It's Okay, I'll Just Eat Ice-Cream

I can't say if she'll be any different tomorrow, but today I just focused on taking away the power.

For some reason she has been finding satisfaction in all the attention I was giving her.
She was lapping up the "apron-string" thing...
She was totally loving getting caught-in-the-act.

The drama was her power-play.

We've been caught in this unending viscous  cycle for what feels like a month, or more, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

She was creating chaos for the pleasure of it.

I have to keep telling myself, "don't buy into the power struggle".

That's her whole agenda.

So, today after she would not dress or make her bed on my time table I sent her to her room and I went through the morning routine with the other children. It was so peaceful :- ) Actually, that is a big fat lie. James decided to take up the slack. We can't win, can we? He got it together, though. And I was proud of him. He started to throw a tantrum.... started to say he didn't like me and he stopped and retracted it. YAY! He actually used a brain cell or two in the midst of his anger. This is the second time I have seen it recently. The first time was yesterday.

Then I went down to work with Miss-Muffet. HA! There was no working with her, so I left her in her room to play by herself. I brought her breakfast, and I brought her water. Every once in awhile I visited her. I brought her a juice. I rubbed lotion on her dry skin. I brought her a book and we looked at it, etc... She has a bright big room with 5 large windows and so, it's a great place to be if you have to be in one room. A slight problem is that she shares that room with Vanessa and she couldn't keep her little paws out of big sister's stuff. Vanessa's cool about it, but I insist that she is not allowed to rifle through her belongings, but at the same time I didn't want that to become the focus of her power-struggle.

Little friends came to play today. Gracie would have loved to play with her, but Missy had to stay in her room.  She was boldly defiant.

By afternoon things were not turning around, so when I got myself a nice tub of strawberry soy ice-cream and I shared with everybody who was happy. :-). I got myself  a teeny-tiny bowl of ice-cream and I "enjoyed" it to the fullest.

She got big eyes, but she didn't really flinch. However, later I was rubbing her hands with lotion and she started to soften. She was looking at me with different eyes, and when I left she wept - A REAL, Genuine CRY. We haven't seen that in a few weeks. Everything has been a roar, a whine, a scream, a fuss, but never a true cry.

I brought a video down to watch with her,  this was super random, but I had a strong impression that Missy had used her pens and highlighters in her books. When I asked her out of the blue if she had been writing in her picture books. She looked like the cat that got the mouse.... but denied up and down that she wouldn do such a THING! I only asked her to bring her little stack of books to me. She whined. She fussed. She brought them to me. I just looked at the stack and said, "So which book did you write in?" and she picked out the smallest. Every SINGLE page is written on.

Next I asked her to get her pj's on. She said, "where do I get changed?"

That question could only mean one thing, and I said, "Oh, well, since you pooped your pants, you best go use the bathroom."

She got to wash the panties outside, under the tap. She fussed, She cried, She was mouthy, AND she wailed that she HATES washing poopy pants outside. I was non-plussed. "There's only one solution to that problem, child! Use the toilet if you hate it so much, but if you choose to not use it, it's okay by me I'll just get me some ice-cream." She said she did it because she was mad at me. Whatever. How is that suppose to effect me?  lol. I got myself some ice-cream and everybody else had some, too (except the drama queen, of course.)

We never got to the video. As she got into bed she had another good, genuine cry. I was very empathetic, but I told her she was in charge of her days.They could be happy or sad. If she chose to make tomorrow just like today's that was HER CHOICE, but we would enjoy ice-cream and if she wanted some she would have to join us and be on our team.  She said she would be a good girl.

Tomorrow is a new day. I won't buy into the drama. I will not give her the pleasure of her thinking I'm watching for her to disobey. I'll just take the power out of the behavior and eat ice-cream.

PS. Someone commented recently and told me to try it. THANKS! With this kid, I'm gonna get real fat :-)  BUT I have to admit, it sure takes the stress out of the trauma drama and somehow I don't think she likes it when I reward myself for her bad behavior.