Crab, Crab, Whine, Whine...

Crab, Crab, Whine, Whine, that's the sound of the kids screamin' in the house (to the tune of that's the sound of the men workin' on the train). What a day it has been with the kids today and I am so proud of myself...I didn't even yell once.

The kids got up bright and early this morning, Baby T wasn't even up 15 minutes before she got put back to bed because she couldn't stop her crying. Little E was in time out right off the bat too as she refuses to listen and follow directions. Josiah has been squeeling and crying over everything. I knew it was that they were overtired from us being gone over the weekend. I got Baby T up to go to the store really quick as we were out of garbage bags and she only had one pull-up left and we needed milk and juice. Little E starts throwing a fit about having to get her shoes on to go to the store. I pick her and her shoes up and deposit her in the van and she starts SCREAMING! Baby T in turn starts crying very loudly and Josiah starts crying (sympathy cries??). I pull out of the driveway and Josiah is asleep. Yup, that's what I thought. We drive the 2 minutes to Wal-mart and get out and I grab the stuff we need and we run it home. I told the kids I was going to run the groceries in, grab the papers that I needed for Baby T's appt and then we were going to take Baby T to the doctor. The whole way to the doctor's appt Baby T is SCREAMING because she wants to tell me how and where to go when I'm driving. I get to the doctor's office and the door is locked. They don't open til 10 and her appt was at 10. They start fussing again and Josiah will not quit messing with the door. They finally open the door and call us back and Josiah gets mad about something and then gets mad when I go to pick him up and he flings his shoes off his feet. Baby T is screaming because I let go of her hand and Little E is yelling "I don't WANT to go back there...I'm not done playing out here." I finally get them back there and they need to weigh Baby T and she literally starts screaming and jumping up and down over having to stand on the scale. At this point, I considered ripping out my hair. I stood her on the scale and they got her weight and we get our room. She starts SCREAMING because we're going in a room. The other kids start playing. Little E decides all the toys are hers and she doesn't want to share and she's acting up because she's refusing to share and I'm making her do it. Finally, I get her to come sit on the chair next to me and I had Baby T on my lap. Deidra is playing with Josiah and they are stacking the stacking rings up high. Little E sticks her foot out ever so slyly and proceeds to knock it over just to be mean. Josiah starts crying and hollering. So, I sit Baby T down in the chair and have Little E come sit on my lap and she starts screaming at the top of her lungs "you're hurting me, you're making my leg bleed." Now for the record...she was sitting on my lap, I wasn't forcing her to sit there or anything and she made me put my arms loosely around her so she'd feel more secure...she waasn't being forced to sit on my lap in any way...I wasn't holding her down. And her leg wasn't bleeding. At this point the doctor decided to walk in...Josiah is still hollering about his toys being knocked down, Baby T is hollering because she's no longer on my lap and I have her sitting in the chair next to me, and Little E is hollering because her leg is supposedly bleeding, which it wasn't. The doctor says to me "wow, what is going on in here...I wasn't sure I should even enter with all the noise going on in here." How embarrassing!! Baby T proceeds to throw a fit when the doctor has to look at her mouth and I had to hold her head so she'd quit moving. We both kept telling her that nobody was going to hurt her. We talked for a few minutes and she says "well, I think you're right that she's tongue-tied...she's pretty tight and her tongue won't even go to the roof of her mouth." She is referring us to an ENT to let him decide if she needs to be clipped or not. We go to leave and the kids want suckers...well, I wasn't rewarding them for acting that way so yet more temper tantrums happen out in the waiting room. I had to get Deidra to get Josiah for me so that I could pick up Baby T and get Little E's hand and get them out to the car. She has been such a big helper lately...I don't know what I'm going to do when she has to go back to school in another couple of weeks.

We come home and I feed the kids their lunch as Baby T had a speech appt coming up and then all the littles had occupational therapy. Baby T refuses to eat and sits and cries and cries until I put her up in her room to calm down. Little E and Josiah ate just fine but then they wanted other stuff and they didn't want to listen when I said no and all I kept hearing was "but, we like it." Well, just because we like something doesn't mean that we're always going to get it right when we want it. Little E starts acting up and she gets a time out and no sooner is she up in her room, she's back out "I'm ready to listen." I told her that I would let her know when it was time for her to come out and that she needed to go back in her room. I get Josiah napping on the couch and I let Little E out finally (it took a few times before she'd actually stay in her room and finish her time out wihtout trying to tell me what she was going to do). She wakes Josiah up on purpose which got her put back in her room and Josiah is crying over everything again and yelling "I'm tired." Then, they decide that it doesn't matter that they've just eaten lunch, they want a snack. They don't like "no" for an answer and more drama entails. They all got put in time out until they calmed down.

