I’m not sure if middle schoolers just simply cannot plan or if Salinda just gets caught up in all of her friends wishes and trying to make everything happy, but this is the way things worked out last night, causing me grief.
The directions were this:
You can do one thing outside of the house even though your grounded to see how it goes. You may have a friend spend one night here this weekend. You cannot have anyone here Friday between 6:30 and 9 because Dad and I won’t be here. Nobody can be here during the day on Saturday either because we will be gone at a conference.
Here’s what we ended up with:
She is going to the movie with 4 people. Afterwards they are all coming back here until 11:30. One of the girls is staying here the whole weekend because her parents are going out of town. Another girl is spending the night either one or both nights as well, I don’t remember. Bart and I are no longer going to be able to both be at the conference all day (it’s local). We will have to tag team back and forth so we can be here (no friends allowed here if a parent isn’t home).
Now, maybe you all would have, at 10 p.m. after all of the plans were made, made her call everyone back and cancel, but I was thinking about the other girls parents stuck with nowhere for her to go for the weekend after she had assured them she could stay here. I also understand why Salinda was a bit confused because she asked me a question at a time without ever putting the whole thing together for me.
But the result was me frustrated and her in tears and me trying to quickly rearrange things to make it all work out.
I really do want our house to be a place that kids can come. However, Salinda is a perfectionist and it makes it so hard. She expects that the moment her friends arrive the house will be perfect and that exactly what she wants to serve them to eat will have remain untouched by her siblings. It is virtually impossible for us to guarantee that the house is going to be clean at any given moment, and keeping snacks safe, “GOOD LUCK!”
But it all died down and Bart and I had a fun conversation before bed. Today I have to set up a display table at a conference and then come home for a few hours of work. Tonight is the staff Christmas party at church, tomorrow I speak twice at the conference, and Sunday we have an advent festival...
On top of it all, Jimmy turns 15 tomorrow...
The directions were this:
You can do one thing outside of the house even though your grounded to see how it goes. You may have a friend spend one night here this weekend. You cannot have anyone here Friday between 6:30 and 9 because Dad and I won’t be here. Nobody can be here during the day on Saturday either because we will be gone at a conference.
Here’s what we ended up with:
She is going to the movie with 4 people. Afterwards they are all coming back here until 11:30. One of the girls is staying here the whole weekend because her parents are going out of town. Another girl is spending the night either one or both nights as well, I don’t remember. Bart and I are no longer going to be able to both be at the conference all day (it’s local). We will have to tag team back and forth so we can be here (no friends allowed here if a parent isn’t home).
Now, maybe you all would have, at 10 p.m. after all of the plans were made, made her call everyone back and cancel, but I was thinking about the other girls parents stuck with nowhere for her to go for the weekend after she had assured them she could stay here. I also understand why Salinda was a bit confused because she asked me a question at a time without ever putting the whole thing together for me.
But the result was me frustrated and her in tears and me trying to quickly rearrange things to make it all work out.
I really do want our house to be a place that kids can come. However, Salinda is a perfectionist and it makes it so hard. She expects that the moment her friends arrive the house will be perfect and that exactly what she wants to serve them to eat will have remain untouched by her siblings. It is virtually impossible for us to guarantee that the house is going to be clean at any given moment, and keeping snacks safe, “GOOD LUCK!”
But it all died down and Bart and I had a fun conversation before bed. Today I have to set up a display table at a conference and then come home for a few hours of work. Tonight is the staff Christmas party at church, tomorrow I speak twice at the conference, and Sunday we have an advent festival...
On top of it all, Jimmy turns 15 tomorrow...
No comments:
Post a Comment