Almost, But Not Quite...

Somedays, as my ex-husband loved to relate, you eat the bear, somedays the bear eats you and somedays, you both go hungry.

I think, as I try to determine which column I ended up in today - win, lose or draw - that today was MINE or maybe it was a DRAW but I feel like I ended up more on top of the heap than anything.

I'm referring here of course to the daily battles that often occur here with the little Princess.

She was a bit on the whiny, clinging side this morning, talking already then about "Going with Mommy" and some "See you later" stuff too which often are said back to back when she is engrossed in a full fledged separation anxiety originating meltdown. One such as the one she pitched last Saturday when she escaped and had me trying to chase her down around the yard in my stocking feet no less! Then yet another one of these came out on Tuesday when I got her off the van bringing her home from school.

Yesterday was calm since Mandy called off work due to the snow storm and crappy roads so Maya had nothing major to rock her little rowboat there then. That is until late last night -shortly before 11 p.m. -when she awoke from sleeping on the sofa with her dad and apparently had been having nightmares about her dvd's -Bratz Girls and Princess video dvd's of which only two of them are currently working because she has fingered the others to death! At one point, when she was wailing and sobbing "They're all gone, all gone, all gone." I think I felt a twinge of guilt because I'm the one who took her baby Bratz dolls and all their tiny pieces of clothing and miniscule other paraphenalia (shoe, purses, other itsy-bitsy pieces) and stuffed them all into the little lunchbox type carrying case they came in and then, deposited it atop the china cupboard, out of sight -hopefully, out of mind too. I did that mainly because Maya had become very unruly one night, refusing at all to pick up any of her toys and especially these darned Bratz dolls. She was warned several times if she didn't "clean up" - sing the "Clean up" song (which she learned in school and when she's of a mood, will gladly sing it for us -not necessarily perform the duties it extols though) -that I was going to take all those Bratz and put them up and she wouldn't be permitted to have them. Apparently she hadn't missed them all that greatly as she didn't ask about their whereabouts after that night.

So, when she left this morning and seemed to be still in a bit of a mood, shall we say, I was leery about how she might be this afternoon upon her return home. Shortly after 3 p.m., I saw "Mr. Fred" drive by to his turn-around spot and went out to gather her and her backpack from the van. As soon as I opened the door, I thought I detected a faint glint in her eyes, as much as to say "Oh no, Gram's getting me off the van, where's m Mommy?" I got her back pack, exchanged greetings with Mr. Fred and helped Maya down only to hear her say "Snow, play in the snow. I play in the snow. Yay, YAY!"

I turned to Fred and said "This might be a bad sign -an omen -for me of what's about to come." He smiled and nodded and said he hoped things would go ok for me to get her in the house.

She had to stop at least 2 or 3 times as we walked down the sidewalk to the house -stooping over to run her hands in the snow. After the second or third time, I think it registered to her that snow is also cold, very cold and she picked up the pace to go inside asking for her Mommy only once after we got inside.

Katie and I were both somewhat braced for an onslaught of crying and fit-throwing but she seemed fairly calm. Asked a couple questions about Mandy and I told her Mommy's at work, she'll be home later and for a change, she was actually satisfied with that.

It didn't stop her from messing with the tree though or from wanting to go to the basement and watching some of those dvd's - the ones that no longer work -and by about 5 p.m., after having been reprimanded a couple of times, looking like she was going to go into a meltdown then, she suddenly crawled up on the sofa and promptly fell asleep. Ah, peace!

I fixed a "one-dish" meal for supper - pieces of boneless chicken breast, cubed, sauted with onions, peppers, celery, carrots and a little bit of broccoli with some chicken broth mixed with a can of cream of chicken soup and added some bowknot pasta to the mix. A good way to get her the desired pasta and also, sneak a few bites of chicken, carrots and such past her too.

Katie had dished up Maya's plate - mostly bowties -and had given her a tablespoon or so of applesauce on the side of her plate too. Applesauce is usually another guaranteed "edible" substance in her mind and Maya dug in. Early on, she was trying to spear a bowtie with her fork and it fell off in mid-stream to her mouth -landing smack dab in the applesauce.

The look on Maya's face as she reached in and gingerly retrieved that piece of pasta, held it up for inspection and then said loudly "OH YUCK!" had Katie and I both stiffling giggles but when she shook it a bit and said "I need to wash this off" we both cracked up. She shook it again, applesauce droplets flying a bit, looked at it again and then popped it in her mouth and forgot about washing it.

After supper, her Dad went to the basement and started a fire there in the woodburner so once it started to remove the chill there, Kate and Maya went down to the basement where she could watch the two videos that do still work - leaving me in peace for a while.

Mandy got off early tonight - not very busy she said - so she was home before 8:30 and promptly took the two little ones in to give them a bath - something both of them really dearly love! Kurtis sits in the tub and kicks his feet so hard, slamming them down on the base of the tub you almost feel like it is causing the whole house to vibrate and all the while, he's laughing and thoroughly enjoying himself there.

Thursday nite is one of the few nights that I do stop -if possible - whatever I'm doing so I can watch my favorite program -"The Office" and tonight looked to be a peaceful viewing for me with both kids in the tub at that time. Kurtis also seems to know I love that show and because of the way it plays, I often have a lot of difficulty hearing all the dialogue to begin with so he generally begins to make a bunch of noise when it comes on. Typical little male already I suppose. But tonight, Maya was the first out of the tub and dressed in her jammies and she out and proceeds to stand almost directly in front of the screen -while my show is playing and I'm trying to tell her - to cajole her really -into please moving aside a bit and please being quiet until Grammy's program is over. About 9:20, she came over to me and took my hands telling me "I push grammy off a couch" - meaning though she wanted to pull me up off the loveseat -and she further gave me marching orders too "Grammy to a 'puter" -meaning for some reason she thought I should revert to my normal base, in my chair, parked in front of the computer.

However, Mandy and Kate had a different opinion about that as they both wanted to surf a bit tonight on e-bay so I didn't regain control of my base here until shortly after 11 p.m.

Which explains why I was even later than usual making my reading rounds tonight and putting my post up too.

So all in all, it ended up being a relatively calm day though. Probably was a good thing that when Kurtis decided he was going to really sleep in this morning (didn't get up until almost 1:30 this afternoon) and I had decided it was a good time for me to take a nice nap along with him then too, that both he and I had slept fairly adequately today so he was calm and so was I that way.

Tomorrow's going to be a whole new ball game though. Mandy has the day off and plans to go shopping, insisting that Bill go with her plus I have a doctor's appointment at 11:45 to have the stitches removed from my left shoulder where I had a little growth of some sort removed there last week so most likely I will have to be the one to get Maya off the van tomorrow afternoon, then hurry and get supper ready as Mandy and I are going to a production in Philipsburg by a community theater group of "It's a Wonderful Life." Seems my cousin Margaret Anne, her daughter Ellen and Ellen's husband as well as their two sons all have parts in this production so Mandy and I are very much looking forward to seeing this. Should be interesting for us - agreed?

But even more so, it will be interesting to see how well Bill survives the night if Maya decides to pull a meltdown number on him when Mandy and I both disappear together too.

Here's hoping her mood is nice and pleasant -and like today - almost angelic. Not quite but for Maya, probably about as close as she could be to that anyway.