frozen monkeys
The Bee woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. (Though lately, as landisdad pointed out to me recently via text message, every side of the bed is the wrong side for her. I’m hoping it’ll pass when she turns 13. Naive, I know.)
She came into my room where I was lying in bed reading, and started yelling at me about something that really didn’t have anything to do with me. I yelled back for a while, and then I took away a certain electronic device that she had been holding and threatening to hit me with.
I honestly don’t know if she will ever stop being angry. She’s been angry since birth, and since her father and I separated, the anger has been spilling out all over the place.
I have to remind myself sometimes that it’s not about me–it’s about her. I mean, there is some part of it that is about me–I’m not trying to delegitimize her anger. But at the end of the day, her anger management issues are a deeply ingrained part of her, and they get better and worse.
The only way I got her off it, this morning, was by being goofy. Apparently, the phrase “monkeys eat frozen peas” and variations of same (frozen monkeys eat peas) is just too weird, when repeated over and over again by your mother, to stay mad.
It’s funny how there are
new fads at camp every year. For the past few years, the game of Foursquare (not the mobile check-in app) was a daily camp obsession. Every night, I would hear endless stories of the day’s victories & minor defeats.
This year, though, Foursquare has become passé. The new daily report I get is on the game of Mafia, which has the Potato enthralled. He tells me elaborate stories, every day, about who he aligned with and defeated.
The Bee, as one of the oldest campers, seems to be above the fray of that one. But she’s become addicted to weaving friendship bracelets, like this one that she made for me. Yesterday, she cut her own “loom” out of cardboard, ransacked my yarn drawer, and spent the ride to camp making a bracelet.
hot
We’re experiencing a major heatwave here at Chez Landismom. I live in a four-story brick apartment building that is over a hundred years old. It kind of retains heat. In addition to that, the wiring is…questionable.
Last year, I just had a portable air conditioner in my room, and the kids and I all slept in one room on the hottest nights. If I forgot to turn it off before I made coffee, or one of the kids made toast, it would kill the power for three rooms in my apartment. A week ago, the portable died, and a guy came to fix it, failed, and took it away. Hoping to get it back Monday.
At this point, I have a window unit in my room. The Bee now has an AC in her room (thanks, new love!)…and so far, the electrical grid has held up.
The Potato will sleep in my room until the portable comes back, and then we’ll experiment with moving the window unit into his room. If the power holds, I’ll be a happier mama.
I feel a little bit like Mr. Scott from the old Star Trek. “She canna take it, Cap’n! I need more power!”
