what i waste my energy doing

The Girl has been a pain in the arse over recent months…well, perhaps over the past year.  When people ask “What has she done wrong?”, I am often at a loss to explain.

However, as she seems to be absolutely oblivious to what she does wrong, I came up tonight with the idea of spending a week recording her behaviour for her to read back when she’s in a better mood, so that she can see exactly what she does.

Before anyone says it, I KNOW that she’s (probably) just acting liek a teenager, but I can hand on heart say this is NOT how *I* used to act as a teenager – and she’s 12, not even a teenager yet!

Anyway, she was out at drama club tonight, which she loves, and didn’t get home til about 7.40 – she came straight in to have dinner, so this list is from 8pm when she finished dinner til 10pm when she was meant to have been in bed for half an hour.

• Pulled all clothes out of wardrobe and left them on the floor whilst changing
• Argued and complained about having a shower
• Pretended to shower whilst not actually getting in it
• Spent over 50 minutes in the bathroom once in the shower
• Complained about having to tidy room
• Read a book after being told to tidy room
• Read another book when first book was taken away whilst still not tidying room
• Pretended to brush teeth and shouted about not being believed, until it was pointed out that her toothbrush was still bone dry
• Slammed bathroom door twice and bedroom door once
• Claimed that room wasn’t tidy as thought had only been asked to ‘put away clothes’ so left everything else on the floor
• Put stereo on and played with toys when meant to be asleep
• Had juice on the side and cup & spoon (?) in bed (!) after being told not to take drinks into bedroom (as they usually end up on the carpet)
• Answered back about all of the above, rolled eyes a lot, stomped and done a lot of shouting and flouncing

Yes. So, that has been my evening.  Well, two hours of my evening, and to be honest that is just run of the mill at the moment.

So, if anyone local would like a 12 year old girl (I’d like to see her at least a few times a week for a short while), then let me know and we’ll work something out!  Don’t be fooled by the fact that she is polite, gentle, funny, well-mannered and incredibly thoughtful as soon as there is someone else around…

all is calm

Only slight surface ripples...

Considering the last entry I made about The Girl, the transformation of the past couple of weeks has been absolutely amazing.

I even got home tonight to a chirpy little “I’ve hoovered the lounge for you, mum!”

I have absolutely no idea what has changed – I’m not sure if it’s just hormones, or whether it’s the fact that during half term, we had an absolutely huge row where she was being completely impossible, and I threatened to send her to a children’s home.

No, I’m not proud of it.  No, I wasn’t even joking at the time.  No, I don’t think I’m the only parent to have come out with something so shitty to their own child.

It had a very immediate effect though.  Nothing else for weeks had been getting through to her, and I was literally at the end of my tether – I was totally flabberghasted by her behaviour and attitude.  I’d tried calm, I’d tried ignoring, I’d tried shouting, I’d tried everything.

That one sentence finally broke her though – she finally cried and seemed bothered by it – and that gave me a chance to explain to her how she was making me feel.  She told me she didn’t want to live with anyone else, and that she loved me so much.

And that, as they say, has been that.  Life has settled down.  All has been good.  All has been calm.  Rooms have been kept tidy, homework has been done, clothes have been hung up.  Pocket money has been earned.

And on Monday night, I had an absolutely amazing night’s sleep.  Me!!  Ms Insomnia extraordinaire!!!  Just the second night of decent sleep since July.  And unlike last time, I felt wonderful when I woke up Tuesday morning!  Last night was back to normal though, and I spent all day today feeling like crap 😀

But hey – life is GOOD!!!  I have my daughter back (for now), we aren’t on the poverty line, I’ve got great friends – old and new,  I’m loved beyond belief AND I got tickets to see Pulp at Wireless in July!  Hurrah!!

give me my daughter back!

Mood swings - an absolute joy!

I have apparently lost my “How to cope when your previously lovely daughter turns into a tweenage nightmare” Manual.

The past couple of weeks have been sheer hell for all three of us.  My sweet little darling has turned into a lying, argumentative little bint with a huge mouth, and even huger attitude.

I used to be shit-scared of my mum.  She never hit me or anything (that was my dad…) but even the thought of upsetting or disappointing her kept me in check the majority of ther time.  And I expect that fear from the Girl.  but I don’t get it at all.  She isn’t scared of me one jot.  She appears to be scared of nothing.  good for when she’s older, but not as a child – and especially not as my daughter!

The constant lying is shocking.  I can’t believe that she really thinks she can get away with all the things she lies about – that we are ever going to really believe her.

Every day is a battlefield, and I don’t know where it’s sprung from.  she’s only 11 FFS!  I think I preferred it when she didn’t have any friends, if this is the kind of influence they are.

Of course, she’s lovely at school, and lovely for everyone else, so noone would believe what a little bitch she can be.  And dealing with all this on top of insomnia is really wearing me down.

And worse of all – it’s half term next week.  I have 3 days off with her (she’s spending the rest with her grandparents) and I am dreading it!  Which isn’t right, is it?  i had a list of things that we could possibly do, and yet I don’t wantto do anything with her, as why should she get ‘treats’ for being so bloody awful!?!?

I know that it’s probably hormones – but it’s one thig knowing what it probably is and trying to allow for it, and another thing actually trying to live with it every day.

I wish she was 8 again.  8 was a good age.  I quite enjoyed 8.

bad morning

I could've done with one of those this morning!

It’s now well into the afternoon, and I have only just managed to take some painkillers to get rid of the headache that I have had since before I left home this morning.

The insomnia that I wrote about before still hasn’t abated – so my overwhelming tiredness is still dominating everything.  this was aggravated on Tuesday night by a burglar alarm going off somewhere for about 20 minutes, and then last night cos The Man obvioulsy didn’t shut the lounge door properly and the cat started miaowing outside our bedroom door at about 3am!  Bloody animal is lucky it didn’t get kicked.  I had to let her in and then put up with her purring on my head and making herself comfortable *sigh*

Anyway, I am finding it increasingly difficult to get out of bed but eventually dragged myself out and was confronted with a nowhere near ready for school girl and a shouty man.

She’d got all her stuff out for school, but was on a complete go-slow and was suddenly more worried about putting her uniform away for tomorrow than putting on what she was meant to be wearing right then!  Everything was just too much effort, and she was stroppy and stampy and just not at all like herself.

When we asked her what was wrong, why she was acting like this, it was all flounces and killer looks, so eventually The Man rushed off to work, leaving me with a sullen child, a headache forming and a real need to just crawl back into bed.  I tried the ‘softly’ tactic to make sure that she wasn’t worried about something and I still got all the attitude, so I walked off to get ready, but then she started welling up with tears (even though she swore blind that she wasn’t crying) so i asked her again why she was acting this way and she said she didn’t know.

By that time she had to rush off to go to school, so I gave her a kiss and hug, told her I loved her and she started welling up AGAIN!  So I quickly said goodbye and shut the door, as I didn’t want her to get into a bad teary state and have red eyes in front of her school friends.

I’m not sure if she even had her lanyard on, as I can’t remember seeing it.  And if she didn’t, she’ll get an hour’s detention.  😦  I feel like a terrible mother.  And i’ve been feeling like a terrible mother recently anyway.

After she went, I thought about how she was acting, and all I can come up with is that I think she might be hormonal.  It’s to be expected I guess, and she will act unreasonable, and in ways that even confuse herself.  I rang The Man and told him what I thought.

Tonight we will give her a bit more leeway I think.