Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Bring it

This has been a tough week. After shopping for new clothes on Sunday, Ashley had a major melt down. The rest of week has been a cycle of test and consequence, test and consequence. She has this habit of whispering disrespectful comments under her breath and this week we have been working on breaking that habit. The thing is that even though it has been a hard week, it finally is starting to feel like we are real parents and this is our real kid. It helps that the "real" problems we are having are mostly regular seven year old problems. This week we have dealt with "I don't want to do homework" and "Where is my????? I know I put it back where did you put it?" We have also encountered some specific foster kid things.

Ashley is good at dropping information about her biological family that is shocking and upsetting, but at the same time they are her reality and we have to honestly listen to her without making her feel bad. Too be honest, motherhood is currently my sanctuary. I am not getting into the teaching groove, and I have no patience. I know that this is because I am now spending my home time managing another child, but I do not want to put up with your crap, and I recognize that this some point I will get the hang of it, but I don't want to waste my time grading your half done crappy assignment.

I take the time to plan lessons designed to teach you something. I respect you enough not to waste your time by assigning busy work, please respect mine enough to not hand me an unreadable assignment  that has been crumpled at the bottom of your backpack for the last week. I don't think I am a particularly tough teacher, but I feel like the past week has been full of me having the same conversation about responsibility over and over again.

On a random tangent, I am much stricter parent than I ever thought I would be. I always imagined myself as a more "whatever" kind of Mom.  I may be more strict than my own mother (of course, I was her last and she was pretty tired by the time I came along). Forays into public have demonstrated that I definitely bring the Linda Lomas tone to the table. My mother did laugh at me when I explained to Ashley that we were not rich and would not be buying all the clothes that she wanted, my Mom cited deja vu. This morning, when I spoke to Ashley about the tone of voice that she was talking to me in, I swear my mother possessed my body and began to speak through me. I turned out to be a functioning human being so being like my Mom is not the worst parenting decision I can make.

 I am struggling to keep up with my devotions. I usually do them in the morning and I have been choosing sleep over devotion time. This has been affecting my attitude in general. Overall, we are good and moving towards some big things. Is everyone as tire as I am? I would kill for a manicure/best friend afternoon.....

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