The Days are Blurring Together

I'm feeling more than a little overwhelmed by this week and next week's schedule. This week, along with back to school preparations, also includes a major Board meeting to attend and facilitate part of and a major concert to attend 2.5 hours away! Yes, we brought that one on ourselves, but it's Our Lady Peace - not much choice there. Plus, treating ourselves to some ME/US time certainly needs to be kept on the docket. Next week is OFFICIAL BACK TO SCHOOL WEEK. Tuesday for Oldest, Wednesday for Youngest. Monday will be our Annual Back to School Ice Cream Sundae Party, Thursday is Youngest's birthday which will include a birthday concert of the WIGGLES! Love 'em! The weekend is all day golf tourney both days for Husband. Suffice it to say, not a lot of BREATHE time and not a lot of time to practice patience. And I certainly forgot to do that today. Oldest was acting so ungrateful for her many blessings in life today that (after I blew my top for about 20 minutes) I actually grounded her for the final week of summer! I couldn't believe myself, but I also couldn't believe her! Today's privileges that were taken for granted were:

1. Art Class ($100 for the week)
2. Birthday Party attendance
3. Being allowed to do 30 minutes of computer before cleaning her room
4. Playing in her room before cleaning it
5. Getting some rare help cleaning her room

How she took these gifts for granted?

1. Complained about making sure she got her "prizes" at the birthday party
2. Saying "You always get more time than me on the computer, I never get enough" after 30 minutes of computer time.
3. Complained about wanting me to buy her TOKENS from a certain website so that she could buy VIRTUAL JUNK for the characters on the website. Seriously? Websites make money off of that?
4. While I was helping her clean her room, I pointed out a board game that was still open with all of the pieces and parts out for her to put away next. Her response? "Why do I ALWAYS have to be the one cleaning up my room?"

Even writing this now is ticking me off. Anyway, I take Youngest and tell Oldest that she isn't to leave her room until the floor is entirely clear and walk out. Only to go downstairs and fume even more because that's SO RUDE! I was HELPING HER and that is how she THANKS ME? Long story short, these are the things she got grounded from for her ungrateful behavior:

1. No TV - 2 full days
2. No Dessert - 2 full days (neither of these are directly related, I was just pissed enough that I wanted to send a stong message, if #s 3 and 4 aren't enough)
3. No Computer - until school starts - which is 7 days from now
4. Clean up room daily, rather than twice weekly until school starts

I'm a little more proud of myself for 3 and 4 because I try to pick things that are naturally related to the offense. So shitty attitude about computer use (or lack thereof) and being ungrateful for help while you're getting it means you are going to spend a week realizing it is quite a privilege to get to do daily computer time and you might want to be a little more thankful when Mommy takes pity on you and offers to help you clean your room.
My extreme reaction (not the grounding, but the ranting that I did before I calmed down enough to JUST ADMINISTER THE DISCIPLINE) is what makes me sad about summer ending. We have had such a great summer, truly awesome. Can't say enough about it. And I don't want to spend this week:

1. Wishing it were OVER ALREADY. I love my kids. I am going to miss them when they go back.
2. Being mad at them for being kids because my choices have made me too busy to sit down and breathe with them in these final days.
3. Having a 7 year old grounded from TV and computer! Those were going to help me glide my way through these busy days while waiting for school to start!

But I'll tell ya, and I tell myself this EVERY TIME I do it, kids (at least mine) are happier without the distraction of their desire for TV. They are more creative, innovative and self-motivating. My Youngest won't watch it at all, yet, so it's mainly Oldest I'm talking about. When I take TV and computer from her, I think she is happier. And I'm happier, because once I get over the "NOW WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH HER?" feeling, she entertains herself wonderfully. And I think (and usually say to my Husband) "we should really get rid of that thing (meaning TV b/c WHO is getting rid of their computer these days?)."
And for a couple of days, I really, really debate just giving them all away. Then the gounding ends and I say "Thank goodness TV is back." Until the next time when I can think about really getting rid of them a little more. :)