what to do on a Friday..

Friday was quite a day around here. Anya had her second 'time out', and first melt down - and I mean MELT DOWN! Tears and everything. In hind-sight it was a good thing. The tears showed us that she understood that she did something wrong, and that she was being punished for it.

Before I go into the whole thing - let me get one thing perfectly clear. Anya is a very VERY good girl. We've heard all kinds of stories about kids, and the challenges they have had in the first days. She is polite (as polite as you can be when you've never been taught manners), understands rules, goes to bed without any trouble, takes a bath eagerly. It's all really very good.

What we're experiencing is simple a 7 year old girl who is trying to define her boundaries. She senses that I am in charge, since I seem to be the one always saying 'no'; therefore she is trying to see how far she can push me. I get that intellectually, but in the moment it isn't easy.

We have some pretty firm rules - things like no hitting, pulling hair, spitting. Also insist on things like waiting until everyone is done eating dinner before we get up and start playing, we must brush teeth in the morning, and we must pee pee before we go outside. Ya know - all mean parent stuff.

On Friday, Anya was really trying to find what buttons to push with me; it ended up in her trying to hit me and shake her fist in my face before we were going outside. That is not acceptable in our house. So, her behavior got her a 5 minute time out with firm voices from Mommy and Daddy. Anya didn't like that at all, and burst into tears. Hiding her face and everything. The shame of it all was horrible.

After the melt down, we went for a walk outside. She still wouldn't look at me and didn't want to hold my hand. She was very quiet the rest of the day.

Today (Saturday) she is fine. No boundary pushing. When I see that she is trying, I've been handing it all over to Daddy. That seems to be working out since Daddy is clearly her favorite. I've even used the 'do you want me to get Daddy' trick - and let me say, it works like a charm!

So - here are some photos of our Friday. Don't ask about this first one...let me just say that it needed to be done, and Marty was the only one around who had the skills to complete the task.


We've declared Friday night 'family night' (maybe kinda sotra borrowed it from the Jackson's...we don't have a cool family fun song yet, but we're working on it!). In the spirit of Family night, we watched a movie and ate popcorn. Anya loved the corn! The movie was Winnie Pooh (for about the millionth time).