Friday Ramblings

Warning:

This post is fueled by a little caffeine.

It doesn't take much.

My husband is still on the mend, but the cool part is that he takes Miss B. to school and then DELIVERS coffee to me.

I'm kinda liking this off-work order.

hey! maybe Starbucks will sponsor my blog....

Why doesn't Starbucks deilver, anyway?

Can you imagine how much money they would make?

Oh. Wait. 

If I'm home, I should just make a pot of coffee myself and they sell ground coffee to make at home.

Never mind.

I am sticking to being in my art room, getting ready for the next show,  The Red Dirt Art Fesitival.

3x3 canvas

It's a WEEK from Saturday.

Holy moly, Batman....

Brenna woke me up yesterday at 5:30 am and she actually went back to sleep, I didn't. Have mercy. I got SO. MUCH. DONE. 

Granted, I was asleep on the couch by 8:45 that night, but the day was awesome.

Thinking more is better, I set my alarm for 5:30 for this morning.

Didn't work so much. 

All I remember is jarring awake and smacking my phone. How is it my subconscious doesn't say, "GET UP!!!!" and instead, it says, "YOU ALSO SET THE ALARM for 6:00-smart move. NOW GO BACK TO SLEEP."

I notice I use a lot of capitalized letters while on caffeine. 

We have a new incentive program in our house. It's called operation Get Rid Of The Sass, or GROTS.

My eldest, who is a genius, came up with the plan.

Somehow, with all the upheaval around Dad being in the hospital, Miss B took off with the "throwing attitude around theme".  (TAAT ) I'm not surprised, but by the end of the week while Doug was in the hospital, I swear, if I had one more person report to me that my child had to apologize for her eye-rolling, huffing, muttering under her breath attitude, my head was going to pop off.

don't let this face fool you. o.k., maybe just a little.

The best story of her week goes something like this:

Mr.B, the dean of students came up to me as I dropped of Brenna one morning and said, "By the way, did Miss S. tell you my Brenna story?"

Now, first off, when someone tells me this, it usually means trouble. Second, I'm ready to lie and say, "Why, yes! Thanks for asking" and run home.

Since I'm not a good liar, I replied that, no, Miss S didn't tell me the story, and is it a good one? (I'm basically pleading by now.) Mr. B laughed rather in a subtle way, and said, "Wellllll...."

Then he proceeded to tell me the story.

Mr. C (the superintendent) found Brenna in the hallway today and when he asked Brenna where she was supposed to be, her reply was, "I don't know." Mr. C then gets Mr. B on the phone and says to Mr B, "You need to come down to the hall and find out where Brenna needs to be."

So.

Mr. B came to the hall way and had a long conversation with Brenna about how tired she was, what kind of day she was having, etc. and then asked where she was supposed to be.

"I don't know."

In a quandry, Mr. B asked Brenna to come with him so they could figure out where she should be.

Her reply was, "No."

 Mr. B then stopped his story, looked at me with a more than slightly confused face, and said,"I have never had a child tell me no to my face."

Hmmmm.

I tried in vain to think of a response:

There is always the raise-both-my-fists-in-a-winner's stance and yell out, "OH YEAH, BABY!!! THAT'S MY GIRL!!"

I could have laughed like he had just told the best joke in the world and trailed off with "Oh, ha ha ha, yeah, ha ah ah ha ha, that Brenna, she's a stitch, ha ha ha ha ha." 

Or, "Well, you know how these kids are!"

But really? I just said, "Hmmmm. Yep." 

As in, I really. really sympathize with you, because when she gets in the NO mode, well, kinda there are only a few options that you have and since you are not her mother, you don't know those options and I can CERTAINLY imagine you were completely and utterly stumped, because I know I used to be when she first began the NO mode.

Alas, all he got was confirming, hmmm, Yep.

I have to say, they worked it out beautifully and it turned out that Brenna was where she was supposed to be. Apparently, she wasn't having such a great day in her speech class and the teacher allowed her to take a break and hang out in the hall to gather herself. WHY the HECK she kept saying "I don't know" is beyond me. Maybe she was just over it. The week had been hard, Dad was not where he was supposed to be and she was stick-a-fork-in-it-done. 

The moral of the story?

 Thank God everyday for your eldest.

 Because she comes home and tells sister that if she GROTS, and does it each day, she gets a puzzle piece. At the end of the puzzle, she gets a weekend with the big sister at the big sister's house. 

Then you get a child who lights up like Christmas and the next day at school the teacher texts you and says, "What gives? Where is the attitude?" and Brenna turns to you one night and happily announces that her attitude is gone and the sass has left the house.

And so goes another week...