It’s Saturday, so we had Family Meeting with dinner tonight.\u00a0 The plan was to play another round of Settlers of Catan after dinner, but sadly we didn’t make it through the meeting.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Well, Eve fell apart.\u00a0 Alan went outside to do some work and asked me a few minutes later to hold the ladder for him.\u00a0 I did that, then we stood in the garage for a few minutes, chatting about the pros and cons of letting Eve quit band.\u00a0 When I came back inside I saw Eve running out the back door.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 Then I found this:<\/p>\n
Double sigh.\u00a0 Parenting kinda sucks sometimes.<\/p>\n I put Arlo on his leash and headed out for a walk.\u00a0 I wasn’t going to drag her home, but I did want to know where she went.\u00a0 I show Alan the note on the way out.\u00a0 Along the way I met two neighbors, both had seen Eve running, and they pointed out which direction she went.\u00a0 Then I passed Parrish who told me a whole route that Eve was going to take, down the hill, through the village, etc.\u00a0 Ugh!\u00a0 I called Alan, then headed in the opposite direction with the hope of meeting her along the way.\u00a0 Alan called back five minutes later and said Eve was home, with a friend, asking if they could play together at her friends house.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 He said yes and I headed home.<\/p>\n Back at home I stewed for a few minutes, then texted the friend’s mom, asking her to send Eve home.\u00a0 It was 7pm, Eve still hadn’t eaten dinner, and WTF?!\u00a0 She gets to run away and then play with her friend — no discussion.\u00a0 WTF!?\u00a0 Eve got home while I was unloading the dishwasher.\u00a0 I told her to go take a bath and that we would discuss things after that.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I went up a little later and found her in her room, with this slipped out under the door:<\/p>\n Sigh.\u00a0 I knocked.\u00a0 She let me in.\u00a0 We snuggled and cried and talked about better (safer!) ways to get some alone time.\u00a0 She apologized over and over.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She swore the idea of going into the village wasn’t her idea.\u00a0 She said Parrish suggested it, but she said she only wanted to go to the leaves to calm down, then home again.\u00a0 Neither of them are super reliable sources, so I decided to let that part of the discussion go.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The anger comes and goes so quickly!\u00a0 Leaving me exhausted and confused.\u00a0 Ugh.\u00a0 Parenting is hard.<\/p>\n We snuggled and chatted, then she asked if I wanted to play a game with her.\u00a0 She picked Sorry.\u00a0 :)\u00a0 We played and giggled, and she won in the end.<\/p>\n I need another week of vacation.\u00a0 And a glass of wine.\u00a0 And maybe a road map for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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.\u00a0 I thought about sending an email to a friend or family, but, … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/img_20180421_1840507755984640543735079-375x500.jpg\")
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