Today was kind of a lousy day. I spent much of the girls' daytime awake hours out in public, which meant that I was nipping at their heels and hissing warnings for them to stay close to me, don't do that, don't get into that, stay away from that, etc., etc. During Cici's supposed naptime (no nap was had, another cause for despair), I decided that Polly had watched enough shows (and she had--she was into her second hour at that point). So I told her to "click the red x," and repeated the instructions several times until she did. But then she immediately tried to open up another window, so I tucked her under my arm and unceremoniously escorted her to the bedroom for some "quiet time." Well, it was anything but quiet--throwing things, shrieking, and finally yelling, "I hate Mommy!" Oh. Ow. She's never said that before. That really, really hurt, and I have to admit that I considered just curling up in a fetal position and waiting until it was time for Dave to come home. I guess it's a good thing I don't have the luxury to do that. I knelt down, told Heavenly Father I was sorry, and asked what I could do to make peace in our house. The thought came that I should get down on the floor and be doing something that Polly liked doing so that when she came out of her room--which she would, any minute. So I pulled out a big piece of foam board that we'd been coloring on the day before and that I'd been drawing a little town on, and I started drawing another house. Sure enough, Polly came out, saw me coloring, and I think it broke down the barriers between us. We still need to talk about how to handle things when it's time for shows to be turned off, but I think that conversation will go better than it would have.
Still, it stayed lousy till the end. Dave was going to Scouts and got caught in a speeding trap. Coming off of a major secondary road, turning onto the main thoroughfare, 7:15 pm. The speed limit had been 40 on the secondary road, and it inexplicably switched to 25 on the main road. The police were waiting right there where it switched, on both sides of the road, ready to catch everyone who came through. The police lady who pulled Dave over said that she was going to give him a break because she saw that he had three car seats in the back and thought he could use the money. So instead of writing him up for reckless driving, she just wrote him up for speeding. Thanks, lady. Only $75 instead of $100. Except that if you really had heart, you wouldn't be sitting in a speed trap in the first place.
No breaks today, Dave said when he came home and we were decompressing after everything. Except, being Dave, it was "no brakes."
PS Which REMINDS me, when I took the car in for an oil change this afternoon, we found out that we need new brake pads and roters, to the tune of $375. This, after an $89 oil change (with tire rotations, new air filters, etc., etc.). At least Polly and Cici don't care about this stuff.
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