Jekyll and Hyde

Yesterday was Jenna's first day of pre-school at the same facility she's been going to since she was 3m old. But now it's official. She's in school. That meant a brand-spankin' new backpack; any one she wanted. The concept of a Pre-K'er needing a backpack still escapes me, but I digress. I didn't get a backpack until I was in 6th grade and that's when the homework started. Did I mention the backpack being the same size as her??

She's been stoked for the last week and literally jumped out of bed this morning. Granted Pre-school is afternoon only 5 days a week but she didn't care. And she was equally stoked when she and Steve came home.

We decided to go over to mom's so Jenna could enlighten her. SHe wanted to use her scooter. As we left she ran over her foot with her scooter and got a surface scratch on her ankle. She sniffled the whole way to mom's.

Once she had her juice box she chatted it up with mom. Once she saw the scratch on her ankle she wanted a band-aid of which it clearly didn't need. That made her pout. She didn't even say goodbye to mom and said she didn't want to ride her scooter home. I had to push Mallory so I basically told her she was SOL, but not in so many words. Then she started to cry and mildly sob.

Mom's hollerin' at me to count to 10, slowly. Two houses down I holler back, "3!"

At the corner Jenna's still crying and dragging her scooter so I pass her and walk ahead. This made her cry even more. I got to the other corner and waited until she was closer then walked up to the house. I got a couple nasty looks from drivers and I'm walking and Jenna's crying.

Eh......

Mal and I got to the house and I waited until Jenna could see me go into the house. She came, still crying, so I told her to go to her time-out corner in the living room. She cried for another 10 minutes.

I went over to her to see what the problem was. She said her ankle hurt. It's been over 30 minutes since she scraped it and she was carrying on like her foot was going to fall off. She said she wanted an ice pack so I told her to get one. Then the phone rang.

It was mom making sure everyone returned to the house alive. I went into Jenna's room to tell her the whole story up to that point. I came back to the living room and got food for Mallory. I started to feed Mallory when Jenna started crying AGAIN.

"What is it this time???"
"You said you'd come back after the phone call!"
"Jenna, I am back. Oh, you meant back to you."
"Yeah!"
"What do you want, Jenna?"
"I want you to hold my icey!"
"Absolutely. NOT!!"

So once again, "Mother Of The Year" is gone until 2025.