Troubled waters

We've come to the end of a difficult couple of weeks. I had a consultant in town and was working on implementing a project with him. The project is mostly complete but we encountered a lot of grief along the way. In a couple of weeks I head to Houston for a training course, but it looks like we are going to have to put in some after-hours hours to get things wrapped up.

More importantly, Liam has had a rough few weeks at school. On Tuesday morning he started crying as we got out of the car in the school parking lot, and continued to cry for 45 minutes (during which time I called the office and left a message for the consultant, begging forgiveness for being so late). Every single staff member who saw us stopped and offered some help, though with Liam being Liam, that probably made things worse, not better. I finally had to give him a smile and a hug and push him through the door and leave him. He went on to have a great day, but there were more tears this morning. We *think* we have traced this to the fact that he was supposed to do show-and-tell on Tuesday and we think he was scared stiff. (He probably gets it from me; public speaking is not my forte.) But because Tuesday was also picture day, show and tell got bumped, so he was slated to do it today instead. Of course, getting him to admit that show and tell was the problem was like pulling teeth, so this could still all be a wild goose chase. But we warned his teacher that we thought that was the reason for his upset, and he came home today and reported that he didn't have to do it, his mood obviously improved. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing - I mean, school sometimes sucks, you don't just get out of everything you don't want to do - but I'm at least glad that he wasn't pushed into something that so clearly (?) had him miserable.

With one battle (hopefully) over though, another one began. Within her first hour at Cindy's house this morning, Mallory had had two time outs and had deliberately peed on the floor. By the time I went to pick her up - early, I might add - she was wearing Liam's backup clothes, having also peed her way through her own backup clothes. I apologized profusely to Cindy as I whisked her out the door. I think she was giving Cindy a run for her money today.

I am now off until after the long weekend. I think both the kids need some time and energy from me after a couple of weeks when they didn't get enough of either, and the effects are starting to show.