Should have known better

I should have known better than to say things are doing well! Actually even though I bragged about Kitty in therapy today and how well she's handling chores, after which she had a minor meltdown because I'm "picky and evil" when it comes to making the kids do chores completely and at least semi-well, she didn't have a total meltdown. Just a minor one, which she was able to recover from without me.

When she was obviously going to continue to escalate and yell at me and not get her chores done, I told her to go outside and walk, but she pointed out it was too cold, so I suggested she go to her room - and she did! She stormed and slammed, but then came back down a little while later. Very calm, and she hugged me and apologized. Then accepted correction and finished chores!!! Did you read that? She accepted more "criticism" and finished the chores!

All in all a great accomplishment.

The girls have to have $20 cards to start service for their new cell phones. Grandma (who is wonderful) told them that if they helped paint the garage this afternoon she would pay them $20. Grandma thought all the kids had new phones instead of just the girls and had divided the garage into 4 parts (it's a big garage). Ponito said he'd rather go play at a neighbor's house and he didn't want the money. Bear of course did, but I don't want Bear to have money, plus he still owes me about 14 hours of "community service" so I told him he needed to help, but his time would go toward his community service.

Bear said he had something to spend his money on (Christmas presents for an unspecified someone). I reminded him that he couldn't earn extra money until his debts were paid. (I don't have a lot of sympathy for him at this point - he could have easily finished these community service hours months ago). Bear said he was busy taking down the outside Christmas decorations when I called the kids to start painting. I told him I wanted him to do the painting instead, and that's when he said something rude (I don't even remember what it was - something along the lines of, "I don't care what you want.").

Bear'd said something similar yesterday on his way out the door with Grandma and the other kids to go play at the park and go to the zoo with Grandma and Poppy and I let him get away with it. It wasn't until I was telling Hubby and he asked me why I let him go that I suddenly realized he was right (not always on the ball am I? Oh well.). So today I instantly started putting my shoes and coat on, told Bear (who'd walked back in the house and into another room -completely ignoring me) to grab something to read (he didn't). He didn't say a word or ask any questions, he just got in the car. In the way back seat (I didn't realized he'd already been heading there until I'd said something).

Cold silence all the way to work. Bear walked in (held the door for me?!), walked into the unlit conference room and lay down. I walked on and found Hubby. Told him what was going on, including a conversation with Kitty in therapy that morning (see next post) and left. On my way out Hubby was already heading to Bear to have a conversation (apparently lasted about an hour, but Bear was pretty monosyllabic.

When Hubby and Bear got home that evening Bear gave me a hug and said he was sorry. That was fine. I hate letting Hubby decide what discipline to use though, because Bear was then allowed to get on the computer where he sat for almost 2 hours (limit is 45 minutes), and Hubby didn't do anthing. I reminded Bear (and Hubby) several times, but Bear claimed he had to finish a project for ROTC that was due when school started. Bear has put off doing his evening chores to work on the computer (longer than time allowed) about 3 days in a row. Last couple of nights he hasn't done his load of dishes at all. Tonight he was finished about 10 minutes after bedtime.