The First Day

My kids had an excellent day, all except Emma. I tried to find out what was so bad and all she could come up with was she had too little playground time. Too bad, so sad. Michael is 2 years older than every one in his class and is only bigger than 1 child, our neighbor. He didn't play or talk to anyone all day. Ruthie couldn't find her classroom and blamed me for only taking her there once. Patches had an excellent day and her teacher called to tell me she couldn't see a single issue. She also confessed she had been in foster care for most of her childhood. (I guess this is why she feels she has "been there done that".) Ava and Ella couldn't recall a single event from their day but said things went fine. Cyr had a good day, she said it flew by. No complaints or conversation about being late. She will get nervous about things but can't identify the feeling. She doesn't understand the sweaty palms and shaky feeling are from being nervous, she doesn't even recognize her angry or hurt feeling very well. It helped her get through the first day but we have been working hard to help her read the signs her body gives her to help her label her feelings.

Ava had a very difficult night. She is back to her many irritating ways. About the thousandth thing she did was at bed time and she was smacking the string hanging from the ceiling fan in her room. I went to put my hand in front of her to stop and she jumped into my hand as she was trying to hit the string again. It kinda smacked her face and she thought I did it on purpose. I apologized but she refused to accept it. I am struggling so hard to help her and some days I wonder if it will ever sink in. After over 2 years she still thinks I will smack her on purpose even though I never have before.

My Dh was home a bit early yesterday and after they were all in bed he asked me how I ever managed to get through a day with this child. She doesn't do hateful things, just extremely annoying things. A few example from yesterday, when asked to pick up the floor in the LR she went outside and hid. When asked to stay near me, she snuck off to the bathroom and filled the soap and shampoo up with water. She volunteered to do a chore for my DH for money with 2 other kids and then went and played until they were almost done and ran in to accept the money for it. Every time I spoke to another person she suddenly had 4 million things she had to tell me and refused to be silent. She asked if she could brush my hair and proceeded to repeatedly beat me in the head with the brush. I asked her to sit on the sofa so I could use the restroom and she went to the kitchen to aggravate Patches. I asked the kids to quit putting the dog food down for the dogs, she waited a few minutes and put both the food and water down. She was asked to dump the trash can and pushed off the trash on top to hide it behind the can and claimed it wasn't full enough. She also lied about a dozen things and stole money and toys from several kids. I am so grateful that she is no longer eating and trashing her clothes but that is about the only positive thing I can think of right now. I know I need to focus on the positive things but when someone tries so hard to make sure there aren't positive things it makes my job extremely difficult. I took her in my arms last night, like I do almost every night, and promised her nothing she did changed how I feel about her. I told her to keep trying as hard as she needs to b/c I am up for the job proving to her I am for real. I reminded her we are on the same team and together we will get her through this. I wish she believed me.