Mrs. Smith

This little girl grew up like you wouldn’t believe this year. I love it.

And I even figured out our nemesis. You see, she used to absolutely drive me up the wall. Some kids have a knack, you know, for doing that to their parents. Oh, man.
For her sake and mine I’ve been trying to view her strong characteristics as just that – strengths. It helps. She’s not stubborn, she’s just persistent. She knows what she wants, which is great. Half the time I don’t really know what I want and it causes problems.

But I digress. Our nemesis. The A#1 cause of contention betwixt me and her. The source of the attitude and behaviors that are so difficult for me to handle.
One word:
Media.

We *thought* our projector was broken, so I went two full weeks *thinking* they couldn’t watch movies. (We’ve been a no-cable-family from day one. I want control over what comes through and there are enough time-wasters on the internet that, really, we haven’t missed it.)

So. Two weeks, no movies, and two things happened.
1) My house became a huge distaster-zone of creativity. Oh my messyness.
2) Cinderella magically transformed into a spontaneously helpful, 90% obedient, sweet, cheerful, angel of a child. A joy to be around. A “I don’t know what I’d do without you Sweetie” kind of kid. Smiles like this all the time.

So good, in fact, that I went ahead and let them indulge in movies again this week, following the discovery that, no, the projector wasn’t really broken.
Whoops. Bad idea.

We’re on detox now. It makes for VERY long, hard days learning to not use movies when they (and I) need a break. I have faith, though, that another few days from now we’ll get that little angel back.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll figure out how to let them be creative without also letting them totally trash the place.

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