Last night, Sunday night, after we had all the kids in bed, I looked at the calendar and realized that tomorrow, Tuesday, is picture day. Aaarrrggh. Akila's hair was in no shape for pictures.

So tonight, after her soccer practise, I combed out the french braids and gave her a bath. As we were getting lotion on her, she realized that she has hair growing on her privates. Oh please pray that she does not have to tell everyone at school about her new growth. After this new revelation, we got her hair done, although not to her liking. She of course wanted some kind of extravagant style that I can't really do, and especially not when there is not enough time. So we struggled on this point for awhile.

Then at bedtime, she wanted me to find her lip gloss that is in a fake pink plastic cell phone. She had it yesterday, but had no idea where it is n0w. As I was calmly asking her and trying to help her trace down where she last saw it, she was exploding and calling me an A-hole, multiple times. So I did not look for it, which really set her off.

After I got her in bed, and boy was she mad, she called me back up a few minutes later as I had forgotten to turn on her night light. I could have kicked myself, I know better. But when I got there and turned it on, she wanted it off. I left it on not understanding her and then she yelled crazily at me when I walked out. I then turned it off. After awhile, I had to go back up there, to have a discussion about if she has ever slept without a night light. I said that she use to all the time when she was young and she disagreed with me. So i agreed with her. No sense arguing with someone who is completely out of their mind at the moment.

On Saturday, Michael was out running errands and I ended up restraining Akila for over 30 minutes. Our new strategy to her hitting, kicking and other physical violence, is to restrain her. This was the longest one, and I could barely stand up when it was over and bend my knees. It is so emotionally exhausting, and she was pretty calmed down when it was over, but I didn't want her to go back into the red zone, so I suggested we play with Play-doh. We did. I can't tell you how hard that is for me to sit so soon after an emotional hour, and play with her. I know this is shallow and little of me, but all I want is at least a 15 minute break at this point. But leaving her alone, would not work. She would instigate something with the other kids, or get "stuck" on something else.

I can't even remember what set her off. Oh yeah, it was that she wanted to play with the neighbor girl, who was outside playing with Imani. She always wants "alone" time with this girl, as she is jealous of Imani. I tell her that this child can choose who she plays with and I can't make her play with anyone-although sometimes I will set it up so Akila does get "alone" time with her. Imani and Maria are open to Akila playing with them, and they do sometimes all 3 play together, but it usually doesn't work. So when I was telling her that she was welcome to go outside and play with Maria and Imani, but that it was Maria's choice, Akila started kicking and stomping on me-and the fun began.