Week, Weekend, Grant's 5K

First, the 5K!


Placement:  52/273 runners


Run Time:  28 minutes, 43 seconds


Yay!  All goals were met.  He walked less, ran better and also improved his time.  Yay for my little runner!  We had bananas and bagels for breakfast before the run.  My parents were in town especially to see him.  Afterward, we had deli sandwiches from Poppy J's.  Grant and Abbie both requested tuna salad sandwiches.  The rest of us had tri-tip.  They serve it on white with Swiss cheese and horseradish mayo.  SO YUMMY!  The only thing that can improve upon it is a giant slice of tomato, but Husband forgot to ask.


Thursday was bad.  Grant woke up in a fighting mood.  We have recently told him that he needs to act his age, or we will treat him like the age he is behaving.  Thursday morning I put his socks and shoes on for him.  He didn't like that one bit.  I also made him hold my hand as we walked to the car.  I told him to stop something - or we weren't going - as we were getting in the car, and I could see it in his eyes that he didn't believe I meant it.  To no one's surprise, he tried to see if I would notice the offence if it were quieter.  So I sent him to school with Husband instead.  At school, he reportedly flipped his desk in a fit of rage.  Strangely, he was not sent to the counselor or anything for that.  The bad day continued until a very early bedtime.  LONG day.


The next bad day, sadly, was Saturday after the run.  My parents had left, and Grant was refusing to practice his music.  (Meaning that he was sitting there slouching, or playing older songs that weren't on the lesson, or just messing around.  He was hoping that I would later buy it when he said he'd practiced.  Not so much.)  I could see him trying to work up a spectacular tantrum, so I just gave him a choice: 


"Grant, you have a choice.  You can act like 9-year-old boy and get this done and out of the way, or you can pitch a fit.  If you get it done, you will have free time afterward.  If you pitch the fit, I will send you to bed right now.  You get to choose."


He chose fit.  I bet he doesn't next time, though.  It was only 1:30 and I really did make him lie down the rest of the day.  What really got me, though, was that he was still trying SO, SO hard to manipulate my feelings.  The pathetic, "Mommy, can I please have a hug???" was enough to make me sneak away to my own room and cry.  Mean kid.  It's my fault, though.  When he was little I always promised myself that he would be allowed a hug - even if he was bad.  Now he uses it to make me cry.  On purpose.  I guess I should have known better.


Fortunately, he has been fine since.  Well...to my knowledge.  He "forgot" the infamous purple behavior notebook today.


Abbie forgot her lunchbox, but her classroom door was still open, so we went and got it.  She forgot to do three of her homework problems, and did another two completely wrong, because she guessed what the directions were.  Very sloppy attention.  I had her fix the homework.


But today is a good day.  Music practiced.  Homework done.  Everyone in a decent mood.  I will take what I can get.