cycle

We have the ugliest cycle going on in our house. It makes me sick even to tell about it. I wake up every swearing, "today will be a better day with Makenzie" And nearly every day, it is not. : ( It seems to start the second she gets home. I vow each day to greet her with a smile when she gets home from school. And usually I do. But that is where things seem to always go wrong. When I ask her about her day she usually mumbles something about why her walk home was bad, slams her bag on the table and for one reason or another gripes, yells, or rolls her eyes at Thain. And that is my button that usually does it. I start with a polite, "Makenzie, I'm sorry if you had a bad day. But we shouldn't come home and be mean to our family." Then she does her homework. From there, lately it is CONSTANT whining! My reaction to this is the part of the cycle *I* need to change. I don't handle whining well. One of my BIGGEST pet peeves. Especially coming form my almost 10 year old! "mom, why can't I stay on the wii?" " MOM, I don't want that for dinner" Mom, I don't want to clean my room" All said in the WHINIEST voice you could muster. The first few, I just smile and say. "I'm sorry" but after about 2 hours of it I. AM. DONE! For instance. Tonight, she has been in the shower SCREAMING because the water is too cold in the shower. I told her to turn the cold water down (hello, she has been taking showers on her own since she was 6) Each time she would yell at me that the cold water was off and continue just screaming, "But it's cold, I don't want to take a shower" over and over. I went in, guess what... turned the cold water down. (random example, but that's what is happening as I am typing) And I end up by the end of the evening being so tired of grouchy, whining, bad attitude that instead of spending EXTRA time with her (which is what I KNOW she needs) I just want her in bed and quiet! A couple of nights a week, I try to talk to her about how WE, together can break this cycle. She usually smirks and shrugs. Then I get ticked because she thinks it's all so funny. I know alot of this is regular pre-teen stuff. But I can't handle it. I can't handle disrespect. I can't handle always feeling like a bad mom to her. I can't handle the way the tension of the house changes when she gets home every day. And I know I am the adult. And I am the one that needs to change. But like I say, It is a cycle. And so far I haven't been able to change it. Just so frustrated