In normal Annie style, I was awakened about three times during the night for various reasons. At 3:45 this morning, she kept pointing to her closet and screaming something unrecognizable while snot ran down her face and onto my arm. She was really freaking me out! It was like a bad scene from a horror movie. I didn't know if it was going to turn our Poltergeist style and the closet was going to suck us in or if it was going to be Chuckie style and one of her dolls was going to pop from the closet and try to kill us. Nonetheless, I had to admit that there were noises coming from her closet. Not noises like when one of her toys gets buried at the bottom of the toy bucket and continues to make annoying noises. This was like something scratching at the door trying to get out. My first thought was, "Crap! Something or someone is in that closet and they're going to kill us and Dasha will never even know that something happened!" When I finally got the nerve to turn the overhead light on, I saw the cat's claw poking from under the closet door. I guess I shut her in the closet when I put Annie to bed. Man. After that, it took me forever to calm Annie back down and get her to bed. Me, on the other hand, had trouble going back to sleep because of the adrenaline that was still surging through me! You can have some pretty crazy thoughts when you think you're about to be attacked! Whew! SO, after very few hours of sleep, I woke up this morning ready to do nothing more than go back to bed. Dasha, Annie, and the cat, on the other hand, were ready to start the day.
After feeding the girls, they went into Annie's room to play while I finished getting ready. I've learned that if I position myself just right in front of my bathroom sink, I can see Annie's room out of the corner of the mirror. As I stuffed the toothbrush in my mouth, I saw Dasha stomp her feet in anger at something. We've been working on finding other outlets of expressing frustration so I walked toward Annie's room (toothbrush still in my mouth) only to see her lunge toward Annie with something and then Annie start screaming. Now, I had a victim and a felon on my hands, a mouthful of toothpaste, and no where to spit. Man. Bottom line, Dasha had unfurled a paper clip and used it to jab Annie because she was frustrated with her. Remember my post about Dasha and my cat? Can this get any worse? I took Annie into the bathroom with me and sat Dasha on my bed and started counting to ten over and over again. Who the heck dreamed up that coping skill? It only gives me time to get more pissed off because I forget what number I was on! After hacking up the remainder of the toothpaste and checking Annie out, I tried to have a reasonable conversation with Dasha. Nope. Again and again, she just said that she couldn't answer me about why she'd done it and couldn't really even describe if she felt bad that she'd done it. I left her sitting on the bed. I'm already walking one road that I never dreamed I'd have to walk and now someone has thrown another speed bump right in the path. Shoot, this isn't even a speed bump. This is more like a brick wall with concertina wire along the top. I texted Eric but what's he supposed to do? I was standing right there with her and didn't know what to do. So, I did what any sensible mom would do. I took her to camp and dropped her off. (Please know that I wouldn't have done that if this hadn't been a special needs camp where the ratio is about 1:2 and, honestly, she'd never do this when she's in that kind of environment).
After dropping her off, I had another conversation with Eric and then called the pediatrician's office and left a message for the nurse. The nurse called me back and encouraged me to take her to the ER to have her checked out. Really? I know this is serious but I've dealt with doctors enough to know that they'd talk to her, check her out, ask a bunch of questions, give her lots of attention (what she wants), and then refer me to a child specialist. I'm sure she'd even tell them I've been giving her wine juice, sleeping pills (Melatonin), and making her clean the kitchen. Yep. Been there, done that, didn't get any answers. SO, I'll continue making some phone calls tomorrow to try to find some professional help. At this point, my humor headed south for the afternoon.
Mom went to pick Dasha up from camp and took Annie with her while I went to a counseling appointment at church. Open up scab, pour in salt, close up scab, slap a Band-Aid on it, wait and let it fester, and do it again in two weeks. Yeah. Then I headed home to deal with another phone counseling event. Except, the weirdest thing happened. There were no kids at the house and it was quiet. I can't tell you when I've been in the house alone. I actually heard the hum of the air conditioner. I went upstairs and curled up on my bed to take the phone call and then saw the laundry bag at the bottom of the bed moving. Seriously? If the closet creeper hadn't done enough damage, now there was something in the darn bag. (I hate to pair socks together so I just throw them all in a bag and let folks make any match they'd like. Hey, don't criticize until you've tried my methods)! Once again, the cat was the culprit. She had pawed the socks out of the bag and decided to have herself a little nap inside. Is this really what this blasted cat does all day long?
No comments:
Post a Comment