Blogging at 1 a.m.

I should be sleeping and my new laptop (yayyy!!!) is begging to be plugged in, but... I'm going to blog anyway.

We had an interesting afternoon today. Abby went out with her dad to run errands. They arrived home and I heard Abby screaming all the way in from the car to the house.

Whine, whine, whine, scream, whine, scream, scream, whine, whine.

That's pretty much how it went. I asked him if everything was ok on their errands. He said that she she had been fine. She wanted to stay outside, but he said she could go back out after lunch. I asked him if it was ok with him if she had a picnic outside on the deck. It was a brisk, but beautiful day. He agreed. Meanwhile, Abby laid on the floor and screamed through this whole conversation.

Scream, scream, whine, scream.

We tried over and over to assure her that she was indeed going to go back outside. We told her she needed to wash her hands before lunch, like usual.

Whine, scream, scream, whine, whine, scream.

"Abby. As soon as you wash your hands..."

Whine, scream, whine, scream, scream, scream.

you can go outside!"

Scream, whine, scream.

Hands washed, screaming the entire time, Abby was "escorted" outside, where she screamed some more about wanting to be outside.

Ummm... she IS outside.

She screamed until I sat in front of her, face in my hands saying, "Abby you ARE outside. Shh, shh. This is what you wanted. You're outside. It's ok. Stop screaming. You are OUTSIDE." I asked if she needed a hug and she took me up on that offer. She felt a little limp from all that screaming she'd done.I've been noticing lately that Abby has a tendency to hear what she wants to hear and sometimes, apparently, what she doesn't want to hear. Maybe this is human nature, whatever that means, but with Ab, she really has a hard time letting go. Once it's in her mind, it's stuck there, until something jars her attention to reality. And unfortunately, that can take some time. And can be a pretty loud ordeal. Ugh. Exhausting... for everyone involved.

Now before you start praising me for being so patient and understanding and you "don't know how I do it"(which I really appreciate btw)... I was not all patient and poised. I raised my voice a couple of times. I tried muffling some screams in an attempt to keep Bean from being woken up. Abby's dad and I had to trade tasks a couple of times to let the other one take a breather to regroup. I was glad he was there. We make a pretty good team. Keeping each other in check. Giving each other an understanding and knowing glance. Sometimes making the situation worse, by giving in to our frustration and taking it out on each other. But in the end, we love each other more for it. No one knows our child better than we do. We're all in this together. Thank, God!