Life is hard.

[flea]

We had a horrible night last night, mostly with Casper. The day started okay, but Mrs. B talked to mr. flea about Casper at pick-up time. She has not been filling out her daily calendar project since April 8, and she did not do the three works she agreed to do in her daily contract. (I know, 4 years old, but this is the routine at school.) Then on the drive to the YMCA Casper and Josie got into huge fight over identical cups of cheddar bunnies. mr. flea decided Casper was having a hard day and took her home with him. He called me at about 4:10 to touch base and I could hear Casper screaming in the background about the fact that there was no ice cream. We did a pick-up of me and the Dillo and went to Locopops (thin mint sadly a little disappointing) and then home. Played okay at the park (shirtless Casper), but then begging for treats before dinner, stealing from the sugar bowl under my eye, freaking out at dinner over her inability to perfectly roll spaghetti on a fork, freaking out over I don't know what when I put Dillo in the bath. We'd alternate 10 calm minutes, achieved by much effort, with 20 minutes of screaming freakout. We did get her in the bath, but then she wanted to watch a movie or a cartoon, or anything, and we said no because it was a school night. That freakout went on and off until she fell asleep, naked, in mr. flea's arms, in our bed.

At 11:30 she woke up screaming, woke the baby. I nursed him, couldn't get him back down, much tagging in and out by mr. flea and he got Casper to stop screaming after about 20 minutes and I got the baby to sleep, lying on my chest on the couch. He woke up at 4:30 and wouldn't go back to sleep after nursing (very jolly but AWAKE); I tagged out with mr. flea at 5:45 and got another 45 minutes falling off the edge of the bed with Casper pressed against me tight and whimpering in her sleep. Then Dillo started freaking out and came and got me (waking Casper, who, you guessed it, screamed) and I had to hold Dillo the entire time I got him and me ready to go.

This after the morning Casper had on Tuesday, this via mr. flea:
"just had the morning from hell with Casper. I had the kids ready to
go except shoes on Caspern at 8:40 AM. She wanted to change her
shirt. She couldn't decide on shoes. She didn't want to go to
school. She wouldn't put on her shoes. I lost my patience. I got
Dillo in the car then I had to drag Casper out of the house and
literally stuff her into the car. Dillo starts crying because Casper
is crying. She is hysterical and screaming at this point. We drive
to school unbuckled [only two blocks] screaming at the top of her lungs about it the
whole way and stop at the church next to school to try and calm down.
Which isn't happening so much, so I offer to take Dillo to school
first as I don't want her to go into school crying hysterically. This
calms her down some.

We drop Dillo off and it is around 9:25 AM by the time I get her back
and checked in at the school office. I get her down to her class room
and she doesn't want me to leave. So I stay and do her journal with
her. She did the day and date then we made up a sentence together.
She is wearing your broken watch and the letter of the day is "Q." So
we came up with, "My watch is quite." I wrote in her journal, "I
liked helping you with your journal." She is interested in "$" so I
showed her what one million dollars "$ 1,000,000.00" looks like.
Then I got her working on to her math assignment and managed to leave
at 10:00 AM. So I guess we recovered but man what a morning .... she
really took it out of me."

Casper and I talked some last night (in a quiet sobbing phase between the screaming) about whether she was afraid about us moving, and what she might be afraid of. She said she doesn't want to leave her friends, especially Stephen, who has red hair and likes Spiderman and Power Rangers. Mrs. B suggested she talk to the school counselor (she talked to her once before when she said she hated school; the counselor wrote us up a long note, and frankly she doesn't seem very bright.) I don't know how to help this poor bunny.

Comments

[ste-noni.livejournal.com]

I have no ideas, but I do empathize. I am already feeling a bit sad for Ellie when we move next summer - her entire life and friends and so on are here in PR and even though *we* don't want to stay here, I bet she does, or will.

mr. flea sounds very patient. I would have lost my temper by that point.

[serrana.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, Herself has also been going from zero to complete hysterics in nothing flat lately. I have no idea what's set it off (the change of seasons?), but coming on the heels of her brother's teething adventures, the sleep deprivation is starting to get to us.

So it may not be school, or moving -- it may just be Freakout Time. Don't feel guilty!

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Oh, poor girl. No advice for either of you, but lots of sympathy.

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

I think that if I'd been in mr. flea's shoes, you'd have come home to find Casper duct-taped to a wall.

One thing I've always been grateful for is that my family only moved once when I was a kid (at least, only once when I was old enough to realize what was going on). And that was only across town, and I was the only one who had to change schools because I was entering high school. It was still semi-traumatic. I hate change.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I moved at 3, 6, 10, 13, 18, 21, 22, 27, and 29, leaving aside years abroad and moving from one dorm to another and dual houses due to divorced parents. I still hate moving.

[fabby.livejournal.com]

Poor Casper (and poor you guys). Life can be hard, even at 4 :(

[cofax7]

Oh, poor Flea and Mr. Flea. And poor Casper!

Reminds me of one of my nieces at that age, although her meltdowns were usually associated with foodage. As in, let her blood sugar drop even a little bit, and oh, the world became a horrible place. And then we'd get a cookie into her and things resolved. But getting her to eat when hysterical? VERY difficult.

Which is clearly not the situation with Casper, though. Argh. Good luck!

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Food is definitely an issue in some of the evening meltdowns. When I opened her lunch box last night she had eaten most of the apple slices (about half a large apple) but not touched her sandwich and not touched the bag of cheddar bunnies (=organic goldfish, like unto crack). I mean, if the kid won't eat the junk food I send to school, what the hell am I supposed to do?

[loligo.livejournal.com]

No advice, but it's good to know that we're not the only parents who sometimes have to carry a screaming, thrashing girl to the car in the morning (and Chuckles weighs 50 lbs now, so it's not easy). She's so much better about this stuff than she used to be, but every so often something sets her off. The most recent one was over fear of her class field trip to a swimming pool, even though it's a pool that she's been to with me and enjoyed.

[haphazardmethod.livejournal.com]

{{{all of you}}}