Parental Frustrations

I believe my daughter may be hatching a plan to do me in.

Peanut has been doing this thing lately where she’s pushing her limits to see if she what she can get away with, even if previously it’s landed her in time out.  Things may have changed, you know.

It’s been going of for the last month or so and I thought it had, perhaps, climaxed with the hair-cutting.  Well, that may still be the climax but Peanut showed me today she isn’t finished pushing yet.

It snowed all last night so this morning, before I could go grocery shopping I had to shovel.  Peanut and Wingnut played in the snow while I shoveled but when, after several warnings, Peanut threw yet another snowball at Wingnut, always in the face I might add, she was unceremoniously sent inside.  She then stood at the screen door and wailed while Wingnut tromped around and I finished shoveling.

After going inside and having lunch we prepared to go grocery shopping.  Finally.  I changed Wingnut’s diaper and got him dressed.  When I turned to leaved my room I caught sight of Peanut’s name and self portrait.  On my wall.  In black Sharpie marker.  I called for her to come to my room, which she did, and asked what she had done, pointing to the name and drawing.  She sheepishly told me she’d written her name.  I asked if we are allowed to draw on the walls.  She knew the answer was no because we’ve been down this road before with pencil, pen, and poop.  I asked if she’d drawn anyplace else.  Yes, of course, she had.  Around the corner on the door frame of my closet was, again, her name, this time written from top to bottom, followed by her age written “1, 2, 3, 4″ because she never writes just “4.”  And, again, there was another self-portrait, this time with what I initially thought was a flower but after closer inspection I saw it had eyes and a mouth so think it may actually be Wingnut.  I’m not sure how she got her hands on a Sharpie since I’m very careful to keep them up high on a shelf, but somehow she managed it.  With two Magic Erasers and most of a bottle of hair spray I was able to scrub it off without doing too much damage to the wall.

I considered making Peanut help with the cleaning but I was too angry and thought it would probably be best to send her away from my presence before I completely flew off the handle.  This was wise because while I tackled the drawing by the closet I discovered my new bottle of peppermint foot lotion in the closet.  Peanut loves hiding in the long skirts and dresses in my closet and apparently she’d known she needed to hide while she played with my lotion.  She also took a very sharp, very expensive cuticle pusher and remover from my night stand and used it as a stirrer for the lotion.  We’ve had countless discussions about not touching things that don’t belong to us and to see evidence of her getting into yet another couple of things that don’t belong to her only served to make me more angry.

While I was downstairs putting everything away Wingnut wandered into Peanut’s room and she hit him on the head with a toy.

Peanut and Wingnut are now both having quiet/nap time while I blog and throw chocolate at myself.  I still haven’t gone grocery shopping yet and probably won’t until ODD gets home.  Somtimes I wonder if I will make it through my children’s childhood with any of my sanity still intact.