Let me tell you something about Abby. She is 6 going on 16. Sweeter than words can describe, yet is it possible that she is hormonal? She is stubborn, she is fickle, she is hilarious, she is thoughtful, she is goofy, she is serious, she is laughter, she is, well …. she is moody, let’s say.
Lately she has been prone to some pretty unpleasant episodes of anger. I’ve noticed that it generally seems to happen when things don’t go her way, or don’t go the way she is expecting them to. I get that, but her reactions are out of control sometimes and it is a lot to handle.
So, last night before I went to bed I wrote her a note and placed it on her nightstand. She is an avid reader and loves when I write her letters, so my hope was that this would start her day off on a happy note, and help set the expectations for the day ahead. This is what the note said:
Abby came into my room early this morning, so excited about the note I left for her. She LOVES lists (like mother, like daughter … what can I say?) and was thrilled I had made one for us. She asked if we had to do it all in this specific order to which I replied no, of course not – we could mix things up or even do different things, these were just some of my ideas.
She loved it and was in a wonderful mood! For about 30 minutes.
Until I ruined her breakfast by not cutting ALL of the crust off her toast. Let me explain – I did cut off the crust but there was a smidgen still left on the edge of the bread in one little part and this little detail was unacceptable to her. So she went from being pleasant adorable Abby to monster child in three seconds flat over crust on her toast.
God help me.
I survived it though and held my ground. She eventually realized that I was not going to “fix” her toast nor was I going to make her a different breakfast and she ate her food. And then was happy.
The next step was the gym and my goodness, was I happy to get there. I ran 8 miles easy on the treadmill. It was just what I needed.
The rest of the day has gone well – we have actually done all the things on our list and everyone is happy at the moment! Tonight we celebrate the 4th night of Hanukkah and my sister and her family are coming over to help us make pierogis for tomorrow night’s Christmas Eve dinner. I haven’t talked about this on my blog yet, but my husband Robert is Jewish and I was raised Catholic so you can imagine, December is an extra busy month of celebration and gratitude for our family! I love all the traditions and am so thankful for the miracles God has blessed us with in this life.
Tomorrow will be my longest run so far this training cycle — 16 miles. I am really looking forward to it!
