OH--I Missed My Mind

So did you enjoy that confession from the last post? Pretty blunt, huh?  I noticed only two of my peeps left comments.

Sweet.

There are several of you others out there.

Where are the comments?

Just reading for pleasure?

Maybe this will make you smile.

PandaJoy has a darling repertoire of vocabulary she uses on a daily basis like any three year old finding her way in the world of lingo.  I do think I fall down on the floor every single time she says, "Oh. I missed my mind."

She means that she has since changed her mind from whatever jibber-jabber she had previously mumble out just moments before or even days before.  If I offer her a choice between applesauce or a cheese stick she might choose the cheese stick. Upon completion of the cheese stick she announces that she "missed her mind" and now has decided that she wants applesauce instead.

She's already chosen and eaten the cheese stick.

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Yeah, um...PandaMom, do you want to eat the fattening food at the pizza buffet or be a size 6?

I want to eat the buffet at Pizza Inn along with the chocolate chip cookie pizza dessert platter.

Gulp.

Oh, wait.

I missed my mind.

I want to be a size 6.

Sorry. Too late. You already chose the pizza.

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Since I have no real means of discipling this child in any manner of which I'm accustomed I've had to come up with real sweet, creative ways of handling her.  They are probably the more healthy, sane ways that would have worked on me when I was growing up rather than the fear induced do-what-the-hell-I-say-or-else type of nurturing I got.

And there's another post for that.  Now that I'm private.

Anyway, one of my leveraging devices is to make the Little Bitty clean up her room before I will read a book to her at night.  This has caused many a melt-down right at bed time when I am tired of the day....and her. I do love that child, but she has worn.me.down.to.the.bone. Though you can't tell from the blubber on my buttocks.

Today I told her in order to watch ANOTHER Dora on Netflix she had to clean her room.  Really? Poor child....having to clean her room multiple times a day must be a witch on her psyche, but remember, it's all I got.

Of course, being three she tends to forget what her task at hand is and starts playing.  I'm not mean.  I give some leeway.  After an appropriate amount of time I ask her if she's done cleaning and she says, "yes".

I ask her the series of simplified questions that I always ask so that I don't walk all the way up Mt. Everest  just to see crap strewn all over her floor which in turn sends me into a mental breakdown and I want to bite nails.  You'll see I have issues.  I've gone private.  There's more to me than the Pandaleidoscope Pollyanna.

I give her another chance to "clean" her room, but this time I start making my way up the stairs to see for myself because I'm getting tired of waiting. As I round the corner fully expecting to see a cleared floor since she so desperately wants to see Doot-doot-doot-doot-Dora I find the room completely crapped out in a mess.  She hadn't done a blessed thing except play.....more. Which is totally fine, because who wants to clean up her room in the middle of the stinkin' day just to get it all back out again after the great movie is done? I don't blame her.

As she heard my footsteps approaching she yelled, "I'm cleaning!!!"

Yeah, right and I'm a size 6.

I look at the top of her shelves and see that size 6 Barbie must have missed her mind, too. She did have clothes on the last time I saw her.  She'd rather relax than clean.  Moving chairs off the bed was just way too much.

We go through the whole meltdown, talking gently to her, working through the trauma, going potty, getting back up stairs, getting on the bed for a nap and boom.......room is still dirty.

She missed her mind.

She decided to play instead of clean.

I'm like that, too.

I'd way rather play than fold clothes, mop, do the dishes, take the dog out, work on business stuff or pretty much anything.

I start out with a great plan and a list and all the gumption in the world.  Then reality sets in.

I miss my mind.  A lot.