Excuses.

Celia is paying the price today for being a ‘princess’.

In my mind, ‘princess’ is not a good thing for a little girl to be.  Pampered and spoiled, with no responsibility.  That’s not the kind of little girl I’d like to raise.

Our current battle is over the mess in the family room.  I cleaned it after we got home from our little new years vacation.  I deep cleaned and organized it in my first of the year big declutter.  I cleaned it AGAIN after it was immediately trashed.

I’m not doing it again.  She’s 5.  She’s well able to follow directions and clean that room up.  She knows she’s not to just randomly trash areas of the house as she pleases.  We’re not even talking about playing with toys then leaving them our.  We’re talking dumping things our of areas, cutting up piles of paper into itty bitty bits and scattering them.  Just complete senseless mayhem.

Threatening to take the toys away does not bother her.  She doesn’t care.  She knows that she’s got two loving grandmas that will always buy her toys…plus, if all her toys are gone, then she’ll just play with everyone else’s cool stuff. My craft stuff, kitchen stuff, food, jordan’s stuff, the dog’s toys, whatever.

So I’m making her clean it today.  I know that she can do it.  In less than 20 minutes, if she’d just get to it and get it done.

Because what she REALLY wants to do is go outside and build an igloo.  Jordan is going to be going out and building an igloo, and she REALLY wants to go.  And the big bad mommy is not letting her go until the family room and her bedroom have everything picked up.

YOU DON’T LOVE ME ANYMORE!

Yes.  Yes I do.  I love you so much that I want for you to be a responsible person and clean up your toys.  Get to it.

I’M GONNA MISS THE IGLOO.  I’M GONNA MIIIIIIIIISSSSS ITTTTTTTT!

Yes.  Yes, you are going to miss the igloo if you don’t clean.  I suggest you stop fussing and clean.

I WANT MY DAAAAAAADDDDDDDDYYYYYYYY!

That’s a bummer.  He’s at work.

At this point I tell her I’m turning my ears off, and shut my bedroom door.  She’s just doing it for attention, any kind of attention at all will do.  So I’m turning it off.

MY ARMS ARE TOO TIRED!

MAAAAAAAMEEEEEEEEE!  I MISS YOU TOO MUCH TO FINISH IT!!!

BUT MY SCARF GOES DOWNSTAIRS.  IT GOES DOWNSTAIRS!!!

I’M HOT.  I’M TOO HOT TO CLEAN!!

I HAVE TO PEE.  I. HAVE. TO. PEEEEEEEE!   (repeat this one every 15 minutes)

THIS IS HARD.  IT’S TOO HAAAAAAAAAARD.

If that’s not enough manipulation for you, try this one.  She comes to me, calm (because she knows I won’t even talk to her when she’s throwing a fit like that) and says “I think it’s done now.”  She knows I’m going to check it.  So I go up to check….and she hasn’t done much.  She doesn’t care though..the whole point of that exercise was just to get me up there, then CLING to me like she was drowning in a raging river, CLUTCHING me screaming “HELP ME MOMMY, HELP ME, PLEEEEEEEASE HELP ME.  YOU PICK IT UP, PLEEEEEEASE MOMMY!  YOU DO IT.”

I come back downstairs to hide while she rants and screams.  She gets quiet, cleans a little, comes back down to say it’s done.

I tell her that last time she was lying when she said that.  That if she lied to me again to make me come up there, that I would cancel the igloo building for today.

She screams and runs back upstairs to clean some more.

Stops to rant and howl from the top of the stairs.

Repeat THAT madness three or four times, and you’ll get to where we are now.

Me, in the bedroom, devouring comfort foods, hanging on to sanity by my broken fingernails.  Her, still upstairs screaming.

She’s been given half an hour to either get it done so she can go outside, or I’m calling it a day and we’re taking a nap.  Either way, I’m going to get what I want in half an hour.

Silence.

10 Feb This entry was published on February 10, 2010 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Cecelia. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.