Alright…here’s the deal with Gracie’s behavior…I’m pretty sure it’s all my fault. See, the problem isn’t that I have no parenting backbone – the problem is that things that bother other people just don’t seem to bother me – and that’s a bit of a problem.
Here’s an example from this week: Mondays at Little Rosie’s are relatively uncrowded. Me and my bestie go there quite a bit – it’s one of Huntsville’s greatest breakfast spots. I like to throw words like ‘bestie’ into my blog to check and see if my teenagers are reading it – if they are, they’d totally bust me for using the word bestie. This week while at Little Rosie’s I look down and realize Gracie is on the floor drawing in her notepad. Now instead of doing what normal parents do which would be to GET HER OFF THE FLOOR I just shrug and say ‘meh, she’s not bothering anyone.’
Uh, hello, Paula your child is LAYING on the dad gum floor. Something eventually clicks and I think ‘oh yeah! No kids on the floor!’
I ended up pulling her out of school because her behavior had gotten so suspect. She wasn’t kicked out but I had come to dread the ‘Gracie did blah, blah, blah’ note that was accompanying picking her up. And more than that note I was dreading the drop off where she screamed and clung to me. So for my sanity I pulled her. Which means we spend all day every day together. Which is good because this little nugget is only three.
On the positive it gave me more time to do projects in the house. Got these pictures hung up in the abnormally large space between the mirrors in our bathroom. I ordered them from the MixTiles app. It was really easy and I think they turned out well.
“Hey there little gnome.”
As far as Gracie’s behavior goes, I guess, part of being a better parent is just paying attention to the stuff that other people care about – which is generally pretty terrible advice but works in this situation. We leave for Disney World in a month. Girlfriend needs to straighten up and fly right while we’re there!
Speaking of trips, I’ve got big plans for a nice long RV trip in the summer of 2018. We went to the RV Show this weekend. The kids are into it. Well, into it-ish.
They were mostly into climbing all over the things.
This continued at Hank’s basketball party. I highly recommend having a party in a gym.
Hank and his best friend Brandon. You know how sometimes you hear parents say things like ‘my child just doesn’t have enough self confidence.’ Yeah, that’s something we will never have to say about these two. They have plenty of confidence. Like, probably too much.
Oooh! Ya know what else I recommend? Having a Dads Versus Sons Basketball Game because that business was pretty hilarious.
Although, the basketball party brought us several more examples of Gracie Shenanigans. Other Parent: ‘Um, excuse me but did you know your daughter was climbing on the bleachers?’ Yes, yes I did.
She has a pretty significant language delay – when you combine that with her behavior issues I used to think she might be somewhere on the spectrum. Now I’m pretty convinced that she’s just naughty.
We’re all a work in progress, right?
A cute, cuddly, smooshy, bundle of love and tantrums work in progress.
