A Victory

It's been a whole week of perfectly normal and healthy behavior from this guy.

He's happy. He's busy. He's willing to help and even offering to help.
Homeschool is going well, even.

He's had opportunity to fall apart. 

Today the dreaded helicopter subject came up and I told him

I was not prepared to deal with the trials associated with that toy,

and he was NOT happy.
I could tell he was very tempted to just cut loose...
He was just THAT close!!!

HOWEVER,

he made the decision to stay calm, and he chose to work with me.

We were able to talk about it and then be a little silly and distract his mind for obsessing over it

and that was it.

It was over.

Later I brought it up again and told him how proud I was of him
and then when dad got home
he told dad all about it.

I had to run some errands so I took him with me and treated him to Taco Bell,

took him to the farm supply and he selected the items

needed for his new venture in chicken farming. 

The chicks are on order and due to arrive in a few weeks.

He's pleased as punch.

Bri was in the photography mood and she shot some really neat pictures of James.

I'll only steal one because it illustrates his happiness,

but she is laboriously working on a blog post and will post more there.
He's actually jumping on the trampoline and not hanging from the zip line as it appears.

Wish I could show you the Buddy's cute pictures!!!

Missy is not featured in any pictures today.

Tomorrow will mark a week of solid misery.

Her world has been parred down to the absolute minimum.

She has been tied pretty close to me - to the point of sitting by the bathroom

door while I shower. 

I can't trust her for a second.

I did send her to play in her room by herself for awhile

and I left her with the girls while I ran errands,

but she isn't free to roam and do as she wishes at all because everything turns to chaos,

except she is pretty sweet to the Buddy.
She talks to herself constant
and her imaginative conversations say more than she would ever tell me.
She thinks about what I say.
I was doing something on my bed while she rolled around on my bedroom floor...
the whole time she had this conversation with an imaginary cousin about how to behave
and what to do, and choices, and asking for help, and how she didn't want to be naughty
anymore, and all that...Very revealing!
BUT it's all talk.

Tonight she was upset about something once again

and I told her I was sorry she was sad and opened my arms to give her a hug and 

she rammed me with her head so hard my chest might hurt for awhile.

We did use the timer this morning and that was pretty close to successful.

I just can't wait for this awful dive to make a turn around.

That's the way it is....
We fly high
and we spiral down
and nothing in particular seems
to influence these moods one way or the other.

It's taking great effort on the part of everyone to think of positive things to say to the child.
She would elicit all negative comments if she could.
We start to feel like we are picking on her because it's one thing after another seconds apart.


We loved the sunshine and 60 degree weather today.
It's suppose to rain for the rest of the week.