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"Every so often on her weekend with me, Anna decides she doesn&amp;#039;t want to hang with her friends. Uh-Oh. I love having time with my girl, but from the moment of her birth, she&amp;#039;s never been a child that can comfortably do anything alone. I used to watch with envy as some of my neighbors sat down for a cup of coffee on a weekend, while their kid played in a sandbox or did a craft at the kitchen table or even watched a DVD in the other room. I never got a bit of that with Anna. She didn&amp;#039;t want to watch the DVD alone, I had to be watching with her. She needed me to do the craft right beside her, or play in the yard with her, and telling her &amp;quot;no&amp;quot; would only result in a meltdown, or her deciding to do &amp;quot;nothing.&amp;quot; Double Uh-Oh. Doing nothing means hanging off the couch whining about how there&amp;#039;s nothing to do, or getting in her brother&amp;#039;s face and being as deliberately annoying as possible since that is, apparently, something to do. Either way, my stress level went through the roof. And that is exactly what my weekend consisted of. Anna and David fighting, Anna fighting with me because I needed to fold laundry instead of play Monopoly for the third time, Anna whining because she was bored (even though we could clearly see her friends playing outside through the window). We had blow-up after blow-up, even after I took her on a huge outing or planned some special things for us to do. It was never enough for her, and it was maddening. I kept apologizing after every time I lost my temper with her until I finally realized how absolutely crazy that was. I think since her Dad left, it&amp;#039;s been hard for me to be the bad guy. I don&amp;#039;t want to be the parent that&amp;#039;s no fun. I don&amp;#039;t want to be the parent who fights with her. I hate it. And I&amp;#039;ve let her ride roughshod over me way too many times because of it. I finally got to the point where I told her I was done interacting with her, and if she so much as stepped into the same room as her brother, I was putting her to bed. And I refused to apologize or back down on that one. Then David and I cuddled up on the couch to watch a movie, and my blood pressure nearly returned to normal. She eventually curled up next to me without a word, and we ended the evening on a relatively peaceful note last night. I wouldn&amp;#039;t call it a victory, but it was better than the chaos that went before. Do you find yourself putting up with a lot more from your kids than you normally would, just out of guilt? How do you check yourself when you catch yourself doing it? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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