Day 19: To the last sip.

Both kids in bed, house relatively tidy (and I do mean relatively),cup of tea steeping at my left, "The New Garden" by John Brookes at my right, laptop dead ahead. Sigh...

I find that I get pretty annoyed/frustrated/impatient with my daughter these days. The whining and crying drive me nuts. She picks on her little brother, she picks on me, she's doing really weird things. Her 'new' weird thing is to stash everything. She'll save a bite of food, she'll save garbage, she'll hide her used toilet paper. I wonder what it's all about?

When we were in Ottawa, I was cleaning her bathroom one day and found a full on stash of wadded up toilet paper behind the toilet. I left it there deciding to ask her about it later. Turns out she just couldn't flush it because it had flowers on it and was too pretty.

But now, besides the compromise of throwing her TP in the trash (which is probably better for our septic system anyways, so yay), I find things like turkey bones at the far reaches of the fridge, behind the milk jug for example, or six 1/4 Timbits in the Timbit box behind the dogfood.

This reminds me...

When I was little, like 7 or 8 I remember because my dad had moved out by then and I had a pink canopy bed, I stashed a small ball of pie dough in my bedside table. (My mom has always made pies.) I remember eating a pinch of dough every now and then because in the Bionic Woman, Jaime Sommers had an evil twin who ate some secret formula dough-like substance (reaching way back in the depths of my memory here) that gave her matching bionic powers. I think I figured I would get some sort of super power too. Hmmm...

There must be some method to her madness (there was method to mine). I only wish I had the secret formula to figure it out. Perhaps my mission for tomorrow...tame the beast. Or, atleast be more patient and understanding.

I forget sometimes that she's just 4 years old. I forget that, to a 4 year old, moving from our house in Ottawa and probably the only home she remembers, across the country to a new house, and having her dad go to work for the first time in almost a year, a year of hanging out almost entirely with her, and having me home, more tired than usual and doing it all all by myself, has probably shocked her tender little roots and she too is feeling a bit stressed out and doesn't know how to manage that. Man, I have a hard enough time managing my own stress and I've had years to practice.

Oh Mama...I say.

The last sip of tea, resolution found. The reason for this blog revealed, yet again, as I grab my New Garden and head for bed. Sated.