Too Many Plants

Jupiter was mad tonight.

She's been trending towards mad since the time change, when after her homework meltdown on Monday night I ended homework time and began bedtime; and had the audacity to do that while it was still light outside. Fortunately she is in the process of learning to tell time, and I directed her to the clock with hands and told her it was, in fact, time to get ready for bed. Or close to it.

Last night she had dance class, so we didn't do homework. No meltdown. However, her body didn't appreciate the fact that I was trying to wake it up at 5am. Which the clock said was 6am. Mad words.

Tonight she got almost through a whole homework page. Then she asked me what the date was. I got the year wrong, tried to fix it, and was suddenly on the receiving end of a barrage of physical anger.

So I ended homework time.

More anger.

Finally she calmed down enough to go to bed. After a couple songs, I went in to put some Littlest Pet Shops and some shoes in their boxes. Really just to have an excuse to go in there and see if she was calmer.

And it turns out she's mad at me because I don't have time to play with her. I'm always working. If not at work, than at home. (trying to keep us from being trapped inside the house full of dust and dirt. I don't know why I'm always working at it, because I turned away from the computer just now and looked at my living room and it is quite apparent I am failing at that quest).

And, by the way, we have too many plants. It takes too much time to water all those plants. That must be why every single one of them is dry as a bone, and the cat is in the process of eating my entire lemon grass plant. She doesn't want to get rid of all the plants, but some of them.

I should not do so much work. And I should play with her more. And going swimming at the pool does not count. That is not playing.

Then, after she told me all those things, she was done being angry about it.

If only we could skip the barrage part and go right to the rational verbalization part.

She is right though. We don't have enough time to play. And admittedly, I am lousy at unstructured play. Jupiter is unfortunately blessed with a Capricorn mother. Capricorns are the workhorse of the zodiac, in case you were not aware. And, boy am I good at that. I see work EVERYWHERE. My boss thinks its terrific. For her it is. Even if I try to play, I get distracted by all the work everywhere.

Sigh.

I wish I were better at playing. More fun. Stuff like that.