Short Visits Might Be Better

My mood was not super-fantastic today. While I love my granddaughters dearly, I have less and less patience for their petty arguing, and the older one copped a nasty attitude with me this afternoon. I wasn't very mature in my response. I mostly avoided her for a while. She and her dad were going camping at a once-a-year festival and she was in a snit because the family they were riding with got a later start than she would have preferred. My son gave her a few chores to do while they waited, and she wanted to complain about "doing things for Dad." I said, "How is picking up your mess a 'thing for Dad'? You live here too." She didn't like that comment too much so she started banging stuff around. I told her that if I hadn't been willing to watch her little sister for the night, she wouldn't be going to the festival at all. That comment too wasn't well received. I didn't care. She was acting like a spoiled brat and it pissed me off. I did manage not to say that she was lucky she wasn't my kid; I didn't tolerate attitude from my sons. Even though I didn't say so this time, I've said it before.

At this point, I've been here three weeks, which is more than any of us should have to deal with each other. I feel like I can't get too involved in discipline for a variety of reasons, chiefly because it's not my place and secondly because my presence is somewhat inconsistent. It would be confusing to my granddaughters if I threw down a bunch of rules and then left, expecting them to remember them in my absence and follow them upon my return. At the moment I'm tolerating some horrible show with weird farm animals -- including a panda; since when do pandas live on farms? -- before I put my younger granddaughter to bed. The weather was amazing today, so we were outside almost the whole afternoon and then she and I sat in the floor and colored in the Barney coloring book. I'm not usually a big fan of pacifying kids with TV (or much of anything, really) but it's been a long day of moving furniture and cleaning out nearly the last of the junk at my mom's house. I'm tired of being entertaining, or even nice -- but I probably can be if I have to for another hour or so.