This morning I said a little prayer that if Rachel could go back to having a great time at violin, I could put up with anything else that could come my way today. It's been a long three weeks of violin with Rachel having anxiety after the whole first-time-I-ever-threw-up-was-at-my-violin-lesson episode! Well, talk about prayers being answered!!! Violin was awesome!! She relapsed for about two seconds and then I reminded her that she was in control (thanks to Liz for some awesome advice on dealing with childhood anxiety!). After that she chatted up Ms. Luci, showed off her new skills, told Ms. Luci some facts she learned in her nonfiction book about violins, learned a new song, and found out she gets to play at an arts festival in a week and a half! She's back and I couldn't be more excited!!!
But about that other half of the prayer, yeah, it got answered, too!!! I started off the day by telling myself that we were going to have a stress-free day and I was going to do my best to not say "No" to Rachel unless it was something harmful or destructive because I really wanted her to have a good day before violin. By the time Allen had left for work (around 7:30), she was already in time out for grabbing Ford and Ruby. I can't let that go. She is so rough with them and almost always someone ends up getting hurt when she grabs them. Well, we got past that. Then, I thought, "We'll do Play-Doh to start today. Rachel loves that and we've cleared off the train table for lots of space." I ended up playing Play-Doh with Ruby, just the two of us, while Rachel and Ford played trains in the living room. Ford came to join us, then FINALLY Rachel came and had a great time. That led into them wanting to do arts and crafts and I said, "Why not?" The table is clear once we move the Play-Doh and I'm up for fun today! Ha! Rachel wanted to sit on the table and she was doing so well, that I let that slide. Ruby and Ford were having a great time with markers, scissors, glue, paper, etc. Somehow we ended up with paint out...that always seems to make things go badly, especially if we're not at the big table with newspaper or outside...Rachel decided she needed to put glitter glue and paint all over her hands and spread it everywhere while she's sitting on the table. I couldn't take it any more. When her picture was done, I picked her up and took her to the bathroom to clean up. It was on her arms and legs and on her clothes and I lost it. She said she was just "being like Ruby". I had to remind her that Ruby is TWO YEARS OLD! It seems kind of silly now that we were both crying because we were mad and frustrated, but it was rough at the time! While I was cleaning up Rachel, Ruby proceeded to get paint on the carpet and in her hair and on her clothes, too. Once I got the girls cleaned up and changed and got rid of the paint, Ford decided he wanted to paint (after saying he didn't want to earlier). I was like, "Are you kidding me??!?!?!?" I asked you earlier and you said no and now I've got everything cleaned up. NO WAY!! So, he started crying. This was one of those walk out of the room and take a deep breath moments. So, what did I do? I got out a snack (it was after 9 by this point). Everyone cheered up with a snack and then we started our regular school work and all was well. Seriously, except for a couple of reminders to Ruby that we could play when I finished with Ford and Rachel, the world turned around. The big kids actually did a really good job with their work. Rachel wrote a nonfiction story about herself and was proud of her illustration. Ford did a super job with his writing and math. All three of them had a great time using a thermometer and measuring the temperature of water that's been sitting out, water put in the freezer for a few minutes, and water put in the microwave for a few minutes. Rachel read aloud to us and did a great job with her math and handwriting. Really, I should have just started the day like normal. This is what I get for breaking the routine by trying to ease stress!! I'm thinking you ease stress by sticking to the norm!!
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