The new bus schedule is killing us! Honey especially has been bearing the brunt of the 30 lost minutes of sleep. She could sleep an extra half an hour on the OLD schedule! Being shortchanged an additional half hour is wreaking havoc with her moods & attitudes. Today during math homework, she had a complete meltdown over the idea that they could all have a little teaspoon of icing if they got all their questions right on the practice questions I gave them. The wails of "it's not faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaair!!!!" bounced off the walls, before she'd even begun the exercise! Finally she was full out crying, still bemoaning the unfairness, uttering her hatred of math and concluding that she'd just rather not be alive! I told her she'd better go take a break in her room and come back when she was feeling better and told her to forget about the icing. Lovey never said a word and did all her questions correctly but in the subsequent chaos, her treat got missed. Sweetie was also upset at the "unfair" deal and started fussing also. I repeated my "whiners get nothing" stance and told them to forget about any icing sample.
Eventually Honey came back and worked through the questions. She likes to be quick and often skips questions by mistake and writes her numbers backwards. Before correcting her work, I asked her to make sure she hadn't missed any or gotten any numbers reversed. She glanced at her paper for a second or two and tossed it at me. Right away I saw 2 unanswered questions and a couple backwards 3's and told her she had missed a few things and circled them for her to finish/correct. More whining and crying and back onto the Great Icing Rip Off. I warned her that if she kept it up, there'd be no icing at supper or cake either for that matter. Rather than subdue it, the nagging was cranked up a notch. "why can't I have another chance??? please can I have a taste of the icing??? why? no FAIR!" and on and on (obviously forgetting that she had blown the previous "correct answers wins the treat" deal). I remind her at this point that that deal isn't on the table anymore and now she's risking her dessert serving of Murphy's birthday cake! That halts her in her tracks momentarily and Sweetie stops completely and whips through her questions! I give Honey at least 2 more warnings on subsequent whining and sauciness.
Murray got home around this point and took over the math duties while I finished getting supper ready and then moves on to practicing her spelling words. She makes no effort to spell them properly and makes mistakes in a fairly successful effort to annoy us both and then whines when he asks her to make the corrections. After all these extra "chances", I tell her she's out of the running for the birthday cake. Then I feel bad because we're celebrating Murphy's birthday and I hate to "deprive" her!!! but I let her go when she runs screaming to her room.
Aunt Cathy arrived for supper, the table's not set, the food isn't quite ready and everybody's cranky! Welcome to our humble home, please enjoy yourself amidst our emotional chaos!!!
Once Honey had calmed down a bit, I went to talk to her. At the end of the whole drama, I had realized that the girl is just overtired. On weekends, they all sleep an extra 2-3 hours past the usual wake up for school time. They just aren't getting enough sleep through the week and it has taken its toll. I went in and talk to her and told her this and that we need to change our routines to get her body more rest. She pulled me into a hug, crying and said "my body just wants more sleep!!!!". I also told her I'd changed my mind and she could have dessert. So much for taking a stand!!!
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