Cause and Effect and Proclaiming Your Own Consequence

Very interesting morning here. Missy was not motivated to get moving until the last few minutes and when she saw that she was 15 minutes late she went into a tantrum and started screaming, "I want to go to school. I want to go to school!" 

 I tried to calm her, and get her to eat breakfast, etc but she was bound to have a big tantrum. So I left and went to do other things. After awhile she followed me and was slamming doors, kicking and stomping. 

Finally I just said, "You know, I never said anything about school or anything. I'm just listening to you and I'm hearing from you that you are late, and you know cause and effect and you have decided that you have messed up and you understand the consequences of not doing what you should  and you are proclaiming those consequences rather loudly. So what I'm hearing from you is that you need to work with me today...."

She went absolutely silent. It was like I had knocked her over the head. It was a new revelation to her. We talked about mercy and people who abuse mercy over and over. I asked her what usually happens the next morning if one day she we allow her to be a tiny bit late. She pretty much said she would be late again the next day. Really, I had wanted to get her to school but the lesson would be lost if I did that. So guess what we are doing today?

It's difficult when the kids ride the edge. I don't want to be rigid and uncaring. I want the kids to know there are times when things don't go right for everybody and it's very nice when others give you a little wiggle room and have mercy on you. I know she was NOT obeying, but she started to at the last few minutes and I was trying to figure out what the RIGHT thing to do was - honor that last ditch effort and give her a wee bit of a break, or be absolutely firm and unmoving over the set time frame. In the end I didn't make the decision. She did with all her hollering.

She's grumpy as all get-out, but we'll get past it.

By the way, we did have the kids birthday dinner last Thursday as planned, but the kids who were going to come didn't, so it was just us which was good. James was a little unstable most of the weekend, but Sunday he started to even out. Today he was up at 5:30 and ready for his day with a good attitude. When he's not quite stable, she is really careful, but when he gets it together she lets her guard down. I think they stress each other out a lot.

11 years Old Today.

 The twins are 11 today.

Things have been going good. It has been amazing. I was basking in how wonderful it was that they were doing so well.

And then today showed up.



James was celebrating by raging for no apparent reason at all.

He did not eat breakfast. He did not get on the bus, and sadly,  he did not run away, either. (That's kind of a sad joke, but it would have been easier had he gone for a run in the trees and calmed himself down).  He just kept screaming and raging and spitting and smashing apples and beating on the door. I drove away for awhile, but he knew Vanessa and Christina were in the house, so it did no good. He was lock out to keep him from causing bodily harm.

So I had to call the school and they sent out Rhett to come and get him.

Strange how this stuff sucks the motivation out of me. I've done nothing since.

Missy loves her birthday. She wanted to take baby pictures to school today...  All the baby pictures I have are the ones Children's Hospital gave me on a CD. If I had known a day earlier I could have gotten them printed. Instead she had to be content with a little book I made from when she was 6 and first came to live with us. 

As for the birthday celebration... not sure where to go with it. My plans for baking a cake and all kind of fizzled. BUT they are twins. . . . she deserves her celebration even if he wants to sabotage his.