an art form!

but the biggest problem is getting into anything that's not hers. nothing we have done has stopped it, and we have tried everything we can think of. she has toys. she gets more hugs than any child in this house (she is constantly at my elbow asking for one!). and nothing we do can convince her to leave other people's things alone. and, if that weren't bad enough, she isn't careful with other people's things and tends to break and rip them. worse, she sometimes does things on purpose like coloring in a book.

this behavior from my son is one reason why we do not let the girls sell candy or things in those school sales (the other two being that i don't believe children should have to go selling stuff for their schools, and that my neighborhood scares me). we tried it once, he was into it the next day which meant we had to pay the customers back for their candy. in his case, it is an uncontrollable things that requires lots of training. he doesn't always understand things and we are working on it in the only ways we know: occupy him elsewhere and behaviorism, as well as making sure the rules are as consistent across the board as possible.

froggy, on the other hand, KNOWS. she knows she's doing wrong, she knows she's been caught, she knows what she was doing wrong, and yet she persists. i am at my wits end with her. she has stuff to do and usually gets into things when she's supposed to be doing something else entirely. she's bright, easily bored, and energetic. yes, i know, probably adhd as well. and i may have to go as far as to get her tested soon. in the mean time, she missed tonight's family movie. it would really be nice if this eventually sunk in to the bright little skull. but not holding my breath at this point.

maybe "good" days and "bad" days are more based on perception than on whether a day is really good or bad. or maybe that's just part of it. because yesterday was definitely bad, and today, despite the drawbacks, was pretty good. and tomorrow is school. that is definitely going to be a matter of attitude.