Bad attitude

It started with Amelia acting out, not napping at school and being a genuinely bad kid. Even the teachers at school were telling us that they felt sorry for us. Then 4am one morning Amelia wakes up screaming, "I can't breathe." She felt like she was on fire. She had a temp of 102 and was coughing uncontrollably. I took Oliver to school that day and stayed with Amelia. Typically when she's sick she just wants to sit on the couch and cuddle. THIS TIME WAS DIFFERENT. She was a PUNK! As her cough worsened so did her attitude. So what's a parent to do? Give in. And so, within reason, we did. BIG MISTAKE. That child knows how to take advantage of you and any situation. You give her an inch and she takes 10 miles!

That same weekend Oliver came down with a fever too. And then a rash. Turns out he had Roseola ... and so did a handful of other kids in his classroom. By the time the rash comes out he's no longer contagious. He did really well the whole time actually. He didn't eat as much as normal but he was still my happy baby.

Amelia stayed home from school a few more days. Her fever broke but she didn't look the greatest and her cough was awful. And she was becoming more difficult to handle. Nothing made this child happy. Nothing. You can imagine the tension in our house that week — we weren't very pleasant to be around. She wasn't sleeping which meant we weren't sleeping. I gave in one night and put her in bed with me. She was up every 45 minutes. It was miserable.

When she finally went back to school she was misbehaving there too — more than usual. Tyler and I even discussed possibly needing to call a therapist...for her AND us.

She was so terrible some nights that she was going to bed at 6:30 — and without dinner. We felt like failures.

Then one night as I was putting her to bed I explained to her that mommy and daddy were very sad and that we missed our Good Amelia Grace. That we were tired of seeing Bad Amelia Grace. That we used to have so much fun with Good Amelia Grace and we hoped that one day she'd come back. That little stinker sat up in bed and said, "I can bring her back. I can bring Good Amelia Grace back, mommy." and leaned over and gave me a hug. Damn she's good.