For three days my daughter insisted she wasn't going to write the notes—ever. Also, she also held firmly to the position she hadn't done anything wrong or had lied. In addition, she had been maligned by everyone else and ganged up on. She was accepting zero responsibility for her actions, even though others had admitted they had done things too. She said she didn't do any of the things they were saying she did.
Today we had a few ups and downs. At one point I got fed up with her behavior and said I was done for the day and I didn't want to have anything to do with her and her lousy attitude. And I meant it. I tried to avoid her for the next several hours. I think something got through to her at that point. It had been days of her trying things, things she knew we weren't going to put up with. Things would escalate and then we would try calm, reasonable, praising behavior and she'd figuratively spit in our faces. This morning I'd had enough. I was done trying for a while.
Something must have clicked. I don't know if it was the culmination of things or the last straw but about an hour later she had hurt herself and I responded minimally, making sure this bump or bruise wasn't bad and then I ignored her. As she walked out of the room she said, "I think I'm going to write my apology notes now."
And so she did. It didn't take her long, she's a fast typist. Just as I could write this blog post far more quickly than I could longhand, she can get her thoughts down as fast as she can type—and her mind moves quickly. Not ten minutes later she was downstairs with five notes written.
I had expected her to write, "Dear X, I'm sorry." and expect that to be enough, only she knew that wouldn't do. What I didn't expect was her to write notes that clearly demonstrated she knew exactly what she'd done and what was expected from an apology. Her notes were nice too, touching even.
Everyone was touched by her notes she hand-delivered. All is forgiven and even Benji made sure my daughter wasn't afraid of him, "punching her in the face" when we went to deliver the notes to him and his children, Claire and Jay.
The Big Boy Special Dinner Meal: My son wanted to make a special dinner for us with his father. They planned the meal, made a shopping list, did the shopping and made both the meal and the dessert working together. My son has been watching cooking recipes on the Alexa Show in the kitchen and has been wanting to do more cooking after the recent day he and the other upperclassmen cooked for his class. Tonight they made Spicy Thai Basil Chicken. I came home to my son fiercely chopping chicken up with a cleaver, and brownies with pretzels in and on top of them with a homemade caramel sauce drizzled over the top. We all loved both and have asked for a remake of the main dish tomorrow, it was so good.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter saw Dhruti this evening. I told her the story about the trampoline incident before my daughter came in. She said she'd been thinking about all the things my daughter misses, not only in non-verbal queues, but many other things we take for granted because we're sighted. She thinks her anxiety may be in part from the general lack of information she has to understand everything surrounding her. She's going to try and work with her on some ways we can help her in this area. In the meantime, back home tonight, my daughter, instead of being angry and cross, rude and mean when something accidental happened, she said, "you didn't mean to step on my foot, Mom" plus several other things. She and I had a very nice conversation in which I got the feeling she almost doesn't think we're all out to get her. I hope it lasts. We're all on her side. She and I had some special conversations tonight while I did her hair. I really hope whatever happened to change her attitude today is real—and that she continues to feel the same way about things.
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