I'm home!

Got home on Friday in time to pick up Anna from school. She was very surprised to see me and I got great hugs! She took some time to show me some of the stuff she made at school that day and kinda talked about what she'd been up to. I think it was her way of "catching up". :) She declared she missed me, yay!

And all that wonderful sweetness lasted about an hour...then we got home and for some reason she started asking for her paci. Out of nowhere. In fact, wait, it started before we got into the car. Apparently one of her classmates still uses a paci, and Anna wanted one too! Anna still uses her paci for bed. That's the rule and she's been fine with that. Now suddenly this other kid has one all the time I guess and she wants one too. Hardeeharhar, No.

We got over THAT discussion (if-you-want-your-paci-then-go-to-bed) and moved on to the "I want to sleep in YOUR bed" request. Or should I say DEMAND. So now I get the clue as to where she's been sleeping some of the time I've been gone. Sorry kid, that's MY bed. I love you and I love sharing a bed with you on travel, but let's not get into any nasty habits. Your room is cozy and comfy, and warm (even though I get that it's all the way upstairs by yourself and I won't think about that as long as you won't). Your room is yours, and mine is mine and so no, you can't sleep in my bed. You can sleep in my bed only when mommy's not home. She asks: "Are you staying home?" She missed me an hour ago but now she'd like me to get lost again.

My "No" prompted a tantrum and this was only 6:00pm. She had flashed forward to sleeping arrangements and we were barely through dinner. By the time it was all over I don't even know what she was tantruming over. But I think the welcome home period was over soon enough and she was pushing me with her recently-acquired oppositional behavior that Paul had told me was going on. By the time Paul got home that night, I was exhausted, my body thought it was 3am, and I let him deal with the bedtime madness (by all rights, they created together while I was gone). I was in bed by 8pm.

Anyway, the perfectly sweet and agreeable Anna disappeared somewhere between Minnesota and Germany in the midst of routine shake-ups galore. Birthday parties, skipping school for baseball games, a visit to the swamp camp, going to friends' houses in the evenings. All recipes for a great summer and a 3yr old who realizes that skipping school and staying up late can be fun.

And so the battle with getting her to school. This weekend she asked each time she woke up if she had to go to school. (Isn't she a little too young to start THIS fight?). No, it's a weekend. This morning, though I wasn't home bc of boot camp and a meeting, Paul said she put on a good tantrum about not wanting to go. He finally coaxed her into the car. Before Minnesota, she loved going to school. It doesn't help that the new classroom is just not her old classroom and her favorite teachers and friends aren't there either. The new ones are great and fun but just different. And even in the classroom there's been teacher turn over due to illness and vacation. It's just summer. Period.

Tomorrow starts my standard task of getting her to school in the morning again. We'll see if she gives me the same crap she's been dishing Paul (I expect so) and if so I will have to revert back to the days when she was 2 and fighting everything then. We had epic battles, just she and I, and although she is bigger and louder now, and gets much more pissed off, we'll just have to battle it out. I'll leave ample time in my morning schedule for the battles.