Grains of Wheat

My 5 year old has a mouth. And an attitude. And a heart of gold. She's hilarious. And maddening. Strong. Sensitive. Worried. Free. Excited. Bored. Tender hearted. A Bully.

Every day she has most of these attributes shining bright and strong. Something so simple like doing a "science experiment" of making bread dough makes her day "the best day ever!". Asking her to pick up her crayons makes it "the worst day ever". One little tickle makes the squeals of laughter roll on and on. One wrong word spoken from me sends her on a rampage of tears and yelling that could wake the dead.

She's definitely been experimenting with name calling the last few months. "Stupid" is the worst it gets. Usually she's mad at me or Henry for some small infarction, and out the accusations come. "You stupid stinky poopy diaper." "You stinky tooter." She is mad when she says it, but usually I can't help but laugh as I tell her no potty talk! that wasn't working, so I've been working on no name calling at all!! She changed her yelling to phrases like "You stupid, stinky caesar salad!!!" I'm not kidding you that she is mad when she says that!!! It doesn't matter if i'm mad too, i burst out laughing. Last night in the tub she topped herself. While getting her hair washed, one drop of water gets on her face, she screams like a crazy person to "get me a towel!!" (disregard the fact that she's gone snorkeling in the ocean. Water in the bathtub is very disconcerting!). So last night she yells at Tim: "Get me a towel you grain of wheat!". hahahahahaha!!! WHAT?! This is Lucy!

I've been getting some push-back in our school work the last few weeks. We do maybe an hour a day, or two if we are really into it, or dragging our feet. I keep telling her she is getting off way easy compared to her peers, but sometimes we just don't line up. The other day we were at the end of a super easy math lesson, and despite the fact that we are doing fun things (math games, hands on, etc) she still has to roll around on the floor being dramatic. Anyway, she had written her equations on her white board, using a fun math balance game. (We are using Right Start Math for those in the know). I simply told her that the way her balance was set up, she could write 3+3=6 or 6=3+3. Well, it must have come across as a criticism, cause she freaked out. Pouting, body language from the dark side, almost in tears. I tried to correct my words, use different language, praise her for getting the right answer, it didn't matter. She had already lost it. She stomped away. Wrote something on a piece of paper and threw it at me.

"bye bye forever".

Wow, I said. That's pretty harsh. I said: I'll miss you.

She stomped away. Thought about things for a few minutes. I tried not to say anything. I might have thrown out a sarcastic comment like, I hope you have a great life!

She she scribbled another message and came and dropped it in front of me, slightly kinder than before.

"hello forever".

I said I was happy she was back, and that math was over, and I'm thankful for her hard work.

The 3rd and final paper came my way.

"mommy and lucy" with heart and sunshine!!

One final cute writing before I end.

"Tim is a knife thief. Tim is a knife thief". Tim said she wasn't mad, but he can't remember the scenario. I found the paper on counter!

Oh wait, one more:

"My heart wants to do it, but the rest of me wants not to do it. I can't decide?"

This is regarding the children's choir they are starting at church! she is adamently refusing to go. I told her it was voluntary, and she might like it, she could just try it once to see if she liked it. Tons of dramatic "NO"s in response. Then she wrote this note!! All verbal responses since then have still been a decided no!