sometimes it's not so easy to be grateful

Today was one of those days. Specifically this afternoon. Even more specifically, the part of the afternoon from when the children arrived home from school until they went to bed. And specifically the part that involved the girl child. Apparently (according to her) we hate her. In fact, everybody hates her and she's going to run away. Again. *sigh*

It was pretty unpleasant before swimming lessons (although, remarkably, she was fine during the lesson), then it took a turn for the worse. And nosedived further when we came straight home instead of buying dinner (we have takeaway sometimes on swimming lesson day), and further again when she had to (horror of horrors!) shower and wash her hair to get rid of the chlorine from the pool. There was a short respite from the shouting when I phoned Grandad while supervising the shower, although she used the time to write insults on the shower screen, carefully writing backwards to ensure maximum legibility from the outside. We left her under the running water longer than normal, and she calmed down. Still not happy, but at least not at top volume.

The joys of parenting!

In spite of all that, there were bright spots:

• the X-man chose to be the perfect child today. He tried harder at swimming than he has for a long time, didn't complain about missing out on takeaway, and refrained from squabbling with Miss Tizz despite her best efforts to pick fights. And he was asleep within minutes of lights out :)
• we were able to put together a quick dinner despite not having an alternative planned.
• the computer that's been taking up most of the coffee table for weeks has been delivered to its new owner. One more thing out the door :)
• Mum rang up for a chat, and she's just as excited about the planned Europe trip as I am. She'd be joining us given half a chance :)

And I'm grateful for those things that made a tough afternoon not quite so bad.