The speech therapist arrives and Baby T goes in with her. Little E keeps trying to go in there and she's making excuse after excuse to get in there. "I have to go potty." I just need to get a book." Everytime I had to redirect her out of there and the few times she refused to listen, she wound up in her room. I thought at one point she fell asleep...WRONG! Nope, she had opened her door ever so quietly and went into Deidra's room and made a MESS. So, she had to clean it up which she didn't like. Speech is done and the occupational therapist arrives. Josiah had fallen back asleep on the couch. So, we decided that Little E would go first today. Little E was so defiant for her at first and refusing to listen, that the OT took her outside to have her run around and do some jumping to see if that would help get some energy burned off so that she could focus. She still wound up in time out for not following directions and refusing what she was asking of her. Then, it was Baby T's turn...Baby T loves it when it's her turn usually...nope today she promptly threw a fit...jumping up and down in front of me and screaming her little head off. The OT wound up taking her by the hand and telling her that she needed to make good choices and that she needed to do her therapy. She eventually calmed down. The whole time Baby T is in OT, Little E is trying to push my buttons...she'd get in time out and by the time I'd come downstairs she was at the gate "I'm ready to listen, I'm coming down." It was a battle, but I kept a blank slate. She'd get out of time out and no sooner than she was back downstairs, she'd get defiant and wind up right back in time out and she'd say "are you mad at me now?" with a grin on her face. The OT says to me "she thinks getting in trouble is totally a game and it's almost like it's her goal to make everyone mad at her." I nodded as that's pretty much how it is. If I can get nose to nose with her and explain things and ask for eye contact, sometimes she takes me seriously...other times it does no good. The behavioral doctor says to keep doing what we're doing...she's acting out as she's confused and along with her ADD this is just how she is. Then, it's Josiah's turn and I had him go in and use the potty first and he decided "I don't WANT to wash my hands" and he starts kicking and screaming when I pick him up and wash his hands for him. He had pee on his hands, so I wasn't letting him off the hook. He comes out and promptly says "I don't WANT to play" and he always loves his time in OT as well. She makes him sit in time out until he can apologize for acting so ugly to me. He refused to say anything. He sat there a good 10 minutes with a total scowl on his face before he finally said "sorry." She did his therapy and she told me "I just don't know how you do it sometimes."

Therapy is done and I'm trying to make some appts and I get a call from our agency that Little E's hearing/vision screening never got documented and her file got pulled for an audit. GREAT! So, they want to know if I can get something from the doctor. And she informs me that there is a mandatory training that we have to go to as our training hours for that specific course expire this month. She informs me the training is from 9-4 this Saturday. Josiah was supposed to have his end-of-season t-ball party on Saturday from 1-4. I ask her if there's a video we can watch and she says that we physically need to be at this one. So, I have to cancel the t-ball party. UGH! So, I run up to the doctor's office, deal with cranky staff, and get what I need. Run over to the agency to have Deidra run it in for me. My case worker came out apologizing about everything. I know she's just doing her job, so I'm not really mad at her. She still feels bad about it though.

I come home to make dinner and once again Baby T starts crying. I couldn't figure out why and she won't make an attempt to tell me. So, I give her a warning...you continue to cry and you're going in your room. I count to 3 and she's still crying and I pick her up and carry to her room. I make dinner, Andy gets home, I tell him to go get Baby T so she can eat. We sit her down in her high chair and she proceeds to start crying again. I told her to eat and she wouldn't do anything. I gave her 5-10 minutes and the whole time she was crying (no tears...just crying). I gave her a warning that if she continued to cry she was going to go to bed for the night. She kept it up so we put her to bed. The minute I closed her door, she really started wailing. I just don't know what to do about all of her little temper tantrums. I have her in play therapy to see what's going on...everybody tells me I'm doing the right thing...well, why isn't it working? Why is she still throwing so many fits and crying? Even one of Deidra's friends said that everytime she comes over lately, Baby T is crying about something. I feel bad...I've tried giving her more one-on-one attention, I've tried giving her more affection, I've tried giving her time-ins, nothing seems to work. The OT has tried to use some signs with her and that only aggravates her even more and the crying worsens.

Anyway, we finally got the kids down for the night. I'm going to spend some time in prayer for my little ones, wash the blanket for our bed that the cats horked all over, and then try to relax a bit. And awww, my hubby informed me that he missed being with his family today...it feels good to be missed! I think we are finally out of our slump. YEAH! And I am proud of myself that in all the craziness of today, I didn't yell or get upset at all. I just dealt with everything the best way that I could.