New carpet, new phone, new behavior

I hate when I skip blogging for a few day because the days are so long and when I go back and try to remember them, I don't come up with much.

Thursday
Whitley's second day at her new job. I'm not sure 'job' is an accurate word. The first day she swam for 3 hours, watched tv and ate flaming hot cheetos. Anyone want her job? Before I took her to work, we stopped by Home Depot to check on carpet for our rental. I hate doing stuff like that. We decided to try a different route and use a guy who we know. I hit the gym, then home and headed for the pool. I told the kids to be ready when I got home and we would go. We got everything loaded up and everyone sunscreened and headed out only to get there and find that they were at capacity and not letting anyone in. Kids were not happy and neither was I. We decided to go ahead and go to the library before we went home.

Got home, took a very short nap and headed back to the pool, only after I called first! By this time it had cleared out quite a bit, but it was really windy. The kids don't really care about stuff like that. Came home, made dinner, showered and had all intentions of going to roundtable. The girl from our nutrition class called to discuss our goals and that took a long time. By the time we were done, I didn't have time to do my hair and get there. The kids were all begging for computer time by now so I got my floor swept and mopped, both living rooms cleaned and vacuumed and Whitley straightened my hair for me while we watched TV. Not bad!

Friday
Had to go meet the carpet guy at the rental. Whitley was having her birthday lunch with Grandma, so I took her into town with me. I was so mad when I pulled up to the house. We have canceled with GoRenter and told them we already had new renters(which we did at the time) so to NOT do anything else with our house. There was a sign in the yard and a lock box on the door. I called and was not very nice about all of this. They charge us $100 to do that. I have to admit it turned out good for me because I forgot my key and someone changed the garage code so I couldn't get in. They told me the lock box code so I was able to use that key to let in the carpet guy. Turns out he can do it about $1500 cheaper than Home Depot. Yeah!

Took Whitley to the mall to look at getting her a cell phone. With her new job and birthday money, she is able to pay for the phone and a year's worth of payments up front. Chelsey didn't think it was very fair since she isn't 16, but oh well. Adding Whitley is only $10 a month so she is paying that, plus another $5 for texting. Because she isn't paying her full share of the bill, she isn't getting very many minutes allowed to her. She will have her 5 favs and texting. She was way excited. Grandma met us at the mall and then took her for lunch. I headed home, bringing pizza for the kids.

I was sitting and reading when Katy brought a bottle of hair product to me and asked me to open it. I told her no and to put it back. She threw it on the ground and screamed. I then told her to pick it up in a very stern voice. She screamed 'no' at me and turned around. I grabbed her hair and led her to the bottle and again told her to pick it up. She was screaming and refused to pick it up. Still holding her hair, I took her other hand and put it on the bottle and told her again to pick it up. She picked it up and chucked it while screaming 'no!'. At this point, I smacked her thigh, drug her back over to the bottle and not so nicely told her to pick it up. Again, with the screaming and chucking the bottle. This went on for nearly 5 minutes. That's a long time! I think I smacked her 6 times and never let go of her hair. My fingers were hurting from gripping her hair so hard. I was starting to panic because there was no way I was letting this go now, but she was not giving in either. Finally, I forced her hand to pick it up and marched her to the bathroom and put it on the counter. I picked her up and set her on the counter and gave her a talking to about minding. She was sobbing by now and just sat there muttering "ok...ok" as I talked to her. She sat on my lap for a really long time just trying to get her breathing back. I have never had a kid fight with me like that...NEVER!

Glade was in Tuscon so we didn't have a date night. I had to take Whitley to a party and then stop and get a few things for the boys who are leaving for camp in a few days. On the way home, I stopped to pick up Brooklyn who was at her friends house. I left the van running and went to the door to get her. Her mother and I ended up talking in the doorway for almost and hour and a half while my van sat running. Crazy. In the meantime, kids at home cleaned my bathroom, the mudroom and the garage for computer time.