Ann's Story Part 31: A Relatively Quiet Week

3/9/03
Email to my friend

Your point about looking at Mandy as a teenager is probably a good one. I will try that. Of course I cannot give her consequences, and I so love giving forced choices and consequences.

So...this week's stories:

Early this week when I came home Ann was very grumpy. She was angry at me for not knowing where the batteries were this morning. I tried to cheer her up by talking about the visitation plans with her mom. She got angry because next weekend she is supposed to go to her mom's and she is signed up to volunteer at the fund-raiser at her school. I was sweet. I told her that if she wanted she could switch weekends. She got angry and said that she did not want to switch...she did not want to spend the time at school. I finally said something like, "I did not make this problem." "Yeah! And you are not helping to solve it either!" "Well, yes. That's true." "AAUGG! I hate it when you do that!"

Fortunately she took a nap. She got up and was her charming self again. And she really was very charming.

And the next evening Ann and I had a conversation:
"So how much do you have to do on your paper?"
"Oh, I just have to put the information together, and type it."
"You mean that you need to write it."
"No. I just need to put the information together."
"What is that if it is not writing?"
"You know, everything's on notecards and stuff, I just have to put it together."
"That's called 'writing.'"
"No. It's just typing."
Sigh...

Part 32