Because I need to write it out….

We’re getting to the age where I’m not sure what is blog appropriate and what isn’t, but I need to write.  I thought about sending an email to a friend or family, but, well, I dunno,  and so here goes.

We had a lovely afternoon (read about that before finishing this post.)

It’s Saturday, so we had Family Meeting with dinner tonight.  The plan was to play another round of Settlers of Catan after dinner, but sadly we didn’t make it through the meeting.  Eve brought up the problem of wanting to quit band (an ongoing discussion for months now) and some cat issues came up and things fell apart.  Well, Eve fell apart.  Alan went outside to do some work and asked me a few minutes later to hold the ladder for him.  I did that, then we stood in the garage for a few minutes, chatting about the pros and cons of letting Eve quit band.  When I came back inside I saw Eve running out the back door.  I watched her, figuring she was going to her tree fort at the end of the street, but she got close, then took off in a different direction.  Sigh.  Then I found this:

Double sigh.  Parenting kinda sucks sometimes.

I put Arlo on his leash and headed out for a walk.  I wasn’t going to drag her home, but I did want to know where she went.  I show Alan the note on the way out.  Along the way I met two neighbors, both had seen Eve running, and they pointed out which direction she went.  Then I passed Parrish who told me a whole route that Eve was going to take, down the hill, through the village, etc.  Ugh!  I called Alan, then headed in the opposite direction with the hope of meeting her along the way.  Alan called back five minutes later and said Eve was home, with a friend, asking if they could play together at her friends house.  Sigh.  He said yes and I headed home.

Back at home I stewed for a few minutes, then texted the friend’s mom, asking her to send Eve home.  It was 7pm, Eve still hadn’t eaten dinner, and WTF?!  She gets to run away and then play with her friend — no discussion.  WTF!?  Eve got home while I was unloading the dishwasher.  I told her to go take a bath and that we would discuss things after that.  I don’t know if she saw the tears or heard the anger (probably both), but she zipped right up the stairs with no questions asked.  I went up a little later and found her in her room, with this slipped out under the door:

Sigh.  I knocked.  She let me in.  We snuggled and cried and talked about better (safer!) ways to get some alone time.  She apologized over and over.  She said she had planned to go to the tree fort, but when she got there she realized she had no shoes and so decided to go to “the leaves” instead.  She swore the idea of going into the village wasn’t her idea.  She said Parrish suggested it, but she said she only wanted to go to the leaves to calm down, then home again.  Neither of them are super reliable sources, so I decided to let that part of the discussion go.  She met her friend on the street, her friend invited her in, so she came home to ask if it’s ok to go play with her friend.  The anger comes and goes so quickly!  Leaving me exhausted and confused.  Ugh.  Parenting is hard.

We snuggled and chatted, then she asked if I wanted to play a game with her.  She picked Sorry.  :)  We played and giggled, and she won in the end.

I need another week of vacation.  And a glass of wine.  And maybe a road map for the future.