Or Not . . . Again

Justice had a church acitivity for the young girls.

She loves these activities because she gets to play with friends from church and one of her best friends (BFF according to her) Genna. Given the previous issues regarding her reading and schoolwork, we, as responsible type adults hold to the maxim that we work before we play.

You might recall that fable of the grasshopper and the ant. The grasshopper takes his leisure all summer long, mocking the ant for working. When winter comes the stupid ant dies of exhaustion and the grasshopper moves in and steals all the ant's hard work storing food and building a cottage with indoor plumbing and a La-Z-Boy recliner.

But the grasshopper had to have the common sense to know that the ant was going to die.

That's the lesson here.

Similarly, I'm rather Lazy by nature. Being so B-personality inclined, I tend to like to have all my work done so that I can sit around, surfing the net, and catching up with old friends via email. It works rather nicely.

The fundamental here, just as it was with the grasshopper, is that I had to be prepared so that I could be lazy.

Justice doesn't seem to grasp this concept. Yesterday, she refused to do her homework (not a new concept) but when she was confronted about it at the daycare (where we've taken special pains to get her into the tutoring program) she pulled one of her talk-back-attitude moments with the tutor. The tutor promptly called Lillian, and Lilliand promptly cancelled the activity for Justice.

Tears erupted and then Justice went immediately into the Kubler-Ross model, which means that she equates the loss of her activity with the loss of a loved one.

Children are fascinating, aren't they?

Justice like to linger in the Anger Stage for as long as possible, which generally means she digs herself in deeper. We've learned, for the most part, to just ignore her rants and raves until she's calmed down and entered the Acceptance Stage. It's just easier all around to let he go wild for a bit, and then place her in time out for her tantrums.

So that was what happened yesterday.

Being a parent is so much fun.