Beth’s been quite a challenging child this weekend. There’s nothing especially that’s gone wrong, she’s just been really argumentative and getting herself worked up to the point that it needs to escalate for it to be over. It’s awful to see, you know it has to get to the peak and you’re helpless to do anything about it. It doesn’t happen often these days but it’s a bloody doozy when it does!
We’ve had a fairly quiet weekend for a change. Normally Beth has horseriding on a Saturday morning but it was too wet for riding so it was cancelled this week. Bill has swimming lessons at the same time and Bridie goes in for a swim so we all went yesterday and Bethie had a swim too. Paul goes in when Beth’s in cos she acts like she owns the pool, not realising that anybody is really around her she spreads herself out or swims under the water wherever she wants, totally oblivious to anybody that she’s blocking or even kicking along her way! Normally we would go to Paul’s parents for lunch but we were to go today (Sunday) as Bev was going to do a roast lamb for dinner. Beth generally is ok with routine change but as she’s in a particularly oppositional mood I’m guessing that put her nose out of joint a bit.
We stopped at Safeway on the way home to get some of those yummy bake at home rolls with little hot dogs which went down ok, then we did the terrible parenting thing and said one could watch a dvd, one on the computer and one onthe DS. Beth opted for the dvd but of course we couldn’t find the one she wanted. She’s very single minded is out Bethie and when she wants something she bloody well wants it NOW. After turning the house upside down we finally found it in her case that she has packed just in case she ever should go somewhere overnight. So on goes Happy Feet. The problem with Beth and dvds though is she’ll just skip over bits that she gets either bored or doesn’t like and God forbid anybody should sing along (unless it’s her of course!) So people who may want to watch along only get to see the bits that Beth decides make up the movie that SHE wants to watch. AND I’m constantly having to yell at her to sit down cos she just stands right in front of the tv half the time.
After the movie it was her turn for the computer but she keeps insisting on playing a particular My Little Pony site that has a bit in it that doesn’t work properly. Usually this happens just as we’ve got the kids settled with their electronic babysitters and we’ve sat down for 5 minutes to read the paper or watch something ourselves. I’m sitting with my coffee on page one and I hear “it’s working, it’s working” and I think “great, here we go again”. Actually I think much more graphically than that but didn’t think I should write it here for family reading. Out I come and explain for the umpteenth time that no, it’s not working and yes, I’ve sent an email to the My Little Pony people to explain that it isn’t working, shall we try something else sweetheart? “No no no no no, I want this one”! Eventually we may go onto another website, sit down after warming the coffee and hear “it’s loading, it’s loading.” Here we go again!
That’s really been the gist of the weekend. We didn’t end up going to Bev and John’s today cos Bev had come down with something and we’ve all got colds so that didn’t go down too well. Beth loves her bouncing and our trampoline’s round there, she also plays the computer in their lovely warm study so was most pissed off that we weren’t going. I decided that we should take them to see Astroboy to fill up the day so off we trot to the movies. Of course we didn’t take enough popcorn or maltesers which were all eaten before the movie began! The movie was pretty good though Bridie cried most of the way through it.
Back home and tried the My Little Pony website. Of course not working still. Not happy Jan! Just little bits and pieces but enough to put her and me in a bad mood. Not listening to anything I’m telling her and me starting to escalate too. Add to that an incredibly moody 4 year old and a 7 year old boy who keeps wanting me to do the hard bits on his DS games, or telling me everything that people were saying on the shows he was watching and you might just get a picture of my weekend. Oh and a husband who’s under the weather. Don’t have to say anything else there do I! Roll on Monday!
