Halloween eve

Starting Thursday morning -- The almost-last-roses-of-summer are wilting on my desk. I don't have the heart to take them out of the vase and put them into the compost bin yet. The roses are pink and next month there will be so little pink outside.

Julia is upstairs getting dressed. I am trying (t-r-y-i-n-g, give me patience!) to let her get dressed BY HERSELF on our slow days. So I lay out the clothes and tell her that she can change them if she doesn't want to wear what I put out. She complains about socks and I tell her socks are necessary -- any socks that are in the bin, but SOCKS.

Then I take my shower.

When I finish getting dressed, Julia is naked and "reading" the new library book I read to her last night. Ok, she took off clothes. I remind her that we are going to the kids museum (a favorite of hers) and that she needs to get dressed soon, if not now. We have a half hour before we leave.

I do other things, including straightening up the house, making my list of the day, looking up the resale kids shop. I remind her that we need to leave soon. 15 minutes now. She comes downstairs, dressed but no shoes. I send her upstairs where multiple pairs of shoes are neatly lined up and she calls back down to me over and over again.

Mommy, are you angry?

No. Put on shoes.

Mommy, are you frustrated (pronounced fustated)?

Yes.

Mommy, what are you doing down there?

Waiting for you, Julia. Put on shoes.

Mommy, don't yell at me. (Good sentence!) Mommy, come here.

Why do you want me up there?

Mommy . . . mommy . . . mommy. What are you doing? I am reading.

. . . About 10 minutes later, Julia comes down with shoes on. I jump up, tell her how proud I am that she put on her shoes, and we get ready to leave the house.

I am wondering if she will dress herself for high school? And yes, I do remember Cheshire taking forever to get dressed around this age but for Cheshire it was about choice of clothes, for Julia it is about focus. I remind myself that Cheshire now gets hersef up, dressed, and out every single day.

Once we got out of the house, we were on the go for most of the day. We visited the kids' museum and heard Ken Lonnquist Halloween Concert. He was really pretty good although his audience surged and waned before he was finished. Most of the kids there were under 4 and their behavior, although age appropriate, was not really musician appropriate. Julia listened from a comfortable padded area where she could watch a fish tank and the last few minutes from my lap. Ken will have a kids' musical produced next month. I think we will try to catch it.
After the concert, we prowled the museum and Julia hit all her favorite exhibits. We had pizza for lunch and did a round of shopping -- groceries, computer store, a kid's resale shop, and our local Land's End Inlet. I found a few sweaters and long sleeve shirts but Julia still needs winter clothes. Maybe its time to go back to ebay. I am pretty disappointed with the Once Upon A Child here in Madison. It is a a great resale chain for kids clothes. I found lots of stuff for Julia at the Indy store but in the Madison store does not buy quality kids' clothes and so there is none of it to find.
During our shoppings I lost my temper once with Julia. We were in the grocery store and I planned a very quick visit. Julia got angry at me for some reason -- oh, one day she will answer the great question "Why" and we will know her reasons. She picked up two green apples and threw them. Not at me -- so that was a good thing -- but I got angry because she was being so disrespectful. I grabbed her by the ear, which shocked her, and 'dragged' her to our cart.

Okay, not good mothering. I was immediately sorry and we stopped everything and had a talk about respecting things that are in stores and food. Interesting, how some things just go too far, some behavior gets to me. Julia had many tantrums in the old days -- ha! two years ago -- Maybe it was because this came out of the blue and for seemingly no reason.

Julia is beginning to understand frustration, although the line between that and anger is very thin. She is also questioning me all the time when I raise my voice or put on a stern tone about my anger and love. So many times it is not anger but seriousness. She doesn't like me to be angry or serious.

Julia: I not listening.

Me: That is why I have to be serious.
We've had our pumpkins in the garage for the last 2-3 weeks because we have fierce squirrels who would have gobbled them if thye were left outside. Funny, that our neighbors down the street and around the block can leave pumpkins out and they are not touched. Yesterday, I put the three beautiful pumpkins out around 4. When Davd brought two of them in to carve them after the sun went down, there were fresh teeth marks on one. I am sure these are the same squirrels that yell at the dog and venture onto the front porch even when we are sitting there.