New dents

Our van got a few new dents in it tonight, courtesy of Akila. A good reminder to me that we should never have a nicer newer car. We went to Nickelodeon Universe today after church as we had some free wristbands that expired after today. The day went pretty well, until the obvious time to go. That was not fun.

It was just before 7:00 pm, and Akila was not ready to go. Note to self: never park by an anchor store. We parked by Macy's when we arrived, we came through the children's clothing section. Akila was enthralled even though we made it clear in the morning that we would buy nothing at the Mall, and Akila said she understood and "agreed". She wanted everything, but did not throw a fit, when we arrived.

When it was time to go, it was hard to get her out of Nick Universe, she was not happy. I told Michael to walk through Macy's and we would go up the escalators in the store so we could bypass the children's clothing. Well, this backfired. I did not think about the fact that we had to walk first through the make up section, then the jewelry. We somehow made it up the escalators and to the third floor, and had to make it through the home section. Michael went on ahead with the other 3, and I tried to get Akila through. She was mad. Wanted me to buy her something, wanted to go look at clothes.

She refused to leave and I found my self scanning the premises trying to see what she would knock off of shelves and off of racks. It was not a good situation. I was trying to get close to her, so I could grab her and guide her out of the store, but she kept moving when I got closer. I was scoping the place out for an escape route where she would be the least likely to do damage, and where there were the least amount of people to witness the craze and call the police. I am always a little paranoid that people will think I am kidnapping her, especially since we don't match and it is normal for people to assume that she is not my daughter.

Thankfully, Macy's started to announce that they were closing in 5 minutes so I used that to get her to move closer to the door. But I eventually had to start guiding her out the door and she started kicking and hitting. She did this all the way to the van and then she refused to get in the fan and I could not get her in. I finally got in the van, and we all just sat and listened to her rage outside the van. She was swearing and practically foaming at the mouth. Then she started kicking the van. Michael got out, she finally got in after many unkind words, and positioned herself to hit Michael when he entered the driver door.

She threatened to break his glasses, and said several other mean things. She kicked my seat, pulled my hair and would not settle down. After awhile, Michael started to slowly pull out of the parking space. She would not settle down, or buckle up. I finally held her teddy bear out of the window and counted to 10 for her to get buckled. She did buckle. Then she took a cup of lemonade that was from lunch and almost threw it at Michael, she stopped herself. For 5 seconds. Then she threw it at the back of my seat. Lemonade splashed all over Imani.

It was not a fun car ride home. We started, and then had to pull over and wait for her to settle down. She finally did. The rest of the ride was fine, and she did pretty well at home and went to bed OK. I just need to remind myself that she was pretty good today, other than the last hour or so.

We went to church this morning. We have a designated spot where the kids meet us after Sunday School. When I went there today, Akila had her coat off, and I was really happy to see that she had stuffed her boobs for church today. Didn't notice it before church, I think she put her coat on upstairs. I'm sure her Sunday School teachers were impressed. Good grief.