Mood Swings

Holy cow have we been having major mood swings in this house...and there isn't even anyone close to hitting puberty yet!

Wednesday morning Little A woke up in quite a state.  I haven't seen her in such a snit in a very long time.  Basically everyone and everything made her furious and she wailed almost non-stop from the moment she got up until I dropped her at school.  Of course, her teachers reported that she had a great day after I left.  Not sure what was up with that, but when I asked, she simply said, "I was grumpy."  Yeah, well I was left with PTSD after that kid!

Likewise, last night, Big A, who was otherwise behaving great yesterday, had a massive tantrum right after Adam left with his dad to see a concert.  It was like she was 4 again, I couldn't believe it.  Of course, when one kid is having a melt down and getting into trouble, the other kid is sweet as pie...and enjoying every minute of the other's downfall.  I'm telling you, I think having 2 kids relatively close together in age of the same gender is trouble.  Last night as Big A screamed and pounded the floor in the hall while I tried to read Little A her bedtime stories (I won't bore you with the details, but due to rudeness, I took away Big A's TV privileges for the night, which led her to start claiming that her life isn't fair, because Little A always gets her way - which is so not true!), Little A commented, "Mommy I think she is having a big tantrum...you better go deal with it."

My brother and I - and this is confirmed by my parents - really weren't competitive with each other.  Don't get me wrong, we hated each other and fought a lot, but not like my girls.  My brother just thought I was a pest and beat the crap out of me whenever possible.  I half worshipped/half hated my brother.  But being different genders and 4 years apart, we were mostly into different stuff.  We hardly ever played together (I remember Monopoly and Clue games and occasional games in the back yard), and really just spent most of our time doing our own stuff.

I know the girls love each other and are very protective of each other, but their is so much jealousy, it's nuts.  If you threw one of them into a bathtub full of hairy spiders, the other would shout and complain, "Hey, not fair, why does she get to go in first?"

Ah well, its just part of life and part of parenting.  I am very pleased with myself because I somehow managed to not go ballistic on either of them during these rather unpleasant moments.  By the time I picked up Little A on Wednesday, she was in a delightful mood.  Half an hour after I banished Big A to her room last night, she came out in a completely opposite mood, apologized and gave me a hug like nothing had even happened.

I am so glad it's Friday, but things are still nuts.  I work for most of tomorrow and I am going to be super stressed until November 26th because I am furiously trying to organize the annual fundraiser for the girls' daycare - I have a million errands to run this weekend in preparation for the event too - on top of seeing my clients and taking care of the girls...oh, and Adam is going to Tampa for a few days next week for work.  Fabulous!

Have a healthy happy weekend and embrace  the chaos...I'm going to try to!