Sweet Relief!

One more day, that's all the longer we have to wait now for some sweet relief here in this house.

What happens in one more day?

Maya goes back to school tomorrow!

Oh and as the late, great Jackie Gleason would say, "How sweet it is!"

Don't get me wrong here when I make that statement. I love, heck I adore my sweet little granddaughter! Do I ever!

But two weeks of her home every single day, finding more and more things to get into, antagonizing her brother at every opportunity possible and being unable to keep her entertained with structured activity during that time -all the time -it is a struggle at times then for both Mandy and I to maintain our sanity levels!

This is not to say that sometimes even when she has school or just a weekend that she doesn't have meltdowns then, doesn't antagonize little Kurtis -or me or her parents. She does. She is quite good at that quite often.

But being away from the routine she knows and yes, she enjoys very much too of her classroom activities, leaves one heck of a void for us to fill.

Add to that the added stress that comes from Christmas itself -the gifts, Santa, other things like jealousy factors with her brother and boy, there is a recipe for pandemonium at times if ever I saw one!

Here's a perfect example of how something really innocent can blow up in your face, go really wrong.

This year, Mandy, my older daughter and Bill's sister, Kathy, decided that rather than each of them buy gifts for every child within the family they would draw names of the kids and then, only have to buy a gift from each child for the person who's name was drawn.

Now that sounds like a reasonable idea, doesn't it? Cuts back a tad on expenses, on confusion too when it comes time for gift exchanges, etc.

So what could be wrong with that?

Well, because Kathy wasn't able to get down to our house on Christmas Eve and neither was my older daughter and her son, when the three older kids were here then, there were some packages missing then.

Yesterday, Bill had to take some stuff up to his sister's house and in doing so, she then gave him the two packages she had there -one for his middle daughter, Sierra and the other was for little Kurtis. Now, Christmas Eve, Sierra is old enough to understand that her Aunt Kathy had her name and wasn't able to be with us and Kurtis -well he's too little to know that a present for him was missing so it wasn't -or didn't seem like it was a problem at that time.

However, yesterday when Bill came home with those two missing presents and Maya saw that her brother had a present for Christmas but she didn't, all Hell broke loose!

You try to explain how this was supposed to operate -but didn't -to a five-year-old who doesn't always comprehend every single thing around her!

She went into a meltdown that was like the Great-granddaddy of meltdowns! Crying, screaming, kicking -a tantrum and a half as she kept asking where her present was!

Of course, there were added factors too that played into this scenario -mainly that she had been out yesterday afternoon and spent the bulk of the afternoon with her Pappy -Bill's Dad -and was tired -very tired. She doesn't always recognize that when she gets over extended, over-tired like that, it is almost a guarantee of impending disaster.

Finally, after listening to her, and also, fighting with her to behave, with no good response coming forth, she was told she had to get her jammies on and go to bed.

That was not welcomed by her either and she launched into more of a tirade.

Bill carried her upstairs to her room and said later, he had to virtually sit on her for a bit to get her to stop thrashing about, kicking, screaming, etc.

Then, about a half hour later, she called down requesting a drink and came downstairs and you'd never have known it was the same child!

She was just about as close to being angelic as is possible for any five-year-old to be!

Funny how those meltdowns generally do work that way though.

As long as one can ride out the storm without totally going berserk along with her, all usually ends quite well!

At least, last night it did anyway!

A little side note here too referencing back to my post on New Year's Day when I told you about the gentleman who used to live here -about five doors down from my home until about 1937 when his family moved away from here. If you recall, Arnie had e-mailed me and told me he reads my blog and enjoys it. He'd also said in his e-mail how much he remembers my Mom, my Grandparents, my youngest aunt too and his memories of them really tugged at my heart.

And so many of my readers had commented on that post -a couple even just e-mailed me telling me how neat it was that I had "met" Arnie in this manner and to keep telling folks about him and others from my past, from my village's past too -that you, my readers, enjoy reading posts about things like that.

So, yes -whenever I can -I will do posts along those lines.

And today I am happy to say that I got an e-mail yesterday -again, from Arnie -in which he thanked me for his new found celebrity status!

I'm most happy to do that Arnie -to let the world-wide web know how you found me, e-mailed me and how great it made me feel to read that initial e-mail too!

Sometime in the future, hopefully I will figure out a way to introduce my readers to many others from my hometown. To give a little recognition to those who had a finger in my upbringing -directly and indirectly.

Granted some of those stories will only be of actual interest to anyone reading my blog who knows me or knows this little village where I live but hopefully, it will be a window into my little piece of the world and maybe even explain a bit of who I am and why, as well!

We'll just have to take a wait and see as to how that all shakes out now, won't we?

Have a great day today and please stay warm -especially those of you from up in the cold, cold of Minnesota where, according to the early morning news today, it was a very brisk minus 13 degrees below zero! BRRRR!

So bundle up -Terri, Pat and Laura -as you go about whatever it is you have to do today!