All I Need Is A Little....

Tessa's last day of pre-k

So I'm trying to teach patience to Tessa. A four going on fifteen year old. Her sighs are about as heavy as a brick and her whine could cut glass. It cuts me, it tears me up and it destroys my patience along with any chance of avoiding the whole "do as I say not as I do" dilemna. I whine when I ask her to stop whining. It's awful and redundant and completely unhelpful.  She's as lost as I am these days I know.  When we finally get a chance to actually talk about how she's been feeling and why she's such a case lately she just holds on to me. In those moments I feel like crying too. She's so lost with this whole growing up thing and so am I. What in the world am I supposed to expect of a little ball of craziness but utter craziness? At the end of the day I'm often so short tempered I feel like I'm imploding. By the time Jason's home I'm the one whose got crazy eyes and the kids are exhausted from being restrained all day long. And that restrain generally consists of trips to a pond where I restrain them from drowning themselves, walks where I restrain them from running in front of cars because they have no idea of staying on the side of the road or holding my hand in a parking lot and trips to the supermarket that were it unnecessary to eat I would avoid like the freaking plague. I mean really. We are a total of three whole school days off into the summer and the thrill is long gone.

The weekend on the other hand was fabulous. We had Uncle Brett to entertain us and then Grammy and Bestefar to cling to and to finally get projects done with. Tomorrow is scary openness but in a few short days we'll be headed to Providence with all the Palmers for a week of escape and cousin face time. So I'll breathe in and out. Ten deep breaths like Tessa and I do whenever she starts to freak out because she can't pet a snarling dog. Oh my.

In other news.... I though I should take a toll of Thatcher's complete vocabulary at this time.  He says Mom (not mama, his choice not mine), Da, Teh-teh (Tessa), hi-ya! (very loudly), buh-bye (very softly), no (in variations but generally very short and cute), uh-oh! (often), oh (when he understands) and OW! (very often). He mumbles to himself and laughs a lot (I wonder who that came from?) and has some of the most incredible conversations with Tessa which go something like this: 

Thatcher: "bahbahmehmehmeh!" 

Tessa: "No hatcher! You can't ride a horse yet, you have to ride a pony! You're too small!"

Thatcher:  "NO!"

Tessa:  "YES!"

Thatcher: "NO!"

Tessa:  "Someday you can ride a big horse too. I promise."
Thatcher: "oh."
It's the best. And so life with babes goes. Two parts madness, one part joy, one part humor, served over melting time.