slacking

Its Friday night, and i'm about four long blinks from being asleep for the night (at 9:45). The two things keeping me awake are my usual 10:30 date with Derek via yahoo messenger, and the need to get some blog time in.

I'm hoping to tackle some military spouse issues very soon, but until i get down to a routine, my sweet readers will have to survive on little anecdotes of my crazy days.

I have come to the conclusion that I am raising a Diva. No, not Patience, my 16 year old. Gracie, our baby, turned 6 on Wednesday. I started the day a little melancholy, thinking this was the last 6th birthday we were going to celebrate in the Foster household. But as the morning progressed, that lament turned into relief, as Gracie proceeded to let everyone know it was her "special" day and basically we were all to bow to her majesty. She scolded my dad for not buying her a gift (he did, in fact get her a gift), while waiting for daddy to log onto yahoo after breakfast, she yelled at the computer that he was "wasting her morning" and that she couldn't and SHOULDN'T have to wait to open her gifts. When he finally did log on, she opened Pates presents with a "wow, thanks, a book" spoken in her best sarcastic. When I picked her and Ruby up from school, I used the drive up line, rather than the park and pick-up routine, and was promptly met with "What took you so long?". I explained that I had been running around all afternoon for HER "special" day, and i wasn't wearing a rain jacket, therefore i chose not to wait out in the rain. I also had to tell her that I had trouble setting up her brand new leapster, so she would have to wait until after dinner to play. The waterworks started. THe howls of discontent began and the dissatisfaction with my ability to do erupted. The birthday girl ended up spending the afternoon of her "special" day sitting on her bed in her room, having some quiet time to reflect on her piss poor attitude.
Part of me secretly wished she might sail off and become the queen of the wild things. As it is, you can never stay upset with a dramatic 6 year old for long.I gave her a reprieve after about 40 minutes, so we could enjoy the best birthday corned beef ever, and continued to cater to our little attitude adjusted princess the rest of the evening, ending the night with few rounds on the leapster, and a tag book in bed. And as she snuggled up to me, I did kinda wish, just for a second, I could freeze that moment and keep her my baby just a little bit longer.