....and being alone with two small children for too many long, extended periods has put our Ms Whippersnapper OVER THE EDGE!!....
Pandora Music Selection of the Day: Crap, Pandora doesn't do classical. I need something light and tinkly, and no I DON"T MEAN THAT TOY XYLOPHONE!! PUT IT DOWN!! PUT IT DOWN!! ARGHGGH, SOMEONE GET THAT THING AWAY FROM HER!!!!!
Okay, and another weekend alone with the kids and this girl was ready to kill something, anything, many things. So I played a little game to help me stay calm when all was crazy. They did this last year in the Globe and Mail with a certain politician's weird statements. It was genius, I can't remember if it was Donald Rumsfeld or John Ashcroft, but they took his words and rearranged them into lovely Haiku poetry! The result? Instead of knocking your head against a wall and saying "holy crap, this guy is one of the leaders of the Free World??" you smiled and mellowed out to his words! Okay, mostly you laughed. But regardless, it certainly helped make you feel better about the craziness of it all!
So this weekend, I did it with old Ms High Intensity and some of her crazy rants. And it worked!! It worked!! We got through the weekend, and I didn't kill her!! No, she's alive and well as I type!! And it was SO easy, you could do it too, and not just with the words of small, irrational children!
Examples from this weekend:
(After she'd been asked to do a 3.2 second task)
You make me work and work and work and work and work and work and
work
I am not
Cinderella, ugly
Stepmother
My game worked just swell. Calling me "ugly" is just SOOO against the rules around here! But by magically transforming her words into beautiful poetry, I didn't quite want to kill her. I mean, don't get me wrong. She spent time in her room all right. But her room is certainly no morgue! No sirree! Do I sound a little shrill? Ha ha ha, that's crazy!! Read on!!
(After having, I don't know, looked at her the wrong way, or something)
Scream scream scream
scream scream scream
scream
Hey, I''m hungry, make
make me a
sandwich,
now
Demanding snackage after 10 minutes of screaming is just, like, SOOOOO not on in this house! But did I run towards her in a blind fury and shove a sandwich down her throat?? No! The soothing poetry calmed me, lulled me into a gentle place and allowed me to deal with her in a MUCH more rational manner. That's right! Huh? Nervous tic? Nonsense! No! No! I'm just twitching, um, BOPPING along to the melodious sounds of that GLORIOUS xylophone music!!!
(And upon entering the bathroom recently vacated)
(*sniff *sniff*)
It smells
so weird in here
Ugh!Ugh!Ugh!
You can't come to my birthday party now,
Daddy
Heh heh heh. Actually, I wasn't really too terribly put out by the last scenario. (Sing song voice:) But somebody else was!!
Signing off from Whippersnapper land,
I am, and have,
Totally and completely,
Snapped.
P.S. This is later. Little Ms. H.I. woke me up at six in the morning today and shoved a small chunk of chocolate into my mouth. She was sharing her Christmas calendar treat with me. How many four-year-olds share chocolate without being asked? Sometimes she is just so freaking sweet I feel guilty about what I write in here. Again, I must reiterate: I absolutely adore her, I really do!! She's just a little... intense sometimes, you know??
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Oh, you just made me feel guilty, 'cause I just realized I forgot to put anything in the advent calendar this morning. Crap. My children will be calling ME the ugly stepmother by the time I get home from work. Sigh.
This weekend, when they had to clean the ugly hole that is our basement family room, one of the girls came upstairs and said "why do WE have to do all the work?" And I pointed to their daddy, who was on the floor scrubbing the stinky garbage can, and said "and what would you say that Daddy's doing - having FUN?"
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