Divine intervention and the racoon

Yesterday was day number 3 of me single-momming it while Matt is at a conference in Florida. He keeps sending me texts like "We are done for the day, so I am going to go have a drink in the lazy-river pool" and "We are going to Maggiano's for dinner tonight." which is of course extremely helpful to me when I am fighting with Meredith for hour number 3 about something! I wish motherhood offered some conferences out of state in a hotel by the pool...and without the kiddos of course!

So, the beginning of day number 3 went something like this...Meredith stumbles out of her room looking hungover, as she does every morning and goes directly to the couch to sit and stare into space for 10 minutes before she can acknowledge anyone. I am feeding Cooper a bottle and make the grave mistake of turning on the tv to try to find some music or something to listen to. This sparks Meredith to BEG to watch Dinosaur Train, and leads to me getting the pleasure of watching a kids tv show while feeding the baby. I should have said no and stuck to our routine of not getting any special priveleges until the "morning chores" are done. Don't worry, I paid dearly for this mistake, and it is not one I will make again soon!

After the delightful episode ends, I say it's time to turn the TV off. Mer whines for a minute, but does it. She then asks if she can play on the computer. I say "We need to eat breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth and make our bed before we can do any other play time. And Nathan and I are going to build with the blocks, do you want to do that with us?" Meredith's response was "I can't get dressed. Whine whine whine, excuse excuse excuse..." I said "Okay, I will help you. Let's go choose an outfit. It's cold today, so we need to wear pants." And thus began the epic battle of the day...She keeps throwing up excuses for why she can't just get dressed, how nothing feels right, etc. I say Okay, I will help you then. She takes this to mean I will dress her, and not wanting to continue to fight, I say okay for today, but you won't earn your sticker for your chore chart if I have to dress you. She lays down and graciously extends a foot to me and says I can start with her sock. I put her sock on her while trying to change the subject to something positive to help her focus on something other than getting dressed. I get one sock on and she punches the bed and screams "I don't know why I have you help me at all, You never do it right. It STILL doesn't feel right. UHHH!"

At this point, I am thinking about boarding schools. Do they have boarding Kindergarten? We navigate that comment and manage to get the socks on and then she fights about the pants. She doesn't like that they touch her feet. (I am thinking and trying to keep calm, but if they don't touch your feet, they aren't PANTS. Those are called shorts. Or capris. She is just completely illogical!) Long story short, we began this battle at 8:30. At 11:15, I was praying for help keeping my cool (I have not yelled at her at all by this point, which makes me very proud.), praying that God gives me the strength to help my daughter learn to do things in a timely matter, praying that He helps guide me to a time when we could actually enjoy eachother instead of fighting every single day. And the word "Racoon" pops into my head. I remember that in my sewing kit I have an iron on patch of a racoon holding some berries that I have moved with me from state to state and had since I was a Junior in high school and I got it to put on my back pack. (Clearly I have been a lifelong procrastinator, because that was 14 years ago!) I get the patch, ask Mer if she wants to help me choose a spot on her jeans for a racoon patch, we choose a spot and the patch (and pants) are on and everyone is happy by 11:30. It only took 3 hours! (We weren't talking about clothes the whole time, there was some cleaning, some pushing her brother, some time of Meredith just following me around the house saying inane things to try to get me to yell at her.)

I truly feel that that silly racoon patch must have been part of God's plan all along in my life, and that I am clearly right where I should be in my life. He must have some big plan that I don't know about, because I am sure that although this fight is just one among MANY that occur in our house these days, He was letting me know that I have support when facing the challenge that is my daughter.

2 other quick thoughts about yesterday...After she was dressed, Mer came up and hugged me and said "Mom, did you know I am smart? Just like a Troodon. They had the biggest brains and were the smartest dinosaurs." At least Dinosaur Train is teaching her something! And after school yesterday, Meredith was right back to being contentious, she informed me that she was NOT going to turn her music down, and I would just have to deal with it. And as she said that, the Serenity Prayer began to play in my head again.