Again With the Button Pushing!

It is early on in the summer vacation days and she is pushing my buttons. A lot. I took the girls to my mom's house to play in the creek. It was mostly amazing and perfect and cooling and idyllic. Except when A was driving my crazy. I was not making parenting look good. The following conversation actually happened (it's tedious, so maybe just skim it):

She said, "I want to change into my dry clothes." I said, "If you're going to play at the creek more, you should stay in your wet clothes." She said, "No. I want to change and play here in my dry clothes." I said, "No, you should stay in your wet clothes so that you don't get your dry clothes wet and then have no more dry clothes and you will be wet and sandy and uncomfortable for the drive home." She said, "No. I want my dry clothes." I said, "Annabel, you should stay in your wet clothes until you're all done at the creek." "No, I want to change." Exasperated sighs and eye rolling. (both of us)

My mom said, "You're kind of controlling." Annabel said, "Yeah Mom, you're kind of controlling." Bah! Oh for fuck's sake! Really?! 

That is the dumbest conversation I have ever had. I warned you, you should have skimmed it. If you did, good direction following by you. Truthfully, I didn't care if she wore her wet clothes or her dry clothes. I was irritated that she wouldn't do what I had asked so I dug my heels in and she dug her heels in. There was a lot of heel digging. 

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At any rate, I am now certifiably insane. At least for portions of the day. Some parts, like the waking up early part and drinking my coffee quietly by myself part, those parts are totally sane and lovely. It's just the other parts that are becoming questionable. 

She is pushing my buttons. On purpose, I suspect. I am fully bugged, pushed and poked. She wins. Every damn time! The more she pushes, the more I clamp down and demand compliance. She pokes me again and then I make another unnecessary demand. The more she pokes the more my demands become controlling and illogical. I am completely effing this up. 

If this has happened to you and now you know exactly how to handle it, please let me know because I have no fucking idea! 

It's mostly good and I mostly love her. She was not pushing my buttons when I took this photo.

Today was kind of better. I'm repeating to myself, "choose your battles", because this is something that I've heard good parents say. I'm trying. Soon, those good parents will be pushing my buttons though and I will start making unreasonable and controlling demands of them.