Today was one of those days. Chloe and her friend didn’t get to sleep until 11:30 last night. I would have bet a good deal of money that they’d sleep in this morning. But thanks to Sophie (thanks, Sophie!), who, like a chorus of roosters, woke up the house at 6:30 AM, the big girls were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after only 7 hours of sleep.
This would have been fine, except Chloe was cranky the entire day. And ungrateful to boot. Why, you ask? She was pissed at me last night because I had the nerve to tell the girls it was time to go to sleep. She was pissed at me this morning because I had the nerve to ask the girls to get dressed. No recognition of the fact that from 9 AM until 5:30 PM today, all I did was chauffeur her around. First to piano, on to swimming, then to the first birthday party and finally to the second. No thank you. Just crankiness.
She’d like to get her ears pierced. And when we told her earlier this evening that she’d have to earn the right to earrings by behaving herself and treating us with respect for the next three weeks, she balked. Until she allowed us to explain the rules – and we clarified that we were not forbidding her to get upset, but demanding that if she does get upset, she reins in her anger by taking deep breaths or going to her room to let off some steam. No yelling at us. No disrespecting us.
If she manages to control herself, she’ll have her ears pierced before she goes to Texas next month with my mom. We’ll see if this is a big enough incentive. I’m not willing to bet more than a few cents on it, but I’m going to hope for the best.