As I was finishing up my blog for yesterday and getting it ready for publishing (which was also supposed to happen yesterday), we had an incident. An incident that impeded my ability to finish the blog, or even think too clearly. If you been following my blog, you are probably familiar with some of the issues we have with our daughter. If you haven’t (or want a refresher) you can get the details in the posts I Want to Go on a Diet and Welcome to ‘Even When It’s Hard’.
And as you may have deduced at this point, she was the incident.
I’ll give you a little ground work for the afternoon. Less than 24 hours before, our 10-month-old puppy had very serious surgery that required 3 different 4-6 inch incisions, cutting through lots of muscle, cutting through 3 different places in her pelvis, and basically reshaping her hip. So, you know, kinda serious…
Anyway, we were (and still are) in convalescent mode which has #1 been way more time-consuming and difficult and scary that I expected, #2 shown me I would never have been able to cut it as a nurse, and #3 made me grateful for my nurse practitioner husband (even though he thinks I’m backseat nursing). And, wouldn’t you know it, my daughter decides yesterday is the afternoon to blow everything to hell, again.
As I was thinking about it after it all settled down and was stressing about whether or not I should push to get the blog done or let it go, I remembered last week’s blog from my very own fingers– Self-Care from A to Z. And since I really do try to live the way I write, I chose not to finish the blog and practice letters A, E, I, P, and Z. They were solid choices :o)
I also went back and looked at my older blogs featuring my daughter. Things are still hard, in some different ways, but still really hard. My first instinct was to feel super discouraged that life just is what it is with no guarantees. But with a little more thought, I was surprised to see that I’ve actually made some mom-ing progress. Nothing is perfect, but we’ve made it through another year, right? Not too shabby. So I decided to re-share the blog from October 2015 with this prologue.
The down and dirty of yesterday’s incident was that she ran away because she did not want to do her keyboarding homework. I kid you not. I didn’t get up to go after her because I wouldn’t have been able to catch her anyway, she usually comes home after cooling down, and I couldn’t leave the dog (who couldn’t walk and tried to go after me everytime I moved).
Unfortunately, things didn’t go the way they have recently. She was gone for almost 2 hours in the snow and heading into the dark. She walked almost 2 miles to an old friend’s house (which I didn’t know and which is a place she isn’t really welcome because, well, she’s hard) and I was getting ready to call the police when she finally called. Needless to say, I was freaked out and scared and furious.
The thing that really freaked me out was how I had zero control over her or the situation. She literally, all afternoon and after her return, would not do ONE SINGLE THING I asked her to. Not one. And I was even in a good mood and calm and nice!!! And there still wasn’t a damn thing I could do to help pull her out of her mood. I think there is going to be more of this in the future and it terrifies me…
But I will say this, there wasn’t any screaming this time. She never grabbed at me or tried to hurt me. And she didn’t go out her window and jump the deck and I didn’t run barefoot after her stepping in dog poop and still not even coming close to catching her. And I didn’t completely lose it for and require several days to pull out of it fully. Those times still happen, but not as often.
This time I did better. Not perfect. But better. And better is still progress :o)
Oh!!! Here’s the link to the blog where I have to chase her through dog poop… Welcome to ‘Even When It’s Hard’ — in case you haven’t read it or didn’t click on it earlier…
