I am not sure what is going on with my girls, but they have been behaving like animals lately. Then, just when I think it’s getting better, they are out of control again.
EN and I have opposite work schedules. I work during the day, 8-4:30 pm. EN works from 3 pm until 11 pm. This means he doesn’t see much of Sugar during the week, but does get to spend time with Spice because she goes to afternoon kindergarten.
This means I get up every morning and get myself ready for work, while I attempt to get Sugar ready for school at the same time. I would think that an 11 year old should be able to remember all the same fucking things she’s had to do before school EVERY SINGLE DAY for years, but for some reason she can’t. So every day, I have to remind her to brush her hair, put deodorant on, wash her face, eat her breakfast. I recently took a poll of my Facebook friends to see if their kids were able to practice good hygiene on their own at this age and was told basically that my expectations were too high. Seriously, you’d think the girl would want to look and smell clean.
Our morning routine gets more magical if Spice decides to wake up early too. Somedays, she’s just fine and we all have a wonderful time in the morning, laughing and joking. However, there are other times when her only goal in the morning is to piss her sister off before she leaves the house. Even on those mornings, Sugar can send Spice on 37 errands around the house and Spice will do each and every one without complaint. And we all need to watch out if Sugar’s hair hasn’t properly cooperated into a smooth ponytail.
Then we all go about our respective days and at 4:30, I leave work and rush to two different locations to pick the girls up. We get home at 6:00 pm and I get to cook dinner, help with homework, go through school folders, take care of dogs, clean kitchen, bathe girls, read stories, rub backs and have them in bed for 8:30… because if they stay up one minute later, I will go insane.
Lately, while I am doing all that running around, the girls have started fighting. It’s generally over something stupid, like Sugar’s left butt cheek hovering over Spice’s cushion. If they aren’t fighting, one is antagonizing the other. Or one is tattling on the other. Or one is screaming bloody blue murder about how they have been wronged. Or they have banded together to try to talk their mother into taking them to Toys R Us, Walmart, out to dinner, buy us a hamster, WE SWEAR WE WILL STOP FIGHTING AND WE WILL TAKE CARE OF IT.
Y’all, they even fight about feeding the dogs and will push each other out of the way to get to the bowls first.
And every night I am frustrated. I yell and scream and take away privileges, but nothing helps. They may cry and act sorry, but they’re back to the same old tricks the next night. Every night I have yelled so loud that I’ve seen stars and have a hoarse voice. Some nights they go to bed crying, but most times they are either pissed off at me or each other.
I’ve thought about taking a moment to myself and sitting in the garage like I did when they were babies and wouldn’t stop crying. Only now, they will come hunt me down, sniffing out my need to be alone like a coyote tracks his prey.
The nightly routine has become torture. This torture is compounded by the fact that I’m still not completely settled in the new house. There’s still shit that has no place it belongs. There’s still a clean-up routine that hasn’t been established. Nothing is right and I don’t have the energy to make things right after dealing with fight nation every single night.
The only solution I can come up with is for EN to switch his shift to midnights, because there is no room on day shift. That means I’ll have him do deal with too, and his inability to sleep during the day and his infringing on our routine that’s been exclusive to us for all these years… I can’t decide if his presence will make things better or worse. But if things are worse with him home, I’d be legally able to grab my car keys and leave the three of them home to fight with each other without me. That’s a good thing…
xoxo
Ice Princess
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