Neighborhood Show

It was mom who melted down today. This morning Rose wasn't happy. Who is? It's Monday, right?

I managed to deal with her grumpyness. Then she really started to up the sass. When she does that, she flips into a dialect that, as she confirmed, "is just how sassy black women talk." It's not the dialect as much as the total disrespect that comes along with it. Yet, I weathered that, too, until we were running late, which is a big deal because it means she misses the bus to summer school.

So I urged her to hurry up and was met with a, "you ain't the boss of me, who you think you are?" So I yanked the shoes out of her hand opened the door and threw them down to the street. All the while she was still going on about her birth mom. How I'm not her mom. More red.

I took her back pack and hurled that down the front steps. She kept going to so the peanut butter and jelly crumpets I had made for her I crushed in my hand and flung it into the blushes saying, "go ahead and steal the free breakfast from the poor kids." (Mom isn't politically correct when she's mad.)

She was still sassing, and I was like the hulk: totally unable snap out of my anger. In a last bit of flourish I threw my bagel with cream cheese, and it landed on my windshield, leaving a creamy white streak. Rose wasn't phased in the least. Calmly looking me she said, "I'm not taking my back pack." It lay on the steps, a bit of peanut butter smeared on it.

So I pushed her (not hard) to her back pack, made her pick it up and pushed her (again, not hard) to the car. She got in, and she continued to taunt me. She thought she had the upper hand, but I reminded her that family time was out of the question the longer she didn't behave respectfully. "I don't care." That is code she does.

The drop off at school wasn't a terrible success either, but the extreme drama wasn't there. She pushed it, but I didn't care. She hadn't missed her bus, so I was able to get to work after sobbing my way to my car, and all the way down the free way. I'm not proud of any of this. Pretty embarrassed, actually--especially about the pushing. So I figure I'll include this here to keep myself honest; to remind myself I have a lot of work to do.