Seriously?

Meron came home with a note from her teacher yesterday and, of course, I wasn't surprised. There are always indicators when her behavior is just about to teeter over the cliff, and those indicators started rearing their ugly little heads on Saturday.

Friday, the girls had a day off from school due to a dusting of snow and a little ice here in GA. This was annoying... I mean, seriously people, is it that hard to drive a little slower? I guess it is 'cause there were a gazillion accidents over this past weekend in the greater Atlanta area (at least the way the news portrays it).

Anyway, Doug and I let the girls play outside for a little while that morning and all went fairly well. Meron came in a little earlier than Leigh because she got cold and took a bath. The rest of the day, she was content to spend her time drawing, watching TV, and doing whatever it is that she does in her room that involves her speaking very loudly to herself.

BTW, Doug and I have determined that Meron possesses no inner monologue... Also, we have trying to figure out why she speaks more loudly to herself than to others. Is it because she knows she does not listen well... I digress...

Saturday, Meron woke up in a mood. She was the first to get up that morning (besides Ben & I), and decided to complain about every breakfast suggestion that I gave. She was actually quite perturbed that I was not going to wake up Doug & Leigh so that we could all go to Waffle House so that she could have steak (waffle house steak, yuck!). I, of course, had to bring her back to reality of that is only for special occasions. This sent her into a tirade of her questioning why we are not wealthy (actually she insists on using the word rich, which I do not like, which makes her insist even more in using it... I have issues with certain words and their use in the American vernacular: hate, gosh, rich, kidding... there are others; these are just my least favorites. I may do a post one day on this).

The rest of that day she sulked. There was no particularly bad behavior, just a substantial amount of attitude and pouting.

Sunday, she was a different kid completely. She woke up bouncing off of the walls, huge smiles, and a happy attitude. That's when I began bracing myself. The super-hyper, happy Meron is the Meron that get herself into amazing amounts of trouble. It's sad... we want her to be happy, we want her to be excited, but somehow with Meron that always means she is going to break and destroy things and burst our ear drums every time she speaks. The sulky Meron just pouts and barely mumbles, but has no real behavior issues. Some days I question which is better and wonder why can't there be an in-between. I also question whether or not this is the beginnings of some type of bi-polar disorder...

Anyway, the rest of the day Meron had so little self control that it was overwhelming. She would ask to watch television, I would allow her, and within minutes she would be spinning and jumping around the room, almost kicking or hitting Ben & I. Then she would ask to use the computer, but would have it locked up within a minute or two because she insists on pretending she's typing and bangs away on the keyboard (I have to give her a little credit on this because if I'm not paying close attention, it actually sounds like Doug is furiously typing an email or something.) She would then attempt to get Leigh to play with her, but Leigh would get so frustrated with Meron's behavior and inability to control her hands that it would only last a couple of minutes. Finally, she was sent to her room (it was way too cold & windy for her to be outside) to expend a little energy. The hope was that she would play with her karaoke machine and dance around her room, but no... she began by repeatedly jumping off the sofa in her room making it sound like our house was about to be demolished; once admonished for that she proceeded to climb her dresser and knock down everything from the top her closet for which she got a time out.

It was around this time that Leigh asked to watch television in her room. I had never wanted my children to have a tv in their rooms, but with the playroom becoming Leigh's room last spring, Doug and I decided to let that tv stay with heavy restrictions. Leigh must ask permission before turning on the tv, and once the tv is on she as to allow Meron in the room to watch as well. So, as soon as Meron was finished with her time out, she asked to watch tv with Leigh. I said yes, but knew from Meron's behaviors that it would not turn out well. I gave it a couple of minutes and then followed the girls upstairs to do laundry (one-handed, I might add, due to a certain fussy boy; in fact most things I do are now performed one-handed... such as this post). The laundry room is just next to Leigh's room, and I knew when I got there that there were already issues with the girls. I started to do laundry, attempting to allow them to work it out. Within minutes, Meron was bouncing on Leigh's bed and throwing things and Leigh was yelling at her to stop. I was just about to go intervene, when something hit Leigh. I don't know if it was some portion of Meron's body, or something she threw. I heard Leigh growl and lunge (it was impressively primal sounding). I immediately went in the room and found Leigh on top of Meron on the bed about to clobber her. Leigh climbed off of Meron, and dropped her head down in guilt. Meron stood up on the bed, and gave Leigh a smirk... I'm fairly certain the smirk meant "You're in trouble." I was finally fed up, and Meron was sent to bed. I gave Leigh the lecture about instead of losing her temper she should just come and get me and I felt guilty about not getting in there more quickly. It wasn't long after this that Leigh put herself to bed early complaining of a stomach ache.

(Just had to take a break, because a little happy guy was giving me huge smiles. It is hard to blog with such a handsome distraction:)

The next morning Leigh was still not feeling well and had to stay home. Doug was sleeping because he had been up with Been until about 3 am. I had just gotten Ben to sleep (in his crib, yay!) when it was time to wake Meron up. As soon as I woke her up, she yelled at me that she was not going to school that she would rather be poor and uneducated than follow the rules at school. I wish I could remember what she said verbatim. It was shocking. I tried to make a joke out of it and informed her that it was just plain silly and how in the world was she going to afford all of those diamonds that I don't want her to have if she is poor (I despise diamonds; it stems from a good friend from South Africa's life... I may blog about it one day). My response cheered her up, and she went into happy/manic Meron. She was so loud... so LOUD. Seriously, sitting at the kitchen table with her at breakfast she actually hurt my ears while she was trying to tell me about London Tipton's wealth (her obsession with wealth is driving me mad, I might add.) She woke Ben up (his room is upstairs and his door was closed), so I spent the rest of the time until taking her to school one-handed. It was crazy cold out yesterday morning, so I had to wake Doug up to take care of Ben while I took her to school. On the way to school (2 miles) she was fairly calm and quiet, so I had a little hope that she had gotten it out of her system.

Still, when she came home with the note saying that she had not listened all day, and interrupted class with loud (the teacher wrote that in all caps and underlined it) nonsense noises, also, all day... I was not shocked, just disappointed.

I'm off to wake the girls for school... it should be interesting...