Pulling out my Hair

I'm so embarrassed! Mortified, actually. I feel like I have failed a test of parental ability, or something like that. Me! Failed! It's unthinkable! But, there we have it!

The problem has been brewing for about a week, I guess. My little angel has been testing her boundaries. Exerting her independence. Determining the exact size and shape of her little place in the world. And, of course, this has lead to serious headbutting with her mother - me.

I have been exasperated in dealing with this little rebellion of hers. In fact, there have been days where I have felt that piercing my eye-lid with a knitting needle would be more fun than having the same arguments with my five-year old that have been coming up EVERY day. Oh. My. Hat.

It has become very clear to me that my little T-bird has taken an overdose of grumpy pills and is suffering a very negative side-effect. And, by 'negative', I do mean that anything that comes out of her mouth is in the negative: "No, I won't," "That's not mine," "You don't know," "I don't want to," "I can't do that", "I don't want to", "Not! Don't! No! Won't! Isn't!"

Aaaaaaaarrrrgh! Somebody book me a root-canal and a triple by-pass - it's bound to be more fun and easier than dealing with a five-year old on the verge of conquering the world.

I had actually even considered throwing in the rope. Holding the boundaries in place was just getting too hard to do. She's insisting she knows everything - so let her live her life without me trying to give it any structure. What. Ever. Isn't that what most people end up doing, anyway? Yeah, she was a nice kid. Once. Now she's a brat. Hello, real world.

My wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee alarm was tripped the other night, when she had ended up in bed with me (Dad was away on business), and at 2 o' clock in the morning, she started arguing with me over my pillow (her own had slipped off the bed). 

"Mom, you're on my pillow!" she insisted. 

"No, I'm not," I said, "Yours is right here," I slipped my arm down the side of the bed and pulled the pillow back up. 

"No," she whined, "you've got mine!" She tugged it from under my head. Fortunately for me, I'm stronger, and so I held onto it with a vice-like grip. 

"T," I said sternly, "I'm using this pillow." 

And then came the clincher. The words that made me realise that my daughter is clearly not in touch with reality. At 2 freaking AM her best argument was, "No, you're not!"

It took everything in me not to march her outside right then and there and duct-tape her to the front door for the rest of the night.

I decided I needed to put my foot down to this atrocious behaviour. We sat down and had a little heart-to-heart. And it went well, I thought. Things were going to be right as rain!

And then the unthinkable happened. I went to fetch my rehabilitated angel from school today and was met by a very serious-faced teacher who described my child's indiscretions of the day. My perfect little cherub had gotten into trouble at school! She had disobeyed a clear (and twice repeated) instruction from her teacher, and had ended up damaging school property. Woe is me. She was supposed to be exemplary! I have failed in my role as parent to raise an upstanding citizen. Is there any hope for me?

Oh, and just you wait till your dad hears about this, young lady!