Proud

Conversations about Monday morning continued yesterday, including one initiated by Hubster, which is always super difficult for her.  She can't stand the thought of her daddy being upset with her.  She worries every time she makes bad choices that this will be the last straw for him.  She listened and participated in the conversations appropriately. 

BFF's mom confirmed that she did indeed apologize to her for lying and bringing her into the drama of Monday morning.  Princess went around to the driver's side window when she was dropping the girls off at school yesterday and said, "I'm sorry for all of the confusion I caused yesterday.  Thank you for taking me to school."   I know that was really hard for her.

Princess's world cultures class is having Olympics this week as part of their studies on ancient Greece.  She signed up to participate in the long jump and javelin.  She's very self-conscious, so this is a big deal for her. 

Of course, we discovered this morning that none of her sneakers fit so we had to run to Walmart (the only store open) for shoes before school.  This was the first time I brought her to school since BFF's mom started driving her.  She kissed me goodbye and got out the car cheerfully. 

I actually tried to buy her shoes at Target yesterday, but her shame got in the way.  She said, "No, no.  I don't want you to spend money on me.  I'll just wear the shoes I already have.  It's fine."   She usually wears sandals to school. 

Her anxiety was high yesterday.  She was very hyper trying to figure out how to reconcile what happened still.  I was pushing her to talk about it in the car.  After politely telling me she didn't want to talk anymore several times, she screamed it at me.  We were just pulling into the library.  I stopped the car and said, "It's not okay to scream at me.  Get out." 

I was actually surprised that she did.  I parked.  She walked over (it was a bit of a distance and took her a few minutes, but she was in my line of vision the whole time) and apologized for yelling at me.  Then she said, "I just didn't want to talk about it anymore and you've always told me no one can make me talk about things if I don't want to." 

Oh, yeah.  I do tell her that.  I apologized for pressing it and thanked her for apologizing to me.  I reassured her that I would never, ever make her get out of the car on the side of the road or in a strange place and that I would never, ever drive off without her.

I discovered after dinner that an article I thought I submitted didn't go through.  And I didn't save it.  I fell apart.  I was about to go clean the kitchen, which was a disaster from organization projects I started and rotted food I pulled out of the fridge was all over the counter.  Hubster offered to take over the kitchen for me and Princess rushed to help him - totally on her own.  She even organized the pantry, which I wasn't even planning on doing.

The article was a short one that only took me ten minutes to rewrite, but I got so upset that I was physically ill the rest of the night.  With the chaos the day before, it was simply the straw that broke the camel's back.

I told Princess at bedtime that the girl who rushed to hug her stressed out mom and then made the kitchen all shiny and new is who she is.  She's kind, caring and thoughtful.  The girl who was screaming, hitting and scheming Monday morning isn't her.  That's just a little splinter left from a time before she knew she was safe and how to access better tools. 

I am so proud of my girl.  We're all still feeling the aftershocks of Monday, but I think it has the potential to be one of those "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" events.