Streaming

Posting for the sake of posting seems silly. I mean, who cares if I miss a day here or there if there’s actually nothing to say?

Last night was tough. Alyssa seems to have entered a belligerent stage. She’s fine at school, where routines and rules keep her well in hand but at home? Life is kind of hard.

I pick the girls up at my mom’s each evening. I get there at 5:00 and by 5:30, I’m ready to go. Last night, Alyssa sat down at 5:29 to start her homework. Seriously? I asked her. She looked at me like I was being unreasonable for being annoyed that she’d done such a thing. Then, she continued with the damned homework, as if nothing I said meant a thing.

Once we got home, she spent some time with Orville, which is good. He needs and deserves attention.

But then dinner was a disaster. She’s the queen of dilly dallying. It takes her for freaking ever to eat a meal. I finally got up and went about cleaning the kitchen because sitting there watching her was pissing me off.

This morning was more of the same. She took forever eating her breakfast and then complained when everyone left the room. I told her if she’d just eat her damned food, she wouldn’t be the last one eating and be left alone.

Natural consequences and all that, right? She often thinks we’re just being mean to her. Which frustrated both me and Tom.

We got a letter from my step-daughter last week. In it, she went on and on about how much she hated the place she was staying, how badly she wanted to punch some of the girls there in the face, how the people in charge would let her do anything. She sounded like a petulant fifteen year old. J will be 25 in March.

I don’t want Alyssa to grow up thinking the world owes her. I don’t want her to grow up believing that good things should be handed to her just because she is. I want her to know that hard work and determination can get her far but that she has to work for the things she wants. I want her to know that the decisions she makes and the actions she takes have consequences.

I’m not saying that I think bad parenting made J the way she is. No. But I do think that we have some say in who are kids are and who they will become. And nine is definitely not too early to start learning some of these lessons.

So if an older, wiser Alyssa ever reads this, I want her to know that I love her with everything I have and her dad and I are doing the things we do in an effort to prepare her for the real world, the world that doesn’t care if she’s the sweetest girl in the world, it doesn’t care if she wanted to watch Fetch instead of practicing her multiplication tables, it doesn’t care if she wanted something from the store. If she works hard and earns privileges this world can be a kind place. If not, the world can be cruel and hard and sad. Just ask J.

I know that it’s hard to be a kid but it’s even harder to be an adult who feels they’re entitled to the good life without wanting/being willing to do the work to get to that life.