Making It Her Problem

Daughter is very hard to roust from bed on Sunday mornings. I always have her shower the night before, so that we aren't competing for the bathroom on Sunday mornings. She insisted she wanted to do it this morning, and I told her she had to do it last night. Of course, she had to show me I couldn't control her, so she wet the bed.

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Now Daughter and I have very different ideas of what constitutes washing in the shower. Very different ideas. Since I don't watch her shower, I can't force her to actually use shower gel and wash her body. Doesn't work. This morning as soon as I got out of the shower, I began calling for her to get up and in the shower. She was slow, of course. I told her she'd have to take her shower while I was still in the bathroom, since we were running out of time. So while I did my hair and make-up, she showered behind me.

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I made sure I was cheery and congratulated her on winning-- she'd certainly shown me that she could take her shower in the morning. My back was too her, but I could see every move she was making in the large mirror I was using. So I insisted she had to use soap. Then I insisted she had to wash her face. In fact, I wanted her to wash every part of her body. She was not happy, of course. But I stayed chipper and told her how wonderful it was that she'd proved she could take her shower in the morning. I have to confess, I was having fun. She began breathing strangely and swaying. She was quite dramatic as she sat down in the bathtub and leaned against the shower door. I ignored it. I did tell her she'd best get moving if she was going to have breakfast before church.

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She finally realized she wasn't going to win and stood up and finished her shower-- suddenly she wasn't swaying at all. It's amazing, the healing power of anger. I finished my preparations, came downstairs and began to set up her breakfast. She has Special Olympics track practice this afternoon, so she came downstairs wearing sweats. I informed her she wasn't wearing sweats to church, and she'd have plenty of time to change following worship. She then demonstrated her skill in swearing to me, but did go change.

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By this time it was later than I had wanted to be over to the church, but I supervised her pills, gave her her insulin, and suggested she might want to do something with her hair before she came over to the church. Yes, I was frustrated with her, but I also thoroughly enjoyed calmly and cheerily giving her a hard time.

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After worship, I had to do something in the office, where her Sunday School class meets. The lesson was about respecting others. I told her I hoped she was hearing it. When she got home, she went straight to her room to change. She came down wearing shorts and a sweatshirt. I asked what she'd done with her other clothes. She'd put them in the laundry basket. I told her she needed to go hang them up. She told me she'd hung them up 3 times before she finally did. It took her that long to realize that I wasn't going to give up and I would check to see if she was lying. We ate lunch here at home today-- normally we eat out on Sunday. Lunch was not her favorite foods, but she at least was smart enough not to complain.

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Her three lies came after she apologized and told me she was going to turn it around today. So far she hasn't worked very hard at turning things around, but I'm going to make sure that it's her problem, not mine. I'm going to have a good day no matter what she does.

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