Intervention

And, the worst-mom-of-the-day goes to... Kristi!

Yep, that is about how I felt today. Tired and hungry, I picked up the kids from school. Late, of course. I told them I'd be there before 5 p.m. It was now 5:10. That's pretty much how my day went though. As I walked into the building I debated who to pick up from their room first. I landed on Alayna... not sure why, but it was a mistake. She wasn't done coloring. I said 'Hi' as I walked in, asked her to pick up her items, and then started visiting with the teachers. I realized then that she was not paying a darn ounce of attention to me, so just as I was taught on SuperNanny, I knelt down to her level and calmy asked her to put away the markers.

She still thought my request meant nothing, and continued ignoring me. Okay, I thought, we'll do the count-to-3-trick. Still nothing. Finally, I took the markers out of her hand, replaced the caps and picked up her paper. In return I received a few hits to the face, kicks to the body, tearing of the paper and screaming at the top of the lungs.

Seriously? At this point, it wasn't only the other 3- and 4-year olds who were staring, it was the teachers, the parents, and the daycare director. Yep. I was doing awesome.

I picked up the little brat and carried her to her locker (heaven for bid it be outside the classroom!) I didn't look up, but I'm sure they were still staring. Alayna was now ripping her bag out of my hands, hitting her locker and bawling. You'd seriously have thought I was trying to kidnap her.

Somehow I saved her eyeglasses from being torn off her face and grabbed my keys, her ruffled papers, folder and opened backpack in one arm, had the 42-pounder under the other, pushed the classroom door opened and escaped into the hallway. Whew! There was a chair, and she was going to time out.

Nice try Super-Mom. All she had to do was get up. And just as any SuperNanny would teach, I picked her up, placed her right back in the chair and turned my back to eliminate any attention. Okay, so repeat 2-3-5 times, and what do you get? You guessed it! The daycare director intervention!

Sure enough Gina came out, sat down by Alayna and said, "You're mommy is going to go get your brother now. You can stay with me and talk about why you are mad. She'll come back for you." And with that, my control was gone. I was walking away, letting someone (much wiser and calmer than I) take care of her.

After getting Cade (who, may I add, is so easy!?!?!) we returned to the hall where Alayna's chaos had come to a halt. She had the attention of two teachers now, and as we approached her they enforced the need to tell mommy sorry. Pouts and all, we left the building and made it to the car. It was all I could do to not rip out the spankings from my pile of never-tried-mommy-techniques. But I didn't.

When we got home, it was a time out and then a removal of all bedtime snuggles -- no more stuffed animals, pillow pets, or build-a-bears for one week. I'll show her yet.