I acquired two new readers this week. Welcome Aishy and Decemberrose. I'm delighted to meet you. I've checked out your diaries, too. Miranda, I wish you good luck in your impending move to Augusta and in your efforts in TTC.

Today was Parenting Hell day. Joey was in some kinda strange mood all freaking day and it drove me crazy. She was upset because she remembered that a year ago, I promised to get her a fuzzy keychain when she pulled a certain tooth but didn't follow through. It took so long for that tooth to come out that I just forgot about it. So now, a year later, she brings it up and she's a freak about it. She's been so gimmegimme lately and I can't stand it. I don't understand it either because she's not an overly indulged child. She has plenty of toys but not an overabundance of them. She had to save money to buy her own Gameboy, for example. Anyway, for the past few months she's been on some kind of rampage demanding new things or begging for new things or crying about not getting new things, even after getting new things in her Easter basket. Arrrgh! So I tell her that I will keep my end of the deal and get her damn keychain (but I didn't swear at her) but she had to know that this is the end of all "getting" for a very long time. No new stuff. Nothing. Nada. No freaking new stuff.

So she calms down (after crying for 2 hours in the car about the keychain and various other things) and becomes her delightful self and even makes a cute belated anniversary card for Ed and me. When it's bed time, she chooses a very long book and I tell her that I can only read half of it. I get to the halfway point and she insists that I read the whole thing. I give her an option--I'll finish the book but she'll have to be alone to fall asleep. She hates that idea but hates missing the book more. She just gets worse and worse and begins to really decompensate. She loses 3 days of TV privileges. She keeps it up and loses 3 days of playing with a new toy that she bought herself with her allowance.

I couldn't stand it so Ed took over. He's too much of a softie, though and after she kept freaking out, he finally read the rest of the damn book to her. Arrrgh! I'm so irritated with her and I can't seem to get rid of the irritation. I mean, I'm not holding a grudge toward her I just can't get over being angry with her. I just want to smack her even though it goes against all my parenting ideals.

Maybe I need some anger management training. Maybe she does, too. I think I need to mention this with her therapist. I don't know whether this is related to her anxiety disorder or not but it sure is pissing me off. Fortunately these episodes are usually infrequent but this is the second one in just over a week and I'm sick of it. Last Sunday she lost her TV privileges for a week though we gave her the chance to earn back her TV privileges for Saturday viewing.

I need to go look at her while she's sleeping so I can release some of this anger I feel. Right now I'm still gritting my teeth feeling extremely pissed off. (Having PMS doesn't help much--my patience is never long but when I have PMS, it's Exceedingly Short.)

I also need to go to bed so I don't oversleep tomorrow.

I feel like I'm falling apart right now. Welcome to Lobotomy Land. I'm about ready to sign up for a lobotomy right now. Maybe that will help with anger management. You think?

Hopefully I'll be in a better mood later...

--L